Re: Scientific journals
On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:49:35 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 14:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:42:21 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Apr 2013, at 19:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: snip It is more easy to see the irrationality of others than of oneself apparently. In general that is certainly true but Bruno let me ask you a very serious question, doesn't all this astrology stuff bother you and make you question how you allocate your time? Doesn't it bother you to learn that Craig Weinberg, somebody you have spent a lot of effort debating with, would say things like embody the Aquarian tension of revolutionary rationalism symbolized by the Saturnian- Uranian co-rulership of Aquarius. and With their interesting combination of Mars in Libra squaring their Moon and trining their Sun and The Neptune Saturn conjunction with the Jupiter stellium in Neptune-ruled Pisce and There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. and Astrology is extremely rational ? I've got to tell you that finding out that I have misjudged somebody that massively bothers the hell out of me. I agree with you. But Craig made a lot of invalid arguments well before this gross statements. As a teacher I am used to bet that crank can progress, so when an argument is invalid I make the correction. I know that some people cannot listen, but I keep hope, basically because that's my job. His argument for astrology was isomorphic to the main argument in favor of drug prohibition. Basically a confusion between p-q and q- p. Everyday that error appears in media, news, etc., be it on terrorism, drug, religion, etc. I can't help to denounce it wherever it appears. When have I ever argued in favor of drug prohibition? Are you confusing me with one of the Right-Wingers? When and where did I ever argue that you were in favor of drug prohibition? I as just saying that your argument in favor of astrology contained the same logical mistake than the one which figure in basically all papers in favor of prohibition. I did reply and explain at that time. Oh, sorry, I read it as 'my' argument for drug prohibition. Must be the drugs ;) You do a lot of mistake in logic. Maybe. But that may not be important. That might be an irrelevant distraction to an underlying thesis which is sound. That is an argument per authority. It is obvious that the validity of argument is what count, if not it is only propaganda. You take special sample and conclude from that. Today you said once again: No computer I have ever worked on has ever been conscious of anything that it is doing. ..., like if that was an argument against the idea that a computer *can* support some experience. The only reason that I argue that a computer cannot support experience, is because experience is not based on something other than itself. This might be phenomenologically true in other theories, by justifiable reason. I don't take the fact that computers are not conscious as an argument that they can't be, only that it should be a clue to us that there is something fundamentally different about logic circuits then zygotes. Racists says similar thing about Indians, black, etc. I have gone over the reason why computers qua computers will never have experiences many times - it is because the map is not the territory. Computation is devoid of aesthetics and consciousness is 100% aesthetic. If you say so ... Bruno It assumes awareness the wrong way around, as a product of nonsense or a fixed uniformity of sense rather than the eternal fertility of aesthetic sense. We do run on machines, and we run machines, but machines run on sense. That is not a valid argument. I would agree, but that wasn't my argument. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
Hi John, On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:59, John Mikes wrote: Craig - John - this is to the hard-to-identify last part of your combined and mixed post signed by John K C. about the 'consciousness' (C) part. I know that intelligence is a requirement of consciousness, just identify intelligence appropriately.G. I tend to think that worms are conscious, that they can feel pain for example. I am not sure that it makes sense to say that they are intelligent. I think consciousness is the base of any subjectivity, and so is the most primitive subjective sense. May be you were talking about self-consciousness, which is something more elaborate. - I like to indentify i with the Latin origin as 'inter- lego' (between the lines) tp consider more than properly expressed by the words used - maybe considering the 'meaning' represented by the 'name' (word, term) in the particular language - always more comprehensive than the general usage of a term. One may tailor-make i to fit to a given 'meaning' used in one's own theory for C. Otherwise: I have another method maybe not to 'measure', but identify consciousness (at least the term as many talk about it): it is a response to relations. IMO definitely NOT a HUMAN ONLY (not even animal) characteristic. I try not to call it C. I consider the C term useful for people tackling with human behavior and in need of a general term to 'name' a group of phenomena they need for it. I definitely refuse definitions like you can FEEL it or you know it for sure. Why? I do think that consciousness is the less doubtable thing we can live. Indeed to need it to doubt in a genuine way. Bruno Relations? we may know 'some' - or THINK we know. We, for sure, don't know a lot of them since our knowledge is restricted (growing(?) over the millennia with no assurance to reach 'them all'). We don't even know WHAT items(?) exercise relations in the infinite complexity (which is beyond our capabilities to learn). Agnostically yours John Mikes Ph.D., D.Sc. On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 4:32:25 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: You may be pedantic about the use of anthropomorphic language but I am not. It can become distracting / misleading in deeper discussions about the mechanisms of evolution. I don't care, anybody who was mislead or distracted and believed Evolution could think would be so stupid that I wouldn't care to talk to them. And as you once said who are you to say what's useful or not as a tool for other people to think and understand?. Emergence is just a way to connect different levels of abstraction. The trouble is people say X leads to Y but when asked how they just wave their hands around and say it's a emergent property, as if that explains something. What do you mean useful? I'm not going to tell you. Any definition I give you will be made of words and I have no doubt you would then demand a definition of at least one of those words. That's the trouble with this list, everybody is a big picture man with their own fundamental holistic theories about consciousness Isn't big picture the theme of this list? I thought the theme of this list was everything, and details are something. Dilettantes are always big picture men because that is so much easier than being a details man; they are VERY big picture men, so big that their ideas have made absolutely no changes to science or to anything that anyone can measure. If consciousness is easier than intelligence Evolution certainly found that to be the case. how come we have scientific progress in the latter and not in the former? Today's computers are smarter than they were 10 years ago so I think it is highly likely that they are more conscious too. Nobody could think that except someone who is trying hard to believe it. If anything, computers have become more disposable. Nobody seriously imagines that any digital device - from their cell phone to Watson, can tell the difference between being turned off and turned on. They can't tell, they don't care, there is no 'they' there. The number of circuits only matters of something cares about using them, and a computer does not care about anything. Craig If you have another method for measuring consciousness other than intelligent behavior I would very much like to hear about it. how do you know that intelligence is a requirement of consciousness? The only consciousness I have direct experience with is my own and I note that when I'm sleepy my consciousness is reduced and so is my intelligence, when I'm alert the reverse is true. Somebody who puts philosopher in the occupation line on his tax form Ok, I guess Plato and Aristotle and the rest of that gang are out then. Archimedes
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On 19 Apr 2013, at 19:08, John Clark wrote: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrot A deterministic reality We don't know that reality is deterministic and in fact right now the overwhelming evidence very strongly suggests that it is not. Everett restores determinacy in physics. The SWE's solutions are deterministic. I don't think that physical indeterminacy makes sense, nor that it is something testable. might be unable to make an error at the bottom level, but if it can emulate high level complex processes, like running some complex software, and such software can make an error with respect to the goal (like survive). And the only things we have found that have goals are humans and some of the higher animals, there is not a scrap of evidence that anything else does including reality or the universe or the multiverse if such a thing turns out to exist. Thus although humans may like or dislike what the universe does (I personally dislike the ban on faster than light travel because Star Wars was cool) from the universe's point of view it can't do anything wrong, or anything right for that matter. Indeed. Same for arithmetical truth a priori, from which the multiverse percolates in some sense. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Moslem peace march ?
