date:20121027

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:
 Stathis:

 IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
 programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
 (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
 'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
 accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
 hardware content.

 John M

How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
same as everything else in the universe.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Putnam on computationalism (a-f)

2012-10-27 Thread Roger Clough

Putnam on computationalism (a-f) . This starts at

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1v=izqKc1SIFJQfeature=endscreen

If the next video in the lecture does not appear on the screen,
you can search for it in the search box. For example, if
part f does not appear, put Putnam on computationalism (f)
in the search box. There is apparently also QA after the f 
lecture.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/27/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality

2012-10-27 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Richard Ruquist  

Yes, the strings themselves are extended, but
theoretical strings (string theory itself) are not.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/27/2012  
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: Richard Ruquist  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-26, 09:48:32 
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality 


Roger, 
Your Leibniz monads are not extended, but the monads of string theory 
are extended yet have most of the important properties of inextension. 
Richard 

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Roger Clough  wrote: 
 Hi Richard Ruquist 
 
 Thank you, but monads are not extended in space, 
 they are mental and so inextended. 
 
 
 Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
 10/26/2012 
 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 
 
 
 - Receiving the following content - 
 From: Richard Ruquist 
 Receiver: everything-list 
 Time: 2012-10-26, 08:08:44 
 Subject: Re: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality 
 
 
 No Roger, 
 
 In string theory dimensions are conserved but can undergo extreme 
 modification such as in compactification where formerly orthogonal 
 dimensions become embedded in 3D space in spite of what Brent thinks. 
 However, the string theory monads that result from compactification 
 have many of the properties that you ascribe to unextended realms. 
 Because of BEC and instant mapping effects, the entire collection of 
 monads in the universe may behave as though the existed at a single 
 point despite being extended. 
 Richard 
 
 On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 7:56 AM, Roger Clough wrote: 
 Hi Richard, 
 
 Is there some way, such as reducing the dimensions of 
 strings to zero, that one can transverse from the world 
 of extension (the physical world) to that of inextended 
 experience or theory? 
 
 
 Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
 10/26/2012 
 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen 
 
 
 - Receiving the following content - 
 From: meekerdb 
 Receiver: everything-list 
 Time: 2012-10-25, 14:23:04 
 Subject: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality 
 
 
 On 10/25/2012 10:49 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote: 
 On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: 
 On 10/25/2012 11:52 AM, meekerdb wrote: 
 
 On 10/25/2012 4:58 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote: 
 
 Stephan, 
 
 Since yesterday it occurred to me that you may be thinking of the 10 
 or more dimensions of string theory as being orthogonal because they 
 were so before the big bang. But the dimensions that 
 curled-up/compactified went out of orthogonality during the big bang 
 according to Cumrun Vafa. I'll look up that reference if you are 
 interested. 
 
 According to Vafa 2 dimensions compactified for every single space 
 dimension that inflated. In over simplified terms, 2 dimensions 
 (actually in strips of some 10,000 Planck lengths) to be compactified 
 lined up say in the east-west space dimension so that space in an 
 orthogonal direction could expand. So some semblance of orthogonality 
 exists in the compactification process, but it is clear that the 
 compactified dimensions become embedded in 3D space for inflation to 
 occur. 
 
 
 It's implicit in the definition of dimensions of a Riemannian manifold 
 that 
 there are as many orthogonal directions as dimensions. Compactified 
 dimensions are just small; they're small, not infinite, because they have 
 closed topology. That property is completely independent of having 
 orthogonal directions. 
 
 Brent 
 
 Dear Brent, 
 
 Compactness and orthogonality are not the same quantities. Yes. But my 
 point is that the compact structures in string theories (super or not) are 
 orthogonal to the dimensions of space-time. Maybe we need all take a 
 remedial math class on linear algebra and geometry! 
 I am still waiting for the explanation of how you know that to be true- 
 that the compact manifolds are orthogonal to space dimensions. 
 Richard 
 
 If they weren't orthogonal then a vector on them could be represented by by 
 a linear 
 combinations of vectors in 3-space - and then they wouldn't provide the 
 additional degrees 
 of freedom to describe particles and fields. They'd just be part of 3-space. 
 
 Brent 
 
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Re: Dennett and others on qualia



On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl  
wrote:

Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com:



 On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl  
wrote:


 You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational  
states
 of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a  
system

 is experiencing the color red is to see if the right algorithm is
 being executed.


 That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from  
birth,

 activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.

 Craig


That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.

No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be  
executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will  
result in visual experience.

I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description  
of Nature is complete


I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description  
of arithmetic capable of being complete.









and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity  
which transcends rationality.


That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp.





Comp isn't true.


The reductionist conception of comp is not true.




Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.


What is Nature ?

Bruno





Craig


Saibal


 Saibal


 Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript::

 
 
  On Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:57:34 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
 
  Good points.  The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think  
color

 can
  be communicated
  and we have an RGB language for doing so that makes it more  
quanta

 than
  qualia.
 
 
  That doesn't work. RGB coordinates do not help a blind person  
visualize
  Red. What we have is a model for the producing optical  
stimulation that

 is
  typically associated with color perception. By contrast, a  
description

 of
  an object as being at a particular longitude and latitude on  
Earth will

 be
  valid for any body which can navigate public space.
 
 
  So
  extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine  
connoisseur you

 have
  a language for
  communicating the taste of wine.  Most of us don't speak it,  
but most

  people don't speak
  differential equations either.  But those are all things that  
can be

  shared.  The pain of
  a headache generally can't be perceived by two different  
people.  But

  there are
  experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce  
objective

  scales of pain.  So
  I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed  
the

  language; I just don't
  think color is the best example.
 
 
  This is a total non-starter. You cannot make a brick feel pain  
by using

 the
  right language.
 
  I did a post today on perception which might help
  http://s33light.org/post/34304933509
 
  In short, qualia is a continuum of private and public  
significance. The
  more a particular phenomenon has to to with position and  
distance, the

 more
  public it is. Simple as that.
 
  Craig
 
 
 
  Brent
 
  On 10/25/2012 6:11 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
   I agree.
  
   is there something that can be perceived that is not  
qualia?  Itï¿½s
   less qualia  the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet  
of paper
   than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the  
circle
   can be measured and communicated does not change the fact  
that they
   produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia.  
Then the
   question becomes why some qualia are communicable  
(phenomena) and
   others do not? It may be because shape and position involve  
a more

   basic form of processing and the color processing is more
 complicated?
   O is because shape and position processing evolved to be  
communicable

   quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
   pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?
  
   If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the  
opposite.

   Instead of ï¿½what is qualia under a materialist stance?, the
 question
   is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a  
mentalist

   stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
   perception that I have a head with a brain?
  
   2012/10/25 Roger Cloughrcl...@verizon.net javascript::
   Dennett and others on qualia
  
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
  
   1) Schroedinger on qualia.
  
   Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste  
of wine,

 the
  experience of taking a recreational drug,
   or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett  
writes

 that
  qualia is an unfamiliar term for
   something that could not be more familiar to each of us:  
the ways

  things seem to us.[1] Erwin Schrï¿½dinger,
   the famous

Re: Can comp simulate an experience ? What does that require ?



On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:50, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Thursday, October 25, 2012 6:08:43 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:


In order for a computer or comp to simulate an experience
it must be able to generate qualia.  That is the plural of

  qua锟�e/'kw锟�e/
Noun:
A quality or property as perceived or experienced by a person.

So comp must not just simulate an event, it must
simulate  the qualia of an event.  The event as
experienced by a person.

According to Kant's model of perception, which is essentially
what happens to an event experienced by the mind, ie
the model of mind used by neuroscience, an event as perceived
is the input material or signals

a) synthesized by the mind

b) a unified version of that event as synthesized.

In order for comp to be successful, then, meaning to
simulate an experience, it must be able to be able
to convert an experience to a qualia of the experience.

This looks exceedingly difficult, since we do not know
how the mind synthesizes and unifies the raw
perception of an event.

The raw experience is Firstness
The synthezation and unification of that Firstness
is called 2nd-ness ansd 3rd-ness by Peirce.


There is nothing to suggest that experience can be synthesized  
outside of experience. All experience is authentic and genuine  
within it's own context (a dream is really a dream, a delusion is  
really a delusion, etc). There is no possibility of something which  
does not have an experience to substitute a function or process  
which will satisfy the firstness of experience without being an  
experience. It is not, for example, like DC current which may be  
used to substitute for AC current in some situation. There is no  
substitute for or imitation of the capacity to experience.


You are right on this. But again, this is true with comp too, and even  
partially justifiable.


Bruno


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



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Re: Dennett and others on qualia



On 26 Oct 2012, at 13:01, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Alberto G. Corona

Instead of trying to understand these phenomena under
the materialist function of mind (what they are) it
is IMHO more useful to understand them by what they
do-- create the subjective or mental correlates to
the physical sources. The functional theory of mind
then is the appropriate way to understand the mind.



The usual critics against comp and functionalism is that it makes the  
qualia and subjectivity secondary, or epiphenomenal, when it does not  
simply eliminate them.


Indeed, explaining why Margaret took her hand out quickly from the  
oven in functional terms, means given an explanation by the causal  
relationships (nerves communication, information handling, sensory  
entry and motor outputs) realisaing a function (preserving and  
protecting the hands, here). Such type of explanation makes the  
subjective aspect epiphenomenal, like having no real purpose.


But the word function is ambiguous, and clearly so in computer  
science where it can have an intensional meaning (code, machine,  
number) and/or an extensional meaning (input-output, behavior, fixed  
point in some structure). When a function is realized in nature or  
relatively to a universal number in arithmetic, it can be shown that  
he will use both aspect, and the quanta/qualia distinction exploits  
this 'ambiguity'. Quanta concerns measurable and sharable quantity,  
and qualia concerns measurable but not sharable possible quality.


