Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 05 Oct 2012, at 11:04, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. under intense comet bombardement. try to do it yourself in the same conditions Oh I think if I tried real hard I could figure out how to make a wheel that you didn't need a electron microscope to see, particularly if you gave me 3.8 billion years to work on the problem. But the task stumped Evolution. If there is no weel in natural evolution is because legs are far superior. Claiming that nature could find no use for a macroscopic part that could move in 360 degrees, a part like a neck or a shoulder or a wrist or a ball bearing, is simply not credible. And I have no doubt that a supersonic bird or a propeller driven whale or a fire breathing lizard or a nuclear powered cow could successfully fill environmental niches, but making such a thing was just too hard for random mutation and natural selection to do. Electron are wheels. Rolling pebbles are wheel. Planets are wheels. Solar systems are wheels, galaxies are wheels. Unitary transformations are abstract wheels. Some plants in the desert, when they dried, transforms themselves into wheels, and roll with the wind, to spread the seeds. It is not reason which invented the wheels, it is reason which get inspired by the nature's many wheels and circles (e^ix). Also, evolution uses reasons, all the time, and reason(s) already exist(s) completely in arithmetic. It is the Noùs, divided in his terrestrial part and divine parts (G and G*). With comp there is still a danger to say that evolution is superior to (human) reason: the computationalist will retort that addition and multiplication of integers is superior to evolution. Bruno The claim of superiority of reason over nature is the last vestige of unjustified antropocentrism Anthropomorphism is a very useful tool but like any tool it can be misused; not all anthropomorphisms are unjustified. in its most dangerous form: Pride and self worship. Guilty as charged, I'm a big fan of pride and self worship, it may be a bit dangerous but is sure beats the hell out of worshiping God. you at least agree that is dangerous. Beware of all these self-help books. My theory is that self-steem, like suicide and the white of the eyes are social adaptations. No other animal has the white of the eyes. Thanks to it, other people can monitor very well your eye movements, so they can detect your lies, deceptions, but the others can trust you, because you bring them a mechanism for mind reading. In the overall, the social group fitness is inproved. Thats why sunglasses make people to look untrusty and menacing!!! I left to you to elaborate the conjecture of why self-steem and suicide are social adaptations. These social level adaptation may not be good for each one as individuals, but are good for the society. No society, no you. Therefore in the middle-long term, these things are good for you and your descendants. evolution works simultaneously with infinite variables Evolution does not work in the rarefied realm of pure mathematics it works in the physical world, and as near as we can tell in physics there is not a infinite number of anything. Evolution works with the computer of all reality, that is at the same time its own game scenario. It is massivelly parallel. It has the maximum paralellism that may be achieved: a computer for each element in the game. we NEVER are sure of knowing in FULL the reasons behind an evolutionary design True, but we don't need to know all the reasons to make something better; we don't know all the factors than caused bone to have the exact composition that it does, but a human made titanium girder is a hell of a lot stronger
Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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. -- 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.
A grand hypothesis about order, life, and consciousness
Hi John Clark Are you perhaps looking for a way to create order (biological structure) out of chaos ? That is what life does. It reverses time's arrow to extract the energy necessary to live and grow from a disorderd environment. This means creating ordered structure out of a chaotic enivironment. It produces energy from emtropy. So it is reasonable to define life as that which can produce order out of chaos *. Since at least higher living beings also possess consciousness, my grand hypothesis is that life = consciousness = awareness = producing order out of chaos. * I am not referring here to chaos theory, as it only seems to work with nonlinear mathematical functions, not real entities. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: John Clark Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 15:18:48 Subject: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 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. I can reproduce the same rudimentary behavior with a few dozen transistors, or vacuum tubes, or mechanical relays; if you assume that simple snail has awareness then my machines do too. ? in theory, random mutation can't wire together anything. Huh? ? Nothing can be wired together in a universe which is devoid of any capacity for detections, responses, and their meta-consequences. I don't know what you're talking about, a toy robot can and does detect things and makes responses that are determined by what it detects.? This is already awareness. If particle X coming into contact with particle Y is awareness then everything is aware, which is equivalent to nothing is aware. For a concept to have meaning you need contrast. ? You are already assuming a mechanism in which one thing can have something to do with another thing I'm not assuming machines exist, I know for a fact that they do.? ? 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 Photoelectric detectors have existed for a long time and Einstein explained how they work in 1905, I'm not sure I'd say these machines perceive? the light but if you want to use that word I won't argue the point. ? 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. And a high school kid for his science fair project could make a robot snail that does the exact same thing, and he probably wouldn't even win first place. ? 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. -- 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: On complexity and bottom-up theories and calculations
Hi Stathis Papaioannou You left out the guy who puts together the pieces. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stathis Papaioannou Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 17:51:37 Subject: Re: On complexity and bottom-up theories and calculations On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi everything-list The current paradigm for understanding the brain and mind and their relationship appears to be bottom-up theories and calculations, that is, starting with the body and hoping to reach I'm not sure what. Eventually in these theories one reaches a state of complexity that apparently can only be overcome by the emergence of new properties. If this isn't magic, I don't know what it is. You put together pieces of metal, plastic, hydrocarbons and you get - a car! If this isn't magic, I don't know what is. -- 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. -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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. -- 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. -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Richard Ruquist Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-05, 07:15:41 Subject: Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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. -- 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. -- 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. -- 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.
