date:20121222

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 10:50 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 12/22/2012 5:10 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 3:48 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  On 12/22/2012 1:21 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>>  On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
>>> As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to
>>> start with a well-defined definition of consciousness.  Take
>>> dictionary.com's definition:
>>> "awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings,
>>> etc."
>>> Well what is awareness?  dictionary.com defines it as:
>>> "having knowledge"
>>> dictionary.com's simplest non-circular definition of knowledge is
>>> simply "information".
>>>
>>>
>>> As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but
>>> that is just measure over different possible messages.  For it to be
>>> information *about* something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in
>>> the ability to act.
>>>
>>
>> Right.  But how do you define act?  I think changing states within the
>> process is sufficient.
>>
>>
>>  I don't.  That leads to the paradox of the conscious rock.
>>
>
> I disagree.  There is no *process *within the rock that gives any
> indication that it "has information of its own existence, sensations,
> thoughts, or surroundings".
>
>
> How did "of its own existence" get in there?
>

That was from the definition above.


> Does a spider have to have knowledge of it's own existence to recognize a
> fly?
>

No, those items in the list are separated by an "or".


> A rock has internal states that change via chemical reactions, crystal
> formation, cosmic ray strikes, etc.
>

Yes but the state changes are not recognized by any stable process
operating within the rock.  The atoms in the rock do stably store the
information about what has happened to the rock, but nothing in the rock is
there to see that record.


>
>
>  The computations, if you can call them that,
>
>
> That's the point; how do you call some processes knowledge and not others.
>

It requires determining the program and then figuring out what that program
knows.  It is not easy or straight forward.  It may not even be possible in
all cases to identify the presence of a program.


> My answer is that they inform actions - at least potentially.
>

I agree.


>
>  are only the simplest linear operations of particle collisions, there
> are no stable structures and no long running coherent computations.
>
> Do you not deny that a paralyzed person can be conscious (as is the case
> with total locked-in syndrome:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome )?
>
>
> I'm not sure.  "Total locked-in syndrome" seems to still admit interaction
> by visual perception.
>

Okay, then I might have misunderstood you.  I thought by your definition
the interaction had to go both ways.


> Of course the person has memories and knowledge that were formed in the
> past and were derivative of action.  I think that if an infant suffered
> total lock in they would never learn to think as normal humans do.  What
> knowledge is built into an animal is built in by the interactions of
> natural selection.  So I still think knowledge is grounded in interaction
> with environments - that the idea of disembodied, and hence isolated
> consciousness is ultimately incoherent.
>

A single computation can embody both aspects of the mind and the
environment.  Would you consider this mind disembodied, even it ran on a
computer closed off from any inputs from the physical world where that
computer ran?


>
>
>
>>   The states within only have meaning by virtue to external actions and
>> perceptions.
>>
>
> Who is the judge of externality?  Why can't the independent modules in the
> brain be considered actors in a larger environment?  This seems to lead to
> a "turtles all the way up" situation, where there have to ever greater
> levels of external observers or actions.  What if our whole universe were a
> computer emulation, would that make us into zombies because the giant
> computer has no external actions?
>
>
>>  The whole evolutionary advantage of having a 'within' is that the brain
>> can project and anticipate (e.g. 'simulate') the external world as part of
>> its decision process.
>>
>
> Yes brains and consciousness evolved so we can better interact with the
> world, but that doesn't mean interaction with the external world is
> necessary for consciousness.  We evolved the ability to perceive pleasure
> for (eating, sleeping, mating, etc.), but we can achieve pleasure directly
> (using direct brain stimulation or drugs) without needing to eat, sleep,
> mate, etc.
>
> I don't think I've met a materialist who rejects the idea that a brain in
> the vat could be conscious.
>
>
> Suppose you copied someone's brain, like Bruno's doctor, and put it in a
> vat with not neural input/output?
>

Most brains in the vat are fooled into thinking they are having normal
exp

Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

On 12/22/2012 5:10 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 3:48 PM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 12/22/2012 1:21 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to
start
with a well-defined definition of consciousness. Take dictionary.com
's definition:
"awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings,
etc."
Well what is awareness? dictionary.com defines
it as:
"having knowledge"
dictionary.com 's simplest non-circular
definition of
knowledge is simply "information".

As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense,
but that
is just measure over different possible messages. For it to be
information
*about* something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in the
ability to act.

Right. But how do you define act? I think changing states within the
process is
sufficient.

I don't. That leads to the paradox of the conscious rock.

I disagree. There is no *process *within the rock that gives any indication that it
"has information of its own existence, sensations, thoughts, or surroundings".

How did "of its own existence" get in there? Does a spider have to have knowledge of it's
own existence to recognize a fly? A rock has internal states that change via chemical
reactions, crystal formation, cosmic ray strikes, etc.

The computations, if you can call them that,

That's the point; how do you call some processes knowledge and not others. My answer is
that they inform actions - at least potentially.

are only the simplest linear operations of particle collisions, there are no stable
structures and no long running coherent computations.

Do you not deny that a paralyzed person can be conscious (as is the case with total
locked-in syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome )?

