OBE's etc.
Hi Bruno Marchal Responses at == Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/3/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen I think so (except perhaps on Jesus, but we can come back on this later ... I don't think it is so important, now) == There's no Jesus in Leibniz's metaphysics, just the monad of monads (the ALL, or God), BRUNO: Perhaps I should interpret your monad by person, simply. Or generalized person. * No, each person has his own monad, his own corporeal body. They're all different. BRUNO: The Universal Soul, the Inner God, the Knower can leave their bodies (in comp). === I have no good answer, but let me speculate a little. L says that monads can commune with the supreme monad (which you call Universal Soul or US). Then there is no reason, depending on one's clarity of vision, why a monad could not see as the US sees, at least to some extent. This might be an OBE. Religionists might call this communing a mystical vision. Luther was not too keen on mysticism, would call it glory-seeking. Hence I am not either. BRUNO (previously) I am not sure. For two reasons: 1) with comp it seems that there is a universal person, abstract, perhaps, but completely conscious. Like you, me, and the jumping spider. 2) most people on (good dose of) salvia divinorum, (a powerful dissociative psychedelic plant), get *completely* amnesic. They report the lost of all the memories of anything particular about them, including the memory of having once own a body, immersed in space and time. Yet, they report to remain *completely* conscious, like out of time, like out of anything (any thing). With lesser dose, you just dissociate, that is you keep the memories, but you don't believe or associate with them any more (for a period of 4m, the experience is short lived). With comp (assuming no flaws, etc.) things goes like this (roughly speaking) ARITHMETICAL TRUTH INTELLIGIBLE ARITHMETICAL REALM === UNIVERSAL SOUL PARTICULAR SOULS, and then only === PARTICULAR DREAMS SHARING (physical realities). Good. We're pretty much aligned. This has been very helpful. BRUNO: Haha! Yes, you confirm some of my feelings, notably, to be short, that christians are, conceptually, much more closer to comp (and Plato, Plotinus, probably Leibniz, even Descartes when read by taking the context into account) than the atheists, the naturalists and the (even weak) materialists who eliminate persons, not just in books, but in their everyday life, as I am witnessing again and again. pfff... BTW, I suggest everyone to look at Korean movies (on Youtube, you can find a lot), as their culture shows some harmonic (with nice gentle dissonances) relationship between christianity and buddhism. By far my favorite is Hello Ghost, which is, btw and imho, a perfect allegory of the salvia divinorum experience, including the so-called breakthrough. It is a typical movie that you can appreciate to see twice (and don't read the YouTube comments the first time, as some some spoils the story!). Best, Bruno 0 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/3/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- 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: Re: The meaning of subjectivity and the importance of self (1p)
Hi Craig Weinberg My responses as Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/3/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-02, 15:54:01 Subject: Re: The meaning of subjectivity and the importance of self (1p) On Tuesday, October 2, 2012 5:28:47 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: Bruno and all, I have not infrequently brought up the need for a self in your models. Why do you need to include a self or 1p in your models ? There are two ways of looking at something: a) the objective material, which is the raw material without an observer. The impersonal, scientific version. This is just stuff and it has no meaning by itself. Peirce called it Firstness. CRAIG: This is the problem in my view. Matter isn't firstness, it is secondness or really half - of - firstness turned inside out. !!! You are correct, my statement is wrong. There needs to be an experience which defines anything, as per Berkeley. You can't assume that 'without an observer' is one of the viable 'ways of looking at something', as you have disqualified all ways of looking at anything from the start. It's confusing because as individual human beings, we are nested layers deep in personal and impersonal interacting levels of perception and participation. It's not that our perception creates matter it is that our perception of matter comes to us indirectly through the experiences of our body. The raw material is experience, not observerless theoretical concepts. Experience is concretely real, ideas of objective conditions which exist outside of all possibility of experience is ultimately nonsense (although seductive nonsense). b) a subjective account of the material, which is the meaning of the stuff. It is the objective material filtered through an individual's consciousness. I think that is somehow related to 1p. It is the stuff as experienced, the meaning of the stuff. From a particular point of view, such as an individual monad would perceive. Secondness is the meaning of the experience to the individual, or Firstness from a