Re: On a peculiar blind spot in materialists
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 10:08 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: On a peculiar blind spot in materialists Materialists have a peculiar blind spot in that they do not understand what is meant by the subject/object distinction. The difference between subjective and objective being. That is the ddiference between mind and brain in that mind is a subjective state and brain is purely objective. brain is object consciousness or mind is subject + object. Leibniz makes this clear in his concept of monads. Dr. Roger Clough NIST (ret.) 5/26/2013 See my Leibniz site at http://team.academia.edu/RogerClough There's obviously a difference between the subjective and the objective. Eliminative materialists say that the subjective does not really exist because only those entities which can be defined objectively exist. This strikes me as a way of using language differently rather than a substantive position. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Materialism fails to account for the first person
On 26 May 2013, at 19:08, John Clark wrote: On Sun, May 26, 2013 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Materialism fails to account for the first person Can non-materialism do better and if so how? Yes, by using the mathematical theory of self-reference. The only problem is that eventually matter has to be redefined through coherence conditions on machine's dreams/computations. The details of this explains that the knower (Bp p) makes sense thanks to incompleteness which makes both Bp and (Bp p) equivalent, (they prove the same arithmetical sentences) but not provably so by the machine, and this makes it obeying to a knowledge logic, unlike provability which obeys a belief logic. 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: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having toextract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? You are simply led back to trying to discover what are possible worlds, where possible can be anything from familiar enough I can understand it to nomologically possible to not containing contradictions. Possible means livable from a first person point of view in such a way that you would not see the difference above the substitution level. So all simulations must look just like this?? Yes. When done at the right level (if it exists). By definition, I would say. Below the substitution level, everyone (humans, alien, numbers ..) see the same average on all computations, which, due to the constraints of self-reference and theoretical computer science is a well structured, highly complex, mathematical object. So what? So physics is reduced to arithmetic, or to machine theology... and this in a way which saves humans from reductionism. I didn't know reductionism endangered us. :-) It eliminates the person, in theory first, in camp, slavery, our gulag, after. It is a constant in human history, and it is what gives to religions (including materialist and atheist one) their bad reputation. Read La Mettrie and Sade to learn more on this. Bruno Brent It makes also comp into science and out of philosophy. All this leads to a different, platonist and non aristotelian, view on reality. It makes Matter into a failed hypothesis (Matter =primitive matter). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6358 - Release Date: 05/25/13 -- 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: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On 27 May 2013, at 01:12, Russell Standish wrote: On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 05:05:28PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 13:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf Always a pleasure, if not some relief, to hear that. My opinion, for what is worth, is that all animals are conscious, and the one described above are already self-conscious, and potentially Löbian (meaning: like you, me, and Peano Arithmetic). Are plants conscious? I don't know. The Cambridge Declaration strikes me as a political statement, rather than a scientific one. Just because certain neurological states are correlated with affective states (wants or desires of the animal) does not entail that the animal is aware of that emotion, or genuinely experiencing qualia of any sort. I agree. It is more theology than politics. It is like agreeing to attribute a sort of soul to animals. It is interesting you say politics as indeed this is what theology has become nowadays (since 1500 years in occident). I would not be suprised if some non-human species are genuinely conscious - eg most of the apes, some cetaceans, pachyderms, corvids and quite possibly cephalopods, but I'm not convinced by the above that we really have the means of establishing that beyond reasonable doubt. But we cannot attribute, beyond reasonable doubt, consciousness to any human different from oneself, also. Woman votes since recently! Bruno Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. 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: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 27 May 2013, at 05:05, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Understood, Jason. I became familiar with this digital universe concept, first, through Hans Moravec, in Mind Children. I wonder how possible it is to discover that we are part of an ancestor simulation? By reasoning, taking the FPI into consideration. We cannot discover this, but evaluate the probability, which might be high indeed. By the FPI, our consciousness relied on all computations (infinity) which is going through you state. In a sense, you are both in the simulations by ancestors (which exist in arithmetic) and all the other simulations, which exist also in arithmetic. Bruno -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, May 25, 2013 10:00 pm Subject: Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ... On 5/25/2013 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 10:35 AM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Interesting Jason, My issue with the multi-generated clones created either by the actions of a multiverse or the actions of