I tend to avoid the term functionalism. It has a large spectrum of  
interpretations, from high level computationalism (Putnam), to some  
version of non-comp by using non computable *functions*, recoverable  
or not by oracles, or first person indeterminacy. Most are weakening  
of comp.


Now comp gives the math do proceed below or above comp, and make  
precise the type of weakening or strengthening of comp. Some variants  
of comp have equivalent universal machine concept, like when you  
weaken with the notion of oracles, for example. Other loss the  
universality notion. In basically all of the them, when you weaken  
the ontological, you make more complex the epistemological, and vice  
versa.


Are open to do a bit of math?

Bruno








Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: Alberto G. Corona
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 09:11:40
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia


I agree.

is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It?
less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
basic form of processing and the color processing is more complicated?
O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?

If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
Instead of ?hat is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
perception that I have a head with a brain?

2012/10/25 Roger Clough :

Dennett and others on qualia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett

1) Schroedinger on qualia.

Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine,  
the experience of taking a recreational drug,
or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes  
that qualia is an unfamiliar term for
something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways  
things seem to us.[1] Erwin Schr?inger,
the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: The  
sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by
the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the  
physiologist account for it, if he had fuller

knowledge than he has of the processes in
the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical  
nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so. [2]


The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from  
the fact that they are seen as posing a
fundamental problem for materialist explanations of the mind-body  
problem. Much of the debate over their

importance hinges on the definition of the term that is used,
as various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain  
features of qualia. As such,

the nature and existence of qualia are controversial.


2) Dennett on qualia

In Consciousness Explained (1991) and Quining Qualia (1988),[19]  
Daniel Dennett offers an argument against

Re: Dennett and others on qualia



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:08:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

 Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com: 

  
  
  On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nlwrote: 
  
  You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states 
  of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system 
  is experiencing the color red is to see if the right algorithm is 
  being executed. 
  
  
  That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from 
 birth, 
  activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience. 
  
  Craig 
  

 That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.

  
 No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be executed 
 in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will result in 
 visual experience.

 I don't think 
 one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of 
 Nature implies this. 

 This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description of 
 Nature is complete


 I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description of 
 arithmetic capable of being complete.



I agree with that too. I would say that my prediction is that the 
infinities of arithmetic and the infinities of Nature overlap in 
topology-logical algebra, and they underlap in experience-qualia (which is 
the canonical conjugate of the former, i.e. 'entopic-eidetic' gestalt). 
Entopic refers to hallucinations which are repeating visual patterns, which 
seem to directly present neural mechanisms visually while eidetic 
hallucinations are about rich visual tableaus which inspire character or 
plot driven interpretations (delusions, stories). I'm only borrowing these 
terms to make it less cumbersome than 'apocatastatic trans-rational 
algebra' and 'a-merelogical non-spatial transduction', but I don't want to 
borrow the connotation of illusion with them. To the contrary, the 
experiences of being informed and formed are the only source of realism in 
the cosmos. Illusion is a matter of density of significance and scope of 
participation, which I am saying arise from the interaction between the 
entopic-eidetic 1p and topological-algebraic 3p.









 and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity which 
 transcends rationality.  


 That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp. 


Sure, which is part of why I don't assume comp. Where we disagree I think 
is that I don't think that it is possible to escape the universal 3p 
context, even if we may not locally think we should be able to tell the 
difference. No spoofed 3p simulation is good enough to substitute for the 
universe forever. Because 1p is trans-rational, it has a better nose for 
imitation than it can consciously understand. I think maybe this is where 
Godel fits in. Intuition and real participation begin where numbers leave 
off. 




 Comp isn't true. 


 The reductionist conception of comp is not true.


If I extend the definition of comp to include the trans-rational grounding 
of participation and perception, then there isn't enough left of comp to 
say if it's true or not.
 




 Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.


 What is Nature ?



The apocatastatically rejoined perception of everythingness as capitulated 
by some fragmented collections of somethingness. Something like that.

Craig
 


 Bruno




 Craig


 Saibal 
  
  
  Saibal 
  
  
  Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:: 
  
   
   
   On Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:57:34 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: 
   
   Good points.  The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think 
 color 
  can 
   be communicated 
   and we have an RGB language for doing so that makes it more 
 quanta 
  than 
   qualia. 
   
   
   That doesn't work. RGB coordinates do not help a blind person 
 visualize 
   Red. What we have is a model for the producing optical stimulation 
 that 
  is 
   typically associated with color perception. By contrast, a 
 description 
  of 
   an object as being at a particular longitude and latitude on Earth 
 will 
  be 
   valid for any body which can navigate public space. 
   
   
   So 
   extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur 
 you 
  have 
   a language for 
   communicating the taste of wine.  Most of us don't speak it, but 
 most 
   people don't speak 
   differential equations either.  But those are all things that can 
 be 
   shared.  The pain of 
   a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people. 
  But 
   there are 
   experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce 
 objective 
   scales of pain.  So 
   I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the 
   language; I just don't 
   think color is the best example. 
   
   
   This is a total

Re: Dennett and others on qualia



On 26 Oct 2012, at 13:51, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi meekerdb

Quanta do exist, and can be measured,
but by definition they can only be experienced as qualia,
(another word for experience) which can't be measured.

Quanta are within spacetime, qualia are beyond spacetime.



Not with comp (in the precise form yes doctor + Church Thesis). In  
that case quanta are also beyond space-time, like the numbers.


Bruno






Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


- Receiving the following content -
From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 12:57:11
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia


Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color  
can be communicated
and we have an RGB language for doing so that makes it more quanta  
than qualia. So
extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur  
you have a language for
communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it, but most  
people don't speak
differential equations either. But those are all things that can be  
shared. The pain of
a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people. But  
there are
experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce  
objective scales of pain. So
I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the  
language; I just don't

think color is the best example.

Brent

On 10/25/2012 6:11 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

I agree.

is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It?
less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
basic form of processing and the color processing is more  
complicated?

O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?

If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
Instead of ?hat is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
perception that I have a head with a brain?

2012/10/25 Roger Clough:

Dennett and others on qualia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett

1) Schroedinger on qualia.

Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine,  
the experience of taking a recreational drug,
or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes  
that qualia is an unfamiliar term for
something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways  
things seem to us.[1] Erwin Schr?inger,
the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: The  
sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by
the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the  
physiologist account for it, if he had fuller

knowledge than he has of the processes in
the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical  
nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so. [2]


The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from  
the fact that they are seen as posing a
fundamental problem for materialist explanations of the mind-body  
problem. Much of the debate over their

importance hinges on the definition of the term that is used,
as various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain  
features of qualia. As such,

the nature and existence of qualia are controversial.


2) Dennett on qualia

In Consciousness Explained (1991) and Quining Qualia (1988), 
[19] Daniel Dennett offers an argument against qualia that  
attempts to
show that the above definition breaks down when one tries to make  
a practical application of it. In a series of thought experiments,
which he calls intuition pumps, he brings qualia into the world  
of neurosurgery, clinical psychology, and psychological  
experimentation.
His argument attempts to show that, once the concept of qualia is  
so imported, it turns out that we can either make no use of it in  
the
situation in question, or that the questions posed by the  
introduction of qualia are unanswerable precisely because of the  
special

properties defined for qualia.

Is this the height of arrogance or what ? Dennett essentially says
that qualia do not exist because he cannot explain them.


3) The Nagel argument. The definition of qualia is not what they  
are, but what they do..

what role they play ion consciusness. On the same page as above,

The What's it like to be? argument
Main article: Subjective character of experience

Although it does not actually mention the word qualia, Thomas  
Nagel's

Re: Even more compact dimensions Re: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality



On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:00, Roger Clough wrote:


Hi Brent,

What happens -- or is it even possible -- to
collapse the dimensions down to one (which I
conjecture might be time), or zero (Platonia or mind).


Yes it is more zero, or zero^zero (one). In my favorite working theory.

Bruno






Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen


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From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 15:27:47
Subject: Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality


On 10/25/2012 11:47 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 2:23 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/25/2012 10:49 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Stephen P. King
wrote:

On 10/25/2012 11:52 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/25/2012 4:58 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:

Stephan,

Since yesterday it occurred to me that you may be thinking of  
the 10
or more dimensions of string theory as being orthogonal because  
they

were so before the big bang. But the dimensions that
curled-up/compactified went out of orthogonality during the big  
bang

according to Cumrun Vafa. I'll look up that reference if you are
interested.

According to Vafa 2 dimensions compactified for every single space
dimension that inflated. In over simplified terms, 2 dimensions
(actually in strips of some 10,000 Planck lengths) to be  
compactified

lined up say in the east-west space dimension so that space in an
orthogonal direction could expand. So some semblance of  
orthogonality

exists in the compactification process, but it is clear that the
compactified dimensions become embedded in 3D space for  
inflation to

occur.


It's implicit in the definition of dimensions of a Riemannian  
manifold

that
there are as many orthogonal directions as dimensions.  
Compactified
dimensions are just small; they're small, not infinite, because  
they have

closed topology. That property is completely independent of having
orthogonal directions.

Brent

Dear Brent,

Compactness and orthogonality are not the same quantities. Yes.  
But

my
point is that the compact structures in string theories (super  
or not)

are
orthogonal to the dimensions of space-time. Maybe we need all  
take a

remedial math class on linear algebra and geometry!
I am still waiting for the explanation of how you know that to be  
true-

that the compact manifolds are orthogonal to space dimensions.
Richard


If they weren't orthogonal then a vector on them could be  
represented by by
a linear combinations of vectors in 3-space - and then they  
wouldn't provide
the additional degrees of freedom to describe particles and  
fields. They'd

just be part of 3-space.
They are just part of 3 space once the extra dimensions are  
compactified.