I'm not sure. "Total locked-in syndrome" seems to still admit interaction by visual
perception. Of course the person has memories and knowledge that were formed in the past
and were derivative of action. I think that if an infant suffered total lock in they
would never learn to think as normal humans do. What knowledge is built into an animal is
built in by the interactions of natural selection. So I still think knowledge is grounded
in interaction with environments - that the idea of disembodied, and hence isolated
consciousness is ultimately incoherent.

The states within only have meaning by virtue to external actions and
perceptions.

Who is the judge of externality? Why can't the independent modules in the brain be
considered actors in a larger environment? This seems to lead to a "turtles all the way
up" situation, where there have to ever greater levels of external observers or
actions. What if our whole universe were a computer emulation, would that make us into
zombies because the giant computer has no external actions?

The whole evolutionary advantage of having a 'within' is that the brain can
project
and anticipate (e.g. 'simulate') the external world as part of its decision
process.

Yes brains and consciousness evolved so we can better interact with the world, but that
doesn't mean interaction with the external world is necessary for consciousness. We
evolved the ability to perceive pleasure for (eating, sleeping, mating, etc.), but we
can achieve pleasure directly (using direct brain stimulation or drugs) without needing
to eat, sleep, mate, etc.

I don't think I've met a materialist who rejects the idea that a brain in the vat could
be conscious.

Suppose you copied someone's brain, like Bruno's doctor, and put it in a vat with not
neural input/output? I don't think it would really be conscious very long. I expect it
would either think no thoughts at all or it would become trapped in loop.

Brent

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 3:48 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 12/22/2012 1:21 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>> As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to
>> start with a well-defined definition of consciousness.  Take
>> dictionary.com's definition:
>> "awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings,
>> etc."
>> Well what is awareness?  dictionary.com defines it as:
>> "having knowledge"
>> dictionary.com's simplest non-circular definition of knowledge is simply
>> "information".
>>
>>
>> As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but
>> that is just measure over different possible messages.  For it to be
>> information *about* something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in
>> the ability to act.
>>
>
> Right.  But how do you define act?  I think changing states within the
> process is sufficient.
>
>
> I don't.  That leads to the paradox of the conscious rock.
>

I disagree.  There is no *process *within the rock that gives any
indication that it "has information of its own existence, sensations,
thoughts, or surroundings".  The computations, if you can call them that,
are only the simplest linear operations of particle collisions, there are
no stable structures and no long running coherent computations.

Do you not deny that a paralyzed person can be conscious (as is the case
with total locked-in syndrome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome )?

>   The states within only have meaning by virtue to external actions and
> perceptions.
>

Who is the judge of externality?  Why can't the independent modules in the
brain be considered actors in a larger environment?  This seems to lead to
a "turtles all the way up" situation, where there have to ever greater
levels of external observers or actions.  What if our whole universe were a
computer emulation, would that make us into zombies because the giant
computer has no external actions?

> The whole evolutionary advantage of having a 'within' is that the brain
> can project and anticipate (e.g. 'simulate') the external world as part of
> its decision process.
>

Yes brains and consciousness evolved so we can better interact with the
world, but that doesn't mean interaction with the external world is
necessary for consciousness.  We evolved the ability to perceive pleasure
for (eating, sleeping, mating, etc.), but we can achieve pleasure directly
(using direct brain stimulation or drugs) without needing to eat, sleep,
mate, etc.

I don't think I've met a materialist who rejects the idea that a brain in
the vat could be conscious.

Jason

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Re: Definition of a liberal

2012-12-22 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Friday, December 21, 2012 11:03:57 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
>
> Hi Stephen P. King   
>
> A liberal is a person who fears that somehow, somewhere, 
> somebody has secretly figured out a way to do something on their own. 
>
> A liberal is a person who believes that you need a blueprint 
> to tie your shoes. 
>

Yet conservative administrations can't seem to do anything but drive the 
economy into the ground and start foreign wars. Since the 70s, 
conservatives have been unable to hold onto power not because Americans 
became more liberal (Nixon elected in 1968 and re-elected in 72 at the 
height of the counter-culture) but because of failure and disgrace - 
because they wiped out peace and prosperity and left paranoia and ruin in 
their wake. If we are going to make sweeping generalizations, why not make 
them based in fact?

 

>
>
>
> [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net ] 
> 12/21/2012   
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 
>
> - Receiving the following content -   
> From: Stephen P. King   
> Receiver: everything-list   
> Time: 2012-12-20, 16:06:24 
> Subject: Re: Why economic inequality and environmental degradation are 
> likelyto improve 
>
>
> On 12/20/2012 7:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
> I just wonder what your gonna do when they are all gone...   
>
>
> Live in peace? Grow food? That's the thing, we'll never know what we might 
> actually want to do as long as we have a society telling us what we have to 
> do. 
>   
>
>
> Maybe we should start by not electing people that make it their 
> mission in life to do exactly that: tell us what we have to do. Why don't 
> they mind their own freaking business and let me deal with mine. 
>   
>
>
> --   
> Onward! 
>
> Stephen 
>

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Re: Why economic inequality and environmental degradation are likely to improve

2012-12-22 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Thursday, December 20, 2012 4:06:24 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
>  On 12/20/2012 7:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>  
> I just wonder what your gonna do when they are all gone... 
>>
>
> Live in peace? Grow food? That's the thing, we'll never know what we might 
> actually want to do as long as we have a society telling us what we have to 
> do.
>  
>  
>>  
> Maybe we should start by not electing people that make it their 
> mission in life to do exactly that: tell us what we have to do. Why don't 
> they mind their own freaking business and let me deal with mine.
>

The people that are available to elect are those put forth by the two 
parties that satisfy the criteria of maximum chance of winning. There 
really isn't anything more than that. People get paid a lot of money to 
figure out what someone has to say, how they have to appear, etc to win 
these astronomically expensive campaigns. If the polls said that people 
would vote for Santa, then you would see a guy in a red suit in office. 
It's a puppet show from top to bottom. How could it not be?

