date:20140204

On 5 February 2014 13:46, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:38:31 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>>
>> On 5 February 2014 01:31, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>> >> As per my answer to David: if you could show that a physical
>> >> phenomenon of a particular type necessarily leads to consciousness,
>> >> then anything further you have to say, such as remarks about how weird
>> >> it sounds, will not negate it.
>> >
>> >
>> > That's the same as saying "If I were proved right, then I couldn't have
>> > been
>> > wrong."
>> >
>> > The fact though that we cannot show a physical phenomena which
>> > necessarily
>> > leads to consciousness and there is no reason to suppose that one could
>> > ever
>> > be shown (especially since 'showing' only happens within consciousness,
>> > or
>> > else consciousness would be redundant).
>>
>> The proof is the argument I have cited several times. If it's valid,
>> any objections are then pointless, like the Pythagoreans complaining
>> that irrational numbers offend their sense of aesthetics. You have not
>> shown that the argument is invalid.
>
>
> The argument can't be shown to be invalid, because the problem with the
> argument is that there is a universe which exists outside of all argument,
> through which argument itself is defined. The argument may be able to
> silence objections, but that doesn't mean the argument is correct.

Again, that's like the Pythagoreans deciding to suppress the evidence
for irrational numbers because they believed in a higher aesthetic
cause.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 5 February 2014 03:54, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

 My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless to
 ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is
>>> consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain
>>> activity.
>>> So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully?
>>
>>
>> It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to
>> ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial
>> question.
>
>
> Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an abuse
> of language to be short).
>
> The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body) could
> not refer to an epiphenomenon?
> Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be
> meaningless?
>
> If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that meaningless?
> It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible?
>
> And is it meaningless to ask such question?
>
> May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it looks
> just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask".
>
> I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to see
> many nuances and possibilities in this context.

To be clear, what I find problematic is the question of whether
consciousness can cause someone to refer to it. It can't do this by
definition if it's epiphenomenal. However, you can declare that you
are conscious and while the declaration is explainable in purely
physical terms, it may be associated with actual consciousness.
Perhaps this is nitpicking.

>>> Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and consciousness
>>> is
>>> only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p, but
>>> still
>>> a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p phenomenon, why
>>> not?
>>>
>>> Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an epiphenomenon?
>>
>>
>> We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet
>> we can still refer to it.
>
>
> May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet we
> can still refer to it].
>
> But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp, and the
> arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar questions, why we
> cannot explain some truth.
>
> I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained, above
> the more elementary assumptions.
> I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has
> fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to
> understand".
>
> You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or
> introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there
> indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort of
> miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events. Mind can
> "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this without violating
> the physical laws. But eventually it makes the physical laws emerging on
> something non physical (which comp allows to limit on arithmetical truth or
> combinators truth, ...).

I don't believe that mind can act on anything except in a manner of
speaking, but again maybe this is nitpicking. The important thing is
that if mind had separate causal efficacy we would observe miraculous
events in the brain, and we don't observe such events.

Even with comp in the absence of a basic physical reality, you could
say there is no *reason* why subjectivity should exist - it just does.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 5 February 2014 01:34, David Nyman  wrote:
> On 4 February 2014 13:57, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:
>
>> We can refer to our conscious states because the base phenomena on which
>> our conscious states supervene cause our vocal cords to move in a particular
>> way. But it is wrong to say, except in a loose way of speaking, that our
>> conscious states cause our vocal cords to move. The supervenient phenomenon
>> follows in a straightforward way (by virtue of being supervenient) without
>> the need for downward causation.
>
>
> But then there is no entailment that the movements of our vocal cords refer
> to conscious states, is there? They're just physical systems following
> physical causation, at whatever level of analysis. If so, I'd like to know
> what reason you have to take seriously your own assertions that you are
> conscious, since the only evidence is presumably neuronal behaviour that
> falls victim to the same analysis you give above. Or do you claim to have
> access to some other method of "knowing you are conscious"?

Of course I know I am conscious. I could say, what a silly question!

If I declare that I am conscious this action is entirely explainable
in physical terms. I am also actually conscious, but that's not why
I'm saying it, since consciousness doesn't move vocal cords or
anything else.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: What are wavefunctions?

On Wed, Feb 05, 2014 at 06:42:14PM +1300, LizR wrote:
> I don't know about a summary, but the whole book is available here:
> 
> http://www.hpcoders.com.au/theory-of-nothing.pdf
> 

Thanks Liz. I should also add that I was alluding to the "zero
information principle" (Tegmark may call this the minimal information
principle, IIRC), which is really the subject of chapters 2 & 3 of my book.

Cheers

> 
> On 5 February 2014 17:58,  wrote:
> 
> >
> > On Wednesday, February 5, 2014 1:45:18 AM UTC, Russell Standish wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:49:57PM +1300, LizR wrote:
> >> > I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the
> >> > information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the
> >> Hubble
> >> > sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is
> >> > proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?
> >> >
> >> > (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than
> >> > that...)
> >> >
> >>
> >> Rather less, I would expect, for the reasons outlined in "Theory of
> >> Nothing..."
> >>
> >
> > Is there a summary of ToN anywhere?
> >
> >>
> >>
> 
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Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
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Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: What are wavefunctions?

I don't know about a summary, but the whole book is available here:

http://www.hpcoders.com.au/theory-of-nothing.pdf


On 5 February 2014 17:58,  wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, February 5, 2014 1:45:18 AM UTC, Russell Standish wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:49:57PM +1300, LizR wrote:
>> > I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the
>> > information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the
>> Hubble
>> > sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is
>> > proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?
>> >
>> > (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than
>> > that...)
>> >
>>
>> Rather less, I would expect, for the reasons outlined in "Theory of
>> Nothing..."
>>
>
> Is there a summary of ToN anywhere?
>
>>
>>

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Re: Ways to be a Super Position

Well there are cats, alive and dead... (not to mention Wigner, in a state
of having seen the aforementioned cat alive / dead...)

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Ways to be a Super Position

I was wondering how many different contexts of superposition there might 
be. For example one vaguely know about is the superposition associated with 
the double slit experiment, of particles going through one, the other, both 
and neither slit. Another is the superposition of possible states of a 
property of a particle. 
 
Does anyone feel up to listing, or saying a few things about, the range of 
possible contexts? 
 
Just within this one universe I mean.

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Re: What are wavefunctions?


On Wednesday, February 5, 2014 1:45:18 AM UTC, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:49:57PM +1300, LizR wrote: 
> > I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the 
> > information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the 
> Hubble 
> > sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is 
> > proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere? 
> > 
> > (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than 
> > that...) 
> > 
>
> Rather less, I would expect, for the reasons outlined in "Theory of 
> Nothing..." 
>
 
Is there a summary of ToN anywhere? 

>
> -- 
>
>  
>
> Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) 
> Principal, High Performance Coders 
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpc...@hpcoders.com.au 
> University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au 
>  
>
>

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Re: Films I think people on this forum might like

"Moon" is great!

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Re: Films I think people on this forum might like

On Wed, Feb 05, 2014 at 03:54:27AM +, chris peck wrote:
> Source Code (has a 'its just numbers being computed' thing going on)
> 

Actually more of a virtual reality thing, but I agree it was very well
done.

I'll add your other suggestions to my list.

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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


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RE: Films I think people on this forum might like

2014-02-04 Thread chris peck

you guys should check out

Dark City (has a platonic reality isn't really real thing going on)
Moon   (has a memory/identity/AI thing going on)
Source Code (has a 'its just numbers being computed' thing going on)

Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker are also pretty stunning if you can handle 10 
minute shots of dripping water and general Russian misery etc.

happy viewing!

:)




From: marc...@ulb.ac.be
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Films I think people on this forum might like
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2014 12:25:00 +0100


On 04 Feb 2014, at 08:33, LizR wrote:My son (15) has been trying to get us to 
watch Incaption for a while. Once we get time...

After "the prestige", that was rather disappointing, for me.
My favorite movie is "the thirteenth  floor", or the corresponding novel 
"SIMULACRON III" (Daniel Galouze).
According to some people, MATRIX is full of "allusion" to "conscience & 
mécanisme" but I can't see it without falling asleep. I still don't know if it 
is comp-correct, like simulacron III is. Boring and not quite sexy, but I would 
have love it, I guess, if I was 12 years old. 
Bruno



On 4 February 2014 20:19, Russell Standish  wrote:
 Some more I can add that I enjoyed:
 
 Adjustment Bureau
 Inception
 Open Your Eyes (Spanish language, with subtitles).
 
 These are mainly virtual reality type movies.
 
 I'm going to add some of the others mentioned to my DVD service queue.
 
 Cheers
 
 On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 03:45:47PM -0600, Jason Resch wrote:
 > Liz,
 >
 > Great recommendations, and excellent topic idea.
 >
 > The Prestige is the movie that got me interested in these topics and led me
 > to this list.  Also, for US viewers, Chronochrimes goes by "Timecrimes" and
 > is available under netflix under that title. I found it to be the first
 > realistic portrayal of single-universe time travel in any movie I have seen.
 >
 > Somewhat off-topic being a TV series, but the recently reimagined
 > "Battlestar Galactica" probes many of the questions of machine vs. human
 > consciousness. I recommend it to Craig.
 >
 > Jason
 >
 >
 > On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:14 AM, LizR  wrote:
 >
 > > One I've mentioned ad nauseum - "Memento".
 > >
 > > There is also "The Prestige", which I would definitely recommend.
 > >
 > > To avoid spoilers, I won't go into detail about why these films might
 > > appeal, but they both address issues mentioned on this list (at least
 > > tangentially, and in a fictional manner).
 > >
 > > I might also mention "Chronocrimes" for its portrayal of a block univese.
 > >
 > > Sadly no one seems to have filmed "October the First is Too Late" although
 > > the 10-episode epic "Doctor Who" story "The War Games" comes close in some
 > > respects. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Who story was
 > > inspired by Hoyle's novel, which I think appeared about 3 years beforehand
 > > if I remember correctly. I would semi-recommend this (but you have to
 > > remember that it was made in black and white, for viewing as a weekly
 > > serial in 1969...)
 > >
 > >  --
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 Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:38:31 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>
> On 5 February 2014 01:31, Craig Weinberg > 
> wrote: 
>
> >> As per my answer to David: if you could show that a physical 
> >> phenomenon of a particular type necessarily leads to consciousness, 
> >> then anything further you have to say, such as remarks about how weird 
> >> it sounds, will not negate it. 
> > 
> > 
> > That's the same as saying "If I were proved right, then I couldn't have 
> been 
> > wrong." 
> > 
> > The fact though that we cannot show a physical phenomena which 
> necessarily 
> > leads to consciousness and there is no reason to suppose that one could 
> ever 
> > be shown (especially since 'showing' only happens within consciousness, 
> or 
> > else consciousness would be redundant). 
>
> The proof is the argument I have cited several times. If it's valid, 
> any objections are then pointless, like the Pythagoreans complaining 
> that irrational numbers offend their sense of aesthetics. You have not 
> shown that the argument is invalid. 
>

The argument can't be shown to be invalid, because the problem with the 
argument is that there is a universe which exists outside of all argument, 
through which argument itself is defined. The argument may be able to 
silence objections, but that doesn't mean the argument is correct.

Craig
 

>
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou 
>

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Re: What are wavefunctions?

On 5 February 2014 14:45, Russell Standish  wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:49:57PM +1300, LizR wrote:
> > I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the
> > information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the
> Hubble
> > sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is
> > proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?
> >
> > (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than
> > that...)
> >
>
> Rather less, I would expect, for the reasons outlined in "Theory of
> Nothing..."
>

Good point. In fact it presumably contains just enough information to
represent the laws of physics. However, although the information sums to
almost nothing, could there be some relation between the holographic
principle and the multiverse, possibly information-related, as suggested?

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 5 February 2014 01:31, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>> As per my answer to David: if you could show that a physical
>> phenomenon of a particular type necessarily leads to consciousness,
>> then anything further you have to say, such as remarks about how weird
>> it sounds, will not negate it.
>
>
> That's the same as saying "If I were proved right, then I couldn't have been
> wrong."
>
> The fact though that we cannot show a physical phenomena which necessarily
> leads to consciousness and there is no reason to suppose that one could ever
> be shown (especially since 'showing' only happens within consciousness, or
> else consciousness would be redundant).

The proof is the argument I have cited several times. If it's valid,
any objections are then pointless, like the Pythagoreans complaining
that irrational numbers offend their sense of aesthetics. You have not
shown that the argument is invalid.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: What are wavefunctions?

On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:49:57PM +1300, LizR wrote:
> I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the
> information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the Hubble
> sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is
> proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?
> 
> (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than
> that...)
> 

Rather less, I would expect, for the reasons outlined in "Theory of Nothing..."

-- 


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


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Re: UDA and AUDA are the same thesis?

On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 12:36:15PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 06:49, Russell Standish wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 08:40:59AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >>
> >>Then explain why you don't read the UDA, or why you don't read AUDA,
> >>which is the same thesis, but no more using thought experiences.
> >>AUDA was for the mathematicians who told me that they are not
> >>interested in cognitive science or philosophy of mind, where such
> >>thought experience is common.
> >>
> >
> >If UDA and AUDA are equivalent in some sense, how do you get the FPI
> >conclusion from AUDA?
> 
> In AUDA we get only the case of the "probability one", by Bp & Dt,
> on p sigma_1.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Well that is what I am explaining, but I need Liz solving some
> puzzles before :)
> 

I understand that Bp&Dt gives one of von Neumann's quantum logics, but
it still seems an enormous jump from there to the FPI, or to call the
Deontic relation a Schroedinger equation, even a little abstract one.

But I'll wait until you bring Liz up to speed. I'm enjoying lurking
over the exercises, even though I only have enough time to skim them.

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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

On 5 February 2014 14:30, Russell Standish  wrote:

> Of course, you realise there must have been a bunch of entangled
> particles at both ends of the teleport link prepared ahead of time,
> which does involve matter transport!
>

I thought that's what the photons were for!

That'll teach me to skim read...

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Re: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

They may use photons for convenience, but IIRC, the quantum
teleportation protocol just requires bits to be transferred, so they
can be converted to electrical pulses, or even as marks on a piece of
paper sent through the post.

Of course, you realise there must have been a bunch of entangled
particles at both ends of the teleport link prepared ahead of time,
which does involve matter transport!

Cheers 

On Wed, Feb 05, 2014 at 12:44:47PM +1300, LizR wrote:
> No, that's fair enough. I was just checking they weren't implying "spooky
> action at a distance".
> 
> 
> On 5 February 2014 12:43, Richard Ruquist  wrote:
> 
> > You are correct: " But crucially they've done it for the first time over
> > the kind of ordinary optical fibre that telecommunications that are in use
> > all over the world."
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 6:28 PM, LizR  wrote:
> >
> >> "Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that
> >> describes it."
> >>
> >> It looks like a photon has to make the journey, or am I misunderstanding?
> >> (Or isn't a photon matter?)
> >>
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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 13:31,  wrote:

> I'm presuming you don't mean blocktime directly predicts...but relativity.
> If so, I take your point obviously.
> If you meant blocktime directly, I'd love to hear the prediction.
>

I meant relativity, but that *is *based around the concept of space-time
being a 4D manifold, although Brent has pointed out that we could dispense
with that idea in a strictly operational definition - and I have pointed
out that most TOEs dispense with it, since they want to start from
something simpler than space-time. But in standard textbooks on relativity
you will find Minkowski diagrams, light cones, world-lines and suchlike, as
well as mentions of space-time being a 4-dimensional manifold.

I'm not sure what predictions could be made from the existence of block
time apart from simultaneity being relative.

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Re: Block Universes


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 7:04:49 AM UTC, Liz R wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 16:56, > wrote:
>
>> Thanks for all that. Very interesting. So what sort of implications would 
>> block time have for individual lives. Do they happen only onetime while 
>> their time is being actively blocked in? Or does blocktime exist statically 
>> as the end-to-end story of the universe? 
>>
>
> Block time doesn't have any implications for individual lives. It can't 
> make a difference to everyday life, because obviously it predicts that 
> everyday life will be exactly what we observe it to be (otherwise it could 
> be shown to be false). It would seem that the 4D space-time manifold 
> "exists as the story of the universe".
>
 

>  
>> I appreciate the construction is the chain of relations, but does anyone 
>> say whether the relations necessarily happen like a domino effect from the 
>> big bang through, just the one time? Or can they get washed through like 
>> waves of an incoming tide? is another version of me happening on the wave 
>> just behind the one I'm on?
>>
>
> This interesting possibility is explored in Barrington Bayley's novel 
> "Collision with Chronos" which I heartily recommend even though as far as 
> we know it doesn't have anything to do with real physics!
>
 
I'm going to have fire up a spreadsheet to keep some record of these book 
references.  

