Re: Autonomy?

[meekerdb]

On 7/3/2012 10:46 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
No matter what diary entry I come up with you keep saying it would not disprove your 
theory because of blah blah point of view blah blah, so I want you to tell me exactly 
what diary entry WOULD disprove your theory?


I will feel to be in W.  Confirmed by the guy in W, but disproved by the guy in M. Not 
good enough!


I will feel to be in Vienna. Disproved by both.

I will feel to be in W and M". Disproved by both.

I will feel to be in W and I will feel to be in M. Disproved by both.

I will die. Disproved by both.

I will feel to be in W or I will feel to be in M. Confirmed by both.

I will feel to be in W with a probability 1/2. Confirmed by most in the iteration 
experiences.


The 1-indeterminacy is not a theory, it is a theorem in the theory comp. No program nor 
machine can predict its future in the protocol of self-duplication. It is about a 
triviality, but then it has consequences.





Maybe John would feel more engaged with the question if you changed it to Washington and 
Damascus.  Suppose there were going to be ten duplicate John Clarks.  Would John feel the 
same if nine were in Washington and one in Damascus as compared to the other way around?


Brent

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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Jul 2012, at 16:33, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 02 Jul 2012, at 23:09, Jason Resch wrote:



To summarize our conversation up to this point:

BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs  
and people and numbers,
JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really  
complex ones with a large information content.  This is the  
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are  
mathematical.
BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish  
a description from the thing described.
JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no  
distinction can ever be made (by observers within a mathematical  
universe and observers within a physical universe) then there is no  
distinction.  You are using "physical" as an honorific, but it adds  
no information.

BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical chair",  
rather than a "mathematical chair"?
BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair.  I don't know what at  
'mathematical chair' is. Can you point out how it is different from  
a chair?


I think we both agree that if the universe follows mathematical  
laws, then observers can make no distinction between whether they  
exist in a platonically existing mathematical object, or a physical  
universe.  If you agree with this, then there is no fundamental  
ontological difference between chairs, people, and numbers, that I  
can see.


Comp allows a big flexibility for the initial basic reality. If we  
choose the natural numbers, then people and chair must be explained  
from them, and usually will not be numbers.



I agree that chairs, people != numbers, but I think they exist in  
the same way numbers exist.



In which theory? What is a chair?










Facing the question: is the universe a mathematical object, or a  
physical one, we must evaluate the two candidate theories as we  
would any other.



With comp, the "universe" is neither primitively physical, nor  
primitive mathematical. It is a mental object, or a theological  
object. It exist as an object of thought in the mind of believing  
machines (relative numbers).



I assume the comp hypothesis, all experiences are the results of  
computations.


This is ambiguous, as computation of unction gives results. I guess  
you mean that consciousness can be related to computation. (The nature  
of that relation is different than we usually think when we abandon  
the physical supervenience thesis).




What I mean by a mathematical universe is any mathematical object  
that implements the computations necessary to contain observers.   
Any given observer, of course, may exist in an infinite number of  
such objects (universes) and there is no one universe the observer  
can rightfully be said to belong to.


Yes there is one. In fact many. In fact all universal systems can do.  
I use the tiny universal fragment of arithmetic to fix the thing.










Does one theory explain more, does one make fewer assumptions, etc.

That is the right attitude.




The existence of the physical universe does not explain the  
existence of mathematical objects, but the converse is true.


Yes. And not only with comp, but with most of his natural weakening.




If we have to explain the existence of both: mathematical objects,  
and the physical universe, the simpler theory is that mathematical  
objects exist, as it also explains the appearance of the physical  
world.  If one accepts mathematical realism, then postulate the  
physical world as some other kind of thing, in addition to its  
mathematical incarnation, is pure redundancy.


OK.
I think that the idea of a primitive universe is a dogma. Of course  
it is only a superfluous (redundant with comp) hypothesis.


Now the idea that the physical universe is "only" a mathematical  
object among others is false too. It is a mental phenomenon as lived  
by internal creature and provably made non mathematical from their  
points of view. The relation between mind and matter, but also  
between physics and the mathematical reality are more subtle than a  
simple mathematicalist shift.  The physical reality "needs" the  
consciousness of *all* (universal, Löbian) machines to exist in some  
sense, even if locally, large part of that physical reality will be  
independent of the local conscious creatures embedded in it. Physics  
is really the result of an epitemological process, which exists by  
the nature of the arithmetical relations.



What do you think about the existence of mathematical objects that  
do not contain observers?


They exist like the object of the term of my (first order  
specification) of my initial universal theory.


With arithmetic, it means that they exist like the numbers exist.



