Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 2/1/2013 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't believe in the fairy tale version of christian God, and for some mysterious reason you want throw out all notion of gods like if it was the only one. That's not accurate. I am happy to consider other notions of gods, but they are all persons and I don't believe any of them exist. The meaning you want to assign to God is the ultimate foundation of the world, which I would call urstuff or something similar. The theory you have put forward that the world is emergent from the computations of a UD doesn't make the fundamental a person and so I can't see any reason to call it a god of God of even ONE (since it is very numerous). Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
That entropy is nonphysical (being a measure of information) while energy in the brain is physical (thermal)
Hi Roger Clough F = U - TS points out a curious relationship between information, which is nonphysical, mental and part of mind, hence S, and energy U or F , which is physical so part of the brain. - Receiving the following content - From: Roger Clough Receiver: - mindbr...@yahoogroups.com Time: 2013-02-02, 03:12:05 Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] How to create a mind ? Hi Philip Benjamin How about the fact that the brain deals with information, which can also be a source or sink (as entropy) of energy ? Such as: This unusable energy is given by the entropy of a system multiplied by the ... The historically earlier Helmholtz free energy is defined as F = U - TS, where U i s the ... energy' for the expression E - TS, in which the change in F (or G) determines ... - Receiving the following content - From: Philip Benjamin Receiver: MindBrain MindBrain Time: 2013-02-01, 11:26:47 Subject: [Mind and Brain] How to create a mind ? FW: [perspectiveofmind] Re: How to create a mind by Kurzweil - part 3 [Philip Benjamin] How is this (fundamental pattern recognition units) different from the philosophical dualism of Sir John Eccles Friedrich Beck (1991-1992)? At least there was no violation of the principle of energy conservation there for mind-brain interaction. Their 40 million dendrons were fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex which are cylindrical bundles of neurons arranged vertically in the six outer layers (laminae) of the cortex. Each cylinder is about 30 micrometres as radius, is linked to a mental unit, or psychon (nobody knows what it is) and represents a unitary conscious experience. Psychons act on dendrons in willed actions and thoughts, increasing for a moment the probability of the firing of selected neurons through quantum tunneling effect in synaptic exocytosis. In perception the reverse process takes place. The same error is being repeated endlessly, conflating the locus of mind with the mind itself and then leaving the mechanism of transduction of physical information into mental phenomena. Physical cannot be transduced into or interact with non-physical. The transformation into the mental may simply mean interaction with a different form or imageof physicality through the mysterious (not mystical) resonance processes. Best regards Philip Friedrich Beck (2008). My Odyssey with Sir John Eccles. NeuroQuantology 6 (2): 161?163. http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/170 Friedrich Beck, John C. Eccles (1992). Quantum aspects of brain activity and the role of consciousness. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 89 (23): 11357?11361. doi:10.1073/pnas.89.23.11357. PMID 1333607. http://www.pnas.org/content/89/23/11357.full.pdf. Friedrich Beck, John C. Eccles (1998). Quantum processes in the brain: A scientific basis of consciousness. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society 5 (2): 95?109. http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jcss/5/2/2_95/_pdf. John C. Eccles, How the Self Controls its Brain, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1994. ISBN 3-540-56290-7. Philip Benjamin PhD.MSc.MA Evidentialist Spiritual Body or Physical Spirit? Your Invisible Doppelg?ger. Sunbury Press Jan 2013 Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-182-4 Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1-62006-183-1 ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-184-8 Materialism/Physicalism Extraordinaire. http://biodarkmatter.webs.com/index.htm Bio Dark-Matter Chemistry, International Journal of Current Research and Reviews Vol 4 issue 20, 2012 To: perspectiveofm...@yahoogroups.com; mindbr...@yahoogroups.com From: valter...@engeplus.com.br Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:18:32 -0200 Subject: [perspectiveofmind] Re: How to create a mind by Kurzweil - part 3 Hello, I noticed that, for some reason, the message I sent yesterday , when viewed in HTML format, was not being shown completely. The last part was missing. Only when viewed as a txt would the ending part appear. So, I decided to send the message again, reedited, hoping that this time it will be shown in its complete form even for those viewing it in HTML format. I apologize for the inconvenience. Valtermar Hello, In my message posted to Perspective of the Mind and Mind and Brain, on January 24th, 2013, with the title: How to create a mind by Kurzweil - part 2, I wrote about the way I understood Raymond Kurzweil's ideas in regard to his Pattern Recognition Theory of the Mind (PRTM), as presented in his book How to create a mind. See: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/perspectiveofmind/message/680 In that message I cited Kurzweil's reference to fundamental and repetitive units he referred to as pattern recognizers, which he estimates to be composed of about a hundred neurons each. In this message I continue the citations and commentaries about the book. My first understanding of the idea was that the task of each of these fundamental units, the pattern
Separating science from politics
Hi Philip Benjamin My view is that we constantly need to discern and separate science from politics, where global warming, alternative energy, and evolution/creationism are prime examples of such a confusion. - Receiving the following content - From: Philip Benjamin Receiver: MindBrain MindBrain Time: 2013-02-01, 12:26:37 Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] The El Nino, not auto fumes,is the main driver of global temperatures. The attachments of the original message is as following: (1). 20130131071848872.jpg [Philip Benjamin] Which is better? Call the leftist politicians? Marxist housewives? Liberal Progressives? Anarchist globalists? They all have one thing in common. Their zeal to silence the real scientists. Best regards Philip Philip Benjamin PhD.MSc.MA Evidentialist Spiritual Body or Physical Spirit? Your Invisible Doppelg?ger. Sunbury Press Jan 2013 Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-182-4 Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1-62006-183-1 ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-184-8 Materialism/Physicalism Extraordinaire. http://biodarkmatter.webs.com/index.htm Bio Dark-Matter Chemistry, International Journal of Current Research and Reviews Vol 4 issue 20, 2012 To: mindbr...@yahoogroups.com From: silva_c...@yahoo.com Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:47:09 -0800 Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] The El Nino, not auto fumes, is the main driver of global temperatures. All we need to do is look out our window to see or hear about changing weather patterns. We don't need science to confirm this. Those that fail to accept this are probably placing their trust in their god. Cass From: Robert Karl Stonjek ston...@ozemail.com.au To: mindbr...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, 1 February 2013 12:08 AM Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] The El Nino, not auto fumes, is the main driver of global temperatures. - Original Message - From: Roger Clough To: everything-list ; - mindbr...@yahoogroups.com Cc: Will.Steffen ; Nico.Grasselt ; gerstengarbe Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 11:42 PM Subject: [Mind and Brain] The El Nino, not auto fumes, is the main driver of global temperatures. There does not seem to be any correlation of earth climate with solar activity, especially the 11 year solar cycle or sunspots. Instead, the El Nino is the main driver of global temperatures, and no doubt is reponsible for the melting of glaciers etc over the past decade. With this new understanding the rise in CO2 levels levels is not the CAUSE of the warming, it is the RESULT of the warming. As the oceans warm, CO2 becomes less soluble in the warmer waters and is emitted by the oceans. http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GlobalElNino.htm The above figure shows global average temperature from five data sets since the start of the satellite temperature data era in 1979 (RSS MSU and UAH MSU are satellite data, HadCRUT3, NCDC and GISS are surface station data sets ? graph from http://climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm). From 1979 to 1997 there was no warming trend. The major El Nino then resulted in a residual warming of about 0.3 degrees. Since the 1998 end of the El Nino there has also been no warming trend ? all of the warming in the last 30 years occurred in a single year. DreamMail - New experience in email software www.dreammail.org The facts: Opinion: Is America Ready to Listen? In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, climate scientists should make their consensus about climate change known to all who care to listen. By Ashley A. Anderson, Edward W. Maibach and Anthony Leiserowitz | December 12, 2012 Flickr, jez.atkinson When scientists communicate with the public, they can make a difference. This is particularly true for scientific issues that have significant societal implications and which have become polarized?such as climate change. Despite the near-consensus among scientists that the climate is rapidly changing, and that human-generated carbon dioxide is a major cause, a majority of the American public remains largely disengaged. Moreover, among the minority who are actively engaged in the issue?.e. those people who consider and discuss the problem?pproximately half have reached conclusions consistent with climate science, while the other half have reached the opposite conclusion, choosing to believe that climate change is not occurring. Given the importance of managing the risks associated with climate change, there is an urgent need for heightened public engagement so that collectively our communities, states and nation can determine how to respond. Fundamentally, the American public trusts scientists, with nearly three-quarters of adults in the U.S. reporting that they would take the word of climate scientists more than any other source for information on this issue. However, most can? name a single living scientist, much less a climate scientist. Without that name
Re: Re: Mathematical Multiverse
Hi Russell Standish Sorry, I don't have a copy of your book. - Receiving the following content - From: Russell Standish Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-01, 16:52:09 Subject: Re: Mathematical Multiverse On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 11:32:27AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Russell Standish If one is a Platonist one cannot avoid using Berkeley's rescue package. In section 9.3 of my book, I mention at least three different alternatives, of which Berkeley's was one. Please tell me what is so incoherent about the others. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: Re: [Metadiscussion] Off topic posting on the everything-list
