date:20130923



On 23 Sep 2013, at 21:44, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno wrote: "of Whom? Conscious applies to person and they all have  
some "I", even if they cannot be sure what it is, and perceive it in  
many ways.

Here I am again in the dichotomy with Brent about 'alive' and 'life':
'conscious' and 'consciousness'! I arrived at the latter as  
"response to relations" - not requiring human (animal?) mentality at  
all.

A universe can be conscious if it responds to relations.
It may be semantical as are all meanings.


OK.

Consciousness is more mysterious, mainly due to that first person  
perspective. If a robot cries, I am confronted with an issue: is it a  
good comedian, or does it suffers genuinely? The answer can make a big  
difference.


For life, my definition is just has a reproductive cycle. So, with  
that definition, a box of cigarette is alive, as it has a complex  
reproductive cycle: it must send a cigarette to the mouth of a human,  
makes it inhaled, transform the mind of the people so that a next  
cigarette will follow, and so that the victim will pay for making  
people building the cigarettes and the boxes, and the cycle will  
repeat, etc.


Bruno








JM


On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:59 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 21 Sep 2013, at 22:59, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/21/2013 7:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


The content might be, "There is a flying pink elephant in my  
room."  which is both dubitable and almost certainly false.  And  
if the thought is, "I had a conscious thought." that too is  
dubitable.


We agree on this. The indubitable thought is not "I was  
conscious", but "I am conscious".




Without the assumption of "I".


Of Who?

Conscious applies to person, and they all have some "I", even if  
they cannot be sure what it is, and perceive it in many ways.


Bruno



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




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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

On 9/23/2013 3:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:11 AM, John Mikes  wrote:

>Telmo:
>
>would you have (by any chance...) a brief identification of something that
>comes to your mind when speaking about  " l i f e "  ? (And please, forget
>about the"bio" of this Earthbound Terrestrial Biosphere).
>(To identify " live " is a bit easier I think.)

Hi John,

If I understand your question, I think I do have a general idea of
what I, informally, associate with life. I always tend to imagine some
self-contained system that is capable of procuring sources of energy
in its environment and use that energy to, more or less, maintain it's
structure.

For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's the real defining 
characteristic of life.

None of the robots that I've seen so far fit this ideal. Even if they
can look for an outlet and recharge their batteries, they are not
capable of deeply fixing themselves. They cannot use that energy to
rebuild some part of themselves that is damaged.

And your ability to do that is quite limited.  So if a robot could replace a damaged limb 
with one from a supply cabinet it'd be one up on us.

Brent

Simulation environments don't convince me either (and I've built a few
myself), because there's not real energy at stake. Now, if someone
created a program that was capable of programming itself in an effort
to try to maximise it's ability to achieve it goals by making the best
possible use of the available computational resources, then I might
eventually see it as being alive.

If you meant something else, please tell me.

Best,
Telmo.

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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space


On 9/23/2013 12:16 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Why do you hold 'computational resources' as fundamental to being alive?
Computation is a human mental peculiarity - an 'evolved resource' by '_being_ alive' 
(whatever that means).


In the sense of writing equations and numbers down or doing arithmetic.  But in the more 
general sense of information processing, then computation is an essential part of 
metabolism.  It means taking stuff that's not you, and using code that describes your 
stuff, transform it into stuff that is you.


Brent

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Re: Unexpected Hanging



On 23 Sep 2013, at 20:49, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Monday, September 23, 2013 2:21:20 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 23 Sep 2013, at 05:43, Craig Weinberg wrote:



I don't think the simulated typhoon would make the virtual person  
feel wet any more than it would make them smell seaweed. Why would  
it?



Because I assume comp.

lol. Santa comp is comin' ta town..



Well, usually it is non-comp which is compared to Santa Klaus, because  
we don't  have any evidences for something not Turing emulable in our  
body.


Bruno


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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

On 23 Sep 2013, at 19:56, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>> If you can repair the blunders made in the first 3 steps then  
I'll read step 4, until then doing so would be ridiculous.

> Even this is ridiculous, as step 4, 5, 6, 7 can certainly help you  
to see what you miss (or deny) in step 3.

You are supposed to be writing a proof not a detective novel!

This shows that you are not a scientists, as all scientists when  
studying a proof and miss a step at some point, read further that  
point, as this can put some light on what they were missing.

Also, I made AUDA (the arithmetical UDA) in a way such that it can be  
read independently, as I know that some scientists are uneasy in some  
thought experiment. It is a bit ridiculous, as elementary computer  
science is enough: you can replace humans by machines with very few  
inference inductive ability to understand that no matter you enlarge  
those abilities, the machine will not been able to predict with  
certainty where its backup will be reinstalled.