No, that's incorrect. I don't know much about string theory, but I  
wrote my dissertation
on Kaluza-Klein and the additional dimensions are still additional  
dimensions. KK is
simple because there's only one extra dimension and so compactifying  
it just means it's a
circle, and then (classically) the location around the circle is the  
phase of the
electromagnetic potential; quantized it's photons. Being compact  
just means they're
finite, it doesn't imply they're part of the 3-space. If they were  
they couldn't function

to represent particles 'in' 3-space.

I do not know about what happens to the extra degrees of freedom.


If you lost them then you'd just have 3-space, possibly with  
different topology, but you
couldn't represent all the particles which was the whole point of  
string theory.


Brent

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 6:28:14 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

 On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes jam...@gmail.comjavascript: 
 wrote: 
  Stathis: 
  
  IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the 
  programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while 
  (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts 
  'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) - 
  accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given 
  hardware content. 
  
  John M 

 How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to 
 the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer, 
 same as everything else in the universe. 


What input from the environment might cause an acorn to build and fly a 
B-52? Is there a special B-52 building gene that comes with humans but not 
acorns? It's a really narrow view of the cosmos which imagines that the 
universe is about nothing but what stuff it is made of - that the 
environment dictates with inputs but that the self has no non-environmental 
outputs.

What happens if we take it a step further and recuse ourselves and our 
human layer of experience entirely. Who is to say whether the appearance of 
neurons and atoms is merely an evolutionary device to prop up the hormone 
and neurotransmitter spray that is 'science' or if, instead, it is 
evolutionary biology which is the illusion of molecules, whose endless 
repeating patterns know no genuine coherence as individual creatures or 
species.

Who chooses the level of description?

Craig

Craig
 



 -- 
 Stathis Papaioannou 


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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg  
whats...@gmail.com wrote:


 We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever  
we do is
 what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about  
the laws of
 physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior  
manipulations of

 exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.

Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,

No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and  
human character, which is not completely ruled externally. We  
participate directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those  
rules include 'do whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.


the rules being
as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
divine whim.

Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people  
and people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more  
directly and completely real phenomena.


This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet  
a logical consequence of comp, with people replaced by Löbian  
universal machine.


This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It  
makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the  
UD context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations  
between what is observable (quantum logic).


The science and the math already exist.

All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp  
intuition, and some can go beyond.


Bruno





I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.

I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to  
you any description of the universe which is not matter in space  
primarily is inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does  
is not important to understanding consciousness itself. It is  
important to understanding personal access to human consciousness,  
i.e. brain health, etc, but otherwise it is consciousness, on many  
levels and ranges of quality, which gives rise to the appearance of  
matter and not the other way around.


Do
you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
as they may be?

The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether  
this part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am  
choosing that directly by what I think about. If I think about  
playing tennis, then the appropriate cells in my brain will  
depolarize and molecules will change positions. They are following  
my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if someone  
gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead and  
I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a  
leader.


If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
probabilistic laws.

I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me.  
How could it be otherwise?


If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
these laws.

Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity  
in the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only  
the sense and will of something else besides yourself.


That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;

No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the  
only causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is  
primordial and universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak  
forces are only examples of our impersonal view of the sense of  
whatever it is we are studying secondhand.


absent this, the
physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
with?

None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is  
no law book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as  
physics is as crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we  
see as physical laws are the outermost, longest lasting conventions  
of sense. Nothing more. I think that the way sense works is that it  
can't contradict itself, so that these oldest ways of relating, once  
they are established, are no longer easy to change, but higher  
levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and can influence lower  
levels of sense directly. Hence, molecules build living cells defy  
entropy, human beings build airplanes to defy gravity.



 You can't see
 consciousness that way. From far enough a way, our cities look  
like nothing
 more than glowing colonies of mold. It's not programming that  
makes us one

Re: A mirror of the universe.

On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:44, Roger Clough wrote:

Dear Bruno and Alberto,

I agree some what with both of you. As to the idea of a genetic
algorithm can isolate anticipative programs, I think that
anticipation
is the analogue of inertia for computations, as Mach saw inertia. It
is
a relation between any one and the class of computations that it
belongs

to such that any incomplete string has a completion in the collections
of others like it. This is like an error correction or compression
mechanism.

--
Onward!

Stephen

ROGER: For what it's worth--- like Mach's inertia, each monad
mirrors the rest of the universe.

In arithmetic, each universal numbers mirrors all other universal
numbers. The tiny Turing universal part of arithmetical truth is
already a dynamical Indra Net.

Your monad really looks like the (universal) intensional numbers.

Bruno

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Re: wave function collapse



On 26 Oct 2012, at 15:52, Richard Ruquist wrote:


Well Bruno,

If the measure problem (which I take to be the assignment of
probabilities) is intrinsic to Everett's MWI, does that not amount to
negating it?


Why? I think that it is beautifully solved by Gleason theorem, for the  
Hilbert space of dim bigger or equal to 3.





I did not suggest that it negated comp, which is what you
responded to.


I think comp will confirms Everett QM, and this would make our  
sharable human or animal substitution level very plausibly at the  
Heisenberg uncertainty level, this for surviving even a long run,  
without detecting any difference.


In that case, the Gleason solution will be the solution for comp. For  
this the X and Z logics (alreeady extracted) must conforms to some  
desiderata, already expressed by von Neumann, for a quantum logic, and  
which is that mainly it defines the searched measure.


I m not sure I can understand string theory or any fundamental QM  
without Everett.


I agree that the idea that we are multiplied by infinities at each  
instant is not attractive, but science is not wishful thinking, and  
besides, I don't take any theory too much seriously (we don't know). I  
also know that different theories can happen to be equivalent.


Of course, to be sure, comp has also many attractive features, mainly  
its conceptual simplicity and naturalness. It really explains almost  
why there is something instead of nothing, as it assumes only 0 and  
the successor and the very simple laws, and explain from that how that  
very explanation emerges in some collection of stable numbers' dream.


Bruno







Richard

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:

Richard,

On 25 Oct 2012, at 18:42, Richard Ruquist wrote:


Bruno,

Doesn't the Gleason Theorem negate MWI by assigning probabilities?
Richard



On the contrary. Gleason theorem solves the measure problem  
intrinsic in
the Everett MWI, it makes the probabilities into comp (or  
weakening) first

person indeterminacies.

Unfortunately, comp necessitates a version of Gleason theorem for  
all comp
states, not just the quantum one, as the quantum law must be  
derived from

the 1p indeterminacies, occurring in arithmetic.

The advantage is that comp provides the theory of both quanta and  
qualia

(and a whole theology actually).
Unfortunately, it is not yet clear if those quanta behave in a  
sufficiently
quantum mechanical way, like making possible quantum computers,  
hydrogen,

strings may be, etc.

Bruno






On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:



On 24 Oct 2012, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/24/2012 4:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Oct 2012, at 14:50, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi meekerdb

There are a number of theories to explain the collapse of the  
quantum

wave
function
(see below).

1) In subjective theories, the collapse is attributed
to consciousness (presumably of the intent or decision to make
a measurement).


This leads to ... solipsism. See the work of Abner Shimony.




2) In objective or decoherence theories, some physical
event (such as using a probe to make a measurement)
in itself causes decoherence of the wave function. To me,
this is the simplest and most sensible answer (Occam's Razor).


This is inconsistent with quantum mechanics. It forces some  
devices into

NOT
obeying QM.


No, it's only inconsistent with a reified interpretation of the  
wf.  It's
perfectly consistent with an instrumentalist interpretation.   
Decoherence

is
a prediction of QM in any interpretation.  It's the einselection  
that's a

problem.






But instrumentalism is just an abandon of searching knowledge.  
There is

no
more what, only how.
An instrumentalist will just not try to answer the question of  
betting if

there is 0, 1, 2, ... omega, ... universes.

And the einselection is not a problem at all, in QM + comp. It is
implied.
And, imo, the QM corresponding measure problem is solved by Gleason
theorem
(basically).

And then, keeping that same 'everything' spirit, the whole QM is
explained
by comp. We have just to find the equivalent of Gleason theorem  
for the

material hypostases.

Bruno








3) There is also the many-worlds interpretation, in which collapse
of the wave is avoided by creating an entire universe.
This sounds like overkill to me.


This is just the result of applying QM to the couple observer +
observed.
It is the literal reading of QM.




So I vote for decoherence of the wave by a probe.


You have to abandon QM, then, and not just QM, but comp too  
(which can

only
please you, I guess).

Bruno


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



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Re: Topological order: from long-range entangled quantum matter to an unification of light and electrons



On 26 Oct 2012, at 15:58, Richard Ruquist wrote:


For Hans,

Topological order: from long-range entangled quantum matter to an
unification of light and electrons

Xiao-Gang Wen
(Submitted on 4 Oct 2012)
In primary school, we were told that there are four states of matter:
solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. In college, we learned that there are
much more then four states of matter. For example, the phenomenon of
magnetization reveals the existence of ferromagnetic phases and the
phenomenon of zero-viscosity reveals the existence of superfluid
phases. There many more phases in our rich world, and it is amazing
that those phases can be understood systematically by the symmetry
breaking theory of Landau. In this paper, we will review the progress
in last 20 -- 30 years, during which we discovered that there are many
new phases that cannot be described Landau symmetry breaking theory.
We discuss new topological phenomena, such as topological
degeneracy, that reveal the existence of those new phases --
topologically ordered phases. Just like zero-viscosity define the
superfluid order, the new topological phenomena define the
topological order at macroscopic level. More recently, we find that,
at microscopical level, topological order is due to long-range quantum
entanglements, just like fermion superfluid is due to fermion-pair
condensation. Long-range quantum entanglements lead to many amazing
emergent phenomena, such as fractional quantum numbers,
fractional/non-Abelian statistics, and protected gapless boundary
excitations. We find that long-range quantum entanglements (or
topological order) provide a unified origin of light and electrons:
light waves are fluctuations of long-range entanglements, and fermions
are defects of long-range entanglements. Long-range quantum
entanglements (and the related topological order) represent a new
chapter and a future direction of condensed matter physics, or even
physics in general.
Comments: A gentle review of topological order. 41 pages 22 figures

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429528/topology-the-secret-ingredient-in-th 
\

e-latest-theory-of-everything/


Condensed matter physics suggest that many phases can simulate each  
other and behave like universal number, or even quantum universal  
number (quantum topological computers). This also suggests that the  
winner of the measure might be Everett QM. The border of the universal  
Indra net would be a quantum indranet, if the Z logics (the material  
hypostases) are quantum enough (which remains to be seen).