Hi Russell Standish Fine. - Receiving the following content - From: Russell Standish Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-01, 16:54:48 Subject: Re: Re: [Metadiscussion] Off topic posting on the everything-list On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 11:30:39AM -0500, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Platonist Guitar Cowboy Nothing human is off-topic to me. Which suggests that materialism and brain science are off-topic. By contrast, discussion of materialism and neuroscience is definitely on-topic, and has often been discussed in this forum. One cannot avoid the elephant in the room that any TOE needs to address consciousness in some form or other. But it does not need to address social policy issues, fo example. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
Hi meekerdb God is not in spacetime, which is extended, so he doesn't physically exist. He is intelligence, etc., which is not extended, exists beyond spacetime, and is nonphysical. You don't have to think of God as a person, or believe in any fairy tales (whatever they are, I don't know) unless you think of the One as a person. - Receiving the following content - From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 03:08:08 Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS. On 2/1/2013 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't believe in the fairy tale version of christian God, and for some mysterious reason you want throw out all notion of gods like if it was the only one. That's not accurate. I am happy to consider other notions of gods, but they are all persons and I don't believe any of them exist. The meaning you want to assign to God is the ultimate foundation of the world, which I would call urstuff or something similar. The theory you have put forward that the world is emergent from the computations of a UD doesn't make the fundamental a person and so I can't see any reason to call it a god of God of even ONE (since it is very numerous). Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the New System of Nature (1695), the second from the Reply to Bayle (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the I in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this I which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as one conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single I, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (Principles of Nature and Grace, sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a letter to Antoine Arnauld of 9 October 1687, Leibniz wrote that “in natural perception and sensation, it is enough for what is divisible and material and dispersed into many entities to be expressed or represented in a single indivisible entity or in a substance which is endowed with genuine unity.” If perception (and hence, consciousness) essentially involves a representation of a variety of content in a simple, indivisible “I,” then we may construct Leibniz's argument against materialism as follows: Materialism holds that matter can explain (is identical with, can give rise to) perception. A perception is a state whereby a variety of content is represented in a true unity. Thus, whatever is not a true unity cannot give rise to perception. Whatever is divisible is not a true unity. Matter is infinitely divisible. Hence, matter cannot form a true unity. Hence, matter cannot explain (be identical with, give rise to) perception. If matter cannot explain (be identical to, give rise to) perception, then materialism is false. Hence, materialism is false. Leibniz rejected materialism on the grounds that it could not, in principle, ever capture the “true unity” of perceptual consciousness, that characteristic of the self which can simultaneously unify a manifoldness of perceptual content. If this is Leibniz's argument, it is of some historical interest that it bears striking resemblances to contemporary objections to certain materialist theories of mind. Many contemporary philosophers have objected to some versions of materialism on the basis of thought experiments like Leibniz's: experiments designed to show that qualia and consciousness are bound to elude certain materialist conceptions of the mind (cf. Searle 1980; Nagel 1974; McGinn 1989; Jackson 1982). - Receiving the following content - From: socra...@bezeqint.net Receiver: Everything List Time: 2013-02-02, 01:39:35 Subject: Re: Science
Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
Hi 2013/1/30 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com It is to me. I think it is very unlikely that the motions and evolutions of star and galaxies and in my model even universes could be strongly affected by biological consciousness But then, what is the anthropic principle about? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: multiverses and quantum computers
On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 01 Feb 2013, at 09:46, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Hi Bruno,
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 31 Jan 2013, at 15:15, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Telmo Menezes
Perhaps you're right, but to my limited knowledge,
a quantum has infinite paths available between
points A and B without invoking another universe.
Once we are able to use (classical) information obtained in the other
quantum paths, like when doing a Fourier transform on some superposition
of many computations, like in a quantum computer, what makes them different
of other universes?
The superposition of many computations itself. Superposition of states on
a same universe are a bit hard to swallow. I think people reject the idea
of a multiverse because it sounds loony, but my understanding is that
making QM consistent with a single universe requires magical thinking.
OK.
It's the same as saying that consciousness emerges from neural activity.
People overlook the magical step because they are more confortable with the
resulting model.
Totally OK. UDA and MGA are supposed to make that magic step quite
palatable.
But UDA and MGA propose that consciousness supervenes on neural states, not
that it emerges or is caused by them, correct?
Naturalism used magic without saying, but our brains is gifted for this,
and that makes sense in the evolutive struggle of life.
I think we agree,
Bruno
Bruno
So no problem.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-31, 08:13:30
*Subject:* Re: Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi Roger,
In the one universe model, where does the extra computational power of
quantum computers come from?
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.netwrote:
Hi Telmo Menezes
IMHO more than one universe is unjustified.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-30, 12:10:08
*Subject:* Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi Roger,
I find it harder to believe in finite universes. Why the precise
number, whatever it is?
On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 12:46 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.netwrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
It's easier to believe in salvation through faith or UFOs than
infinite universes.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-28, 09:20:33
*Subject:* About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi,
牋 I think this paper might be fodder for a nice discussion!
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295
About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Francisco Jos Soler
Gilhttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Gil_F/0/1/0/all/0/1
, Manuel
Alfonsecahttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Alfonseca_M/0/1/0/all/0/1
(Submitted on 22 Jan 2013 (v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295v1),
last revised 23 Jan 2013 (this version, v2))
This paper analyzes two different proposals, one by Ellis and Brundrit,
based on classical relativistic cosmology, the other by Garriga and
Vilenkin, based on the DH interpretation of quantum mechanics, both of
which conclude that, in an infinite universe, planets and living beings
must be repeated an infinite number of times. We point to some possible
shortcomings in the arguments of these authors. We conclude that the idea
of an infinite repetition of histories in space cannot be considered
strictly speaking a consequence of current physics and cosmology. Such
ideas should be seen rather as examples of {\guillemotleft}ironic
science{\guillemotright} in the terminology of John Horgan.
--
Onward!
Stephen
*DreamMail* - The first mail software supporting source tracking
www.dreammail.org
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Re: multiverses and quantum computers
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 8:39 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 2/1/2013 12:46 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Hi Bruno,
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 31 Jan 2013, at 15:15, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Telmo Menezes
Perhaps you're right, but to my limited knowledge,
a quantum has infinite paths available between
points A and B without invoking another universe.
Once we are able to use (classical) information obtained in the other
quantum paths, like when doing a Fourier transform on some superposition
of many computations, like in a quantum computer, what makes them different
of other universes?
The superposition of many computations itself. Superposition of states
on a same universe are a bit hard to swallow. I think people reject the
idea of a multiverse because it sounds loony, but my understanding is that
making QM consistent with a single universe requires magical thinking.
I don't think that's true. There are ways of interpreting QM that are
consistent and not magical. It's just that they require accepting that
somethings happen and some don't.
It's the same as saying that consciousness emerges from neural
activity.
But we don't know of any consciousness that doesn't emerge from neural
activity
Can you describe the mechanism by which that happens? I'm willing to accept
a toy model and overlook a lot of things, just give me something.
and we don't know of any intelligence that doesn't emerge from the
physical processing of information.
True, but that's a different matter. Consciousness is not a requirement for
intelligence. Or if it is it must come through some mysterious means,
because we know how to build intelligent machines but we don't know how to
build conscious ones.
Brent
People overlook the magical step because they are more confortable with
the resulting model.
Bruno
So no problem.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-31, 08:13:30
*Subject:* Re: Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi Roger,
In the one universe model, where does the extra computational power of
quantum computers come from?
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.netwrote:
Hi Telmo Menezes
IMHO more than one universe is unjustified.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-30, 12:10:08
*Subject:* Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi Roger,
I find it harder to believe in finite universes. Why the precise
number, whatever it is?
On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 12:46 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.netwrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
It's easier to believe in salvation through faith or UFOs than infinite
universes.
- Receiving the following content -
*From:* Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net
*Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Time:* 2013-01-28, 09:20:33
*Subject:* About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Hi,
牋 I think this paper might be fodder for a nice discussion!