On 19 Apr 2013, at 20:36, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote:\ After the Boston bombings, what I'd like to see is a Moslem Peace March. A tbhousand man moslem peace march. I would much rather see a thousand Muslims wise up and publicly abandon their religion. I think that right now a march by Muslims about anything would be in bad taste, just like it was bad taste when the day after religious morons crash airliners into skyscrapers on September 12 2001 a national day of prayer was held in the USA to give homage to the very mental cancer that caused the disaster in the first place. It's enough to make you scream. John K Clark Indeed, not just Muslims, everyone should convert to Atheism. Steven Weinberg said: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. That's a very nice quote, but Steven Weinberg should have use agnosticism instead of atheism. Atheism which is a variant of Christianism (same conception of God, and same belief in the creation). And that explains why, in some country, atheism made good people doing evil ... The real, and still taboo and hidden opposition is not between atheism and religion, but between Plato's view on reality, and Aristotle view on reality. Theology should just go back to the academy, where it was born. But the atheists religion blocks that possibility. And I disagree with John. Muslims will not abandon Islam in any reasonable sense, like christians will not abandon christianity. But Laicity is on the reasonable horizon, and me too would appreciate if Muslim could act more in that direction, like many try and deserve our encouragement. Bruno Saibal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On 19 Apr 2013, at 19:52, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:59:34 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 22:05, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 1:29:29 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/18/2013 8:15 AM, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 meekerdb meek...@verizon.net wrote: It's been proposed that the susceptibility to mutation is itself a characteristic subject to natural selection. If a animal is undergoing stress (too hot, too cold, too thirsty, too hungry whatever) that means there is something about it that is not well adapted to its environment; I can imagine a gene that in times of stress would switch on and produce a chemical that increases the rate of random mutation in the genes of the offspring of that stressed animal. Most of the offspring would have mutated in the wrong direction and die but they would have probably died anyway because they would have been as poorly adapted as there parent was, but if the mutational effect was not too strong (even if it's in the right direction you can change things too far) it could increase the likelihood that at least one of its children would be betteradapted than its parent. However I maintain that such a stress induced mutation producing gene has had no significant effect on the history of life, at least not in animals that reproduce sexually. That's a kind of Lamarckian adjustment of mutability. What I was referring to is simple Darwinian adjustment of mutability. There are error correcting mechanisms for DNA reproduction. Suppose they worked perfectly: then there would never be any genetic variation and when the evironment changed the species would go extinct. But if they had a slight error rate then there would develop a range of genetic diversity that might, under environmental change, result in survivors or even new species. So on strictly Darwinian theory the DNA error correction may be selected to be less than perfect. How does a deterministic universe invent something which is intentionally less than perfect? I'm not saying that it couldn't, or didn't, but why would there really even be any possibility of volatility built into physics in the first place? What, in a deterministic universe, constitutes an 'error'? A deterministic reality might be unable to make an error at the bottom level, but if it can emulate high level complex processes, like running some complex software, and such software can make an error with respect to the goal (like survive). Look at some youtube crash investigation showing why today some plane crash are due to computer errors. The error can have multiple origin, hardware or software. Likewise it is reasonable for a biologist to say that when a DNA polymerase introduces an unwanted supplementary nucleotide, it is making an error. In fact living cells contains a lot of error correction code to handle such cases, with 'error' taken in a sense similar to the one used in computer science. This illustrates that some errorless low-level can support higher level errors. Bruno It seems like you are bringing in empirical evidence of errors in the real world and using that to justify the expectation that at some point between low-level and high-level, this 'error' potential emerges as a condition of complexity. OK. What I am asking for though is precisely that this point be explained by theory. What is the theory of the emergence of the first error? It is when god put the tree of knowledge in the garden :) More seriously, it is when universal machine/number begins to refer and self-refer. That ability makes it possible to accelerate the computations relatively to each other, but entails the possiblity of error. The deep reason is already contained in Gödel's second incompleteness: if I am consistent then it is consistent that I am inconsistent (Dt - ~BDt). Simple but rich correct theories can be come inconsistent, or consistent but unsound. Bruno Craig Craig Brent Such a stress-mutation gene has never been found in a sexual animal and it's easy to see why. In sex all the genes are not inherited in one big package but are shuffled around with the genes of the other parent, so a animal that was lucky enough to inherit the good genes produced by the hypothetical stress- mutation gene but not the stress-mutation gene itself would do just as well or better than a animal that got both the good genes and the stress-mutation gene that is no longer active because the animal is no longer under stress. So even if such a stress- mutation gene did occur in one individual in a population it would vanish in just a few generations from the gene pool. Natural Selection doesn't figure I better keep that stress-mutation gene because even though there is no stress now that could change and such a gene might come
Re: Moslem peace march ?
That is absolutely wrong, and it is a religious statement of a devote atheist According with the traditional Doxatic definition of religion, Weinberg is a non religious person that say that the Russian, chinesse Marxists, for example, were all people born perverse by nature, suppossedly by means of a reversible mutation. Or alternatively, that killin millions in the gulag was a good done by good people. According with the epistemic definition of religion, humans are all religious by nature, as was recognized by every thinker since thousands years ago until recently, when atheism for the first time, a few century ago stablished itself as a form of organized religion. According with this definition, Weinberg is a devote religious person which call religious to whoever is not from his religious group, and, as every fanatic, obviate the crimes of their fellow believers (sometimes claiming that they are not true believers), like the Marxist, the French revolutionaries etc and does not stop talking about the crimes of other beliefs. 2013/4/19 smi...@zonnet.nl Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote:\ After the Boston bombings, what I'd like to see is a Moslem Peace March. A tbhousand man moslem peace march. I would much rather see a thousand Muslims wise up and publicly abandon their religion. I think that right now a march by Muslims about anything would be in bad taste, just like it was bad taste when the day after religious morons crash airliners into skyscrapers on September 12 2001 a national day of prayer was held in the USA to give homage to the very mental cancer that caused the disaster in the first place. It's enough to make you scream. John K Clark Indeed, not just Muslims, everyone should convert to Atheism. Steven Weinberg said: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/**Steven_Weinberghttp://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. Saibal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Moslem peace march ?