hypercomputers, my concern is that, its such a waste (in my opinion) that a Jason who belongs to an identical Earth, but humans all have elephant tricks instead of noses. Or a Jason Resch, belonging to a species that has rectangular crystal panels built in their stomachs and backs (see thru). I am shooting for ridiculous incarnations of J. Resch, in order to illustrate the unlikeliness, of this method of producing the actual person- thoughts feelings memories. The memory thing as a blue print, to me, seems, essential, for resurrection. I could be totally wrong, but I am merely trying to simplify this for myself, if nobody else. Thanks, Jason. Mitch, Consider a few points: First, roughly 100 billion humans have ever lived in this history of humans, the life expectancy of humans over most of that time was 10 years, so roughly there have been 1 trillion years worth of human experience. Second, if transhumanism is correct and we transcend our biological limits we could not only live much longer but generate experiences at greatly accelerated rates. It would take the then current population of people (say it is 10 billion) only 100 years to generate the same total amount of experience of all humans going back millions of years. Even if only 10% of the population, spends only 1% of their time simulating/ experiencing alternate lives or histories, it would take a mere 100,000 years for most of human experiences to be generated artificially by our descendents. This ignores the acceleration that is possible. Electricity flows through wires about a million times faster than neurotransmitters conduct signals in the brain. This implies that without any miniaturization, human thought could be accelerated by about a factor of a million times, so it could take only a month (rather than 100,000 years) for these accelerated humans spending only 0.1% of their collective time simulating ancestors for the bulk of human experience to be artificially generated. Now consider that such a civilization could live for billions of years. If each post-human experiences a few thousand or a few million ancestor lives, or alternate species, etc., then odds quickly become overwhelming that your current moment of awareness is not explained by that of some biological being on a physical planet but that of some advanced being conducting a simulation on some advanced computational substrate. Jason -Mitch -Original Message- From: Jason Resch lt;jasonre...@gmail.comgt; To: Everything List lt;everything-list@googlegroups.com gt; Sent: Thu, May 23, 2013 11:10 am Subject: Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ... On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 4:57 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.com gt; wrote:
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. You are simply led back to trying to discover what are possible worlds, where possible can be anything from familiar enough I can understand it to nomologically possible to not containing contradictions. Possible means livable from a first person point of view in such a way that you would not see the difference above the substitution level. So all simulations must look just like this?? Yes. When done at the right level (if it exists). By definition, I would say. How does that then comport with everything happens, because it's NOT the case that everything happens here. Brent Below the substitution level, everyone (humans, alien, numbers ..) see the same average on all computations, which, due to the constraints of self-reference and theoretical computer science is a well structured, highly complex, mathematical object. So what? So physics is reduced to arithmetic, or to machine theology... and this in a way which saves humans from reductionism. I didn't know reductionism endangered us. :-) It eliminates the person, in theory first, in camp, slavery, our gulag, after. It is a constant in human history, and it is what gives to religions (including materialist and atheist one) their bad reputation. Read La Mettrie and Sade to learn more on this. Bruno Brent It makes also comp into science and out of philosophy. All this leads to a different, platonist and non aristotelian, view on reality. It makes Matter into a failed hypothesis (Matter =primitive matter). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6358 - Release Date: 05/25/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto: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/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6360 - Release Date: 05/26/13 -- 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
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. Because it is a statistical sum on the infinity of computation going through *your current state*. FPI means First Person Indeterminacy... so if it was not based on first person it would cleary not means anything... but as it is in its definition, you're just looking too far from what Bruno said. Quentin You are simply led back to trying to discover what are possible worlds, where possible can be anything from familiar enough I can understand it to nomologically possible to not containing contradictions. Possible means livable from a first person point of view in such a way that you would not see the difference above the substitution level. So all simulations must look just like this?? Yes. When done at the right level (if it exists). By definition, I would say. How does that then comport with everything happens, because it's NOT the case that everything happens here. Brent Below the substitution level, everyone (humans, alien, numbers ..) see the same average on all computations, which, due to the constraints of self-reference and theoretical computer science is a well structured, highly complex, mathematical object. So what? So physics is reduced to arithmetic, or to machine theology... and this in a way which saves humans from reductionism. I didn't know reductionism endangered us. :-) It eliminates the person, in theory first, in camp, slavery, our gulag, after. It is a constant in human history, and it is what gives to religions (including materialist and atheist one) their bad reputation. Read La Mettrie and Sade to learn more on this. Bruno Brent It makes also comp into science and out of philosophy. All this leads to a different, platonist and non aristotelian, view on reality. It makes Matter into a failed hypothesis (Matter =primitive matter). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6358 - Release Date: 05/25/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6360 - Release Date: 05/26/13 -- 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