particular point of view. Thirdness is Secondness expressed to others. I think that looking at the raw stuff without filtering it through an individual's eyes-- the objective account-- will not completely tell you how well that raw account emulates life. You need to 1p filter it to get its meaning. CRAIG : The 1p is not the filter, it is the 3p which is a lowest common denominator filter that is inter-monadic and virtual. Our 1p is a filter of the multitude of sub-personal and super-personal 1p experiences associated with our cells, molecules, family, world, etc., but it is not a filter of 3p external realities. I'm with Bruno on this as far as matter not being primitive but I don't say that it doesn't exist, only that it existence isn't as primordial as insistence. Extension supervenes on intention, not the other way around. Craig ! If you like, but my point in using 1p is that there is no such thing as objective meaning. Meaning means meaning to you individually. And of course insistence is more primordial, but I had forgotten that you have to regurgitate how you interpreted something to others to make your interpretation useful. So your 1p meaning is the true meaning as far as you are concerned, but it has to be converted to 3p to be useful right then. On the other hand your 1p interpretation if expresssed mathematicallhy (or digitally, such as your view of a bridge as slightly distorted) may still be useful within the computation. Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net 10/2/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/_gs8E0x7aQAJ. 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. -- 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: OBE's etc.
On 03 Oct 2012, at 13:05, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal Responses at == Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/3/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen I think so (except perhaps on Jesus, but we can come back on this later ... I don't think it is so important, now) == There's no Jesus in Leibniz's metaphysics, just the monad of monads (the ALL, or God), OK. BRUNO: Perhaps I should interpret your monad by person, simply. Or generalized person. * No, each person has his own monad, his own corporeal body. They're all different. BRUNO: The Universal Soul, the Inner God, the Knower can leave their bodies (in comp). === I have no good answer, but let me speculate a little. L says that monads can commune with the supreme monad (which you call Universal Soul or US). Then there is no reason, depending on one's clarity of vision, why a monad could not see as the US sees, at least to some extent. This might be an OBE. Religionists might call this communing a mystical vision. Luther was not too keen on mysticism, would call it glory-seeking. Hence I am not either. Hmm... Not a too much cool point for Luther, perhaps. Not sure. My (computer's scientist) conception of religion is purely mystical. Now, the ideally correct mystical machine remains completely mute, and get wrong once she talk about such experience, as they are typically not communicable, and so I can understand why we might not be to keen with *chatting* mystics. Literally speaking, for the ideal machine, no one can even mention the big things, unless doing so in a context of a theory (and thus only in an interrogative stance). Now I think that our alignment comes from the fact that your monad resemble a lot to the programs (or engram, when they emerges from evolution or other long computations process). The supreme monad is then the universal program/number/machine. But those are not really Gods. Men are universal numbers. Only windows for God, which in comp is better played by the whole arithmetical truth (universal numbers plays only with a restricted part of it). Bruno BRUNO (previously) I am not sure. For two reasons: 1) with comp it seems that there is a universal person, abstract, perhaps, but completely conscious. Like you, me, and the jumping spider. 2) most people on (good dose of) salvia divinorum, (a powerful dissociative psychedelic plant), get *completely* amnesic. They report the lost of all the memories of anything particular about them, including the memory of having once own a body, immersed in space and time. Yet, they report to remain *completely* conscious, like out of time, like out of anything (any thing). With lesser dose, you just dissociate, that is you keep the memories, but you don't believe or associate with them any more (for a period of 4m, the experience is short lived). With comp (assuming no flaws, etc.) things goes like this (roughly speaking) ARITHMETICAL TRUTH INTELLIGIBLE ARITHMETICAL REALM === UNIVERSAL SOUL PARTICULAR SOULS, and then only === PARTICULAR DREAMS SHARING (physical realities). Good. We're pretty much aligned. This has been very helpful. BRUNO: Haha! Yes, you confirm some of my feelings, notably, to be short, that christians are, conceptually, much more closer to comp (and Plato, Plotinus, probably Leibniz, even Descartes when read by taking the context into account) than the atheists, the naturalists and the (even weak) materialists who eliminate persons, not just in books, but in their everyday life, as I am witnessing again and again. pfff... BTW, I suggest everyone to look at Korean movies (on Youtube, you can find a lot), as their culture shows some harmonic (with nice gentle dissonances) relationship between christianity and buddhism. By far my favorite is Hello Ghost, which is, btw and imho, a perfect allegory of the salvia divinorum experience, including the so-called breakthrough. It is a typical movie that you can appreciate to see twice (and don't read the YouTube comments the first time, as some some spoils the story!). Best, Bruno 0 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/3/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen -- 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