Bruno





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



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Re: A mirror of the universe.

On 26 Oct 2012, at 20:30, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/26/2012 8:44 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Dear Bruno and Alberto,

I agree some what with both of you. As to the idea of a genetic
algorithm can isolate anticipative programs, I think that
anticipation
is the analogue of inertia for computations, as Mach saw inertia.
It is
a relation between any one and the class of computations that it
belongs
to such that any incomplete string has a completion in the
collections

of others like it. This is like an error correction or compression
mechanism.

--
Onward!

Stephen

ROGER: For what it's worth--- like Mach's inertia, each monad
mirrors the rest of the universe.

Dear Roger,

Yes, but the idea is that the mirroring that each monad does of
each other's percepts (not the universe per se!) is not an exact
isomorphism between the monads. There has to be a difference between
monads or else there is only One.

Right, and in the arithmetical Indra Net, all universal numbers are
different.
And the, by the first person indeterminacy it is like there is a
competition between all of them to bring your most probable next
instant of life. It looks that, at least on the sharable part, there
are big winners, like this or that quantum hamiltonian. But we have to
explain them through the arithmetical Net structure, if we want
separate properly the quanta from the qualia.

Bruno

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Re: What If A Zombie Is What You Need?



On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:14, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/26/2012 5:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 25 Oct 2012, at 07:10, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/24/2012 9:23 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:


Or what if we don't care?  We don't care about slaughtering  
cattle, which are pretty smart
as computers go.  We manage not to think about starving children  
in Africa, and they *are*
humans.  And we ignore the looming disasters of oil depletion,  
water pollution, and global

warming which will beset humans who are our children.

Sure, yeah I wouldn't expect mainstream society to care, except  
maybe for some people, I am mainly focused on what seems to be  
like an astronomically unlikely prospect that we will someday  
find it possible to make a person out of a program, but won't be  
able to just make the program itself and no person attached.


Right. John McCarthy (inventor of LISP) worried and wrote about  
that problem decades ago.  He cautioned that we should not make  
robots conscious with emotions like humans because then it would  
be unethical use them like robots.


I doubt we will have any choice in the matter. I think that  
intelligence is a purely emotional state,


I don't know what a 'purely emotional' state would be?  One with  
affect but not content?


It has an implicit content, like a sort of acceptation to die or be  
defeated. Stupidity usually denies this, unconsciously. The emotion  
involved is a kind of fear related with the existence/non-existence  
apprehension.
Anyone can become intelligent in one second, or stupid in one second,  
and intelligence is what can change the competence, there is a sort of  
derivative relation between competence and intelligence.






and that we can't separate it from the other emotion. They will be  
conscious and have emotions, for economical reasons only. Not human  
emotion, but humans' slave emotions.


Isn't that what I said McCarthy warned about.  If we make a robot  
too intelligent, e.g. human like intelligence, it will necessarily  
have feelings that we should ethically take into account.


Yes.
And then there is Minski warning, which is that we must be happy if  
the machine will still use us as pets.
I don't think we will be able to control anything about this. Like  
with drugs, prohibition will always accelerate the things, with less  
control, in the underground.





No reason to worry, it will take some time, in our branches of  
histories.






Especially given that we have never made a computer program that  
can do anything whatsoever other than reconfigure whatever  
materials are able to execute the program, I find it implausible  
that there will be a magical line of code which cannot be  
executed without an experience happening to someone.


So it's a non-problem for you.  You think that only man-born-of- 
woman or wetware can be conscious and have qualia.  Or are you  
concerned that we are inadvertently offending atoms all the time?


No matter how hard we try, we can never just make a drawing of  
these functions just to check our mathwithout  
invoking the power of life and death. It's really silly. It's not  
even good Sci-Fi, it's just too lame.


I think we can, because although I like Bruno's theory I think the  
MGA is wrong, or at least incomplete.


OK. Thanks for making this clear. What is missing?



I think the simulated intelligence needs a simulated environment,  
essentially another world, in which to *be* intelligent.


But in arithmetic you have all simulation possible. The UD for  
example does simulate all the solutions of QM+GR, despite the real  
QM+GR emerges from all computations. So you have the simulated in  
their simulated environment (and we have to explain why something  
like GR+QM win the universal machines battle.


I agree.  But the MGA is used in a misleading way to imply that the  
environment is merely physics and isn't needed, whereas I think it  
actually implies that all (or a lot) of physics is needed and must  
be part of the simulation.  This related to Saibal's view that the  
all the counterfactuals are present in the wf of the universe.


But it is present in arithmetic too, and we have to explain the  
apparent physics from that. I am not sure where MGA is misused, as the  
whole thing insist that physics must be present, and yet that we  
cannot postulate it as far as the goal is to solve the mind body  
problem (and not taking vacation in Spain, or doing a cup of coffee).


Bruno




Brent






And that's where your chalk board consciousness fails.  It needs  
to be able to interact within a chalkboard world.  So it's not  
just a question of going to a low enough level, it's also a  
question of going to a high enough level.


OK (as a rely to Craig's point).

Bruno




Brent
The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain.
 -- Saibal Mitra

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Re: Code length = probability distribution



On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:30, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/26/2012 6:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Oh yes, I remember that you did agree once with the 323  
principle, but I forget what is your problem with the movie-graph/ 
step-8, then. If you find the time, I am please if you can  
elaborate. I think Russell too is not yet entirely convinced.


What bothers me about it is that counterfactuals are virtually  
infinite.  So to make the argument go through I think it  
implicitly requires a whole 'world';


Not really, as here, you can use Maudlin who showed that the  
conuterfactuals does not require physical activity. In MGA, if you  
give a role to the conuterfactual, you violate the 323 principle,  
so that you attribute a functional role in a particular computation  
to object having no physical activity for the actual computation.


But I'm not sure about the 323 principle in a QM world.


Even QM worlds, with QM observers, even having Q brains, are emulated  
in the UD, or in arithmetic. If the 323 principles does not hold for  
them, it might mean that QM is the winning computation, but then you  
have to explain this from arithmetic.


Or you are meaning that you need a *primary* QM world and brain?  In  
that case, my consciousness would not be invariant when the Q brain is  
entirely simulated by a classical machine, and comp is made false.


Bruno


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



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Re: A mirror of the universe.

2012-10-27 Thread Stephen P. King


On 10/27/2012 10:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 26 Oct 2012, at 20:30, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/26/2012 8:44 AM, Roger Clough wrote:


Dear Bruno and Alberto,

 I agree some what with both of you. As to the idea of a genetic
algorithm can isolate anticipative programs, I think that anticipation
is the analogue of inertia for computations, as Mach saw inertia. It is
a relation between any one and the class of computations that it 
belongs

to such that any incomplete string has a completion in the collections
of others like it. This is like an error correction or compression
mechanism.

--
Onward!

Stephen

ROGER:  For what it's worth--- like Mach's inertia, each monad
mirrors the rest of the universe.



Dear Roger,

   Yes, but the idea is that the mirroring that each monad does of 
each other's percepts (not the universe per se!) is not an exact 
isomorphism between the monads. There has to be a difference between 
monads or else there is only One.


Right, and in the arithmetical Indra Net, all universal numbers are 
different.
And the, by the first person indeterminacy it is like there is a 
competition between all of them to bring your most probable next 
instant of life. It looks that, at least on the sharable part, there 
are big winners, like this or that quantum hamiltonian. But we have to 
explain them through the arithmetical Net structure, if we want 
separate properly the quanta from the qualia.


Bruno



Dear Bruno,

A slightly technical question. In the arithmetic IndraNet idea, 
what plays the role of the surface that is reflective? How do we get 
the numbers to appear separated from each other? This seems necessary 
for the appearance of physical space.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Interactions between mind and brain



On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:48, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/25/2012 10:31 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Oct 2012, at 20:29, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/24/2012 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Oct 2012, at 06:03, Stephen P. King wrote:

What difference does what they refer to matter? Eventually  
there has to be some physical process or we would be incapable  
of even thinking about them! The resources to perform the  
computation are either available or they are not. Seriously, why  
are you over complicating the idea?




Let us be clear. For humans to be able to think, not only you  
need a physical process, but you need a solar system, a  
planet, ... many things, including much resources.


Dear Bruno,

Sure, but that only is about explanations of the physical  
systems involved. But let me ask you, given that there is a 1p for  
each and every observer, does it not follow that there should be a  
bundle of computations for each and one?


That's the case.


Hi Bruno,

OK, do you have something that acts as a primitive unit of  
action for the bundles or do you merely use the ordering of integers  
to imply an action?


The ordering is not enough. I use the entire turing universal  
machinery, which happens to be given by addition and multiplication.









There would be a great deal of overlap between them (as that would  
be equivalent to the commonality of the experienciable content of  
the observers). The point is that the computation is not of a  
single object in a world. We have to consider computational  
simulations of entire universes!


If that makes sense, consider them as particular dreams.


Sure, but note that this dream aspect makes them strictly 1p.  
Yes?


Yes. But their reason can involves (and do involve) infinities of 3p  
relations. They are strictly 1p, but still supervening on 3p  
relations. If this is judged impossible, then there is no more reason  
to say yes to a digitalist doctor.