Is their type of existence somehow different from those that can/do  
contain observers?


They are not different. Non u

Re: what is mechanism?

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 02.07.2012 22:01 meekerdb said the following:

On 7/2/2012 12:45 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 02.07.2012 21:08 meekerdb said the following:

On 7/2/2012 11:50 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


...


Where to will you place 'description' in the physicalism? Is
this just some excitation of natural neural nets or something
else?


The description is in Platonia.


This is presumably one of the reasons that Popper at the end has
come to World 3 (equivalent of Platonia):

“If I am right that the physical world has been changed by the
world 3 products of the human mind, acting through the intervention
of the human mind then this means that the worlds 1, 2, and 3, can
interact and, therefore, that none of them is causally closed. The
thesis that the physical world is not causally closed but that it
can be acted upon by world 2 and, through its intervention, by
world 3, seems to be particularly hard to swallow for the
materialist monist, or the physicalist.”

Yet, as a consequence this should mean as Popper mentioned that
"the physical world is not causally closed".


In which case there should be observable events in the brain or
elsewhere which are caused unphysically by events in World 3. It is
not clear to me how this would comport with computationalism which
assumes that any mechanism with the same physical functionality will
always compute the same function. Perhaps quantum randomness allows
this, although the evidence seems to point to the brain being
functionally classical.


The observable effects are human languages, mathematics, art, to name a 
few things. Nevertheless I should agree thatthere is no way that I like 
to explain it.


If we take physics, for example as presented in Hawking's Grand Design, 
then 'description' should be just some excitations of natural neural 
nets in the brains of biological machines. However, in Grand Design 
there was no explanation why these excitations in the brain are able to 
comprehend the M-theory that governs all the observable effects.


According to Bruno, this is another way around. Yet, for me it is also 
unclear how the first person view could comprehend mathematical objects 
that compose the framework of the mathematical universe. As far as I 
understand, human language cannot be formalized mathematically, so it is 
a puzzle how it could be created from arithmetics.


It would be nice to have both, a physical world and Platonia but then 
the connection between the both is a puzzle.


Evgenii

--
Three Worlds by Karl Popper
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/06/three-worlds.html






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Re: Autonomy?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Jul 2012, at 18:02, John Clark wrote:


On Tue, Jul 3, 2012  Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>> Suppose I send the same identical Email to both you and to Craig  
at the same identical time, you look at your copy and think " when  
John hit the send button on his computer he could not have  
predicted that I would get this copy of the Email and not the one  
Craig got,


> It is the same. Leading to same experience, except one is  
(predictably) lived by me, and the other one 'experience, not mail)  
is lived by Craig.


I'm saying your experience would be EXACTLY the same if you had  
received Craig's Email and he had received yours because they are  
identical and interchangeable. I'm also saying that if you  
duplicated the entire city of Washington and sent one Bruno Marchal  
to Washington1 and the other Bruno Marchal to Washington2 then there  
would only be one Bruno Marchal having a Washington experience.


No problem with that.




> I don't see any indeterminacy here.

It's precisely the same situation with your duplicating thought  
experiment, they don't differentiate until there is a difference  
between them, just as the word suggests; so if there is any  
indeterminacy it is entirely a function of the unpredictable nature  
of large cities and tells us nothing about the nature of personal  
identity.


I can duplicate you in two closed little rooms. In step 6 you are  
duplicated on a chip. The unpredictable nature of the place where the  
reconstitution are done is irrelevant, except to be stable again, but  
this is in the default hypothesis, yes we suppose there is no tsuanami  
or asteroids demolishing W or M in the experience.







> > so it's a example of indeterminacy and all sorts of profound  
conclusions can be drawn from that fact". What makes this ridiculous  
is that the 2 Emails are identical and thus completely  
interchangeable. In the same way the man sent to Washington and the  
man sent to Moscow are also identical and thus completely  
interchangeable,


> Before their differentiate, and the question is ask about the  
result of the differentiation.


The result of the differentiation is that you might see the White  
House tomorrow and you might see the Kremlin, and if Everett is right


Better not to introduce physics, for the reasoning proposed does not  
assume any physical theory. It assumes only a physical reality being  
at least capable of supporting a Turing machine, but it does not  
identify it with such a machine.







you WILL see the White House tomorrow and you WILL see the Kremlin.



With some probabilities, depending in great part of what I decide to  
do. But Everett is not relevant at this stage of the reasoning.





I can't be more specific about that, not because of something to do  
with you but because of the indeterminacy inherent in the entire  
physical universe that makes it impossible to make perfect  
predictions. Nature might throw the White House at you next and it  
might throw the Kremlin. And all this is not exactly breaking news,  
its not some new discovery of yours, we've known about it for nearly  
90 years.