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295
About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space
Francisco Jos Soler
Gilhttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Gil_F/0/1/0/all/0/1
, Manuel
Alfonsecahttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Alfonseca_M/0/1/0/all/0/1
(Submitted on 22 Jan 2013 (v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295v1),
last revised 23 Jan 2013 (this version, v2))
This paper analyzes two different proposals, one by Ellis and Brundrit,
based on classical relativistic cosmology, the other by Garriga and
Vilenkin, based on the DH interpretation of quantum mechanics, both of
which conclude that, in an infinite universe, planets and living beings
must be repeated an infinite number of times. We point to some possible
shortcomings in the arguments of these authors. We conclude that the idea
of an infinite repetition of histories in space cannot be considered
strictly speaking a consequence of current physics and cosmology. Such
ideas should be seen rather as examples of {\guillemotleft}ironic
science{\guillemotright} in the terminology of John Horgan.
--
Onward!
Stephen
*DreamMail* - The first mail software supporting source tracking
www.dreammail.org
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Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that *perception* and what depends upon it is *inexplicable on mechanical principles*, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the *New System of Nature* (1695), the second from the *Reply to Bayle* (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the *I* in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this *I* which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as *one*conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single *I*, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (*Principles of Nature and Grace,*sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a letter to Antoine Arnauld of 9 October 1687, Leibniz wrote that “in natural perception and sensation, it is enough for what is divisible and material and dispersed into many entities to be expressed or represented in a single indivisible entity or in a substance which is endowed with genuine unity.” If perception (and hence, consciousness) essentially involves a representation of a variety of content in a simple, indivisible “I,” then we may construct Leibniz's argument against materialism as follows: Materialism holds that matter can explain (is identical with, can give rise to) perception. A perception is a state whereby a variety of content is represented in a true unity. Thus, whatever is not a true unity cannot give rise to perception. Whatever is divisible is not a true unity. Matter is infinitely divisible. Hence, matter cannot form a true unity. Hence, matter cannot explain (be identical with, give rise to) perception. If matter cannot explain (be identical to, give rise to) perception, then materialism is false. Hence, materialism is false. Leibniz rejected materialism on the grounds that it
Re: Big Bang is the simplest possible state?
On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 6:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 12:40 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 6:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Dear Bruno and Stephen, On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The big bang remains awkward with computationalism. It suggest a long and deep computations is going through our state, but comp suggest that the big bang is not the beginning. Dear Bruno, I think that comp plus some finite limit on resources = Big Bang per observer. Couldn't the Big Bang just be the simplest possible state? Hi Telmo, Yes, if I can add ...that a collection of observers can agree upon but that this simplest possible state is uniquely in the past for all observers (that can communicate with each other) should not be just postulated to be the case. It demands an explanation. It's uniquely in the past for all complex observers Hi Telmo, I would partition up all possible observers into mutually communicating sets. Not all observers can communicate with each other and it is mutual communication that, I believe, contains the complexity of one's universe. That makes sense to me. Basically my reasoning forllows Wheeler's *It from Bit* idea. because: - It cannot contain a complex observer How do we know this? We are, after all, speculating about what we can only infer about given what we observe now. Isn't it just a tautology? I don't know how to justify it any further. It's like saying that an empty glass does not contain water. - It is so simple that it is coherent with any history Simplicity alone does not induce consistency, AFAIK... I'm thinking in the following terms: imagine a CA which has an initial state where a single cell is on. For any super-complex state that you find down the line, the initial simple step is always a consistent predecessor. That doesn't mean it's the beginning, just that it's a likely predecessor to any other state. The word predecessor' worries me, it assumes some way to determine causality even when measurements are impossible. Sure, we can just stipulate monotonicity of states, but what would be the gain? I mean predecessor in the sense that there are plausible sequences of transformations that it's at the root of. These transformations include world branching, of course. I am playing around with the possibility that monotonicity should not be assumed. After all, observables in QM are complex valued and the real numbers that QM predicts (as probabilities of outcomes) only obtain when a basis is chosen and a squaring operation is performed. Basically, that *is* is not something that has any particular ordering to it. Here I am going against the arguments of many people, including Julian Barbour. Ok, this also makes sense to me. But can you accept that there is quantifiable similarity between states? In this case we can still build a state graph from which we can extract timelines without requiring ordering. The more complex a state is, the smaller the number of states that it is likely to be a predecessor of. Sure, what measure of complexity do you like? There are many and if we allow physical laws to vary, infinitely so... I like the Blum and Kolmogorov measures, but they are still weak... I had Kolmogorv in mind and it's the best I can offer. I agree, it's still week and that's a bummer. Maybe we should drop the desiderata of a measure and focus on the locality of observers and its requirements. I don't think I understand what you mean here. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: That entropy is nonphysical (being a measure of information) while energy in the brain is physical (thermal)
Information is private sensory input. Energy is public motor output. Everything is physical, nothing is non-physical, but physical includes everything. Private physics is experiences which make time. Public physics is all experience, viewed from a given instant, location, and sensory scope, and the orthogonal representation of private experience (discrete bodies in positions relative to each other rather than experienced dispositions relative to the self). Craig On Saturday, February 2, 2013 3:18:02 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Roger Clough F = *U* − *TS *points out a curious relationship between information, which is nonphysical, mental and part of mind, hence S, and energy U or F , which is physical so part of the brain. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Roger Clough javascript: *Receiver:* - min...@yahoogroups.com javascript: *Time:* 2013-02-02, 03:12:05 *Subject:* Re: [Mind and Brain] How to create a mind ? Hi Philip Benjamin How about the fact that the brain deals with information, which can also be a source or sink (as entropy) of energy ? Such as: This unusable energy is given by the *entropy* of a system multiplied by the *...* The historically earlier Helmholtz free energy is defined as F = *U* − *TS *, where *U* i s the *...* energy' for the expression *E* − *TS*, in which the change in F (or G) determines *... * - Receiving the following content - *From:* Philip Benjamin javascript: *Receiver:* MindBrain MindBrain javascript: *Time:* 2013-02-01, 11:26:47 *Subject:* [Mind and Brain] How to create a mind ? FW: [perspectiveofmind] Re: How to create a mind by Kurzweil - part 3 *[Philip Benjamin]* How is this (*fundamental pattern recognition units*) different from the philosophical dualism of Sir John Eccles Friedrich Beck (1991-1992)? At least there was no violation of the principle of energy conservation there for mind-brain interaction. Their 40 million *dendrons* were fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex which are cylindrical bundles of neurons arranged vertically in the six outer layers (laminae) of the cortex. Each cylinder is about 30 micrometres as radius, is linked to a mental unit, or * psychon* (*nobody knows what it is*) and represents a unitary conscious experience. Psychons act on dendrons in willed actions and thoughts, increasing for a moment the probability of the firing of selected neurons through quantum tunneling effect in synaptic exocytosis. In perception the reverse process takes place. The same error is being repeated endlessly, conflating the locus of mind with the mind itself and then leaving the mechanism of transduction of physical information into mental phenomena. Physical cannot be transduced into or interact with non-physical. The transformation into the mental may simply mean interaction with a different form or imageof physicality through the mysterious (not mystical) resonance processes. Best regards Philip Friedrich Beck (2008). **My Odyssey with Sir John Eccles. NeuroQuantology 6 (2): 161�163. http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/170 Friedrich Beck, John C. Eccles (1992). Quantum aspects of brain activity and the role of consciousness. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 89 (23): 11357�11361. doi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier: 10.1073/pnas.89.23.11357. PMID 1333607. http://www.pnas.org/content/89/23/11357.full.pdf. Friedrich Beck, John C. Eccles (1998). Quantum processes in the brain: A scientific basis of consciousness. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society 5 (2): 95�109. http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jcss/5/2/2_95/_pdf. John C. Eccles, *How the Self Controls its Brain*, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1994. ISBN 3-540-56290-7. Philip Benjamin PhD.MSc.MA *Evidentialist* Spiritual Body or Physical Spirit? Your Invisible Doppelg�ger. *Sunbury Press *Jan 2013 Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-182-4 Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1-62006-183-1 ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-184-8 Materialism/Physicalism Extraordinaire. http://biodarkmatter.webs.com/index.htm *Bio Dark-Matter Chemistry*, International Journal of Current Research and Reviews Vol 4 issue 20, 2012 ** -- To: perspect...@yahoogroups.com javascript:; mind...@yahoogroups.comjavascript: From: valt...@engeplus.com.br javascript: Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2013 08:18:32 -0200 Subject: [perspectiveofmind] Re: How to create a mind by Kurzweil - part 3 Hello, I noticed that, for some reason, the message I sent yesterday , when viewed in HTML format, was not being shown completely. The last part was missing. Only when viewed as a txt would the ending part appear. So, I decided to send the message again, reedited, hoping that this time
Re: multiverses and quantum computers