Agnosticism IMHO is another belief that is genuinely modern, with Atheism. Both are escapes from reality. The atheist denies God not for God itself, but for what implies a creation and an order. In denying God, the atheist is denying the current order of things. It is absurd to spend time denying something that does nothing. The atheist wants to deny God because it is the cause of the current human order because he believes that there is another better. This order, the order of humanity for thounsands of years , the atheist thinks, is a product of a belief system, and not an inevitable consequence of human nature. So the atheist invent an imagined golden age in the past and an utopic future that return and perfect the golden age, when the actual order will be destroyed. Therefore The atheist is full of ate to the current order of things, but he feels superior, sanctified by himself and carrier of a holy revolutionary mission that since is based on an imaginary reality, ends up in disaster and misery. Agnostics are coward believers (including coward atheists) that scape confrontation. 2013/4/20 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be On 19 Apr 2013, at 20:36, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote:\ After the Boston bombings, what I'd like to see is a Moslem Peace March. A tbhousand man moslem peace march. I would much rather see a thousand Muslims wise up and publicly abandon their religion. I think that right now a march by Muslims about anything would be in bad taste, just like it was bad taste when the day after religious morons crash airliners into skyscrapers on September 12 2001 a national day of prayer was held in the USA to give homage to the very mental cancer that caused the disaster in the first place. It's enough to make you scream. John K Clark Indeed, not just Muslims, everyone should convert to Atheism. Steven Weinberg said: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/**Steven_Weinberghttp://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. That's a very nice quote, but Steven Weinberg should have use agnosticism instead of atheism. Atheism which is a variant of Christianism (same conception of God, and same belief in the creation). And that explains why, in some country, atheism made good people doing evil ... The real, and still taboo and hidden opposition is not between atheism and religion, but between Plato's view on reality, and Aristotle view on reality. Theology should just go back to the academy, where it was born. But the atheists religion blocks that possibility. And I disagree with John. Muslims will not abandon Islam in any reasonable sense, like christians will not abandon christianity. But Laicity is on the reasonable horizon, and me too would appreciate if Muslim could act more in that direction, like many try and deserve our encouragement. Bruno Saibal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 02:31, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. The hard problem is only the antic mind-body problem, and what you say is that you don't understand it, as it happens frequently. UDA reduces that problem to the problem of justifying, by a FPI statistics, the belief in matter by some average relative universal machine/number. Then the qualia are explained by the logic of self-reference, like the quanta, but it leads to testable statictics on the quanta, so that we can test the comp theory theory of consciousness. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 05:26, meekerdb wrote: On 4/19/2013 5:31 PM, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution. When we can build AI robots that exhibit (including reporting) intelligent and emotional responses similar to humans and we can map between their AI and the function of brains in a way that allows us to reliably adjust the behavior of AI robots and/or humans - then we will have solved the problem, in the practical sense that no one will care about it in general terms but will discuss it in technical terms the way biologists discuss protein production and messenger RNA and DNA error correction but no longer discuss what is life?. No this will not work. We must test the physical consequence of the belief that the brain can be truncated at a finite level. If not, it is just pseudo aristotelian religion. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Improving The Hard Problem
On Friday, April 19, 2013 11:46:25 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Apr 2013, at 13:56, Craig Weinberg wrote:
Qualia are generated,
With comp the qualia are not generated. They are arithmetical truth seen
from some point of view. They cannot even been defined, but it can be shown
that they obeys to some laws (including the maws of not being definable).
but only by other qualia. By pointing out that qualia can have no possible
function, I am clarifying that in a universe defined purely by function,
that qualia cannot be possible.
This does not follow. Qualia might be epiphenomenal.
Whether qualia is epiphenomenal or not is up to the participant. That is
their role from 3p perspective, to select which sensory affect they prefer
or allow to influence their motive output, and thus contribute to public
realism. Free will is the active modality of qualia, turning
superpositioned epiphenomena into thermodynamically committed phenomena.
But this does not follow for another reason: qualia have a function/role,
although in the intensional (program related) sense, and not really in the
usual extensional one (set of input-outputs). So it is preferable to refer
to computation instead of function, which is an ambiguous term in computer
science.
What role could qualia have to a program that would not be accomplished by
other quantitative means? Any number, for example, can be used as a precise
and absolutely unique identifier - why would a colorful name be used
instead of that? If we don't add in high level names for our own benefit,
by default strings like SIDs and GUIDs are easier to use.
What this means is that the universe cannot be defined purely by function.
It cannot be a motor, machine, computer, zombie, or set of all arithmetic
truths.
This is vague. I can agree (in comp) and disagree (in comp).
If 'universe' denotes the big whole, by definition it has no input nor
output, and so is equivalent with the unique function from nothing to
nothing. The empty function = { }.
That's only if you assume a number system based on a null default. I am
using the totality as a default. The universe is the set of all inputs and
outputs; every significant function (not every function, since the universe
is not a nonsense generator of accidental sense like UD, but an elitist
aesthetic agenda which chooses which functions to formally pay attention
to/materialize and which to leave as theoretical potentials).
So universe is already an intensional term, and should be handled with
intensional tools, like computer science, modal logic, etc. Then assuming
comp, we can explain how the physical universe appearance is given by
internal modalities, some locally sharable (quanta), and some not locally
sharable (qualia).
These tools are only useful to organize aesthetic phenomena which already
exist (insist). No logic or Doxastic framework can ever account for qualia.
Who cares if we know all of the things that satisfy some relation to the
experience of seeing red? That doesn't let the blind see red.
Craig
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:15:17 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 19:52, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:59:34 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 22:05, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 1:29:29 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/18/2013 8:15 AM, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 meekerdb meek...@verizon.net wrote: It's been proposed that the susceptibility to mutation is itself a characteristic subject to natural selection. If a animal is undergoing stress (too hot, too cold, too thirsty, too hungry whatever) that means there is something about it that is not well adapted to its environment; I can imagine a gene that in times of stress would switch on and produce a chemical that increases the rate of random mutation in the genes of the offspring of that stressed animal. Most of the offspring would have mutated in the wrong direction and die but they would have probably died anyway because they would have been as poorly adapted as there parent was, but if the mutational effect was not too strong (even if it's in the right direction you can change things too far) it could increase the likelihood that at least one of its children would be better adapted than its parent. However I maintain that such a stress induced mutation producing gene has had no significant effect on the history of life, at least not in animals that reproduce sexually. That's a kind of Lamarckian adjustment of mutability. What I was referring to is simple Darwinian adjustment of mutability. There are error correcting mechanisms for DNA reproduction. Suppose they worked perfectly: then there would never be any genetic variation and when the evironment changed the species would go extinct. But if they had a slight error rate then there would develop a range of genetic diversity that might, under environmental change, result in survivors or even new species. So on strictly Darwinian theory the DNA error correction may be selected to be less than perfect. How does a deterministic universe invent something which is intentionally less than perfect? I'm not saying that it couldn't, or didn't, but why would there really even be any possibility of volatility built into physics in the first place? What, in a deterministic universe, constitutes an 'error'? A deterministic reality might be unable to make an error at the bottom level, but if it can emulate high level complex processes, like running some complex software, and such software can make an error with respect to the goal (like survive). Look at some youtube crash investigation showing why today some plane crash are due to computer errors. The error can have multiple origin, hardware or software. Likewise it is reasonable for a biologist to say that when a DNA polymerase introduces an unwanted supplementary nucleotide, it is making an error. In fact living cells contains a lot of error correction code to handle such cases, with 'error' taken in a sense similar to the one used in computer science. This illustrates that some errorless low-level can support higher level errors. Bruno It seems like you are bringing in empirical evidence of errors in the real world and using that to justify the expectation that at some point between low-level and high-level, this 'error' potential emerges as a condition of complexity. OK. What I am asking for though is precisely that this point be explained by theory. What is the theory of the emergence of the first error? It is when god put the tree of knowledge in the garden :) More seriously, it is when universal machine/number begins to refer and self-refer. That ability makes it possible to accelerate the computations relatively to each other, but entails the possiblity of error. Why does it entail that possibility, i.e. how does 'error' become a possibility? The deep reason is already contained in Gödel's second incompleteness: if I am consistent then it is consistent that I am inconsistent (Dt - ~BDt). Simple but rich correct theories can be come inconsistent, or consistent but unsound. Not satisfying. A paradox does not automatically conjure a phenomena where determinism arbitrarily fails on a infrequent but quasi-inevitable basis. Craig Bruno Craig Craig Brent Such a stress-mutation gene has never been found in a sexual animal and it's easy to see why. In sex all the genes are not inherited in one big package but are shuffled around with the genes of the other parent, so a animal that was lucky enough to inherit the good genes produced by the hypothetical stress-mutation gene but not the stress-mutation gene itself would do just as well or better than a animal that got both the good genes and the stress-mutation gene that is no longer active because the animal is no longer