Craig

>  
>
> -- 
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
>  

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?


On 12/22/2012 1:21 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to 
start with a
well-defined definition of consciousness.  Take dictionary.com
's definition:
"awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc."
Well what is awareness? dictionary.com  defines it 
as:
"having knowledge"
dictionary.com 's simplest non-circular definition of
knowledge is simply "information".


As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but 
that is
just measure over different possible messages.  For it to be information 
*about*
something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in the ability to act.


Right.  But how do you define act?  I think changing states within the process is 
sufficient.


I don't.  That leads to the paradox of the conscious rock.  The states within only have 
meaning by virtue to external actions and perceptions.  The whole evolutionary advantage 
of having a 'within' is that the brain can project and anticipate (e.g. 'simulate') the 
external world as part of its decision process.


Bretn


That is to say, a brain in a vat, an AI in a virtual reality, a person dreaming, etc. 
can all be conscious even though they have no externally visible actions.  All the 
necessary action is internal to the mind itself.


  This means that an aware system in the GoL must be able to interact with 
it's
environment based on its knowledge.


The Turing machine in the GoL could of course run an emulation of any mind in any 
virtual reality.  The mind would never know its true incarnation is a vast grid of cells 
changing states.  It is a little reminiscent of the holographic principal and how it 
might apply to ourselves:


"In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe 
 can be seen as a two-dimensional 
 information structure "painted" on the 
cosmological horizon 
, such that the three 
dimensions  we observe are only an 
effective description at macroscopic scales 
 and at low energies 
." -- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle


Jason
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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to
> start with a well-defined definition of consciousness.  Take
> dictionary.com's definition:
> "awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings,
> etc."
> Well what is awareness?  dictionary.com defines it as:
> "having knowledge"
> dictionary.com's simplest non-circular definition of knowledge is simply
> "information".
>
>
> As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but
> that is just measure over different possible messages.  For it to be
> information *about* something, to be knowledge, it has to be grounded in
> the ability to act.
>

Right.  But how do you define act?  I think changing states within the
process is sufficient.  That is to say, a brain in a vat, an AI in a
virtual reality, a person dreaming, etc. can all be conscious even though
they have no externally visible actions.  All the necessary action is
internal to the mind itself.


>   This means that an aware system in the GoL must be able to interact with
> it's environment based on its knowledge.
>

The Turing machine in the GoL could of course run an emulation of any mind
in any virtual reality.  The mind would never know its true incarnation is
a vast grid of cells changing states.  It is a little reminiscent of the
holographic principal and how it might apply to ourselves:

"In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the
entire universe  can be seen as a
two-dimensional  information
structure "painted" on the cosmological
horizon,
such that the three
dimensionswe observe
are only an effective description at macroscopic
scales  and at low
energies."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

Jason

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Re: Against Mechanism


On 12/22/2012 11:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Deutsch et al. have solved the probability problem. 


I don't think so.  If you are referring to his decision analysis, it only seems to work 
for simple binary choices - QM predicts probabilities that are often irrational numbers.  
Gleason's theorem goes part way but it depends on solving the einselection problem.


Brent

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?


On 12/22/2012 11:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
As to how computation might lead to consciousness, I think it helps to start with a 
well-defined definition of consciousness.  Take dictionary.com 's 
definition:

"awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc."
Well what is awareness? dictionary.com  defines it as:
"having knowledge"
dictionary.com 's simplest non-circular definition of knowledge 
is simply "information".


As discussed earlier, you can have information in the Shannon sense, but that is just 
measure over different possible messages.  For it to be information *about* something, to 
be knowledge, it has to be grounded in the ability to act.  This means that an aware 
system in the GoL must be able to interact with it's environment based on its knowledge.


Brent

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Re: clearing up the confusion on the fairness index


On 12/22/2012 3:35 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Hal Ruhl
Sure, wealth inequality has gotten linearly greater,
but the economy has grown much faster (exponentially),
so we are all getting richer, fairness or not.



That only means *some* of us are getting richer, specifically those that are rich.  The 
median income, corrected for inflation is essentially flat.  And "exponential" doesn't 
mean "faster" no matter what the media think.  It's simple mathematics that the gini isn't 
going to "grow exponentially" because it's a fraction and it's bounded by 1.0 above 
(complete inequality in which everything belongs to one person).