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 2:39:53 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 2/1/2013 12:46 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Hi Bruno, On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.bejavascript: wrote: On 31 Jan 2013, at 15:15, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes Perhaps you're right, but to my limited knowledge, a quantum has infinite paths available between points A and B without invoking another universe. Once we are able to use (classical) information obtained in the other quantum paths, like when doing a Fourier transform on some superposition of many computations, like in a quantum computer, what makes them different of other universes? The superposition of many computations itself. Superposition of states on a same universe are a bit hard to swallow. I think people reject the idea of a multiverse because it sounds loony, but my understanding is that making QM consistent with a single universe requires magical thinking. I don't think that's true. There are ways of interpreting QM that are consistent and not magical. It's just that they require accepting that somethings happen and some don't. It's the same as saying that consciousness emerges from neural activity. But we don't know of any consciousness that doesn't emerge from neural activity and we don't know of any intelligence that doesn't emerge from the physical processing of information. Where does the consciousness that emerges from neural activity emerge from though? Is there any physical system that isn't 'processing information' on some scale of millennia or nanoseconds? If we understand that the nature of consciousness is specifically to provide a fisheye lens ontology for a given subject, then it makes perfect sense that this distortion would prevent us from seeing subjectivity in the periphery of our lens, so to speak, where structures are too large or too small, too slow or too fast, too unfamiliar or too distant for us to identify with personally, socially, zoologically, or biologically. I suggest that this is a quantized scale which maps to our capacity to recognize and directly relate to non-human experiences. For this reason however, functionalism actually fails, contrary to what most people will assume. It is because we are assembling machines in total ignorance of natural non-human awareness, that our hamfisted attempts have lead us only haltingly further on the road to either Frankenstein or HAL. By isolating only the tweeter range of human privacy (cognitive awareness), without any of the emotional bass or somatic sub-woofer, we can't access the full spectrum which is required to begin to access human quality personhood. Putting together sentences is not thinking. Matching up queries with responses is not understanding. Craig Brent People overlook the magical step because they are more confortable with the resulting model. Bruno So no problem. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-01-31, 08:13:30 *Subject:* Re: Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space Hi Roger, In the one universe model, where does the extra computational power of quantum computers come from? On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes IMHO more than one universe is unjustified. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-01-30, 12:10:08 *Subject:* Re: About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space Hi Roger, I find it harder to believe in finite universes. Why the precise number, whatever it is? On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 12:46 PM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: Hi Stephen P. King It's easier to believe in salvation through faith or UFOs than infinite universes. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Stephen P. King javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-01-28, 09:20:33 *Subject:* About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space Hi, 牋 I think this paper might be fodder for a nice discussion! http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295 About the Infinite Repetition of Histories in Space Francisco Jos Soler Gilhttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Gil_F/0/1/0/all/0/1 , Manuel Alfonsecahttp://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Alfonseca_M/0/1/0/all/0/1 (Submitted on 22 Jan 2013 (v1 http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5295v1), last revised 23 Jan 2013 (this version, v2)) This paper analyzes two different proposals, one by Ellis and Brundrit, based on classical relativistic cosmology, the other by Garriga and Vilenkin, based on the DH interpretation of quantum mechanics, both of which conclude that, in an infinite universe, planets and
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 4:02:46 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi socr...@bezeqint.net javascript: and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? How can it not? Because I can move my physical fingers and type these words, and you can see these pixels and read them as the same (or very similar) words with your physical eyes, we must begin from the position that in fact, the universe has no problem whatsoever integrating private conscious experience with public bodies. It is our odd position, as human beingsanimalsorganismsmatter that convinces us that the human being level and the matter level are irreconcilable. In fact, they are all different qualities of experience as seen from a human fisheye lens. The inside of inorganic matter is much slower and much faster than the inside of a whole human nervous system - it's like comparing a every tiny bubble in every glass of beer with a single enormous soap bubble floating lazily in odd shapes for decades, covered with iridescent diffraction patterns. From our view, the beer foam lacks the interesting colors and shapes. From the view of the beer bubbles...well, we have no idea really if there is a view of us from there...like Flatland or the Star Trek with invisible high-speed aliens who sound like mosquitoes, we are out of range of their micorcosmic/astrophysical (smallest and largest) fisheye view. To me, physical means real, and real means that it exists within the context of sensory-motor participation in a context which is experienced where privacy can be discerned from public. If you are seeing private experiences in public (like synchronicity), or public experiences in private (like entopic neurological patterns floating in your visual field, then you are moving away from realism and physics, and toward intuition, delusion, genius and madness. Also infancy, and religion, trance, imagination, etc. There need not be such a stigma around these states, but they do push off the edge of the human fisheye lens and make a mess. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
Hi Alberto G. Corona Does your version of mind actually do anything ? - Receiving the following content - From: Alberto G. Corona Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 04:43:54 Subject: Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe I do think that a block universe can contain minds in a certain way. The objections against that are based in the absence of time, but space(3D geometry) and time can and should be a product of the machinery of the mind, in the kantian sense. But while in Kant things in themselves are unreachable, in the block universe the thing in themselves are pure mathematics. so there are infinite minds at different moments that produce psychological phenomenons in coherence with the infinite sucession of brains along their lines of life, that are perceived psychologicaly as time. these brains and living beings, are localy perceived as products of natural selection, but seen from above, their lines of life are just trajectories where, by fortunate collisions of particles, chemical and electrical signals, the entropy is exceptionally maintained constant (until the end of the line of life) But the minds are somehow in another world, the world of the mind, which includes not only our thoughs but everithing we see around us, because everithing the mind see is produced by the machinery of the brain. Then the block universe of mathematics brings only the coherent substrate where the world of the mind can appear by evolution. Because it is a world with laws and rules, given by the mathematical nature behind, it is not a collection of boltzmann brains, or, if it is, they are a extraordinary persistent and coherent form of it so that it appear to contain laws of nature and shared experiences, because we can ask ourselves and communicate and agree, on these laws and these experiences. 2013/1/31 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net Hi Bruno Marchal The block universe is the physical universe. So we are not part of it, for it does not allow subjectivity, which is nonphysical. Or mathematics or comp, which are also nonphysical. - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-01-30, 12:45:53 Subject: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe On 29 Jan 2013, at 15:04, Richard Ruquist wrote: A block universe does not allow for consciousness. With comp consciousness does not allow any (aristotelian) universes. There is comp block mindscape, and the universe(s) = the border of the mindscape as seen from inside. The fact the we all possess consciousness, so we think, means that our universe is not completely blocked, From inside. although the deviations from block may be minor and inconsequential regarding the Omega Point. The comp mind-body problems can be restated by the fact that with comp, there is an infinity of omega points, and the physics of here and now should be retrieved from some sum or integral on all omega points. By using the self-reference logics we got all the nuances we need (3p, 1p, 1p-plural, communicable, sharable, observable, etc.). Bruno Richard. On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 11:18 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Here's an essay that is suggestive of Bruno's distinction between what is provable and what is true (knowable) but unprovable. Maybe this is a place where COMP could contribute to the understanding of QM. Brent Lessons from the Block Universe Ken Wharton Department of Physics and Astronomy San Jos State University http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Wharton_Wharton_Essay.pdf?phpMyAdmin=0c371ccdae9b5ff3071bae814fb4f9e9 In Liouville mechanics, states of incomplete knowledge exhibit phenomena analogous to those exhibited by pure quantum states. Among these are the existence of a no-cloning theorem for such states [21, 23], the impossibility of discriminating such states with certainty [21, 24], the lack of exponential divergence of such states (in the space of epistemic states) under chaotic evolution [25], and, for correlated states, many of the features of entanglement [26]. On the other hand, states of complete knowledge do not exhibit these phenomena. This suggests that one would obtain a better analogy with quantum theory if states of complete knowledge were somehow impossible to achieve, that is, if somehow maximal knowledge was always incomplete knowledge [21, 22, 27]. This idea is borne out by the results of this paper. In fact, the toy theory suggests that the restriction on knowledge should take a particular form, namely, that one? knowledge be quantitatively equal to one? ignorance in a state of maximal knowledge. It is important to bear in mind that one cannot derive quantum theory from the toy theory, nor from any simple modification thereof. The problem is that the toy theory is a theory of incomplete knowledge about local and noncontextual hidden variables, and it is
Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi Telmo Menezes Agreed, computers can be, or at least seem to be, intelligent, but they are slaves to mathematical codes, which are not material. A turing machine is not material, it is an idea. - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 06:05:53 Subject: Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the New System of Nature (1695), the second from the Reply to Bayle (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the I in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this I which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as one conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single I, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (Principles of Nature and Grace, sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a letter to Antoine Arnauld of 9 October 1687, Leibniz wrote that “in natural perception and sensation, it is enough for what is divisible and material and dispersed into many entities to be expressed or represented in a single indivisible entity or in a substance which is endowed with genuine unity.” If perception (and hence, consciousness) essentially involves a representation of a variety of content in a simple, indivisible “I,” then we may construct Leibniz's argument against materialism as follows: Materialism holds that matter can explain (is identical with, can give rise to) perception. A perception is a state whereby a variety of content is represented in a true unity. Thus, whatever is not a true unity cannot give rise to perception. Whatever is divisible is not
A state with more than one governor ?