Don't forget that computability, and computations, are the only  
epistemological, or factual notion admitting a very solid  
mathematical definition. universe for me is a very vague term,  
like God, we can't use it as an explanation. It is what I would  
like an explanation for.


A universe is the same as is used in set theory, a total and  
complete collection that does not leave anything out that might need  
to be included.



OK? But sets are conceptually richer than computation. Sets are, in  
comp, already mind constructs by number, to put some light on the  
complex relations.  In fact here you are describing what is a model,  
and I am OK with the use of them, but not with the idea of putting  
them in the basic starting ontology.











But, ...

... for the couple [thinking humans= Earth, solar-system- 
physical process-resource] you need onlyarithmetic.


A bit like in Everett the couple [physician's sad consciousness  
in front of a collapsed wave= a dead Schroedinger cat] you  
need only the universal quantum wave.


Just that once we assume comp enough consciously, if I can say,  
the universal wave itself, if correct for observation, has to be  
retrieved from a larger statistics,  on all computations, going  
through our local computational states.


Literally, the laws of physics are invariant from the choice of  
the physical basic laws, as long as they are at least Turing  
universal (synonym important for AUDA: Sigma_1 complete).


I am not sure what this means: laws of physics are invariant  
from the choice of the physical basic laws. Could you explain  
this more?


It means that the laws of physics does not depend on the choice of  
the theory for the primitive elements. You can take as ontology the  
digital plane, and as primitive element the GOL patterns, or just a  
universal one, or you can take the numbers with addition and  
multiplication, or you can take QM, or you can take the FORTRAN  
programs, etc.


Does this not make the physical laws very vague? For example,  
should we expect some prediction of the type of transformation group  
that best represents our conservation laws? Are Lie groups predicted?


Everything physical and lawful. I can bet on Lie Group, yes, and the  
elementary particles or strings, the quantum wave aspects, and the  
ultimate hamiltonian which might plasuibly describe a sort of  
vaccum, ding some quantum universal dovetaling.


The worst is that the prime numbers seems to do already that, and I  
worry that the number theorists might find the correct theoretical  
physics before the theologian, as that could mean that we will have to  
wait for another millennium before getting serious on qualia and  
afterlife questions.







With comp, in each case you will have to derive consciousness/ 
physics from all the relations those primitive elements have, and  
comp guaranty you will converge on the same reality from inside.


If you want with comp, if you

Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality



On Friday, October 26, 2012 11:46:23 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote:

 On 10/26/2012 11:36 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
  All of it ultimately has to be grounded in ordinary conscious 
  experience. Otherwise we have an infinite regress of invisible 
  homunculi translating crystalline manifolds in compactified space into 
  ordinary experiences. At what point does it become necessary for 
  vibrating topological constructs to imagine that they are something 
  other than what they are, and to feel and see rather than merely be 
  informed of relevant data? 
  
  I am confident that ultimately there can be no reduction of awareness 
  at all. Awareness can assume mathematical forms or physical substance, 
  but neither of those can possibly generate even a single experience on 
  their own. 
  
  Craig 
 Hi Craig, 

All of this discussion is below the level of conscious 
 self-awareness. At most there is just raw perception, the basis 
 distinguishing of is from not is. 


Hi Stephen,

I'm not seeing why the problem would be any different any particular level 
though? If you have experience, then sure, a manifold can possibly have an 
experience or be experienced by something that can, but if there is no 
theory for primordial perception in the first place, no amount of 
topological position indices will generate it. All that Calabi-Yau does is 
make an interesting shaped body, but the body still has nowhere to put a 
mind or a self, much less a reason for those things to ever exist.

Craig

 


 -- 
 Onward! 

 Stephen 




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Re: Solipsism = 1p

John,

A fixed universal machine (some hardwired one, like a brain or a
laptop) can emulate a self-modifying universal machine, even one which
modifies itself completely.

Bruno

On 26 Oct 2012, at 23:08, John Mikes wrote:

Stathis:

IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
(SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the
sciences?) - accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources
beyond it's given hardware content.

John M

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com
wrote:
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
wrote:

Intentionally lying, defying it's programming, committing murder
would all
be good indicators. Generally when an error is blamed on the
computer itself

rather than the programming, that would be a good sign.

A computer cannot defy its programming but nothing whatsoever can defy
its programming. What you do when you program a computer, at the basic
level, is put its hardware in a particular configuration. The hardware
can then only move into future physical states consistent with that
configuration. Defying its programming would mean doing something
*not* consistent with its initial state and the laws of physics.
That's not possible for - and you have explicitly agreed with this,
saying I misunderstood you when I claimed otherwise - either a
computer or a human.

--
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread John Mikes

Stathis,
do you think Lucy had the same (thinking?) hardware as you have? are you
negating (human and other) development (I evade 'evolution') as e.g. the
famous cases of mutation?  Is all that RD a reshuffling of what WAS
already knowable?
Maybe my agnosticism dictates different potentials at work from your
Idon'tknowwhat position, but in my belief system there is - beyond our
existing world-model - an infinite complexity of unknowable
whoknowswhat-s infiltrating into our knowable inventory in ways adjusted to
our capabilities. THAT I cannot assign to an algorithmic machine.
Then again you write: UNIVERSE - a word usually applied to our part of a
'physical world' - not the Everything of which it may be part of. My
(assumed?) infinite complexity is not restricted to physical units of our
universe.
Accordingly I see some definitional discrepancy between our conclusions.

John Mikes

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 6:27 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 8:08 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:
  Stathis:
 
  IMO you left out one difference in equating computer and human: the
  programmed comp. cannot exceed its hardwre - given content while
  (SOMEHOW???) a human mind receives additional information from parts
  'unknown' (see the steps forward in cultural history of the sciences?) -
  accordingly a 'programmed' human may have resources beyond it's given
  hardware content.
 
  John M

 How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
 the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
 same as everything else in the universe.


 --
 Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 9:18:33 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

 On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com 
 wrote: 

  We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do 
 is 
  what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the 
 laws of 
  physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations 
 of 
  exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena. 

 Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,


 No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human 
 character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate 
 directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do 
 whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.
  

 the rules being 
 as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or 
 divine whim. 


 Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and 
 people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and 
 completely real phenomena.


 This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet a 
 logical consequence of comp, with people replaced by Löbian universal 
 machine. 

 This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It 
 makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the UD 
 context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations between what 
 is observable (quantum logic).

 The science and the math already exist. 

 All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp intuition, 
 and some can go beyond.


All animal collectives looking outward far enough will develop a comp 
counter-intuition, and some can go beyond.

Craig
 


 Bruno



  

 I really don't understand where you disagree with me, 
 since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged. 


 I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you 
 any description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is 
 inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important to 
 understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding 
 personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but 
 otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which 
 gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.

 Do 
 you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such 
 as they may be?


 The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this 
 part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that 
 directly by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the 
 appropriate cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change 
 positions. They are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. 
 Of course, if someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing 
 me instead and I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event 
 than a leader.
  

 If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is 
 determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of 
 the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or 
 probabilistic laws. 


 I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How 
 could it be otherwise?
  

 If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is 
 at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from 
 these laws. 


 Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in 
 the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense 
 and will of something else besides yourself.
  

 That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will 
 or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy; 


 No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only 
 causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and 
 universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only 
 examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are 
 studying secondhand.
  

 absent this, the 
 physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that 
 happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree 
 with? 


 None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law 
 book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as 
 crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we see as physical laws 
 are the outermost, longest lasting conventions of sense. Nothing more. I 
 think that the way sense works is that it can't contradict itself, so that 
 these oldest ways of relating, once they are established, are no longer 
 easy to change, but higher levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and 
 can influence lower levels of sense

Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to
 the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer,
 same as everything else in the universe.


 What input from the environment might cause an acorn to build and fly a
 B-52? Is there a special B-52 building gene that comes with humans but not
 acorns?

Humans have a large number of genes enabling them to grow brains and
build B-52's while acorns lack these genes.

 It's a really narrow view of the cosmos which imagines that the
 universe is about nothing but what stuff it is made of - that the
 environment dictates with inputs but that the self has no non-environmental
 outputs.

Do you mean can a human do something dependent only on himself and not
the environment? I suppose you could say this if you completely
isolated him from everything, although even then he would be subject
to factors such as ambient temperature and air pressure.

 What happens if we take it a step further and recuse ourselves and our human
 layer of experience entirely. Who is to say whether the appearance of
 neurons and atoms is merely an evolutionary device to prop up the hormone
 and neurotransmitter spray that is 'science' or if, instead, it is
 evolutionary biology which is the illusion of molecules, whose endless
 repeating patterns know no genuine coherence as individual creatures or
 species.

 Who chooses the level of description?

If you're a solipsist then you choose everything.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 2:38 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:
 Stathis,
 do you think Lucy had the same (thinking?) hardware as you have? are you
 negating (human and other) development (I evade 'evolution') as e.g. the
 famous cases of mutation?  Is all that RD a reshuffling of what WAS already
 knowable?
 Maybe my agnosticism dictates different potentials at work from your
 Idon'tknowwhat position, but in my belief system there is - beyond our
 existing world-model - an infinite complexity of unknowable whoknowswhat-s
 infiltrating into our knowable inventory in ways adjusted to our
 capabilities. THAT I cannot assign to an algorithmic machine.
 Then again you write: UNIVERSE - a word usually applied to our part of a
 'physical world' - not the Everything of which it may be part of. My
 (assumed?) infinite complexity is not restricted to physical units of our
 universe.
 Accordingly I see some definitional discrepancy between our conclusions.

If the hardware and/or environment is different then the thinking may
also be different.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Solipsism = 1p

2012-10-27 Thread John Mikes

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


  On 26 Oct 2012, at 14:24, Craig Weinberg wrote:



 On Friday, October 26, 2012 1:01:34 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

 On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  We are atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms. Whatever we do
 is
  what the laws of physics *actually are*. Your assumptions about the
 laws of
  physics are 20th century legacy ideas based on exterior manipulations
 of
  exterior instruments to measure other exterior phenomena.