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: how can reason be completely different from evolution if reason itself is a consequence of nothing but evolution. Random mutation can wire together a small number of cells such that if there is a sudden change in the light levels in the environment, like a shadow covering it, a snail will retreat into its shell. This mutation will aid in survival so it will enter into the next generation. A further random mutation might be such that if the shadow does not lead to a attack the connection between shadow and retreat into your shell will be weakened, and if it does lead to a attack the connection will be reinforced. This is the utilization of rudimentary induction, something not seen in the inorganic world until humans started making computers. Evolution is just random mutation and natural selection, and induction is not part of any of that, but it can and has produced something that is. And simple induction is the first step toward more complex inductions, and then deduction and then large brains that produce minds that argue about philosophy. You say that they are different but you explain nothing of how it is possible for evolution to become so different from itself. Evolution hasn't changed a bit in billions of years, it's still just mutation and natural selection and it doesn't have a scrap of induction or deduction or intelligence in it , but it has managed to produced billions of things that do because in their niche those things pass on their genes better than things that don't have those properties. And Evolution has produced at least one thing that's conscious too. What does Darwin being right about evolution have to do with you being right about biology being unnecessary? As I've said before, Evolution can't see consciousness only intelligence, and yet Evolution produced consciousness at least once with me, therefor consciousness must be a byproduct of intelligence. And we now know for a fact that biology is not necessary for intelligence so it's not necessary for consciousness either. John K Clark -- 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: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On 02 Oct 2012, at 19:48, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Any meta-molecular system is going to be complex compared to a molecular system, That's what meta means, and a very big thing is larger than a big thing. Once a theory is rich enough (like the L machine), it can serve as its own meta-theory. That's the key of comp. That's how the comp ontology (numbers and their laws) entails its own many interpretations, in some precise sense, somehow in the mind of the many universal numbers. That sense is akin to how Everett QM seems to justify its statistical interpretation, which I think partially follows from Gleason Theorem (the probability measure is entailed somehow by the Hilbert space structure, for the dimension bigger than three). If comp is true, and if the Theaetical definition of knowledge is reasonable, the arithmetical quantum logic (the four material hypostases)should be constrained enough to have ortholattice semantics making, similarly to QM, the comp measure (on the sigma_1 sentences, or 'pieces of computation') unique. Comp lacks its Gleason theorem to verify this. Comp entails a relative state interpretation of arithmetic (or of any other first order specification of a Turing universal system). Bruno The inorganic geology of the Earth as a whole is much more complex than a single cell Bullshit!! Geology may be large but if we're talking complexity it's finger painting compared to the smallest cell. Darwin wasn't trying to explain awareness itself. That was part of Darwin's genius, picking the right problem to work on. He knew that explaining awareness was out of reach in his day as it is in ours so he didn't waste his time trying, he also knew that explaining the origin of life was out of reach although it's starting to become so in our day. Darwin figured that the problem of how a self reproducing organism could diversify into a bewildering number of species, one of which had a very large brain and opposable thumbs, might be within reach for a man of sufficient talent in his day. And He was right. There is no bridge however from evolution of biological forms and functions to the origin of experience, I might not know exactly how that bridge operates but I know that such a bridge between experience and intelligence MUST exist because otherwise experience could not have evolved on this planet; and it has, at least once for certain, and probably billions of times. It [Evolution] offers no hint of why complex intelligence