Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/20/2013 9:20 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:


Just the opposite. I have in mind that no test is necessary for
consciousness. Just being conscious ourselves may allow us to infer some
things about consciousness. Tests can just as easily be used to exaggerate
our bias. There were tests for witches, tests for eugenics. It's very
compelling to have some justification to quiet those noisy doubts of
conscience.

But you do have some test of consciousness in mind since you admit
that a machine might fool you into thinking it's conscious. Your
intuition is therefore not foolproof here. What means do you use to
decide if your intuition is correct?


In saying that machines aren't conscious, I have no qualms, no axe to grind.
I love technology, I have no agenda against machines, I simply observe that
there is no possibility that they have awareness on the machine level,


How could "no possibility of awareness" be observed??  I could understand that no evidence 
of awareness was observed.  But I can't understand the observance of the absence of 
possibility.



and I
think that I understand why that is. If anyone really did have any intuition
at all of machine intelligence that was independent of wishful thinking, I
think that you would see computer scientists quitting AI sometimes because
of the ethics of operating on the machines themselves.


No, they just wouldn't program the machines to be conscious - and John McCarthy, inventor 
of LISP and "The Father of AI" did exactly that; and he cautioned AI researchers against 
creating conscious robots precisely because of the ethical problem.



Why don't we see
that?


Because you don't look for anything that might contradict your prejudices?


Why isn't there an abolitionist movement for machines? These are not
proof, they are clues. You have to reason for yourself about consciousness.
There will never be a meaningful test.

There are several points here. Firstly, people kill animals and
enslave other humans, so if they do believe they are conscious they
don't think their consciousness matters.


Or they think it is advantageous to have smart slaves.


Secondly, if machines have
the potential to be conscious that does not mean that all machines in
fact are conscious.


Right.  A computer can be programmed to implement any computable function, but we know 
that most of those programs do not result in intelligent behavior - and as John C. Clark 
points out, intelligent behavior is the best measure we have of consciousness.


Brent

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 11:30:49 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> Miguel Nicolelis 
>
> > You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t 
>> create a consciousness.
>>
>
> It must be grand being a "hard problem" theorist because it's the easiest 
> job in the world bar none, no matter how smart something is you just say 
> "yeah but it's not conscious" and there is no way anybody can prove you 
> wrong.
>

It's not that easy because people don't understand the hard problem and 
keep trying to pretend that it doesn't exist just because they can't solve 
it.
 

>
> >computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological 
>> Singularity is "a bunch of hot air. The brain is not computable and no 
>> engineering can reproduce it,"
>>
>
> Unless you're willing to get on the mystical bullshit train (and even in 
> the 21'st century many are all too willing to get on that broken down old 
> choo choo) then the only conclusion to make is that the neural wiring 
> required to develop human level intelligence CANNOT be impossibly complex 
> because in the entire human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs. 
> There are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits and there are 8 bits 
> per byte so that comes out to just 750 meg, and that's enough assembly 
> instructions to make not just a brain and all its wiring but a entire human 
> baby. So the instructions MUST contain wiring instructions such as "wire 
> the neurons up this that and the other way and then repeat that procedure 
> 917 billion times.
>

No, it probably doesn't work that way at all. You are looking in the TV set 
to find which wires make the TV shows.
 

>
> And there is a huge amount of redundancy in the human genome, if you used 
> a file compression program like ZIP on that 750 meg you could easily put 
> the entire thing on half a CD, not a DVD not a Blu ray just a old fashioned 
> vanilla CD.
>
> > human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can’t be 
>> replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the 
>> result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells
>>
>
> Unpredictability and non-linear reactions are a dime a dozen but are more 
> the defining attribute of insanity than intelligence or the feeling of 
> personal identity that persists over decades; and besides, computers have 
> no trouble being unpredictable and non-linear. The first program I ever 
> wrote was to zoom in and look at small parts of the infinite Mandelbrot set 
> in detail, and even though I wrote the program if I wanted to know what the 
> image it would produce next would look like all I could do is wait and see 
> what sort of picture the program would create.
>

I agree with you there, it's not the unpredictability that is the issue. 
The unpredictability is a symptom of the sentience expressed through the 
cells.


> > You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because 
>> you can’t compute it
>>
>
> But it would be easy to write a program that goes up and down in such a 
> way that it passes the exact same statistical tests for randomness that the 
> real stock market does. So yes, it would be easier to make a intelligent 
> computer than it would be to make a intelligent computer that also happens 
> to be John K Clark or any other specific individual.
>

He's just giving a layman's example of how not everything can be reproduced 
computationally.
 

>
> > the human brain has evolved to take the external world—our surroundings 
>> and the tools we use—and create representations of them in our neural 
>> pathways.
>>
>
> And those neural pathways have started to understand how they work and has 
> devised technology to produce intelligent behavior without biological 
> neurons.
>

I think he's wrong there. There are no representations of our experiences 
in our neural pathways. Pointers maybe. 

Craig
 

>
>   John K Clark
>
>  
>
>  
>
>

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 8:15:54 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, 21 February 2013, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> We can't predict our own decisions, since there is always the 
>>> possibility that we can change our minds.
>>
>>
>> But we are in control of that possibility to some extent. If I bet you 
>> $100 that I will post something about tree frogs later today, then I can be 
>> sure that I will follow through on that, barring unforeseen events beyond 
>> my control.
>>
>
> Surely you, a free will enthusiast, will admit that you *could* change 
> your mind about that post even though at the moment you are pretty sure you 
> want to win the bet. If you felt you could not change your mind then that 
> would be a weird situation. It can occur with so-called passivity phenomena 
> in schizophrenia, where patients describe feeling controlled by an external 
> force which they are powerless to resist.
>

It's not a matter of feeling that I could not change my mind, it is the 
fact that one can exercise their free will in a multi-dimensional way. We 
can prioritize. If it is important to me to honor some commitment or 
obligation, I can go on indefinitely with reasonable confidence that I 
won't change my mind. Free will also means the freedom to make up your 
mind. Of course, things can always change, but that doesn't mean that we 
can't ever make up our minds.
 
 

>  
>
>> This is where the feeling of 
>>> "free will" comes from. Note that this has no bearing on the question 
>>> of whether our decisions are determined or not: the only requirement 
>>> for the feeling of freedom is that we not know what we're going to do 
>>> until we do it. 
>>>
>>
>> I think that you are confusing freedom with farting. Not knowing what we 
>> are going to do is meaningless if we don't have the possibility to freely 
>> exercise control over what we do. Why would there be a feeling associated 
>> with some process which has no consequences that we could do anything about?
>>
>
> We have the feeling of control over what we do because we can't predict 
> exactly what we are going to do. 
>

No. We have the feeling of control over what we do, period. There is no 
because. Participation is fundamental private physics. Irreducible. No 
energy, not substance, no function, form, or data is beneath it. 
 

> As I keep trying to explain, this has no bearing on whether our actions 
> are determined or not. There is no logical connection between the two 
> concepts.
>

If you are right, then you can't say that you 'keep trying' to do anything. 
Your feeling that you keep trying is an illusion. You just don't know what 
you are going to say, so you imagine that you keep trying. That's what you 
are telling me. With a straight face. Instead of constructing an argument 
from logical expectations, I suggest experimenting with an empirical 
inventory. Why deny that you are actually present?
 

>
> Suppose someone demonstrates to you that they can reliably predict every 
> decision you make. You deliberately try to thwart them by making erratic 
> decisions but they still get it right. This might be disturbing for you, 
> but do you think the strong feeling of free will that you have would 
> suddenly disappear?
>

There's no question that the feeling of personal free will is overstated, 
but that has nothing to do with the ontology of will. We may have to 
balance the needs and agendas of a trillion sub-persons, and a trillion 
super-persons, but that doesn't mean that our own personal will doesn't 
contribute to the overall preference. Why is the personal will so special 
that physics has to make it the only thing in the universe which isn't 
real? I can make your brain change just by writing these words, so why 
can't you change your own brain by thinking?

Craig

 
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou 
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> Just the opposite. I have in mind that no test is necessary for
> consciousness. Just being conscious ourselves may allow us to infer some
> things about consciousness. Tests can just as easily be used to exaggerate
> our bias. There were tests for witches, tests for eugenics. It's very
> compelling to have some justification to quiet those noisy doubts of
> conscience.

But you do have some test of consciousness in mind since you admit
that a machine might fool you into thinking it's conscious. Your
intuition is therefore not foolproof here. What means do you use to
decide if your intuition is correct?

> In saying that machines aren't conscious, I have no qualms, no axe to grind.
> I love technology, I have no agenda against machines, I simply observe that
> there is no possibility that they have awareness on the machine level, and I
> think that I understand why that is. If anyone really did have any intuition
> at all of machine intelligence that was independent of wishful thinking, I
> think that you would see computer scientists quitting AI sometimes because
> of the ethics of operating on the machines themselves. Why don't we see
> that? Why isn't there an abolitionist movement for machines? These are not
> proof, they are clues. You have to reason for yourself about consciousness.
> There will never be a meaningful test.

There are several points here. Firstly, people kill animals and
enslave other humans, so if they do believe they are conscious they
don't think their consciousness matters. Secondly, if machines have
the potential to be conscious that does not mean that all machines in
fact are conscious. Carbon-based life forms have the potential to be
conscious but most people don't think plants are conscious, for
example. Finally, there is no necessary connection between
consciousness and wanting to be treated a particular way. We might
look at worker bees with pity but that's just because we aren't bees.

>> You
>> apply this test to animals and to machines and you conclude that the
>> former are conscious and the latter not. I hope the test is not
>> something like "is made of organic material, grows and maintains
>> homeostasis", because the objection to that is, there is no reason to
>> assume that these factors are either necessary or sufficient for
>> consciousness.
>
>
> The test is 'does it have experiences and participate in the world?'

But how do you know it has experiences? If it's intuition how do you
know in particular cases if you are right?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 11:09:27 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 20 Feb 2013, at 05:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:53:46 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>
>> If he is making mice conscious of infra-red light though, then I would 
>>> say he works with consciousness.
>>>
>>  
>> How do you know the mice are conscious of infra-red light? If it were a 
>> machine you would say it wasn't conscious, it just reacted to the light in 
>> a way that superficially resembles consciousness.
>>
>
> That's because we are obliged to give organisms like us the benefit of the 
> doubt. The opposite is true of machines, where we have seen that their 
> behavior has no basis in any innate sensitivity or agenda of the machine.
>
>
> 1) nobody has seen this (and I am not sure "seeing that kind of thing" can 
> make sense).
>

I have seen it though. All day long I see computers acting in a way which 
is clearly insensitive of consequences and devoid of any personal agenda. 

>
> 2) seeing is no proof of existence or inexistence. Nor even ontological 
> evidence.
>

Believing that is no disproof of it either. Proof really isn't relevant for 
consciousness. No proof is possible or necessary for our own presence. 
Awareness is more primitive than proof or belief or truth.

Craig


> Bruno
>
>
>
> Craig
>
> -- 
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
>
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>  
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>

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Re: Comp: Geometry Is A Zombie

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 1:33:23 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013  Craig Weinberg >wrote:
>
> > The laws of physics as you understand them forbid any form of 
>> consciousness
>>
>
> The laws of physics as I understand them neither forbids nor demands any 
> form of consciousness.
>

In what way isn't it forbidden though? What physical mechanism is there 
available that could allow for experience?
 