Hi Stephen, A state with more than one governor is perhaps best described as a civil war. And you can only have one pilot on a boat. In short, any living entity can only have one pilot or decision maker. Even a representational govt such as we have here in the USA ultimately has a single man (the president) to provide a legislative vision and to sign or not sign a bill. Leibniz's system seems to act as if each monad is free to do as it wishes, but that is only apparent. Above or among the monads must be just one supreme monad that does all of the actual perceiving and acting. Roger - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 06:19:12 Subject: Re: Big Bang is the simplest possible state? On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 12:40 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Dear Bruno and Stephen, On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The big bang remains awkward with computationalism. It suggest a long and deep computations is going through our state, but comp suggest that the big bang is not the beginning. Dear Bruno, ? ? I think that comp plus some finite limit on resources = Big Bang per observer. Couldn't the Big Bang just be the simplest possible state? Hi Telmo, ?? Yes, if I can add ...that a collection of observers can agree upon but that this simplest possible state is uniquely in the past for all observers (that can communicate with each other) should not be just postulated to be the case. It demands an explanation. It's uniquely in the past for all complex observers Hi Telmo, ? I would partition up all possible observers into mutually communicating sets. Not all observers can communicate with each other and it is mutual communication that, I believe, contains the complexity of one's universe. That makes sense to me. ? Basically my reasoning forllows Wheeler's It from Bit idea. because: - It cannot contain a complex observer ?? How do we know this? We are, after all, speculating about what we can only infer about given what we observe now. Isn't it just a tautology? I don't know how to justify it any further. It's like saying that an empty glass does not contain water. ? - It is so simple that it is coherent with any history ?? Simplicity alone does not induce consistency, AFAIK... I'm thinking in the following terms: imagine a CA which has an initial state where a single cell is on. For any super-complex state that you find down the line, the initial simple step is always a consistent predecessor. ? ? That doesn't mean it's the beginning, just that it's a likely predecessor to any other state. ?? The word predecessor' worries me, it assumes some way to determine causality even when measurements are impossible. Sure, we can just stipulate monotonicity of states, but what would be the gain? I mean predecessor in the sense that there are plausible sequences of transformations that it's at the root of. These transformations include world branching, of course. ?? I am playing around with the possibility that monotonicity should not be assumed. After all, observables in QM are complex valued and the real numbers that QM predicts (as probabilities of outcomes) only obtain when a basis is chosen and a squaring operation is performed. Basically, that *is* is not something that has any particular ordering to it. Here I am going against the arguments of many people, including Julian Barbour. Ok, this also makes sense to me. But can you accept that there is quantifiable similarity between states? In this case we can still build a state graph from which we can extract timelines without requiring ordering. ? ? The more complex a state is, the smaller the number of states that it is likely to be a predecessor of. ?? Sure, what measure of complexity do you like? There are many and if we allow physical laws to vary, infinitely so... I like the Blum and Kolmogorov measures, but they are still weak... I had Kolmogorv in mind and it's the best I can offer. I agree, it's still week and that's a bummer. ?? Maybe we should drop the desiderata of a measure and focus on the locality of observers and its requirements. I don't think I understand what you mean here. ? -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. ? ? --
Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi Roger, On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes Agreed, computers can be, or at least seem to be, intelligent, but they are slaves to mathematical codes, which are not material. A turing machine is not material, it is an idea. Ok but that depends on how you define material. Those mathematical codes are what I mean by material. F = mA is (an approximation) of part of what I mean by material. You can build and approximation of a turing machine (a finite one) with stuff you can touch and you can ever use it as a doorstop. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2013-02-02, 06:05:53 *Subject:* Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that *perception* and what depends upon it is *inexplicable on mechanical principles*, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the *New System of Nature* (1695), the second from the *Reply to Bayle* (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the *I* in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this *I* which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as *one*conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single *I*, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (*Principles of Nature and Grace,*sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a letter to Antoine Arnauld of 9 October 1687, Leibniz wrote that “in natural perception and sensation, it is enough for what is divisible and material and dispersed into many entities to be expressed or represented in a single indivisible entity or in a substance which is endowed with
Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi socra...@bezeqint.net Leibniz's and Kant's idealisms are roughly equivalent to neuroscience's double aspect theory, which is fairly widely accepted, as is Kant, by the neuroscience community. Leibniz is too difficult to understand to be widely accepted. - Receiving the following content - From: socra...@bezeqint.net Receiver: Everything List Time: 2013-02-02, 08:52:43 Subject: Re: How can intelligence be physical ? On Feb 2, 10:02?m, Roger Cloughrclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence ?e physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? In the name of reason and common sense: How can dualism be equal to idealism ? =. To solve the problem of dualism of particle in physics is equal to solve the problem of idealism in philosophy. Dualism = Idealism. Why? Because in physics we have two ( 2) conceptions of impulse: a) Newtonian/ Classical physics explains conceptions of impulse as an outside effect. b) Quantum physics explains conceptions of impulse as an inside ? inner effect. ==. What it means ? My explanation. According to Quantum theory the elementary particle quantum of light can be in three ( 3) states: a) Quantum of light can be in potential state, then its inner impulse and speed is zero: h=0, c=0. b) Quantum of light can be in the state of constant and straight motion ( in vacuum) then its inner impulse according to Planck is h=E/t and according to Einstein it is h=kb. Einstein proved that h= E/t = kb =1 Using this impulse quantum of light moves in a straight line with constant speed c = 299,792,458 m/sec = 1. We call such quantum of light - ?hoton?. From Earth ? gravity point of view this speed is maximally. From Vacuum point of view this speed is minimally. In this movement quantum of light behave as a corpuscular. c) According to Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck quantum of light can rotate around its axis by its inner impulse h* = h / 2pi. In such movement quantum of light has charge and produce electric waves ( waves property of particle). We call such quantum of light - ? electron? . The speed of rotating electron is faster than when it moves in a straight line : c1. The speed of rotating electron we call ?requency? ( f ). Now is possible ?isual? to understand the formula of electron? energy: E=h*f. ==. Quantum of light can be in three ( 3) states: a) h=0 (potential state) b) h=1 ( be as a photon in a straight constant movement) c) h* = h/ 2pi ( be as an electron ? rotates around its own axis) The reason of these different kind of motions is its inner impulses. (!) What this mean? It means that quantum of light has free will to choice in which state to be. To have possibility to choice needs some kind of consciousness. This consciousness cannot be statically. This consciousness can develop. The development of consciousness goes, as ancient Indian Veda says, ? from vague wish up to a clear thought ? It means that quantum of light not only object but subject too and therefore I wrote: Dualism = Idealism. =. P.S. Of course, when we think about behavior of quantum of light we need to take in attention its reference frame ? Infinite Vacuum: T=0K. . Best wishes. Israel Sadovnik Socratus. ==. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 6:05:53 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote: Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. When you don't understand what you are doing, it it easy to do it very fast. This writer gives a good explanation: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-minds-are-not-like-computers Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. Have you considered that it is a bias you have, to make you feel special, to be able to say that you are above their bias? WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. An argument can be made that Leibniz is the inventor of computer science, particularly AI. http://history-computer.com/Dreamers/Leibniz.html Craig On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: Hi socr...@bezeqint.net javascript: and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that *perception* and what depends upon it is *inexplicable on mechanical principles*, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the *New System of Nature* (1695), the second from the *Reply to Bayle* (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the *I* in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this *I* which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as *one*conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single *I*, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (*Principles of Nature and Grace,*sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a letter to Antoine Arnauld of 9 October 1687, Leibniz wrote that “in natural perception and sensation, it is enough for what is divisible and material and dispersed into many entities to be expressed or represented in a single indivisible entity or in a substance which is endowed with genuine unity.” If perception (and hence, consciousness) essentially involves a representation of a variety of content in a simple, indivisible “I,” then we may construct Leibniz's argument against
Re: Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
Hi Telmo Menezes By material I mean physical. Decartes similarly defines the physical as being extended in space. Mathematics is not extended in space, so is nonphysical. A Turing machine is conceived of as having a tape with holes in it, but it can be used mathematically without physically constructing it. An actual computer consists of hardware, which is physical, and software, which may be physical in terms of charges, but ultimately those charges represent binary nuymbers, and numbers are nonphysical. - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 08:59:44 Subject: Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes Agreed, computers can be, or at least seem to be, intelligent, but they are slaves to mathematical codes, which are not material. A turing machine is not material, it is an idea. Ok but that depends on how you define material. Those mathematical codes are what I mean by material. F = mA is (an approximation) of part of what I mean by material. You can build and approximation of a turing machine (a finite one) with stuff you can touch and you can ever use it as a doorstop. - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-02, 06:05:53 Subject: Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socra...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the New System of Nature (1695), the second from the Reply to Bayle (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the I in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this I which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as one conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single
Re: A state with more than one governor ?