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 5:18:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 02:31, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. The hard problem is only the antic mind-body problem, and what you say is that you don't understand it, as it happens frequently. UDA reduces that problem to the problem of justifying, by a FPI statistics, the belief in matter by some average relative universal machine/number. Then the qualia are explained by the logic of self-reference, like the quanta, but it leads to testable statictics on the quanta, so that we can test the comp theory theory of consciousness. I would disagree in the sense that your definition conflates the hard problem with the explanatory gap - which is hugely common and not a big deal unless you are getting very specific about it. I see the difference between my definition (which I think more or less reflects Chalmers original intent) and the mind/body problem, is that the Hard problem is just the aesthetic problem. Why does the mind have any aesthetic content to begin with? What are colors and flavors doing in a computer program, or neuronal interactions. Of course, there can never be an answer to that, in my opinion, because I see the question is upside down. The programs and neurons are only always within the aesthetic dream of the universe. Craig Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Improving The Hard Problem
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:34:15 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 22:39, Terren Suydam wrote: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 11:49:17 AM UTC-4, Terren Suydam wrote: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comwrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 11:05:28 AM UTC-4, Terren Suydam wrote: On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stat...@gmail.com wrote: But you claim that it is impossible to conceive of consciousness supervening on function. A religious person would claim that it impossible to conceive of consciousness as residing anywhere other than in the spiritual realm. Both your positions seem to essentially be based on the argument from incredulity: see, this lump of coal is inert and dead, how could anything derived from it possibly have feelings? Craig's theory is essentially equivalent with explaining consciousness in terms of the religious 'soul'. Nope. Soul is anthropmorphic. Sense is generic and universal. I am talking physics, not religion. It's a distinction without a difference. Making it generic and universal as opposed to anthropomorphic doesn't change anything... it is still the uncomputable generator of qualia. That's like saying that there is no difference between saying that ions are electrically charged and saying that atoms have little invisible men pushing them around. Soul is a concept which lends itself to supernatural inhabitants of natural bodies - I am not talking about that at all. I am talking about perception and participation being the absolute fundamental meta-noumena. Except that you don't articulate any demonstrable difference between a universe in which experience is fundamental, and the deterministic physics of mainstream science (as your exchange with Stathis shows, e.g. you repeatedly deny that you need to show how ion channels would do anything differently than what physics would expect them to do), except for one thing - that intention flows downward and affects the lowest levels, and it does this in a way that is not computable (i.e. not in obeyance of any kind of law). That viewpoint is indistinguishable from soul, which is also not computable. But Craig is right on this, with respect to comp. If you define the soul by the knower, like Plotinus, and if you define the knower by the Theaetetus' method (to know p = to believe p + p is true), you get something (the soul) which appears to be non definable by the machine, and not computable, from that machine-soul perspective. Arithmetic is full of non computable entities, and they pay some role when the machine looks inward. The problem with Craig is that he want experience to be primitive, and for this it needs a primitive matter (despite what he says), and a primitive and magical link between. Why would numbers which produce experience be independent of matter but experience which produces numbers not be? He argues that sense is primary, and that the top-down causality of intention translates to the bottom-up causality of physics, Not always, not. There is bottom up, top down, inside out, outside in...all kinds of causality. Makes no difference. How do you figure? If you accuse me of stealing bread because you are the only baker in the world, and I insist that I also can bake bread, and so can many others, how does that make no difference to the presumptuousness of your accusation? The only charge you need to answer for is an uncomputable causality that somehow affects the world in a way that is undetectable by physics - People like John Clark seems to believe also in non computable causality, when he says that indeterminacy can be something physical. Single worlder have to believe in that kind of magic. this is indistinguishable from soul. The other kinds of causality you mention (whatever those mean) are either from computable sources (in agreement with physics) or uncomputable sources (and thus also indistinguishable with soul). and, crucially, that top-down intention is not computable, i.e. that it is not possible for such top-down intention to emerge in any kind of simulation, at any level. This is almost exactly the same thing as saying that what animates us is our god-given soul. Nope. I am saying that top-down intentions emerge from proprietary diffractions of the eternal experience. It's more Vedic or Taoist than Christian, but where I differ from Vedic or Taoist conceptions is that I do not see matter as illusion or Maya, but as the concrete public presentations which orthomodularly re-present private experiences. In what conceivable way does proprietary diffractions of the eternal experience differ from something equally as ambiguous as divine spark? Spark of
Re: Scientific journals
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:46:49 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:49:35 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 14:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:42:21 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Apr 2013, at 19:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: snip It is more easy to see the irrationality of others than of oneself apparently. In general that is certainly true but Bruno let me ask you a very serious question, doesn't all this astrology stuff bother you and make you question how you allocate your time? Doesn't it bother you to learn that Craig Weinberg, somebody you have spent a lot of effort debating with, would say things like embody the Aquarian tension of revolutionary rationalism symbolized by the Saturnian-Uranian co-rulership of Aquarius. and With their interesting combination of Mars in Libra squaring their Moon and trining their Sun and The Neptune Saturn conjunction with the Jupiter stellium in Neptune-ruled Pisce and There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. and Astrology is extremely rational ? I've got to tell you that finding out that I have misjudged somebody that massively bothers the hell out of me. I agree with you. But Craig made a lot of invalid arguments well before this gross statements. As a teacher I am used to bet that crank can progress, so when an argument is invalid I make the correction. I know that some people cannot listen, but I keep hope, basically because that's my job. His argument for astrology was isomorphic to the main argument in favor of drug prohibition. Basically a confusion between p-q and q-p. Everyday that error appears in media, news, etc., be it on terrorism, drug, religion, etc. I can't help to denounce it wherever it appears. When have I ever argued in favor of drug prohibition? Are you confusing me with one of the Right-Wingers? When and where did I ever argue that you were in favor of drug prohibition? I as just saying that your argument in favor of astrology contained the same logical mistake than the one which figure in basically all papers in favor of prohibition. I did reply and explain at that time. Oh, sorry, I read it as 'my' argument for drug prohibition. Must be the drugs ;) You do a lot of mistake in logic. Maybe. But that may not be important. That might be an irrelevant distraction to an underlying thesis which is sound. That is an argument per authority. It is obvious that the validity of argument is what count, if not it is only propaganda. Logic may not be able to realize the deeper issues of subjectivity. If logic is subtly bent in the right places (and I don't know that mine is, but you accuse me of that), then it might illuminate important areas which logic cannot reach. The intuition pump is exactly what you do want. You take special sample and conclude from that. Today you said once again: No computer I have ever worked on has ever been conscious of anything that it is doing. ..., like if that was an argument against the idea that a computer *can* support some experience. The only reason that I argue that a computer cannot support experience, is because experience is not based on something other than itself. This might be phenomenologically true in other theories, by justifiable reason. I am saying that it is ontologically true. Not talking about our own experience, but the principle of experience in general - it makes no sense as a function of any other phenomenon. I don't take the fact that computers are not conscious as an argument that they can't be, only that it should be a clue to us that there is something fundamentally different about logic circuits then zygotes. Racists says similar thing about Indians, black, etc. But all races and racists will save their own children from a burning building before they save a computer...even a really nice supercomputer. I have gone over the reason why computers qua computers will never have experiences many times - it is because the map is not the territory. Computation is devoid of aesthetics and consciousness is 100% aesthetic. If you say so ... I do. Craig Bruno It assumes awareness the wrong way around, as a product of nonsense or a fixed uniformity of sense rather than the eternal fertility of aesthetic sense. We do run on machines, and we run machines, but machines run on sense. That is not a valid argument. I would agree, but that wasn't my argument. Craig Bruno Craig Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving
Re: Moslem peace march ?