>
> > The only thing you know about the brain is the way that people have used 
>> instruments, using a one dimensional signal that comes into a wire from 
>> some probe or meter. 
>
>
> That is true but its truth is not confined to the brain. The only way you 
> know about ANYTHING, except perhaps for pure mathematics, is indirectly by 
> interpreting a sequence of electrical signals sent to the brain. 
>

Why do you exempt mathematics? Are you saying math has a backdoor to your 
mind that skips the brain?
 

> And those electrical signals did not even come from the apple you think 
> you're "looking" at, they came from your eye. 
>

Who says that the electrical signal is the experience of looking? I think 
that it is nothing of the sort. The signal is a sign of an experience 
taking place, and taking place on several levels, but the brain level 
activity has very little to do with the experience other than to announce 
its occurrence. Am I communicating that well enough that you can tell the 
difference? A frame count is not the same thing as movie. A movie is not 
made of frame counts. The apple, I am saying is actually more what you 
think you're looking at than it is anything that can be derived from 
instrumental measurements. Measurement augments experience, but cannot 
replace it.
 

> And the eye did not directly detect the apple either, it only detected 
> electromagnetic waves (that the brain would later hypothesize came from a 
> apple) and then used a convention that both the eye and brain agreed upon 
> and translated those electromagnetic waves into electrical sequences that 
> are sent down a wire to the brain.
>

I used to believe that also, but I understand that it is actually a 
misconception. There is computation, and there are protocols but that has 
nothing whatsoever with the physics of awareness itself.
 

>
> > Looking at an apple
>>
>
> How a apple looks to you is NOT an apple. 
>

Yes it actually is. How an apple looks to a camera with no photographer is 
NOT an apple.
 

>
>  > smelling
>>
>
> How a apple smells to you is NOT an apple. 
>

Again, you are arbitrarily privileging your certainty in a voyeurs world 
that can't actually exist. OF COURSE how an apple smells to you IS an 
apple. There is no experience of an apple beyond whatever it is that is 
experiencing it - be it a person, a bird, an ant, or a molecule in a cell 
in the apple seed. There IS NO "IS". 
 

>
> > and tasting the apple
>>
>
> How a apple tastes to you is NOT an apple. 
>

See above.
 

>
> > I experience everything that matters about apples 
>>
>
> Everything that matters to you perhaps, and in exactly the same way 
> complex numbers can provide everything that matters to you about 3D space.
>

I don't see the connection. Complex numbers provide me with nothing at all 
that matters to me about 3D space. 

>
>  > When we talk about apples, we are talking about qualia. 
>>
>
> If so then when we're talking about the color red why aren't we talking 
> about electromagnetic waves 7700 angstroms long? You can't have it both 
> ways, either the qualia of a thing is identical to the thing itself or it 
> is not, and either answer leads to a contradiction in your philosophy. 
>

Because the color red is not dependent on electromagnetic waves. I am 
imagining a red apple right now, yet there are no red apples being 
projected in my brain. Everything is qualia but not every part of 
everything is the same kind of qualia. Qualia related to public interaction 
is a reduced set - the ASCII of qualia if you will - which deals with 
bodies in space. Density, position, shape. Bodies are obstructions in sense 
where other experiences which are not our own are represented in our 
experience.
 

>
> > There is no 'one dimensional wire to your brain'. The optic nerve is a 
>> community of living organisms [...] We can talk about sugar content or 
>> cellular structure, but there is nothing apple-like about that.
>>
>
> Why is it that the cellular structure of a apple is not important but the 
> cellular structure of a nerve is?
>

The cellular structure of an apple is important if you have a microscope 
and are interested in it.
 

>
> > Why should any signals be interpreted as 3D space?
>>
>
> Because it can be without contradiction, and because Evolution has 
> determined that this interpretation helps in getting genes into the next 
> generation. 
>

That's meaningless. You have no idea at all why they should be interpreted 
in that way, or in any way, so you say 'God, er, evolution did it.' 

I

Re: Misconceptions of Natural Selection and Evolution

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 5:28:03 PM UTC-5, JohnM wrote:
>
> Craig, it seems we engaged in a fruitful discussion- thank you. 


> I want to reflect to *a few* concepts only from it to clarify MY stance. 
> First my use of *a 'model'.* There are different models, from the sexy 
> young females over the math-etc. descriptions of theoretical concepts (some 
> not so sexy). - What I (after Robert Rosen?) use by this word is an extract 
> of something, we may not know in toto. Close to an 'Occamized' version, but 
> "cut" mostly by ignorance of the 'rest of it', not for added clarity. 
> Applied to whatever we know TODAY about the world. Or: we THINK WE KNOW. 
> *
> You mention 'statistical' in connection with adaptation. I deny the 
> validity of statistics (and so: of probability) because it depends on the 
> borderlines to observe in "counting" the items. 1000 years ago (or maybe 
> yesterday) such boderlines were different, consequently different 
> statistics came up with different chances of occurrence in them (not even 
> mentioning the indifference of WHEN all those chances may materialize). 
> *
> *"...within a looped continuum of perceived causality..."  *
> Perceived causality is restricted to the 'model' content, while it may be 
> open to be entailed by instigators beyond our present knowledge. 
> Furthermore (in the flimsy concept we have about 'time' I cannot see a 
> 'loop' - only a propagating curve as everything changes by the time we 
> think to 'close' the loop (like the path of a planet as the Sun moves). 
> *
> *"...I couldn't agree with you more. That's a big part of what my TOE is 
> all about  http://multisenserealism.com/8-matter-energy/..."*
> Your TOE? - MY FOOT. - Agnostically we are so far from even speaking about
> * 'everything'* that the consecutively observable levels of gathering 
> some knowledge (adjusted to our ever evolving mental capabilities into some 
> personal 'mini-solipsism' - different always for everyone) is a great 
> pretension of the human conventional sciences. 
> (Don't take it personally, please). We LIVE and THINK within (my) model. 
> Whatever is beyond is unknowable. But it affects the model content. 
> The URL was an enjoyable reading - with Stephen's addition to it. 
>

Thanks John, 

I agree, my TOE pretensions are more tongue in cheek than literal. What I'm 
claiming is that I think I have a plausible (the only plausible, IMO) 
concept of how mind and body (and by extension physics and experience) 
relate. The rest is extrapolated from that and I think suggests that it can 
work and opens up some new possibilities for understanding time and 
significance, qualia, etc.

Thanks,
Craig


> Best regards
> John Mikes
> *
> *
> *
> *
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 9:47 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>> I was so impressed with this page 
>> http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a1 
>>
>> that I thought it was worth listing a few here:
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection acts for the good of the species.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: The fittest organisms in a population are those that are 
>> strongest, healthiest, fastest, and/or largest.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection is about survival of the very fittest 
>> individuals in a population.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: All traits of organisms are adaptations.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory implies that life evolved (and 
>> continues to evolve) randomly, or by chance.
>>
>> **MISCONCEPTION: Evolution results in progress; organisms are always 
>> getting better through evolution.*
>>
>> **
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Jason Resch 
If there is an infinity of copies of you now being kicked by a wild horse,
when is there ever a single copy of yourself doing something?

Jason

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> if comp and the null hypothesis (everithing exist) is accepted, then a
> infinity of copies of you are now being kicked by a wild horse while being
> eaten by bugs in an ocean of acid. So it does not matter what just a single
> copy of you is doing whatever ;)
>
>
> 2013/2/13 Bruno Marchal 
>
>>
>> On 13 Feb 2013, at 04:09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>>  On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Jason Resch 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Consider the following thought experiment, called "The Duplicators":

 At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. The aliens will
 tell
 you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to conduct some
 experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown to them. These
 aliens
 possess technology far in advance of our own. They have the ability to
 scan
 and replicate objects down to the atomic level and the aliens use this
 technology to create an atom-for-atom duplicate of yourself, which they
 call
 you2. The aliens thank you for your assistance and return you unharmed
 back
 to your home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain
 experiments?" and
 they hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You read
 the
 pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created and
 subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what humans
 call
 torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthanized. You
 consider
 this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your duplicate
 rather than you.

 Now consider the slightly different thought experiment, called "The
 Restorers":

 At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. Unlike the aliens
 with
 the duplication technology (the duplicators), these aliens possess a
 restorative technology. They can perfectly erase memories and all other
 physical traces to perfectly restore you to a previous state. The aliens
 will tell you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to
 conduct some experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown to
 them.
 They then proceed to brutually torture you for many hours, conducting
 test
 after test on pain. Afterwards, they erase your memory of the torture
 and
 all traces of injury and stress from your body. When they are finished,
 you
 are atom-for-atom identical to how you were before the torture began.
 The
 aliens thank you for your assistance and return you unharmed back to
 your
 home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain experiments?" and
 they
 hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You read the
 pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created and
 subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what humans
 call
 torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthenized. You
 consider
 this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your duplicate
 rather than you.

 My questions for the list:

 1. Do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in the case
 of
 the Restorers, even though you no longer remember it?  If not, why not.

 2. If yes, do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in
 the
 case of the Duplicators?  If yes, please explain, if not, please
 explain.

 3. If you could choose which aliens would abduct you, is there one you
 would
 prefer?  If you have a preference, please provide some justification.

>>>
>>> The two experiments are equivalent. Rationally, you should not have a
>>> preference for either - though both are bad in that you experience
>>> pain but then forget it.
>>>
>>
>> OK, same answer (assuming comp).
>>
>> If we assume non-comp, then the answer will be dependent on the theory of
>> mind that we might propose.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> --
>>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>>
>>> --
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this mes

Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Jason Resch 
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 1:50 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/20/2013 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:28 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>   On 2/19/2013 4:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:27 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>>  On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>>
  On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

 6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and
 consciousness will swap with that of some rich and famous person.  Let's
 say Bill Gates.  I hope you are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The swap is
 complete.  Bill Gates is now in your body, with access to your memories and
 living as you were just before you got to reading this sentence, while you
 are living as a billionaire and enjoying Bills bank account.   Of course,
 while you are in his body you only have access to his memories.  Not only
 does his wife not notice the switch, but you don't even notice it.  You
 only have access to Bill's memories now so you do not realize anything is
 awry.  Don't worry, everything will be set back how it was, in 3. 2. 1.
 Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you don't remember. Fortunately, Bill
 was nice enough to read the last few sentences for you and now they have
 been placed into your memory.  This shows it is meaningless to say "I wish
 I could live as X", or "experience a day in Y's shoes".  For all you know,
 you already are, have, and will.


  This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist
 apart from your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk of
 exchanging bodies and memories.

>>>
>>> We agree it is nonsense.
>>>
>>>
For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a "Bill
 Gates" soul that switched.