Proteins remember the past to predict the future
Proteins remember the past to predict the future October 5, 2012 [+] Motor Proteins (credit: Ccl005/Wikimedia Commons) The most efficient machines remember what has happened to them, and use that memory to predict what the future holds. That is the conclusion of a theoretical study by Susanne Still, a computer scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and her colleagues, and it should apply equally to “machines” ranging from molecular enzymes to computers, Nature News reports. The finding could help to improve scientific models such as those used to study climate change. Information that provides clues about the future state of the environment is useful, because it enables the machine to ‘prepare’ — to adapt to future circumstances, and thus to work as efficiently as possible. “My thinking is inspired by dance, and sports in general, where if I want to move more efficiently then I need to predict well,” says Still. Alternatively, think of a vehicle fitted with a smart driver-assistance system that uses sensors to anticipate its imminent environment and react accordingly — for example, by recording whether the terrain is wet or dry, and thus predicting how best to brake for safety and fuel efficiency. That sort of predictive function costs only a tiny amount of processing energy compared with the total energy consumption of a car. But for a biomolecule it can be very costly to store information, so its memory needs to be highly selective. Environments are full of random noise, and there is no gain in the machine ‘remembering’ all the details. “Some information just isn’t useful for making predictions,” says Crooks. Because biochemical motors and pumps have indeed evolved to be efficient, says Still, “they must therefore be doing something clever — something tied to the cognitive ability we pride ourselves with: the capacity to construct concise representations of the world we have encountered, which allow us to say something about things yet to come”. This balance, and the search for concision, is precisely what scientific models have to negotiate. If you are trying to devise a computer model of a complex system, in principle there is no end to the information that it might incorporate. But in doing that you risk simply constructing a one-to-one map of the real world — not really a model at all, just a mass of data, many of which might be irrelevant to prediction. Efficient models should achieve good predictive power without remembering everything. “This is the same as saying that a model should not be overly complicated — that is, Occam’s razor,” says Still. She hopes that knowledge of this connection between energy dissipation, prediction and memory might help researchers to improve algorithms that minimize the complexity of their models. REFERENCES: Susanne Still, David A. Sivak, Anthony J. Bell, Gavin E. Crooks, Thermodynamics of Prediction, Physical Review Letters, 2012, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.120604 Susanne Still, David A. Sivak, Anthony J. Bell, Gavin E. Crooks, The thermodynamics of Prediction, arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 -- 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: A grand hypothesis about order, life, and consciousness
On Friday, October 5, 2012 7:05:06 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: So it is reasonable to define life as that which can produce order out of chaos *. Since at least higher living beings also possess consciousness, my grand hypothesis is that life = consciousness = awareness = producing order out of chaos. I agree Roger. I would add to this understanding however, a logarithmic sense of increasing quality of experience. human experience = consciousness animal experience = awareness microbiotic experience = sensation inorganic experience = persistence of functions and structures. I would not say producing order out of chaos because I think that chaos is not primordial. Nonsense is a mismatch or attenuation of sense, not the other way around. Order cannot be produced from chaos unless chaos implicitly contains the potential for order...which makes the production of orderly appearance really just a formality. Craig -- 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/-/y5Z0qwWOARAJ. 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
I recommend: Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter by Terrence Deacon, a professor of neuroscience and anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley LN On Fri, 5 Oct 2012 07:33:53 -0400, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Richard Ruquist Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-05, 07:15:41 Subject: Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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. -- 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. -- 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. -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
Hi Richard, Stephen, Roger, Dual aspect theories are plausibly incompatible with comp. In that sense Craig is more coherent, but Stephen, and Chalmers, seems not. They avoid the comp necessary reformulation of the mind-body problem. It is still Aristotle theory variants, unaware of the first person indeterminacy. It might be compatible with comp, but then this asks for a non trivial derivation, and some conspiracy of the numbers. Bruno On 05 Oct 2012, at 13:15, Richard Ruquist wrote: Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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- l...@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- l...@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 . 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
On 05 Oct 2012, at 13:33, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. Mind emerges from numbers (or from the combinators, etc.). Matter emerge from mind. Comp explains completely why it looks the contrary locally. Comp might be false, but as matter emerges from mind in a precise way, comp (I survive through machine substitution at some level) is made refutable. Bruno Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Richard Ruquist Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-05, 07:15:41 Subject: Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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- l...@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- l...@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 . -- 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 Thu, Oct 4, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: To paraphrase Carl, 'First, you have to invent the universe.' You want to know why there is something rather than nothing and Science can't provide a good answer to that, but depending on exactly what you mean by nothing it can give some pretty good half answers, and at least it can explain why there is a lot rather than very little. Religion can't even give half answers, not to anything. If you smuggle in teleology into your metaphysics a priori, then you have already given evolution the power to behave sensibly. I'm not doing any smuggling, I'm openly saying that a high school kid can make a robot that behaves sensibly with just a few transistors. This is begging the question since what you are supposed to be proving is how teleological systems can come out of mathematical probability alone. I can't do that and never claimed I could, and you can't do it either. I'm saying that conscious systems must be a byproduct of intelligent systems because otherwise Evolution would have no reason to produce them and they would not exist on this planet, and yet we know with certainty that they do; or rather I know with certainty that one does. In mathematics there is something called a existence proof or non-constructive proof, in it you don't provide an example but you do prove that a object with certain properties must exist; I can't say how intelligence makes consciousness but I have a existence proof that it does. Without smuggling teleology in the first place, there is nothing to mutate. Huh? Of course there is something to mutate, genes, and genes are not in the teleology business, they are not interested in purpose because genes are not intelligent and only intelligence can get into the teleology business, but genes are still interested in causes. Nothing can make sense or define itself, Two hydrogen atoms don't need to define themselves nor do they need to make sense out of things to get together and form a molecule. Does your universe come with toy robots built in? Do toy robots appear by themselves from quantum foam? No. Everything is not only aware, Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware. everything is awareness. Robots are something so robots are aware too, but that's not very interesting because if everything is awareness then awareness is not very interesting. You might as well say everything is klogknee. We are talking about how inert matter or abstract probability becomes it's exact opposite - living, sentient agents. Yes, in other words we are talking about Evolution. You seem to have no way to grasp the difference between the menu and the meal. There is no such thing as a robot snail. I've heard it all before, in that analogy and a million like it you keep insisting that a intelligent human can only play the role of the meal and a intelligent computer can only play the role of the menu, but your Fart Philosophy has not provided a single reason to convince me that is in fact true. before anything can have an evolutionary consequence, there already has to be something making sense of something by itself Why? RNA can't make sense out of anything but some RNA chains can reproduce faster than others, and that gives them a Evolutionary advantage. 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word!