>
> For things to wash through block time you need an extra time stream. So 
> you move your block universe out to 5D - 3 space and 2 time dimensions. 
> There's no reason to posit this to explain any observed phenomenon. A 4D 
> space-time manifold appears to be sufficient.
>
 
I didn't mean it that way. I was using the wave just as a way to illustrate 
what I meant. I didn't say so of course. But that's totally your fault.  

>  
>> I think what I'm realty asking is what is blocktime giving the world? 
>> It's giving us a deeper vision of reality (if true). But if it is 
>> objectively true, what purpose or utility does it serve, if any?
>>
>
> My experience when I ask something like that is normally 
>> puzzlement..."what do you mean what purpose/utility?' It's an implication 
>> of relativity! :o)
>>
>
> Well, it's more an ontological underpinning of relativity, since the whole 
> thing is based around the concept that the universe is a 4D manifold (a 
> warped one in GR). So I guess the puzzlement is similar to if you'd asked 
> "what is the purpose/utility of the big bang, or of evolution?" It sounds 
> like a theological / teleological question.
>
 
yeah I see what you mean. 

>   
>> But it's strange really. Where are knowledge is strongest, at the core of 
>> our own universe, there is no part of it that does not serve a fundamental 
>> purpose in the workings of physical law. If someone asked what purpose were 
>> served by neutrinos, or dark matter, or gamma rays, gravitythere would 
>> be several interpretations involving some utility in the scheme of things. 
>>  
>> But what happens at the edges..of our theories, of our knowledge, is 
>> completely different. And tightly linked to what action we take. This one 
>> here is in the same class as what takes place with QM. An interpretation. 
>> Both times then, MWI and this time, the result is an - albeit completely 
>> differently configured - sort of translation even from a set of 
>> relations in one universe, to the same relations distributed in a 
>> multiverse-like construction.
>>
>
> It isn't really an interpretation, except insofar as all physics could be 
> called that (I think "model" would be a better term). It's one of the 
> entities postulated by SR and GR, much as (say) mass is.  I suppose it has 
> the benefit of being the only view of time that actually makes sense - at 
> least, I've never seen a physical theory that explains time any other way, 
> and it's hard to imagine any other way of explaining it - although 
> presentism expands the scope of the block universe to extra time 
> dimensions, but I don't consider that a good thing.
>
 
Well what I'd say is you've definitely given a very good showing for 
blocktime. I'm nowhere near equipped to put up a counter argument. It's an 
interesting idea...that I could acceptif there was a way to lose the 
infinity. Which I'll be thinking about. But that's just personal stuff. All 
in all, if I was a good popperian I'd definitely be accepting your 
explanation as literally true. But I'm not a good popperian :O) 

>   
>> Obviously we don't see this as a multiverse in that blocktime happens 
>> along the passage of time we associate with this single universe. But 
>> relative to the old concept of a single version of objects moving through 
>> the passage of time, blocktime is a multiverse-like construction IMHO.
>>
>
> QM posits a block multiverse. 
>
>>  
>> Guess what we're getting could be objective , or it could be an artefact 
>> of doing something improper, brought about by circumstances involving 
>> invoking a

Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 13:18, meekerdb  wrote:

> It's the easiest way to think about SR.  And it works for GR too so long
> as you avoid closed time-like loops.  But GR and QM seem to be
> inconsistent, so it's hard to say either one is a good candidate for what's
> real.  I just think they're very good approximations over some domains.
>
> Fair enough. Although QM also uses a form of block time (in fact
Newtonian, if anything).

(That plus I have a hard time imagining what else time could possibly be
like - even presentism is only block time in more dimensions ... although
that short story "Flux" gives an idea)

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Re: Block Universes


On 2/4/2014 4:04 PM, ghib...@gmail.com wrote:


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:31:06 AM UTC, Brent wrote:

On 2/3/2014 9:41 PM, ghi...@gmail.com  wrote:

So do you think block time is what is inferred as a reality by each of 
these  space
and time variants? 


You mean "implied by"?  It doesn't imply anything about which is right, 
because it
applies equally to all of them, just like we could label every point with a 
latitude
and longitude on a torodial Earth.

Brent

Yeah implied, sorry about that. I was really just interested in your personal view as to 
whether blocktime is the best candidate for what's real. In the sense Liz and come out 
for blocktime pretty unambiguously.


It's the easiest way to think about SR.  And it works for GR too so long as you avoid 
closed time-like loops.  But GR and QM seem to be inconsistent, so it's hard to say either 
one is a good candidate for what's real.  I just think they're very good approximations 
over some domains.


Brent

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Re: Block Universes


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:31:06 AM UTC, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/3/2014 9:41 PM, ghi...@gmail.com  wrote:
>  
> So do you think block time is what is inferred as a reality by each of 
> these  space and time variants? 
>
>
> You mean "implied by"?  It doesn't imply anything about which is right, 
> because it applies equally to all of them, just like we could label every 
> point with a latitude and longitude on a torodial Earth.  
>
> Brent
>
 
Yeah implied, sorry about that. I was really just interested in your 
personal view as to whether blocktime is the best candidate for what's 
real. In the sense Liz and come out for blocktime pretty unambiguously.  

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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 12:53, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 3:25 PM, LizR wrote:
> ..
>
>
> Well, we don't know if *anything* is really real. I wasn't intending to
> discuss metaphysics on this thread; if you want to do that, maybe you could
> start another one. All I'm arguing is that SR (and to some extent NM) imply
> a block universe as the simplest explanatory framework (via the usual
> application of Occam), plus throw in a few points about the circularity of
> competing explanations. If that's wrong then I will go out into the garden
> and eat worms, but I don't think that anything you're saying actual
> conflicts with that as far as I can tell. But then I'm not sure what
> point you're trying to make, unless you're just to take apart everything I
> say in order to make me look and feel stupid (which, you know, I can do
> quite well myself).
>
> My apologies.  That was not my intent at all and you are obviously a very
> smart person.  But I think we are talking metaphysics - at least Bruno is.
> His theory is pretty 'meta' relative to physics.
>
> Thank you, I do sometimes over-react sorry.

I was trying to not get into comp, because it entails a block universe (or
an "atemporal realm") so there's no point in attempting to use it as part
of an explanation of how BUs arise in SR, that would (presumably) be
circular. I just wanted to explain how SR (as commonly envisaged, at least,
by people explaining it "for dummies") gives rise to a block universe -
modulo the usual caveats about theories vs interpretations, etc.

Given that Edgar engaged the caps lock and started on some nonsense -
looking for quotes in which Newton claimed his undying belief in block
time, or whatever - I wanted to keep things as simple as possible, so even
he would have no (genuine) excuses to misunderstand the argument. I felt
that saying "you don't *have* to use a coordinate system..." was just
giving him more opportunities to get the wrong end of the stick and start
beating about the bush with it.

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Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:54:38 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 14:32, ghi...@gmail.com  wrote:
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>  
>>>
>>>  On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>  
>>> The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for 
>>> consciousness to forget the "higher self", and deludes us (in some sense) 
>>> in having a "little ego" embedded in some history.
>>>
>>>
>>> Sounds like wishful thinking. 
>>>
>>>
>>>  That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, 
>>> (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking.
>>>  
>>>
>>> I agree.  But your choice of words gives the opposite impression.
>>>
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  Why "higher"?  Why not "lower".  
>>>
>>>
>>>  Yes, why not. The standard term is "higher".
>>>  
>>>
>>> Exactly - it is very subjective.
>>>
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD?
>>>  
>>>
>>>  Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point.
>>>  
>>>
>>> My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of 
>>> comp because it implies we really have a "higher self" that we've merely 
>>> forgotten and that we are deluded in having a "little ego".   Just consider 
>>> how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real "lower self" and 
>>> we deluded in thinking our ego is significant.
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>  
>> This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets 
>> built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned 
>> scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in 
>> distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far 
>> too basic.
>>
>>  
>> I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by 
>> considering its negative. 
>>
>>
>> Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't 
>> want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the 
>> hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic.
>> If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific 
>> remark.
>> I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning.
>>
>  
>  
> Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense. If 
> that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style and see if I 
> can avoid such impressions. 
>  
> Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line above. 
> You used the term "higher" self.  So, the suggestion is that you're 
> building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to. 
>
>
>
> OK. My fault. I was alluding to the self of the universal person, 
> described by the arithmetical hypostases. usually I use "higher self" more 
> in the context of the some entheogenic experience. The higher self is, 
> basically, you, when you forget completeley who you are, or when you 
> dissociate completely from yourself, like in OBE, some lucid or non lucid 
> dreams, etc.
>
 
Yeah I see what you're saying and it's debatable whether it really is a 
problem using 'higher'. I just happened to have been thinking about all 
this just as I saw Brent and your discussion here. I had been reading a 
thread between you and some other chap in which these matters came up. 
Actually, I just read David Nyman? post, the last one on a different thread 
where he overviews your theory, which I found very helpful.  

>
>
>
>
> Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree, you 
> should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'. 
>
>
> Yes, the terrestrial self. The one who pays the bills, and answers mails, 
> and collects the shortcut to heaven ...
>
>
>
>
>  
>  
>  
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  
>> Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of 
>> comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of 
>> acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the 
>> stack.  We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the 
>> fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this 
>> sort of social/reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's 
>> purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so.
>>
>>
>> I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not 
>> even clear they are related to anything I could have said.
>> Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see 
>> what is the problem for you.
>>
>  
> Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, 
> read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you 
> in Brent's comment.
>

Re: Block Universes


On 2/4/2014 3:25 PM, LizR wrote:
..

Well, we don't know if /anything/ is really real. I wasn't intending to discuss 
metaphysics on this thread; if you want to do that, maybe you could start another one. All 
I'm arguing is that SR (and to some extent NM) imply a block universe as the simplest 
explanatory framework (via the usual application of Occam), plus throw in a few points 
about the circularity of competing explanations. If that's wrong then I will go out into 
the garden and eat worms, but I don't think that anything you're saying actual conflicts 
with that as far as I can tell. But then I'm not sure what point you're trying to 
make, unless you're just to take apart everything I say in order to make me look and feel 
stupid (which, you know, I can do quite well myself).


My apologies.  That was not my intent at all and you are obviously a very smart person.  
But I think we are talking metaphysics - at least Bruno is.  His theory is pretty 'meta' 
relative to physics.


Brent

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Re: What are wavefunctions?

On 5 February 2014 06:24, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/3/2014 11:49 PM, LizR wrote:
>
> I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the
> information in a universe is proportional to the surface area of the Hubble
> sphere, could it be that the information in the *multiverse* is
> proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?
>
>  (Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than
> that...)
>
>  But presumably only because it can have much bigger Hubble spheres.  For
> a given size Hubble sphere, which is to say for a given epoch after the big
> bang, there are only finitely many different possible Hubble spheres.
>

Yes, I was only thinking of the subsection of the multiverse that includes
Hubble spheres of equal size to ours. Also I was only thinking of the
quantum multiverse, not the various alternatives. Given those constraints,
I wonder if the information content would come out proportional to the
volume? I guess if we assume space-time is quantised, then we can get a
maximum number of bits (maybe one per Planck volume?) - I suppose the
multiverse would then be every possible value that can occupy those
volumes. So say 2^N, where N=number of Planck volumes, which is around
10^180 according to a quick calculation, and assuming I haven't slipped up,
perish the thought. That doesn't seem right, though, because the Hubble
sphere isn't occupied anything like randomly, and presumably most
multiverse branches aren't either. I wonder how one could cut down the
number? Or if one should?

Any further thoughts on this?

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Re: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

No, that's fair enough. I was just checking they weren't implying "spooky
action at a distance".


On 5 February 2014 12:43, Richard Ruquist  wrote:

> You are correct: " But crucially they've done it for the first time over
> the kind of ordinary optical fibre that telecommunications that are in use
> all over the world."
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 6:28 PM, LizR  wrote:
>
>> "Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that
>> describes it."
>>
>> It looks like a photon has to make the journey, or am I misunderstanding?
>> (Or isn't a photon matter?)
>>
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Re: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

2014-02-04 Thread Richard Ruquist

You are correct: " But crucially they've done it for the first time over
the kind of ordinary optical fibre that telecommunications that are in use
all over the world."


On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 6:28 PM, LizR  wrote:

> "Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that
> describes it."
>
> It looks like a photon has to make the journey, or am I misunderstanding?
> (Or isn't a photon matter?)
>
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Re: A humble suggestion to the group

On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 04:23:45PM -0500, John Mikes wrote:
> Russell, thanks for the reply.
> My additional points:
> 
> 1. You do not believe in technical progress (scanning SELECT hardcopy-parts
> would take seconds).

Wrong. It still takes a long time - of the order of minutes per A4
page (5-10KB of data, now we have TBs of data to archive and restore),
even with OCR and ECC technologies, which didn't really exist back in
the 1980s.

> 2. You seem to think of 'storing' everything. Not every page is worth
> 'forever'. Think "errors" - "Obsolescence".

Quite true, but the cost of curating the data (particularly when the
curating gets it wrong) typically outweighs the cost of storing the
data and transferring the data to new digital formats when they arise
by many orders of magnitude.

BTW - I do curate my own data, mainly because too much cruft makes me
inefficient, but I don't dare curate my wife's data. So I have to put
up with the cruft whenever she asks me to find XXX.

> 3. Whatever you 'backup' today may get out-of-technique some time and lost
> again.

Hence the "spinning disk" comment. Nothing else works in the long term.

> 4. (to point 1): audio - (based?) storing may apply some newer AI with
> topical comparison and REPLY - so that
>would contribute to #2 as well.

What do you mean by "audio" storage? Literally, audio is ephemeral. To
store it requires a storage medium, whether they be wax cylinders, or
modern MP3 data files on flash media.

> 5-1000 think about alll the rest what we do not even think of today

We have to think about it today, otherwise it is lost tomorrow.