>>>
>>> Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at T1
>>> and you at T2, when the two are different in terms of memories and material?
>>>
>>> There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two
>>> individuals at two different times.  Inevitably it comes down to some
>>> arbitrary measure of similarity.  There are two alternatives, no-self
>>> theories of personal identity, in which you are nothing but a single
>>> observer moment, and universalism, which identifies you with every
>>> conscious entity.
>>>
>>>
>>>  You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory -
>>> physical continuity.
>>>
>>>
>> I haven't forgotten it, I've just come to see that the simplest theory
>> (while perfectly fine for ordinary scenarios) falls on its face in others.
>> Particularly those involving duplicates, material replacement, teleporters,
>> amnesia, split brains, etc.
>>
>> What is physical continuity's answer to the following questions:
>> Who will you find yourself to be when you awake from a split brain
>> surgery?
>> Do you experience the perspectives of all your branched copies under the
>> Everett multi-verse?
>> Would you survive or die when you use a star-trek style transporter?
>> Do I lose consciousness if I lose access to all my memories?
>> Can my mind be slowly transformed to that of any other conscious person
>> without losing consciousness?
>> If I step into a duplication machine and 10 copies come out, which one do
>> I survive as?
>>
>> Arnold Zuboff gives the following thought experiment to show how
>> inadequate physical continuity theories are:
>>
>>  I imagined two brains lying at
>> either end of an operating table. For the sake of vividness - please
>> forgive
>> me - let us say a mad scientist has only a moment ago snatched the brain
>> from your head. It is one of the two on the operating table. The other
>> brain
>> is a precise duplicate of yours in every discriminable respect, including
>> all
>> its patterns of memory traces. Perhaps the scientist created this
>> duplicate
>> himself, or perhaps he stole it from the head of one of those duplicates
>> of
>> you that would have arisen naturally in an infinite universe.
>>
>> Anyway, this mad scientist is capable of feeding into these brains any
>> pattern of stimulation he likes, by means of electrodes plugged into them
>> where nerves would normally be entering from the sense-organs and the
>> rest of the body. And he has chosen to give both of them precisely the
>> same pattern of stimulation that your brain would have been receiving if
>> it
>> had not been snatched from your head moments ago. That would be why
>> it seems to you that your brain is still in your head, that my paper is
>> still
>> before you.
>>
>> As I say, both brains are being fed exactly this same pattern of stimu-
>> lation. What should we expect is true of the subjects and their
>> experience?
>> Would we not suppose that the episode of experience connected with each
>> brain would be qualitatively identical? But would we not also think

Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou 
On Thursday, 21 February 2013, Craig Weinberg wrote:

We can't predict our own decisions, since there is always the
>> possibility that we can change our minds.
>
>
> But we are in control of that possibility to some extent. If I bet you
> $100 that I will post something about tree frogs later today, then I can be
> sure that I will follow through on that, barring unforeseen events beyond
> my control.
>

Surely you, a free will enthusiast, will admit that you *could* change your
mind about that post even though at the moment you are pretty sure you want
to win the bet. If you felt you could not change your mind then that would
be a weird situation. It can occur with so-called passivity phenomena in
schizophrenia, where patients describe feeling controlled by an external
force which they are powerless to resist.


> This is where the feeling of
>> "free will" comes from. Note that this has no bearing on the question
>> of whether our decisions are determined or not: the only requirement
>> for the feeling of freedom is that we not know what we're going to do
>> until we do it.
>>
>
> I think that you are confusing freedom with farting. Not knowing what we
> are going to do is meaningless if we don't have the possibility to freely
> exercise control over what we do. Why would there be a feeling associated
> with some process which has no consequences that we could do anything about?
>

We have the feeling of control over what we do because we can't predict
exactly what we are going to do. As I keep trying to explain, this has no
bearing on whether our actions are determined or not. There is no logical
connection between the two concepts.

Suppose someone demonstrates to you that they can reliably predict every
decision you make. You deliberately try to thwart them by making erratic
decisions but they still get it right. This might be disturbing for you,
but do you think the strong feeling of free will that you have would
suddenly disappear?

--
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Alberto G. Corona 
if comp and the null hypothesis (everithing exist) is accepted, then a
infinity of copies of you are now being kicked by a wild horse while being
eaten by bugs in an ocean of acid. So it does not matter what just a single
copy of you is doing whatever ;)


2013/2/13 Bruno Marchal 

>
> On 13 Feb 2013, at 04:09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>  On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Jason Resch 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Consider the following thought experiment, called "The Duplicators":
>>>
>>> At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. The aliens will tell
>>> you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to conduct some
>>> experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown to them. These
>>> aliens
>>> possess technology far in advance of our own. They have the ability to
>>> scan
>>> and replicate objects down to the atomic level and the aliens use this
>>> technology to create an atom-for-atom duplicate of yourself, which they
>>> call
>>> you2. The aliens thank you for your assistance and return you unharmed
>>> back
>>> to your home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain experiments?"
>>> and
>>> they hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You read the
>>> pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created and
>>> subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what humans
>>> call
>>> torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthanized. You
>>> consider
>>> this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your duplicate
>>> rather than you.
>>>
>>> Now consider the slightly different thought experiment, called "The
>>> Restorers":
>>>
>>> At 1:00 PM tomorrow, you will be abducted by aliens. Unlike the aliens
>>> with
>>> the duplication technology (the duplicators), these aliens possess a
>>> restorative technology. They can perfectly erase memories and all other
>>> physical traces to perfectly restore you to a previous state. The aliens
>>> will tell you not to worry, that you won't be harmed but they wish to
>>> conduct some experiments on the subject of pain, which is unknown to
>>> them.
>>> They then proceed to brutually torture you for many hours, conducting
>>> test
>>> after test on pain. Afterwards, they erase your memory of the torture and
>>> all traces of injury and stress from your body. When they are finished,
>>> you
>>> are atom-for-atom identical to how you were before the torture began. The
>>> aliens thank you for your assistance and return you unharmed back to your
>>> home by 5:00 PM. You ask them "What about the pain experiments?" and they
>>> hand you an informational pamphlet and quickly fly off. You read the
>>> pamphlet which explains that a duplicate of you (you2) was created and
>>> subjected to some rather terrible pain experiments, akin to what humans
>>> call
>>> torture and at the end of the experiment you2 was euthenized. You
>>> consider
>>> this awful, but are nonetheless glad that they tortured your duplicate
>>> rather than you.
>>>
>>> My questions for the list:
>>>
>>> 1. Do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in the case
>>> of
>>> the Restorers, even though you no longer remember it?  If not, why not.
>>>
>>> 2. If yes, do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in
>>> the
>>> case of the Duplicators?  If yes, please explain, if not, please explain.
>>>
>>> 3. If you could choose which aliens would abduct you, is there one you
>>> would
>>> prefer?  If you have a preference, please provide some justification.
>>>
>>
>> The two experiments are equivalent. Rationally, you should not have a
>> preference for either - though both are bad in that you experience
>> pain but then forget it.
>>
>
> OK, same answer (assuming comp).
>
> If we assume non-comp, then the answer will be dependent on the theory of
> mind that we might propose.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
>> --
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>> "Everything List" group.
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>> email to 
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>> https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_out
>> .
>>
>>
>>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ 
>
>
>
>
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Re: Misconceptions of Natural Selection and Evolution

2013-02-20 Thread John Mikes 
Bruno, I have no argument with you.
Let me insert a remark into your text below
(in  *large font bold italics*)
John

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> Hi John,
>
>
> On 19 Feb 2013, at 23:28, John Mikes wrote:
>
> Craig, it seems we engaged in a fruitful discussion- thank you.
>
> I want to reflect to *a few* concepts only from it to clarify MY stance.
> First my use of *a 'model'.* There are different models, from the sexy
> young females over the math-etc. descriptions of theoretical concepts (some
> not so sexy). - What I (after Robert Rosen?) use by this word is an extract
> of something, we may not know in toto. Close to an 'Occamized' version, but
> "cut" mostly by ignorance of the 'rest of it', not for added clarity.
> Applied to whatever we know TODAY about the world. Or: we THINK WE KNOW.
>
>
>
> A scientist know nothing. Just nothing, not even his own consciousness.
>
> In science we have only beliefs, and the best we can hope, is to refute
> them, by making them clear enough.
>
> I insist on this because there is a widespread misconsception in popular
> science, but also among many materialist scientists (= many scientists),
> that we can know something "scientifically", but that is provably wrong
> with comp, and plausiibly wrong with common sense.
>
> A scientist who make public his knowledge is a pseudo-scientist, or a
> pseudo-religious person, or is simply mad.
>
*Or a Nobel Prize winner.*

>
> There is always an interrogation mark after any theory. Theories are
> beliefs, never public knowledge. Even 1+1=2.
> But we can (temporally) agree on some theories. We have to do that to
> refute them, and learn.
>
> Bruno
> *(And I wrote: "We THINK we know")*
>


>
>
>
> *
> You mention 'statistical' in connection with adaptation. I deny the
> validity of statistics (and so: of probability) because it depends on the
> borderlines to observe in "counting" the items. 1000 years ago (or maybe
> yesterday) such boderlines were different, consequently different
> statistics came up with different chances of occurrence in them (not even
> mentioning the indifference of WHEN all those chances may materialize).
> *
> *"...within a looped continuum of perceived causality..."  *
> Perceived causality is restricted to the 'model' content, while it may be
> open to be entailed by instigators beyond our present knowledge.
> Furthermore (in the flimsy concept we have about 'time' I cannot see a
> 'loop' - only a propagating curve as everything changes by the time we
> think to 'close' the loop (like the path of a planet as the Sun moves).
> *
> *"...I couldn't agree with you more. That's a big part of what my TOE is
> all about  http://multisenserealism.com/8-matter-energy/..."*
> Your TOE? - MY FOOT. - Agnostically we are so far from even speaking about
> * 'everything'* that the consecutively observable levels of gathering
> some knowledge (adjusted to our ever evolving mental capabilities into some
> personal 'mini-solipsism' - different always for everyone) is a great
> pretension of the human conventional sciences.
> (Don't take it personally, please). We LIVE and THINK within (my) model.
> Whatever is beyond is unknowable. But it affects the model content.
> The URL was an enjoyable reading - with Stephen's addition to it.
>
> Best regards
> John Mikes
> *
> *
> *
> *
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 9:47 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>> I was so impressed with this page
>> http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a1
>>
>> that I thought it was worth listing a few here:
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection acts for the good of the species.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: The fittest organisms in a population are those that are
>> strongest, healthiest, fastest, and/or largest.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection is about survival of the very fittest
>> individuals in a population.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: All traits of organisms are adaptations.*
>>
>> *MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory implies that life evolved (and
>> continues to evolve) randomly, or by chance.
>>
>> **MISCONCEPTION: Evolution results in progress; organisms are always
>> getting better through evolution.*
>>
>> **
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/20/2013 8:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Feb 2013, at 05:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:53:46 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:



On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, Craig Weinberg wrote:

If he is making mice conscious of infra-red light though, then I would 
say he
works with consciousness.

How do you know the mice are conscious of infra-red light? If it were a 
machine you
would say it wasn't conscious, it just reacted to the light in a way that
superficially resembles consciousness.


That's because we are obliged to give organisms like us the benefit of the doubt. The 
opposite is true of machines, where we have seen that their behavior has no basis in 
any innate sensitivity or agenda of the machine.


1) nobody has seen this (and I am not sure "seeing that kind of thing" can make 
sense).