?

The question is do you agree with it or not. If you agree then what  
about step 4?





>> and they will remain that way until the environments of  
Washington and Moscow, being different, change the two so they are  
different and no longer interchangeable. So "first person  
indeterminacy" is just the result of the unpredictable nature of  
what goes on in Washington and Moscow.


> Nothing in W and M, relevant in the duplication experience, is  
unpredictable in W and M.


I don't know what that means. You seem to be saying that the  
activities in Washington and Moscow are predictable but that can't  
be right.


Enough to take coffee and write the result of the experience in the  
diary.


You wrote "1)" and "2)", and the copies agrees that this what trivial  
and non precise, because they know that they each got only "1)" or  
only "2)", and now they understand that the question was bearing on  
exactly that, so they get the step 3, and move to step 4.





> You did not write any prediction (on the 1-pox, as asked) in the  
diary. You wrote the two outcomes,


Two different things happened,


In the 3-view. Not from the 1-view, as you can know by interviewing  
the resulting people.




you interacted with Washington and you interacted with Moscow so of  
course I wrote about 2 outcomes, if I had not done so you would  
complain that my prediction was incomplete and you would have been  
right.


You did not made a prediction. You made a list of the outcome, without  
much other precision.
After the experience, for the two people, only one outcome has been  
realized. The question was bearing on that outcome. Not on a 3-view on  
the situation.


You don't implicate yourself enough in the thought experience. You  
seem unable to put yourself at the place of one of the copies.







> > I am in Washington and fee

Re: what is mechanism?

[smitra]

Citeren meekerdb :


On 7/2/2012 6:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 5:35 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 7/2/2012 2:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



To summarize our conversation up to this point:

BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and 
chairs and people

and numbers,
JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just 
really complex ones
with a large information content.  This is the necessary 
conclusion of anyone

who believes physical laws are mathematical.
BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot 
distinguish a

description from the thing described.
JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no 
distinction can ever
be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and 
observers within a
physical universe) then there is no distinction.  You are 
using "physical" as an

honorific, but it adds no information.
BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical 
chair", rather than

a "mathematical chair"?
BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair.  I don't know what at 
'mathematical chair'

is. Can you point out how it is different from a chair?

I think we both agree that if the universe follows 
mathematical laws, then
observers can make no distinction between whether they exist 
in a platonically
existing mathematical object, or a physical universe.  If 
you agree with this,
then there is no fundamental ontological difference between 
chairs, people, and

numbers, that I can see.


No.  The mathematical laws of physics (e.g. the standard model) 
leave initial
conditions undetermined, Which is equivalent to saying every 
solution to the Schrodinger equation is true.


It's true that they are solutions.  It doesn't follow that they exist.

they assume inherent randomness (symmetry breaking), No where in 
the math of quantum mechanics is there anything that suggest 
collapse of the wave function.


Except that's the only way to get a definite result.  Otherwise your 
instruments say, "Well it was probably + and probably -."


A strict interpretation of the the math leaves only MWI (or 
alternatively, as Ron Garett points out zero-universes 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc ).


How did you decide the Born rule wasn't math and wasn't part of QM?

The randomness is explained directly by first person indeterminacy 
in a reality containing all possibilities.


Maybe. But it's not clear that it explains the Born rule.

they don't specify why they are the laws of physics instead of 
some others. Many physicists hope that they will one day find a 
reason that our laws of physics are unique, some justification why 
the one they find themselves in is the only one that can be, but 
this seeming to be a pipe dream.  Many physicists dislike anthropic 
reasoning, perhaps because it spoils their dream of finding a TOE, 
but disliking something shouldn't carry any weight in assessing a 
theory's validity.


I could say the same about the Born rule and disliking that some 
things happen and some don't.


So the ontological difference is that some things exist and some 
don't.  This
distinction doesn't exist in Platonia: exist=having a consistent 
description.  In

physics exist=a member of the ontology of the fundamental model.


What's wrong with Platonia being a fundamental model?


No predictive power: everything exists, everything happens.


The way conventional physics avoids that is by making ad-hoc 
assumptions and by imposing ad hoc boundaries that according to the 
physical model itself don't exist. E.g. it is very hard to escape the 
Boltzmann brain problem in most complete models of the universe. So, 
the predictive power of physics is achieved by imposing additional 
unphysical ad hoc rules.


Of course, with these additional ammendments, physics is still very 
successful. To me this suggests that we shouldn't dismiss any attmepts 
to make a "Platonia model" work, just because you would need to impose 
some additional ad-hoc rules for doing computations, that don't fit in 
well within the Plationia philosophy. It could be that such additional 
rules could be explained later.