should be living organisms and not mineral-based mechanisms. If you'd read the post that I sent TWICE in the month of September you'd know that Darwin's theory does explain why that is, but the post was rather long and it did contain a few big words and so you didn't read it and prefer to keep asking the same questions over and over. Before long one generation of computers will design the next more advanced generation, and the process will accelerate exponentially. Maybe. My guess is that in 50 years, someone will still be saying the same thing. Somebody will be saying that in 50 years no doubt about it, but the someone won't be biological. If tools couldn't do something that people can't then there would be no point in them making tools. And water vapor can't smash your house but water vapor can make a tornado and a tornado can. But water vapor can't make tools no matter how fast it's moving or for how long. We can choose to make tools which extend the power of our intentions There are reasons that water vapor makes tornadoes and there are reasons that humans make tools. Biology doesn't have any cosmic purpose for existing, but there are reasons. Are there? Yes. Like what? I've answered this before: Chemistry, a planet with liquid water, a energy source like the sun, and lots of time. There is no purpose in any of that because intelligence is in the purpose conferring business not chemistry or water or energy or time. So there is no purpose to biology but there are reasons. John K Clark -- 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: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 12:35:11 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: how can reason be completely different from evolution if reason itself is a consequence of nothing but evolution. Random mutation can wire together a small number of cells such that if there is a sudden change in the light levels in the environment, like a shadow covering it, a snail will retreat into its shell. This mutation will aid in survival so it will enter into the next generation. A further random mutation might be such that if the shadow does not lead to a attack the connection between shadow and retreat into your shell will be weakened, and if it does lead to a attack the connection will be reinforced. This is the utilization of rudimentary induction, something not seen in the inorganic world until humans started making computers. Evolution is just random mutation and natural selection, and induction is not part of any of that, but it can and has produced something that is. And simple induction is the first step toward more complex inductions, and then deduction and then large brains that produce minds that argue about philosophy. This is actually a good explanation of your position, and it is a respectable position that is adequate for engineering purposes. Since, however, we are talking about defining awareness itself, consciousness, and the difference between biology and inorganic chemistry, I think that we have to look more closely at your initial assumptions. As with the case with all of these arguments, it is the initial framing of the issue in which the real question is overlooked, rather than a broken link in the chain of logic. When you say Random mutation can wire together a small number of cells such that if there is a sudden change in the light levels in the environment, like a shadow covering it, a snail will retreat into its shell, you have assumed sense and awareness to begin with. In theory, random mutation can't wire together anything. Nothing can be wired together in a universe which is devoid of any capacity for detections, responses, and their meta-consequences. This is already awareness. You are already assuming a mechanism in which one thing can have something to do with another thing - where there can be a such thing as 'light levels' or other experiences of coherent sensation/detection. You are already assuming participatory efficacy in the perception event - the snail will retreat into its shell means that something is able to detect the external condition and causally effect the behavior of the cells of the snail to the point that they physically contract and move into a different position within the shell. This may seem like a trivial detail to go from randomness to a single low level biological reflex, but ontologically it already crosses a chasm which is infinitely wide. You already have billiard balls which are able to tell the difference between Spring and Fall. It is a leap which is not supported in my view. Once you have sense, it is easy to imagine how sensations might evolve into richer sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc, but these evolve from the qualities of experience themselves, not from the random selection which dictates which hereditary line is most promising. It is the experience which becomes more and more conscious and more intelligent through the realism of its participants, not from some assumed disembodied logic of its spatial-mechanical configuration. They are two very different things. Evolution can determine which socks get lost in the dryer and which pairs survive, but it is still socks that are the relevant item. Socks don't appear just because conditions are right in the dryer If you can begin to understand that 1) I understand and respect your argument here 100%. 