We can see behavior which is indicative of different levels of intelligence and we can 
also observe the structures responsible for computation.  For example I know a 
neuroscientist who, for ethical reasons, won't eat any kind of animal to that has a 
cerebral cortex.


Brent



2) seeing is no proof of existence or inexistence. Nor even ontological 
evidence.

Bruno


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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/20/2013 8:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Feb 2013, at 00:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and consciousness 
will
swap with that of some rich and famous person.  Let's say Bill Gates.  I 
hope you
are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The swap is complete.  Bill Gates is now in your
body, with access to your memories and living as you were just before you 
got to
reading this sentence, while you are living as a billionaire and enjoying 
Bills
bank account.   Of course, while you are in his body you only have access 
to his
memories.  Not only does his wife not notice the switch, but you don't even
notice it.  You only have access to Bill's memories now so you do not 
realize
anything is awry.  Don't worry, everything will be set back how it was, in 
3. 2.
1. Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you don't remember. Fortunately, 
Bill was
nice enough to read the last few sentences for you and now they have been 
placed
into your memory.  This shows it is meaningless to say "I wish I could live 
as
X", or "experience a day in Y's shoes".  For all you know, you already are, 
have,
and will.


This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist apart 
from your
bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk of exchanging bodies 
and memories.


We agree it is nonsense.

  For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a "Bill 
Gates" soul
that switched.


Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at T1 and you at T2, 
when the two are different in terms of memories and material?


There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two individuals at two 
different times. Inevitably it comes down to some arbitrary measure of similarity.  
There are two alternatives, no-self theories of personal identity, in which you are 
nothing but a single observer moment, and universalism, which identifies you with 
every conscious entity.


You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory - physical 
continuity.


Physical continuity entails, very plausibly, computability.


Yes that is very plausible.  But I also suspect that comp plus intelligence 
entails physics.

Brent

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Re: Misconceptions of Natural Selection and Evolution

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/20/2013 8:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Hi John,


On 19 Feb 2013, at 23:28, John Mikes wrote:


Craig, it seems we engaged in a fruitful discussion- thank you.

I want to reflect to *a few* concepts only from it to clarify MY stance.
First my use of */_a 'model'._/* There are different models, from the sexy young 
females over the math-etc. descriptions of theoretical concepts (some not so sexy). - 
What I (after Robert Rosen?) use by this word is an extract of something, we may not 
know in toto. Close to an 'Occamized' version, but "cut" mostly by ignorance of the 
'rest of it', not for added clarity. Applied to whatever we know TODAY about the world. 
Or: we THINK WE KNOW.



A scientist know nothing. Just nothing, not even his own consciousness.

In science we have only beliefs,


But then, according to you, if they happen to be true they are knowledge.  I'd say it's 
the other way around, scientists have no beliefs, only hypotheses.  If you ask a 
physicist, for example, if he believes GR he will probably give a complicated answer about 
how it is our best theory of macroscopic gravitation and it has proven correct in many 
experiments and it is our best model - BUT it is almost certainly not right because its 
inconsistent with QM.



and the best we can hope, is to refute them, by making them clear enough.

I insist on this because there is a widespread misconsception in popular science, but 
also among many materialist scientists (= many scientists), that we can know something 
"scientifically", but that is provably wrong with comp, and plausiibly wrong with common 
sense.


A scientist who make public his knowledge is a pseudo-scientist, or a pseudo-religious 
person, or is simply mad.


Is that true of logicians too. :-)

Brent



There is always an interrogation mark after any theory. Theories are beliefs, never 
public knowledge. Even 1+1=2.
But we can (temporally) agree on some theories. We have to do that to refute them, and 
learn.


Bruno





*
You mention 'statistical' in connection with adaptation. I deny the validity of 
statistics (and so: of probability) because it depends on the borderlines to observe in 
"counting" the items. 1000 years ago (or maybe yesterday) such boderlines were 
different, consequently different statistics came up with different chances of 
occurrence in them (not even mentioning the indifference of WHEN all those chances may 
materialize).

*
*/"...within a looped continuum of perceived causality..." /*
Perceived causality is restricted to the 'model' content, while it may be open to be 
entailed by instigators beyond our present knowledge.
Furthermore (in the flimsy concept we have about 'time' I cannot see a 'loop' - only a 
propagating curve as everything changes by the time we think to 'close' the loop (like 
the path of a planet as the Sun moves).

*
*/"...I couldn't agree with you more. That's a big part of what my TOE is all about 
http://multisenserealism.com/8-matter-energy/..."/*
Your TOE? - MY FOOT. - Agnostically we are so far from even speaking 
about*'everything'* that the consecutively observable levels of gathering some 
knowledge (adjusted to our ever evolving mental capabilities into some personal 
'mini-solipsism' - different always for everyone) is a great pretension of the human 
conventional sciences.
(Don't take it personally, please). We LIVE and THINK within (my) model. Whatever is 
beyond is unknowable. But it affects the model content.

The URL was an enjoyable reading - with Stephen's addition to it.

Best regards
John Mikes
*/
/*
*/
/*
On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 9:47 PM, Craig Weinberg > wrote:


I was so impressed with this page
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a1

that I thought it was worth listing a few here:

*MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.*

*MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection acts for the good of the species.*

*MISCONCEPTION: The fittest organisms in a population are those that are 
strongest,
healthiest, fastest, and/or largest.*

*MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection is about survival of the very fittest 
individuals
in a population.*

*MISCONCEPTION: All traits of organisms are adaptations.*

*MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory implies that life evolved (and 
continues to
evolve) randomly, or by chance.

**MISCONCEPTION: Evolution results in progress; organisms are always 
getting better
through evolution.*

**

*
*

*
*


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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/20/2013 7:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:28 AM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 2/19/2013 4:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:27 PM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and
consciousness will swap with that of some rich and famous person.  
Let's
say Bill Gates.  I hope you are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The swap is
complete.  Bill Gates is now in your body, with access to your 
memories
and living as you were just before you got to reading this sentence,
while you are living as a billionaire and enjoying Bills bank 
account.
  Of course, while you are in his body you only have access to his
memories.  Not only does his wife not notice the switch, but you 
don't
even notice it.  You only have access to Bill's memories now so you 
do
not realize anything is awry.  Don't worry, everything will be set 
back
how it was, in 3. 2. 1. Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you 
don't
remember. Fortunately, Bill was nice enough to read the last few
sentences for you and now they have been placed into your memory.  
This
shows it is meaningless to say "I wish I could live as X", or 
"experience
a day in Y's shoes".  For all you know, you already are, have, and 
will.


This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist 
apart
from your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk of
exchanging bodies and memories.


We agree it is nonsense.

For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a "Bill
Gates" soul that switched.


Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at T1 
and you
at T2, when the two are different in terms of memories and material?

There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two 
individuals at
two different times.  Inevitably it comes down to some arbitrary 
measure of
similarity.  There are two alternatives, no-self theories of personal
identity, in which you are nothing but a single observer moment, and
universalism, which identifies you with every conscious entity.


You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory - 
physical
continuity.


I haven't forgotten it, I've just come to see that the simplest theory 
(while
perfectly fine for ordinary scenarios) falls on its face in others. 
Particularly
those involving duplicates, material replacement, teleporters, amnesia, 
split
brains, etc.

What is physical continuity's answer to the following questions:
Who will you find yourself to be when you awake from a split brain surgery?
Do you experience the perspectives of all your branched copies under the 
Everett
multi-verse?
Would you survive or die when you use a star-trek style transporter?
Do I lose consciousness if I lose access to all my memories?
Can my mind be slowly transformed to that of any other conscious person 
without
losing consciousness?
If I step into a duplication machine and 10 copies come out, which one do I 
survive as?

Arnold Zuboff gives the following thought experiment to show how inadequate
physical continuity theories are:

I imagined two brains lying at
either end of an operating table. For the sake of vividness - please forgive
me - let us say a mad scientist has only a moment ago snatched the brain
from your head. It is one of the two on the operating table. The other brain
is a precise duplicate of yours in every discriminable respect, including 
all
its patterns of memory traces. Perhaps the scientist created this duplicate
himself, or perhaps he stole it from the head of one of those duplicates of
you that would have arisen naturally in an infinite universe.

Anyway, this mad scientist is capable of feeding into these brains any
pattern of stimulation he likes, by means of electrodes plugged into them
where nerves would normally be entering from the sense-organs and the
rest of the body. And he has chosen to give both of them precisely the
same pattern of stimulation that your brain would have been receiving if it
had not been snatched from your head moments ago. That would be why
it seems to you that your brain is still in your head, that my paper is 
still
before you.

As I say, both brains are being fed exactly this same pattern of stimu-
lation. What should we expect is true of the subjects and th

Re: the character of the god of comp

2013-02-20 Thread Jason Resch 
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

>  On 2/20/2013 1:08 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>>   On 2/19/2013 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 7:00 PM, Stephen P. King 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>   On 2/19/2013 12:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 4:58 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
>>>
 On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:03 AM, Jason Resch 
 wrote:
 >
 >
 > On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:18 PM, meekerdb 
 wrote:
 >>
 >> On 2/18/2013 11:47 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:
 >>
 >>
 >> If God is arithmetical truth, then what if anything is there to be
 said
 >> about its "character"? I know from a formal perspective the answer is
 >> nothing, because nothing formal can be said about truth.
 >>
 >> This is more of an informal question, and comes out of my innate
 desire to
 >> anthropomorphize.
 >>
 >>
 >> Why would you suppose that your desire to anthropomorphize is
 anything
 >> other than wishful thinking?  Do you also have a desire to
 anthropormorphize
 >> the periodic table?  the solar system?  the infinitesimal calculus?
 >>
 >
 >
 > Within comp, there are many minds that have infinite computations
 resources
 > at their disposal.  They can evolve forever, and approach infinite
 > intelligence and knowledge.  They all explore the same mathematical
 truth
 > and thus having the same data (that of mathematical truth they
 explore)
 > together with near infinite intelligence, they are almost never wrong
 on any
 > question or matter.  Thus, despite possibly different origins, they
 are all
 > of a like mind, opinion, and possibly character.  The number of
 fundamental
 > questions on which these super intelligence disagree goes towards
 zero as
 > their intelligence goes towards infinity.