On 10/5/2012 11:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Richard, Stephen, Roger, Dual aspect theories are plausibly incompatible with comp. In that sense Craig is more coherent, but Stephen, and Chalmers, seems not. They avoid the comp necessary reformulation of the mind-body problem. It is still Aristotle theory variants, unaware of the first person indeterminacy. It might be compatible with comp, but then this asks for a non trivial derivation, and some conspiracy of the numbers. Bruno Hi Bruno, Yes, Dual aspect theories are plausibly incompatible with comp, because comp, as currently formulated only understands the other aspect as a body problem. I disagree that they are unaware of 1p indeterminacy; they just ignore the idea that there is just one mind that has an infinite number of instances of a body. The non-trivial derivation is necessary for obvious reasons. If a fact is trivial, how does it have any reach to explain any relations beyond itself? Conspiracy of numbers? Absolutely! But this is true in comp already. Consider Bpp; given the universe of propositions, how many are true and mutually non-contradictory? -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
On 10/5/2012 12:24 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net mailto:rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net mailto:rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- Onward! Stephen From the video Software of course, has no subjectivity I dunno, when my computer crashes its synonymous to I have crashed when the error is displayed. So in a sense, it asserts and perceives its own crash, and if I can get to the log, I can see more specifically what might have gone wrong, since the system is so complex, that I can be pretty sure that no programmer predicted specifically this particular kind of crash + how to optimize things if/when possible after such. Also, the video speaks of psilocin to make the argument that descriptions of neural activity are not their experience, as Craig might say. Ironically enough, I would bet that the makers of this video have NEVER tried psilocin or related compounds, as they make a later statement in regards to subjectivity in animals One side of the correlation is unknowable, as the scientist cannot be the animal. This stands in direct opposition to subjective experience of DMT-related psychedelic experience, where it is relatively commonplace to find experiential reports of people communicating with plants, animals, and in the case of strong Ayahuasca dosages becoming the animal subjectively. And the argument against that's just brain distortion/hallucination with no scientific usefulness is laid out, in a bit of a dated fashion, by Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. He takes the position, that indigenous people in South America could not have amassed so many natural remedies and herbal cures (that big pharma has been exploiting so strongly, that every biologist is now suspected to be a bandit, re-drafting laws of sample taking and demonizing biologists from the west campaigns) without using DMT or some related plant-based compound to aid in finding cures. He asks the reader how convincing it is that for hundreds of generations, the indigenous are finding these remedies out of the vast set of toxic and plants irrelevant to human purposes, by systematically applying trial and error? He offers other routes towards this knowledge and sees parallels between genetics, DNA, and indigenous descriptions of plant spirits to investigate how indigenous people find, out of millions of different plant species, exactly the right one, at the right dosage level, over and over again. Of course, there must be some trial and error + dying, but his list of precise hits is quite extensive. He suggests modestly, that the plants subjectivity is accessible through psilocin or DMT related experiences, or the indigenous people are just extremely lucky that their hallucinations line-up with so many effective herbs, roots etc. But this isn't needed: my plants tell me the rhythm at which they need water, and if they're not doing to well, I can tell that subjectively, they're not doing that well. And as time passes I get better in interpreting WHY they are not feeling so well. I'm not so good a listener; but as a musician, I have to make noise, so my plants are patient, I hope. And you don't need psilocin to make these types of communication, but it would probably help :) m Hi Cowboy! I have had first hand experience of altered states and I agree with your points here 100%. Roger's question remains in force: What is it that the subjectr of the subjective? I conjecture that it is the equivalent of a center of mass for the information/immaterial dual aspect of the body. This requires that there is something equivalent to the necessary requirements of a fixed point: some kind of set, closure of that set, a transformation of the set and compactness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_theorems_in_infinite-dimensional_spaces -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
Deacon's 600 page book (http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Nature-Mind-Emerged-Matter/dp/0393049914) flushes out the philosophical outlines of Nagel's much shorter book (http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception). I found a fairly complete summary of Deacon's book on how life emerges from non-living matter. (Actually Deacon just presents a teleological systems analysis of how that could happen). But regarding a dual-aspect theory, here is a relevant paragraph from that summary (http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/3/3/290/htm): The Cartesian dualism that Deacon criticizes is substance dualism, the notion that there are two kinds of substance of which the world is constructed, namely physical substance (res extensa) and mental substance (res cogitans), the latter of which in Descartes systems includes God and soul. Deacon’s system is actually one of property dualism in which there is just one kind of substance but there exist two distinct kinds of properties, physical and biological the latter of which also includes sentience and mind or in Deacon’s terminology physical and ententional. Physical properties are described by thermodynamics and morphodynamics whereas ententional properties are described by teleodynamics, which in turn depend on morphodynamics and thermodynamics. Deacon's one kind of substance is physical substance. But it seems that such a systems approach may be of value no matter (pun) what the substance is or even if there is more than one kind of substance. Deacon presents mechanisms that could be a guide for emergent processes in living systems that could apply to physical matter or even to monads or mind structures from numbers. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 05 Oct 2012, at 13:33, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. Mind emerges from numbers (or from the combinators, etc.). Matter emerge from mind. Comp explains completely why it looks the contrary locally. Comp might be false, but as matter emerges from mind in a precise way, comp (I survive through machine substitution at some level) is made refutable. Bruno Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Richard Ruquist Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-05, 07:15:41 Subject: Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory Along the theme of a dual-aspect theory of reality, I recommend the book Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Nagel, Thomas. It actually has little to do with Darwin but rather discusses how consciousness, cognition, etc. cannot not be explained by materialism. Richard On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- 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. -- 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. -- 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com mailto:agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. under intense comet bombardement. try to do it yourself in the same conditions Oh I think if I tried real hard I could figure out how to make a wheel that you didn't need a electron microscope to see, particularly if you gave me 3.8 billion years to work on the problem. But the task stumped Evolution. If there is no weel in natural evolution is because legs are far superior. Claiming that nature could find no use for a macroscopic part that could move in 360 degrees, a part like a neck or a shoulder or a wrist or a ball bearing, is simply not credible. And I have no doubt that a supersonic bird or a propeller driven whale or a fire breathing lizard or a nuclear powered cow could successfully fill environmental niches, but making such a thing was just too hard for random mutation and natural selection to do. The claim of superiority of reason over nature is the last vestige of unjustified antropocentrism Anthropomorphism is a very useful tool but like any tool it can be misused; not all anthropomorphisms are unjustified. in its most dangerous form: Pride and self worship. Guilty as charged, I'm a big fan of pride and self worship, it may be a bit dangerous but is sure beats the hell out of worshiping God. you at least agree that is dangerous. Beware of all these self-help books. My theory is that self-steem, like suicide and the white of the eyes are social adaptations. No other animal has the white of the eyes. Thanks to it, other people can monitor very well your eye movements, so they can detect your lies, deceptions, but the others can trust you, because you bring them a mechanism for mind reading. In the overall, the social group fitness is inproved. Thats why sunglasses make people to look untrusty and menacing!!! I left to you to elaborate the conjecture of why self-steem and suicide are social adaptations. These social level adaptation may not be good for each one as individuals, but are good for the society. No society, no you. Therefore in the middle-long term, these things are good for you and your descendants. evolution works simultaneously with infinite variables Evolution does not work in the rarefied realm of pure mathematics it works in the physical world, and as near as we can tell in physics there is not a infinite number of anything. Evolution works with the computer of all reality, that is at the same time its own game scenario. It is massivelly parallel. It has the maximum paralellism that may be achieved: a computer for each element in the game. Natural selection only works in the here and now and it only works with whatever random variations occur. That's why isolation in a an environmental niche produces biota well adapted to that niche, but not elsewhere. And such niches depend on the isolation. Once they are open to all of reality the marsupials get displaced by the placentals. we NEVER are sure of knowing in FULL the reasons behind an evolutionary design True, but we don't need to know all the reasons to make something better; we don't know all the factors than
Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
Hi Stephen, Yeah, I was wandering there a bit. Just still not used to the irony of altered states being used in an argument that leaves unsaid the elephant in the room. But I guess if we want something with set and point, this might also be your cup of tea, if you're not already familiar with it, and you permit empty sets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHS7fy-HJxUfeature=relmfu For PDFs: http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=1cad=rjaved=0CCEQFjAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Farxiv.org%2Fpdf%2F0810.4339ei=NiVvUNOTJaKZ0QXl-ICwCAusg=AFQjCNGQqvmeh3wBbDPrSdZIDLHQ3U0wJwsig2=x8yxlI44JMU-T-4RwMTO-g http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=4ved=0CDYQFjADurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cs.yale.edu%2Fpublications%2Ftechreports%2Ftr1419.pdfei=NiVvUNOTJaKZ0QXl-ICwCAusg=AFQjCNGDlbsWmV2EE6KMcr-L4mL2FMcw2Asig2=n2F1bfhQk3NTRk_cOL2S_gcad=rja I think to Bruno, this would be too rich already. Mark On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:00 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 10/5/2012 12:24 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Stephen P. King Many thanks, Stephan ! I should have known it before, but double-aspect and/or dual-aspect theories of mind aren't afraid of using the word subjectivity. Now all they have to do is find out who or what is the subjectr of subjectivity ! Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/5/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-04, 09:14:20 Subject: A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ3Z-Y99wW0 -- Onward! Stephen From the video Software of course, has no subjectivity I dunno, when my computer crashes its synonymous to I have crashed when the error is displayed. So in a sense, it asserts and perceives its own crash, and if I can get to the log, I can see more specifically what might have gone wrong, since the system is so complex, that I can be pretty sure that no programmer predicted specifically this particular kind of crash + how to optimize things if/when possible after such. Also, the video speaks of psilocin to make the argument that descriptions of neural activity are not their experience, as Craig might say. Ironically enough, I would bet that the makers of this video have NEVER tried psilocin or related compounds, as they make a later statement in regards to subjectivity in animals One side of the correlation is unknowable, as the scientist cannot be the animal. This stands in direct opposition to subjective experience of DMT-related psychedelic experience, where it is relatively commonplace to find experiential reports of people communicating with plants, animals, and in the case of strong Ayahuasca dosages becoming the animal subjectively. And the argument against that's just brain distortion/hallucination with no scientific usefulness is laid out, in a bit of a dated fashion, by Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. He takes the position, that indigenous people in South America could not have amassed so many natural remedies and herbal cures (that big pharma has been exploiting so strongly, that every biologist is now suspected to be a bandit, re-drafting laws of sample taking and demonizing biologists from the west campaigns) without using DMT or some related plant-based compound