> If there is no first person indeterminacy [...]

Of course there is first person indeterminacy, I often don't know  
what I will see or do next.

That's not the one used in the reasoning. That argument can be applied  
to the quantum indeterminacy too.

You seem to confuse all forms of indeterminacy.

Bruno

  John K Clark

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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?



On 23 Sep 2013, at 03:16, Russell Standish wrote:


On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:29:30PM -0400, John Clark wrote:


Bruno, if you have something new to say about this "proof" of yours  
then
say it, but don't pretend that 2 years of correspondence and  
hundreds of
posts in which I list things that I didn't understand about the  
first 3
steps didn't exist. If you can repair the blunders made in the  
first 3

steps then I'll read step 4, until then doing so would be ridiculous.

 John K Clark



John, for the sake of the rest of us, it would be useful for you to
summarise just what the problems were that you found with the first
three steps.


Good idea.




I have been on everything list since almost the beginning, and on FoR
(on and off) most of the time of its existence, too. I don't ever
remember a post from you along those lines, although I do recall
several references to it by Bruno, so no doubt it exists, and I just
missed it. I'm sceptical of the "hundreds of posts" claim, though.


Well, a lot. But John seemed to only change the definitions all the  
time, ignoring the fixed definition I gave to first person and third  
person in that context.
He was confusing 1-views with 3-views, and at some point 3-views on 1- 
views with 1-views on 1-views.
The last version of it was as refutable as 1=1, and john Clark said it  
was nothing new, but then confused all forms of indeterminacies.


I will try to not intervene, and I am curious to see if John will  
succeed in making his point for somebody else, and then I will discuss  
with that somebody else, to avoid the indeed loop we were going through.


I appreciate you ask this.





For me, my stopping point is step 8. I do mean to summarise the
intense discussion we had earlier this year on this topic, but that
will require an uninterrupted period of a day or two, just to pull  
it all

into a comprehensible document.


Nice. I am "all ear", we say in french. It means I am looking forward  
to it.





I'm just now reading a reading a very long paper (more of a short
book, actually) by Scott Aaronson, on the subject of free will, which
is one of those rare works in that topic that is not
gibberish. Suffice it to say, that if he is ultimately convincing, he
would get me to stop at step 0 (ie COMP is false), but more on that
later when I finish it.



I read a book by Aaronson sometimes ago, but, like many, he did not go  
out of the frame of Aristotle notion of reality in that book. I will  
take a look to the paper.  ...
After a glimpse overview, If he is correct, and if comp is correct, it  
would only mean that his "freebits" would emerge from the numbers law;  
but I am not sure if I need to believe in such a use of "free" for  
free-will. The compatibilist approach is enough. Randomness adds  
nothing as this has been often debated. To be quick here ...


Best,

Bruno



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



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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?



On 23 Sep 2013, at 20:26, meekerdb wrote:


On 9/23/2013 11:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I'm just now reading a reading a very long paper (more of a short
book, actually) by Scott Aaronson, on the subject of free will,  
which

is one of those rare works in that topic that is not
gibberish. Suffice it to say, that if he is ultimately convincing,  
he

would get me to stop at step 0 (ie COMP is false), but more on that
later when I finish it.



I read a book by Aaronson sometimes ago, but, like many, he did not  
go out of the frame of Aristotle notion of reality in that book. I  
will take a look to the paper.  ...
After a glimpse overview, If he is correct, and if comp is correct,  
it would only mean that his "freebits" would emerge from the  
numbers law; but I am not sure if I need to believe in such a use  
of "free" for free-will. The compatibilist approach is enough.  
Randomness adds nothing as this has been often debated. To be quick  
here ...


Aaronson seems satisfied that a person cannot be duplicated because  
of the no-cloning theorem.  So he assumes that avoids first person  
indeterminacy.  I don't think he properly considered that a 'person'  
is not that sharply defined and many duplications would be 'good  
enough'.



I agree. And the UDA reasoning needs only that we can be prepared in  
some state; even unknown.
Also, it means that he assumes QM, and assumes we are defined by our  
quantum state. Comp does not assume this, and with comp, the apparent  
matter cannot be cloned for the reason that it is eventually precisely  
determined only by the first person indeterminacy on all relative  
consistent continuations.


As I said, Aaronson does not escape the Aristotelian frame. I have not  
yet read the details, but I do not think that his very type of  
reasoning can refute comp.
It migh tmake the level very low, but this will only add randomness in  
the first person indeterminacy, as that alone adds nothing to free- 
will. I would say that it would even endanger it, like if a coin could  
decide for me!