Brent


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Re: Against Mechanism

I meant to write:

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

>
> Your error is that you are generalizing this rule beyond its domain and
> you wrongly conclude it means there can never be any *difference in 
> the*experimental outcome regardless of whether it is analyzed and observed by
> an external third person, or experienced first-hand through the
> first-person.  This is plainly wrong, as Bruno pointed out in the quantum
> suicide experiment, or even just Schrodinger's cat from the cat's
> perspective.
>

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Re: Against Mechanism

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 12:54 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>>
>> >> In a world with duplicating chambers there is no such thing as "the"
>>> future 1p view.
>>>
>>
>> Of course there is. There are two such future 1-view.
>>
>
> Then as I said,  there is no such thing as "the" future 1p view, there is
> only "a" future 1p view.
>
> >The 1-view of the M-man, and the 1-view of the W-man.
>>
>
> Please note the use of the word "and".
>
> > that is why if you predict W and M, both will rightly admit having been
>> wrong.
>>
>
> Yes, the Moscow Man would say it was wrong if he thought (as no doubt many
> would) that only he is the Helsinki Man and the Washington Man is just some
> kind of fake; however I believe the Moscow Man is NOT right about the
> nature of the Washington man and there is no reason to think the Moscow Man
> is any sort of final authority on the Washington Man.
>
> >> the one that sees Washington is the Washington Man and the Washington
>>> Man is the one who sees Washington. What more do you want to know about it?
>>> What more is there to know?
>>>
>>
>>
> > The technic to predict the future when we are multiplied,
>>
>
> In the above I gave the precise technique for determining which city will
> be seen by who. What more do you want to know about it? What more is there
> to know?
>
> >> the Helsinki man will see both cities.
>>>
>>
>> > In the 3p view, that's correct,
>>
>
> And as John Clark has said over and over, if something seems identical in
> the 3p view it is certainly identical in the 1p view, although the reverse
> is not necessarily true.
>

You are misapplying this rule.  This rule is most often comes up in
philosophy of mind, where it is usually agreed that two brains in the same
physical state will possess the same minds and the same consciousness.
That is not what is at issue here and it is not being disputed by anyone.

Your error is that you are generalizing this rule beyond its domain and you
wrongly conclude it means there can never be any experimental outcome
regardless of whether it is analyzed and observed by an external third
person, or experienced first-hand through the first-person.  This is
plainly wrong, as Bruno pointed out in the quantum suicide experiment, or
even just Schrodinger's cat from the cat's perspective.

Once you see this is true, perhaps then you will finally try to put
yourself into the shoes of the H-man, and perhaps then you will make some
progress.

>
>
>  > but fail to answer the question asked.
>
>
> Bruno Marchal does not understand the question asked so it's not
> surprising that John Clark is unable to give a answer that satisfies Bruno
> Marchal.
>
> > Take the QS as example: the most probable 3p outcome is the guy died.
>>
>
> If many worlds is correct then from the 3p quantum view everything happens
> and the very meaning of probability becomes fuzzy. And by the way I think
> that is the major reason that the many world's interpretation is not more
> popular than it is.
>

Deutsch et al. have solved the probability problem.  As Tegmark commented:
"The critique of many worlds is shifting from 'it makes no sense and I hate
it' to simply 'I hate it'."

Jason

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 6:11 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>>  On 12/20/2012 6:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>
>> Hi Roger,
>>
>>
>>> I accidentally sent the previous email before
>>> I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
>>> of the intended whole:
>>>
>>>  Hi Telmo,
>>>
>>> Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
>>> probably were constructed simply by monitoring
>>> sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,
>>> and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
>>> converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.
>>>
>>
>>  Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a
>> gigantic^n kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that
>> can be meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the
>> subject is seeing, but in a weird way.
>>
>>
>> Hi Telmo,
>>
>> As I was watching the brain scan image video I noticed a lot of weird
>> text like stuff mixed into the image. What was that? Artifacts?
>>
>
> I think so. I believe they are caused by the new images being constructed
> from samples of the original images shown to the subjects.
>
>
>>
>>
>>   So we can speculate that we're watching, for example, a pattern
>> matching process taking place. The most spectacular thing for me is when we
>> see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion. That's something you
>> wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get from a computer running
>> a sophisticated AI).
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Perception of the moving image from a given perspective
>>> by the brain might take place in the following way :
>>>
>>> 1) FIRSTNESS (The eye). The initial operation in processing the
>>> raw optical signal is reception of the sensory signal.
>>> This is necessarily done by a monad (you or me),
>>> because only monads see the world from a given
>>> perspective.
>>>
>>
>>  In my opinion you are conflating intelligence and consciousness. I see
>> two separate issues:
>>
>>  1) The human being as an agent senses things, assigns symbols to them,
>> compares them with his memories and so on. The brain tries to anticipate
>> all possible futures and then choses actions that are more likely to lead
>> to a future state that it prefers. This preference can be ultimately
>> reduced to pain avoidance / pleasure seeking. In my view, the fundamental
>> pain and pleasure signals have to be encoded some how in our DNA, and were
>> selected to optimise our chances of reproduction. All this is 3p and can be
>> emulated by a digital computer. Some of it already is.
>>
>>  2) There is a "me" here observing the universe from my perspective. I
>> am me and not you. There's a consciousness inside my body, attached to my
>> mind (or is it my mind)? I suspect there's one inside other people too, but
>> I cannot be sure. This is a 1p phenomena and outside the realm of science.
>> It cannot be explained by MRI machines and clever algorithms - although
>> many neuroscientists fail to realise it. This mystery is essentially what
>> makes me an agnostic more than an atheist. If there is a god, I suspect
>> he's me (and you). In a sense.
>>
>>  You can have 1 without 2, the famous zombie.
>>
>>
>> I disagree! The very act of fulfilling the requirements of 1
>> "connects it to"  the #2 version of itself. The isomorphism between 1 and 2
>> is just a fact of how logical algebras can be represented as spaces (sets +
>> relations) and vice versa! What gets glossed over is that Human beings (and
>> any other physical system that has the potential to implement a universal
>> machine) are not static structures. The logical algebra that represents
>> them cannot be static either, it has to evolve as well.
>> Think of how you would model a neural network X as it learns new
>> patterns The propositions of your logical algebra for X would have to
>> be updated as the learning progresses, no?
>>
>
> Ok, I agree that humans beings and neural networks are not static
> structures. This is trivially true. I still don't get how consciousness is
> supposed to emerge out of a dynamic process.
>
> Are you claiming, for example, that if I start running game of life it
> will become conscious and have a 1p perspective? I'm not using this as a
> counter-example, I am honestly asking. I don't know the answer to that.
>
>