  If our universe is holographic, the computational resources are
 limited to the Lloyd Limit of 10^120 bits, with a maximum possible
 10^122 bits
 Ref: http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0602/0602420.pdf


>>> I was not proposing that our universe could support infinite
>>> computational resources, but that some other universes might, and
>>> intelligent beings/civilizations in those universes are unbounded.
>>>
>>> Jason
>>>   --
>>>
>>> Hi Jason,
>>>
>>> Would you care to speculate whether or not those demi-gods (in other
>>> universes that have access to infinite resources) would have Platonist
>>> theories of mathematics?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Any question to me of the form "Do I think the demi-gods will believe X",
>> boils down to "Do I think X is correct?".  I think you know where I stand
>> on Platonist theories of mathematics.  Whether or not the demi-gods also
>> believe it mostly depends on whether its correct or if it has more credence
>> than the other alternatives.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>  Hi Jason,
>>
>> It seems to me that the demi-gods would not be motivated to have
>> Platonist-like ontologies. As I see things, only we of finite resources
>> concoct such Platonist theories to give ourselves the illusion of
>> superpowers to explain away the mysterious fact that we can understand
>> mathematics. I have yet to see a neo-Platonist explain without hand-waving
>> how it is that a physical brain can access knowledge from Platonia.
>>
>
> I made such a proposal about 2 months ago in a thread titled "How
> mathematical truth might enter our universe".  You posted in the thread but
> never directly to my original post on the matter.  Feel free to re-ignite
> that thread if you would like to discuss this topic further.
>
> Jason
>   --
>
>
> Hi Jason,
>
> Somehow I missed it. Here it is again for my comment.
>
> On 12/12/2012 11:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> All,
>
> One of the questions in mathematics is where does mathematical truth come
> from, if it exists platonically, how does it manifest physically (e.g. as
> the utterances of mathematicians).
>
> I had a thought inspired by one of Roger's posts regarding cause and
> effect extending outside of spacetime.  I thought, there is nothing
> preventing the goings on in this universe from having causal implications
> outside our universe.  Consider that an advanced civilization might choose
> to simulate our universe and inspect it.  Then when they observe what
> happens in our universe the observations generate causal effects in their
> own universe.  The same applies to our universe, we might choose to observe
> another universe through simulation, and our discoveries or observations of
> that other universe change us.  Thus, the various universes that can exist
> out there are more interconnected than we might suppose.  Our universe is
> an open book to those universes possessing sufficient computational power
> to simulate it.  Likewise, how simple univ

Re: Comp: Geometry Is A Zombie

2013-02-20 Thread John Clark 
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013  Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> The laws of physics as you understand them forbid any form of
> consciousness
>

The laws of physics as I understand them neither forbids nor demands any
form of consciousness.

> The only thing you know about the brain is the way that people have used
> instruments, using a one dimensional signal that comes into a wire from
> some probe or meter.


That is true but its truth is not confined to the brain. The only way you
know about ANYTHING, except perhaps for pure mathematics, is indirectly by
interpreting a sequence of electrical signals sent to the brain. And those
electrical signals did not even come from the apple you think you're
"looking" at, they came from your eye. And the eye did not directly detect
the apple either, it only detected electromagnetic waves (that the brain
would later hypothesize came from a apple) and then used a convention that
both the eye and brain agreed upon and translated those electromagnetic
waves into electrical sequences that are sent down a wire to the brain.

> Looking at an apple
>

How a apple looks to you is NOT an apple.

 > smelling
>

How a apple smells to you is NOT an apple.

> and tasting the apple
>

How a apple tastes to you is NOT an apple.

> I experience everything that matters about apples
>

Everything that matters to you perhaps, and in exactly the same way complex
numbers can provide everything that matters to you about 3D space.

 > When we talk about apples, we are talking about qualia.
>

If so then when we're talking about the color red why aren't we talking
about electromagnetic waves 7700 angstroms long? You can't have it both
ways, either the qualia of a thing is identical to the thing itself or it
is not, and either answer leads to a contradiction in your philosophy.

> There is no 'one dimensional wire to your brain'. The optic nerve is a
> community of living organisms [...] We can talk about sugar content or
> cellular structure, but there is nothing apple-like about that.
>

Why is it that the cellular structure of a apple is not important but the
cellular structure of a nerve is?

> Why should any signals be interpreted as 3D space?
>

Because it can be without contradiction, and because Evolution has
determined that this interpretation helps in getting genes into the next
generation.

> Where do the dimensions come from?
>

The qualia of spacial dimensions come from complex numbers (probably); as
for the dimensions themselves who knows, I don't even know for a fact they
exist.

> You have no support for your supersitition that there is a such thing as
> 3D space independent of that experience orchestrated by a brain
>

So we're back at the qualia of a thing being identical to the thing itself
, in that case I wonder why anybody even bothered to invent the word
"qualia" in the first place, but never mind, from now on I don't want you
to give me that old line "electromagnetic waves of 7700 angstroms are not
the qualia red"


> > Please give me an example of any arithmetic process which generates
> physical or experiential consequences.
>

Email, MPEGS, JPEGS.

>> complex numbers can be both qualitative as well as quantitative, they
>> can have both a magnitude and a direction.
>>
>
> > No. All of the qualities of numbers are figurative. The direction and
> magnitude are poetic and abstract, not spatial.
>

The correct complex number can give me enough spatial information to tell
me how much gunpowder to put into my cannon and what angle to elevate it at
to drop a artillery shell on your head and poetically turn your brain into
bits of grey goo and stop your abstract mind from working forever.


> >>  if the way computers process data is meaningless why is computer data
>> processing a multi-trillion dollar industry?
>>
>
> > Because it is valuable to us to be informed.
>

If computers strip out the meaning from data how can that inform us.


> > It is not because computers are made of silicon, but because anything
> that does not become a living being by itself can't generate a history of
> personal experiences of human>animal>cellular quality.
>

You did not "become a living being by itself" anymore than Watson did.

> I don't care whether computers are conscious or not.
>

I do not believe that for one single second, and if you're honest with
yourself you won't believe it either. Coming to this problem with a clean
slate and without prejudice NOBODY would be convinced by the anemic and
contradictory arguments presented by you and others on this list. This is
clearly the case where somebody has strong emotional reasons for wanting
something to be true and then looks around in panic desperate to grab hold
of anything however insubstantial that might keep the idea afloat for just
a little longer.

  John K Clark

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Re: The Plant Teachers

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 20 Feb 2013, at 14:59, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




All classical psychedelics exhibit anti-addictive properties. Sure,  
people can't do mescaline or LSD regularly enough, i.e. every few  
days to every day,


How is using every day (or every few days) not an addictive  
behavior ? Seems quite strange to say that to have **anti**  
addictive properties, you should use it like an addict, seems  
contradictory.


This does not necessarily follow. Many people can use some medication  
daily, without getting addicted.
Taking salvia everyday asks for a big effort. I call it the "huile de  
foie de morue" of the drugs (Cod liver oil).


When I take Holiday, I would like, intellectually, to experiment more  
with it, but the fact is that I procrastinate it.
Salvia has been classified as being disphoric. The contrary of  
euphoric. Very few people seems to appreciate it indeed. It is not  
fun,  like alcohol or cannabis can be fun. It is not euphoric, nor  
does it create any buzz or consciousness change (from the 1p  
perspective; reality change, not you).


True, salvia can make laugh, and acts like if there is a strange sense  
of humor, there, but this is often felt as quite scary for many  
people. Very few appreciate the apparent "cosmic joke". Some laugh  
during the whole experience, and then when back, asserts that this was  
the most horrifying experience in their life (and this has been told  
by a pilot having almost crash his plane!). I truly do not recommend  
it to anyone, and for those who insist, I suggest to begin with small  
dose and increment slowly, in the presence of a sober sitter.


Yet, salvia, in quite low dose, has tremendous benefits on health,  
physical health notably, and can save some people from much more  
severe medication with many bad side-effects.
Then, when used to it, you can develop relationship with sort of  
"teaching-entities", (perhaps just brain subroutines, no need to  
anthropomorphise them), so that you can develop some interest, not in  
the experience itself (which is always a bit hard and exhausting), but  
in the content of what you can learn (to conceive). This of course can  
attract people who have already some interest for some kind of  
questions.


Then, part of its anti-addictive quality, there is a reverse tolerance  
effect, so that the more you consume it, the less you need to have the  
experience. I get the effect of 10X, (concentrated extract) with 1X  
(natural leaves), after 5 years of regular use. Vary often, just  
smelling an extract generates a light be complete experience. I have  
probably consume more salvinorin in the first year than in the four  
years which followed. And all user talk about that procrastination,  
and about the effort needed to pursue the study of it, making it quite  
unlike other drugs, which like cannabis can be habituating, and  
alcohol which can be addictive.



Many people comes back from a salvia experience by saying that they  
would have preferred not to know or to be able to conceive that kind  
of hallucination. Some people pretends that they have new fears.  
Fortunately, they forget quickly the experience. Other needs to do it  
once, and the talk about it on forums for more than ten years without  
ever doing it again. Most enthusiasts take it rarely. In fact I know  
only one person taking it regularly, except for a famous case of  
medical use in a treatment for depression.
In fact, except in forum, I see very few people developing an interest  
for that experience (except as a medication). But then I don't know so  
much people interested in the consequence of comp or in "serious"  
theology either. Salvia has this in common with comp: it does not go  
handy with wishful thinking. It has other relationship with comp, like  
insisting on some secrecy of a part of the experience, which  
corroborates the G/G* distinction.


Bruno


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



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Re: the character of the god of comp

2013-02-20 Thread Stephen P. King 

On 2/20/2013 1:08 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Stephen P. King 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:


On 2/19/2013 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 7:00 PM, Stephen P. King
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:

On 2/19/2013 12:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 4:58 AM, Richard Ruquist
mailto:yann...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:03 AM, Jason Resch
mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:18 PM, meekerdb
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>>
>> On 2/18/2013 11:47 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:
>>
>>
>> If God is arithmetical truth, then what if anything
is there to be said
>> about its "character"? I know from a formal
perspective the answer is
>> nothing, because nothing formal can be said about truth.
>>
>> This is more of an informal question, and comes out
of my innate desire to
>> anthropomorphize.
>>
>>
>> Why would you suppose that your desire to
anthropomorphize is anything
>> other than wishful thinking?  Do you also have a
desire to anthropormorphize
>> the periodic table?  the solar system?  the
infinitesimal calculus?
>>
>
>
> Within comp, there are many minds that have infinite
computations resources
> at their disposal.  They can evolve forever, and
approach infinite
> intelligence and knowledge.  They all explore the same
mathematical truth
> and thus having the same data (that of mathematical
truth they explore)
> together with near infinite intelligence, they are
almost never wrong on any
> question or matter.  Thus, despite possibly different
origins, they are all
> of a like mind, opinion, and possibly character.  The
number of fundamental
> questions on which these super intelligence disagree
goes towards zero as
> their intelligence goes towards infinity.

If our universe is holographic, the computational
resources are
limited to the Lloyd Limit of 10^120 bits, with a
maximum possible
10^122 bits
Ref: http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0602/0602420.pdf


I was not proposing that our universe could support infinite
computational resources, but that some other universes
might, and intelligent beings/civilizations in those
universes are unbounded.

Jason
-- 

Hi Jason,

Would you care to speculate whether or not those
demi-gods (in other universes that have access to infinite
resources) would have Platonist theories of mathematics?


Any question to me of the form "Do I think the demi-gods will
believe X", boils down to "Do I think X is correct?".  I think
you know where I stand on Platonist theories of mathematics.
Whether or not the demi-gods also believe it mostly depends on
whether its correct or if it has more credence than the other
alternatives.

Jason


Hi Jason,

It seems to me that the demi-gods would not be motivated to
have Platonist-like ontologies. As I see things, only we of finite
resources concoct such Platonist theories to give ourselves the
illusion of superpowers to explain away the mysterious fact that
we can understand mathematics. I have yet to see a neo-Platonist
explain without hand-waving how it is that a physical brain can
access knowledge from Platonia.


I made such a proposal about 2 months ago in a thread titled "How 
mathematical truth might enter our universe".  You posted in the 
thread but never directly to my original post on the matter.  Feel 
free to re-ignite that thread if you would like to discuss this topic 
further.