Bruno


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



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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

On 9/23/2013 11:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I'm just now reading a reading a very long paper (more of a short
book, actually) by Scott Aaronson, on the subject of free will, which
is one of those rare works in that topic that is not
gibberish. Suffice it to say, that if he is ultimately convincing, he
would get me to stop at step 0 (ie COMP is false), but more on that
later when I finish it.

I read a book by Aaronson sometimes ago, but, like many, he did not go out of the frame
of Aristotle notion of reality in that book. I will take a look to the paper. ...
After a glimpse overview, If he is correct, and if comp is correct, it would only mean
that his "freebits" would emerge from the numbers law; but I am not sure if I need to
believe in such a use of "free" for free-will. The compatibilist approach is enough.
Randomness adds nothing as this has been often debated. To be quick here ...

Aaronson seems satisfied that a person cannot be duplicated because of the no-cloning
theorem. So he assumes that avoids first person indeterminacy. I don't think he properly
considered that a 'person' is not that sharply defined and many duplications would be
'good enough'.

Brent

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Re: When will Popperian come back.Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

Bruno wrote: "of Whom? Conscious applies to person and they all have some
"I", even if they cannot be sure what it is, and perceive it in many ways.
Here I am again in the dichotomy with Brent about 'alive' and 'life':
'conscious' and 'consciousness'! I arrived at the latter as "response to
relations" - not requiring human (animal?) mentality at all.
A universe can be conscious if it responds to relations.
It may be semantical as are all meanings.
JM


On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:59 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 21 Sep 2013, at 22:59, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 9/21/2013 7:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
>  The content might be, "There is a flying pink elephant in my room."
> which is both dubitable and almost certainly false.  And if the thought is,
> "I had a conscious thought." that too is dubitable.
>
>
>  We agree on this. The indubitable thought is not "I was conscious", but
> "I am conscious".
>
>
> Without the assumption of "I".
>
>
> Of Who?
>
> Conscious applies to person, and they all have some "I", even if they
> cannot be sure what it is, and perceive it in many ways.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

On 9/23/2013 12:32 PM, John Mikes wrote:

I have a profound respect to Dawkins, but why should I believe him?
Why would you restrict the 'genes' to those (physical worldly - conventional scientific)
measurements that show a 'match' to the 'parents' similarly superficially mapped genes?

That's an outdated conception of genes. Genes are coding sequences in DNA. They are not
'superficially mapped' measurements. They can be moved from one animal to another - c.f.
rabbits that glow in the dark.

All 'networks' go infinite with branching further and further into more and more aspects
(the "genes" not exempted) - it is a likely (human?) vision of the infinite complexity
we have only a small glimpse of.

So what? We don't know a lot, but we know somethings.

Your distinction: can something "be alive" without life? Then my question stands. Could
you describe 'being alive' without the concept of 'life'?

Being alive is well described by metabolism for maintenance and homeostasis. So mules are
definitely alive. But there's no sharp distinction. A robot that can recharge itself is
a little bit alive too. And a virus that can only metabolize by hijacking the mechanism
of a cell is a little bit alive too. But to have life you need reproduction - which is
just maintenance at a species level.

"Mules don't constitute life" - no, mules constitute animals - a transition between a
horse and an ass.

Between a jackass and a mare. But they're not a transition, they're a hybrid.

Brent

Both rife with life - except for the progeny?
JM

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 9/23/2013 11:49 AM, John Mikes wrote:

Brent - REPRODUCTION - in our 'biology' there is only one strain that
reproduces: the prokaryotes by mitosis. In most(?) heterosex procreation
you take
TWO DIFFERENT ENTITIES and by combining some products of them you CREATE a
third
one, not identical to any of the "procreating" parents. Biologist friends
were
surprised, but finally agreed.

Dawkins would point out that it's genes that get reproduced.

There was ONE smartAlec who changed my topic to 'reproduction of the
SPECIES' -
which is fine, as long as we know much enough of the details of that
'specie' -
what we usually don't. (Cf: drug-resistence of microbes).
"For an alien all humans are identical, even many animal kinds included."
I would not deny the Robert Rosen characteristics-cryterion: his M & R the
Metabolism and Repair. I don't find it a definitive description, but in
most cases
it works fine as "main" attribute.
Reproduction? no way. A mule is alive.

Did you miss that I was making a distinction between 'life' (as in 'Is
there life on
Mars?') and 'being alive'. Sure a mule is alive. But mules don't
constitute life.

Brent

JohnM

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Craig Weinberg mailto:whatsons...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Monday, September 23, 2013 12:45:00 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:

For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction.
That's the
real defining
characteristic of life.