to aid in finding cures. He asks the reader how convincing it is that for hundreds of generations, the indigenous are finding these remedies out of the vast set of toxic and plants irrelevant to human purposes, by systematically applying trial and error? He offers other routes towards this knowledge and sees parallels between genetics, DNA, and indigenous descriptions of plant spirits to investigate how indigenous people find, out of millions of different plant species, exactly the right one, at the right dosage level, over and over again. Of course, there must be some trial and error + dying, but his list of precise hits is quite extensive. He suggests modestly, that the plants subjectivity is accessible through psilocin or DMT related experiences, or the indigenous people are just extremely lucky that their hallucinations line-up with so many effective herbs, roots etc. But this isn't needed: my plants tell me the rhythm at which they need water, and if they're not doing to well, I can tell that subjectively, they're not doing that well. And as time passes I get better in interpreting WHY they are not feeling so well. I'm not so good a listener; but as a musician, I have to make noise, so my plants are patient, I hope. And you don't need psilocin to make these types of communication, but it would probably help :) m Hi Cowboy! I have had first hand experience of altered states and I agree with your points here 100%. Roger's question remains
Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
On 10/5/2012 2:22 PM, Richard Ruquist wrote: Deacon's 600 page book (http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Nature-Mind-Emerged-Matter/dp/0393049914) flushes out the philosophical outlines of Nagel's much shorter book (http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception). I found a fairly complete summary of Deacon's book on how life emerges from non-living matter. (Actually Deacon just presents a teleological systems analysis of how that could happen). But regarding a dual-aspect theory, here is a relevant paragraph from that summary (http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/3/3/290/htm): The Cartesian dualism that Deacon criticizes is substance dualism, the notion that there are two kinds of substance of which the world is constructed, namely physical substance (res extensa) and mental substance (res cogitans), the latter of which in Descartes systems includes God and soul. Deacon’s system is actually one of property dualism in which there is just one kind of substance but there exist two distinct kinds of properties, physical and biological the latter of which also includes sentience and mind or in Deacon’s terminology physical and ententional. Physical properties are described by thermodynamics and morphodynamics whereas ententional properties are described by teleodynamics, which in turn depend on morphodynamics and thermodynamics. Deacon's one kind of substance is physical substance. But it seems that such a systems approach may be of value no matter (pun) what the substance is or even if there is more than one kind of substance. Deacon presents mechanisms that could be a guide for emergent processes in living systems that could apply to physical matter or even to monads or mind structures from numbers. Richard Hi Richard, Nice post! I would only add that the emergence must not be a special singular event, it must be an ubiquitous process! -- 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: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussing the dual aspect theory
On 10/5/2012 2:41 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: Hi Stephen, Yeah, I was wandering there a bit. Just still not used to the irony of altered states being used in an argument that leaves unsaid the elephant in the room. But I guess if we want something with set and point, this might also be your cup of tea, if you're not already familiar with it, and you permit empty sets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHS7fy-HJxUfeature=relmfu Hi Mark, Non Well founded sets? Oh yeah! I have been signing their praises for a long time! I especially like all of Jon Barwise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Barwise's work on them. It is exactly where we can formally model self-representation and allows for a nice finite model of the mereology of infinite sets (if we add a cut-off requirement). For PDFs: http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=1cad=rjaved=0CCEQFjAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Farxiv.org%2Fpdf%2F0810.4339ei=NiVvUNOTJaKZ0QXl-ICwCAusg=AFQjCNGQqvmeh3wBbDPrSdZIDLHQ3U0wJwsig2=x8yxlI44JMU-T-4RwMTO-g http://www.google.com/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=4ved=0CDYQFjADurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cs.yale.edu%2Fpublications%2Ftechreports%2Ftr1419.pdfei=NiVvUNOTJaKZ0QXl-ICwCAusg=AFQjCNGDlbsWmV2EE6KMcr-L4mL2FMcw2Asig2=n2F1bfhQk3NTRk_cOL2S_gcad=rja I think to Bruno, this would be too rich already. Mark I am trying to get Bruno to see the importance of a cut-off but that would require that he admit that comp has an error in step 8. This error can be fixed by a weakening of universality but he wants nothing to do with this suggestion. :_( -- 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: On complexity and bottom-up theories and calculations
Russell, you seem to be restricted by OUR model-items, so far discovered. I call 'magic' the so far undiscovered, which - however - may become known later on. Then it is not magic. It would be the last thing to engage with you in discussing AL, but it seems you consider a limited one: *RS: (ALife researcher at least have the liberty of researching any interesting emergent phenomenon without having any particular emergent phenomenon in mind).* Restricted to the so far emerged ones? or those not showing up in our limited search (fantasy)? John M * * On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 8:14 PM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 07:51:37AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi everything-list The current paradigm for understanding the brain and mind and their relationship appears to be bottom-up theories and calculations, that is, starting with the body and hoping to reach I'm not sure what. Eventually in these theories one reaches a state of complexity that apparently can only be overcome by the emergence of new properties. If this isn't magic, I don't know what it is. You put together pieces of metal, plastic, hydrocarbons and you get - a car! If this isn't magic, I don't know what is. Sarcasm aside, Roger does have a point. It is very difficult, bordering on impossible, in general, to specify the microphysical layer in just such a way as to reproduce a particular macrophysical phenomenon of interest. This problem is faced everyday by practitioners of agent-based modelling, and to a lesser extent by artitifical life researchers (ALife researcher at least have the liberty of researching any interesting emergent phenomenon without having any particular emergent phenomenon in mind). Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- 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.