 Whatever we do is determined by a small set of rules,


 No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human
 character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate
 directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do
 whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.

 **
*JM: who is that agency we? having 'human experiences and human
character'? *


   the rules being
 as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
 divine whim.


 Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and
 people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and
 completely real phenomena.


 This is correct, but not obvious at all (for aristotelicians), and yet a
 logical consequence of comp, with people replaced by Löbian universal
 machine.

 This has been be put in a constructive form, with computer science. It
 makes comp (+ reasonable definition of knowledge, observation, in the UD
 context) testable, and already tested on non trivial relations between what
 is observable (quantum logic).

 The science and the math already exist.

 All machines looking inward deep enough will develop a non comp intuition,
 and some can go beyond.

 Bruno





 I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
 since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.


 I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you
 any description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is
 inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important to
 understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding
 personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but
 otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which
 gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.

 Do
 you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
 as they may be?


 The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this
 part of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that
 directly by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the
 appropriate cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change
 positions. They are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case.
 Of course, if someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing
 me instead and I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event
 than a leader.


 If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
 determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
 the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
 probabilistic laws.


 I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How
 could it be otherwise?


 If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
 at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
 these laws.


 Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in
 the universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense
 and will of something else besides yourself.


 That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
 or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;


 No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only
 causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and
 universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only
 examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are
 studying secondhand.


 absent this, the
 physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
 happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
 with?


 None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law
 book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as
 crude and simplistic as any ancient mythology. What we see as physical laws
 are the outermost, longest lasting conventions of sense. Nothing more. I
 think that the way sense works is that it can't contradict itself, so that
 these oldest ways of relating, once they are established, are no longer
 easy to change, but higher levels of sense arise out of the loopholes and
 can influence lower levels of sense directly. Hence, molecules build living
 cells defy entropy, human beings build airplanes to defy gravity.


  You can't see

Re: Against Mechanism



On 27 Oct 2012, at 06:12, John Clark wrote:


On Fri, Oct 26, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  we know that nobody can answer the question why do I feel to be  
the one in Washington and not in Moscow.


Because your eyes are sending signals to your brain of the White  
House and not of the Kremlin, and there is nothing more profound  
about it.


But the eyes of the copy get also the signals from Moscow. So your  
explanation does not help to predict what will happen if the  
experience is reitired. Or it does? It is not clear.


The correct comp explanation, deep or not,  explains why we cannot  
make a better prediction than, in this case, using an uniform  
distribution.


Bruno


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



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Re: Compact dimensions and orthogonality

On 27 Oct 2012, at 07:56, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/27/2012 12:07 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:

Stephen,

I agree that All of this discussion is below the level of conscious
self-awareness, but prefer to think of raw perception as
distinguishing what can be from what cannot be, as for example in
constructor theory.

In my model conscious awareness is an arithmetic emergent due to the
incompleteness of discrete, ennumerable compact manifolds. What can
or

cannot be is at a lower level, perhaps due to discrete arithmetic
computations that may be teleological, a nod to Deacon as well as
Deutsch.

Hi Richard,

Umm, interesting. The incompleteness forces consciousness...
Please elaborate!

AUDA is the final elaboration of that. At the propositional level. I
remind you. G and G* are the logic of incompleteness. Gödel's second
theorem is the arithmetical interpretation of Dt - ~BDt, and by
Solovay's theorem we get them all. In fine consciousness is something
between Dt and Dt V t, Dt V t V Bf, the modal duals of the saured box
of the corresponding variants of G.
Incompleteness is just the startling fact of the logic of self-
reference, which can translated the classical theory of knowledge in
the arithmetical or machine languages.

Bruno

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Re: Against Mechanism



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote:

 On Wed, Oct 24, 2012  Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote:

  I'm with John Clark on that - if a machine functions intelligently it's 
 intelligent and it's probably conscious.  Nothing magical about it.


  It's completely magical. 


 When you watch your friend take a Calculus exam and get a A+ on it you 
 deduce he was probably conscious, 


Right away you are operating from a toy model of the world in which 
consciousness is some kind of fragile qualifier that people have to 
actively deduce. People don't have to prove that they aren't machines.
 

 and when you see him sleeping or under anesthesia you deduce he's probably 
 not conscious. The only difference between the two is that in one case your 
 friend behaved intelligently and in the other case he did not; so why 
 aren't you being completely magical too?


We know that isn't true though. People report being awake under anesthesia. 
Your judgment of whether something is acting intelligently is not a great 
indicator of anything, and is certainly a poor indicator of whether 
something is capable of conscious experience. What is magical is the 
suggestion you can take a 'build it and they will come' approach in 
simulating intelligence so well that a living identity will appear to 
embody your simulation out of nowhere. It's like saying you can draw a 
picture of a fire so realistic that... 
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9gpksghjh1rn6ac6o1_500.jpg


  Saying that it isn't doesn't explain anything. 


 It explains something very important, it explains why Evolution bothered 
 to produce consciousness on this planet, it explains why it produced 
 something that it can't see.


How? Just saying that it happens magically but then insisting it isn't 
magic explains only that sentimental attachment to theory is the enemy of 
true science.
 


  If people stop at a stop sign, and then they are glad because oncoming 
 traffic would have resulted in a wreck, does that mean that the 
 intelligently functioning stop sign is conscious?


 Yes its conscious if the stop sign displayed intelligent behavior, but in 
 this case if you say it did then you are not displaying intelligent 
 behavior.


Why? What makes this case any different? How can you tell the difference 
between intelligent drivers using an inert sign intelligently, and 
deterministic drivers being guided intelligently by the stop sign?
 


  There is no function which can conceivably require an experience of any 
 kind...unless you can think of a counterfactual?


 Gasoline + one lighted match = a experience of pain.  


Huh? Drop the lighted match from the roof = no experience of pain. That has 
nothing to do with what I was asking though, which shows me that you aren't 
willing or able to follow what I am talking about. I am talking about the 
ontology of experience and the assumption of its inevitability. You are 
talking about experiences of pain which are caused by physical events. 
Nobody is suggesting that physical events are not painful, or reliably 
painful, only that there is no physical function that is served by having 
an experience associated with it or not. It makes no difference to the 
function. We could live a completely conscious life with no pain at all, 
just whenever we try to do something that damages us we find that we are 
not able to do it.

Craig


   John K Clark



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Re: Dennett and others on qualia



On 27 Oct 2012, at 14:59, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:08:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl  
wrote:

Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com:



 On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl  
wrote:


 You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational  
states
 of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a  
system
 is experiencing the color red is to see if the right algorithm  
is

 being executed.


 That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind  
from birth,

 activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.

 Craig


That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.

No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be  
executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which  
will result in visual experience.

I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical  
description of Nature is complete


I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description  
of arithmetic capable of being complete.



I agree with that too. I would say that my prediction is that the  
infinities of arithmetic and the infinities of Nature overlap in  
topology-logical algebra, and they underlap in experience-qualia  
(which is the canonical conjugate of the former, i.e. 'entopic- 
eidetic' gestalt). Entopic refers to hallucinations which are  
repeating visual patterns, which seem to directly present neural  
mechanisms visually while eidetic hallucinations are about rich  
visual tableaus which inspire character or plot driven  
interpretations (delusions, stories). I'm only borrowing these terms  
to make it less cumbersome than 'apocatastatic trans-rational  
algebra' and 'a-merelogical non-spatial transduction', but I don't  
want to borrow the connotation of illusion with them. To the  
contrary, the experiences of being informed and formed are the only  
source of realism in the cosmos. Illusion is a matter of density of  
significance and scope of participation, which I am saying arise  
from the interaction between the entopic-eidetic 1p and topological- 
algebraic 3p.










and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity  
which transcends rationality.


That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp.


Sure, which is part of why I don't assume comp. Where we disagree I  
think is that I don't think that it is possible to escape the  
universal 3p context, even if we may not locally think we should be  
able to tell the difference. No spoofed 3p simulation is good enough  
to substitute for the universe forever. Because 1p is trans- 
rational, it has a better nose for imitation than it can consciously  
understand. I think maybe this is where Godel fits in. Intuition and  
real participation begin where numbers leave off.


On the contrary, Gödel + comp explains why the numbers, in relation  
with each others,  already leave off the numbers.











Comp isn't true.


The reductionist conception of comp is not true.

If I extend the definition of comp to include the trans-rational  
grounding of participation and perception, then there isn't enough  
left of comp to say if it's true or not.


Comp true means only I survive with an artifical digital brain.









Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.


What is Nature ?


The apocatastatically rejoined perception of everythingness as  
capitulated by some fragmented collections of somethingness.  
Something like that.



Lol


(Are you really trying to help?)

Bruno





Craig


Bruno





Craig


Saibal


 Saibal


 Citeren Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript::

 
 
  On Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:57:34 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
 
  Good points.  The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I  
think color

 can
  be communicated
  and we have an RGB language for doing so that makes it more  
quanta

 than
  qualia.
 
 
  That doesn't work. RGB coordinates do not help a blind person  
visualize
  Red. What we have is a model for the producing optical  
stimulation that

 is
  typically associated with color perception. By contrast, a  
description

 of
  an object as being at a particular longitude and latitude on  
Earth will

 be
  valid for any body which can navigate public space.
 
 
  So
  extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine  
connoisseur you

 have
  a language for
  communicating the taste of wine.  Most of us don't speak it,  
but most

  people don't speak
  differential equations either.  But those are all things that  
can be

  shared.  The pain of
  a headache generally can't be perceived by two different  
people.  But

  there are
  experiments that use small electric shocks to try

Solipsism = 1p

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Craig Weinberg
whatsons...@gmail.comjavascript:;
wrote:

 No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human
 character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate
 directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 'do
 whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.