> 
> John Mikes
> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 03:45:43PM -0500, John Mikes wrote:
> > > Russell wrote Jan 26:
> > >
> > > .*.We must make sure we have backups this time!*.
> > >
> > > How about on paper? E.g. hard copies, like in a millennia-old * L I B R
> > A R
> > > Y ? *
> > > *John Mikes*
> > >
> > >
> >
> > That's funny - I used to use paper backup copies in my early years of
> > computing (think Z80 processor running CP/M with floppy disks), and
> > even, on occasion, having to restore from them. I once loaded an APL
> > interpreter from printed source code, which took a couple of weeks -
> > particular to get it working!
> >
> > Restoring my laptop from a paper backup would now take several
> > centuries, or require a sizable army of typists, even using OCR... not
> > so useful.
> >
> > The only backup/archive that works is "spinning disk" - a backup that
> > is copied to the current used media at all times. I'm in the process
> > now of transferring my CD/DVDRom collection to spinning disk - only
> > just in time I suspect.
> >
> > 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
> >
> > 
> >
> > --
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> 
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Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Real science versus interpretations of science


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:29:59 PM UTC, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 7:13:02 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
>>
>> Ghibbsa,
>>
>> I think of my book and theories more as meta-science or philosophy, 
>>
>  
> I think that's reasonable but...
>  
>
>> but the topics treated are what nearly everyone else considers to be 
>> science.
>>
>  
> Yeah I agree with this. I don't have the skills to feedback on the quality 
> of your theories, but at the structure level which is where I get 
> interested more, I can certainly say I think many of your explanations have 
> good structure and approach that is over and above philosophy. It's not 
> science, but no one would expect to cover the breadth you have and get a 
> science finish. But you know, you've brought it to a good intermediary 
> position. I wouldn't be able to say that about the vast majority of 
> philosophy as in most cases the decisions already embedded as to approach 
> have usually ruled out a science standard in the future.  
>
>>
>> In my view MWI, block universes, wavefunction collapse, etc. none of 
>> these are real science, only interpretations of science.
>>
>  
> Well look...my view at this stage would be that we'd all have to do a lot 
> of work to get our inner visions of science aligned, for statements like 
> yours above to be computable (by me). What I would say is that I wouldn't 
> read this list if I wasn't interested in the people and their ideas. I 
> enjoy 'trying on' ideas even if deep down I know my gut is never going to 
> let me buy into it on a long term basis. 
>  
> If you're up for suggestions, I'd definitely recommend you try that out 
> for yourself. You're obviously very strong minded, so there's little 
> vulnerability there that you'll try on an idea that isn't your theory, or 
> that is a criticism to your theory, and find yourself whirled off into 
> someone else's vision never to see your own again :o) Try itit's 
> fun...and you'll find the knock-on effects interesting in other ways. 
>
>  
>
>> Yes, if we understand reality better it should definitely lead to better 
>> real science, and most certainly to better understanding. Meta-science 
>> helps us to UNDERSTAND real science in human terms.
>>
>  
> What you say is reasonable. Like a lot of people I am in a long term work 
> on a theory, and you probably know yourself that one of the downsides is 
> that there can come a time when your world view is so different that it's 
> almost alien to othersand also that it is isolating because you might 
> not agree with anything anymore, but might not be ready to explain why. I 
> think that's something a lot of people on lists like this know about. One 
> of the things I really like about reading Bruno, for example, is all the 
> crazy talk about worlds and dreams and things being impossible to 
> communicate. I really relate to all that as a position to be in !  
>
>>
>> Your last comments seem to have to do with DOING science, with scientific 
>> method, rather than the actual science that gets done.
>>
>  
> That's a fair comment. Something I personally try to remember in this sort 
> of situation, is that the other person - you - probably defined science 
> with a sort of context, or purpose, in mind. I'm sure you have more to say 
> about the nature of science. It might be a case of you, you used a working 
> definition so that you could make the points you wanted to. 
>  
> FWIW - and this is just my opinion - but I've been in a personal study of 
> the structure of Bruno's theory. It so happens I need to try to do 
> that with minimum knowledge of the details...it's just some method I've 
> been working on. 
>  
> Well anyway - his structure is possibly the best I've ever seen bar 
> Newton. Admittedly I haven't got to most of the theories. But I've studied 
> many structures of many theories. You'd probably get something out of 
> studying his theory. Not because you'd agree...that's irrelevant. But the 
> structure.  
>
>>  
>>
> p.s. great structure doesn't mean being correct, or that I think he is 
correct. I don't know the truth on that one yet, even for me. I've been 
trying communicate an issue I have to him and others, but so far haven't 
managed to get my point over. We're all currently on a rain cheque waiting 
for me to get my act together and try again with their collaboration this 
time. I'm still sort of working out what I want to try. 

>  
>>
> Edgar
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:52:06 AM UTC-5, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:33:42 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:

 All,

 1. In my view real science means only the equations that actually work 
 to predict events and the logical framework in which those equations are 
 meaningfully applied. In a more restrictive sense real science is only the 
 ACTUAL computations that actually compute the actual state of reality. 
 That 
 would m

Re: Real science versus interpretations of science

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 7:13:02 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
>
> Ghibbsa,
>
> I think of my book and theories more as meta-science or philosophy, 
>

I think that's reasonable but...

> but the topics treated are what nearly everyone else considers to be 
> science.
>

Yeah I agree with this. I don't have the skills to feedback on the quality 
of your theories, but at the structure level which is where I get 
interested more, I can certainly say I think many of your explanations have 
good structure and approach that is over and above philosophy. It's not 
science, but no one would expect to cover the breadth you have and get a 
science finish. But you know, you've brought it to a good intermediary 
position. I wouldn't be able to say that about the vast majority of 
philosophy as in most cases the decisions already embedded as to approach 
have usually ruled out a science standard in the future.  

>
> In my view MWI, block universes, wavefunction collapse, etc. none of these 
> are real science, only interpretations of science.
>

Well look...my view at this stage would be that we'd all have to do a lot 
of work to get our inner visions of science aligned, for statements like 
yours above to be computable (by me). What I would say is that I wouldn't 
read this list if I wasn't interested in the people and their ideas. I 
enjoy 'trying on' ideas even if deep down I know my gut is never going to 
let me buy into it on a long term basis. 

If you're up for suggestions, I'd definitely recommend you try that out for 
yourself. You're obviously very strong minded, so there's little 
vulnerability there that you'll try on an idea that isn't your theory, or 
that is a criticism to your theory, and find yourself whirled off into 
someone else's vision never to see your own again :o) Try itit's 
fun...and you'll find the knock-on effects interesting in other ways. 

> Yes, if we understand reality better it should definitely lead to better 
> real science, and most certainly to better understanding. Meta-science 
> helps us to UNDERSTAND real science in human terms.
>

What you say is reasonable. Like a lot of people I am in a long term work 
on a theory, and you probably know yourself that one of the downsides is 
that there can come a time when your world view is so different that it's 
almost alien to othersand also that it is isolating because you might 
not agree with anything anymore, but might not be ready to explain why. I 
think that's something a lot of people on lists like this know about. One 
of the things I really like about reading Bruno, for example, is all the 
crazy talk about worlds and dreams and things being impossible to 
communicate. I really relate to all that as a position to be in !  

>
> Your last comments seem to have to do with DOING science, with scientific 
> method, rather than the actual science that gets done.
>

That's a fair comment. Something I personally try to remember in this sort 
of situation, is that the other person - you - probably defined science 
with a sort of context, or purpose, in mind. I'm sure you have more to say 
about the nature of science. It might be a case of you, you used a working 
definition so that you could make the points you wanted to. 

FWIW - and this is just my opinion - but I've been in a personal study of 
the structure of Bruno's theory. It so happens I need to try to do 
that with minimum knowledge of the details...it's just some method I've 
been working on. 

Well anyway - his structure is possibly the best I've ever seen bar 
Newton. Admittedly I haven't got to most of the theories. But I've studied 
many structures of many theories. You'd probably get something out of 
studying his theory. Not because you'd agree...that's irrelevant. But the 
structure.  

>
> Edgar
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:52:06 AM UTC-5, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:33:42 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
>>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>> 1. In my view real science means only the equations that actually work 
>>> to predict events and the logical framework in which those equations are 
>>> meaningfully applied. In a more restrictive sense real science is only the 
>>> ACTUAL computations that actually compute the actual state of reality. That 
>>> would mean that most of the equations of science which apply at the 
>>> aggregate level are just descriptions rather than actual reality 
>>> computations which I would claim occur only at the most elemental level. 
>>> Thus e.g. the laws of motion and the behavior of gases are accurate 
>>> DESCRIPTIONS of emergent behavior but are not actually involved in 
>>> computing that behavior. The real computations are programs at the 
>>> elemental level, and are those that compute the conservation of particle 
>>> properties in particle interactions, and the bonding of matter, etc. So one 
>>> can make a case that it is only these equations or programs that constitute 
>>> rea

Re: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

"Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that
describes it."

It looks like a photon has to make the journey, or am I misunderstanding?
(Or isn't a photon matter?)

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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 12:07, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 2:35 PM, LizR wrote:
>
> You said we don't need a coordinate system at all, we can just use
> 4-momenta and 4-intervals - so using those doesn't imply or define a 4D
> coordinate system?
>
> Sure they imply that a 4D coordinate system is possible, in fact many
> different ones.  This is just like map surveyors who measure a lot of
> distance and angles between points can infer that they're on a spheroid and
> hence can introduce a consistent coordinate system.  But the distances and
> angles are more fundamental, i.e. operational, than the coordinate system
> which has a lot of arbitrariness in it. But we don't say we know we live on
> a spheroid because of the relativity of latitude.
>

Well if you want to be picky we don't know that either, we only have those
blooming buzzing sense impressions from which we assume the assume
surveyors extracted their assumed conclusions. I was just operating at a
particular level of description, which let's face it is fairly common when
trying to explain something. ("Today we will be discussing philosophy, but
first we need to discuss what we mean be "we", "discuss", "philosophy" and
"today"...amongst other things.")

>
> The point only makes a difference when people are asking things like does
> SR mean that the block universe is really real.  I think even the phrase
> "relativity of simultaneity" is kind of misleading.  It seems to imply that
> distant events are simultaneous with local ones relative to some frame.
> But in general it's only that given two spacelike events there exists a
> frame in which they are simultaneous.  If you add a third event then there
> may not be any frame that will make the three simultaneous.  So I'd rather
> say there is no such thing as simultaneity for distant events.
>

Well, we don't know if *anything* is really real. I wasn't intending to
discuss metaphysics on this thread; if you want to do that, maybe you could
start another one. All I'm arguing is that SR (and to some extent NM) imply
a block universe as the simplest explanatory framework (via the usual
application of Occam), plus throw in a few points about the circularity of
competing explanations. If that's wrong then I will go out into the garden
and eat worms, but I don't think that anything you're saying actual
conflicts with that as far as I can tell. But then I'm not sure what
point you're trying to make, unless you're just to take apart everything I
say in order to make me look and feel stupid (which, you know, I can do
quite well myself).

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:06:32 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:
>
> On 5 February 2014 06:36, meekerdb >wrote:
>
>>  On 2/4/2014 12:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>  
>>  But I don't believe that.  I think that consciousness is a necessary 
>> aspect of intelligence, 
>>
>>  OK.
>> and that is functionally observable.  
>>
>>   It is not. Leibniz already understood this. You evacuate the mind-body 
>> problem. No 3p observation can detect consciousness. It is pure 1p. We can 
>> detect evidences that some entities behave as if they were conscious, but 
>> materialists would not been tempted to eliminate it if it was observable.
>>
>> "That" refers to intelligence.  Which I think is observable.  I think my 
>> dogs are conscious because of their intelligent behavior.
>>
>> Well, intelligent behaviour is observable, certainly, but if one is going 
> to draw fine distinctions (coordinate systems not appearing in special 
> relativity, for example) then I think you have to make the cut here and say 
> that behaviour doesn't prove consciousness. Your dogs *could* be 
> p-zombies, or Deep Blue *could* be conscious...
>

They could in theory, but not necessarily in fact. In reality there may be 
no way that your dog could not be authentically conscious or Deep Blue 
could be. We may have intuitive capacities which are often correct, or some 
people may have a better sense of that than others. The idea that your dog 
could be a p-zombie or Deep Blue could be conscious may itself be nothing 
but sophism. It is the logical mind shutting down common sense to erect a 
fictional possibility. 

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:00:02 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 23:44, Bruno Marchal >wrote:
>
>> On 04 Feb 2014, at 01:19, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>> It's because you're stuck on the idea that consciousness is something 
>>
>> extra and optional. If you could see that it was logically entailed by 
>>> certain physical phenomena or computations you wouldn't have a 
>>> problem. It would be like agonising over why an object in which every 
>>> point on its perimeter is equidistant from the centre has the quality 
>>> of roundness rather than squareness or nothingness; and how it could 
>>> be that roundness has no separate causal efficacy over and above what 
>>> can be explained in terms of the physicality of the object possessing 
>>> this property. 
>>>
>>
>> What computation or physical phenomena could logically entail anything 
>> other than computation or physical phenomena though? Why does a computation 
>> logically begin to itch or turn orange, if the potential to itch or turn 
>> orange did not already exist?
>>
>> Why would the potential to itch or turn orange not exist in arithmetic, 
>> when you do not start assuming sense, and non comp?
>>
>
Because they have nothing to do with arithmetic. Assuming sense is what 
broadens the scope of to include non-arithmetic aesthetic qualities.
 

>
>> Such potential has to exist in any ontology, for it to be taken 
> seriously. Atoms and the void for example, would have to explain this.
>

Exactly. They would, but they can't.

Craig 

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Re: The Big Bang Never Happened - Eric Lerner

On 5 February 2014 03:29,  wrote:

> I love that Lerner guy. It looks like he really cares. He thinks
> science is bombing,  and he's doing his duty as he sees it, to try to save
> it. He's clearly insane...but could he be expected to know that.
>
> Not unless he really is a "learner" ...

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Re: Block Universes

On 2/4/2014 2:35 PM, LizR wrote:
You said we don't need a coordinate system at all, we can just use 4-momenta and
4-intervals - so using those doesn't imply or define a 4D coordinate system?

Sure they imply that a 4D coordinate system is possible, in fact many different ones. This
is just like map surveyors who measure a lot of distance and angles between points can
infer that they're on a spheroid and hence can introduce a consistent coordinate system.
But the distances and angles are more fundamental, i.e. operational, than the coordinate
system which has a lot of arbitrariness in it. But we don't say we know we live on a
spheroid because of the relativity of latitude.

The point only makes a difference when people are asking things like does SR mean that the
block universe is really real. I think even the phrase "relativity of simultaneity" is
kind of misleading. It seems to imply that distant events are simultaneous with local
ones relative to some frame. But in general it's only that given two spacelike events
there exists a frame in which they are simultaneous. If you add a third event then there
may not be any frame that will make the three simultaneous. So I'd rather say there is no
such thing as simultaneity for distant events.

Brent

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 5 February 2014 06:36, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 12:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>  But I don't believe that.  I think that consciousness is a necessary
> aspect of intelligence,
>
>  OK.
> and that is functionally observable.
>
>   It is not. Leibniz already understood this. You evacuate the mind-body
> problem. No 3p observation can detect consciousness. It is pure 1p. We can
> detect evidences that some entities behave as if they were conscious, but
> materialists would not been tempted to eliminate it if it was observable.
>
> "That" refers to intelligence.  Which I think is observable.  I think my
> dogs are conscious because of their intelligent behavior.
>
> Well, intelligent behaviour is observable, certainly, but if one is going
to draw fine distinctions (coordinate systems not appearing in special
relativity, for example) then I think you have to make the cut here and say
that behaviour doesn't prove consciousness. Your dogs *could* be p-zombies,
or Deep Blue *could* be conscious...

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 4 February 2014 23:53, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 04 Feb 2014, at 01:25, LizR wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
>> On Monday, February 3, 2014 4:25:14 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote:
>>
>>> It's because you're stuck on the idea that consciousness is something
>>> extra and optional. If you could see that it was logically entailed by
>>> certain physical phenomena or computations you wouldn't have a
>>> problem.
>>>
>>
>> What computation or physical phenomena could logically entail anything
>> other than computation or physical phenomena though? Why does a computation
>> logically begin to itch or turn orange, if the potential to itch or turn
>> orange did not already exist?
>>
>> Maybe consciousness *is* a computation,
>
> That would be nonsense. Computation is 3p, and consciousness is 1p, and no
> 1p thing can be a 3p thing.
>
> or the result of one (or many).
>
> OK.  The "result" term is used  in some non formal sense (consciousness is
> not the output of a computation).
>
> With comp, all we can say is that a computation can support, relatively,
> the consciousness of some person.
>
> Of course, we can abuse language to be shorter, in some context, but on
> this delicate point, it is useful to take distance with any literal
> interpretation of those shorter description, or we introduce big
> difficulties.
>
> OK, that's a fair comment. I get a lot of people stomping on my delicate
points without due regard for the consequences (obfuscation, generally).

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 4 February 2014 23:44, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 04 Feb 2014, at 01:19, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> It's because you're stuck on the idea that consciousness is something
>
> extra and optional. If you could see that it was logically entailed by
>> certain physical phenomena or computations you wouldn't have a
>> problem. It would be like agonising over why an object in which every
>> point on its perimeter is equidistant from the centre has the quality
>> of roundness rather than squareness or nothingness; and how it could
>> be that roundness has no separate causal efficacy over and above what
>> can be explained in terms of the physicality of the object possessing
>> this property.
>>
>
> What computation or physical phenomena could logically entail anything
> other than computation or physical phenomena though? Why does a computation
> logically begin to itch or turn orange, if the potential to itch or turn
> orange did not already exist?
>
> Why would the potential to itch or turn orange not exist in arithmetic,
> when you do not start assuming sense, and non comp?
>
> Such potential has to exist in any ontology, for it to be taken seriously.
Atoms and the void for example, would have to explain this.

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Re: UDA and AUDA are the same thesis?

