Craig's Post-Boltzmann Cosmology

[Craig Weinberg]

I have an idea which reconfigures the concepts of Boltzmann’s entropy curve 
as follows:


Background: 
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2006/08/01/boltzmanns-anthropic-brain/

Boltzmann’s  idea, as I understand it, is to explain Loschmidt’s Paradox, 
which  (also as I understand it) is basically “If the universe is always  
increasing from low entropy to high entropy, then where did the initial  
low entropy come from?” 

Boltzmann’s hypothesis places the low  entropy we know as the Big Bang as 
just one of many statistically  inevitable fluctuations of entropy 
distribution. It’s a bubble or wave  of non-disorder that we find ourselves 
in anthropically (because such a  bubble is the only context that a low 
entropy phenomenon like human  minds could evolve within). Other 
possibilities include a Big Crunch  type negentropy that accounts for the 
entropy trough that must precede  any entropy rise.

What I suggest is a bottomless low entropy,  such that the one event in 
which any negentropy at all occurs would  automatically be the singularity 
into which all subsequent fluctuations  would be swept. Sort of like a 
black hole for negentropy, hogging all  possible signals for all time, 
banishing any rival Multiverse  possibility to perpetual delay.

What  this does is place Boltzmann himself, his statistical rules, and 
their  physical enactments all within the anthropic condition in which they 
are  possible. Statistical rules, and their underlying sense of 
possibility,  probability, events, succession, recursion, regularity, 
comparison,  persistence, etc can only be universal if every part of the 
universe  makes some kind of sense - i.e. has some piece of this infinite  
negentropy. 

Entropy then becomes a property like velocity,  (which ranges from 
stillness to c), a fraction of a totality rather than  an open ended scalar 
quantity. Entropy is a relative measure which has  meaning only in relation 
to significance, such that anything less than  100% entropy has some 
quantity of absolute significance  (Totality-Singularity = 0.000…1% entropy)

This way, the Big  Bang becomes a perpetually receding event horizon of 
absolute and  eternal negentropy - a Borg-like ‘bright whole’ which 
tyrannically  absorbs and subordinates all potentials and possibilities 
into a single  continuum-schema. This continuum must accommodate all 
paradoxes which  amounts to a lot of fancy plate spinning and 
superposition, using  devices like nesting outer and inner realism within 
each other on  multiple interrelated yet mutually isolated layers or 
castes. These  devices accomplish what I call the Big Diffraction.

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Re: I am the de-phlogistonator!

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 26.06.2012 20:56 meekerdb said the following:

On 6/26/2012 11:49 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

Here there is a big question whether an engineer has free will (is
an engineer different in this respect from a scientist?).


I think we've already elucidated several different possible meanings
for 'free will'. Which one do you refer to?


In this context whether something depends on mental states of Colin's 
brain expressed in his paper or not.



In other words, whether the M-theory has already determined all
actions of engineers or engineering allows us to find out whether
the M-theory is correct.


What difference would it make, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no',
given that we don't (and can't) *know* the answer?


A typical metaphysical statement could affect other statements that 
implicitly depend on it. Hence, in my view a different choice above 
causes different consequences, in a sense that positions assumed will be 
different.


Evgenii

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Re: I am the de-phlogistonator!

[meekerdb]

On 6/26/2012 11:49 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
Here there is a big question whether an engineer has free will (is an engineer different 
in this respect from a scientist?). 


I think we've already elucidated several different possible meanings for 'free will'.  
Which one do you refer to?


In other words, whether the M-theory has already determined all actions of engineers or 
engineering allows us to find out whether the M-theory is correct.


What difference would it make, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', given that we don't 
(and can't) *know* the answer?


Brent



Evgenii 


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Re: I am the de-phlogistonator!

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 26.06.2012 04:14 meekerdb said the following:

On 6/25/2012 6:22 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:


Hi,

Hales, C. G. 2012 The modern phlogiston: why 'thinking machines'
don't need computers TheConversation. The Conversation media
Group.

http://www.theconversation.edu.au/the-modern-phlogiston-why-thinking-machines-dont-need-computers-7881



Cheers

Colin

P.S. I am done with this issue. I'll just 'Lavoisier' my way
through the phlogiston.




Good luck. I agree with your point: Engineering first, then science.


Here there is a big question whether an engineer has free will (is an 
engineer different in this respect from a scientist?). In other words, 
whether the M-theory has already determined all actions of engineers or 
engineering allows us to find out whether the M-theory is correct.


Evgenii



But you must know it's not as simple as "tissue" implying some
undifferentiated stuff. Even planaria have a wiring diagram, so to
get AGI you probably need to start with the right wiring diagram. And
if it is right it will still take a long time to educate it.

Brent "Artificial intelligence is just whatever doesn't work yet."



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Re: Autonomy?

[meekerdb]

On 6/26/2012 10:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 25 Jun 2012, at 21:01, John Clark wrote:


On Mon, Jun 25, 2012  Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:

> The question is do you agree with it, or not. So that we can move to step 
4.


I've lost track, is step 3 the trivial observation that sometimes we don't know what 
we're going to do, or was that step 2?



Step 2 is that the diary of the one teleported does not mention the delays of 
reconstitution in absence of third person clue.


Step 3, is that no machine can predict the content of its personal future diaries 
content in self-multiplication experience.