Re: Unexpected Hanging

2013-09-23 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Monday, September 23, 2013 2:21:20 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 23 Sep 2013, at 05:43, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
> I don't think the simulated typhoon would make the virtual person feel wet 
> any more than it would make them smell seaweed. Why would it?
>
>
>
> Because I assume comp.
>

lol. Santa comp is comin' ta town..

Craig
 

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

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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

I have a profound respect to Dawkins, but why should I believe him?
Why would you restrict the 'genes' to those (physical worldly -
conventional scientific) measurements that show a 'match' to the 'parents'
similarly superficially mapped genes? All 'networks' go infinite with
branching further and further into more and more aspects (the "genes" not
exempted) - it is a likely (human?) vision of the infinite complexity we
have only a small glimpse of.
Your distinction: can something "be alive" without life? Then my question
stands. Could you describe 'being alive' without the concept of 'life'?
"Mules don't constitute life" - no, mules constitute animals - a transition
between a horse and an ass. Both rife with life - except for the progeny?
JM


On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:57 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 9/23/2013 11:49 AM, John Mikes wrote:
>
> Brent - REPRODUCTION - in our 'biology' there is only one strain that
> reproduces: the prokaryotes by mitosis. In most(?) heterosex procreation
> you take TWO DIFFERENT ENTITIES and by combining some products of them you
> CREATE a third one, not identical to any of the "procreating" parents.
> Biologist friends were surprised, but finally agreed.
>
>
> Dawkins would point out that it's genes that get reproduced.
>
>
>   There was ONE smartAlec who changed my topic to 'reproduction of the
> SPECIES' - which is fine, as long as we know much enough of the details of
> that 'specie' - what we usually don't. (Cf: drug-resistence of microbes).
> "For an alien all humans are identical, even many animal kinds included."
> I would not deny the Robert Rosen characteristics-cryterion: his  M & R
>  the Metabolism and Repair. I don't find it a definitive description, but
> in most cases it works fine as "main" attribute.
> Reproduction? no way. A mule is alive.
>
>
> Did you miss that I was making a distinction between 'life' (as in 'Is
> there life on Mars?') and 'being alive'.  Sure a mule is alive.  But mules
> don't constitute life.
>
> Brent
>
>
>  JohnM
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, September 23, 2013 12:45:00 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's
>>> the real defining
>>> characteristic of life.
>>>
>>
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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

Brent - REPRODUCTION - in our 'biology' there is only one strain that
reproduces: the prokaryotes by mitosis. In most(?) heterosex procreation
you take TWO DIFFERENT ENTITIES and by combining some products of them you
CREATE a third one, not identical to any of the "procreating" parents.
Biologist friends were surprised, but finally agreed.
There was ONE smartAlec who changed my topic to 'reproduction of the
SPECIES' - which is fine, as long as we know much enough of the details of
that 'specie' - what we usually don't. (Cf: drug-resistence of microbes).
"For an alien all humans are identical, even many animal kinds included."
I would not deny the Robert Rosen characteristics-cryterion: his  M & R
 the Metabolism and Repair. I don't find it a definitive description, but
in most cases it works fine as "main" attribute.
Reproduction? no way. A mule is alive.
JohnM

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

>
>
> On Monday, September 23, 2013 12:45:00 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's
>> the real defining
>> characteristic of life.
>>
>>
> You don't have to reproduce to be alive though, and any chain reaction can
> be considered reproduction. To me, life is more about a quality of
> sensitivity which can produce intentionally sustained action against
> entropy.
>
> Craig
>
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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

Telmo, thanks for your effort of replying.
 However... (there is always one):
You haven't seen ALL and the BEST robots, have you? Batteries are some
primitive gadgets for a starting line of development. What is "deeply"? And
what is that 'energy' you invoke? (And: YES, they CAN rebuild damaged parts
from their environment (Rosen's M&R) if they have the tools. (Just arrived
Brent's similar remark to the list).

Why do you hold 'computational resources' as fundamental to being alive?
Computation is a human mental peculiarity - an 'evolved resource' by '*being
* alive' (whatever that means). How 'bout Bruno's Universal Machine?

There are so many misconceptions about 'life' (mainly HUMAN) floating
around. Religious ones e.g. fix the "beginning" of it at conception of an
egg and a sperm, (my question to that: show me a dead sperm and a dead egg
the combining of which will START a human life - consequently those
ingredients have to be 'alive' = having that darn 'life' in them to go on
with it).
So I do not see an answer to my question in your reply. Try again?