On 5 February 2014 00:36, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 04 Feb 2014, at 06:49, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 08:40:59AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Then explain why you don't read the UDA, or why you don't read AUDA,
>>> which is the same thesis, but no more using thought experiences.
>>> AUDA was for the mathematicians who told me that they are not
>>> interested in cognitive science or philosophy of mind, where such
>>> thought experience is common.
>>>
>>>
>> If UDA and AUDA are equivalent in some sense, how do you get the FPI
>> conclusion from AUDA?
>>
>
> In AUDA we get only the case of the "probability one", by Bp & Dt, on p
> sigma_1.
>
> Why?
>
> Well that is what I am explaining, but I need Liz solving some puzzles
> before :)
>

Oh I see, it's all my fault...?!

Yes, I know, I have teenage children. tell me about it. I am always
at fault, and sometimes (apparently) one step short of being the devil
incarnate (that one step being that I don't wear Prada, perhaps  :-)

Oh wellwhat were those puzzles again? I think you maybe gave me too
much and I fizzled half way through, and then before I could have a second
attempt I lost the thread - it's very easy to lose threads on this forum,
with new stuff being added all the time.

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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 10:58, Jesse Mazer  wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 4:39 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  On 2/4/2014 1:11 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR  wrote:
>>
>>>  There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined
>>> by future boundary conditions.
>>>
>>
>>  You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by
>> future boundary conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that
>> neither past nor future boundary conditions are sufficient on their own,
>> that you need a combination of both. That just isn't how it works in
>> quantum theory,
>>
>>
>> Some people think it is.  When the past boundary condition doesn't
>> predict a definite future condition, then adding a future boundary
>> condition can resolve it.  That's how Stenger effectively gets a non-local
>> effect in an EPR experiment.
>>
>
> If we ignore the idea of a "collapse" of the quantum state on measurement,
> isn't the evolution of the wave function deterministic, so that knowing the
> complete past quantum state of an isolated system is always enough to
> calculate the later quantum state? Is Stenger basically arguing that the
> "collapse" on measurement is not really random but is determined by a
> combination of past and future boundary conditions?
>
> I imagine he's saying the measurement constitutes a boundary condition.

We assume no collapse, I think. Collapse IS time asymmetric, so the time
symmetry argument goes out the window if wavefunctions can be shown to
collapse. The MWI, however, should be time symmetric at the same level that
physics is (recombining universes as often as they split). But there is a
huge entropy gradient at the coarse grained level so a huge asymmetry of
split-vs-merge at that level.

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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 10:39, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 1:11 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:
>
>  On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR  wrote:
>
>>  There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by
>> future boundary conditions.
>>
>
>  You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by
> future boundary conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that
> neither past nor future boundary conditions are sufficient on their own,
> that you need a combination of both. That just isn't how it works in
> quantum theory,
>
>  Some people think it is.  When the past boundary condition doesn't
> predict a definite future condition, then adding a future boundary
> condition can resolve it.  That's how Stenger effectively gets a non-local
> effect in an EPR experiment.
>
> The point is that if there are both past AND future boundary conditions on
a quantum entity like a photon, its state in between has to reflect them
both. One isn't favoured over the other (assuming time symmetric physics,
of course).

This explains delayed-choice experiments, by the way, as well as EPR
correlations.

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Re: Block Universes

On 5 February 2014 10:05, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 1/31/2014 11:05 PM, LizR wrote:
>
> There seems to be a bit of confusion about this idea. Some people on the
> list seem to abhor the idea of a block universe, but when they attack the
> concept, they invariably go for straw men, making statements like "change
> can't happen in a block universe" (which are obviously nonsense, or
> Einstein et al would hardly have entertained the idea in the first place).
>
>  So, I'd like to maybe clarify what the idea means, and give them a
> proper target if they still want to demolish it.
>
>  A block universe is simply one in which time is treated as a dimension.
> So Newtonian physics, for example, specified a block universe, in which it
> was believed (e.g. by Laplace) that in principle the past and future could
> be computed from the state of the present. The Victorians made much of time
> being the fourth dimension, probably most famously in Wells' "The Time
> Machine". This was the Newtonian concept of a block universe, and was
> generally treated quite fatalistically (Wells didn't indicate that history
> could be changed, for example).
>
>  Then special relativity came along and unified space and time into
> space-time. The reason SR gives rise to a block universe is the relativity
> of simultaneity. You can slice up space-time in various ways which allow
> two observers to see the same events occurring in a different order. Hence
> there is no way to define a "hyperplane of simultaneity" that can be agreed
> upon by all observers as being a present moment. This indicates that
> space-time is a four-dimensional arena in which events are embedded.
> Indeed, I have never heard of an alternative explanation of the relativity
> of simultaneity that gets around this result - if it's correct, space-time
> is a block universe, that is to say, time is "just" another dimension.
>
>
> I think you are reading too much into special relativity.  What makes SR
> different is that only spacetime interval is meaningful, whereas for Newton
> both duration and distance were separately invariant.  Sometimes you can
> work problems just in terms of the 4-intervals and 4-momenta and not
> introduce any coordinate system.  The coordinates (t,x,y,z) that give a
> block-time picture are in principle dispensable (and they can even be
> misleading when t is identified as "the real time").  It's like giving
> locations on Earth latitude and longitude coordinates instead of citing a
> string of transit measurements and triangulations to give the relative
> location of two things.  The latter is too messy to calculate with.  But
> notice, that is exactly what GPS does.  It locates every GPS receiver in
> spacetime in terms of 4-space triangulation relative to known orbital
> events.  Then the receiver converts that to lat and long for our
> convenience.
>
> So I would say that treating time as a dimension is a good way of looking
> at things, but it's not *forced* on us by SR.
>

Well obviously nothing's *forced* on us by SR - apparently it can even be
made compatible with absolute time, at least for some people!

So . you're saying that looking at space-time as dimensional isn't
forced on us by SR, correct? (I assume, given that SR unifies space and
time, you aren't just separating out time, but saying this is true of
space-time, yes?)

Well, of course this is suggested by some TOEs (like comp). But that would
be an unnecessary complication in this discussion, imho.

Still, from a "Machean" viewpoint this may be true, and Einstein was keen
on Mach's ideas. Or at least Mach would say you don't *need* any
*particular* coordinate system to do calculations in SR - the coordinate
system you use for a given calculation is relative to the system you're
using, making it arbitrary in terms of the rest of the universe. But you
are apparently making a stronger claim.

You said we don't need a coordinate system at all, we can just use
4-momenta and 4-intervals - so using those doesn't imply or define a 4D
coordinate system? So what do they imply? Do they (hehe) just operate in a
vacuum? Is this some sort of (I think it was Julian Barbour) -ish vision of
geometry swimming around unsupported by any external framework? Maybe you
could be more precise, I'm afraid my knowledge of SR is limited to things
like the website I linked to, which tend to use space-time, light cones,
worldlines etc as part of the furniture.

But anyway, I don't see the connection with block universes. The argument
from SR to a block universe involves the relativity of simultaneity, so
unless you are saying *that *isn't a consequence of SR, I'm not sure what
the relevance of all this is.

(Well, unless it's just to give fuel to people who will twist what you're
saying around to say there's *no *implication of a 4D manifold in SR, of
course. Are you just troll-baiting?)

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Re: Unput and Onput



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 4:37:11 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 20:20, Craig Weinberg 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:56:05 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>>
>>> On 4 February 2014 18:04, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>>

 On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:

> On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:
>
> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on 
>> something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept 
>> Bruno's 
>> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to 
>> the 
>> doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power 
>> - a 
>> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string 
>> theory.
>
>
> But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and 
> then showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, 
> or 
> Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they 
> succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's 
> argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of 
> a 
> digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, 
> but 
> it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion 
> that 
> any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting 
> the 
> premise. 
>

 Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for 
 experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of 
 simulating experience itself.
  
>>>
>>> But that is not what is proposed, indeed it would be a contradiction in 
>>> terms. 
>>>
>>
>> Proposed by whom? Why would it be a contradiction? It is the beginning 
>> assumption, so there is nothing to contradict.
>>
>
> What's not to understand?
>

Why you would be saying that what I propose (that experience itself is 
specifically unprecedented, unrepeatable, and not subject to emulation) is 
not "what is proposed".
 

> 1) Proposed by you in the sentence immediately above my comment. 2) The 
> "simulation" of experience would be a contradiction in terms.
>

My premise is that it is not just a contradiction in terms, but an 
ontological contradiction. The idea of simulation as having anything to do 
with consciousness, or the possibility of simulating consciousness based on 
the universality of computation (which is by definition repeatable and 
generic) doesn't work in the actual universe.

 
>>
>>> Experience is the only indubitable reality; to talk of "simulating" it 
>>> is equivalent to eliminating that reality (as in "it's all an illusion") 
>>> and is just incoherent. Experience either is or it isn't and this is 
>>> determinable only in the first-person. But it is not experience that is 
>>> substituted, it is the device that allows that experience to manifest 
>>> locally in terms of a particular actuality. 
>>>
>>
>> You are assuming that the device is outside of experience. I am saying 
>> that the device is already (nothing but) an experiential phenomenon to 
>> begin with. There is no possibility of 'either experience is or it isn't' - 
>> there can be no 'it isn't', not even hypothetically in an imaginary 
>> universe.
>>
>
> I am assuming nothing of the sort. According to comp the device is a 
> manifestation in experience, as I said already below, but very far from an 
> arbitrary one. And my remark that experience is or isn't was simply an 
> amplification of my point that experience can't be simulated. Is or isn't 
> are the logical alternatives and we agree that the a posteriori facts 
> determine that it is. And in any case I was commenting your statement that 
> you reject comp at the outset because "Since there is no substitute for 
> experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of 
> simulating experience itself.". I'm trying to illustrate that this is not 
> what comp entails and this involves following the comp argument in its own 
> terms, not substituting an alternative theory in the middle.
>

If you are waiting for me to follow comp in its own terms then you will be 
waiting a long time. You don't seem to be getting it that I don't care 
about Comp at all, except to show why we cannot entertain it seriously 
without inverting the true relation of information and awareness.
 

>
>  
>>
>>> Remember that the proposition is that experience is *invariant* for a 
>>> digital substitution. 
>>>
>>
>> Digits can't have an experience. Nothing that digits do can cause an 
>> experience. Given an experience, digital analogs can of course be used to 
>> change that experience, but by themselves, they cannot 'do' anything or 
>> even 'be' digits.
>>
>
> Nobody is claiming that digits can have or cause an experience; that would 
> be absurd. 
>

RE: A humble suggestion to the group

2014-02-04 Thread Hal Ruhl

Hi Russell and everyone

Interesting that the first time I look at the list for a very long time I
find something I like.

My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be something
in there that could help a wiki construction.

As I recall I once a very long time ago started a FAQ for the list but the
project died.

Hal Ruhl

-Original Message-
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 5:38 PM
To: Everything List
Subject: Re: A humble suggestion to the group

That is a pity, given I wrote quite a few of those pages. I don't have the
time now to repeat the effort :(. But I'll chime on of other people's
efforts.

We must make sure we have backups this time!

PS - checked the Wayback machine, and it did only one archive of the wiki
back in 21st of July last year - alas it got an Error 403 :(

https://web.archive.org/web/20130721124015/http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx

Cheers


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Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 17:07, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 10:51:02 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
>> On 4 February 2014 14:52, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:19:51 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>>>
 On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

 Because silicon happens to have been disallowed for biological
> experience. Silicon and carbon are symbols and signs of the footprint of
> experiences, not the causes of them. I suggest that we stop thinking in
> terms of forms in space or functions in time and start thinking in terms 
> of
> that which appreciates form and participates in function.


 Far be it from me to spoil the fun, but you could save yourself a lot
 of typing if you simply stated at the outset that you don't accept the
 premise that your consciousness would be invariant for a digital
 substitution of your brain.

>>>
>>> Why do you assume that I haven't? If you notice, I repeatedly say that
>>> it is not the logic of Comp that I reject, it is it's beginning assumptions.
>>>
>>
>> Fine, but then if you genuinely seek to criticise it in its own terms, as
>> you appear to do constantly,
>>
>
> I seek to criticize it in terms of what is honest and real. Part of that
> is to assert that in order to do that, we cannot be seduced into judging
> Comp on its own terms, just as we cannot find out about who is playing a
> game by looking only at the game being played.
>

To be honest with you this strikes me as very odd - even perverse. At the
very least it's an impediment to mutually-useful discussion. "Seduced" is a
very paranoid word to use in this context, especially as nobody has ever
suggested that comp is the only game and that no others should be
considered.

then the usual rules of engagement are that you cannot in all reason
>> subsequently quarrel with the stated assumptions unless they lead to a
>> contradiction *in their own terms*. That is what Bruno asks for in a public
>> discussion and it is a very different enterprise than substituting a
>> completely different set of assumptions somewhere in the middle of the
>> argument.
>>
>
> I have never had a criticism over Bruno's argument, only his beginning
> assumptions. If Comp were possible, I have no problem with his treatment of
> it - but what I have been saying from the start is that Comp is impossible
> and it can be understood to be impossible if you question the nature of
> arithmetic itself. It's you who have assumed, erroneously, that my argument
> began in the last couple of weeks that you have been discussing it. We have
> been at this for several years now. You are in the middle of the argument,
> not me.
>

The precise metaphysical status of arithmetic (which personally I regard as
otiose in comparison to investigating what might be derived from its
consequences) is an inference from the assumption of the invariance of
consciousness to digital substitution. I've read much of the debate between
you and Bruno over the years. I haven't typically intervened because I
didn't see a useful opportunity. However something you said recently
prompted a question on the specific subject of the correlation between the
public and private aspects of experience in your theory. And here we are.


>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
  That is, in effect, the practical encapsulation of the rest of Bruno's
 argument, as he himself frequently reiterates. Silicon or carbon then have
 nothing to do with the matter (no play on words intended) as computation is
 a purely relational concept that is by definition invariant for any
 physical instantiation. What is remarkable about Bruno's argument is that
 he succeeds (in my view at least) in showing that for "physical
 instantiation" to make any sense it too must be derived from computation.

>>>
>>> I agree with Bruno's position on physics (although computation could be
>>> derived from physics in the same way)
>>>
>>
>> Well, it's a key goal of the UDA to show, on the starting assumptions,
>> that this leads to a contradiction and hence is false. At what point to you
>> disagree?
>>
>
> At the point where numbers are assumed to be independent entities. Numbers
> can be derived from sensible physics as easily as physics can be derived
> from sensible numbers. All that matters is where you plant the flag of
> sense. Embodied computation shows how geometric forms can emulate
> arithmetic functions.
>

 but I suggest for "computation" to make any sense it must be derived from
>>> aesthetic acquaintance, aka, sensory-motive participation.
>>>
>>
>> Not if you would be willing to accept a digital substitute for your
>> brain. If not, none of Bruno's arguments follow anyway.
>>
>
> Right. That's my position. None of Bruno's arguments follow because they
> are based on the assumption substitution, when I am saying that sense is by
> definition that-which-can-never-be-subst

Re: Block Universes

On 2/4/2014 1:58 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 4:39 PM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 2/4/2014 1:11 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>>
wrote:

There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by
future
boundary conditions.

You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by future
boundary
conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that neither past
nor future
boundary conditions are sufficient on their own, that you need a
combination of
both. That just isn't how it works in quantum theory,

Some people think it is. When the past boundary condition doesn't predict a
definite future condition, then adding a future boundary condition can
resolve it.
That's how Stenger effectively gets a non-local effect in an EPR experiment.

If we ignore the idea of a "collapse" of the quantum state on measurement, isn't the
evolution of the wave function deterministic, so that knowing the complete past quantum
state of an isolated system is always enough to calculate the later quantum state? Is
Stenger basically arguing that the "collapse" on measurement is not really random but is
determined by a combination of past and future boundary conditions?

It's still really random (or really FPI) but information as to which way the polarizer is
oriented is communicated from one detector to the other via the zig-zag back to the
emitter and forward to the other dectector. So yes, the polarizer orientations are future
boundary conditions. At least that's the way I think it's supposed to work.

Brent

Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 4:39 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 1:11 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR  wrote:
>
>>  There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by
>> future boundary conditions.
>>
>
>  You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by
> future boundary conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that
> neither past nor future boundary conditions are sufficient on their own,
> that you need a combination of both. That just isn't how it works in
> quantum theory,
>
>
> Some people think it is.  When the past boundary condition doesn't predict
> a definite future condition, then adding a future boundary condition can
> resolve it.  That's how Stenger effectively gets a non-local effect in an
> EPR experiment.
>

If we ignore the idea of a "collapse" of the quantum state on measurement,
isn't the evolution of the wave function deterministic, so that knowing the
complete past quantum state of an isolated system is always enough to
calculate the later quantum state? Is Stenger basically arguing that the
"collapse" on measurement is not really random but is determined by a
combination of past and future boundary conditions?