Re: Materialism fails to account for the first person
On Mon, May 27, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Can non-materialism do better and if so how? Yes, by using the mathematical theory of self-reference. I've never heard of the mathematical theory of self-reference. And it's no great mystery, the only difference between you and me is that we each can access memories that the other can not, and we process information in slightly different ways, in other words we have different personalities. The only difference between objective and subjective is that in one case information is universally available and in the other case the information only exists in 3 pounds of grey goo inside one particular bone box. The details of this explains that the knower (Bp p) Yet another of your homemade anagrams, this time it sounds like a oil company not what a baby does to a diaper. I could probably figure out what you mean if I thought about it enough, but if you don't take the effort to make yourself understood I don't see why I should make an effort to understand you. 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: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 5/27/2013 10:19 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. Because it is a statistical sum on the infinity of computation going through *your current state*. But my question was what does a statistical sum mean? It doesn't help to explain that it is a statistical sum. But now you also use another term that is not really clear to me: your current state Is this a state of my experience? My experience doesn't consist of discrete states, so I'm not clear on what this refers to. Is it only my *consciousness that counts as my state? Brent FPI means First Person Indeterminacy... so if it was not based on first person it would cleary not means anything... but as it is in its definition, you're just looking too far from what Bruno said. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 10:19 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. Because it is a statistical sum on the infinity of computation going through *your current state*. But my question was what does a statistical sum mean? It doesn't help to explain that it is a statistical sum. But now you also use another term that is not really clear to me: your current state Is this a state of my experience? My experience doesn't consist of discrete states, so I'm not clear on what this refers to. Is it only my *consciousness that counts as my state? Assuming computationalism, your conscious moment here and now can be represented as a computational state of a running program. That state can be reached by an infinity of computations. To predict your next moment from that, you have to take all this infinity of computations and apply on it a measure. The FPI occurs because you as you belongs to all this infinity, at the next step these infinity of computations diverge, somehow a measure must exists on that, which should correspond to the quantum measure to be in accord with QM/MWI. If you reject computationalism, then of course there is no state representing you here and now, if you don't reject it, then it exists at the correct substitution level by definition. Quentin Brent FPI means First Person Indeterminacy... so if it was not based on first person it would cleary not means anything... but as it is in its definition, you're just looking too far from what Bruno said. -- 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. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 27 May 2013, at 19:10, meekerdb wrote: On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. FPI = First Person Indeterminacy. When you look at your body, or neighborhood, below your level of substitution what comp predicts you will see, is the trace of the infinitley many computations which go through your state. That's how the FPI makes this one resulting from a statistical sum. You are simply led back to trying to discover what are possible worlds, where possible can be anything from familiar enough I can understand it to nomologically possible to not containing contradictions. Possible means livable from a first person point of view in such a way that you would not see the difference above the substitution level. So all simulations must look just like this?? Yes. When done at the right level (if it exists). By definition, I would say. How does that then comport with everything happens, because it's NOT the case that everything happens here. Every possible subjective experience happens, , related to the many computations (in arithmetic) but with different relative probabilities. Comp makes the physical reality more solid, as it show it to rely on eternal statistics on atemporal number relations. Everything physical happens is really the p - BDp explained by the LUMs' theology, and it is more like shit happens, to be short. (I explain the math on the FOAR list if you are interested). Bruno Brent Below the substitution level, everyone (humans, alien, numbers ..) see the same average on all computations, which, due to the constraints of self-reference and theoretical computer science is a well structured, highly complex, mathematical object. So what? So physics is reduced to arithmetic, or to machine theology... and this in a way which saves humans from reductionism. I didn't know reductionism endangered us. :-) It eliminates the person, in theory first, in camp, slavery, our gulag, after. It is a constant in human history, and it is what gives to religions (including materialist and atheist one) their bad reputation. Read La Mettrie and Sade to learn more on this. Bruno Brent It makes also comp into science and out of philosophy. All this leads to a different, platonist and non aristotelian, view on reality. It makes Matter into a failed hypothesis (Matter =primitive matter). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6358 - Release Date: 05/25/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