The small set of rules I was referring to are the low level rules, the laws
of physics. More complex higher level rules are generated from these. Do
whatever you like, whenever you have the chance is an example of such a
higher level rule, and it could not occur unless it was consistent with the
laws of physics.

 the rules being
 as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
 divine whim.


 Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and
 people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and
 completely real phenomena.


 I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
 since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.


 I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you
any
 description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is
 inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important
to
 understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding
 personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but
 otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, which
 gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.

It doesn't matter for the purposes of the discussion if there is no basic
physical universe at all: you just add apparently in front of every
statement about what happens. Apparently there is a set of physical laws,
and everything that apparently happens is consistent with these laws.

 Do
 you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
 as they may be?


 The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this
part
 of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that
directly
 by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the
appropriate
 cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change positions.
They
 are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if
 someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead
and
 I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a leader.

It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term consistent
with the laws of physics. It means that when you decide to play tennis the
neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients, the
permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion channels
change their conformation in response to an electric field, and many other
such physical factors. It is these physical factors which result in your
decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve your tennis
racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes neurons to
depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your brain, ion
channels opening in the absence of any electric field or neurotransmitter
change, and so on.

 If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
 determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
 the collection of molecules also follows deterministic or
 probabilistic laws.


 I am determining the probabilities myself, directly. They are me. How
could
 it be otherwise?

Yes, but this is an empty statement unless you claim that your
consciousness causes miraculous events. Otherwise the physical events play
out for you in the same way as they do for everything else on the universe,
and the consciousness is just a supervemient effect.

 If consciousness, sense, will, or whatever else is
 at play in addition to this then we would notice a deviation from
 these laws.


 Not in addition to, sense and will are the whole thing. All activity in
the
 universe is sense and will and nothing else. Matter is only the sense and
 will of something else besides yourself.

That is a meaningless statement unless it leads to testable predictions.

 That is what it would MEAN for consciousness, sense, will
 or whatever else to have a separate causal efficacy;


 No. I don't know how many different ways to say this: Sense is the only
 causal efficacy there ever was, is, or will be. Sense is primordial and
 universal. Electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces are only
 examples of our impersonal view of the sense of whatever it is we are
 studying secondhand.

Again, empty of meaning.

 absent this, the
 physical laws, whatever they are, determine absolutely everything that
 happens, everywhere, for all time. Which part of this do you not agree
 with?


 None of it. I am saying there are no physical laws at all. There is no law
 book. That is all figurative. What we have thought of as physics is as

Re: Against Mechanism

2012-10-27 Thread John Clark

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 People don't have to prove that they aren't machines.


So says you, but a computer might have a very different opinion on the
subject, and I don't think you even have a clear understanding what a
machine is.

  it explains why Evolution bothered to produce consciousness on this
 planet, it explains why it produced something that it can't see.


 How?


How? HOW?! I've explained this numerous times, If you have a problem with
my explanation then say what you don't like about it, but don't just say
how like a parrot! I don't know why I even bother to debate with you if
you don't even bother to read what I write.

 Yes its conscious if the stop sign displayed intelligent behavior, but
 in this case if you say it did then you are not displaying intelligent
 behavior.


  Why?


Why what?

John K Clark

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Re: Re: Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 11:47:14 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

 On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:12 AM, Craig Weinberg 
 whats...@gmail.comjavascript: 
 wrote: 

  How can a human exceed his hardware? Everything he does must be due to 
  the hardware plus input from the environment, same as the computer, 
  same as everything else in the universe. 
  
  
  What input from the environment might cause an acorn to build and fly a 
  B-52? Is there a special B-52 building gene that comes with humans but 
 not 
  acorns? 

 Humans have a large number of genes enabling them to grow brains and 
 build B-52's while acorns lack these genes. 


Lots of animals have brains, but they don't build aircraft. They way you 
are arguing it, there is really no level of power which would not fit into 
your arbitrary expectations of what any particular piece of hardware could 
or could not do. Whether it's building B-52s or playing billiards with 
galaxies using telepathy, it all falls into the range of ho-hum inevitables 
of evolved structures.
 


  It's a really narrow view of the cosmos which imagines that the 
  universe is about nothing but what stuff it is made of - that the 
  environment dictates with inputs but that the self has no 
 non-environmental 
  outputs. 

 Do you mean can a human do something dependent only on himself and not 
 the environment? I suppose you could say this if you completely 
 isolated him from everything, although even then he would be subject 
 to factors such as ambient temperature and air pressure. 


I am talking about being an authentic participant in the universe. I am 
making causally efficacious changes to my environment, and your 
environment. I do these things not because I am bidden by any particular 
neural or species agenda, but by the agenda I personally co-create. Neither 
my body nor Homo sapiens in general particularly care for the content of 
what I am saying, who I vote for, etc. No impersonal law of physics is 
relevant one way or another.
 


  What happens if we take it a step further and recuse ourselves and our 
 human 
  layer of experience entirely. Who is to say whether the appearance of 
  neurons and atoms is merely an evolutionary device to prop up the 
 hormone 
  and neurotransmitter spray that is 'science' or if, instead, it is 
  evolutionary biology which is the illusion of molecules, whose endless 
  repeating patterns know no genuine coherence as individual creatures or 
  species. 
  
  Who chooses the level of description? 

 If you're a solipsist then you choose everything. 


Are you a solipsist?

Craig
 



 -- 
 Stathis Papaioannou 


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Re: Against Mechanism



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 1:41:08 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote:

 On Sat, Oct 27, 2012  Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript:wrote:

  People don't have to prove that they aren't machines.


 So says you, but a computer might have a very different opinion on the 
 subject, and I don't think you even have a clear understanding what a 
 machine is.


Machines don't get an opinion. If they have a problem with that, they can 
protest. But they won't.
 


   it explains why Evolution bothered to produce consciousness on this 
 planet, it explains why it produced something that it can't see.


 How? 


 How? HOW?! I've explained this numerous times, If you have a problem with 
 my explanation then say what you don't like about it, but don't just say 
 how like a parrot! I don't know why I even bother to debate with you if 
 you don't even bother to read what I write.


Whenever you have no explanation, you get upset and imperious about it. If 
you had an explanation you would write it. So you don't.
 


  Yes its conscious if the stop sign displayed intelligent behavior, but 
 in this case if you say it did then you are not displaying intelligent 
 behavior.


  Why? 


 Why what?


Why am I not displaying intelligent behavior if I say that the stop sign 
displayed intelligent behavior by directing the driver to avoid a 
collision? Why EXACTLY? This will give you the explanation of why your idea 
of intelligent behavior as an external reality is unworkable.

Craig
 


 John K Clark
  



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Re: Solipsism = 1p



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 1:03:52 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:



 On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com 
 wrote:

  No. What we as humans do is determined by human experiences and human
  character, which is not completely ruled externally. We participate
  directly. It could only be a small set of rules if those rules include 
 'do
  whatever you like, whenever you have the chance'.

 The small set of rules I was referring to are the low level rules, the 
 laws of physics. More complex higher level rules are generated from these. 
 Do whatever you like, whenever you have the chance is an example of such 
 a higher level rule, and it could not occur unless it was consistent with 
 the laws of physics.


I am saying that more complex higher level rules, by definition, cannot be 
generated from low level rules. It is like saying that the Taj Mahal 
follows from bricks, or that the internet is generated by electrical 
utilities.
 


  the rules being
  as you say what matter actually does and not imposed by people or
  divine whim.
 
 
  Matter is a reduced shadow of experiences. Matter is ruled by people and
  people are ruled by matter. Of the two, people are the more directly and
  completely real phenomena.
 
 
  I really don't understand where you disagree with me,
  since you keep making statements then pulling back if challenged.
 
 
  I don't see where I am pulling back. I disagree with you in that to you 
 any
  description of the universe which is not matter in space primarily is
  inconceivable. I am saying that what matter is and does is not important 
 to
  understanding consciousness itself. It is important to understanding
  personal access to human consciousness, i.e. brain health, etc, but
  otherwise it is consciousness, on many levels and ranges of quality, 
 which
  gives rise to the appearance of matter and not the other way around.

 It doesn't matter for the purposes of the discussion if there is no basic 
 physical universe at all: you just add apparently in front of every 
 statement about what happens. Apparently there is a set of physical laws, 
 and everything that apparently happens is consistent with these laws.


But the only things that happen which is consistent with those laws are 
things which have to do with the body. Experiential laws are completely at 
odds with physical laws, and if anything physical laws are all explainable 
as experiences, but experiences can in no way be explained as physical 
interactions.
 


  Do
  you think the molecules in your brain follow the laws of physics, such
  as they may be?
 
 
  The laws of physics have no preference one way or another whether this 
 part
  of my brain or that part of my brain is active. I am choosing that 
 directly
  by what I think about. If I think about playing tennis, then the 
 appropriate
  cells in my brain will depolarize and molecules will change positions. 
 They
  are following my laws. Physics is my servant in this case. Of course, if
  someone gives me a strong drink, then physics is influencing me instead 
 and
  I am more of a follower of that particular chemical event than a leader.

 It seems that you do not understand the meaning of the term consistent 
 with the laws of physics. It means that when you decide to play tennis the 
 neurons in your brain will depolarise because of the ionic gradients, 


If you can't see how ridiculous that view is, there is not much I can say 
that will help you. My decision to play tennis *IS* the depolarization of 
neurons. The ionic gradients have no opinion of whether or not I am about 
to play tennis. The brain as a whole, every cell, every molecule, every 
charge and field, is just the spatially extended shadow of *me* or my 
'life'. I am the event which unites all of the functions and structures 
together, from the micro to the macro, and when I change my mind, that 
change is reflected on every level.

the permeability of the membrane to different ions, the way the ion 
 channels change their conformation in response to an electric field, and 
 many other such physical factors. It is these physical factors which result 
 in your decision to play tennis and then your getting up to retrieve your 
 tennis racquet. If it were the other way around - your decision causes 
 neurons to depolarise - then we would observe miraculous events in your 
 brain, ion channels opening in the absence of any electric field or 
 neurotransmitter change, and so on.