Jason
--


Hi Jason,

Somehow I missed it. Here it is again for my comment.

On 12/12/2012 11:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

All,

One of the questions in mathematics is where does mathematical truth 
come from, if it exists platonically, how does it manifest physically 
(e.g. as the utterances of mathematicians).


I had a thought inspired by one of Roger's posts regarding cause and 
effect extending outside of spacetime.  I thought, there is nothing 
preventing the goings on in this universe from having causal 
implications outside our universe.  Consider that an advanced 
civilization might choose to simulate our universe and inspect it.  
Then when they observe what happens in our universe the observations 
gen

Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread John Clark 
Miguel Nicolelis 

> You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t
> create a consciousness.
>

It must be grand being a "hard problem" theorist because it's the easiest
job in the world bar none, no matter how smart something is you just say
"yeah but it's not conscious" and there is no way anybody can prove you
wrong.

>computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological
> Singularity is "a bunch of hot air. The brain is not computable and no
> engineering can reproduce it,"
>

Unless you're willing to get on the mystical bullshit train (and even in
the 21'st century many are all too willing to get on that broken down old
choo choo) then the only conclusion to make is that the neural wiring
required to develop human level intelligence CANNOT be impossibly complex
because in the entire human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs.
There are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits and there are 8 bits
per byte so that comes out to just 750 meg, and that's enough assembly
instructions to make not just a brain and all its wiring but a entire human
baby. So the instructions MUST contain wiring instructions such as "wire
the neurons up this that and the other way and then repeat that procedure
917 billion times.

And there is a huge amount of redundancy in the human genome, if you used a
file compression program like ZIP on that 750 meg you could easily put the
entire thing on half a CD, not a DVD not a Blu ray just a old fashioned
vanilla CD.

> human consciousness (and if you believe in it, the soul) simply can’t be
> replicated in silicon. That’s because its most important features are the
> result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells
>

Unpredictability and non-linear reactions are a dime a dozen but are more
the defining attribute of insanity than intelligence or the feeling of
personal identity that persists over decades; and besides, computers have
no trouble being unpredictable and non-linear. The first program I ever
wrote was to zoom in and look at small parts of the infinite Mandelbrot set
in detail, and even though I wrote the program if I wanted to know what the
image it would produce next would look like all I could do is wait and see
what sort of picture the program would create.

> You can’t predict whether the stock market will go up or down because you
> can’t compute it
>

But it would be easy to write a program that goes up and down in such a way
that it passes the exact same statistical tests for randomness that the
real stock market does. So yes, it would be easier to make a intelligent
computer than it would be to make a intelligent computer that also happens
to be John K Clark or any other specific individual.

> the human brain has evolved to take the external world—our surroundings
> and the tools we use—and create representations of them in our neural
> pathways.
>

And those neural pathways have started to understand how they work and has
devised technology to produce intelligent behavior without biological
neurons.

  John K Clark

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Re: Science is a religion by itself.

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 20 Feb 2013, at 06:19, socra...@bezeqint.net wrote:


On Feb 19, 3:51 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:


In front of the infinite? To laugh.
In front of nothingness? To cry.
In between, a bit of both.

Bruno

- Show quoted text -


Nice, thanks.
By the way, your photos 'par Lydia Nash' nice too.
All the best.


Thanks. Best wishes,

Bruno


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



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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 20 Feb 2013, at 05:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:53:46 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, Craig Weinberg wrote:

If he is making mice conscious of infra-red light though, then I  
would say he works with consciousness.


How do you know the mice are conscious of infra-red light? If it  
were a machine you would say it wasn't conscious, it just reacted to  
the light in a way that superficially resembles consciousness.


That's because we are obliged to give organisms like us the benefit  
of the doubt. The opposite is true of machines, where we have seen  
that their behavior has no basis in any innate sensitivity or agenda  
of the machine.


1) nobody has seen this (and I am not sure "seeing that kind of thing"  
can make sense).


2) seeing is no proof of existence or inexistence. Nor even  
ontological evidence.


Bruno




Craig

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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 20 Feb 2013, at 00:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and  
consciousness will swap with that of some rich and famous person.   
Let's say Bill Gates.  I hope you are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The  
swap is complete.  Bill Gates is now in your body, with access to  
your memories and living as you were just before you got to  
reading this sentence, while you are living as a billionaire and  
enjoying Bills bank account.   Of course, while you are in his  
body you only have access to his memories.  Not only does his wife  
not notice the switch, but you don't even notice it.  You only  
have access to Bill's memories now so you do not realize anything  
is awry.  Don't worry, everything will be set back how it was, in  
3. 2. 1. Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you don't remember.  
Fortunately, Bill was nice enough to read the last few sentences  
for you and now they have been placed into your memory.  This  
shows it is meaningless to say "I wish I could live as X", or  
"experience a day in Y's shoes".  For all you know, you already  
are, have, and will.


This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist  
apart from your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk  
of exchanging bodies and memories.


We agree it is nonsense.

  For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a  
"Bill Gates" soul that switched.


Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at  
T1 and you at T2, when the two are different in terms of memories  
and material?


There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two  
individuals at two different times.  Inevitably it comes down to  
some arbitrary measure of similarity.  There are two alternatives,  
no-self theories of personal identity, in which you are nothing but  
a single observer moment, and universalism, which identifies you  
with every conscious entity.


You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory  
- physical continuity.


Physical continuity entails, very plausibly, computability.

If that is not the case, your point would still be only an argument  
against comp, but I think that Jason was assuming comp.


Bruno





Brent

Universalism is a simpler theory that explains more, in that it can  
answer why you are experiencing the moment you are in now vs. none  
at all or some other observer moment.  No-self theories, taken  
seriously, seem incompatible with the scientific method, as if you  
are trapped in a single OM forever, you cannot perform any  
experiments, or test predictions.


Jason
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Re: Misconceptions of Natural Selection and Evolution

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 

Hi John,


On 19 Feb 2013, at 23:28, John Mikes wrote:


Craig, it seems we engaged in a fruitful discussion- thank you.

I want to reflect to a few concepts only from it to clarify MY stance.
First my use of a 'model'. There are different models, from the sexy  
young females over the math-etc. descriptions of theoretical  
concepts (some not so sexy). - What I (after Robert Rosen?) use by  
this word is an extract of something, we may not know in toto. Close  
to an 'Occamized' version, but "cut" mostly by ignorance of the  
'rest of it', not for added clarity. Applied to whatever we know  
TODAY about the world. Or: we THINK WE KNOW.



A scientist know nothing. Just nothing, not even his own consciousness.

In science we have only beliefs, and the best we can hope, is to  
refute them, by making them clear enough.


I insist on this because there is a widespread misconsception in  
popular science, but also among many materialist scientists (= many  
scientists), that we can know something "scientifically", but that is  
provably wrong with comp, and plausiibly wrong with common sense.


A scientist who make public his knowledge is a pseudo-scientist, or a  
pseudo-religious person, or is simply mad.


There is always an interrogation mark after any theory. Theories are  
beliefs, never public knowledge. Even 1+1=2.
But we can (temporally) agree on some theories. We have to do that to  
refute them, and learn.


Bruno





*
You mention 'statistical' in connection with adaptation. I deny the  
validity of statistics (and so: of probability) because it depends  
on the borderlines to observe in "counting" the items. 1000 years  
ago (or maybe yesterday) such boderlines were different,  
consequently different statistics came up with different chances of  
occurrence in them (not even mentioning the indifference of WHEN all  
those chances may materialize).

*
"...within a looped continuum of perceived causality..."
Perceived causality is restricted to the 'model' content, while it  
may be open to be entailed by instigators beyond our present  
knowledge.
Furthermore (in the flimsy concept we have about 'time' I cannot see  
a 'loop' - only a propagating curve as everything changes by the  
time we think to 'close' the loop (like the path of a planet as the  
Sun moves).

*
"...I couldn't agree with you more. That's a big part of what my TOE  
is all about  http://multisenserealism.com/8-matter-energy/...";
Your TOE? - MY FOOT. - Agnostically we are so far from even speaking  
about 'everything' that the consecutively observable levels of  
gathering some knowledge (adjusted to our ever evolving mental  
capabilities into some personal 'mini-solipsism' - different always  
for everyone) is a great pretension of the human conventional  
sciences.
(Don't take it personally, please). We LIVE and THINK within (my)  
model. Whatever is beyond is unknowable. But it affects the model  
content.

The URL was an enjoyable reading - with Stephen's addition to it.

Best regards
John Mikes



On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 9:47 PM, Craig Weinberg  
 wrote:

I was so impressed with this page 
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a1

that I thought it was worth listing a few here:

MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.

MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection acts for the good of the species.

MISCONCEPTION: The fittest organisms in a population are those that  
are strongest, healthiest, fastest, and/or largest.


MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection is about survival of the very  
fittest individuals in a population.

MISCONCEPTION: All traits of organisms are adaptations.

MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory implies that life evolved (and  
continues to evolve) randomly, or by chance.


MISCONCEPTION: Evolution results in progress; organisms are always  
getting better through evolution.








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Re: the character of the god of comp

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 19 Feb 2013, at 23:19, Richard Ruquist wrote:

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Jason Resch   
wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:47 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:


On 2/18/2013 11:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:18 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:


On 2/18/2013 11:47 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:


If God is arithmetical truth, then what if anything is there to  
be said
about its "character"? I know from a formal perspective the  
answer is

nothing, because nothing formal can be said about truth.

This is more of an informal question, and comes out of my innate  
desire

to anthropomorphize.


Why would you suppose that your desire to anthropomorphize is  
anything
other than wishful thinking?  Do you also have a desire to  
anthropormorphize

the periodic table?  the solar system?  the infinitesimal calculus?




Within comp, there are many minds that have infinite computations
resources at their disposal.  They can evolve forever, and  
approach infinite

intelligence and knowledge.


You're just making this up.



I'm not.  Look in the universal dovetailer and you will find such
intelligent processes with unlimited memory and processing at their
disposal, in fact you will find an infinite number of them.



The evidence is that smarter people tend to have fewer children  
and so
evolution doesn't necessary favor intelligence.  It is also quite  
possible
that evolution always leads to a stage of species growth which so  
exploits
the environment of its planet that is goes extinct within a few  
hundred

thousand years.



I don't see how this is an argument against my assertion that there  
exist
intelligences with infinite computational resources (assuming  
arithmetical

realism).




The physics of holographic universes suggest that computations are
limited by the number of bits of information available for
computation. At present the limit appears to be 10^120 bits, the
so-called Lloyd limit, and with future prospects of less than 10^122
bits based on the cosmology constant (or Dark Energy).
Richard


That argument can make sense in some non-comp theory, but does not if  
you assume comp.
We don't assume a primary universe, only arithmetic which contains all  
emulations of all computations. The physical appearances come from it,  
viewed from inside.
Your remark is interesting, but don't make Jason's point invalid.  
Local computational bounds have to be explain from arithmetic.


Bruno












They all explore the same mathematical truth and thus having the  
same data
(that of mathematical truth they explore) together with near  
infinite
intelligence, they are almost never wrong on any question or  
matter.  Thus,
despite possibly different origins, they are all of a like mind,  
opinion,
and possibly character.  The number of fundamental questions on  
which these
super intelligence disagree goes towards zero as their  
intelligence goes

towards infinity.