Bruno, With MWI are some universes less probable than others. I have difficulty understanding how a universe can be statistical. I think I understand the frequency argument. But that does not make sense either. Richard On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 27 May 2013, at 19:10, meekerdb wrote: On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. FPI = First Person Indeterminacy. When you look at your body, or neighborhood, below your level of substitution what comp predicts you will see, is the trace of the infinitley many computations which go through your state. That's how the FPI makes this one resulting from a statistical sum. You are simply led back to trying to discover what are possible worlds, where possible can be anything from familiar enough I can understand it to nomologically possible to not containing contradictions. Possible means livable from a first person point of view in such a way that you would not see the difference above the substitution level. So all simulations must look just like this?? Yes. When done at the right level (if it exists). By definition, I would say. How does that then comport with everything happens, because it's NOT the case that everything happens here. Every possible subjective experience happens, , related to the many computations (in arithmetic) but with different relative probabilities. Comp makes the physical reality more solid, as it show it to rely on eternal statistics on atemporal number relations. Everything physical happens is really the p - BDp explained by the LUMs' theology, and it is more like shit happens, to be short. (I explain the math on the FOAR list if you are interested). Bruno Brent Below the substitution level, everyone (humans, alien, numbers ..) see the same average on all computations, which, due to the constraints of self-reference and theoretical computer science is a well structured, highly complex, mathematical object. So what? So physics is reduced to arithmetic, or to machine theology... and this in a way which saves humans from reductionism. I didn't know reductionism endangered us. :-) It eliminates the person, in theory first, in camp, slavery, our gulag, after. It is a constant in human history, and it is what gives to religions (including materialist and atheist one) their bad reputation. Read La Mettrie and Sade to learn more on this. Bruno Brent It makes also comp into science and out of philosophy. All this leads to a different, platonist and non aristotelian, view on reality. It makes Matter into a failed hypothesis (Matter =primitive matter). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3343 / Virus Database: 3184/6358 - Release Date: 05/25/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because
Re: Materialism fails to account for the first person
On 27 May 2013, at 19:28, John Clark wrote: On Mon, May 27, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Can non-materialism do better and if so how? Yes, by using the mathematical theory of self-reference. I've never heard of the mathematical theory of self-reference. Have you heard about Gödel's theorem? The mathematical theory of self-reference is the general theory, containing Löb theorems, many other fixed points theorem, and eventually axiomatized by Solovay who showed that the modal logic G and G* formalize respectively the provable and the true (but not necessarily provable) part about self-reference, provable by machine, or some more general entities. Here is one non modal paper, three good textbooks, and a recreative introduction. Smorynski, C., 1981, Fifty Years of Self-Reference in Arithmetic, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Vol. 22, n° 4, pp. 357-374. Smorynski C., 1985, Self-Reference and Modal Logic., Springer Verlag. Boolos G., 1979, The Unprovability of Consistency, an Essay in Modal Logic, Cambridge University Press. Boolos, G. (1993). The Logic of Provability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. The recreative introduction: Smullyan R., 1987, Forever Undecided, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. And it's no great mystery, the only difference between you and me is that we each can access memories that the other can not, and we process information in slightly different ways, in other words we have different personalities. OK. The only difference between objective and subjective is that in one case information is universally available and in the other case the information only exists in 3 pounds of grey goo inside one particular bone box. There are other important difference. You can doubt the whole objective part, but you can't doubt the whole subjective part. Also, the term information has many different meaning, from something you can measure (Shannon) to something interpreted by some machine, or other entities. The details of this explains that the knower (Bp p) Yet another of your homemade anagrams, this time it sounds like a oil company not what a baby does to a diaper. I could probably figure out what you mean if I thought about it enough, but if you don't take the effort to make yourself understood I don't see why I should make an effort to understand you. You need to read the book above, or to read my papers where I re- explain this from scratch, but concisely. It is computer science and mathematical logic. That is of course useful to reason when you assume computationalism. Bp p is for an arithmetical proposition asserting Beweisbar(p) p, with p some arithmetical proposition, and 'p', the Gödel number of the arithmetical sentence representing p. Bruno 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: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On 5/27/2013 11:16 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 10:19 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2013/5/27 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net On 5/27/2013 