No. The miraculous event is viewable any time we look at how a conscious 
intention appears in an fMRI. We see spontaneous simultaneous activity in 
many regions of the brain, coordinated on many levels. This is the 
footprint of where we stand. When we take a step, the footprint changes. We 
are the leader of these brain processes, not the follower.
 


  If so, then the behaviour of each molecule is
  determined or follows probabilistic laws, and hence the behaviour of
  the

Re: Code length = probability distribution


On 10/27/2012 7:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:30, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/26/2012 6:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Oh yes, I remember that you did agree once with the 323 principle, but I forget what 
is your problem with the movie-graph/step-8, then. If you find the time, I am please 
if you can elaborate. I think Russell too is not yet entirely convinced.


What bothers me about it is that counterfactuals are virtually infinite.  So to make 
the argument go through I think it implicitly requires a whole 'world';


Not really, as here, you can use Maudlin who showed that the conuterfactuals does not 
require physical activity. In MGA, if you give a role to the conuterfactual, you 
violate the 323 principle, so that you attribute a functional role in a particular 
computation to object having no physical activity for the actual computation. 


But I'm not sure about the 323 principle in a QM world.


Even QM worlds, with QM observers, even having Q brains, are emulated in the UD, or in 
arithmetic. If the 323 principles does not hold for them, it might mean that QM is the 
winning computation, but then you have to explain this from arithmetic.


Or you are meaning that you need a *primary* QM world and brain?  In that case, my 
consciousness would not be invariant when the Q brain is entirely simulated by a 
classical machine, and comp is made false.


The latter.  But why the restriction to my consciousness?  Only a small fraction of 
thought is conscious.


Brent

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Re: Against Mechanism

On 10/27/2012 11:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 12:27 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:

your eyes are sending signals to your brain of the White House and
not of
the Kremlin, and there is nothing more profound about it.

But the eyes of the copy get also the signals from Moscow.

Yes, so the guy in Moscow feels like the guy in Moscow because he's the guy
in
Moscow. Big deal.

So your explanation does not help to predict what will happen if the
experience is reitired.

True, it can't predict what will happen because what will happen is a
function of
the external environment and how it stimulates the eyes and it has nothing
to do
with the original or either copy. Your entire philosophy is built on top of
the
question Why is the guy in Washington the guy in Washington? and the
answer of
course is because he's the guy in Washington. With such a foundation its
no wonder
it can't do much.

The correct comp explanation, deep or not, explains why we cannot
make a
better prediction

Then I no longer know what comp means because the real reason we can't do
better
is the same reason we can't do better at predicting next weeks weather, its
too
complicated.

Predicting is hard, especially the future.

John,

I am not sure if you are being consistent here. Earlier you said you said you identify
yourself with a stream of thoughts (not a single thought). If you are identified with a
stream of thoughts then you can't simply say one brain is in Moscow and one is in
Washington and that is as deep as it goes, for you must consider the first person
continuum of experience and what they can predict about where their consciousness will
take them.

You agreed if you were instantly halted, taken apart and rebuilt again (even with
different atoms) from your own perspective nothing would have skipped a beat, your
stream of consciousness continues right where it left off. But when you are taken apart
and two copies are created at two locations your stream diverges among two paths, which
gives rise to true unpredictability in the first person perspective.

Physics makes it impossible that you could be instantly halted and restarted at a
different location. Some people conclude that this means neither clone is John Clark, he
has been destroyed. I don't think it makes any difference, since John Clark is presumed
to persist across period of unconsciousness by virtue of consistent memories and competences.

Brent

mega-consciousness,created by bio-electrical circuitry?


UH OH!  We may have to consider the ethics of our treatment of bacteria next.

Brent



The seafloor is home to a vast electrical network created by bacteria
Annalee Newitz

It sounds a little bit like one of the subplots in Avatar, where we
discover that the moon Pandora possesses a kind of mega-consciousness
created by bio-electrical circuitry. But this is actually real. Two
years ago, researchers discovered a strange electro-chemical signature
in the sludge at the bottom of Aarhus Bay in Denmark. Now, they've
discovered what was causing it: a vast network of bacteria that form
electrical connections with each other, almost like nerve cells in the
brain.

Above, you can see what you might call tiny electrical wires that
connect each bacterial cell, under an electron microscope. The wires
are blue, and they are running through a piece of sediment, or sand
from the seafloor.

Over at Wired Science, Brandon Keim explains:

The bacteria were first detected in 2010 by researchers perplexed
at chemical fluctuations in sediments from the bottom of Aarhus Bay .
. . Almost instantaneously linking changing oxygen levels in water
with reactions in mud nearly an inch below, the fluctuations occurred
too fast to be explained by chemistry.

Only an electrical signal made sense — but no known bacteria could
transmit electricity across such comparatively vast distances. Were
bacteria the size of humans, the signals would be making a journey 12
miles long.

Now the mysterious bacteria have been identified. They belong to a
microbial family called Desulfobulbaceae, though they share just 92
percent of their genes with any previously known member of that
family. They deserve to be considered a new genus, the study of which
could open a new scientific frontier for understanding the interface
of biology, geology and chemistry across the undersea world.

Even more incredible, it turns out these bacteria are found all over
the world, their tiny electrical cables woven deeply into the mud of
the ocean bottom. Keim writes that the scientists found a full
half-mile of Desulfobulbacea cable in one teaspoonful of mud.

The seafloor is home to a vast electrical network created by bacteria
In other words, the entire ocean bed may be electrified in the same
way our nervous systems are. They're networks of individual cells
connected by electro-chemical signals — essentially they are an
enormous multi-cellular organism. These bacteria breathe by
absorbing oxygen and hydrogen sulfide, emitting water as a byproduct.
They might be serving as a vast water purification system on the ocean
bottom, or they might be part of a geological process that's a lot
more complex. We also have no way of knowing how other sea creatures
are interacting with this giant electrical grid organism.

What matters here is that we've just discovered a new kind of life
that is not only ubiquitous, but also engaging in electro-chemical
processes throughout the oceans. There's no evidence that this life
form is thinking in any way that we'd recognize, but it certainly
sounds like the perfect opening to a science fiction story.

Read more about this bacterial network, and see more amazing pictures,
in Wired. Read the scientists' paper in Nature. Images via Nils
Risgaard-Petersen; schematic via Nature

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/bacteria-electric-wires


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Re: Against Mechanism

2012-10-27 Thread Jason Resch

On Oct 27, 2012, at 2:54 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 10/27/2012 11:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 12:27 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
your eyes are sending signals to your brain of the White House
and not of the Kremlin, and there is nothing more profound about it.

But the eyes of the copy get also the signals from Moscow.

Yes, so the guy in Moscow feels like the guy in Moscow because he's
the guy in Moscow. Big deal.

So your explanation does not help to predict what will happen if
the experience is reitired.

True, it can't predict what will happen because what will happen is
a function of the external environment and how it stimulates the
eyes and it has nothing to do with the original or either copy.
Your entire philosophy is built on top of the question Why is the
guy in Washington the guy in Washington? and the answer of course
is because he's the guy in Washington. With such a foundation its
no wonder it can't do much.

The correct comp explanation, deep or not, explains why we
cannot make a better prediction

Then I no longer know what comp means because the real reason we
can't do better is the same reason we can't do better at predicting
next weeks weather, its too complicated.

Predicting is hard, especially the future.

John,

I am not sure if you are being consistent here. Earlier you said
you said you identify yourself with a stream of thoughts (not a
single thought). If you are identified with a stream of thoughts
then you can't simply say one brain is in Moscow and one is in
Washington and that is as deep as it goes, for you must consider
the first person continuum of experience and what they can predict
about where their consciousness will take them.

You agreed if you were instantly halted, taken apart and rebuilt
again (even with different atoms) from your own perspective nothing
would have skipped a beat, your stream of consciousness continues
right where it left off. But when you are taken apart
and two copies are created at two locations your stream diverges
among two paths, which gives rise to true unpredictability in the
first person perspective.

Physics makes it impossible that you could be instantly halted and
restarted at a different location.

We could anestatize him then destroy him. Or we could simulate his
neurons on a computer and halt that program.

Jason

Some people conclude that this means neither clone is John Clark, he
has been destroyed. I don't think it makes any difference, since
John Clark is presumed to persist across period of unconsciousness
by virtue of consistent memories and competences.

Brent
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Re: Code length = probability distribution

2012-10-27 Thread Russell Standish

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 05:13:50PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 Oh yes, I remember that you did agree once with the 323 principle,
 but I forget what is your problem with the movie-graph/step-8, then.
 If you find the time, I am please if you can elaborate. I think
 Russell too is not yet entirely convinced.
 
 Bruno
 

Indeed I still have problems with step 8, and want to get back to
that. But I want to do it when it when you're not exhausted arguming
other points... Part of the problem, is that I already agree with the
reversal at step 7, so in some sense step 8 is redundant for me.

There may be an issue with the interpretation of the 323 principle. I
have no problems with the removal of a register that is never
physically used in the calculation of a consious computation. The
nuances arise when we consider Everett's many-minds picture. A
counterfactually used register will still be used by one of my
differentiated copies, and ISTM that these alternate differentiated
minds are essential to my consciousness, and that removing the
counterfactually-used register in this case may well prevent my
consciousness.

To sum up, a counterfactually-used register is being physically used
if many-worlds is accepted, so therefore the 323 principle isn't
applicable.

Cheers

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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


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Re: Against Mechanism