John M


On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 6:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:11 AM, John Mikes  wrote:
> > Telmo:
> >
> > would you have (by any chance...) a brief identification of something
> that
> > comes to your mind when speaking about  " l i f e "  ? (And please,
> forget
> > about the"bio" of this Earthbound Terrestrial Biosphere).
> > (To identify " live " is a bit easier I think.)
>
> Hi John,
>
> If I understand your question, I think I do have a general idea of
> what I, informally, associate with life. I always tend to imagine some
> self-contained system that is capable of procuring sources of energy
> in its environment and use that energy to, more or less, maintain it's
> structure.
>
> None of the robots that I've seen so far fit this ideal. Even if they
> can look for an outlet and recharge their batteries, they are not
> capable of deeply fixing themselves. They cannot use that energy to
> rebuild some part of themselves that is damaged.
>
> Simulation environments don't convince me either (and I've built a few
> myself), because there's not real energy at stake. Now, if someone
> created a program that was capable of programming itself in an effort
> to try to maximise it's ability to achieve it goals by making the best
> possible use of the available computational resources, then I might
> eventually see it as being alive.
>
> If you meant something else, please tell me.
>
> Best,
> Telmo.
>
> > John M
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 8:46 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Unfortunately this appears to be bs:
> >>
> >>
> http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/09/20/136220/alien-life-story-of-dubious-provenance-goes-viral
> >>
> >> (but what do I know!)
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Telmo.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Chris de Morsella
> >>  wrote:
> >> > Seems like the Pangea hypothesis might have gotten some evidence...
> >> > wouldn't
> >> > say this is conclusive though, but it is intriguing.
> >> > -Chris
> >> >
> >> > Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space
> >> > Scientists from the University of Sheffield believe they have found
> life
> >> > arriving to Earth from space after sending a balloon to the
> >> > stratosphere.’
> >> > After it landed, scientists discovered that they had captured a diatom
> >> > fragment and some unusual biological entities from the stratosphere,
> all
> >> > of
> >> > which are too large to have come from Earth.
> >> > Other scientists disagree, as noted here: New Alien Life Claim Far
> from
> >> > Convincing, Scientists Say
> >> > The team, led by Professor (Hon. Cardiff and Buckingham Universities)
> >> > Milton
> >> > Wainwright, from the University’s Department of Molecular Biology and
> >> > Biotechnology found small organisms that could have come from space
> >> > after
> >> > sending a specially designed balloon to 27km into the stratosphere
> >> > during
> >> > the recent Perseid meteor shower.
> >> > Professor Wainwright said: “Most people will assume that these
> >> > biological
> >> > particles must have just drifted up to the stratosphere from Earth,
> but
> >> > it
> >> > is generally accepted that a particle of the size found cannot be
> lifted
> >> > from Earth to heights of, for example, 27km. The only known exception
> is
> >> > by
> >> > a violent volcanic eruption, none of which occurred within three years
> >> > of
> >> > the sampling trip.
> >> > “In the absence of a mechanism by which large particles like these can
> >> > be
> >> > transported to the stratosphere we can only conclude that the
> biological
> >> > entities originated from space. Our conclusion then is that life is
> >> > continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to
> this
> >> > planet and it almost certainly did not originate here.”
> >> > Professor Wainwright said the results could be revolutionary: “If life
> >> > does
> >> > conti

Re: Unexpected Hanging



On 23 Sep 2013, at 12:41, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 21 Sep 2013, at 15:10, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:



On 19 Sep 2013, at 16:51, Telmo Menezes wrote:


On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Bruno Marchal 




If so, can't we say ~D~t and thus []t?



Yes, []t is a theorem, of G and most modal logic, but not of Z!





Isn't the only situation where ~Dt the one where this is no world?



~Dt, that is [] f, inconsistency, is the type of the error, dream,  
lie, and

"near-death", or in-a-cul-de-sac.


Thus your interest in near-death experiences?



Yes. And in all "extreme" altered state of consciousness. Those  
extreme cases provide key information.






We should *try* to avoid it, but we can't avoid it without loosing  
our

universality.

The consistent machines face the dilemma between security and lack of
freedom-universality.  With <>p = ~[] ~p, here are equivalent way  
to write

it:

<>t -> ~[]<>t
<>t -> <> [] f
[]<>t -> [] f


I don't understand how you arrive at this equivalence.


I use only the fact that  (p -> q) is equivalent with (~q -> ~p) (the  
contraposition rule, which is valid in classical propositional logic),  
and the definition of <> p = ~[] ~p. I use also that ~~p is equivalent  
with p.


Note that []p = ~~[]~~p = ~<> ~p.  And,

~[]p = <> ~p
and
~<>p = [] ~p

Like with the quantifier, a not (~) jumping above a modal sign makes  
it into a diamond, if it was a bo, and a box, if it was a diamond.



Starting from <>t -> ~[]<>t. Contraposition gives ~~[]<>t -> ~<>t, and  
this gives by above, []<>t -> []~t, which gives

[]<>t -> []f   (as ~t = f, and ~f = t).