Saibal

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Re: Autonomy?

[John Clark]

On 3 July 2012  Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:

> I'm pretty sure John understands the argument but he prefers to give
> primacy to the objective/third-person viewpoint.
>

On the contrary, the first person subjective viewpoint is the most
important thing in the universe, or at least it is in my opinion.  And
that's why I insist on thinking as clearly as I can about it.

>Some people are offended by illusions.
>

Maybe some people are offended, but not me. As I said before illusions are
a perfectly real subjective phenomena as legitimate as any other.

 John K Clark

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Re: Autonomy?

[John Clark]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> >> Suppose I send the same identical Email to both you and to Craig at the
> same identical time, you look at your copy and think " when John hit the
> send button on his computer he could not have predicted that I would get
> this copy of the Email and not the one Craig got,
>
>
> > It is the same. Leading to same experience, except one is (predictably)
> lived by me, and the other one 'experience, not mail) is lived by Craig.
>

I'm saying your experience would be EXACTLY the same if you had received
Craig's Email and he had received yours because they are identical and
interchangeable. I'm also saying that if you duplicated the entire city of
Washington and sent one Bruno Marchal to Washington1 and the other Bruno
Marchal to Washington2 then there would only be one Bruno Marchal having a
Washington experience.

> I don't see any indeterminacy here.
>

It's precisely the same situation with your duplicating thought experiment,
they don't differentiate until there is a difference between them, just as
the word suggests; so if there is any indeterminacy it is entirely a
function of the unpredictable nature of large cities and tells us nothing
about the nature of personal identity.

> > so it's a example of indeterminacy and all sorts of profound
> conclusions can be drawn from that fact". What makes this ridiculous is
> that the 2 Emails are identical and thus completely interchangeable. In the
> same way the man sent to Washington and the man sent to Moscow are also
> identical and thus completely interchangeable,
>
> > Before their differentiate, and the question is ask about the result of
> the differentiation.
>

The result of the differentiation is that you might see the White House
tomorrow and you might see the Kremlin, and if Everett is right you WILL
see the White House tomorrow and you WILL see the Kremlin. I can't be more
specific about that, not because of something to do with you but because of
the indeterminacy inherent in the entire physical universe that makes it
impossible to make perfect predictions. Nature might throw the White House
at you next and it might throw the Kremlin. And all this is not exactly
breaking news, its not some new discovery of yours, we've known about it
for nearly 90 years.

> >> and they will remain that way until the environments of Washington and
> Moscow, being different, change the two so they are different and no longer
> interchangeable. So "first person indeterminacy" is just the result of the
> unpredictable nature of what goes on in Washington and Moscow.
>
> > Nothing in W and M, relevant in the duplication experience, is
> unpredictable in W and M.
>

I don't know what that means. You seem to be saying that the activities in
Washington and Moscow are predictable but that can't be right.


> > You did not write any prediction (on the 1-pox, as asked) in the diary.
> You wrote the two outcomes,
>

Two different things happened, you interacted with Washington and you
interacted with Moscow so of course I wrote about 2 outcomes, if I had not
done so you would complain that my prediction was incomplete and you would
have been right.

> > I am in Washington and feel like I'm in Washington and only in
>> Washington and that is just what I predicted would happen. If that's not a
>> "1-view" what is?
>>
>
>  > No. It was two 1-views.


I have no idea what a "two 1-views" is (are?) but regardless of what it is
apparently a feeling of being in Washington and only in Washington is just
not good enough to be a "1-view". So I repeat my original question, what is?

> I can predict the winning lotery ticket. It is enough to write
> 1) ticket 00
> 2) ticket 01
> 3) ticket 02
> ...
> 100) ticket 99.
> Wow. You are quite clairvoyant!
>


I don't know about clairvoyant but if every one of those lottery tickets
turned out to be correct then my prediction was a good one.

 > Try to use the diaries with respect to the question asked
>

My difficulty is not finding an answer but figuring out what the question
is. No matter what diary entry I come up with you keep saying it would not
disprove your theory because of blah blah point of view blah blah, so I
want you to tell me exactly what diary entry WOULD disprove your theory? If
you can't do that then it's not a theory and it's not a proof, its just
blather.

> You said it yourself. The one in W is only in Washington.
>

Yes.

> How can he be satisfied with having written "1)" and "2)" in the diary?
>

Because there are now 2 John K Clarks and because 1+1= 2 from any point of
view.

  John K Clark

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Re: what is mechanism?