With infinite computational power, these God-like super  
intelligences have
the power to save other beings (regardless of what universe the  
other being

hails from).  These God-minds are in a position to help, and thus
responsible for the outcome if they fail to act.  There is much  
suffering of
conscious beings in the physical universes.  With infinite  
computing power
at their disposal, these super intelligences can determine re- 
create any
conscious being from the moment of its physical death and  
ressurect it to a
existence of that being's desires.  This is not to say this is  
what they

would do, but if it is the right decision to make, then nearly all
super-intelligences will agree it is the right thing to do and  
will do it.



Right by whose measure?



Right according to the minds of the super intelligences.  It is  
said when
intelligent people disagree it is due to a difference in data.   
Well these
intelligences have access to all the same mathematical truth.  If  
you define
intelligence as the probability of being correct on any given  
question, then
super intelligent entities ought to always agree, on questions of  
math,
theories of mind, theology, morality, what's right and what's  
wrong, etc.




If God doesn't love me and mine why should I care what he loves?



Maybe those God(s) do love you.




When people talk about God-minds deciding what is right I reach  
for my

gun.




That's nice, but it doesn't really add anything to this debate.




In this sense, there can be a anthropomorphic character to  
mathematical
truth, which comes into existence an infinite number of times and  
ways but
in most appearances, behaves similarly to all its other  
incarnations.




Brent
Peter: What would you say if I told you that the universe is
the creation of an all powerful, all knowing being, who commands
our obedience and worship.
Curls: I'd say you were about to take up a collection.
 --- Johnny Hart, in B.C.





You are clearly prejudiced against they theory which even has the  
whisper of
what y

Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 19 Feb 2013, at 22:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/19/2013 2:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 18 Feb 2013, at 17:29, Richard Ruquist wrote:

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Bruno Marchal  
 wrote:


On 17 Feb 2013, at 18:09, Jason Resch wrote:

Thanks to everyone who replied to this post.  So far Stathis and  
Bruno both

answered that both cases are equivalent.

Is there anyone willing to argue against either:
1. you don't experience torture when your memory of it is wiped, or
2. you don't experience torture when your perfect duplicate is  
tortured?




Those are interesting questions, but they ask for thought  
experiences with
amnesia, which can quickly, too much quickly, makes you  
suspicious that
personal identity is an illusion. My experience is that when  
people begin to

grasp this, they can feel quite uneasy.

A related question, that I ask to you, Jason. Would you accept to  
sleep in
my sleep-laboratory. I pay you 100$ or even more. But I tell you  
in advance
that you will live your worst nightmare. I tell you also that I  
have the

means to make you, in the morning after, completely forgetting that
nightmare.
Are you OK? Are you OK that your son or daughter makes money in  
that way?

Can this be legal?

Is it equivalent with this: I duplicate you and torture the copy  
for one

hour, and then I kill that copy (assuming I can)?
Is this not equivalent with a forgotten dream of torture? Are you  
OK that

your daughter makes money in that way?

Bruno


There used to be a drug administered for childbirth which would  
allow
the mother-to-be- to experience excruciating pain as evidenced by  
her
behavior during the birthing process yet afterwards she would have  
no

memory of that pain. Doctors found that acceptable and assumed there
was no lasting trauma.

My opinion is that there is lasting trauma that has to be  
consciously

re-experienced to be resolved. So one may as well experience
childbirth without drugs to begin with. BTW- off-list topic??



Not really, as here we were touching on the question of personal  
identity, in relation with memory.
Now, your question is very difficult, and my thought on it is that  
woman should have the choice, and that nobody can coerce on her  
decision. Comp + Theaetetus would lead to the idea that nobody can  
solve that problem, and that only individual woman can take the  
decision.  The very basic idea is that no one can think at the  
place of other one, especially about possible pain.


And can you now make a decision for you in the future - since those  
are in some degree two different people.


Why?

Not with comp where we agree that the one restored in Moscow and the  
one restore in Washington are the same person, despite being different  
with each other.






A forgotten pain has still been a lived pain, and this has to be  
avoided if possible.


Right.  Many things happen that we forget - but that doesn't make  
them unhappen.  In the Restorer story there is the assumption that  
everything can be put back as it was; but that is nomologically  
impossible.


With comp it is possible in principle, if only through a backup, given  
the equivalence explained above.


Bruno





Brent




Bruno


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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread Jason Resch 
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:28 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/19/2013 4:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:27 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>>  On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
>>> 6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and
>>> consciousness will swap with that of some rich and famous person.  Let's
>>> say Bill Gates.  I hope you are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The swap is
>>> complete.  Bill Gates is now in your body, with access to your memories and
>>> living as you were just before you got to reading this sentence, while you
>>> are living as a billionaire and enjoying Bills bank account.   Of course,
>>> while you are in his body you only have access to his memories.  Not only
>>> does his wife not notice the switch, but you don't even notice it.  You
>>> only have access to Bill's memories now so you do not realize anything is
>>> awry.  Don't worry, everything will be set back how it was, in 3. 2. 1.
>>> Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you don't remember. Fortunately, Bill
>>> was nice enough to read the last few sentences for you and now they have
>>> been placed into your memory.  This shows it is meaningless to say "I wish
>>> I could live as X", or "experience a day in Y's shoes".  For all you know,
>>> you already are, have, and will.
>>>
>>>
>>>  This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist
>>> apart from your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk of
>>> exchanging bodies and memories.
>>>
>>
>> We agree it is nonsense.
>>
>>
>>>For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a "Bill
>>> Gates" soul that switched.
>>>
>>
>> Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at T1
>> and you at T2, when the two are different in terms of memories and material?
>>
>> There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two individuals
>> at two different times.  Inevitably it comes down to some arbitrary measure
>> of similarity.  There are two alternatives, no-self theories of personal
>> identity, in which you are nothing but a single observer moment, and
>> universalism, which identifies you with every conscious entity.
>>
>>
>>  You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory -
>> physical continuity.
>>
>>
> I haven't forgotten it, I've just come to see that the simplest theory
> (while perfectly fine for ordinary scenarios) falls on its face in others.
> Particularly those involving duplicates, material replacement, teleporters,
> amnesia, split brains, etc.
>
> What is physical continuity's answer to the following questions:
> Who will you find yourself to be when you awake from a split brain surgery?
> Do you experience the perspectives of all your branched copies under the
> Everett multi-verse?
> Would you survive or die when you use a star-trek style transporter?
> Do I lose consciousness if I lose access to all my memories?
> Can my mind be slowly transformed to that of any other conscious person
> without losing consciousness?
> If I step into a duplication machine and 10 copies come out, which one do
> I survive as?
>
> Arnold Zuboff gives the following thought experiment to show how
> inadequate physical continuity theories are:
>
>  I imagined two brains lying at
> either end of an operating table. For the sake of vividness - please
> forgive
> me - let us say a mad scientist has only a moment ago snatched the brain
> from your head. It is one of the two on the operating table. The other
> brain
> is a precise duplicate of yours in every discriminable respect, including
> all
> its patterns of memory traces. Perhaps the scientist created this duplicate
> himself, or perhaps he stole it from the head of one of those duplicates of
> you that would have arisen naturally in an infinite universe.
>
> Anyway, this mad scientist is capable of feeding into these brains any
> pattern of stimulation he likes, by means of electrodes plugged into them
> where nerves would normally be entering from the sense-organs and the
> rest of the body. And he has chosen to give both of them precisely the
> same pattern of stimulation that your brain would have been receiving if it
> had not been snatched from your head moments ago. That would be why
> it seems to you that your brain is still in your head, that my paper is
> still
> before you.
>
> As I say, both brains are being fed exactly this same pattern of stimu-
> lation. What should we expect is true of the subjects and their experience?
> Would we not suppose that the episode of experience connected with each
> brain would be qualitatively identical? But would we not also think that,
> despite the completeness of their qualitative similarity, the subjects and
> their episodes of experience must be numerically distinct from one another?
> You are one subject, lost in one experience; at the other end

Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 4:58:49 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> You can't, because it's a chaotic system. If you eschew computers and 
> >> "simulate" the stock market by building an entire world with humans and 
> an 
> >> economy you would get a stock market that functions similarly to the 
> >> original but not the same as the original, so it would be almost 
> useless for 
> >> predicting a particular stock movement. A computer simulation can't be 
> >> expected to be better than a simulation with real humans living in a 
> real 
> >> world. In other words, you would be simulating *a* stock market, not 
> *the* 
> >> stock market. 
> > 
> > 
> > How can you explain that we can predict our own decisions? Or better 
> yet, 
> > how do we make decisions in the first place? 
>
> We can't predict our own decisions, since there is always the 
> possibility that we can change our minds.


But we are in control of that possibility to some extent. If I bet you $100 
that I will post something about tree frogs later today, then I can be sure 
that I will follow through on that, barring unforeseen events beyond my 
control.

 

> This is where the feeling of 
> "free will" comes from. Note that this has no bearing on the question 
> of whether our decisions are determined or not: the only requirement 
> for the feeling of freedom is that we not know what we're going to do 
> until we do it. 
>

I think that you are confusing freedom with farting. Not knowing what we 
are going to do is meaningless if we don't have the possibility to freely 
exercise control over what we do. Why would there be a feeling associated 
with some process which has no consequences that we could do anything about?
 

>
> >> > The brain has the same issue - you can't tell what it is going to do 
> >> > from 
> >> > the outside, because the behavior on the outside is often driven by 
>  the 
> >> > story going on the inside - which cannot be known unless you too are 
> on 
> >> > the 
> >> > inside. 
> >> 
> >> But that's the case for everything. Its behaviour is driven by what is 
> >> going on on the inside as well as what's going on on the outside. 
> > 
> > 
> > Some things are more predictable to us from the behavior  we can observe 
> > though. 
>
> Yes, but other things aren't. As per the Wolfram article referenced by 
> Stephen above, this is also the case for some computer programs, such 
> as cellular automata. No-one knows what they're going to do, as in 
> real life you just have to run the program and see what happens. 
>

The existence of automated variation doesn't mean that it is the source of 
intention. I see it as just the opposite. In cellular automata you can see 
the signature of impersonal emptiness. Monotonous, a-signifying, 
relentlessly blank.

Craig
 

>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 4:49:05 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> How do you know the mice are conscious of infra-red light? If it were a 
> >> machine you would say it wasn't conscious, it just reacted to the light 
> in a 
> >> way that superficially resembles consciousness. 
> > 
> > 
> > That's because we are obliged to give organisms like us the benefit of 
> the 
> > doubt. The opposite is true of machines, where we have seen that their 
> > behavior has no basis in any innate sensitivity or agenda of the 
> machine. 
>
> But how do you know other people and animals are conscious? Is it just 
> a guess? Could you be wrong about them? Could you be wrong about 
> computers? 
>

Sure, but so could you be wrong about my being wrong.
 

>
> It seems to me that you have in mind some test for consciousness. 