OK?

For the third one, starting from the first one again: <>t -> ~[]<>t,  
By contraposition []<>t -> ~<>t , but ~<>t = []~t = [] f.


OK?

Bruno



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



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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space


On 9/23/2013 11:49 AM, John Mikes wrote:
Brent - REPRODUCTION - in our 'biology' there is only one strain that reproduces: 
the prokaryotes by mitosis. In most(?) heterosex procreation you take TWO DIFFERENT 
ENTITIES and by combining some products of them you CREATE a third one, not identical to 
any of the "procreating" parents. Biologist friends were surprised, but finally agreed.


Dawkins would point out that it's genes that get reproduced.

There was ONE smartAlec who changed my topic to 'reproduction of the SPECIES' - which is 
fine, as long as we know much enough of the details of that 'specie' - what we usually 
don't. (Cf: drug-resistence of microbes).

"For an alien all humans are identical, even many animal kinds included."
I would not deny the Robert Rosen characteristics-cryterion: his  M & R  the Metabolism 
and Repair. I don't find it a definitive description, but in most cases it works fine as 
"main" attribute.

Reproduction? no way. A mule is alive.


Did you miss that I was making a distinction between 'life' (as in 'Is there life on 
Mars?') and 'being alive'.  Sure a mule is alive. But mules don't constitute life.


Brent


JohnM



On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Craig Weinberg > wrote:




On Monday, September 23, 2013 12:45:00 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:



For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's 
the real
defining
characteristic of life.



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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

2013-09-23 Thread John Clark

 chris peck 

> Both evolutionary theory and the natural selection have a history that
> predates Darwin.
>

The idea that non human animals might somehow evolve goes back as far as
Aristotle, but as for Natural selection the only one who has a legitimate
claim of beating Darwin to the punch is Patrick Matthew who in 1831 wrote a
short paper about it. But clearly Matthew did not relies the importance of
the matter and saw Natural Selection only from the point of view of the
Royal Navy and how they should choose trees to cut down to build their
ships. Much later Matthew criticized Darwin’s 1859 book, and in a 1871
letter to Darwin he said he believed there is evidence of design and
benevolence in nature and that Natural Selection could not explain beauty.

> You'll like this quote from Newton's Optiks :
>
>  "Hypotheses have no place in experimental philosophy”
>

Well, if Newton was able to discover the things he did using methods that
Popper did not like then Popper’s methods must be crap. However I think
what Newton meant was that if a experiment contradicts your hypotheses the
experimental result is still valid.

> and from his Principia:
>
>  "hypotheses non fingo" - which is latin for 'I don't make hypotheses’.
>

I know the exact context this quotation comes from. Newton was saying if
gravity decreases with distance as a inverse square law then he could prove
that such a law can only mean that the planets move in elliptical orbits.
As for why gravity worked by a inverse square law Newton did not know and
refused to pretend that he did, and that is why he said "I don't make
hypotheses”.

> He [Newton] worked inductively.
>

Newton used calculus, a branch of mathematics he invented, to find the
equation that produces the curve of a hanging chain. Please show me how to
do that inductively.

> He used observations to arrive at theories.
>

If Popper says science can only work one way, and Newton says science can
work in other ways then I say to hell with Popper, I’m going with Newton.
With the possible exception of Darwin no human being has found out more
about how the world works than Newton. Popper discovered diddly-squat.

> In actual fact, the idea that a scientist should work from the top down,
>

There are lots of ways science can work. You can have a theory, make a
prediction, and see if the prediction comes to pass.

You can look at a bunch of observations, make a theory that explains them,
and, because you must always get more out of a theory than you put in or
it’s pointless, use that theory to make a new prediction.

Or you can make a observation that is so puzzling that you can think of no
theory to explain it that is worth a damn. The observation is still valid
and you don’t need to pretend to be able to explain it when you do not. It
is not unscientific to say in a loud clear voice “I do not know”.

> ie. should have a theory, make a hypothesis about some phenomena, derive
> an observational prediction upon which the hypothesis stands or falls and
> then test for it
>

Real science NEVER works as simply or cleanly as philosophers say it does,
but then philosophers have never done any real science.

> Interestingly, Darwin was aware of the top down approach from theory to
> observation and used it but hid that fact from peers. He advises a young
> scientist the following:
>
>  “let theory guide your observations, but till your reputation is well
> established, be sparing of publishing theory. It makes persons doubt your
> observations”
>

Sounds like good advice. You may have the outline of a radical theory in
your mind but even you suspect it might be utter nonsense, so just keep a
eye open for new evidence that could have a bearing on the matter.