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 02 Jul 2012, at 23:09, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>>
>> To summarize our conversation up to this point:
>>
>> BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and
>> people and numbers,
>> JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really complex
>> ones with a large information content.  This is the necessary conclusion of
>> anyone who believes physical laws are mathematical.
>> BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a
>> description from the thing described.
>> JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no distinction can
>> ever be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and observers
>> within a physical universe) then there is no distinction.  You are using
>> "physical" as an honorific, but it adds no information.
>> BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
>> JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical chair",
>> rather than a "mathematical chair"?
>> BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair.  I don't know what at 'mathematical
>> chair' is. Can you point out how it is different from a chair?
>>
>> I think we both agree that if the universe follows mathematical laws,
>> then observers can make no distinction between whether they exist in a
>> platonically existing mathematical object, or a physical universe.  If you
>> agree with this, then there is no fundamental ontological difference
>> between chairs, people, and numbers, that I can see.
>>
>
> Comp allows a big flexibility for the initial basic reality. If we choose
> the natural numbers, then people and chair must be explained from them, and
> usually will not be numbers.
>
>
I agree that chairs, people != numbers, but I think they exist in the same
way numbers exist.



>
>
>
>
>> Facing the question: is the universe a mathematical object, or a physical
>> one, we must evaluate the two candidate theories as we would any other.
>>
>
>
> With comp, the "universe" is neither primitively physical, nor primitive
> mathematical. It is a mental object, or a theological object. It exist as
> an object of thought in the mind of believing machines (relative numbers).
>
>
I assume the comp hypothesis, all experiences are the results of
computations.  What I mean by a mathematical universe is any mathematical
object that implements the computations necessary to contain observers.
Any given observer, of course, may exist in an infinite number of such
objects (universes) and there is no one universe the observer can
rightfully be said to belong to.



>
>
>
>  Does one theory explain more, does one make fewer assumptions, etc.
>>
>
> That is the right attitude.
>
>
>
>
>  The existence of the physical universe does not explain the existence of
>> mathematical objects, but the converse is true.
>>
>
> Yes. And not only with comp, but with most of his natural weakening.
>
>
>
>
>  If we have to explain the existence of both: mathematical objects, and
>> the physical universe, the simpler theory is that mathematical objects
>> exist, as it also explains the appearance of the physical world.  If one
>> accepts mathematical realism, then postulate the physical world as some
>> other kind of thing, in addition to its mathematical incarnation, is pure
>> redundancy.
>>
>
> OK.
> I think that the idea of a primitive universe is a dogma. Of course it is
> only a superfluous (redundant with comp) hypothesis.
>
> Now the idea that the physical universe is "only" a mathematical object
> among others is false too. It is a mental phenomenon as lived by internal
> creature and provably made non mathematical from their points of view. The
> relation between mind and matter, but also between physics and the
> mathematical reality are more subtle than a simple mathematicalist shift.
>  The physical reality "needs" the consciousness of *all* (universal,
> Löbian) machines to exist in some sense, even if locally, large part of
> that physical reality will be independent of the local conscious creatures
> embedded in it. Physics is really the result of an epitemological process,
> which exists by the nature of the arithmetical relations.
>


What do you think about the existence of mathematical objects that do not
contain observers?  Is their type of existence somehow different from those
that can/do contain observers?

Jason

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Re: what is mechanism?

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 11:55 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 7/2/2012 6:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 5:35 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>> On 7/2/2012 2:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To summarize our conversation up to this point:
>>>
>>> BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and
>>> people and numbers,
>>> JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really complex
>>> ones with a large information content.  This is the necessary conclusion of
>>> anyone who believes physical laws are mathematical.
>>> BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a
>>> description from the thing described.
>>> JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no distinction
>>> can ever be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and observers
>>> within a physical universe) then there is no distinction.  You are using
>>> "physical" as an honorific, but it adds no information.
>>> BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
>>> JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical chair",
>>> rather than a "mathematical chair"?
>>> BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair.  I don't know what at 'mathematical
>>> chair' is. Can you point out how it is different from a chair?
>>>
>>> I think we both agree that if the universe follows mathematical laws,
>>> then observers can make no distinction between whether they exist in a
>>> platonically existing mathematical object, or a physical universe.  If you
>>> agree with this, then there is no fundamental ontological difference
>>> between chairs, people, and numbers, that I can see.
>>>
>>
>>  No.  The mathematical laws of physics (e.g. the standard model) leave
>> initial conditions undetermined,
>
>
> Which is equivalent to saying every solution to the Schrodinger equation
> is true.
>
>
> It's true that they are solutions.  It doesn't follow that they exist.
>

We could take the position that they don't exist, but then we wouldn't be
taking our own theories seriously.