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 20:23, meekerdb wrote: On 5/26/2013 1:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote: Whether or not it is recorded or extractable in this universe is immaterial. If the universe is infinitely large or infinitely varied, we each reappear an infinite number of times. There are a countably infinite number of programs, and for any given level of complexity, there is a finite number of possible programs shorter than some length. Any consciousness we simulate is the consciousness of something that exists somewhere else in the infinitely varied/infinitely large universe, and if the universe is really this big, then someone else far away could simulate you perfectly without having to extract a record of you. Just running Bruno's UDA for a long enough time ressurects everyone, we are all contained in that short program. To which, one is tempted to respond: So what? If there is all this simulation going on, what reason is there to suppose it is being done by being anything like us or that the worlds in which the simulations take place (the real ones, if there are any) are anything like this one. Because the FPI makes this one a statistical sum on all possible one. What do you mean by a statiscal sum? FPI must still pick out some kind of unity; not just an average. Why? How so? If not, then I don't know what FPI means. I thought it referred to one's experience of being a person, but the is a unity to that experience. I experience being Brent Meeker. I don't experience being Bruno Marchal. Because it is a statistical sum on the infinity of computation going through *your current state*. But my question was what does a statistical sum mean? It doesn't help to explain that it is a statistical sum. But now you also use another term that is not really clear to me: your current state Is this a state of my experience? My experience doesn't consist of discrete states, so I'm not clear on what this refers to. Is it only my *consciousness that counts as my state? Assuming computationalism, your conscious moment here and now can be represented as a computational state of a running program. So only conscious thoughts contribute to me. The represented part I agree with, but Bruno seems to maintain that the computational state IS the conscious moment. But I could very well say yes to the doctor, to believe that a portion (or all) of my brain could be replaced by a functionally identical mechanism and still maintain my stream of consciousness, and yet not believe that a conscious thought it a state. In fact I think that if the functionally identical device was a digital one, it would have to go through many steps of computation to instantiate one conscious moment, i.e. one coherent thought or action. And it would have to interact with the world outside my skull in a way similar to my biological parts too (my brain is insensitive to 60Hz magnetic fields for example) if my consciousness were to be unchanged. Because it takes many computational steps to instantiate a conscious moment, conscious moments can overlap and this produces continuity and time. That state can be reached by an infinity of computations. To predict your next moment from that, you have to take all this infinity of computations and apply on it a measure. There's the rub. The FPI occurs because you as you belongs to all this infinity, at the next step these infinity of computations diverge, somehow a measure must exists on that, which should correspond to the quantum measure to be in accord with QM/MWI. But it seems that on the UD generation of computations, the semi-classical sequence of brain states relative to a given conscious moment would be of measure zero. In order to make the UD and QM measures comport, UD must incorporate decoherence, essentially it must recover stable matter. Brent If you reject computationalism, then of course there is no state representing you here and now, if you don't reject it, then it exists at the correct substitution level by definition. Quentin Brent FPI means First Person Indeterminacy... so if it was not based on first person it would cleary not means anything... but as it is in its definition, you're just looking too far from what Bruno said. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to
Re: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
Bruno: do you indeed exclude the other animals from being selfconcious? or - having a logic on their own level? Or any other trait we assign (identify?) for humans - in our terms? A question about plants (rather: about being conscious): you may feel free to define 'being conscious' in human terms, or mammal (etc.) terms, but the response plants exude to information (circumstances, impact. etc.) shows reactivity we may appropriate to us humans. So do not deny consciousness from fellow DNA-bearing plants. How about the DNA-not-bearing other creatures? (crystals, stones, water, impact you may call energy, - whatever?) Anthropocentric? zoocentric? phitocentric? what-CENTRIC? JM On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 13:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. http://fcmconference.org/img/**CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciou**sness.pdfhttp://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf Always a pleasure, if not some relief, to hear that. My opinion, for what is worth, is that all animals are conscious, and the one described above are already self-conscious, and potentially Löbian (meaning: like you, me, and Peano Arithmetic). Are plants conscious? I don't know. Bruno 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: Materialism fails to account for the first person
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 01:28:42PM -0400, John Clark wrote: The details of this explains that the knower (Bp p) Yet another of your homemade anagrams, this time it sounds like a oil company not what a baby does to a diaper. I could probably figure out what you mean if I thought about it enough, but if you don't take the effort to make yourself understood I don't see why I should make an effort to understand you. John - you are being disingenuous here. Bruno has explained this at considerable length. Bp p is not an anagram (or an abbreviation even), but a formula, that captures the notion of Knowledge put forward by Plato in Theatetus. Now there's plenty to argue with there, to be sure, but suggesting that Bruno hasn't made the effort to explain it is not one of them. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