Jesse

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Re: Block Universes


On 2/4/2014 1:11 PM, Jesse Mazer wrote:



On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>> wrote:

There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by 
future
boundary conditions.


You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by future boundary 
conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that neither past nor future 
boundary conditions are sufficient on their own, that you need a combination of both. 
That just isn't how it works in quantum theory,


Some people think it is.  When the past boundary condition doesn't predict a definite 
future condition, then adding a future boundary condition can resolve it.  That's how 
Stenger effectively gets a non-local effect in an EPR experiment.


Brent

so you'd need some fundamentally different theory, unlike the ones physicists know, for 
that to be true. Such a thing is certainly logically possible, but you can't really 
point to the time symmetry of existing theories as evidence that it's the "easiest" of 
ways to explain away Bell's results.



A photon has a very limited memory and doesn't partake in thermodynamics on 
its own.


I don't know what you mean by "memory", or how thermodynamics is relevant. Technically 
you should be able to apply thermodynamics to any system which can have multiple states, 
including a single particle in a box, just by making some choice about how to 
coarse-grain all the "microstates" into a set of "macrostates".



The onus is to show why it wouldn't be influenced equally by past and future
boundary conditions if time is fundamentally symmetric


You can say it's influenced equally, in the sense that complete knowledge of either one 
can be used to determine the quantum state of a system. But again, that's fundamentally 
different from saying neither set of boundary conditions alone is sufficient, that you 
need to take into account both at once.


Jesse





On 5 February 2014 09:54, Jesse Mazer mailto:laserma...@gmail.com>> wrote:



On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:35 PM, LizR mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On 4 February 2014 23:25, Bruno Marchal mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:


On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:29, LizR wrote:


On 4 February 2014 12:23, Jesse Mazer mailto:laserma...@gmail.com>> wrote:

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM, mailto:ghib...@gmail.com>> wrote:

But more generically speaking, would this inference for
blocktime sit at the edge of relativity or at its core. 
What I
mean is, beyond that it is an implication of 
relativity, have
there been or are there any prospects for developing 
blocktime
as it arises from relativity to such point, predictions 
get
made? Or any other kind of reinforcement? Or does 
blocktime go
on to imply something beyond blocktime?


If "block time" is taken as a definite ontological 
statement about
all times "existing" in exactly the same sense, rather than 
just
referring to the idea of treating time as a dimension 
conceptually
or in our mathematical models, then I think it's a 
metaphysical
postulate that goes beyond anything directly implied by 
relativity.
Relativity says that all frames, with their different 
definitions
of simultaneity, are on equal footing as far as the laws of 
physics
are concerned, but it doesn't deal with ontology. If someone
proposes that one frame's definition of simultaneity is
"metaphysically preferred" in the sense it defines the "true
present", but adds the caveat that this frame is not in any 
way
physically preferred so that no conceivable experiment could
determine which frame it is, this wouldn't contradict the 
physics.
It would be an "interpretation" of SR, similar to the 
different
"interpretations" of QM which postulate different things 
about
ontology (the real existence of other worlds in the MWI, or 
a
single world with hidden variables in Bohmian mechanics, for
example) but are indistinguishable experimentally.


SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of 
simultaneity.
This can be tested experimentally.


That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or 
even a
criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between 
different
metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume 
that
there is no metaphysically preferred de

Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 20:20, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:56:05 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
>> On 4 February 2014 18:04, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>>>
 On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:

 I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on
> something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's
> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the
> doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - 
> a
> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.

 But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and
 then showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, or
 Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they
 succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's
 argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of a
 digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, but
 it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion that
 any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting the
 premise.

>>>
>>> Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for
>>> experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of
>>> simulating experience itself.
>>>
>>
>> But that is not what is proposed, indeed it would be a contradiction in
>> terms.
>>
>
> Proposed by whom? Why would it be a contradiction? It is the beginning
> assumption, so there is nothing to contradict.
>

What's not to understand? 1) Proposed by you in the sentence immediately
above my comment. 2) The "simulation" of experience would be a
contradiction in terms.

>
>
>> Experience is the only indubitable reality; to talk of "simulating" it is
>> equivalent to eliminating that reality (as in "it's all an illusion") and
>> is just incoherent. Experience either is or it isn't and this is
>> determinable only in the first-person. But it is not experience that is
>> substituted, it is the device that allows that experience to manifest
>> locally in terms of a particular actuality.
>>
>
> You are assuming that the device is outside of experience. I am saying
> that the device is already (nothing but) an experiential phenomenon to
> begin with. There is no possibility of 'either experience is or it isn't' -
> there can be no 'it isn't', not even hypothetically in an imaginary
> universe.
>

I am assuming nothing of the sort. According to comp the device is a
manifestation in experience, as I said already below, but very far from an
arbitrary one. And my remark that experience is or isn't was simply an
amplification of my point that experience can't be simulated. Is or isn't
are the logical alternatives and we agree that the a posteriori facts
determine that it is. And in any case I was commenting your statement that
you reject comp at the outset because "Since there is no substitute for
experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of
simulating experience itself.". I'm trying to illustrate that this is not
what comp entails and this involves following the comp argument in its own
terms, not substituting an alternative theory in the middle.

>
>> Remember that the proposition is that experience is *invariant* for a
>> digital substitution.
>>
>
> Digits can't have an experience. Nothing that digits do can cause an
> experience. Given an experience, digital analogs can of course be used to
> change that experience, but by themselves, they cannot 'do' anything or
> even 'be' digits.
>

Nobody is claiming that digits can have or cause an experience; that would
be absurd. The claim is that persons have experience. Comp is an argument
that the integers, with the relations of addition and multiplication, (or
any equivalent Turing-complete system) provide an ontology powerful enough
to furnish a derivation of persons for whom a truth-domain exists, in terms
of which incontrovertible personal actualities are directly accessible.
According to comp, therefore, that truth-domain and those actualities *are*
the experiences that both you and I find so uniquely indubitable. Not
digits. This is a surprising claim but it is based on a coherent argument
which (when understood rather than turned into gibberish) can be criticised
and potentially falsified. But it is in no sense, as you seem to believe on
the basis, apparently, of nothing but your gut instinct, a priori
impossible.

>
>> The UDA is a step-wise argument for the view that this makes sense only
>> if physics itself is the result of a statistical filtration (the FPI) over
>> the entire computational domain. Hence that local "device" is also a
>> statistical-derived appearance stabilised by this filtration.

Re: A humble suggestion to the group

2014-02-04 Thread John Mikes

Dear Hal
(long time no exchange...)
don't even try to transplant progressive ideas onto our embryonic binary
kraxlwerk we are so proud of.
I have a discussion about 'computing' in the sense how (Latin) "cum" and
"putare" may come together,
of which - of course - calculating (math, arithmetix, etc.) may be part of
- not the entire territory. (AI+++?)
"Reading out the unexpressed from 'between the lines' is also part of it.
What else? ask me 500 years hence.
Who was thinking in 'genetic' terms before Mende? in Cosmology before Nic
de Cusa (Copernicus)?

Have a good time

John Mikes


On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Hal Ruhl  wrote:

>
> On Monday, February 3, 2014 3:58:07 PM UTC-5, Russell Standish wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 08:09:00AM -0800, Hal Ruhl wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi Russell and everyone
>> >
>> >
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be
>> something
>> > in there that could help a wiki construction.
>>
>> Backup of the wiki or an email archive? Email archives exist, of
>> course, particularly through googlegroups, but seem to be difficult to
>> search, for some reason.
>>
>>
>  Hi Russell
> It is just email posts.  It may not be of use but I can try searching it
> if someone has a search criteria.
>
> Hal Ruhl
>
>>
>
>
>
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Re: A humble suggestion to the group

2014-02-04 Thread John Mikes

Russell, thanks for the reply.
My additional points:

1. You do not believe in technical progress (scanning SELECT hardcopy-parts
would take seconds).
2. You seem to think of 'storing' everything. Not every page is worth
'forever'. Think "errors" - "Obsolescence".
3. Whatever you 'backup' today may get out-of-technique some time and lost
again.
4. (to point 1): audio - (based?) storing may apply some newer AI with
topical comparison and REPLY - so that
   would contribute to #2 as well.
5-1000 think about alll the rest what we do not even think of today

John Mikes


On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 03:45:43PM -0500, John Mikes wrote:
> > Russell wrote Jan 26:
> >
> > .*.We must make sure we have backups this time!*.
> >
> > How about on paper? E.g. hard copies, like in a millennia-old * L I B R
> A R
> > Y ? *
> > *John Mikes*
> >
> >
>
> That's funny - I used to use paper backup copies in my early years of
> computing (think Z80 processor running CP/M with floppy disks), and
> even, on occasion, having to restore from them. I once loaded an APL
> interpreter from printed source code, which took a couple of weeks -
> particular to get it working!
>
> Restoring my laptop from a paper backup would now take several
> centuries, or require a sizable army of typists, even using OCR... not
> so useful.
>
> The only backup/archive that works is "spinning disk" - a backup that
> is copied to the current used media at all times. I'm in the process
> now of transferring my CD/DVDRom collection to spinning disk - only
> just in time I suspect.
>
> 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
>
> 
>
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Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:59 PM, LizR  wrote:

> There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by
> future boundary conditions.
>

You *could* determine the state of any system in quantum theory by future
boundary conditions, but what would be exotic is the assumption that
neither past nor future boundary conditions are sufficient on their own,
that you need a combination of both. That just isn't how it works in
quantum theory, so you'd need some fundamentally different theory, unlike
the ones physicists know, for that to be true. Such a thing is certainly
logically possible, but you can't really point to the time symmetry of
existing theories as evidence that it's the "easiest" of ways to explain
away Bell's results.

> A photon has a very limited memory and doesn't partake in thermodynamics
> on its own.
>

I don't know what you mean by "memory", or how thermodynamics is relevant.
Technically you should be able to apply thermodynamics to any system which
can have multiple states, including a single particle in a box, just by
making some choice about how to coarse-grain all the "microstates" into a
set of "macrostates".

> The onus is to show why it wouldn't be influenced equally by past and
> future boundary conditions if time is fundamentally symmetric
>

You can say it's influenced equally, in the sense that complete knowledge
of either one can be used to determine the quantum state of a system. But
again, that's fundamentally different from saying neither set of boundary
conditions alone is sufficient, that you need to take into account both at
once.

Jesse

>
>
> On 5 February 2014 09:54, Jesse Mazer  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:35 PM, LizR  wrote:
>>
>>> On 4 February 2014 23:25, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>>

 On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:29, LizR wrote:

 On 4 February 2014 12:23, Jesse Mazer  wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM,  wrote:
>
>>
>> But more generically speaking, would this inference for blocktime sit
>> at the edge of relativity or at its core. What I mean is, beyond that it 
>> is
>> an implication of relativity, have there been or are there any
>> prospects for developing blocktime as it arises from relativity to such
>> point, predictions get made? Or any other kind of reinforcement? Or does
>> blocktime go on to imply something beyond blocktime?
>>
>
> If "block time" is taken as a definite ontological statement about all
> times "existing" in exactly the same sense, rather than just referring to
> the idea of treating time as a dimension conceptually or in our
> mathematical models, then I think it's a metaphysical postulate that goes
> beyond anything directly implied by relativity. Relativity says that all
> frames, with their different definitions of simultaneity, are on equal
> footing as far as the laws of physics are concerned, but it doesn't deal
> with ontology. If someone proposes that one frame's definition of
> simultaneity is "metaphysically preferred" in the sense it defines the
> "true present", but adds the caveat that this frame is not in any way
> physically preferred so that no conceivable experiment could determine
> which frame it is, this wouldn't contradict the physics. It would be an
> "interpretation" of SR, similar to the different "interpretations" of QM
> which postulate different things about ontology (the real existence of
> other worlds in the MWI, or a single world with hidden variables in 
> Bohmian
> mechanics, for example) but are indistinguishable experimentally.
>

 SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of simultaneity.
 This can be tested experimentally.

>
> That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or even a
> criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between different
> metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume that there is no
> metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity, just as I think many
> would agree the MWI is the simplest way of interpreting the physical 
> theory
> of QM. Adding extra "purely metaphysical" entities to a theory, which 
> don't
> correspond to anything that appears in the mathematical formalism of the
> theory itself (which would apply to things like a "true present" or to
> hidden variables in QM), seems a bit like postulating that there are
> invisible intangible elves sitting on each person's head which have no
> causal effects on anything we can measure; sure it's logically possible,
> but it seems like a very inelegant and arbitrary way for reality to work.
>
> The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.

 But not "hidden variable" in the EPR sense. In the MWI, there are
 hidden universes, they are not variable, but terms in the universal wave,
 and w

Re: Block Universes

On 1/31/2014 11:05 PM, LizR wrote:
There seems to be a bit of confusion about this idea. Some people on the list seem to
abhor the idea of a block universe, but when they attack the concept, they invariably go
for straw men, making statements like "change can't happen in a block universe" (which
are obviously nonsense, or Einstein et al would hardly have entertained the idea in the
first place).

So, I'd like to maybe clarify what the idea means, and give them a proper target if they
still want to demolish it.

A block universe is simply one in which time is treated as a dimension. So Newtonian
physics, for example, specified a block universe, in which it was believed (e.g. by
Laplace) that in principle the past and future could be computed from the state of the
present. The Victorians made much of time being the fourth dimension, probably most
famously in Wells' "The Time Machine". This was the Newtonian concept of a block
universe, and was generally treated quite fatalistically (Wells didn't indicate that
history could be changed, for example).

Then special relativity came along and unified space and time into space-time. The
reason SR gives rise to a block universe is the relativity of simultaneity. You can
slice up space-time in various ways which allow two observers to see the same events
occurring in a different order. Hence there is no way to define a "hyperplane of
simultaneity" that can be agreed upon by all observers as being a present moment. This
indicates that space-time is a four-dimensional arena in which events are embedded.
Indeed, I have never heard of an alternative explanation of the relativity of
simultaneity that gets around this result - if it's correct, space-time is a block
universe, that is to say, time is "just" another dimension.

I think you are reading too much into special relativity. What makes SR different is that
only spacetime interval is meaningful, whereas for Newton both duration and distance were
separately invariant. Sometimes you can work problems just in terms of the 4-intervals
and 4-momenta and not introduce any coordinate system. The coordinates (t,x,y,z) that
give a block-time picture are in principle dispensable (and they can even be misleading
when t is identified as "the real time"). It's like giving locations on Earth latitude
and longitude coordinates instead of citing a string of transit measurements and
triangulations to give the relative location of two things. The latter is too messy to
calculate with. But notice, that is exactly what GPS does. It locates every GPS receiver
in spacetime in terms of 4-space triangulation relative to known orbital events. Then the
receiver converts that to lat and long for our convenience.

So I would say that treating time as a dimension is a good way of looking at things, but
it's not *forced* on us by SR.

Brent

Re: Block Universes

There is nothing exotic about the state of a photon being determined by
future boundary conditions. A photon has a very limited memory and doesn't
partake in thermodynamics on its own. The onus is to show why it wouldn't
be influenced equally by past and future boundary conditions if time is
fundamentally symmetric, *or* to show how time *isn't *fundamentally
symmetric, from a photon's point of view (which means doing so without
reference to thermodynamics, which is an emergent macroscopic phenomenon).

Feynmann's absorober theory attempted to do this, but I don't think it
deals with a case where a photon is emitted and absorbed within an EPR
experiment.