Defending collapse is like defending retrograde motion in order to cling to
a stationary Earth hypothesis: we don't feel the earth moving, it is
against our intuition, so why should we take seriously a theory that says
it moves when we can instead take retrograde motion as true and have a
theory that doesn't upset anyone?


>
>
>
>
>> they assume inherent randomness (symmetry breaking),
>
>
> No where in the math of quantum mechanics is there anything that suggest
> collapse of the wave function.
>
>
> Except that's the only way to get a definite result.  Otherwise your
> instruments say, "Well it was probably + and probably -."
>

They all happen, probability, like time is a phenomenon of observation.

Let me ask you an unrelated question: Do you think quantum computers with
thousands of qubits will one day be built, or do you think they are
impossible to build, for one reason or another?

If you think they will be built one day, the world will be forced to
confront the issue of many universes head-on.  How could a few atoms
calculate what a universe-sized computer could not finish in the entire
lifetime of the universe?



>
>
>  A strict interpretation of the the math leaves only MWI (or
> alternatively, as Ron Garett points out zero-universes
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc ).
>
>
> How did you decide the Born rule wasn't math and wasn't part of QM?
>
>
>
What is your opinion of Deutsch et al.'s work in recovering the Born rule?

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation#Deutsch_et_al.
Deutsch *et al.*

An information-theoretic
derivation of the
Born rule from Everettarian assumptions, was produced by David
Deutsch 
(1999)[30]and
refined by Wallace (2002–2009)
[31] 
[32] 
[33] 
[34] and
Saunders (2004).
[35] 
[36] 
Deutsch's
derivation is a two-stage proof: first he shows that the number
of orthonormal Everett-worlds
after a branching is proportional to the conventional probability
density . Then he uses
game theory to show that these are all equally likely to be observed. The
last step in particular has been criticised for
circularity
.[37]
[38] 

Re: Autonomy?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Jul 2012, at 12:05, David Nyman wrote:


On 3 July 2012 08:09, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:

I'm pretty sure John understands the argument but he prefers to give
primacy to the objective/third-person viewpoint. The first-person
viewpoint involves an assumption that I am a single person travelling
through time in the forward direction, which when looked at
objectively is an illusion. Some people are offended by illusions.

If that is indeed the case, Stathis, it would spare us all a great  
deal of pointless argument if he simply made this preference as  
explicit as you have just done.


It seems so to me too. He would, like some people, just dismiss the 1- 
pov. But John understands well the 1-pov, as illustrated by the fact  
that he does agree that both copies will feel unique, in one place. So  
he remains just illogical in his last step when he just systematically  
forget that the question was bearing on the 1pov. Putting the emphasis  
somewhere else, in this case, is nothing less than simply avoiding the  
question.




 If that is what we are talking about, then I agree that the  
subjective experience of moving forwards in time is essentially  
illusory, in the sense that each individuated first-person  
perspective obscures a deeper, more general level of explanation.   
But the indeterminacy being discussed here precisely concerns  
appearances from the individuated perspective; the "illusion"  
itself, if you like.


Yes. And that illusion is more real than any third person object we  
might invent to explain that illusion.




 This is the whole point of the argument. Hence attempting to evade  
it by dint of substituting an "objective" description is an  
absolutely classic example of a straw man.


It seems to me too, indeed.

Of course, if Stathis think John Clark is offended by illusion, we can  
understand why John want to be stuck in a reasoning whose conclusion  
will make the primitive physical reality two times more illusory,  
given that we don't even experience it.


That's the reason why I would avoid the term "illusion" for any  
conscious experience. The raw experience cannot be an illusion, as  
consciousness cannot be an illusion. You can't wake up and say "I  
dreamed that I was conscious, but that was an illusion", nor can you  
say "I dreamed that I dream, but that was an illusion".


Personal identity, time, space, things like that can be "illusion",  
but only for those who attach a primitive reality to it. It is not  
more an illusion that the net or a cyber form of life. The experiences  
remains real, in all situations, and as scientists we can try to  
relate it to objective existing patterns, like computations and  
relative self-observing numbers.


Bruno


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



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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 23:09, Jason Resch wrote:




To summarize our conversation up to this point:

BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs  
and people and numbers,
JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really  
complex ones with a large information content.  This is the  
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are  
mathematical.
BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish  
a description from the thing described.
JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no  
distinction can ever be made (by observers within a mathematical  
universe and observers within a physical universe) then there is no  
distinction.  You are using "physical" as an honorific, but it adds  
no information.

BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical chair",  
rather than a "mathematical chair"?
BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair.  I don't know what at  
'mathematical chair' is. Can you point out how it is different from  
a chair?