Consciousness and NWF sets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h--Gei6yYvM Pay attention at time 5:10 and on! -- 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 Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Are you saying that Darwin has an explanation for the origin of order? Yes, mutation and natural selection. No. Natural selection is a type of order. Mutation describes a deviation from an established order which itself contributes to order. You could say the order was already there at the beginning of the Universe but evolution gave it a different form. So where did the original order come from? The cosmology you suggest is something along the lines of Once upon a time, there was randomness and emptiness which became living organisms eventually because that is inevitably one of the things that can happen.. Sort of like saying if you throw enough sand in a bucket, eventually it will play football and develop ballet and forget that it was ever sand. We know that some molecules can self-replicate. We know that these chemicals can be made from simpler chemicals. Given a solution with the simpler chemicals, the right conditions and enough time, the self-replicators will spontaneously form. Once they form, they will persist and multiply, because that is what self-replicators do. This could be a very unlikely event but it does not need to occur more than once. If it is possible to make self-replicators in small spontaneous steps from sand then eventually the same will occur with sand, somewhere in the universe. -- 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.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Friday, October 5, 2012 12:58:14 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote: To paraphrase Carl, 'First, you have to invent the universe.' You want to know why there is something rather than nothing and Science can't provide a good answer to that, but depending on exactly what you mean by nothing it can give some pretty good half answers, and at least it can explain why there is a lot rather than very little. Religion can't even give half answers, not to anything. Who is advocating religion? If you smuggle in teleology into your metaphysics a priori, then you have already given evolution the power to behave sensibly. I'm not doing any smuggling, I'm openly saying that a high school kid can make a robot that behaves sensibly with just a few transistors. Only because he lives in a universe in which the possibility of teleology is fully supported from the start. This is begging the question since what you are supposed to be proving is how teleological systems can come out of mathematical probability alone. I can't do that and never claimed I could, and you can't do it either. I don't need to do that because my position is that teleology and evolution are two aspects of the same thing: Sense. I'm saying that conscious systems must be a byproduct of intelligent systems because otherwise Evolution would have no reason to produce them and they would not exist on this planet, But you'd be wrong because if those systems weren't conscious to begin with, then there wouldn't be anything there to discern intelligence from nothingness. and yet we know with certainty that they do; or rather I know with certainty that one does. In mathematics there is something called a existence proof or non-constructive proof, in it you don't provide an example but you do prove that a object with certain properties must exist; I can't say how intelligence makes consciousness but I have a existence proof that it does. No, because you have erroneously assumed that intelligence is possible without sense experience. You're wrong about that, which is why you are left with promissory functionalism to bridge the gap made by that error. Without smuggling teleology in the first place, there is nothing to mutate. Huh? Of course there is something to mutate, genes, and genes are not in the teleology business, they are not interested in purpose because genes are not intelligent and only intelligence can get into the teleology business, but genes are still interested in causes. Adenine and Thymine don't have purpose in seeking to bind with each other? How do you know? How is it different from our purpose in staying in close proximity to places to eat and sleep? Nothing can make sense or define itself, Two hydrogen atoms don't need to define themselves nor do they need to make sense out of things to get together and form a molecule. Yes, they do. Everything needs to sense or make sense of something in order to be part of the universe in any way. Does your universe come with toy robots built in? Do toy robots appear by themselves from quantum foam? No. Everything is not only aware, Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware. Because then we wouldn't be aware of having this conversation. everything is awareness. Robots are something so robots are aware too, No, they aren't something. They are an assembly of somethings riding on borrowed teleology. but that's not very interesting because if everything is awareness then awareness is not very interesting. You might as well say everything is klogknee. Everything is awareness, but it is interesting because each awareness is unique, non-unique, and many meta-levels of juxtposition of unique and non-unique qualities. Interesting is pretty much the definition of awareness. Cosmos is the capacity to be interested. Robots don't have that, even though the materials they are made out of are interested in electric current, thermodynamic experiences, etc and will pursue them reliably. We are talking about how inert matter or abstract probability becomes it's exact opposite - living, sentient agents. Yes, in other words we are talking about Evolution. No, evolution requires that something be alive to begin with. There is no natural selection if things don't die or reproduce. You seem to have no way to grasp the difference between the menu and the meal. There is no such thing as a robot snail. I've heard it all before, in that analogy and a million like it you keep insisting that a intelligent human can only play the role of the meal and a intelligent computer can only play the role of the menu, but your Fart Philosophy has not provided a single reason to convince me that is in fact true. I'm not trying to convince you of
Re: Re: On complexity and bottom-up theories and calculations
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 9:13 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Stathis Papaioannou You left out the guy who puts together the pieces. So if the pieces just happened to fall into the right place spontaneously the car would not work? -- 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.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Jason -- 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: On complexity and bottom-up theories and calculations
On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 03:58:13PM -0400, John Mikes wrote: Russell, you seem to be restricted by OUR model-items, so far discovered. I call 'magic' the so far undiscovered, which - however - may become known later on. Then it is not magic. It would be the last thing to engage with you in discussing AL, but it seems you consider a limited one: *RS: (ALife researcher at least have the liberty of researching any interesting emergent phenomenon without having any particular emergent phenomenon in mind).* Restricted to the so far emerged ones? or those not showing up in our limited search (fantasy)? John M What I meant by this, is if you assemble some system, and produce (or discover) some emergent phenomenon, then that would be a legitimate ALife study. Particularly, if there is some vague working analogy with life. By contrast, if you assemble an ecomomy of agents, but the emergent economy doesn't behave in the slightest like the economy your trying to model, then you can hardly claim to be doing economics. I'm not sure how that comment is restricted to anything??? -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 07:33:53AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. I doubt there would be any one book on this. It is a field of great interest, not only to biologists, but also ALife people, who are approaching the problem from the opposite direction. Usually, there will be a smattering of papers in ALife conferences dealing with the abiogenisis problem. Most of the more recent ALife conference proceedings are available outside of a paywall, so you could browse these to see if any papers take your interest. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