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 8:55:18 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Stephen, A state with more than one governor is perhaps best described as a civil war. And you can only have one pilot on a boat. In short, any living entity can only have one pilot or decision maker. ...one decision maker *at a time*. If monads can all make decisions and follow decisions within the fullness of time. Monads are experiences through time. Craig - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-02-02, 06:19:12 *Subject:* Re: Big Bang is the simplest possible state? On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Stephen P. King step...@charter.netjavascript: wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 12:40 AM, Stephen P. King step...@charter.netjavascript: wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Dear Bruno and Stephen, On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Stephen P. King step...@charter.netjavascript: wrote: On 1/27/2013 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The big bang remains awkward with computationalism. It suggest a long and deep computations is going through our state, but comp suggest that the big bang is not the beginning. Dear Bruno, � � I think that comp plus some finite limit on resources = Big Bang per observer. Couldn't the Big Bang just be the simplest possible state? Hi Telmo, �� Yes, if I can add ...that a collection of observers can agree upon but that this simplest possible state is uniquely in the past for all observers (that can communicate with each other) should not be just postulated to be the case. It demands an explanation. It's uniquely in the past for all complex observers Hi Telmo, � I would partition up all possible observers into mutually communicating sets. Not all observers can communicate with each other and it is mutual communication that, I believe, contains the complexity of one's universe. That makes sense to me. � Basically my reasoning forllows Wheeler's *It from Bit* idea. because: - It cannot contain a complex observer �� How do we know this? We are, after all, speculating about what we can only infer about given what we observe now. Isn't it just a tautology? I don't know how to justify it any further. It's like saying that an empty glass does not contain water. � - It is so simple that it is coherent with any history �� Simplicity alone does not induce consistency, AFAIK... I'm thinking in the following terms: imagine a CA which has an initial state where a single cell is on. For any super-complex state that you find down the line, the initial simple step is always a consistent predecessor. � � That doesn't mean it's the beginning, just that it's a likely predecessor to any other state. �� The word predecessor' worries me, it assumes some way to determine causality even when measurements are impossible. Sure, we can just stipulate monotonicity of states, but what would be the gain? I mean predecessor in the sense that there are plausible sequences of transformations that it's at the root of. These transformations include world branching, of course. �� I am playing around with the possibility that monotonicity should not be assumed. After all, observables in QM are complex valued and the real numbers that QM predicts (as probabilities of outcomes) only obtain when a basis is chosen and a squaring operation is performed. Basically, that *is* is not something that has any particular ordering to it. Here I am going against the arguments of many people, including Julian Barbour. Ok, this also makes sense to me. But can you accept that there is quantifiable similarity between states? In this case we can still build a state graph from which we can extract timelines without requiring ordering. � � The more complex a state is, the smaller the number of states that it is likely to be a predecessor of. �� Sure, what measure of complexity do you like? There are many and if we allow physical laws to vary, infinitely so... I like the Blum and Kolmogorov measures, but they are still weak... I had Kolmogorv in mind and it's the best I can offer. I agree, it's still week and that's a bummer. �� Maybe we should drop the desiderata of a measure and focus on the locality of observers and its requirements. I don't think I understand what you mean here. � -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit
Re: Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 9:10:49 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes By material I mean physical. Decartes similarly defines the physical as being extended in space. Mathematics is not extended in space, so is nonphysical. A Turing machine is conceived of as having a tape with holes in it, but it can be used mathematically without physically constructing it. An actual computer consists of hardware, which is physical, and software, which may be physical in terms of charges, but ultimately those charges represent binary nuymbers, and numbers are nonphysical. I agree that mathematics is not extended in space, but rather, like all things not extended, is intended. Mathematics is an intention to reason quantitatively, and quantitative reasoning is an internalized model of spatially extended qualities: persistent, passive entities which can be grouped or divided: rigid bodies. Digits. So yes, numbers are not extended, but they are intended to represent what is extended. Craig - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-02-02, 08:59:44 *Subject:* Re: Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes Agreed, computers can be, or at least seem to be, intelligent, but they are slaves to mathematical codes, which are not material. A turing machine is not material, it is an idea. Ok but that depends on how you define material. Those mathematical codes are what I mean by material. F = mA is (an approximation) of part of what I mean by material. You can build and approximation of a turing machine (a finite one) with stuff you can touch and you can ever use it as a doorstop. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2013-02-02, 06:05:53 *Subject:* Re: How can intelligence be physical ? Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: Hi socr...@bezeqint.net javascript: and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that *perception* and what depends upon it is *inexplicable on mechanical principles*, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the *New System of Nature* (1695), the second from the *Reply to Bayle* (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the *I* in us; such a thing could not occur
Re: A state with more than one governor ?
On 2/2/2013 9:13 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Saturday, February 2, 2013 8:55:18 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Stephen, A state with more than one governor is perhaps best described as a civil war. And you can only have one pilot on a boat. In short, any living entity can only have one pilot or decision maker. ...one decision maker /at a time/. If monads can all make decisions and follow decisions within the fullness of time. Monads are experiences through time. Craig Exactly! The monad is whole of the experience. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Big Bang is the simplest possible state?
On 2/2/2013 6:19 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 12:40 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 6:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Dear Bruno and Stephen, On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote: On 1/27/2013 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The big bang remains awkward with computationalism. It suggest a long and deep computations is going through our state, but comp suggest that the big bang is not the beginning. Dear Bruno, I think that comp plus some finite limit on resources = Big Bang per observer. Couldn't the Big Bang just be the simplest possible state? Hi Telmo, Yes, if I can add ...that a collection of observers can agree upon but that this simplest possible state is uniquely in the past for all observers (that can communicate with each other) should not be just postulated to be the case. It demands an explanation. It's uniquely in the past for all complex observers Hi Telmo, I would partition up all possible observers into mutually communicating sets. Not all observers can communicate with each other and it is mutual communication that, I believe, contains the complexity of one's universe. That makes sense to me. Hi Telmo, Can you see that this requirement even works if there are an infinite number of 'observers'? Basically my reasoning follows Wheeler's /It from Bit/ idea. because: - It cannot contain a complex observer How do we know this? We are, after all, speculating about what we can only infer about given what we observe now. Isn't it just a tautology? I don't know how to justify it any further. It's like saying that an empty glass does not contain water. Yes, it is a bit tautological but non-negligible because it sets up the contra-factual basis for what is. That *is* is the complement of what *is not*. Since the number of things that 'didn't happen' is, generally infinite, we can see how events are somehow sieved or selected from many. This leads to the idea that an observation is a selective action, a map from many to one. Classical physics seems to claim that only one event follows from a previous single event, but this kind of reasoning fails when we try to make sense of QM. I am working out a logical strategy... - It is so simple that it is coherent with any history Simplicity alone does not induce consistency, AFAIK... I'm thinking in the following terms: imagine a CA which has an initial state where a single cell is on. For any super-complex state that you find down the line, the initial simple step is always a consistent predecessor. I generally do not like CA models as they presuppose a fixed set of possible outcomes or rule - which then requires an explanation as to how that rule is selected, and it assumes an absolute time or, equivalently, global synchrony of the transition events. I start with a pair of physical events and their duals (propositional algebras) and work out the mappings between them as Vaughan Pratt describes in his /Rational Mechanics and Natural Mathematics/ paper. One can then set up chains of such and more complex lattices to obtain space-time toy models. That doesn't mean it's the beginning, just that it's a likely predecessor to any other state. The word predecessor' worries me, it assumes some way to determine causality even when measurements are impossible. Sure, we can just stipulate monotonicity of states, but what would be the gain? I mean predecessor in the sense that there are plausible sequences of transformations that it's at the root of. These transformations include world branching, of course. I am playing around with the possibility that monotonicity should not be assumed. After all, observables in QM are complex valued and the real numbers that QM predicts (as probabilities of outcomes) only obtain when a basis is chosen and a squaring operation is performed. Basically, that *is* is not something that has any particular ordering to it. Here I am going against the arguments of many people, including Julian Barbour. Ok, this also makes sense to me. But can you accept that there is quantifiable similarity between states? Sure, there must be to have any thing like continuity and transitions of event to event and state to state. My point is that we should never assume a measure of similarity that cannot be
Re: Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