Just the opposite. I have in mind that no test is necessary for 
consciousness. Just being conscious ourselves may allow us to infer some 
things about consciousness. Tests can just as easily be used to exaggerate 
our bias. There were tests for witches, tests for eugenics. It's very 
compelling to have some justification to quiet those noisy doubts of 
conscience.

In saying that machines aren't conscious, I have no qualms, no axe to 
grind. I love technology, I have no agenda against machines, I simply 
observe that there is no possibility that they have awareness on the 
machine level, and I think that I understand why that is. If anyone really 
did have any intuition at all of machine intelligence that was independent 
of wishful thinking, I think that you would see computer scientists 
quitting AI sometimes because of the ethics of operating on the machines 
themselves. Why don't we see that? Why isn't there an abolitionist movement 
for machines? These are not proof, they are clues. You have to reason for 
yourself about consciousness. There will never be a meaningful test.

 

> You 
> apply this test to animals and to machines and you conclude that the 
> former are conscious and the latter not. I hope the test is not 
> something like "is made of organic material, grows and maintains 
> homeostasis", because the objection to that is, there is no reason to 
> assume that these factors are either necessary or sufficient for 
> consciousness. 
>

The test is 'does it have experiences and participate in the world?'

Craig
 

>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Craig Weinberg 


On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 12:43:25 AM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
>  On 2/19/2013 11:34 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>  
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 7:58:15 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: 
>>
>> On 2/19/2013 12:26 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: 
>> > On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 6:13 PM, Craig Weinberg  
>> wrote: 
>> >> 
>> >> On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:02:36 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote: 
>> >>> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Craig Weinberg  
>> >>> wrote: 
>>  
>>  On Monday, February 18, 2013 9:30:49 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > There is no argument presented in this article. The stock market 
>> and 
>> > brain 
>> > and indeed most natural systems are chaotic, but that is not the 
>> same 
>> > as 
>> > being not computable. 
>>  
>>  Yes, I posted it just to show that someone who works closely with 
>> both 
>>  neurology and consciousness professionally comes to the same 
>> conclusion 
>>  that 
>>  I have. 
>> >>> One of the problems of relying on expert opinions is that, sometimes, 
>> >>> it's hard to see clearly what someone is an expert at. I had a look 
>> at 
>> >>> Nicolelis' lab publication list and there isn't anything there to 
>> >>> suggest that they even look into the issue of consciousness. It's a 
>> >>> lot of (interesting sounding) work on neural correlates for sensorial 
>> >>> and motor activities, as well as applications. A few issues with his 
>> >>> position: 
>> >> 
>> >> If he is making mice conscious of infra-red light though, then I would 
>> say 
>> >> he works with consciousness. 
>> > In that sense, everyone does. 
>>
>> Hi Craig, 
>>
>> � � �Not so fast. Think about what Telmo is saying. When the 
>> researcher 
>> added the ability to sense in IR to the mouse, that aspect or dimension 
>> of sense would have to be integrated into the totality of the Sense of 
>> those mice. The dual aspect idea shines here! For any physical system 
>> there is at least one representation and for every representation there 
>> is at least one object. Given an initial object: Mouse there is a 
>> representation of that mouse to that mouse: it's internal Sense of being 
>> a mouse in the world. 
>> � � �When we add the IR apparatii to the mouse's body, then there 
>> is a 
>> new representation necesary, no? We no longer have the Mouse minus IR 
>> gadget Sense... 
>>
>
> Not necessarily a new representation. It could just itch in a new place or 
> something. It could have some novelty though, but I think that has to do 
> with then nature of the electrode, not the IR.
> �
>  
>
> ��� Right, but consider the experiements where blind humans where 
> rigged up with a camera and an array of electrodes on their stomach or 
> such... I recall reports of some limited success in the transposition of 
> the sensations from the stomach to the general location of the camera, but 
> I am chalking that up to the auto-integrator of the brain. How that works, 
> is interesting...
>

Sure, yeah, there's experiments with rubber hands and video cameras which 
make us think we are somewhere else...which tells me that 'here' is the 
underlying place that we are.
 

>
>  
>> > 
>> >>> - Just because the brain has a certain level of complexity, doesn't 
>> >>> mean it has to. The brain is restricted by a fixed palette of 
>> >>> evolutionary building blocks. It cannot take advantage of, say, 
>> >>> sillicon chips. We can build machines that move faster and are 
>> simples 
>> >>> than any animal, although there's evolutionary pressure for speed. 
>> >>> Still, no animals with wheels; 
>> >>> 
>> >>> - There is no evolutionary pressure for good design; 
>> >>> 
>> >>> - There is no evolutionary pressure for understandability; 
>> >>> 
>>  It seems like a handy thing to have when one is accused of being 
>>  ignorant of science or anti-science. It turns out that its only 
>>  prejudice 
>>  that makes these kinds of accusation in this case. 
>> >>> Ok. 
>> >>> 
>>  As far as the stock market being computable, how would you go about 
>>  determining, for instance, whether or not I rebalance my 401k and on 
>>  what 
>>  day and time? 
>> >>> The stock market is a bad comparison, because it is made of brains to 
>> >>> begin with. So it's the same problem x10^10. 
>> >>> 
>>  The brain has the same issue - you can't tell what it is going to do 
>>  from 
>>  the outside, because the behavior on the outside is often driven by 
>> �the 
>>  story going on the inside - which cannot be known unless you too are 
>> on 
>>  the 
>>  inside. 
>> >>> Why isn't a complete description of the brain state sufficient? 
>> >>> (disregarding the necessary computational power) 
>> >> 
>> >> Because each brain cell is a living organism in its own right. The 
>> brain is 
>> >> a stock market of smaller brains. 
>> > Agreed, but is it turtles all the

Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou 
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>> You can't, because it's a chaotic system. If you eschew computers and
>> "simulate" the stock market by building an entire world with humans and an
>> economy you would get a stock market that functions similarly to the
>> original but not the same as the original, so it would be almost useless for
>> predicting a particular stock movement. A computer simulation can't be
>> expected to be better than a simulation with real humans living in a real
>> world. In other words, you would be simulating *a* stock market, not *the*
>> stock market.
>
>
> How can you explain that we can predict our own decisions? Or better yet,
> how do we make decisions in the first place?

We can't predict our own decisions, since there is always the
possibility that we can change our minds. This is where the feeling of
"free will" comes from. Note that this has no bearing on the question
of whether our decisions are determined or not: the only requirement
for the feeling of freedom is that we not know what we're going to do
until we do it.

>> > The brain has the same issue - you can't tell what it is going to do
>> > from
>> > the outside, because the behavior on the outside is often driven by  the
>> > story going on the inside - which cannot be known unless you too are on
>> > the
>> > inside.
>>
>> But that's the case for everything. Its behaviour is driven by what is
>> going on on the inside as well as what's going on on the outside.
>
>
> Some things are more predictable to us from the behavior  we can observe
> though.

Yes, but other things aren't. As per the Wolfram article referenced by
Stephen above, this is also the case for some computer programs, such
as cellular automata. No-one knows what they're going to do, as in
real life you just have to run the program and see what happens.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: “The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,”

2013-02-20 Thread Stathis Papaioannou 
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>> How do you know the mice are conscious of infra-red light? If it were a
>> machine you would say it wasn't conscious, it just reacted to the light in a
>> way that superficially resembles consciousness.
>
>
> That's because we are obliged to give organisms like us the benefit of the
> doubt. The opposite is true of machines, where we have seen that their
> behavior has no basis in any innate sensitivity or agenda of the machine.

But how do you know other people and animals are conscious? Is it just
a guess? Could you be wrong about them? Could you be wrong about
computers?

It seems to me that you have in mind some test for consciousness. You
apply this test to animals and to machines and you conclude that the
former are conscious and the latter not. I hope the test is not
something like "is made of organic material, grows and maintains
homeostasis", because the objection to that is, there is no reason to
assume that these factors are either necessary or sufficient for
consciousness.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: The duplicators and the restorers

2013-02-20 Thread meekerdb 

On 2/19/2013 4:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 5:27 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and 
consciousness
will swap with that of some rich and famous person.  Let's say Bill 
Gates.  I
hope you are ready.  5. 4. 3. 2. 1.  The swap is complete.  Bill Gates 
is now
in your body, with access to your memories and living as you were just 
before
you got to reading this sentence, while you are living as a billionaire 
and
enjoying Bills bank account.   Of course, while you are in his body you 
only
have access to his memories.  Not only does his wife not notice the 
switch,
but you don't even notice it.  You only have access to Bill's memories 
now so
you do not realize anything is awry.  Don't worry, everything will be 
set back
how it was, in 3. 2. 1. Welcome back. How was it? Of course, you don't
remember. Fortunately, Bill was nice enough to read the last few 
sentences for
you and now they have been placed into your memory.  This shows it is
meaningless to say "I wish I could live as X", or "experience a day in 
Y's
shoes".  For all you know, you already are, have, and will.


This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist apart 
from
your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to talk of exchanging 
bodies
and memories.


We agree it is nonsense.

  For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a "Bill 
Gates"
soul that switched.


Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you at T1 and 
you at
T2, when the two are different in terms of memories and material?

There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two individuals 
at two
different times. Inevitably it comes down to some arbitrary measure of similarity. 
There are two alternatives, no-self theories of personal identity, in which you are

nothing but a single observer moment, and universalism, which identifies 
you with
every conscious entity.


You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest theory - 
physical
continuity.


I haven't forgotten it, I've just come to see that the simplest theory (while perfectly 
fine for ordinary scenarios) falls on its face in others.  Particularly those involving 
duplicates, material replacement, teleporters, amnesia, split brains, etc.


What is physical continuity's answer to the following questions:
Who will you find yourself to be when you awake from a split brain surgery?
Do you experience the perspectives of all your branched copies under the Everett 
multi-verse?

Would you survive or die when you use a star-trek style transporter?
Do I lose consciousness if I lose access to all my memories?
Can my mind be slowly transformed to that of any other conscious person without losing 
consciousness?

If I step into a duplication machine and 10 copies come out, which one do I 
survive as?

Arnold Zuboff gives the following thought experiment to show how inadequate physical 
continuity theories are:


I imagined two brains lying at
either end of an operating table. For the sake of vividness - please forgive
me - let us say a mad scientist has only a moment ago snatched the brain
from your head. It is one of the two on the operating table. The other brain
is a precise duplicate of yours in every discriminable respect, including all
its patterns of memory traces. Perhaps the scientist created this duplicate
himself, or perhaps he stole it from the head of one of those duplicates of
you that would have arisen naturally in an infinite universe.

Anyway, this mad scientist is capable of feeding into these brains any
pattern of stimulation he likes, by means of electrodes plugged into them
where nerves would normally be entering from the sense-organs and the
rest of the body. And he has chosen to give both of them precisely the
same pattern of stimulation that your brain would have been receiving if it
had not been snatched from your head moments ago. That would be why
it seems to you that your brain is still in your head, that my paper is still
before you.

As I say, both brains are being fed exactly this same pattern of stimu-
lation. What should we expect is true of the subjects and their experience?
Would we not suppose that the episode of experience connected with each
brain would be qualitatively identical? But would we not also think that,
despite the completeness of their qualitative similarity, the subjects and
their episodes of experience must be numerically distinct from one another?
You are one subject, lost in one experience; at the other end of the
operating tabl