I think we both agree that if the universe follows mathematical  
laws, then observers can make no distinction between whether they  
exist in a platonically existing mathematical object, or a physical  
universe.  If you agree with this, then there is no fundamental  
ontological difference between chairs, people, and numbers, that I  
can see.


Comp allows a big flexibility for the initial basic reality. If we  
choose the natural numbers, then people and chair must be explained  
from them, and usually will not be numbers.






Facing the question: is the universe a mathematical object, or a  
physical one, we must evaluate the two candidate theories as we  
would any other.



With comp, the "universe" is neither primitively physical, nor  
primitive mathematical. It is a mental object, or a theological  
object. It exist as an object of thought in the mind of believing  
machines (relative numbers).





Does one theory explain more, does one make fewer assumptions, etc.


That is the right attitude.



The existence of the physical universe does not explain the  
existence of mathematical objects, but the converse is true.


Yes. And not only with comp, but with most of his natural weakening.



If we have to explain the existence of both: mathematical objects,  
and the physical universe, the simpler theory is that mathematical  
objects exist, as it also explains the appearance of the physical  
world.  If one accepts mathematical realism, then postulate the  
physical world as some other kind of thing, in addition to its  
mathematical incarnation, is pure redundancy.


OK.
I think that the idea of a primitive universe is a dogma. Of course it  
is only a superfluous (redundant with comp) hypothesis.


Now the idea that the physical universe is "only" a mathematical  
object among others is false too. It is a mental phenomenon as lived  
by internal creature and provably made non mathematical from their  
points of view. The relation between mind and matter, but also between  
physics and the mathematical reality are more subtle than a simple  
mathematicalist shift.  The physical reality "needs" the consciousness  
of *all* (universal, Löbian) machines to exist in some sense, even if  
locally, large part of that physical reality will be independent of  
the local conscious creatures embedded in it. Physics is really the  
result of an epitemological process, which exists by the nature of the  
arithmetical relations.


Bruno

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



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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 21:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/2/2012 11:50 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 02.07.2012 20:12 meekerdb said the following:

On 7/2/2012 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and
people and numbers,



Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really
complex ones with a large information content. This is the
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are
mathematical.


No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a
description from the thing described.


Brent,

Where to will you place 'description' in the physicalism? Is this  
just some excitation of natural neural nets or something else?


The description is in Platonia.


The description exists in the mind of some subject which might exist  
in some "Platonia", but I am not even sure this can make sense in the  
arithmetical Platonia of comp, where the subject comes *only* from the  
internal view of Platonia, and this one does not belong in any sense  
to Platonia, only in the 1pov-consciousness.


Bruno


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



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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 21:01, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/2/2012 11:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:




On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 1:12 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 7/2/2012 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and  
people and numbers,



Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really  
complex ones with a large information content.  This is the  
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are  
mathematical.


No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a  
description from the thing described.



I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no distinction  
can ever be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and  
observers within a physical universe) then there is no  
distinction.  You are using "physical" as an honorific, but it adds  
no information.


I can point to a chair and say "This!"


This proves that relatively to you some token are selected. This  
happens provably so in arithmetic (in comp) and so cannot be an  
argument to distinguish physical and mathematical.


The fact is that we have no evidence for something primitively  
physical, and we already know that it does not exist (in any genuine  
sense) in the comp theory of mind/matter.


Bruno

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



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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 20:21, Jason Resch wrote:




On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 1:12 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
On 7/2/2012 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and  
people and numbers,



Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really  
complex ones with a large information content.  This is the  
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are  
mathematical.


No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a  
description from the thing described.



I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no distinction  
can ever be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and  
observers within a physical universe) then there is no distinction.   
You are using "physical" as an honorific, but it adds no information.


I agree, but Brent's remark was not instrumentalist, but metaphysical.  
For some reason he seems to want physics being fundamental, and even  
if we cannot distinguish physical and mathematical universe, the  
distinction can still make sense in abstracto.
But with comp we have really no choice. We can give a role of matter,  
in the observation of matter, only by making the mind non Turing  
emulable.


Bruno


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



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Re: what is mechanism?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 20:12, meekerdb wrote:


On 7/2/2012 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Do you really not see any difference between tables and chairs and  
people and numbers,



Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just really  
complex ones with a large information content.  This is the  
necessary conclusion of anyone who believes physical laws are  
mathematical.


No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot distinguish a  
description from the thing described.



I can follow you on this. the fact that the chair obeys mathematical  
laws does not logically entail per se that the chair is a mathematical  
object. But comp does not give any choice in the matter, as I have  
already explain.
A non mathematical chair cannot select a mathematical comp  
consciousness without both the chair and the consciousness being non  
Turing emulable. Your argument might apply on Tegmark, but obviously  
Tegmark does not take the 1-comp indeterminacy into account.