I think it depends on the particular setup on GoL you are running.  Turing
machines have been discovered in the GoL, which means any possible program
can be executed in GoL.  Therefore, if you believe the physics and
chemistry relevant to the operation of your brain is computable, and you
disbelieve in zombies, and you believe the existence of your brain implies
the existence of your consciousness, then really we cannot determine
whether we are in the universe we think we are in or if our brain is
emulated by a Turing machine that exists in a GoL simulation.

As to how

Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> Hi Jason,
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Roger,
>>>
>>>
 I accidentally sent the previous email before
 I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
 of the intended whole:

  Hi Telmo,

  Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
 probably were constructed simply by monitoring
 sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,
 and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
 converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.

>>>
>>> Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a gigantic^n
>>> kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that can be
>>> meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the subject
>>> is seeing, but in a weird way. So we can speculate that we're watching, for
>>> example, a pattern matching process taking place. The most spectacular
>>> thing for me is when we see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion.
>>> That's something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get
>>> from a computer running a sophisticated AI).
>>>
>>>
>>
>> The video we see is an amalgamation of the 100 video clips which most
>> closely match the viewer's current brain activity compared to when the
>> viewer watched each of those video clips.
>>
>
> That's just a practical detail. The 100 video clips amalgamation is just a
> way to reduce noise from a still very imperfect system.
>
>
>>  It makes for an impressive display, is a very creative idea, and shows
>> we can use technology to read thoughts, but the raw data used to generate
>> the video above was just a set of ID's for any one of the control videos
>> the subject watched to set the baseline.  We are not really seeing an image
>> created directly from one's brain activity.
>>
>
> We're unlikely to ever see that, because brain activity does not generate
> jpg files. But we are seeing images that correlate with brain activity and
> that's a type of encoding.
>
>

Never say never.  Even with our comparatively very low resolution low speed
MRI's, we're able to reproduce images with a 10x10 resolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MElU0UW0V3Q

As fMRI technology improves, if we use nanobots that monitor neurons and
communicate wirelessly, if we run simulations of brains in computers, we
could get an almost perfect picture of what the brain is doing and
therefore see what the subject is seeing in perfect detail.  After all, for
the conscious entity to be aware of it, the information has to be
represented in there somewhere.  It is just a matter of getting it out,
which to me seems like only a technical and engineering problem.

Jason

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Re: Against Mechanism

2012-12-22 Thread John Clark

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> >> In a world with duplicating chambers there is no such thing as "the"
>> future 1p view.
>>
>
> Of course there is. There are two such future 1-view.
>

Then as I said,  there is no such thing as "the" future 1p view, there is
only "a" future 1p view.

>The 1-view of the M-man, and the 1-view of the W-man.
>

Please note the use of the word "and".

> that is why if you predict W and M, both will rightly admit having been
> wrong.
>

Yes, the Moscow Man would say it was wrong if he thought (as no doubt many
would) that only he is the Helsinki Man and the Washington Man is just some
kind of fake; however I believe the Moscow Man is NOT right about the
nature of the Washington man and there is no reason to think the Moscow Man
is any sort of final authority on the Washington Man.

>> the one that sees Washington is the Washington Man and the Washington
>> Man is the one who sees Washington. What more do you want to know about it?
>> What more is there to know?
>>
>
>
> The technic to predict the future when we are multiplied,
>

In the above I gave the precise technique for determining which city will
be seen by who. What more do you want to know about it? What more is there
to know?

>> the Helsinki man will see both cities.
>>
>
> > In the 3p view, that's correct,
>

And as John Clark has said over and over, if something seems identical in
the 3p view it is certainly identical in the 1p view, although the reverse
is not necessarily true.

 > but fail to answer the question asked.

Bruno Marchal does not understand the question asked so it's not surprising
that John Clark is unable to give a answer that satisfies Bruno Marchal.

> Take the QS as example: the most probable 3p outcome is the guy died.
>

If many worlds is correct then from the 3p quantum view everything happens
and the very meaning of probability becomes fuzzy. And by the way I think
that is the major reason that the many world's interpretation is not more
popular than it is.

  John K Clark

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

2012-12-22 Thread Stephen P. King


On 12/22/2012 7:11 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:


We defeat Dennett by showing that the regress cannot occur when
there are physical resources required by the computations for each
level of the recursion. We can cutoff recursions in our algorithms
with code: if count of loops is 10, stop. But physical systems can
not count, they just run out of juice after a while


Yes. For example, in the simulation argument, you still end up having 
to have an ultimate reality which is no longer a simulation.