On 5 February 2014 09:54, Jesse Mazer  wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:35 PM, LizR  wrote:
>
>> On 4 February 2014 23:25, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:29, LizR wrote:
>>>
>>> On 4 February 2014 12:23, Jesse Mazer  wrote:
>>>
 On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM,  wrote:

>
> But more generically speaking, would this inference for blocktime sit
> at the edge of relativity or at its core. What I mean is, beyond that it 
> is
> an implication of relativity, have there been or are there any
> prospects for developing blocktime as it arises from relativity to such
> point, predictions get made? Or any other kind of reinforcement? Or does
> blocktime go on to imply something beyond blocktime?
>

 If "block time" is taken as a definite ontological statement about all
 times "existing" in exactly the same sense, rather than just referring to
 the idea of treating time as a dimension conceptually or in our
 mathematical models, then I think it's a metaphysical postulate that goes
 beyond anything directly implied by relativity. Relativity says that all
 frames, with their different definitions of simultaneity, are on equal
 footing as far as the laws of physics are concerned, but it doesn't deal
 with ontology. If someone proposes that one frame's definition of
 simultaneity is "metaphysically preferred" in the sense it defines the
 "true present", but adds the caveat that this frame is not in any way
 physically preferred so that no conceivable experiment could determine
 which frame it is, this wouldn't contradict the physics. It would be an
 "interpretation" of SR, similar to the different "interpretations" of QM
 which postulate different things about ontology (the real existence of
 other worlds in the MWI, or a single world with hidden variables in Bohmian
 mechanics, for example) but are indistinguishable experimentally.

>>>
>>> SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of simultaneity.
>>> This can be tested experimentally.
>>>

 That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or even a
 criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between different
 metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume that there is no
 metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity, just as I think many
 would agree the MWI is the simplest way of interpreting the physical theory
 of QM. Adding extra "purely metaphysical" entities to a theory, which don't
 correspond to anything that appears in the mathematical formalism of the
 theory itself (which would apply to things like a "true present" or to
 hidden variables in QM), seems a bit like postulating that there are
 invisible intangible elves sitting on each person's head which have no
 causal effects on anything we can measure; sure it's logically possible,
 but it seems like a very inelegant and arbitrary way for reality to work.

 The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.
>>>
>>> But not "hidden variable" in the EPR sense. In the MWI, there are hidden
>>> universes, they are not variable, but terms in the universal wave, and we
>>> just don't know which terms apply to us. If it was hidden variable in the
>>> EPR sense, then by Bell, they would be non-local, and you would conclude
>>> falsely (like Clark) that the MWI has to be non local (which I doubt very
>>> much).
>>>
>>> No, as I explained elsewhere, Bell's inequality rests on 4 assumptions,
>> and the easiest assumption to remove is that time is asmmetric at the
>> fundamental level (which *in any case* physics indicates it isn't,
>> except for neutral kaon decay - which I dount has ever been used in an EPR
>> experiment).
>>
>
> As I've said to you in the post at
> http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg46130.html, 
> the type of time-symmetry seen in modern physics--which just says that
> the same laws can be used to retrodict past states as are used to predict
> future states, but doesn't say you *need* information about the future as
> well as the past to predict the state in a given region of spacetime--is
> not enough to evade the conclusions of Bell's theorem. In order

Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:35 PM, LizR  wrote:

> On 4 February 2014 23:25, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>>
>> On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:29, LizR wrote:
>>
>> On 4 February 2014 12:23, Jesse Mazer  wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM,  wrote:
>>>

 But more generically speaking, would this inference for blocktime sit
 at the edge of relativity or at its core. What I mean is, beyond that it is
 an implication of relativity, have there been or are there any
 prospects for developing blocktime as it arises from relativity to such
 point, predictions get made? Or any other kind of reinforcement? Or does
 blocktime go on to imply something beyond blocktime?

>>>
>>> If "block time" is taken as a definite ontological statement about all
>>> times "existing" in exactly the same sense, rather than just referring to
>>> the idea of treating time as a dimension conceptually or in our
>>> mathematical models, then I think it's a metaphysical postulate that goes
>>> beyond anything directly implied by relativity. Relativity says that all
>>> frames, with their different definitions of simultaneity, are on equal
>>> footing as far as the laws of physics are concerned, but it doesn't deal
>>> with ontology. If someone proposes that one frame's definition of
>>> simultaneity is "metaphysically preferred" in the sense it defines the
>>> "true present", but adds the caveat that this frame is not in any way
>>> physically preferred so that no conceivable experiment could determine
>>> which frame it is, this wouldn't contradict the physics. It would be an
>>> "interpretation" of SR, similar to the different "interpretations" of QM
>>> which postulate different things about ontology (the real existence of
>>> other worlds in the MWI, or a single world with hidden variables in Bohmian
>>> mechanics, for example) but are indistinguishable experimentally.
>>>
>>
>> SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of simultaneity.
>> This can be tested experimentally.
>>
>>>
>>> That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or even a
>>> criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between different
>>> metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume that there is no
>>> metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity, just as I think many
>>> would agree the MWI is the simplest way of interpreting the physical theory
>>> of QM. Adding extra "purely metaphysical" entities to a theory, which don't
>>> correspond to anything that appears in the mathematical formalism of the
>>> theory itself (which would apply to things like a "true present" or to
>>> hidden variables in QM), seems a bit like postulating that there are
>>> invisible intangible elves sitting on each person's head which have no
>>> causal effects on anything we can measure; sure it's logically possible,
>>> but it seems like a very inelegant and arbitrary way for reality to work.
>>>
>>> The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.
>>
>> But not "hidden variable" in the EPR sense. In the MWI, there are hidden
>> universes, they are not variable, but terms in the universal wave, and we
>> just don't know which terms apply to us. If it was hidden variable in the
>> EPR sense, then by Bell, they would be non-local, and you would conclude
>> falsely (like Clark) that the MWI has to be non local (which I doubt very
>> much).
>>
>> No, as I explained elsewhere, Bell's inequality rests on 4 assumptions,
> and the easiest assumption to remove is that time is asmmetric at the
> fundamental level (which *in any case* physics indicates it isn't, except
> for neutral kaon decay - which I dount has ever been used in an EPR
> experiment).
>

As I've said to you in the post at
http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg46130.html,
the type of time-symmetry seen in modern physics--which just says that
the same laws can be used to retrodict past states as are used to predict
future states, but doesn't say you *need* information about the future as
well as the past to predict the state in a given region of spacetime--is
not enough to evade the conclusions of Bell's theorem. In order to do that
you'd need either a theory where determining the state of a region does
require knowing both its past and its future, or you'd need some strong
restrictions on the possible boundary conditions, both of which would be
pretty exotic assumptions, not ones I'd consider to be the "easiest"
modification of Bell's assumptions. In the case of the type of dynamical
time-symmetric (or CPT-symmetric) theories that physicists have found
useful in describing nature, where you can use a set of initial conditions
to predict a later state, the argument about conditioning on a slice of the
past light cone I mentioned at
http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg45832.html(and
which matches Bell's discussion of conditioning on slices of past
light cones in his "La nouvelle cuisine" pa

Re: Unput and Onput

On 5 February 2014 07:45, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/4/2014 9:57 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>  On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:
>
> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on
>> something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's
>> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the
>> doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - a
>> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.
>
>
>  But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and
> then showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms?
>
> No a reductio ad absurdum is showing that the premises lead to conclusions
> that are absurd, i.e. that it is more likely the premises are false than
> that the conclusion is true.  This is somewhat a matter of judgement as to
> what counts as absurd.  A contradiction though is necessarily fatal.
>
> Depends what you mean by "accepting an argument in principle". Obviously
you "accept" the premises in order to derive the contradiction.

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Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>
> Because silicon happens
>>
>> That would explain the "blue screen of death" ! :-)

Sorry.

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Re: Block Universes

On 4 February 2014 23:58, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 04 Feb 2014, at 01:55, LizR wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 13:32, Jesse Mazer  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 6:29 PM, LizR  wrote:
>>
>>> SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of simultaneity.
>>> This can be tested experimentally.
>>>
>>
>> The relativity of simultaneity is a claim about physics, not metaphysics.
>> Specifically, it's a claim that the laws of physics work exactly the same
>> in all inertial frames, which have different definitions of simultaneity.
>> If someone agrees that no frame's definition of simultaneity is "preferred"
>> in any physical sense, but that one is "metaphysically preferred" in a way
>> that is wholly invisible to all possible experiments, this would not
>> contradict SR or the relativity of simultaneity as a physical principle.
>>
>
> OK, maybe what I should have said is that no one has come up with an
> explanation for the ROS that doesn't include the concept of space-time
> being a 4D manifold.
> I'm not sure if that leaves us with a physical or metaphysical problem (or
> maybe no problem at all!)
>
>>
 That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or even a
 criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between different
 metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume that there is no
 metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity, just as I think many
 would agree the MWI is the simplest way of interpreting the physical theory
 of QM. Adding extra "purely metaphysical" entities to a theory, which don't
 correspond to anything that appears in the mathematical formalism of the
 theory itself (which would apply to things like a "true present" or to
 hidden variables in QM), seems a bit like postulating that there are
 invisible intangible elves sitting on each person's head which have no
 causal effects on anything we can measure; sure it's logically possible,
 but it seems like a very inelegant and arbitrary way for reality to work.

 The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.
>>>
>>
>> No. The Schroedinger equation which calculates wavefunction evolution in
>> QM is already fully deterministic, the MWI just dispenses with the extra
>> postulate of "wavefunction collapse" on measurement, which is the only
>> random element in QM. Determinism only implies hidden variables if you
>> assume each experiment has a *unique* outcome, and that this outcome is
>> generated in a deterministic way by the initial conditions. If you assume
>> that the physical state at the end of an experiment is a quantum state
>> that's a superposition of many possible classical results, then this can be
>> calculated from a prior quantum state using just the standard Schroedinger
>> equation.
>>
>> Well, yes, of course. The MWI is defined as QM with no collapse, and the
> SWE is deterministic, therefore we have realismdon't we?
>
> Careful: in this context realism often means "collapse" or "unicity of
> outcome", like in Bell's paper. or even in EPR, where realism is thought
> only with the implicit assumption of unique universe.
> In other context, physical realism means that physics is independent of
> us, like in "arithmetic realism" (arithmetic is independent of us).
>
> Ah, I thought it meant there was no point (in say an EPR experiment) when
the values of variables - the polarisation of a photon, say - was genuinely
undefined, as opposed to merely unmeasurable.

In that sense, time symmetry and the MWI both preserve what I called
realism - all variables are defined at all times - and locality - no FTL.

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Re: Block Universes

On 4 February 2014 23:45, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 01:19, LizR wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 12:44, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:
>
>> Liz,
>>
>> You keep repeating your UNSUBSTANTIATED claim that both Newton and
>> Einstein believed in block time.
>>
>
> It isn't a question of belief. Newtonian and Einsteinian machanics both
> imply the existence of a block universe.
>
> I've repeatedly asked you to substantiate this claim with some actual
>> quotes from them but you have been unable to do so.
>>
> Please provide quotes substantiating this or withdraw the claim. That's
>> only fair...
>>
>
> Obviously Newton didn't use that phrase. Equally obviously it's implied by
> his equations, as Laplace realised.
>
>
> Yes, I was thinking of Laplace. Why did I wrote Pascal?
>

Well, they were both famous scientists / mathematicians / philosophers (and
I think both French!)

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Re: Block Universes

On 4 February 2014 23:25, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:29, LizR wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 12:23, Jesse Mazer  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:48 PM,  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> But more generically speaking, would this inference for blocktime sit at
>>> the edge of relativity or at its core. What I mean is, beyond that it is an
>>> implication of relativity, have there been or are there any prospects for
>>> developing blocktime as it arises from relativity to such point,
>>> predictions get made? Or any other kind of reinforcement? Or does blocktime
>>> go on to imply something beyond blocktime?
>>>
>>
>> If "block time" is taken as a definite ontological statement about all
>> times "existing" in exactly the same sense, rather than just referring to
>> the idea of treating time as a dimension conceptually or in our
>> mathematical models, then I think it's a metaphysical postulate that goes
>> beyond anything directly implied by relativity. Relativity says that all
>> frames, with their different definitions of simultaneity, are on equal
>> footing as far as the laws of physics are concerned, but it doesn't deal
>> with ontology. If someone proposes that one frame's definition of
>> simultaneity is "metaphysically preferred" in the sense it defines the
>> "true present", but adds the caveat that this frame is not in any way
>> physically preferred so that no conceivable experiment could determine
>> which frame it is, this wouldn't contradict the physics. It would be an
>> "interpretation" of SR, similar to the different "interpretations" of QM
>> which postulate different things about ontology (the real existence of
>> other worlds in the MWI, or a single world with hidden variables in Bohmian
>> mechanics, for example) but are indistinguishable experimentally.
>>
>
> SR directly demonstrates block time via the relativity of simultaneity.
> This can be tested experimentally.
>
>>
>> That said, if you subscribe to any form of Occam's razor or even a
>> criteria of "elegance" when it comes to choosing between different
>> metaphysical hypotheses, it seems a lot simpler to assume that there is no
>> metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity, just as I think many
>> would agree the MWI is the simplest way of interpreting the physical theory
>> of QM. Adding extra "purely metaphysical" entities to a theory, which don't
>> correspond to anything that appears in the mathematical formalism of the
>> theory itself (which would apply to things like a "true present" or to
>> hidden variables in QM), seems a bit like postulating that there are
>> invisible intangible elves sitting on each person's head which have no
>> causal effects on anything we can measure; sure it's logically possible,
>> but it seems like a very inelegant and arbitrary way for reality to work.
>>
>> The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.
>
> But not "hidden variable" in the EPR sense. In the MWI, there are hidden
> universes, they are not variable, but terms in the universal wave, and we
> just don't know which terms apply to us. If it was hidden variable in the
> EPR sense, then by Bell, they would be non-local, and you would conclude
> falsely (like Clark) that the MWI has to be non local (which I doubt very
> much).
>
> No, as I explained elsewhere, Bell's inequality rests on 4 assumptions,
and the easiest assumption to remove is that time is asmmetric at the
fundamental level (which *in any case* physics indicates it isn't, except
for neutral kaon decay - which I dount has ever been used in an EPR
experiment).

Locality and realism are almost certainly preserved, as Einstein suspected,
even though Bell's inequality is violated.

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:31:36 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 15:33, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 3:57:46 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 03 Feb 2014, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, February 3, 2014 3:17:46 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 02 Feb 2014, at 20:31, meekerdb wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 2/2/2014 5:37 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>>>  
>>> Craig, nothing you have said so far diminishes by a single iota the 
>>> significance of the paradox to your theory. It's not so easy to disarm it 
>>> as insouciantly interpolating armfuls of non-sequiturs couched in an 
>>> impenetrable private jargon. You quote Chalmers, but you consistently dodge 
>>> (or perhaps don't really get) the point he is making. His analysis isn't 
>>> merely that physics seems to make consciousness causally irrelevant, though 
>>> that in itself would be daunting enough. The paradoxical entailment comes 
>>> from confronting the stark realisation that, despite this, 
>>> physically-instantiated bodies and brains (i.e. the appearances in terms of 
>>> which we interact both with "ourselves" and with each other) continue to 
>>> behave *as if* they were laying claim to such conscious phenomena. 
>>> Furthermore, they apparently do so by means of a causally-closed mechanism 
>>> that entails that they neither possess these phenomena nor could plausibly 
>>> have any access to them. 
>>>
>>>
>>> But the "apparently" in the above is not apparent at all.  One could 
>>> just as well conclude that consciousness is a nomologically necessaryaspect 
>>> of the causally-close physics; that it's no more separable than is 
>>> temperature from molecular motion.
>>>
>>>
>>> That analogy is limited. You can explain temperature from molecules 
>>> cinetics by remaining entirely in the 3p account. The mind-body problem is 
>>> that if you can explain the whole 3p of the 1p, then the mind seems having 
>>> no role at all. 
>>> Now with comp we take the mind seriously and can explain its necessity 
>>> and role (like with the hypostases), but we lost any ontic place for 
>>> matter, so we lost primitive physics, and we have to recover it by a 
>>> statistics on the 1p brought by all computations.
>>>
>>> It is not a problem (except for Aristotelian fundamentalists) because 
>>> nobody has ever provided evidences for primitive matter or physicalism. It 
>>> is only a big assumption in metaphysics.
>>>
>>
>> Is there a good resource online which explains the eight hypostases and 
>> their relevance to connecting consciousness to computation? 
>>
>>
>> This one, often mentioned. To get the connection with consciousness, you 
>> need to work IN the theory comp, and assume that your consciousness is 
>> invariant for digital brain substitution (at some level). Then the 
>> self-reference theory redo an abstract form of the UDA in arithmetic.
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
>>
>
> Thanks, but I am looking at more of a Wikipedia-level explanation rather 
> than a logician's diagram. No offense, it looks cool.
>
>
>
> Well, there are the 700 pages quasi-self contained version and the 
> original thesis, but it is in french.
>
> Ah, an exposition of the UDA is also here, by someone who sometimes 
> participates here, Pierz:
>
>
> http://clubofsc.blogspot.be/2011/08/my-topic-universal-dovetailer-argument.html
>
> But the math part is both a very long work, then suddenly made short 
> thanks to a theorem of Solovay, but of course short is not necessarily more 
> easier, as it presupposes a familiarity with  Gödel, Löb and many results 
> in mathematical logic and theoretical computer science. 
>

So there is no non-technical description or overview of the 8 hypostases.
 