In a way, professor, Marchal, you seem to be on the side of Stephen Wolfram, who once wrote about there being no need to ever do SETI, because, if we wanted to know advanced Extra Terrestrial technologies, it would be far, simpler to generate algorythems (sp) that contain these unknown civilizations. I tried to search and see if Dr. Wolfram eloborated on this strange, proposal, but seemingly, he did not. I am clueless, over what bit-stream one would run, and on what type of computer, we'd require to accomplish what Wolfram, once proposed. Perhaps Wolfram was just hand-waving, and merely exercising his imagination? Mitch -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, May 27, 2013 4:26 am Subject: Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ... On 27 May 2013, at 05:05, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Understood, Jason. I became familiar with this digital universe concept, first, through Hans Moravec, in Mind Children. I wonder how possible it is to discover that we are part of an ancestor simulation? By reasoning, taking the FPI into consideration. We cannot discover this, but evaluate the probability, which might be high indeed. By the FPI, our consciousness relied on all computations (infinity) which is going through you state. In a sense, you are both in the simulations by ancestors (which exist in arithmetic) and all the other simulations, which exist also in arithmetic. Bruno -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, May 25, 2013 10:00 pm Subject: Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ... On 5/25/2013 11:03 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 10:35 AM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Interesting Jason, My issue with the multi-generated clones created either by the actions of a multiverse or the actions of hypercomputers, my concern is that, its such a waste (in my opinion) that a Jason who belongs to an identical Earth, but humans all have elephant tricks instead of noses. Or a Jason Resch, belonging to a species that has rectangular crystal panels built in their stomachs and backs (see thru). I am shooting for ridiculous incarnations of J. Resch, in order to illustrate the unlikeliness, of this method of producing the actual person- thoughts feelings memories. The memory thing as a blue print, to me, seems, essential, for resurrection. I could be totally wrong, but I am merely trying to simplify this for myself, if nobody else. Thanks, Jason. Mitch, Consider a few points: First, roughly 100 billion humans have ever lived in this history of humans, the life expectancy of humans over most of that time was 10 years, so roughly there have been 1 trillion years worth of human experience. Second, if transhumanism is correct and we transcend our biological limits we could not only live much longer but generate experiences at greatly accelerated rates. It would take the then current population of people (say it is 10 billion) only 100 years to generate the same total amount of experience of all humans going back millions of years. Even if only 10% of the population, spends only 1% of their time simulating/ experiencing alternate lives or histories, it would take a mere 100,000 years for most of human experiences to be generated artificially by our descendents. This ignores the acceleration that is possible. Electricity flows through wires about a million times faster than neurotransmitters conduct signals in the brain. This implies that without any miniaturization, human thought could be accelerated by about a factor of a million times, so it could take only a month (rather than 100,000 years) for these accelerated humans spending only 0.1% of their collective time simulating ancestors for the bulk of human experience to be artificially generated. Now consider that such a civilization could live for billions of years. If each post-human experiences a few thousand or a few million ancestor lives, or alternate species, etc., then odds quickly become overwhelming that your current moment of awareness is not explained by that of some biological being on a physical planet but that of
Re: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On 5/27/2013 2:18 PM, John Mikes wrote: Bruno: do you indeed exclude the other animals from being selfconcious? or - having a logic on their own level? Or any other trait we assign (identify?) for humans - in our terms? A question about plants (rather: about being conscious): you may feel free to define 'being conscious' in human terms, or mammal (etc.) terms, but the response plants exude to information (circumstances, impact. etc.) shows reactivity we may appropriate to us humans. So do not deny consciousness from fellow DNA-bearing plants. How about the DNA-not-bearing other creatures? (crystals, stones, water, impact you may call energy, - whatever?) Anthropocentric? zoocentric? phitocentric? what-CENTRIC? I don't think consciousness is an all-or-nothing property. You have to ask Consciousness of what? There's consciousness of surroundings: sound, photons, temperature, chemical concentrations There's consciousness of internal states. Consciousness of sex. Consciousness of one's location. Consciousness of one's status in a tribe. I think human-like consciousness requires language of some kind. Brent JM On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 26 May 2013, at 13:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates. http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf Always a pleasure, if not some relief, to hear that. My opinion, for what is worth, is that all animals are conscious, and the one described above are already self-conscious, and potentially Löbian (meaning: like you, me, and Peano Arithmetic). Are plants conscious? I don't know. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its ...