On 4/20/2013 1:55 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Agnosticism IMHO is another belief that is genuinely modern, with Atheism. Both are escapes from reality. The atheist denies God not for God itself, but for what implies a creation and an order. In denying God, the atheist is denying the current order of things. So God=current order of things; well hallelujah I believe in God. I just didn't know what God meant. Redefining words can be so useful. Brent Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings. --- Vic Stenger -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On 4/20/2013 2:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 05:26, meekerdb wrote: On 4/19/2013 5:31 PM, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution. When we can build AI robots that exhibit (including reporting) intelligent and emotional responses similar to humans and we can map between their AI and the function of brains in a way that allows us to reliably adjust the behavior of AI robots and/or humans - then we will have solved the problem, in the practical sense that no one will care about it in general terms but will discuss it in technical terms the way biologists discuss protein production and messenger RNA and DNA error correction but no longer discuss what is life?. No this will not work. We must test the physical consequence of the belief that the brain can be truncated at a finite level. Sure. Not only will we build AI robots, but we will also use the understanding we develop to modify brains and cure some mental illness; which will entail learning the proper level of substitution. But it will all be inferred from behavior and reports and mapping between AI and brain processes. Brent Perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away --- A de Saint-Exupery -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We don't know that reality is deterministic and in fact right now the overwhelming evidence very strongly suggests that it is not. Everett restores determinacy in physics. Yes, but although I like Everett I don't know for a fact that he is correct, and even if he is from our point of view things are still indeterminate because there is information that we can never obtain, not even in theory much less in practice. The SWE's solutions are deterministic. Yes, but the Schrodinger Wave Equation does not describe physical reality, it describes the Quantum Wave Function. The Quantum Wave Function is very useful and so are the lines of latitude and longitude, and they both have equal physical reality. I don't think that physical indeterminacy makes sense, What law of logic demands that every event have a cause? I think we're lucky that we live in a universe where at least some events have causes, demanding that all of them do may be asking for too much; but of course if we weren't that lucky and lived in a completely random universe of white noise we wouldn't be around to demand anything. nor that it is something testable. If indeterminacy is not testable then neither is determinacy. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Moslem peace march ?
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 4:05 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. That's a very nice quote, but Steven Weinberg should have use agnosticism instead of atheism. I don't see where Weinberg mentioned either, but never mind let me ask you a question, do you believe there is a small china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus? There is not a scrap of evidence indicating the existence of such a teapot nor is there anything proving its nonexistence, so are you a teapot atheist or a teapot agnostic? Personally I'm willing to get off the fence and say I am a teapot atheist. Atheism which is a variant of Christianism And 2+2= 5 for extremely large values of 2. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:46:49 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:49:35 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 14:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:42:21 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Apr 2013, at 19:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: snip It is more easy to see the irrationality of others than of oneself apparently. In general that is certainly true but Bruno let me ask you a very serious question, doesn't all this astrology stuff bother you and make you question how you allocate your time? Doesn't it bother you to learn that Craig Weinberg, somebody you have spent a lot of effort debating with, would say things like embody the Aquarian tension of revolutionary rationalism symbolized by the Saturnian-Uranian co-rulership of Aquarius. and With their interesting combination of Mars in Libra squaring their Moon and trining their Sun and The Neptune Saturn conjunction with the Jupiter stellium in Neptune-ruled Pisce and There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. and Astrology is extremely rational ? I've got to tell you that finding out that I have misjudged somebody that massively bothers the hell out of me. I agree with you. But Craig made a lot of invalid arguments well before this gross statements. As a teacher I am used to bet that crank can progress, so when an argument is invalid I make the correction. I know that some people cannot listen, but I keep hope, basically because that's my job. His argument for astrology was isomorphic to the main argument in favor of drug prohibition. Basically a confusion between p-q and q-p. Everyday that error appears in media, news, etc., be it on terrorism, drug, religion, etc. I can't help to denounce it wherever it appears. When have I ever argued in favor of drug prohibition? Are you confusing me with one of the Right-Wingers? When and where did I ever argue that you were in favor of drug prohibition? I as just saying that your argument in favor of astrology contained the same logical mistake than the one which figure in basically all papers in favor of prohibition. I did reply and explain at that time. Oh, sorry, I read it as 'my' argument for drug prohibition. Must be the drugs ;) You do a lot of mistake in logic. Maybe. But that may not be important. That might be an irrelevant distraction to an underlying thesis which is sound. That is an argument per authority. It is obvious that the validity of argument is what count, if not it is only propaganda. Logic may not be able to realize the deeper issues of subjectivity. If logic is subtly bent in the right places (and I don't know that mine is, but you accuse me of that), then it might illuminate important areas which logic cannot reach. The intuition pump is exactly what you do want. You take special sample and conclude from that. Today you said once again: No computer I have ever worked on has ever been conscious of anything that it is doing. ..., like if that was an argument against the idea that a computer *can* support some experience. The only reason that I argue that a computer cannot support experience, is because experience is not based on something other than itself. This might be phenomenologically true in other theories, by justifiable reason. I am saying that it is ontologically true. Not talking about our own experience, but the principle of experience in general - it makes no sense as a function of any other phenomenon. I don't take the fact that computers are not conscious as an argument that they can't be, only that it should be a clue to us that there is something fundamentally different about logic circuits then zygotes. Racists says similar thing about Indians, black, etc. But all races and racists will save their own children from a burning building before they save a computer...even a really nice supercomputer. I have gone over the reason why computers qua computers will never have experiences many times - it is because the map is not the territory. Computation is devoid of aesthetics and consciousness is 100% aesthetic. If you say so ... I do. Then you're conception of aesthetics is more limited than that of old Greeks who saw number relations giving rise to beauty ( = computing results in aesthetic experience of music) that paved the way for all forms of harmony we are familiar with today. You can verify this connection between number and beauty/aesthetic experience by consulting Donald Duck, keeper of absolute truth and sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRD4gb0p5RM Donald makes a some good plausible points about this. Better than I do, in
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. The hard problem is only the antic mind-body problem, and what you say is that you don't understand it, as it happens frequently. UDA reduces that problem to the problem of justifying, by a FPI statistics, the belief in matter by some average relative universal machine/number. Yes exactly, that is a perfect example of what I just said: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 17:56, meekerdb wrote: On 4/20/2013 2:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 05:26, meekerdb wrote: On 4/19/2013 5:31 PM, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution. When we can build AI robots that exhibit (including reporting) intelligent and emotional responses similar to humans and we can map between their AI and the function of brains in a way that allows us to reliably adjust the behavior of AI robots and/or humans - then we will have solved the problem, in the practical sense that no one will care about it in general terms but will discuss it in technical terms the way biologists discuss protein production and messenger RNA and DNA error correction but no longer discuss what is life?. No this will not work. We must test the physical consequence of the belief that the brain can be truncated at a finite level. Sure. Not only will we build AI robots, but we will also use the understanding we develop to modify brains and cure some mental illness; which will entail learning the proper level of substitution. But it will all be inferred from behavior and reports and mapping between AI and brain processes. In part, as the pioneer of technological (local) immortality will take the first approximation. My point is more concrete, comp leads to testable observation in the physical world, indeed the laws of physics. Comp gives the realm where the laws of physics evolves, a sort of many interfering 'matrix' which exists by the law of + and *. It is testable, with the classical theory of knowledge (not Theatetus, except that Theaetetus gives it when apply to sigma_1 complete provability). Brent Perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away --- A de Saint-Exupery I prefer this quote than the preceding one. Looks like arithmetic is perfect, in that sense. All universal numbers! Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 18:43, John Clark wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We don't know that reality is deterministic and in fact right now the overwhelming evidence very strongly suggests that it is not. Everett restores determinacy in physics. Yes, but although I like Everett I don't know for a fact that he is correct, We can't know truth, in science. and even if he is from our point of view things are still indeterminate because there is information that we can never obtain, not even in theory much less in practice. No problem. That's the case for all creatures dreaming in Numberland. The SWE's solutions are deterministic. Yes, but the Schrodinger Wave Equation does not describe physical reality, it describes the Quantum Wave Function. The Quantum Wave Function is very useful and so are the lines of latitude and longitude, and they both have equal physical reality. Yes. But its solution is the multiverse. Like latitude and longitude refers to relatively real part of the planet. I don't think that physical indeterminacy makes sense, What law of logic demands that every event have a cause? It is not a law of logic. It my intuition of the physical. Then with comp, it is plausible that all physical events have a cause, actually many competing one in the long run. And the laws of physics have a reason. Believing that a physical events might not have a cause seems to me like believing in magic. The law of logic are modest. I think we're lucky that we live in a universe where at least some events have causes, demanding that all of them do may be asking for too much; I think that this is fatalism, and encourage the lazyness in thinking. Your philosophy is the type of philosophy which would have mock all tentative to explain things not yet understood. It favors the don't ask principle. but of course if we weren't that lucky and lived in a completely random universe of white noise we wouldn't be around to demand anything. That's for quasi-sure. nor that it is something testable. If indeterminacy is not testable then neither is determinacy. It depends on the theory. In a single world universe, both the theory (QM+collapse), and the facts, one universe + violation of Bell's inequality, entails 3-indeterminacy. Of course, MW restores 3- determinacy (leaving 1-indeterminacy only). Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Moslem peace march ?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 19:12, John Clark wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 4:05 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. That's a very nice quote, but Steven Weinberg should have use agnosticism instead of atheism. I don't see where Weinberg mentioned either, but never mind let me ask you a question, do you believe there is a small china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus? There is not a scrap of evidence indicating the existence of such a teapot nor is there anything proving its nonexistence, so are you a teapot atheist or a teapot agnostic? Personally I'm willing to get off the fence and say I am a teapot atheist. As a scientist, I can only be a teapot agnostic. From current information I would say that the teapot theory is rather implausible. It is also not an interesting theory at all, but it is testable if you make the theory more precise by giving the mass of the teapot, etc. Atheism which is a variant of Christianism And 2+2= 5 for extremely large values of 2. Atheism use the conception of God given by people using authoritative argument, and dismiss the talk of both the rationalist and the mystics. That's like the fundamentalist in other religion. Then a majority of atheist believes in Matter. That has been introduced as an hypothesis by Aristotle (although he appears to be unclear in some passage), and transformed into a dogma by a majority of Christians (not all) and kept strongly by atheists, leading to person eliminativism (and not always in theory). And 2+2= 5 for extremely large values of 2. Thanks for the funny distraction. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
The Uses of a Screwdriver Cannot be Listed Algorithmically
I am reading now Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life back into Biology. In Foreword: Evolution beyond Newton, Darwin, and Entailing Law, Stuart A. Kauffman writes: p. 9 Here is the first 'strange' step. Can you name all the uses of a screwdriver, alone, or with other objects or process? Well, screw in a a screw, open a paint can, wedge open a door, wedge closed a door, scrape putty off a window, stab an assailant, be an objet d'art, tied to a stick a fish spear, the spear rented to 'natives' for a 5 percent fish catch return becomes a new business, and so on. I think that we all are convinced that the following two statements are true: (1) the number of uses of a screw driver is indefinite; and (2) unlike the integers which can be ordered, there is no natural ordering of the uses of a screw driver. The uses are unordered. But these two claims entail that there is no 'Turing Effective Procedure' to list all the uses of a screwdriver alone or with other objects or processes. In short, there is no algorithm to list all the uses of a screwdriver. Any comment? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
Brent and Bruno: *Brent* I love you for your scientific self-consciousness: *I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution.* That's the 'end' of all. Religions like it. Here is what I see as the (hard problem) problem: people like to think in the mind-body restriction, as BODY only, considering the 'mind' (?) only as *expressions of the body.* How about thought, i.e. ideational thinking - considered practically within measuring only our already available physical data? where do we get the blue mAmp for logical and the red mAmp for emotional disagreement? the yellow mAmp for I forgot and the purple mAmp for yesterday I was hungry? Do we differentiate btw. blood-surges as to pertinent to musical, or visual enjoyment/(un)aesthetics) - or else? I would love to learn the solution for such distinctions using *BODILY*data. I have a solution: I dunno. *Bruno:* *...it is just pseudo aristotelian religion.* I like your putting a NAME to my agnostic outburst, not necessarily all-agreeable for me (I don't like to go 'back' to the oldies). Even 'religion' (what I used a minute ago) is suspect since we have no proper identification for 'them' in wide ranges (I may call my 'belief' in the infinite complexity as one). So is your comp-basis I suppose, or Brent's 'connectivity' (=mapping?) between (tissue?)brain functions and AS (oops: AI, what I miswrote is Artificial Stupidity). He may be right, of course, if we reduce our interest to the already knowable 'model' of the world. I don't go for such reductionism in thinking theoretically. Regards John M On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 5:20 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 05:26, meekerdb wrote: On 4/19/2013 5:31 PM, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution. When we can build AI robots that exhibit (including reporting) intelligent and emotional responses similar to humans and we can map between their AI and the function of brains in a way that allows us to reliably adjust the behavior of AI robots and/or humans - then we will have solved the problem, in the practical sense that no one will care about it in general terms but will discuss it in technical terms the way biologists discuss protein production and messenger RNA and DNA error correction but no longer discuss what is life?. No this will not work. We must test the physical consequence of the belief that the brain can be truncated at a finite level. If not, it is just pseudo aristotelian religion. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On 20 Apr 2013, at 19:49, John Clark wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. The hard problem is only the antic mind-body problem, and what you say is that you don't understand it, as it happens frequently. UDA reduces that problem to the problem of justifying, by a FPI statistics, the belief in matter by some average relative universal machine/number. Yes exactly, that is a perfect example of what I just said: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. Do you believe that it is plausible that your brain might be Turing emulable? Then the problem consists in justifying the physical laws from number self-reference. You can weaken the condition of Turing emulability, and you get corresponding problems, with harder and harder math. There in no answer in science, only questions and theories which put light, and sometimes shadow, on what we can explore. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Uses of a Screwdriver Cannot be Listed Algorithmically