Hi Telmo,

Why? Why does there "need to be" a "ultimate reality" that is some 
kind of irreducible ground? It is unnecessary to postulate such if we 
look at things from a non-well founded or "Net of Indra" point of view. 
Any set of objects can act as a ground for some other, objects are, 
ultimately, just bundles of relatively stable persistent properties. 
This way of thinking is very different from the "atoms in a void" view...






But if there is no display, we do not need an observer self,
and are possibly ending up with Michael Dennett's materialist
concept of the self. This might be called epi-phenominalism.
The self is simply an expression of the brain.


I don't believe it is just an expression of the brain (I suspect
you don't either), but part of the reason why I don't believe is
1p, so I cannot communicate it (can I?). I don't know. I tried at
dinner parties and got funny looks.


I do think that the consciousness is an expression of the
brain *and* all of its environment that molds its behavior. It is
silly to think that skin is the boundary that a mind associates with!


Agreed.


OK! ;-)


We cannot forget causal closure in our reasoning about 1p!
Telmo, can't you see that the defining characteristic of 1p is
that one cannot communicate it?


I can.

Only I can know exactly what it is like to be me. So I can infer
or bet that you have a "what it is like to be Telmo" but I cannot
know it, by definition and this relation is symmetrical between
any pair of conscious entities.


Ok, but why shouldn't I just believe in solipsism then?


Because solipsism is self-contradictory, we can believe in it 
tacitly, but once we think of yourself actively, it falls apart as a 
theory. Even the self that one was previously, that one can recollect or 
remember, is not oneself now. The self v other relation actively denies 
solipsism, and yet we cannot have certainty of what we cannot directly 
experience. The trick is to understand that we can only have certainty 
of our own experience of self-in-the-moment, as Descartes explained so 
well in /Meditations/.





I do not at present know the answer.



Consider dual aspect monism! It works!


What's the best place to read about it?

/The Conscious Mind/ by David Chalmers 
 is the best source.


--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

2012-12-22 Thread Stephen P. King


On 12/22/2012 7:11 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Hi Stephen,


On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Stephen P. King 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:


On 12/20/2012 6:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Hi Roger,

I accidentally sent the previous email before
I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
of the intended whole:
Hi Telmo,
Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
probably were constructed simply by monitoring
sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,
and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.


Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a
gigantic^n kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual
cortex that can be meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff
correlates with what the subject is seeing, but in a weird way.


Hi Telmo,

As I was watching the brain scan image video I noticed a lot
of weird text like stuff mixed into the image. What was that?
Artifacts?


I think so. I believe they are caused by the new images being 
constructed from samples of the original images shown to the subjects.





So we can speculate that we're watching, for example, a pattern
matching process taking place. The most spectacular thing for me
is when we see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion. That's
something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get
from a computer running a sophisticated AI).

Perception of the moving image from a given perspective
by the brain might take place in the following way :
1) FIRSTNESS (The eye). The initial operation in processing the
raw optical signal is reception of the sensory signal.
This is necessarily done by a monad (you or me),
because only monads see the world from a given
perspective.


In my opinion you are conflating intelligence and consciousness.
I see two separate issues:

1) The human being as an agent senses things, assigns symbols to
them, compares them with his memories and so on. The brain tries
to anticipate all possible futures and then choses actions that
are more likely to lead to a future state that it prefers. This
preference can be ultimately reduced to pain avoidance / pleasure
seeking. In my view, the fundamental pain and pleasure signals
have to be encoded some how in our DNA, and were selected to
optimise our chances of reproduction. All this is 3p and can be
emulated by a digital computer. Some of it already is.

2) There is a "me" here observing the universe from my
perspective. I am me and not you. There's a consciousness inside
my body, attached to my mind (or is it my mind)? I suspect
there's one inside other people too, but I cannot be sure. This
is a 1p phenomena and outside the realm of science. It cannot be
explained by MRI machines and clever algorithms - although many
neuroscientists fail to realise it. This mystery is essentially
what makes me an agnostic more than an atheist. If there is a
god, I suspect he's me (and you). In a sense.

You can have 1 without 2, the famous zombie.


I disagree! The very act of fulfilling the requirements of 1
"connects it to"  the #2 version of itself. The isomorphism
between 1 and 2 is just a fact of how logical algebras can be
represented as spaces (sets + relations) and vice versa! What gets
glossed over is that Human beings (and any other physical system
that has the potential to implement a universal machine) are not
static structures. The logical algebra that represents them cannot
be static either, it has to evolve as well.
Think of how you would model a neural network X as it learns
new patterns The propositions of your logical algebra for X
would have to be updated as the learning progresses, no?


Ok, I agree that humans beings and neural networks are not static 
structures. This is trivially true. I still don't get how 
consciousness is supposed to emerge out of a dynamic process.


Hi Telmo,

The purely subjective part of consciousness *is* the relationship 
between the dual aspects of the process. The rest is just content that 
can be described in third person.




Are you claiming, for example, that if I start running game of life it 
will become conscious and have a 1p perspective? I'm not using this as 
a counter-example, I am honestly asking. I don't know the answer to that.