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 07:42:11PM -0400, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: In a way, professor, Marchal, you seem to be on the side of Stephen Wolfram, who once wrote about there being no need to ever do SETI, because, if we wanted to know advanced Extra Terrestrial technologies, it would be far, simpler to generate algorythems (sp) that contain these unknown civilizations. I tried to search and see if Dr. Wolfram eloborated on this strange, proposal, but seemingly, he did not. I am clueless, over what bit-stream one would run, and on what type of computer, we'd require to accomplish what Wolfram, once proposed. Perhaps Wolfram was just hand-waving, and merely exercising his imagination? Mitch That was pretty much the gist of his weighty tome A New Kind of Science. I must confess to not having read it - there's plenty to criticise in it, but also some valuable gems too, from accounts of people who have. I would disagree with Wolfram on this point. To search the space of computational algorithms (or cellular automata, being Wolfram's favourite computational multiverse) would have to be at least as hard, if not harder, than searching the physical space we live in. That is why I wouldn't abandon the Large Hadron Collider in favour of a Supercomputer costing the same amount of money. Anyway - check it out if you're interested. There's also plenty written about NKS - it was a rather controversial book, largely due to the lack of citations, and the somewhat megalomaniacal way that SW promoted it. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 04:53:56PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: I don't think consciousness is an all-or-nothing property. You have to ask Consciousness of what? There's consciousness of surroundings: sound, photons, temperature, chemical concentrations There's consciousness of internal states. Consciousness of sex. Consciousness of one's location. Consciousness of one's status in a tribe. I think human-like consciousness requires language of some kind. Brent I would be happy with consciousness of surroundings. It seems to be the most basic of all the ones you mention there. -- 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.
Re: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On 5/27/2013 5:08 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 04:53:56PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: I don't think consciousness is an all-or-nothing property. You have to ask Consciousness of what? There's consciousness of surroundings: sound, photons, temperature, chemical concentrations There's consciousness of internal states. Consciousness of sex. Consciousness of one's location. Consciousness of one's status in a tribe. I think human-like consciousness requires language of some kind. Brent I would be happy with consciousness of surroundings. It seems to be the most basic of all the ones you mention there. It is pretty basic, but I'd say consciousness of some internal states is more basic and occurred early in the evolution of life. Even a cell must know when to divide. But that's a large class and is not all-or-nothing either. We're conscious of light and it's phase relations which form images, but we don't see the polarization. And we don't see very much of the spectrum. We don't detect magnetic fields and our detection of chemicals in the air is almost non-existent compared to dogs. 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: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 05:44:57PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: On 5/27/2013 5:08 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 04:53:56PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: I don't think consciousness is an all-or-nothing property. You have to ask Consciousness of what? There's consciousness of surroundings: sound, photons, temperature, chemical concentrations There's consciousness of internal states. Consciousness of sex. Consciousness of one's location. Consciousness of one's status in a tribe. I think human-like consciousness requires language of some kind. Brent I would be happy with consciousness of surroundings. It seems to be the most basic of all the ones you mention there. It is pretty basic, but I'd say consciousness of some internal states is more basic and occurred early in the evolution of life. Even a cell must know when to divide. Why does that require consciousness? I'm not conscious of my body repairing itself, or dogesting food. But that's a large class and is not all-or-nothing either. We're conscious of light and it's phase relations which form images, but we don't see the polarization. And we don't see very much of the spectrum. We don't detect magnetic fields and our detection of chemicals in the air is almost non-existent compared to dogs. You appear to be confusing sensory capability with consciousness. A thermostat is capable of sensing temperature, but I doubt it is conscious of the temperature. Consciousness is an experiential quality. We are either conscious when we experience something (called qualia), or we're not conscious at all. Still seems all or nothing to me. People who claim consciousness comes in different types, or comes in shades of grey, seem to be talking about completely different things than the usual meaning of the term. -- 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.