>  but in public he said he proceeded :
>"on true Baconian principles and without any theory collected facts on
> a wholesale scale”
> So, even in the 1860s bad science was considered to be science that moved
> from theory to prediction and testing.
>

That is utterly ridiculous! In 1845, 57 years before Popper was born,
Urbain LeVerrier used Newton's theory and irregularity in the orbit of
Uranus to predict that there must be a undiscovered planet in the solar
system. LeVerrier told astronomers exactly where to point their telescopes
and they found the planet Neptune almost immediately.  At the time this was
considered to be a huge victory for Newton's theory and rightfully so.

And If Popper says do science one way and Darwin says do it another way
then I’m going with Darwin. Why the hell didn’t Popper use this brand new
magical method you claim he invented to actually find out something about
how the world works? Popper lived to be 92 and never discovered a damn
thing.

>> One doesn't need to read Popper to know that pseudoscience exists
>>
>
> > And that shows just how famous and influential Popper's demarcation
> principle has become. Rightly or wrongly it has been appropriated as a good
> principle so universally that smelly, lazy and i

Re: Unexpected Hanging



On 23 Sep 2013, at 05:43, Craig Weinberg wrote:



I don't think the simulated typhoon would make the virtual person  
feel wet any more than it would make them smell seaweed. Why would it?



Because I assume comp.

Bruno



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



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Re: Scientists claim discovery of life coming to Earth from space

2013-09-23 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Monday, September 23, 2013 12:45:00 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's the 
> real defining 
> characteristic of life. 
>
>
You don't have to reproduce to be alive though, and any chain reaction can 
be considered reproduction. To me, life is more about a quality of 
sensitivity which can produce intentionally sustained action against 
entropy.

Craig

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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?

2013-09-23 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> If you can repair the blunders made in the first 3 steps then I'll read
>> step 4, until then doing so would be ridiculous.
>>
>
> > Even this is ridiculous, as step 4, 5, 6, 7 can certainly help you to
> see what you miss (or deny) in step 3.
>

You are supposed to be writing a proof not a detective novel!

>
> > If there is no first person indeterminacy [...]
>

Of course there is first person indeterminacy, I often don't know what I
will see or do next.

  John K Clark

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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?


On 9/23/2013 12:40 AM, LizR wrote:
On 23 September 2013 17:23, chris peck > wrote:



Both evolutionary theory and the natural selection have a history that 
predates
Darwin. But we know of them through Darwin. Darwin wasn't great for having 
these
ideas, because they didn't originate with him. He was great because his 
work made
these ideas impossible to ignore.


I think it's fair to say that he put these ideas together in a way that made more sense 
than they had previously, and added quite a few ideas of his own?


I don't think anyone before Darwin had thought of simple randomness as being enough to 
drive evolution.  Wallace also thought of it, but it is Darwin we celebrate because he not 
only had the idea, he also collected enormous amounts of supporting data and worked out 
most of the implications of the theory.


Brent

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Re: How PIP solves the hard problem of consciousness

On 23 Sep 2013, at 01:10, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Sunday, September 22, 2013 3:03:58 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 22 Sep 2013, at 05:15, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Saturday, September 21, 2013 12:18:19 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal  
wrote:

On 20 Sep 2013, at 20:20, Craig Weinberg wrote:

It doesn't sound like it though. The difference between shapes and  
thoughts is not related to proof or truth. Making some information  
provable wouldn't turn it into a shape.

But if UDA is correct, provable-and-consistent will do. G/G* is  
extended on the intensional nuances.

What does that have to do with the invention of shape though?

Please, study the papers. Comp is like Kant, on *this*, shape belongs  
to the category of numbers imagination, and with comp this is given  
by  arithmetical relations.
I have an idea of comp, you have to study comp, and see if it answers  
your question. You have to be able to assume it, if only for the sake  
of the reasoning and then judge, not stopping to reason once you  
suspect comp is used.

All the paragraphs below try in vain to make me doubt of comp. In  
vain, because I already doubt. But then I study its consequences. If  
we find a contradiction, we will just abandon comp, but up to now we  
find only sort of platonic quantum weirdness.

modal logic

They are a tool, but a tool for machines, not for subjectivity.

No, they are tools for humans, studying the subjectivity of machines.  
Accepting some definitions which have been provided, and the comp "act  
of faith.

No more than you can create a galaxy with a telescope.
But you can bet on the galaxy pattern thanks to the use of a  
telescope.
Likewise, modal logics can help to see the many different views that  
arithmetic and universal machines can have about herself and their  
possible and probable universal neighbors.

I'm not denying that modal logic is an important tool for certain  
things, but what does that have to do with flavor?

This would need a long develpment, in part explained in the  
literature, and my papers.