Yes, but what it would be conscious of is vastly different from 
what we see of a CA running a GoL. The key question to ask is: does a 
system have some form of representational closure so that there is a 
means to distinguish self from notself. All of this is before we enter 
into consideration of self-modeling, which is what

Re: Can the physical brain possibly store our memories ? No.

Hi Bruno,


> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Roger Clough  wrote:
>
> > The infinite set of natural numbers is not stored on anything,
>>
>
> Which causes no problem because there is not a infinite number of anything
> in the observable universe, probably not even points in space.
>
>
> Perhaps, we don't know.
> It causes no problem because natural numbers does not have to be stored a
> priori. Only when universal machine want to use them.
>
>
Why do the natural numbers exist?

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Re: Against Mechanism

2012-12-22 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 20 Dec 2012, at 22:18, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:30 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>> You are asking about the present first person point of view of  
someone,

> NO. read the question: it is about a future first personal event.

That is totally false! The Helsinki man  is informing you about his  
PRESENT first person state of mind, he may be preoccupied trying to  
guess about what his future state of mind could be but that doesn't  
change the fact that you cannot communicate with the future Helsinki  
man you can only ask questions to the present Helsinki man and  
regardless of the subject of his thoughts he can only tell you about  
his present state of mind.
>> Bruno Marchal has said, and John Clark agrees, that both the  
Moscow Man and the Washington Man are the Helsinki Man, and so  
assuming that the Helsinki Man believed the same thing and is  
rational, then the conclusion is obvious, the Helsinki Man will say  
that the Helsinki man will see Washington AND Moscow.

>In the 3p view,

Yes, and as I've said before if 2 things are identical in the 3p  
they are certainly identical in the 1p, although the reverse is not  
necessarily true.

> but the question is about the future 1p view

In a world with duplicating chambers there is no such thing as "the"  
future 1p view.

Of course there is. There are two such future 1-view. The 1-view of  
the M-man, and the 1-view of the W-man. If they don't exist, you would  
die, and comp is false. The use "the" is just an emphasis on the fact  
that, although there are two such view, they are felt unique by the  
experimenter.

>> For example: suppose the Washington Man said the Helsinki Man's  
prediction in the past about a hypothetical first person point of  
view that would occur in the future turned out to be wrong, would  
that mean that the Washington man would no longer feel in his gut  
that he was the Helsinki Man? Of course not! That's why to follow a  
chain of identity the way to go is from the present to the past not  
from the present to the future.

>But we have to do prediction to confirm or refute a theory on  
reality, which is the present case.

Not with personal identity we don't! If you are like me and most  
people you have made predictions about what you will do that turn  
out to be wrong, but incorrect or not when that happens you still  
feel like you were the one that made the prediction.

Exactly, and that is why if you predict W and M, both will rightly  
admit having been wrong.

>>> This is just obviously wrong. It is correct in the 3p picture,  
but the question was about the 1p picture.

>> And that's the problem right there, THERE IS NO "THE" 1P  
PICTURE, THERE IS ONLY "A" 1P PICTURE!

> And?

And so in a world with duplicating machines asking about "the"   
future 1p picture is as silly as asking how long is a piece of  
string because it depends on the string.

Then QM without collapse is refuted at once.

> It is not weird as it is only an indetermination on the person  
result after a self-duplication. the math are easy to do,

It's not just the math, everything about it is easy; the one that  
sees Washington is the Washington Man and the Washington Man is the  
one who sees Washington. What more do you want to know about it?  
What more is there to know?

The technic to predict the future when we are multiplied, like in QM- 
without-collapse, or in arithmetic.

>> both remember being the Helsinki Man, so although different both  
ARE the Helsinki Man,

> Exactly, and that is why the question makes sense.

So does the answer, the Helsinki man will see both cities.

In the 3p view, that's correct, but fail to answer the question asked.

> If he was asked on the 3p view after the duplication.

Apparently asking somebody something "on the 3p" is supposed to be  
different than just asking somebody, but I have no idea how.

Take the QS as example: the most probable 3p outcome is the guy died.  
The most probable experimenter 1p outcome, is "I stay alive". When  
self-multiplication exist, the 1p and 3p difference play a big role,  
in both comp and Everett QM.

Bruno

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

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Re: More on reconstruction from brain activity

Hi Roger,


On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Roger Clough  wrote:

>  Hi Telmo Menezes
>
> You're right, I got the scanning part all wrong.
>
> You can find sites that may tell more by Googling on
>
> Reconstruction from brain activity
>
> Apparently they use complex brain modelling programs
> with complex AI to somehow get images.
>

Yup, there are other applications too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface


>
> While they have had some (presumably limited) success on moving
> images, trying to do that with static images would be
> the first thing to try,
>

I am not a neuroscientist (just a computer scientist), but from my
understanding of how the brain works, static images might actually be
harder. The brain is constantly trying to do pattern matching and
anticipating future states, so it might never really "work" with static
images (unless you read directly from the optic nerve).

Have you ever had this thing where you're sitting in a room and an object
suddenly seems to appear out of nowhere? Some people do, and the reason is
that the brain is only paying attention to a subset of your visual field,
and making up all the other stuff from pattern matching with previous
experiences. Suddenly it notices the object and has to update your visual
representation in a less-graceful way.