In the world of the mind, that is, in what we call reality, it causes everithing because causality is another phenomenon introduced by the mind (1p) In the timeless view, there is no causality buy casualty Viewed from above in a broad perspective, then to cause something is to select it, so there is a identity between the anthropic principle at large, natural selection and voluntary conscious selection by a mind. all three can be seen as causations when we examine them from a 1p perspective, in a timeful fashion. But viewing the block universe from above, simply they are correlations. There is no causality but local phenomenons. I have to mention that a view from above would need a mind with space-time qualia and probably a meta-time that we can only imagine. for this mind, creation of the universes adquire another very different meaning, since he would look at the complete figure of the universe, the beginning and at the end of it simultaneously. he would see what exist for us (the phenomena that we have selected by the fact that we live in them) and what does not exist (because we don´nt observe it, and maybe we can not even imagine it). 2013/2/2 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net Hi Alberto G. Corona Does your version of mind actually do anything ? - Receiving the following content - *From:* Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2013-02-02, 04:43:54 *Subject:* Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe I do think that a block universe can contain minds in a certain way. The objections against that are based in the absence of time, but space(3D geometry) and time can and should be a product of the machinery of the mind, in the kantian sense. But while in Kant things in themselves are unreachable, in the block universe the thing in themselves are pure mathematics. so there are infinite minds at different moments that produce psychological phenomenons in coherence with the infinite sucession of brains along their lines of life, that are perceived psychologicaly as time. these brains and living beings, are localy perceived as products of natural selection, but seen from above, their lines of life are just trajectories where, by fortunate collisions of particles, chemical and electrical signals, the entropy is exceptionally maintained constant (until the end of the line of life) But the minds are somehow in another world, the world of the mind, which includes not only our thoughs but everithing we see around us, because everithing the mind see is produced by the machinery of the brain. Then the block universe of mathematics brings only the coherent substrate where the world of the mind can appear by evolution. Because it is a world with laws and rules, given by the mathematical nature behind, it is not a collection of boltzmann brains, or, if it is, they are a extraordinary persistent and coherent form of it so that it appear to contain laws of nature and shared experiences, because we can ask ourselves and communicate and agree, on these laws and these experiences. 2013/1/31 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net Hi Bruno Marchal The block universe is the physical universe. So we are not part of it, for it does not allow subjectivity, which is nonphysical. Or mathematics or comp, which are also nonphysical. - Receiving the following content - *From:* Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2013-01-30, 12:45:53 *Subject:* Re: Lessons from the Block Universe On 29 Jan 2013, at 15:04, Richard Ruquist wrote: A block universe does not allow for consciousness. With comp consciousness does not allow any (aristotelian) universes. There is comp block mindscape, and the universe(s) = the border of the mindscape as seen from inside. The fact the we all possess consciousness, so we think, means that our universe is not completely blocked, From inside. although the deviations from block may be minor and inconsequential regarding the Omega Point. The comp mind-body problems can be restated by the fact that with comp, there is an infinity of omega points, and the physics of here and now should be retrieved from some sum or integral on all omega points. By using the self-reference logics we got all the nuances we need (3p, 1p, 1p-plural, communicable, sharable, observable, etc.). Bruno Richard. On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 11:18 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net+meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Here's an essay that is suggestive of Bruno's distinction between what is provable and what is true (knowable) but unprovable. Maybe this is a place where COMP could contribute to the understanding of QM. Brent Lessons from the Block Universe Ken Wharton Department of Physics and Astronomy San Jos State University
Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:18 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Hi 2013/1/30 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com It is to me. I think it is very unlikely that the motions and evolutions of star and galaxies and in my model even universes could be strongly affected by biological consciousness But then, what is the anthropic principle about? That our universe is one among 10^500 possibilities. Of course that number assumes that the flux that winds through the compact manifold containing 500 holes is assumed ad hoc to contain 10 quantum states. It could as well contain 100 quantum states resulting in 100^500= 10^1000 unique universes. That we are in one out of 10^1000 possible universes is the anthropic principle. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
Don´t limit yourself to the math of string theory . there may be argued that any mathematical figure exist, including the ones with no interesting structure or simetry of constants including ranndom structures, that is with a high kolmogorov complexity. That means that everithing may exist . Not bad as a speculative metaphisic. But alternatively, I can choose another more traditional metaphisic, the positivist one for example, but I could invoke any other, that is in agreement with the concept of existence of most of the people including physicists: What exist is what we observe, that is , our own universe is the one that exist. And this has been selected by our own existence. Alternatively if we expand the concept of observation to mathematical coherence and/or minimize complexity and we accept the string theory and the string landscape as the only math permitted in existence (And I´m saying a lot), then we still can think, that the block universes is made of things that exist, that we observe and things that don´t exist. It depends on the notion of existence. 2013/2/2 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:18 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Hi 2013/1/30 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com It is to me. I think it is very unlikely that the motions and evolutions of star and galaxies and in my model even universes could be strongly affected by biological consciousness But then, what is the anthropic principle about? That our universe is one among 10^500 possibilities. Of course that number assumes that the flux that winds through the compact manifold containing 500 holes is assumed ad hoc to contain 10 quantum states. It could as well contain 100 quantum states resulting in 100^500= 10^1000 unique universes. That we are in one out of 10^1000 possible universes is the anthropic principle. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: Lessons from the Block Universe
That everything possible may have mathematical existence is my fundamental hypothesis. How much of this everything that can possibly become physically existent depends on the definition of physical which in turn depends on theory. MWI theory predicts a near infinity of possibilities within a single anthropic selection whether or not everything possible exists. However, the entire notion of anthropy comes from the string landscape and I replied to you from that frame of reference. Richard On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Don´t limit yourself to the math of string theory . there may be argued that any mathematical figure exist, including the ones with no interesting structure or simetry of constants including ranndom structures, that is with a high kolmogorov complexity. That means that everithing may exist . Not bad as a speculative metaphisic. But alternatively, I can choose another more traditional metaphisic, the positivist one for example, but I could invoke any other, that is in agreement with the concept of existence of most of the people including physicists: What exist is what we observe, that is , our own universe is the one that exist. And this has been selected by our own existence. Alternatively if we expand the concept of observation to mathematical coherence and/or minimize complexity and we accept the string theory and the string landscape as the only math permitted in existence (And I´m saying a lot), then we still can think, that the block universes is made of things that exist, that we observe and things that don´t exist. It depends on the notion of existence. 2013/2/2 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:18 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Hi 2013/1/30 Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com It is to me. I think it is very unlikely that the motions and evolutions of star and galaxies and in my model even universes could be strongly affected by biological consciousness But then, what is the anthropic principle about? That our universe is one among 10^500 possibilities. Of course that number assumes that the flux that winds through the compact manifold containing 500 holes is assumed ad hoc to contain 10 quantum states. It could as well contain 100 quantum states resulting in 100^500= 10^1000 unique universes. That we are in one out of 10^1000 possible universes is the anthropic principle. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe
Re: multiverses and quantum computers
On 2/2/2013 2:43 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 8:39 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 2/1/2013 12:46 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Hi Bruno, On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 31 Jan 2013, at 15:15, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Telmo Menezes Perhaps you're right, but to my limited knowledge, a quantum has infinite paths available between points A and B without invoking another universe. Once we are able to use (classical) information obtained in the other quantum paths, like when doing a Fourier transform on some superposition of many computations, like in a quantum computer, what makes them different of other universes? The superposition of many computations itself. Superposition of states on a same universe are a bit hard to swallow. I think people reject the idea of a multiverse because it sounds loony, but my understanding is that making QM consistent with a single universe requires magical thinking. I don't think that's true. There are ways of interpreting QM that are consistent and not magical. It's just that they require accepting that somethings happen and some don't. It's the same as saying that consciousness emerges from neural activity. But we don't know of any consciousness that doesn't emerge from neural activity Can you describe the mechanism by which that happens? It's not mechanical, so I doubt that there is a 'mechanistic' explanation. It's similar to Newton's explanation of gravity. It was objected at the time that he gave no explanation of how gravity pushed and pulled on planets. But when you think carefully about them you realize that scientific theories are mathematical models that predict things, but in general they don't have 'mechanisms' that fit our anthropomorphic idea of push and pull, cause and effect. What is the 'mechanism' of a projection operator in quantum mechanics, or of the Schrodinger equation. It may well be that consciousness is just how a certain kind of physical information processing 'feels' from the inside. I'm willing to accept a toy model and overlook a lot of things, just give me something. What I can give is empirical evidence and operational defintions. An operational definition of consciousness is responding to accumulated information in ways that are intelligent/purposeful but unpredictable. and we don't know of any intelligence that doesn't emerge from the physical processing of information. True, but that's a different matter. Consciousness is not a requirement for intelligence. How do you know that? I think it likely that consciousness, of some kind, always accompanies intelligence of a sufficiently high level - they kind we think of as learning from experience and being able to set multi-level goals. Or if it is it must come through some mysterious means, because we know how to build intelligent machines but we don't know how to build conscious ones. How do you know that? How would you know that a robot you built with intelligent behavior was not conscious? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can intelligence be physical ?