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

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Re: Unput and Onput



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:56:05 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 18:04, Craig Weinberg 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>>
>>> On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on 
 something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's 
 argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the 
 doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - 
 a 
 problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.
>>>
>>>
>>> But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and 
>>> then showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, or 
>>> Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they 
>>> succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's 
>>> argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of a 
>>> digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, but 
>>> it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion that 
>>> any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting the 
>>> premise. 
>>>
>>
>> Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for 
>> experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of 
>> simulating experience itself.
>>  
>
> But that is not what is proposed, indeed it would be a contradiction in 
> terms. 
>

Proposed by whom? Why would it be a contradiction? It is the beginning 
assumption, so there is nothing to contradict.
 

> Experience is the only indubitable reality; to talk of "simulating" it is 
> equivalent to eliminating that reality (as in "it's all an illusion") and 
> is just incoherent. Experience either is or it isn't and this is 
> determinable only in the first-person. But it is not experience that is 
> substituted, it is the device that allows that experience to manifest 
> locally in terms of a particular actuality. 
>

You are assuming that the device is outside of experience. I am saying that 
the device is already (nothing but) an experiential phenomenon to begin 
with. There is no possibility of 'either experience is or it isn't' - there 
can be no 'it isn't', not even hypothetically in an imaginary universe.
 

> Remember that the proposition is that experience is *invariant* for a 
> digital substitution. 
>

Digits can't have an experience. Nothing that digits do can cause an 
experience. Given an experience, digital analogs can of course be used to 
change that experience, but by themselves, they cannot 'do' anything or 
even 'be' digits.
 

> The UDA is a step-wise argument for the view that this makes sense only if 
> physics itself is the result of a statistical filtration (the FPI) over the 
> entire computational domain. Hence that local "device" is also a 
> statistical-derived appearance stabilised by this filtration.
>

I'm saying that arithmetic truth in total is a filtration of more primitive 
sensory-motive phenomena. Math = sensible filtration of sense.
 

>  
>>
>>> That could indeed turn out to be the case, but it isn't in itself an 
>>> argument.
>>>
>>
>> The truth of physics and sense is not an argument, argument is a 
>> comparison within sense. Why does the universe have to fit into an argument 
>> of cognitive human logic? Let the universe be what it is - perception. 
>> Participation. Aesthetic acquaintance on many nested (and sometimes 
>> ambiguously so) levels.
>>
>
> What alternative could we possibly have to "letting the universe be what 
> it is"?
>

We could shoehorn it into a mechanemorphic theory of information or an 
anthropomorphic icon of metaphor.
 

> But whether the universe (i.e. what we can only guess at) simply "is" 
> perception, or has a more complex relation with it,
>

The more complex relation would also be a perception, an experience.
 

> is not something that either you or I could possibly know a priori, or 
> even a posteriori. 
>

Knowing is not the goal. Understanding is.
 

> We - our experiential selves - are virtual creatures who can only "bet" on 
> an ultimate reality from the perspective of what is, for us, an 
> indubitable, though unshareable, indexical actuality. The reasons for that 
> very indubitability and unshareability, moreover, are predictable in terms 
> of the comp argument.
>

But comp cannot predict anything about the nature of 1p, or even that there 
could be a such thing as a feeling or perception - only that there are some 
gaps through which machines behave as if they are able to make bets that 
are correct. 

But of course the universe doesn't have to - and never will - "fit into an 
> argument of cognitive human logic". But neither should we expect it to fit 
> with any other human predilection-du-jour, be that aesthetic, orouboran, 
> tessellated, or w

Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 18:04, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
>> On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on
>>> something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's
>>> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the
>>> doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - a
>>> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.
>>
>>
>> But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and then
>> showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, or
>> Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they
>> succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's
>> argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of a
>> digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, but
>> it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion that
>> any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting the
>> premise.
>>
>
> Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for
> experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of
> simulating experience itself.
>

But that is not what is proposed, indeed it would be a contradiction in
terms. Experience is the only indubitable reality; to talk of "simulating"
it is equivalent to eliminating that reality (as in "it's all an illusion")
and is just incoherent. Experience either is or it isn't and this is
determinable only in the first-person. But it is not experience that is
substituted, it is the device that allows that experience to manifest
locally in terms of a particular actuality. Remember that the proposition
is that experience is *invariant* for a digital substitution. The UDA is a
step-wise argument for the view that this makes sense only if physics
itself is the result of a statistical filtration (the FPI) over the entire
computational domain. Hence that local "device" is also a
statistical-derived appearance stabilised by this filtration.

>
>
>> That could indeed turn out to be the case, but it isn't in itself an
>> argument.
>>
>
> The truth of physics and sense is not an argument, argument is a
> comparison within sense. Why does the universe have to fit into an argument
> of cognitive human logic? Let the universe be what it is - perception.
> Participation. Aesthetic acquaintance on many nested (and sometimes
> ambiguously so) levels.
>

What alternative could we possibly have to "letting the universe be what it
is"? But whether the universe (i.e. what we can only guess at) simply "is"
perception, or has a more complex relation with it, is not something that
either you or I could possibly know a priori, or even a posteriori. We -
our experiential selves - are virtual creatures who can only "bet" on an
ultimate reality from the perspective of what is, for us, an indubitable,
though unshareable, indexical actuality. The reasons for that very
indubitability and unshareability, moreover, are predictable in terms of
the comp argument.

But of course the universe doesn't have to - and never will - "fit into an
argument of cognitive human logic". But neither should we expect it to fit
with any other human predilection-du-jour, be that aesthetic, orouboran,
tessellated, or whatever else. These too are merely speculations, or
wagers, and must stand or fall on the same criteria of generality,
coherence, and explanatory and predictive power.

David

>
> Craig
>
>
>>
>> Your own criticism, by contrast, can only succeed by accepting the
>> argument in its own terms and then showing that in this form it fails to
>> satisfy certain desirable criteria, such as predictive power. That's not a
>> reductio either, although of course it's a perfectly valid objection to
>> raise.
>>
>> David
>>
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Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:

> Jesse,
>
> Come on now. The well established fact that it is impossible to always
> establish CLOCKTIME simultaneity of distant events does NOT require or even
> imply block time.
>

Einstein just says there is no "simultaneity of distant events", he doesn't
suggest that there's some alternative to "clocktime simultaneity" which he
believes in. As I understand it you definitely believe that there is such a
thing as simultaneity of distant events, since you think there's a definite
yes-or-no answer to whether they happen at the same p-time.

And I guess you're going to just ignore my point about the obvious meaning
of a sentence of the form "we should think of physical reality as A instead
of, as hitherto, as B", that such a sentence is endorsing A and rejecting B
as outdated? No surprise there, you always seem to just drop the discussion
once it goes down a line you'd have trouble answering without damaging your
position (as with the issues I asked you to address at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/everything-list/jFX-wTm_E_Q/BaKE8Sq-fN8J--
another post you simply ignored).

>
> What it actually implies is that everything is MOVING in clock time and if
> things actually move in clock time that is the opposite of block time.
> Nothing moves in a block universe.
>

I have no idea what "moving in clock time" could mean (wouldn't "moving" in
a time dimension require a second "meta-time" dimension to keep track of
"changes" in an entity's position in the first time dimension?), or why you
think a lack of absolute "clocktime simultaneity" should "imply" this. But
if you'd care to explain in detail I would be happy to address the argument.

Jesse

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On 04 Feb 2014, at 15:33, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 3:57:46 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Feb 2014, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Monday, February 3, 2014 3:17:46 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Feb 2014, at 20:31, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/2/2014 5:37 AM, David Nyman wrote:
Craig, nothing you have said so far diminishes by a single iota  
the significance of the paradox to your theory. It's not so easy  
to disarm it as insouciantly interpolating armfuls of non- 
sequiturs couched in an impenetrable private jargon. You quote  
Chalmers, but you consistently dodge (or perhaps don't really  
get) the point he is making. His analysis isn't merely that  
physics seems to make consciousness causally irrelevant, though  
that in itself would be daunting enough. The paradoxical  
entailment comes from confronting the stark realisation that,  
despite this, physically-instantiated bodies and brains (i.e. the  
appearances in terms of which we interact both with "ourselves"  
and with each other) continue to behave *as if* they were laying  
claim to such conscious phenomena. Furthermore, they apparently  
do so by means of a causally-closed mechanism that entails that  
they neither possess these phenomena nor could plausibly have any  
access to them.


But the "apparently" in the above is not apparent at all.  One  
could just as well conclude that consciousness is a nomologically  
necessary aspect of the causally-close physics; that it's no more  
separable than is temperature from molecular motion.


That analogy is limited. You can explain temperature from molecules  
cinetics by remaining entirely in the 3p account. The mind-body  
problem is that if you can explain the whole 3p of the 1p, then the  
mind seems having no role at all.
Now with comp we take the mind seriously and can explain its  
necessity and role (like with the hypostases), but we lost any  
ontic place for matter, so we lost primitive physics, and we have  
to recover it by a statistics on the 1p brought by all computations.


It is not a problem (except for Aristotelian fundamentalists)  
because nobody has ever provided evidences for primitive matter or  
physicalism. It is only a big assumption in metaphysics.


Is there a good resource online which explains the eight hypostases  
and their relevance to connecting consciousness to computation?


This one, often mentioned. To get the connection with consciousness,  
you need to work IN the theory comp, and assume that your  
consciousness is invariant for digital brain substitution (at some  
level). Then the self-reference theory redo an abstract form of the  
UDA in arithmetic.


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

Thanks, but I am looking at more of a Wikipedia-level explanation  
rather than a logician's diagram. No offense, it looks cool.



Well, there are the 700 pages quasi-self contained version and the  
original thesis, but it is in french.


Ah, an exposition of the UDA is also here, by someone who sometimes  
participates here, Pierz:


http://clubofsc.blogspot.be/2011/08/my-topic-universal-dovetailer-argument.html

But the math part is both a very long work, then suddenly made short  
thanks to a theorem of Solovay, but of course short is not necessarily  
more easier, as it presupposes a familiarity with  Gödel, Löb and many  
results in mathematical logic and theoretical computer science.


Bruno







Craig


Bruno


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




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



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Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 18:45, meekerdb  wrote:

No a reductio ad absurdum is showing that the premises lead to conclusions
> that are absurd, i.e. that it is more likely the premises are false than
> that the conclusion is true.  This is somewhat a matter of judgement as to
> what counts as absurd.  A contradiction though is necessarily fatal.


Forgive the imprecision. But either way (as Craig has agreed) it is a
rejection of the premise rather than using it to show an absurd conclusion.

David

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Re: A humble suggestion to the group

2014-02-04 Thread Hal Ruhl


On Monday, February 3, 2014 3:58:07 PM UTC-5, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 08:09:00AM -0800, Hal Ruhl wrote: 
> >   
> > 
> > Hi Russell and everyone 
> > 
> >   
>
> >   
> > 
> > My personal archive goes back to March of 2008 if there might be 
> something 
> > in there that could help a wiki construction. 
>
> Backup of the wiki or an email archive? Email archives exist, of 
> course, particularly through googlegroups, but seem to be difficult to 
> search, for some reason. 
>
>  
 Hi Russell
It is just email posts.  It may not be of use but I can try searching it if 
someone has a search criteria.
 
Hal Ruhl 

>  

 

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Re: Real science versus interpretations of science



On 04 Feb 2014, at 15:33, Edgar L. Owen wrote:


All,

1. In my view real science means only the equations that actually  
work to predict events and the logical framework in which those  
equations are meaningfully applied. In a more restrictive sense real  
science is only the ACTUAL computations that actually compute the  
actual state of reality.


That is not science at all. That is a an opinion, and you have not  
commented the refutation given.


Bruno





That would mean that most of the equations of science which apply at  
the aggregate level are just descriptions rather than actual reality  
computations which I would claim occur only at the most elemental  
level. Thus e.g. the laws of motion and the behavior of gases are  
accurate DESCRIPTIONS of emergent behavior but are not actually  
involved in computing that behavior. The real computations are  
programs at the elemental level, and are those that compute the  
conservation of particle properties in particle interactions, and  
the bonding of matter, etc. So one can make a case that it is only  
these equations or programs that constitute real science.


Also note that real science does not consists of static equations  
that require scientists to apply them, but must consist of actual  
running programs that apply themselves without the help of  
scientists. Real science, in my strict sense, is programatic  
simulation of those actual programs on silicon computers of the  
actual programs that compute reality. This is because programs, as  
opposed to static equations, include the implicit logical context of  
the mathematical equations by embedding them within that logical  
structure. Real science in this sense does not require a scientist  
to apply it. It computes predictable results all by itself when fed  
inputs.



2. All the rest is not real science but meta-theories, philosophy,  
or interpretations of science. This is NOT to say that it is not  
useful or valid, but just to point out its actual status. From this  
perspective almost ALL of what currently passes for science, on this  
list and elsewhere, is not actually science, but interpretations of  
science, or META-science.


3. Meta-science is NOT in a one to one correspondence with the  
underlying science it interprets because there can be and often are  
multiple competing interpretations of the same areas of real science.


4. Interpretations of science thus obviously include projections of  
personal world views onto the underlying science, and are creatures  
of personal belief systems designed to help make sense of the  
underlying science in terms of personal and socially current memes.  
As such they are always suspect, especially because in general they  
are NOT always subject to empirical confirmation or falsification  
AND they are based on personal world views designed to make sense of  
the mundane logic of things that have evolved to facilitate our  
functioning in our day to day environments rather than to provide  
insight into the true nature of reality.


5. Thus we must be careful to judge interpretations of science by  
their logical consistency with the underlying science they  
interpret, and always be on the lookout to eliminate our personal  
prejudices and the mundane views of reality programmed in our minds  
by evolution, and the syntactical logic of language which has  
evolved to make sense of mundane rather than deep reality.



6. Given the above, what my book, and my posts, attempt to do is:

a. Accept all current established science as it is (always subject  
to new advances). That means I accept all the actual science (the  
actual equations in their logical matrix) of QM, SR, GR, Chemistry,  
Biology, Information science, Geology etc.etc. I accept everyone of  
these as it stands to the extent it results in empirically  
verifiable predictions.


b. Propose an entirely new and unifying INTERPRETATION of this  
science across its entire scope, which I believe is more consistent  
with it and more unified and explanatory than other current  
interpretations. If this is true then it provides a much deeper  
insight into the true underlying nature of reality...


Whether I succeed at this only time will tell...

Edgar

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



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Re: Real science versus interpretations of science

2014-02-04 Thread Edgar L. Owen

Ghibbsa,

I think of my book and theories more as meta-science or philosophy, but the 
topics treated are what nearly everyone else considers to be science.

In my view MWI, block universes, wavefunction collapse, etc. none of these 
are real science, only interpretations of science.

Yes, if we understand reality better it should definitely lead to better 
real science, and most certainly to better understanding. Meta-science 
helps us to UNDERSTAND real science in human terms.

Your last comments seem to have to do with DOING science, with scientific 
method, rather than the actual science that gets done.