> but even that looks like voodoo to me.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_identification
>
> gives an overall treatment of reading thoughts.
>
> One of my lady friend's relatives  is doing brain modelling
> at U MD in Baltimore, I suspect that he might be into
> such stuff.
>

Well, marry Christmas to you and your lady friend (from an annoying
agnostic/atheist).


>
> [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] 
> 12/21/2012
> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>
>
> - Receiving the following content -
> *From:* Telmo Menezes 
> *Receiver:* everything-list 
> *Time:* 2012-12-20, 06:17:25
> *Subject:* Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett
> rightafter all ?
>
>  Hi Roger,
>
>I accidentally sent the previous email before
>> I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
>> of the intended whole:
>>   Hi Telmo,
>>   Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
>> probably were constructed simply by monitoring
>> sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,
>> and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
>> converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.
>>
>
> Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a gigantic^n
> kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that can be
> meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the subject
> is seeing, but in a weird way. So we can speculate that we're watching, for
> example, a pattern matching process taking place. The most spectacular
> thing for me is when we see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion.
> That's something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get
> from a computer running a sophisticated AI).
>
>>Perception of the moving image from a given perspective
>> by the brain might take place in the following way :
>>  1) FIRSTNESS (The eye). The initial operation in processing the
>> raw optical signal is reception of the sensory signal.
>>
>> This is necessarily done by a monad (you or me),
>> because only monads see the world from a given
>> perspective.
>>
>
> In my opinion you are conflating intelligence and consciousness. I see two
> separate issues:
>
> 1) The human being as an agent senses things, assigns symbols to them,
> compares them with his memories and so on. The brain tries to anticipate
> all possible futures and then choses actions that are more likely to lead
> to a future state that it prefers. This preference can be ultimately
> reduced to pain avoidance / pleasure seeking. In my view, the fundamental
> pain and pleasure signals have to be encoded some how in our DNA, and were
> selected to optimise our chances of reproduction. All this is 3p and can be
> emulated by a digital computer. Some of it already is.
>
> 2) There is a "me" here observing the universe from my perspective. I am
> me and not you. There's a consciousness inside my body, attached to my mind
> (or is it my mind)? I suspect there's one inside other people too, but I
> cannot be sure. This is a 1p phenomena and outside the realm of science. It
> cannot be explained by MRI machines and clever algorithms - although many
> neuroscientists fail to realise it. This mystery is essentially what makes
> me an agnostic more than an atheist. If there is a god, I suspect he's me
> (and you). In a sense.
>
> You can have 1 without 2, the famous zombie.
>
>>  This is not a visual display, only a
>> complex sensory signal.
>>  2) SECONDNESS (the hippocampus ? the cerebellum? ).
>> The next stage is intelligent processing of the
>> optical signal and into a useable expreswion of
>>

Re: Can the physical brain possibly store our memories ? No.

2012-12-22 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 21 Dec 2012, at 22:17, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Roger Clough   
wrote:

> The infinite set of natural numbers is not stored on anything,

Which causes no problem because there is not a infinite number of  
anything in the observable universe, probably not even points in  
space.

Perhaps, we don't know.
It causes no problem because natural numbers does not have to be  
stored a priori. Only when universal machine want to use them.

> no information can be stand alone, it must have context to give it  
meaning.

I think that's true because information is not abstract, it's  
physical and is deeply involved with both energy and entropy.

You confuse some notion of physical information with the mathematical  
notion(s).

> But that context can not be stored alone, it in turn must have  
context.

No because matter and energy are generic. In any context the 2  
electrons in a helium atom always have opposite spin.

>Thus one bit of information cannot simply be physically stored,

Quiet, keep your voice down! If anybody hears you it will destroy  
the multi-trillion dollar computer industry and put millions of  
people out of work.

> But our brains do apparently store enormous amounts of information.

And so the silly game of trying to inflate our ego by convincing  
ourselves that we are special and inherently superior to machines  
continues.

If we are machine we must explain the existence of physical  
information from the mathematical information available to the  
universal machine in arithmetic.

Bruno

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

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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?

Hi Jason,


On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>
>> Hi Roger,
>>
>>
>>> I accidentally sent the previous email before
>>> I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version
>>> of the intended whole:
>>>
>>>  Hi Telmo,
>>>
>>>  Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable,
>>> probably were constructed simply by monitoring
>>> sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera,
>>> and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially
>>> converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal.
>>>
>>
>> Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a gigantic^n
>> kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that can be
>> meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the subject
>> is seeing, but in a weird way. So we can speculate that we're watching, for
>> example, a pattern matching process taking place. The most spectacular
>> thing for me is when we see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion.
>> That's something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get
>> from a computer running a sophisticated AI).
>>
>>
>
> The video we see is an amalgamation of the 100 video clips which most
> closely match the viewer's current brain activity compared to when the
> viewer watched each of those video clips.
>

That's just a practical detail. The 100 video clips amalgamation is just a
way to reduce noise from a still very imperfect system.


>  It makes for an impressive display, is a very creative idea, and shows we
> can use technology to read thoughts, but the raw data used to generate the
> video above was just a set of ID's for any one of the control videos the
> subject watched to set the baseline.  We are not really seeing an image
> created directly from one's brain activity.
>

We're unlikely to ever see that, because brain activity does not generate
jpg files. But we are seeing images that correlate with brain activity and
that's a type of encoding.


>
> Jason
>
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Re: How visual images are produced in the brain. Was Dennett right after all ?