You continue to ask question what does "fuel" have to do with the moon?

The answer is to get the rocket navigating toward the moon from earth.  
But here you know what is a rocket, and you seem to not be so much  
familiar with modal logic. That would be long to explain ad abrupto. I  
gave references, and you can find more in my URL.

A page of sheet music can refer to a song, but only to someone who  
is familiar with music.

Then a human baby might never been able to appreciate music, unless  
you put the familiarity of music at the start, like at the big-bang.  
But this explains nothing, and is a case of comp with an infinitely  
low level.

I think machines, like babies, can be open up to music. The  
hypostases gives the place where the consciousness flux can take  
those "colors".

It is a sort of illusion, but only for God's eye, which is useless  
in science (but can have practical consequences for believer of  
course).

The problem is that a page of sheet music can refer to anything. For  
comp to be true, there would have to be something inherent in the  
configuration of the symbols on the page which can be turned into  
music

Correct.

directly.

I think you, and all machines, are easily deluded on this.

There isn't anything like that though. We can associate those  
symbols with lots of things, none of which requires that sound be  
invented in the universe.

The actual page refers to nothing but itself. Musical experience  
can't be only logic.

Absolutely so.

But we are not talking about logic, but about arithmetic or  
machines. Logic again is just a tool.

Arithmetic and machines still have no reason to invent music, let  
alone suggest why such an invention would be possible for them (are  
machines omnipotent? Can they invent unlimited ontologies?).

We don't have precise answer for why humans do music.

You only come back with your prejudice against machines, or people  
with mechanical bodies.

> Not the judgements about the flavor of pizza, but the appreciation
> of the actual flavor.

Well, it is, accepting comp + some amount of the classical theory of
belief, knowledge, etc.

But why would we want to accept comp?

People will not do much philosophy. Most will accept comp for the  
same reason they accept glasses when seeing not well.

If your hypo-campus does not function well, so that you are in loop,  
like in the movie "Memento", you might accept an artificial hypo- 
campus, just like you can accept an artificial heart in case of  
grave miss-function.

Then once your body is entirely digital, it is handy to move among  
planets at the speed of light, and above all, it cots much less than  
a carbon-body.

I once assumed that was inevitable, but now I don't think its going  
to happen that way. I think the more we get into the brain, the more  
we will see that it is not going

On the relation of information (measure), physics (form-function), experience (afference-efference), and sense

2013-09-23 Thread Craig Weinberg

http://multisenserealism.com/2013/09/22/light-vision-and-optics/

[image: 
MSR_Visual]

In the above diagram, the nature of light is examined from a semiotic 
perspective. As with Piercian sign 
trichotomies,
 
and semiotics in general the theme of interpretation is deconstructed as it 
pertains to meanings, interpreters, and objects. In this case the object or 
sign is “Optics”. This would be the classical, macroscopic appearance of 
light as beams or rays which can be focused and projected, Color wheels and 
primary colors are among the tools we use to orient our own human 
experience of vision with the universal nature of material illumination.

On the other side of bottom of the triangle is “Vision”. This is the 
component which gives vision a visual quality. The arrows leading to and 
from vision denote the incoming receptivity from optics and the outgoing 
engagement toward “Light”. When we see, our awareness is informed from the 
bottom up and the top down. Seeing rides on top of the low level 
interactions of our cells, while looking is our way of projecting our will 
as attention to the visual field.

While optics dictate measurable relationships among physical properties of 
light on the macroscopic scale, ‘light’ is the hypothetical third partner 
in the sensory triad. Light is both the microphysical functions of quantum 
electrodynamics and the absolute frame of perceptual relativity from which 
various perceptual inertial frames emerge. The span between light and 
optics  is marked by the polar graph and label “Image” to describe the role 
of resemblance and relativity. Image is a fusion of the cosmological truth 
of all that can be seen and illuminated (light), with the localization to a 
particular inertial frame (optics-in-space), and recapitulation by a 
particular interpreter – who is a time-feeler of private experience.

This triangle schema is not limited to light. Any sense can be used with 
varying degrees of success:

[image: 
MSR_Aural]

The overall picture can be generalized as well:

[image: 
MSR_sensory]

Note that the afferent and efferent sided of the triangle have a push-pull 
orientation, while the quanta side is an expanding graph. This is due to 
the difference between participation within spacetime, which is proprietary 
feeling, and the measured positions between participants on multiple scales 
or frames of participation. Sense is the totality of experience from which 
subjective extractions are derived. The physical mode describes the 
relation between each subjective experience and between other frames of 
subjective experience as representational tokens: bodies or forms. It’s all 
a kind of trail of breadcrumbs which lead back to the source, which is 
originality itself.

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Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?