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Saturday, February 2, 2013 6:05:53 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote: Hi Roger, I don't really understand how people can object to the idea of physical/mechanical intelligence now that we live in a world where we're surrounded by it. Google searches, computers that can beat the best human chess player, autonomous rovers in Mars, face recognition, automatic stock traders that are better at it than any human being and so on and so on. When you don't understand what you are doing, it it easy to do it very fast. This writer gives a good explanation: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-minds-are-not-like-computers Many AI algorithms are intrinsically slow. Most of the examples I've given are made possible by parallelising large amounts of computers. They will never understand in the sense you mean unless they have a 1p, but I don't see how that relates to speed or how speed is relevante here. Also I'm not claiming that intelligence == mind. Every time AI comes up with something that only humans could do, people say oh right, but that's not intelligence - I bet computer will never be able to do X. And then they do. And then people say the same thing. It's just a bias we have, a need to feel special. Have you considered that it is a bias you have, to make you feel special, to be able to say that you are above their bias? I have and it might be true. WIth all due respect to Leibniz, he didn't know computer science. An argument can be made that Leibniz is the inventor of computer science, particularly AI. http://history-computer.com/Dreamers/Leibniz.html I honestly had no idea and I'm impressed (and ashamed for not knowing). Craig On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM, Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.net wrote: Hi socr...@bezeqint.net and Craig, and all, How can intelligence be physical ? How can meaning be physical ? How can thinking be physical ? How can knowing be physical ? How can life or consciousness or free will be physical ? IMHO You need to consider what is really going on: http://plato.stanford.edu/**entries/leibniz-mind/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ One is obliged to admit that *perception* and what depends upon it is *inexplicable on mechanical principles*, that is, by figures and motions. In imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think, to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine, that one must look for perception. Leibniz's argument seems to be this: the visitor of the machine, upon entering it, would observe nothing but the properties of the parts, and the relations they bear to one another. But no explanation of perception, or consciousness, can possibly be deduced from this conglomerate. No matter how complex the inner workings of this machine, nothing about them reveals that what is being observed are the inner workings of a conscious being. Hence, materialism must be false, for there is no possible way that the purely mechanical principles of materialism can account for the phenomena of consciousness. In other writings, Leibniz suggests exactly what characteristic it is of perception and consciousness that the mechanical principles of materialism cannot account for. The following passages, the first from the *New System of Nature* (1695), the second from the *Reply to Bayle* (1702), are revealing in this regard: Furthermore, by means of the soul or form, there is a true unity which corresponds to what is called the *I* in us; such a thing could not occur in artificial machines, nor in the simple mass of matter, however organized it may be. But in addition to the general principles which establish the monads of which compound things are merely the results, internal experience refutes the Epicurean [i.e. materialist] doctrine. This experience is the consciousness which is in us of this *I* which apperceives things which occur in the body. This perception cannot be explained by figures and movements. Leibniz's point is that whatever is the subject of perception and consciousness must be truly one, a single “I” properly regarded as *one*conscious being. An aggregate of matter is not truly one and so cannot be regarded as a single *I*, capable of being the subject of a unified mental life. This interpretation fits nicely with Lebniz's oft-repeated definition of perception as “the representation in the simple of the compound, or of that which is outside” (*Principles of Nature and Grace, * sec.2 (1714)). More explicitly, in a
Re: Big Bang is the simplest possible state?
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 2/2/2013 6:19 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 2:13 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 6:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 12:40 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 6:07 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Dear Bruno and Stephen, On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 6:27 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote: On 1/27/2013 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The big bang remains awkward with computationalism. It suggest a long and deep computations is going through our state, but comp suggest that the big bang is not the beginning. Dear Bruno, I think that comp plus some finite limit on resources = Big Bang per observer. Couldn't the Big Bang just be the simplest possible state? Hi Telmo, Yes, if I can add ...that a collection of observers can agree upon but that this simplest possible state is uniquely in the past for all observers (that can communicate with each other) should not be just postulated to be the case. It demands an explanation. It's uniquely in the past for all complex observers Hi Telmo, I would partition up all possible observers into mutually communicating sets. Not all observers can communicate with each other and it is mutual communication that, I believe, contains the complexity of one's universe. That makes sense to me. Hi Stephen, Can you see that this requirement even works if there are an infinite number of 'observers'? Sure. Basically my reasoning follows Wheeler's *It from Bit* idea. because: - It cannot contain a complex observer How do we know this? We are, after all, speculating about what we can only infer about given what we observe now. Isn't it just a tautology? I don't know how to justify it any further. It's like saying that an empty glass does not contain water. Yes, it is a bit tautological but non-negligible because it sets up the contra-factual basis for what is. That *is* is the complement of what *is not*. Since the number of things that 'didn't happen' is, generally infinite, we can see how events are somehow sieved or selected from many. This leads to the idea that an observation is a selective action, a map from many to one. Ok I see what you mean. I feel that the content of our memories is a fundamental part of our 1p, and have difficulty imagining how a 1p close to the bing bang would be like. But it ends up being a similar difficulty to imagining how it feel to be a bacteria. Classical physics seems to claim that only one event follows from a previous single event, but this kind of reasoning fails when we try to make sense of QM. I am working out a logical strategy... Cool. - It is so simple that it is coherent with any history Simplicity alone does not induce consistency, AFAIK... I'm thinking in the following terms: imagine a CA which has an initial state where a single cell is on. For any super-complex state that you find down the line, the initial simple step is always a consistent predecessor. I generally do not like CA models as they presuppose a fixed set of possible outcomes or rule - which then requires an explanation as to how that rule is selected, and it assumes an absolute time or, equivalently, global synchrony of the transition events. One idea I have (not sure if original) is an hyper-CA, where the outcome of a rule can be 0, 1 or a superposition of 0 and 1, in which case the universe is split. I start with a pair of physical events and their duals (propositional algebras) and work out the mappings between them as Vaughan Pratt describes in his *Rational Mechanics and Natural Mathematics* paper. One can then set up chains of such and more complex lattices to obtain space-time toy models. Cool, I'll have a look at the paper. That doesn't mean it's the beginning, just that it's a likely predecessor to any other state. The word predecessor' worries me, it assumes some way to determine causality even when measurements are impossible. Sure, we can just stipulate monotonicity of states, but what would be the gain? I mean predecessor in the sense that there are plausible sequences of transformations that it's at the root of. These transformations include world branching, of course. I am playing around with the possibility that monotonicity should not be assumed. After all, observables in QM are complex valued and the real numbers that QM predicts (as probabilities of outcomes) only obtain when a basis is chosen and a squaring operation is performed. Basically, that *is* is not something that has any particular ordering to it. Here I am going against the arguments of many people, including Julian Barbour. Ok, this also makes sense to me. But can you accept that there is
Re: There are no reasons to believe in God
On Saturday, February 2, 2013 1:29:50 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 Roger Clough rcl...@verizon.net javascript:wrote: There are no reasons to believe in God That is incorrect, it's not random, there is a reason you believe in God. Humans are genetically programed by Evolution so that when they are very young they tend to believe whatever adults tell them, and usually this belief persists into adulthood and they tell their children the same thing who also believe it. You believe in God because mommy and daddy told you something and you swallowed every word of it, they told you, to quote George Carlin: there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! any more than there were reasons, as an infant, to trust your mother. Infants usually trust their mother and the reason they do so is induction, however if the mother is psychotic then young children do not trust their mother and reason is the same, induction, that is to say the useful rule of thumb that things usually continue. While I agree with your view, and Carlin's view on the toxic absurdity of organized religion, I don't see the connection between a child's tendency to accept the beliefs of their parents with the assumption of evolutionary origin of the God concept itself. I think Roger has a point in the sense that there are no obvious practical reasons why the idea of belief in God should appear in the first place. It seems like whatever practical function such an idea could serve would be served just as well with something impersonal, like 'fate' or 'power' (juju, mana). This doesn't lend credibility to the idea per se, but it does point toward something other than evolution to explain it. As I have said, I suggest that the God concept is a projection of consciousness itself - of private physics onto the outside word. God is the image or universalized reflection of the ultimate Self. This is why the God idea appears in many cultures all over the world, and doesn't trace back to a single vector. That's why it is so easy to spread from culture to culture; because we instinctively and intuitively identify with the image, and images like that (archetypes, personified super-signifiers). Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