2) I think that I have a better explanation then we can continue if you like and I can explain how I think qualitative significance progresses in a completely different way than evolution. If you don't believe 1) and intend to go on trying to make your same case over and over then I don't want to waste your time and we should stop. Craig You say that they are different but you explain nothing of how it is possible for evolution to become so different from itself. Evolution hasn't changed a bit in billions of years, it's still just mutation and natural selection and it doesn't have a scrap of induction or deduction or intelligence in it , but it has managed to produced billions of things that do because in their niche those things pass on their genes better than things that don't have those properties. And Evolution has produced at least one thing that's conscious too. What does Darwin being right about evolution have to do with you being right about biology being unnecessary? As I've said before, Evolution can't see
Re: structural complexity
On 10/3/2012 4:20 PM, John Mikes wrote: Stephen: are you compofrtable to imagine yourSELF and the warehouse of your MEMORIES - /*_all excluding any relations to your body_*/? Then what? I think the complexity *_WE_* includes the part thought of as body and bodily feelings so an abstract transport would not result in 'ourselves'. Even the (oriental) 'experts' in reincarnation deny memories of the previous format. The 'ant' does not remember what kind of 'man' he was, nor does a 'man' remember his former life-form. Why should the 'expert' teleportation differ? JM The following is purely speculative. In reincarnation, we lose the information body completely (and all the classically encoded memories) and plunge back into Aris, in teleportation we keep the record of the body and reconstruct the states of it somewhere else, thus preserving the connection. All motion that is occurring now is teleportation, just in very small distances. The environment is both measuring us and reconstructing in the next location. On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 10/2/2012 5:57 PM, John Mikes wrote: Stephen (and Bruno?) What I called The Aris - Total- meaning Aristotle's maxim that /the 'whole' is bigger than the sum of its parts/ - means something else in MY agnosticism. Originally I included only the fact what Bruno pointed out now: that the PARTS (as accounted for) develop relations (qualia) adding to the totality they participate in. Lately, however, I added to my view that beyond the accountable *_parts _*(forget now the relations) there are participant 'inconnu'-s from outside our (inventoried) model knowable as of yesterday. So whatever we take inventory of is an (accountable) *_partial_* only. Beyond that - of course - Aristotle's 'total' (/_material parts only)_/ of his inventory was truly smaller than the above *_TOTAL_* in its entire complexity. The fact that complexity-parts extracted, or replaced may not discontinue the function of the 'total' is my problem with death: how to identify THOSE important components which are inevitable for maintaining the function as was? (Comes back to my negative attitude towards transport - hype (to Moscow, or another planet/universe) - complexity has uncountable connections in the infinite relations. How much could we possibly include (in our wildest fantasy) into the tele-transporting of a person (or whatever) so that the original functionality should be still detectable?) Heavenly afterlife anybody? John Mikes Hi John, Aris, I like it! One question is how much of one's sense of self and memories can be carried across. Function does not seem to do this alone as it is completely independent of the physical body. On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 10/1/2012 1:00 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Physiological realities are mechanistic. Biologists and doctors are mechanists. Even if you claim that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts that does not mean that if yoyu replace the parts the whole will stop working. Yes. Anti-mechanist often refer to the whole is bigger than the parts, but nowhere else than in computer and engineering is it more true that the whole is bigger than the part, if only because the whole put some specific structure on the relation between parts. We might simplify this by saying that the whole *structural complexity* grows like an exponential (or more) when the whole cardinality grows linearly. H Bruno, Could you source some further discussions of this idea? From my own study of Cantor's tower of infinities, I have found the opposite, complexity goes to zero as the cardinals lose the ability to be named. -- Onward! Stephen -- 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: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 7:54 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: 1) I understand and respect your argument here 100%. 2) I think that I have a better explanation The better explanation is the simpler one. Your explanation adds extra, unnecessary and unsupported by any evidence layers to the one Darwin came up with. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