Bruno


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



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Re: Autonomy?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Jul 2012, at 22:17, John Clark wrote:


On Mon, Jul 2, 2012  PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> The profound thing is that in Helsinki he does not know which one  
he will feel to be, so he is confronted with an indeterminacy


Suppose I send the same identical Email to both you and to Craig at  
the same identical time, you look at your copy and think " when John  
hit the send button on his computer he could not have predicted that  
I would get this copy of the Email and not the one Craig got,


? It is the same. Leading to same experience, except one is  
(predictably) lived by me, and the other one 'experience, not mail) is  
lived by Craig. I don't see any indeterminacy here.




so it's a example of indeterminacy and all sorts of profound  
conclusions can be drawn from that fact". What makes this ridiculous  
is that the 2 Emails are identical and thus completely  
interchangeable. In the same way the man sent to Washington and the  
man sent to Moscow are also identical and thus completely  
interchangeable,


Before their differentiate, and the question is ask about the result  
of the differentiation.




and they will remain that way until the environments of Washington  
and Moscow, being different, change the two so they are different  
and no longer interchangeable. So "first person indeterminacy" is  
just the result of the unpredictable nature of what goes on in  
Washington and Moscow.


Nothing in W and M, relevant in the duplication experience, is  
unpredictable in W and M.





> Learning that the other is there will not make you suddenly being  
that one.


Why would I need to suddenly become that other fellow for a logical  
man to conclude that the predictions written in that diary was 100%  
correct??


You did not write any prediction (on the 1-pox, as asked) in the  
diary. You wrote the two outcomes, which is hardly a prediction.







>  you have restricted your prediction on the third person view on  
the 1-views.


I am in Washington and feel like I'm in Washington and only in  
Washington and that is just what I predicted would happen.


Read yourself. You did not write "W", nor "M", but both "W" and "M".  
That can be seen as a correct prediction on the 3-view (including the  
possible 1-view) but not on the 1-views themselves, as asked.




If that's not a "1-view" what is?


No. It was two 1-views.





> But that is just not answering the question asked.

The answer is 42






but I can't figure out what the question is or why what was written  
in that diary is not a successful prediction.


To predict head and tail is not a prediction of what you will see when  
throwing a coin.







>> In physics we say there is indeterminacy and the meaning of that  
is clear


> This meaning is terribly debated since its inception.

That is entirely incorrect. The meaning of physical indeterminacy  
has always been crystal clear, it's the truth or falsehood of it  
that has been debated; but when you say "first person indeterminacy"  
I don't even know what you're talking about.


You said it yourself. The one in W is only in Washington. How can he  
be satisfied with having written "1)" and "2)" in the diary?


You persist in ignoring that the question concerns the 1-views.

Bruno

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



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Re: Autonomy?

[David Nyman]

On 3 July 2012 08:09, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:

I'm pretty sure John understands the argument but he prefers to give
> primacy to the objective/third-person viewpoint. The first-person
> viewpoint involves an assumption that I am a single person travelling
> through time in the forward direction, which when looked at
> objectively is an illusion. Some people are offended by illusions.
>

If that is indeed the case, Stathis, it would spare us all a great deal of
pointless argument if he simply made this preference as explicit as you
have just done.  If that is what we are talking about, then I agree that
the subjective experience of moving forwards in time is essentially
illusory, in the sense that each individuated first-person perspective
obscures a deeper, more general level of explanation.  But the
indeterminacy being discussed here precisely concerns appearances from the
individuated perspective; the "illusion" itself, if you like.  This is the
whole point of the argument. Hence attempting to evade it by dint of
substituting an "objective" description is an absolutely classic example of
a straw man.

David

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Re: Autonomy?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 3:21 AM, David Nyman  wrote:
> On 2 July 2012 17:50, John Clark  wrote:
>
> And one nanosecond after the copying when one receives sensory impulses that
> originated in Moscow and the other   receives sensory impulses that
> originated in Washington neither would be in precisely the first-person
> position they were in before.
>
> What does that have to do with anything?  Is it credible that after all this
> verbiage you have failed to grasp the difference between the first-person
> position of each copy and a third-person description of both copies
> together?  Congratulations, John - you really have succeeded in elevating
> the straw man argument to a level hitherto unsuspected.

I'm pretty sure John understands the argument but he prefers to give
primacy to the objective/third-person viewpoint. The first-person
viewpoint involves an assumption that I am a single person travelling
through time in the forward direction, which when looked at
objectively is an illusion. Some people are offended by illusions.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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