Evgeniy: although I had my disagreements with Stuart dating back to prior to the 1997 Nashua Conference, I have to agree here. Turing was a great mind, his ideas leading to our (embryonic, binary) computing machine are great, it is not the ultimate word. I wonder how much Bruno's (Loeb's) universal machine is such? So far we have no better one, the Turingesque contraption is our miraculous panacea to lots of things, but it may have its limitations and disadvantages. Screwdriver, or not. John M On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: I am reading now Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life back into Biology. In Foreword: Evolution beyond Newton, Darwin, and Entailing Law, Stuart A. Kauffman writes: p. 9 Here is the first 'strange' step. Can you name all the uses of a screwdriver, alone, or with other objects or process? Well, screw in a a screw, open a paint can, wedge open a door, wedge closed a door, scrape putty off a window, stab an assailant, be an objet d'art, tied to a stick a fish spear, the spear rented to 'natives' for a 5 percent fish catch return becomes a new business, and so on. I think that we all are convinced that the following two statements are true: (1) the number of uses of a screw driver is indefinite; and (2) unlike the integers which can be ordered, there is no natural ordering of the uses of a screw driver. The uses are unordered. But these two claims entail that there is no 'Turing Effective Procedure' to list all the uses of a screwdriver alone or with other objects or processes. In short, there is no algorithm to list all the uses of a screwdriver. Any comment? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On 20 Apr 2013, at 19:15, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:46:49 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:49:35 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 14:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:42:21 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Apr 2013, at 19:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: snip It is more easy to see the irrationality of others than of oneself apparently. In general that is certainly true but Bruno let me ask you a very serious question, doesn't all this astrology stuff bother you and make you question how you allocate your time? Doesn't it bother you to learn that Craig Weinberg, somebody you have spent a lot of effort debating with, would say things like embody the Aquarian tension of revolutionary rationalism symbolized by the Saturnian-Uranian co-rulership of Aquarius. and With their interesting combination of Mars in Libra squaring their Moon and trining their Sun and The Neptune Saturn conjunction with the Jupiter stellium in Neptune-ruled Pisce and There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. and Astrology is extremely rational ? I've got to tell you that finding out that I have misjudged somebody that massively bothers the hell out of me. I agree with you. But Craig made a lot of invalid arguments well before this gross statements. As a teacher I am used to bet that crank can progress, so when an argument is invalid I make the correction. I know that some people cannot listen, but I keep hope, basically because that's my job. His argument for astrology was isomorphic to the main argument in favor of drug prohibition. Basically a confusion between p-q and q-p. Everyday that error appears in media, news, etc., be it on terrorism, drug, religion, etc. I can't help to denounce it wherever it appears. When have I ever argued in favor of drug prohibition? Are you confusing me with one of the Right-Wingers? When and where did I ever argue that you were in favor of drug prohibition? I as just saying that your argument in favor of astrology contained the same logical mistake than the one which figure in basically all papers in favor of prohibition. I did reply and explain at that time. Oh, sorry, I read it as 'my' argument for drug prohibition. Must be the drugs ;) You do a lot of mistake in logic. Maybe. But that may not be important. That might be an irrelevant distraction to an underlying thesis which is sound. That is an argument per authority. It is obvious that the validity of argument is what count, if not it is only propaganda. Logic may not be able to realize the deeper issues of subjectivity. If logic is subtly bent in the right places (and I don't know that mine is, but you accuse me of that), then it might illuminate important areas which logic cannot reach. The intuition pump is exactly what you do want. You take special sample and conclude from that. Today you said once again: No computer I have ever worked on has ever been conscious of anything that it is doing. ..., like if that was an argument against the idea that a computer *can* support some experience. The only reason that I argue that a computer cannot support experience, is because experience is not based on something other than itself. This might be phenomenologically true in other theories, by justifiable reason. I am saying that it is ontologically true. Not talking about our own experience, but the principle of experience in general - it makes no sense as a function of any other phenomenon. I don't take the fact that computers are not conscious as an argument that they can't be, only that it should be a clue to us that there is something fundamentally different about logic circuits then zygotes. Racists says similar thing about Indians, black, etc. But all races and racists will save their own children from a burning building before they save a computer...even a really nice supercomputer. I have gone over the reason why computers qua computers will never have experiences many times - it is because the map is not the territory. Computation is devoid of aesthetics and consciousness is 100% aesthetic. If you say so ... I do. Then you're conception of aesthetics is more limited than that of old Greeks who saw number relations giving rise to beauty ( = computing results in aesthetic experience of music) that paved the way for all forms of harmony we are familiar with today. You can verify this connection between number and beauty/aesthetic experience by consulting Donald Duck, keeper of absolute truth and sense:
Re: Moslem peace march ?
On 4/20/2013 12:16 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Then a majority of atheist believes in Matter. That has been introduced as an hypothesis by Aristotle (although he appears to be unclear in some passage), I don't know why you keep attributing the belief in matter to Aristotle? First, belief in matter was commonplace. Second, Aristotle was more a dualist who believed in a teleological spirit animating things: Stones wanted to sink. Air wanted to rise. Third, Aristotle opposed the atomism of Democritus which is more nearly the metaphysical ancestor of modern science. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hard Problem not hard at all?
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 2:51:23 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 17:56, meekerdb wrote: On 4/20/2013 2:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 20 Apr 2013, at 05:26, meekerdb wrote: On 4/19/2013 5:31 PM, John Clark wrote: The reason nobody has a answer to the hard problem is that nobody has clearly explained exactly what the problem is or what the answer is expected to do. I'm not so sure of the problem, but I'm pretty sure of the solution. When we can build AI robots that exhibit (including reporting) intelligent and emotional responses similar to humans and we can map between their AI and the function of brains in a way that allows us to reliably adjust the behavior of AI robots and/or humans - then we will have solved the problem, in the practical sense that no one will care about it in general terms but will discuss it in technical terms the way biologists discuss protein production and messenger RNA and DNA error correction but no longer discuss what is life?. No this will not work. We must test the physical consequence of the belief that the brain can be truncated at a finite level. Sure. Not only will we build AI robots, but we will also use the understanding we develop to modify brains and cure some mental illness; which will entail learning the proper level of substitution. But it will all be inferred from behavior and reports and mapping between AI and brain processes. In part, as the pioneer of technological (local) immortality will take the first approximation. My point is more concrete, comp leads to testable observation in the physical world, indeed the laws of physics. Comp gives the realm where the laws of physics evolves, a sort of many interfering 'matrix' which exists by the law of + and *. It is testable, with the classical theory of knowledge (not Theatetus, except that Theaetetus gives it when apply to sigma_1 complete provability). But what makes the laws of physics turn into physics? What makes physics follow the laws? What would be the point of physics if this realm of Comp already exists? Craig Brent Perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away --- A de Saint-Exupery I prefer this quote than the preceding one. Looks like arithmetic is perfect, in that sense. All universal numbers! Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript:. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Saturday, April 20, 2013 1:15:02 PM UTC-4, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:46:49 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 19 Apr 2013, at 17:47, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:49:35 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Apr 2013, at 14:01, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:42:21 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Apr 2013, at 19:09, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: snip It is more easy to see the irrationality of others than of oneself apparently. In general that is certainly true but Bruno let me ask you a very serious question, doesn't all this astrology stuff bother you and make you question how you allocate your time? Doesn't it bother you to learn that Craig Weinberg, somebody you have spent a lot of effort debating with, would say things like embody the Aquarian tension of revolutionary rationalism symbolized by the Saturnian-Uranian co-rulership of Aquarius. and With their interesting combination of Mars in Libra squaring their Moon and trining their Sun and The Neptune Saturn conjunction with the Jupiter stellium in Neptune-ruled Pisce and There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. and Astrology is extremely rational ? I've got to tell you that finding out that I have misjudged somebody that massively bothers the hell out of me. I agree with you. But Craig made a lot of invalid arguments well before this gross statements. As a teacher I am used to bet that crank can progress, so when an argument is invalid I make the correction. I know that some people cannot listen, but I keep hope, basically because that's my job. His argument for astrology was isomorphic to the main argument in favor of drug prohibition. Basically a confusion between p-q and q-p. Everyday that error appears in media, news, etc., be it on terrorism, drug, religion, etc. I can't help to denounce it wherever it appears. When have I ever argued in favor of drug prohibition? Are you confusing me with one of the Right-Wingers? When and where did I ever argue that you were in favor of drug prohibition? I as just saying that your argument in favor of astrology contained the same logical mistake than the one which figure in basically all papers in favor of prohibition. I did reply and explain at that time. Oh, sorry, I read it as 'my' argument for drug prohibition. Must be the drugs ;) You do a lot of mistake in logic. Maybe. But that may not be important. That might be an irrelevant distraction to an underlying thesis which is sound. That is an argument per authority. It is obvious that the validity of argument is what count, if not it is only propaganda. Logic may not be able to realize the deeper issues of subjectivity. If logic is subtly bent in the right places (and I don't know that mine is, but you accuse me of that), then it might illuminate important areas which logic cannot reach. The intuition pump is exactly what you do want. You take special sample and conclude from that. Today you said once again: No computer I have ever worked on has ever been conscious of anything that it is doing. ..., like if that was an argument against the idea that a computer *can* support some experience. The only reason that I argue that a computer cannot support experience, is because experience is not based on something other than itself. This might be phenomenologically true in other theories, by justifiable reason. I am saying that it is ontologically true. Not talking about our own experience, but the principle of experience in general - it makes no sense as a function of any other phenomenon. I don't take the fact that computers are not conscious as an argument that they can't be, only that it should be a clue to us that there is something fundamentally different about logic circuits then zygotes. Racists says similar thing about Indians, black, etc. But all races and racists will save their own children from a burning building before they save a computer...even a really nice supercomputer. I have gone over the reason why computers qua computers will never have experiences many times - it is because the map is not the territory. Computation is devoid of aesthetics and consciousness is 100% aesthetic. If you say so ... I do. Then you're conception of aesthetics is more limited than that of old Greeks who saw number relations giving rise to beauty ( = computing results in aesthetic experience of music) that paved the way for all forms of harmony we are familiar with today. I don't dispute that the aesthetics of music are enhanced by musicians who
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:32 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: You may be pedantic about the use of anthropomorphic language but I am not. It can become distracting / misleading in deeper discussions about the mechanisms of evolution. I don't care, anybody who was mislead or distracted and believed Evolution could think would be so stupid that I wouldn't care to talk to them. And as you once said who are you to say what's useful or not as a tool for other people to think and understand?. Ok, I think this is getting a bit hostile and I apologise for my part in that. John, I don't know you personally so I have nothing against you. We're just debating ideas. Maybe you're a great guy and maybe I'm a great guy. Maybe we're both idiots. Can we keep this discussion light-hearted? Emergence is just a way to connect different levels of abstraction. The trouble is people say X leads to Y but when asked how they just wave their hands around and say it's a emergent property, as if that explains something. People also use the word quantum to sell self-help snake oil. That does not invalidate QM. There is an entire field of physics, for example, dedicated to studying emergence in a rigorous fashion -- statistical physics. It explains how local molecule interactions give rise to pressure, for example. Or the emergence of ferromagnetism. There's also mean field theory. Cellular automata show how simple local rules can give rise to complexity, again in a well-defined fashion. Artificial Life provides us with a number of computational experiments that show life-like emergence. We know how social insects like ants perform integration through simple local interactions and pheromone trails. There's schelling's segregation model in social science. It's not all wishy-washy stuff. What do you mean useful? I'm not going to tell you. Any definition I give you will be made of words and I have no doubt you would then demand a definition of at least one of those words. It wasn't a trick question, but it's a valid one when someone invokes utilitarianism -- a concept that can be dangerous, as History as shown us a number of times. Science is undoubtfuly useful in providing plausible theories for how the universe works (provided we understand a priori assumptions). Also for generating new technologies. It even helps me in understanding what I am, but only too a degree. The missing part I don't understand bugs me. I love science too much not to question it. Because, like you, I loathe religion. That's the trouble with this list, everybody is a big picture man with their own fundamental holistic theories about consciousness Isn't big picture the theme of this list? I thought the theme of this list was everything, and details are something. Ok. Dilettantes are always big picture men because that is so much easier than being a details man; they are VERY big picture men, so big that their ideas have made absolutely no changes to science or to anything that anyone can measure. Can one be both? I promise you, I spend most of my time on details. Here I do as I please, until the list sends me a paycheck :) If consciousness is easier than intelligence Evolution certainly found that to be the case. There is not scientific evidence whatsoever of this. Nor do I think it can be. People like António Damásio (my compatriot) and other neuroscientists confuse a machine's ability to recognise itself with consciousness. This makes me wonder if some people are zombies. how come we have scientific progress in the latter and not in the former? Today's computers are smarter than they were 10 years ago so I think it is highly likely that they are more conscious too. Computers are what they have always been, Turing machines with finite tapes. The tapes are getting bigger, that's all. We have discovered more algorithms. If you have another method for measuring consciousness other than intelligent behavior I would very much like to hear about it. The lack of a method is not a reason to accept any alternative. Measuring conscious by intelligent behaviour is mysticism, just like believing that it rains because Zeus is peeing. how do you know that intelligence is a requirement of consciousness? The only consciousness I have direct experience with is my own and I note that when I'm sleepy my consciousness is reduced and so is my intelligence, when I'm alert the reverse is true. I agree on intelligence, but I don't feel less conscious when I'm sleepy. Just differently conscious. I'm a bit sleepy right now. Somebody who puts philosopher in the occupation line on his tax form Ok, I guess Plato and Aristotle and the rest of that gang are out then. Archimedes was a mathematician and he discovered more philosophy than Plato and Aristotle combined. You have a personal bias for certain
Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 02:09:28PM -0400, John Clark wrote: No because in a sexually reproducing animal the genes that make the error correcting machinery are inherited independently of the very genes that they have corrected, and the vast majority of mutations are detrimental not helpful. So in any generation the offspring of a animal with good error correcting machinery will almost always do better than offspring from a animal with poor correcting machinery. And even in the very rare cases where the mutation caused a improvement in a gene the animal will do better if it has the gene for the better error correcting machinery, because otherwise that good gene is likely to mutate again and this time the mutation will almost certainly be bad. As Richard Dawkins said in his wonderful book Climbing Mount Improbable: The predaliction to mutate is always bad, even though individual mutations occasionally turn out to be good. It is best, if more than a little paradoxical, to think of natural selection as favoring a mutation rate of zero. Fortunately for us, and for the continuance of evolution, this genetic nirvana is never quite attained. John K Clark The evolving evolvability argument is that there may well be scenarios where a higher mutation rate is selected for. The most extreme case is the immune system, where the immune system needs to keep ahead of evolving pathogens. I think the reason Dawkins was so negative about the evolving evolvability idea is that it necessarily is a form of group selection, which has been consigned to scientific Siberia throughout the seventies and eighties. An individual replicator never obtains an advantage from high mutation rates. However, with group selection having been rehabilited recently, I wonder if Dawkins would be quite so hardline on this matter. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