A must read paper
Hi Folks, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0810/0810.4339.pdf Mathematical Foundations of Consciousness Willard L. Miranker http://arxiv.org/find/math/1/au:+Miranker_W/0/1/0/all/0/1,Gregg J. Zuckerman http://arxiv.org/find/math/1/au:+Zuckerman_G/0/1/0/all/0/1 (Submitted on 23 Oct 2008) We employ the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms that characterize sets as mathematical primitives. The Anti-foundation Axiom plays a significant role in our development, since among other of its features, its replacement for the Axiom of Foundation in the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms motivates Platonic interpretations. These interpretations also depend on such allied notions for sets as pictures, graphs, decorations, labelings and various mappings that we use. A syntax and semantics of operators acting on sets is developed. Such features enable construction of a theory of non-well-founded sets that we use to frame mathematical foundations of consciousness. To do this we introduce a supplementary axiomatic system that characterizes experience and consciousness as primitives. The new axioms proceed through characterization of so- called consciousness operators. The Russell operator plays a central role and is shown to be one example of a consciousness operator. Neural networks supply striking examples of non-well-founded graphs the decorations of which generate associated sets, each with a Platonic aspect. Employing our foundations, we show how the supervening of consciousness on its neural correlates in the brain enables the framing of a theory of consciousness by applying appropriate consciousness operators to the generated sets in question. This is part of what I have been assuming form the beginning of my conversation with Bruno so many moons ago. Its nice to see its independent discovery. -- 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: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 10/5/2012 4:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com mailto:agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 06:32:21PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. Brent Dennett's pandemonium theory would seem to be like that. Of course, there must be differences in the details between conscious thought and biological evolution - for example, thought may well be Lamarckian in character (like cultural evolution). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Subjectivity is no longer a dirty word! A nice video discussingthe dual aspect theory
On 10/5/2012 5:15 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 07:33:53AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Richard Ruquist I appreciate your suggestion, but I am already convinced, and have other sources besides that. What I'm looking for is a book which gives the central mechanism of abiogenesis, the production of living matter from nonliving matter. If indded there is such a thing. I suppose you've read the basics: Origins of Life by Freeman Dyson, The Origins of Life by John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary, Life's Origin ed. by William Schopf. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 10/5/2012 6:48 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 06:32:21PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. Brent Dennett's pandemonium theory would seem to be like that. I don't think Dennett contemplated sexual reproduction of ideas. Of course, there must be differences in the details between conscious thought and biological evolution - for example, thought may well be Lamarckian in character (like cultural evolution). The 'natural selection' that acts on ideas is mainly consilience with other ideas that are already occupying brain resources. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 06:59:11PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: On 10/5/2012 6:48 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 06:32:21PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. Brent Dennett's pandemonium theory would seem to be like that. I don't think Dennett contemplated sexual reproduction of ideas. That's irrelevant. Plenty of biological life reproduce asexually. Of course, there must be differences in the details between conscious thought and biological evolution - for example, thought may well be Lamarckian in character (like cultural evolution). The 'natural selection' that acts on ideas is mainly consilience with other ideas that are already occupying brain resources. I'm not convinced one way or other by this. I suspect we still don't know enough to say. Nevertheless, in the pandemonium model, there is a selection process of some sort going on. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 4:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. The only known implementations of artificial creativity involved genetic programming. In fact, this computer used such techniques to invented patent-worthy designs: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.100.4146 When I try to conceive of how creativity works, it is hard for me to to imagine it could be anything other than random permutation and cross pollination of existing ideas, which must then be evaluated and the nonsensical ones pruned. New (good) ideas do not fall from the sky, nor are they directly implied by the existing set of ideas. It seems then that the process involved is to generate a bunch of new ideas (using methods similar to the tools of evolution works), and then apply selection criteria to determine which are the good ones and which are the useless ones. Jason -- 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: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 10/5/2012 8:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 4:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com mailto:agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. The only known implementations of artificial creativity involved genetic programming. In fact, this computer used such techniques to invented patent-worthy designs: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.100.4146 When I try to conceive of how creativity works, it is hard for me to to imagine it could be anything other than random permutation and cross pollination of existing ideas, which must then be evaluated and the nonsensical ones pruned. New (good) ideas do not fall from the sky, nor are they directly implied by the existing set of ideas. It seems then that the process involved is to generate a bunch of new ideas (using methods similar to the tools of evolution works), and then apply selection criteria to determine which are the good ones and which are the useless ones. This strikes me as disingenously stretching meaning to fit an argument. Yes, random variation and recombination of ideas and selection according to some values is probably how creativity works. But do you really think that shows Evolution outshines reason? Aren't you overlooking the fact that reason does all this in imagination, symbolically, not by reproducing and competing for resources and suffering and dying? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 10:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 8:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 4:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. The only known implementations of artificial creativity involved genetic programming. In fact, this computer used such techniques to invented patent-worthy designs: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.100.4146 When I try to conceive of how creativity works, it is hard for me to to imagine it could be anything other than random permutation and cross pollination of existing ideas, which must then be evaluated and the nonsensical ones pruned. New (good) ideas do not fall from the sky, nor are they directly implied by the existing set of ideas. It seems then that the process involved is to generate a bunch of new ideas (using methods similar to the tools of evolution works), and then apply selection criteria to determine which are the good ones and which are the useless ones. This strikes me as disingenously stretching meaning to fit an argument. Yes, random variation and recombination of ideas and selection according to some values is probably how creativity works. But do you really think that shows Evolution outshines reason? I was only making the point that reason may itself use the same techniques evolution does. Aren't you overlooking the fact that reason does all this in imagination, symbolically, not by reproducing and competing for resources and suffering and dying? Before there were minds to experience all the suffering and dying, you might say that evolution was equally symbolic. That is, the molecular interactions in the biosphere held a similar role to the flurry of ideas in a reasoning mind. Being able to develop ideas quickly and without whole generations having to suffer and die is a great improvement to the process, but it is an improvement natural selection (not we) made. Biological evolution is now largely inconsequential compared to the evolution of technology and ideas. But the trends in technology and ideas are still evolutionary. Reason may be able to make longer strides than was possible with mutation of DNA molecules, but the products of reason are still very much subject to the same evolutionary forces: ideas must reproduce (spread), and compete to survive, or risk extinction. I don't see that reason can be said to outshine evolution since they seem to be inseparable. Reason is a product and tool of evolution (just as DNA is). Reason itself may even use evolutionary processes. And in the end, everything, including the ideas and inventions created by reason are still bound to the
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On 10/5/2012 9:04 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 10:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 8:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 8:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 4:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 10/5/2012 2:04 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Dear john: 2012/10/4 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com mailto:agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. This is a neat consequence of the need of repairability. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort.. This is explained in detail somewhere above. I can imagine a design in which wheels are connected to the circulatory system just as some vehicles are built with hydraulic motors in their wheels. Or the wheels might be separate organisms in a symbiotic relation. Those are possible - but it's too hard to get there from here. So you make the point yourself, evolution is constrained in ways that rational design is not. Do we know that imagination doesn't use an evolutionary process (behind the scenes) to come up with new ideas? Could it be that our brains use evolutionary techniques, combining different things we know in random ways and running internal testing and selection of those ideas, before they bubble up into an Ah-Ha moment that we become conscious of? Do we have any reason to believe ideas reproduce with variation and then those that reproduce most successfully rise to consciousness? THAT would be a Darwinian theory of consciousness. The only known implementations of artificial creativity involved genetic programming. In fact, this computer used such techniques to invented patent-worthy designs: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.100.4146 When I try to conceive of how creativity works, it is hard for me to to imagine it could be anything other than random permutation and cross pollination of existing ideas, which must then be evaluated and the nonsensical ones pruned. New (good) ideas do not fall from the sky, nor are they directly implied by the existing set of ideas. It seems then that the process involved is to generate a bunch of new ideas (using methods similar to the tools of evolution works), and then apply selection criteria to determine which are the good ones and which are the useless ones. This strikes me as disingenously stretching meaning to fit an argument. Yes, random variation and recombination of ideas and selection according to some values is probably how creativity works. But do you really think that shows Evolution outshines reason? I was only making the point that reason may itself use the same techniques evolution does. Aren't you overlooking the fact that reason does all this in imagination, symbolically, not by reproducing and competing for resources and suffering and dying? Before there were minds to experience all the suffering and dying, you might say that evolution was equally symbolic. There were minds enough to try to avoid suffering and dying. Are really going to try to stretch this analogy to say that our ideas 'compete and suffer and die' and this is just as wasteful and cruel as the Darwinian struggle for existence? That is, the molecular
Re: Epiphenomenalism
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 9/29/2012 10:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Indeed. I think 17 is intrinsically a prime number in all possible realities. It is not a reality in a world that only has 16 objects in it. I can come up with several other counter-examples in terms of finite field, but that is overly belaboring a point. This can clearly be shown to be false. For me to be responding to this post (using a a secure connection to my mail server) requires the use of prime numbers of 153 decimal digits in length. There are on the order of 10^90 particles in the observable universe. This is far smaller than the prime numbers which are larger than 10^152. So would you say these numbers are not prime, merely because we don't have 10^153 things we can point to? If a number P can be prime in a universe with fewer than P objects in it, might P be prime in a universe with 0 objects? Jason -- 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: Epiphenomenalism
On 10/6/2012 1:02 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 9/29/2012 10:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Indeed. I think 17 is intrinsically a prime number in all possible realities. It is not a reality in a world that only has 16 objects in it. I can come up with several other counter-examples in terms of finite field, but that is overly belaboring a point. This can clearly be shown to be false. For me to be responding to this post (using a a secure connection to my mail server) requires the use of prime numbers of 153 decimal digits in length. There are on the order of 10^90 particles in the observable universe. This is far smaller than the prime numbers which are larger than 10^152. So would you say these numbers are not prime, merely because we don't have 10^153 things we can point to? If a number P can be prime in a universe with fewer than P objects in it, might P be prime in a universe with 0 objects? Jason LOL Jason, Did you completely miss the point of reality? When is it even possible to have a universe with 0 objects? Nice oxymoron! -- 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.