Step 4 is a mix of step 2 and 3, and makes the observation that if P(W) P(M) = 1/2, say, 
in the WM-duplication experience, then P(W) = P(M) = 1/2 in the same experience except 
that an asymmetrical delay of reconstitution has been introduced.






> You ignore that we can test inequalities, even without probability. I do 
produce
the description of the devices so that we can test the hypotheses.


Then tell me of an experiment  that a scientist can perform in a lab where if X>Y then 
your theory is wrong but if Y> X then your theory is probably right, where X and Y are 
objectively measurable quantities of some sort; just tell me what X and Y are.


Look at what is observable close enough. Comp predicts that the logic of those 
observable will appear as being non boolean. Read the whole sane04 to see why, and how 
that is made precise, for the non-booleanity is quantum, but not yet proved equivalent 
with the QM quantum logic.






> but this does not mean that we cannot attach one mind to two different 
machines,


Yes provided the machines were identical, or at least functionally identical.


We agree on this since the start.





> or to two identical (similar at the subst. level) machine put in different
environment,


If they were in different environments then the machines would not be identical or even 
functionally identical and their associated minds would be different because they would 
have different memories.


By the comp assumption, they can be copied and put in two different environments, so 
that they will differentiate, and that is why they cannot predict their experience, even 
in a prior state of complete information of the issuing protocol.


But that is true if you simply fell asleep and were whisked to Moscow or Washington.  The 
interesting claim is not the unpredictability, but the uncertainty of identity.  If 
something is faithfully copied, it no longer makes sense to refer to "it" as singular.


Brent



Or you have to put the substitution level in the infinitely down so as to make us non 
duplicable, but then we are no more working in the comp theory.


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 



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Re: Autonomy?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 Jun 2012, at 21:19, meekerdb wrote:


On 6/25/2012 12:01 PM, John Clark wrote:


> or to two identical (similar at the subst. level) machine put in  
different environment,


If they were in different environments then the machines would not  
be identical or even functionally identical and their associated  
minds would be different because they would have different memories.


They would become different as they interacted with the different  
environments.  But the environments might be so nearly identical  
that the difference is not perceptible.  Would there then be two  
minds, or only one?


Good question. Mot plausibly two minds because complex self-reference  
is chaotic and mind state diverge from very little difference. But  
this might not concern the relative probabilities.




Or is it a moot question because brains (and computers and  
environments) have a lot of random variation below the level of  
perception and so the minds/brains would diverge unless the whole  
system, brain+environment, were cloned and isolated at the quantum  
level (which we can't do).  This why I suspect that Bruno's idea  
requires that physics and consciousness are inseparable,


Yes, that's the point.




even if they can be derived from number and computation theory.


They have to, if we take seriously the idea that consciousness is  
related to (even physical, or not) computations, which is an  
arithmetical notion.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Autonomy?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 Jun 2012, at 21:01, John Clark wrote:


On Mon, Jun 25, 2012  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> The question is do you agree with it, or not. So that we can move  
to step 4.


I've lost track, is step 3 the trivial observation that sometimes we  
don't know what we're going to do, or was that step 2?



Step 2 is that the diary of the one teleported does not mention the  
delays of reconstitution in absence of third person clue.


Step 3, is that no machine can predict the content of its personal  
future diaries content in self-multiplication experience.


Step 4 is a mix of step 2 and 3, and makes the observation that if  
P(W) P(M) = 1/2, say, in the WM-duplication experience, then P(W) =  
P(M) = 1/2 in the same experience except that an asymmetrical delay of  
reconstitution has been introduced.






> You ignore that we can test inequalities, even without  
probability. I do produce the description of the devices so that we  
can test the hypotheses.


Then tell me of an experiment  that a scientist can perform in a lab  
where if X>Y then your theory is wrong but if Y> X then your theory  
is probably right, where X and Y are objectively measurable  
quantities of some sort; just tell me what X and Y are.


Look at what is observable close enough. Comp predicts that the logic  
of those observable will appear as being non boolean. Read the whole  
sane04 to see why, and how that is made precise, for the non- 
booleanity is quantum, but not yet proved equivalent with the QM  
quantum logic.






> but this does not mean that we cannot attach one mind to two  
different machines,


Yes provided the machines were identical, or at least functionally  
identical.


We agree on this since the start.





> or to two identical (similar at the subst. level) machine put in  
different environment,


If they were in different environments then the machines would not  
be identical or even functionally identical and their associated  
minds would be different because they would have different memories.


By the comp assumption, they can be copied and put in two different  
environments, so that they will differentiate, and that is why they  
cannot predict their experience, even in a prior state of complete  
information of the issuing protocol.


Or you have to put the substitution level in the infinitely down so as  
to make us non duplicable, but then we are no more working in the comp  
theory.


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Autonomy?

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012  Jason Resch  wrote:

 >  It's not that we don't know what we are going to do, but we don't know
> what we are going to experience
>

A distinction without a difference, experiencing something is doing
something.

> it is impossible to have complete information about one's environment
> because [...]
>

The "because" is irrelevant, in fact the entire environment is irrelevant .
Even if you were in no environment at all, that is to say even if you
received zero input from your sense organs, you still could not always
predict what mental state you would be in, you still would not know what
you would be experiencing in the future.

  John K Clark

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