Edgar

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:52:06 AM UTC-5, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:33:42 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
>>
>> All,
>>
>> 1. In my view real science means only the equations that actually work to 
>> predict events and the logical framework in which those equations are 
>> meaningfully applied. In a more restrictive sense real science is only the 
>> ACTUAL computations that actually compute the actual state of reality. That 
>> would mean that most of the equations of science which apply at the 
>> aggregate level are just descriptions rather than actual reality 
>> computations which I would claim occur only at the most elemental level. 
>> Thus e.g. the laws of motion and the behavior of gases are accurate 
>> DESCRIPTIONS of emergent behavior but are not actually involved in 
>> computing that behavior. The real computations are programs at the 
>> elemental level, and are those that compute the conservation of particle 
>> properties in particle interactions, and the bonding of matter, etc. So one 
>> can make a case that it is only these equations or programs that constitute 
>> real science.
>>
>> Also note that real science does not consists of static equations that 
>> require scientists to apply them, but must consist of actual running 
>> programs that apply themselves without the help of scientists. Real 
>> science, in my strict sense, is programatic simulation of those actual 
>> programs on silicon computers of the actual programs that compute reality. 
>> This is because programs, as opposed to static equations, include the 
>> implicit logical context of the mathematical equations by embedding them 
>> within that logical structure. Real science in this sense does not require 
>> a scientist to apply it. It computes predictable results all by itself when 
>> fed inputs.
>>
>>
>> 2. All the rest is not real science but meta-theories, philosophy, or 
>> interpretations of science. This is NOT to say that it is not useful or 
>> valid, but just to point out its actual status. From this perspective 
>> almost ALL of what currently passes for science, on this list and 
>> elsewhere, is not actually science, but interpretations of science, or 
>> META-science.
>>
>> 3. Meta-science is NOT in a one to one correspondence with the underlying 
>> science it interprets because there can be and often are multiple competing 
>> interpretations of the same areas of real science.
>>
>> 4. Interpretations of science thus obviously include projections of 
>> personal world views onto the underlying science, and are creatures of 
>> personal belief systems designed to help make sense of the underlying 
>> science in terms of personal and socially current memes. As such they are 
>> always suspect, especially because in general they are NOT always subject 
>> to empirical confirmation or falsification AND they are based on personal 
>> world views designed to make sense of the mundane logic of things that have 
>> evolved to facilitate our functioning in our day to day environments rather 
>> than to provide insight into the true nature of reality.
>>
>> 5. Thus we must be careful to judge interpretations of science by their 
>> logical consistency with the underlying science they interpret, and always 
>> be on the lookout to eliminate our personal prejudices and the mundane 
>> views of reality programmed in our minds by evolution, and the syntactical 
>> logic of language which has evolved to make sense of mundane rather than 
>> deep reality.
>>
>>
>> 6. Given the above, what my book, and my posts, attempt to do is: 
>>
>> a. Accept all current established science as it is (always subject to new 
>> advances). That means I accept all the actual science (the actual equations 
>> in their logical matrix) of QM, SR, GR, Chemistry, Biology, Information 
>> science, Geology etc.etc. I accept everyone of these as it stands to the 
>> extent it results in empirically verifiable predictions.
>>
>> b. Propose an entirely new and unifying INTERPRETATION of this science 
>> across its entire scope, which I believe is more consistent with it and 
>> more unified and explanatory than other current interpretations. If this is 
>> true then it provides a much deeper insight into the true underlying nature 
>> of reality...
>>
>> Whether I succeed at this only time will t

Re: Block Universes

2014-02-04 Thread Edgar L. Owen

Jesse,

Come on now. The well established fact that it is impossible to always 
establish CLOCKTIME simultaneity of distant events does NOT require or even 
imply block time. 

What it actually implies is that everything is MOVING in clock time and if 
things actually move in clock time that is the opposite of block time. 
Nothing moves in a block universe.

I'm surprised you don't see this...

Edgar



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 1:36:43 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Jesse Mazer 
> > wrote:
>
>  
>
>>   Aside from quotes already mentioned, if you want to educate yourself 
>> on the subject you might try reading the book Bruno mentioned, Pale 
>> Yourgrau's "Einstein and Gödel" which recounts the extensive discussions 
>> Einstein had with Gödel on the subject of block time.
>>
>>>
>
> Minor correction: I just looked it up, the book is actually "Gödel Meets 
> Einstein", it can be found here (used copies are available cheap): 
> http://www.amazon.com/Godel-Meets-Einstein-Travel-Universe/dp/0812694082
>
> Yourgrau also wrote another book on the same subject, "A World Without 
> Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein": 
> http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Time-Forgotten-Einstein/dp/0465092942/
>
> Incidentally, here's another quote by Einstein where he clearly rejects 
> the idea of any objective global "present moment", from p. 45 of the book 
> at http://books.google.com/books?id=0mc4BKpAyr0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA45 --
>
> "We shall now inquire into the definitive insights that physics owes to 
> the special theory of relativity.
>
> (1) There is no such thing as simultaneity of distant events"
>
> Jesse
>

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Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp



On 04 Feb 2014, at 14:32, ghib...@gmail.com wrote:



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:



On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it  
possible for consciousness to forget the "higher self", and  
deludes us (in some sense) in having a "little ego" embedded in  
some history.


Sounds like wishful thinking.


That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other  
people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying  
thinking.


I agree.  But your choice of words gives the opposite impression.







Why "higher"?  Why not "lower".


Yes, why not. The standard term is "higher".


Exactly - it is very subjective.






Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD?


Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point.


My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications  
of comp because it implies we really have a "higher self" that  
we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a "little  
ego".   Just consider how different it sounds to say we have  
forgotten our real "lower self" and we deluded in thinking our ego  
is significant.


Brent

This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds  
gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible  
that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether  
he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a  
language issue, the issue is far too basic.


I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by  
considering its negative.


Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I  
don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I  
make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic  
and arithmetic.
If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific  
remark.

I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning.


Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense.  
If that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style  
and see if I can avoid such impressions.


Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line  
above. You used the term "higher" self.  So, the suggestion is that  
you're building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to.



OK. My fault. I was alluding to the self of the universal person,  
described by the arithmetical hypostases. usually I use "higher self"  
more in the context of the some entheogenic experience. The higher  
self is, basically, you, when you forget completeley who you are, or  
when you dissociate completely from yourself, like in OBE, some lucid  
or non lucid dreams, etc.





Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree,  
you should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'.


Yes, the terrestrial self. The one who pays the bills, and answers  
mails, and collects the shortcut to heaven ...















Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of  
acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the  
higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations  
going down the stack.  We could talk forever about how  
individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of  
evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/ 
reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful  
or devious or anything like that, but even so.


I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is  
not even clear they are related to anything I could have said.
Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't  
see what is the problem for you.


Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual  
read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one  
reference to you in Brent's comment.


What I'm referring to here, is that part of your theory, or your  
reading of comp, appears to grade people by the extent they accept  
your theory.


Only the understanding is graded. That's what we do in math and science.





That's  alright. But as I was saying, there's a risk that arguments  
like that in an environment where other people are making up their  
mind about your theory, can bias the process due to them  
experiencing a kind of social/peer pressure to accept the theory.


Not at all. That is why I insist so much that I am not selling a  
theory. I am not sure at all that comp is true. All the contrary. I am  
a mathematician, and I just prove a theorem, which is that IF comp is  
true, then Plato is mandatory, and Aristotle is refuted, and this in a  
testable way.


The miracle is that with comp, some "philosophical" or "theological"

Re: How to define finite

2014-02-04 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:57 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>
>  > The question was, "How do you define finite."

Something is finite if there is no proper subset of it that can be put into
a one to one correspondence with the entire thing.

Another question is "How do you define God?"

I would define the word "God" as meaning the supreme being who is
responsible for the existence of the universe. Actually the first part of
that might actually exist, if there are only a finite number of beings in
the universe then in some sense you might be able to say that one of them
is supreme above the others, but saying that being is responsible for there
being something rather than nothing strikes me as just dumb. And the most
important thing about God is that He is a BEING, that is to say He is
intelligent and conscious.  However I have never denied the existence of of
a Amorphous Vague Fog Of Bafflegab (AVFOB), so if you insist on defining
"God" as AVFOB then I believe in God.

  John K Clark

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Re: Unput and Onput


On 2/4/2014 9:57 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> 
wrote:


I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on something 
other
than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's argument as 
valid but
regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the doctor.  I have 
criticized it
for it's seeming lack of predictive power - a problem with all theories of
everythingism so far, and also string theory.


But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and then showing that 
it leads to a contradiction in its own terms?


No a reductio ad absurdum is showing that the premises lead to conclusions that are 
absurd, i.e. that it is more likely the premises are false than that the conclusion is 
true.  This is somewhat a matter of judgement as to what counts as absurd.  A 
contradiction though is necessarily fatal.


Brent

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Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Jesse Mazer  wrote:



>  Aside from quotes already mentioned, if you want to educate yourself on
> the subject you might try reading the book Bruno mentioned, Pale Yourgrau's
> "Einstein and Gödel" which recounts the extensive discussions Einstein had
> with Gödel on the subject of block time.
>
>>

Minor correction: I just looked it up, the book is actually "Gödel Meets
Einstein", it can be found here (used copies are available cheap):
http://www.amazon.com/Godel-Meets-Einstein-Travel-Universe/dp/0812694082

Yourgrau also wrote another book on the same subject, "A World Without
Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein":
http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Time-Forgotten-Einstein/dp/0465092942/

Incidentally, here's another quote by Einstein where he clearly rejects the
idea of any objective global "present moment", from p. 45 of the book at
http://books.google.com/books?id=0mc4BKpAyr0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA45 --

"We shall now inquire into the definitive insights that physics owes to the
special theory of relativity.

(1) There is no such thing as simultaneity of distant events"

Jesse

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:36:12 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/4/2014 12:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>  
>  But I don't believe that.  I think that consciousness is a necessary 
> aspect of intelligence, 
>
>
>  OK.
>
>  
>  and that is functionally observable.  
>  
>
>  It is not. Leibniz already understood this. You evacuate the mind-body 
> problem. No 3p observation can detect consciousness. It is pure 1p. We can 
> detect evidences that some entities behave as if they were conscious, but 
> materialists would not been tempted to eliminate it if it was observable.
>
>
> "That" refers to intelligence.  Which I think is observable.  I think my 
> dogs are conscious because of their intelligent behavior.
>

Would you say that it is possible for a baby to understand that dogs are 
conscious? How do you know that our understanding of the awareness of other 
creatures is because we deduce it intellectually by evaluating their 
behavior?

Something like the wire monkey experiment shows us that an animal will 
recognize the furry object as being more like its mother than a wire 
object, even though there is no more mothering behavior. I submit that our 
estimation of the sentience of other creatures is almost entirely 
aesthetic, and that if anything we project intelligence onto the behavior 
of things/creatures/people who we like for aesthetic reasons. 

Craig

> Brent
>  

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Re: Unput and Onput



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb >wrote:
>
> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on 
>> something other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's 
>> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the 
>> doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - a 
>> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.
>
>
> But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and then 
> showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, or 
> Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they 
> succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's 
> argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of a 
> digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, but 
> it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion that 
> any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting the 
> premise. 
>

Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for 
experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of 
simulating experience itself.
 

> That could indeed turn out to be the case, but it isn't in itself an 
> argument.
>

The truth of physics and sense is not an argument, argument is a comparison 
within sense. Why does the universe have to fit into an argument of 
cognitive human logic? Let the universe be what it is - perception. 
Participation. Aesthetic acquaintance on many nested (and sometimes 
ambiguously so) levels.

Craig
 

>
> Your own criticism, by contrast, can only succeed by accepting the 
> argument in its own terms and then showing that in this form it fails to 
> satisfy certain desirable criteria, such as predictive power. That's not a 
> reductio either, although of course it's a perfectly valid objection to 
> raise.
>
> David
>

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Re: Discovery of quantum vibrations in brain microtubules confirms Hameroff/Penrose consciousness theory basis

2014-02-04 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote

> The question is why when A gets to the center of the galaxy and stops
>

That's the key point to remember, A comes to a stop. And during the
deceleration process things would no longer be symmetrical, A would see B's
clock running Fast but B would see A's clock running slow. So A would have
aged less than B.

> relative to B that then his clock shows only 20 years passage, but B's
> clock shows 30,000+?
>

Actually if you work out the numbers you find that if A accelerated at one
g for 20 years ship time he'd only be 137 light years from Earth. After 40
years ship time A would be 17,600 light years from Earth, and after 60
years ship time A would be 2,480,000 light years from Earth and be at the
Andromeda Galaxy, although we on the Earth would have to wait 5 million
years to see A's ship get to Andromeda, and unfortunately he'd be going
much too fast to stop and sightsee.


> > Perhaps you didn't see my similar questions to Brent, to which he has
> either been unwilling or unable to reply, about this case. He says it's a
> matter of geometry, but neglects to point out that geometry must have its
> origin at B's earth bound frame.
>

You can pick any point of origin and you will get the same answer, but it's
wise to pick an origin that makes the mathematics the easiest.

  John K Clark

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Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb  wrote:

I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on something
> other than "it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's argument
> as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to the doctor.  I
> have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power - a problem
> with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string theory.

But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and then
showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, or
Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they
succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's
argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of a
digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, but
it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion that
any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting the
premise. That could indeed turn out to be the case, but it isn't in itself
an argument.

Your own criticism, by contrast, can only succeed by accepting the argument
in its own terms and then showing that in this form it fails to satisfy
certain desirable criteria, such as predictive power. That's not a reductio
either, although of course it's a perfectly valid objection to raise.

David

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Re: How to define finite


On 2/4/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 04 Feb 2014, at 00:37, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/3/2014 3:12 PM, LizR wrote:

That which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it?


Uh Oh!  Now you've defined reality as finite.


Why? If I stop to believe in 349775010, 349775011, 349775012, 349775013, 
... ad infinitum, they will not necessarily go away.

I don't see how you make your inference.


You cut off the question which LizR was answering.  The question was, "How do you define 
finite.".  LizR, for some reason, then cited a common definition of reality.









Bruno may make your possible stay after modal school necessary.  :-)


I might ask you to stay after school too, for elementary arithmetic :)


First you'll have to take remedial reading. :-)

Brent

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Re: How to define finite


On 2/4/2014 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 03 Feb 2014, at 21:57, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/3/2014 12:23 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Brent and Bruno here is the main question: what would you identify*"REALITY*" 
by?


Reality is that which we hope to approach


OK



by reification of the ontology of our best theories.


Why? I think it is better to never reify anything in science. We can do it *for all 
practical purposes* in our everyday life, but not in science, where reification and 
ontological commitment leads to the stopping of progress and questioning.


Even scientific theology cannot/should not reify a creator or a creation. But we can 
assume them, for the purpose of some argumentation.


Intimate conviction have to remain intimate. It is for the pause-café, or the sunday 
philosophy.


I don't think of reification as a dogmatic committment.  It's just the provisional 
acceptance of the ontology of a theory.


Brent

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room

On 2/4/2014 3:46 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On 4 February 2014 22:32, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless to
ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon.

Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is
consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain activity.
So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully?

It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to
ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial
question.

Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and consciousness is
only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p, but still
a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p phenomenon, why
not?

Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an epiphenomenon?

We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet
we can still refer to it.

I think when we understand it at the engineering level we will just see these as phenomena
at different levels of description. We engineers talk about aircraft navigating they
don't name all the sensors and variables and Kalman filters, they just call it "navigating".

Brent

Re: Better Than the Chinese Room


On 2/4/2014 12:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
But I don't believe that. I think that consciousness is a necessary aspect of 
intelligence,


OK.



and that is functionally observable.


It is not. Leibniz already understood this. You evacuate the mind-body problem. No 3p 
observation can detect consciousness. It is pure 1p. We can detect evidences that some 
entities behave as if they were conscious, but materialists would not been tempted to 
eliminate it if it was observable.


"That" refers to intelligence.  Which I think is observable.  I think my dogs are 
conscious because of their intelligent behavior.


Brent

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Re: Unput and Onput


On 2/4/2014 7:51 AM, David Nyman wrote:
Fine, but then if you genuinely seek to criticise it in its own terms, as you appear to 
do constantly, then the usual rules of engagement are that you cannot in all reason 
subsequently quarrel with the stated assumptions unless they lead to a contradiction *in 
their own terms*. That is what Bruno asks for in a public discussion and it is a very 
different enterprise than substituting a completely different set of assumptions 
somewhere in the middle of the argument.


I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on something other than 
"it's own terms".  I think Craig might accept Bruno's argument as valid but regard it as a 
reductio against saying "yes" to the doctor.  I have criticized it for it's seeming lack 
of predictive power - a problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string 
theory.


Brent

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Re: Block Universes

On 2/4/2014 2:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

The MWI is deterministic, however, and hence has hidden variables.

But not "hidden variable" in the EPR sense. In the MWI, there are hidden universes, they
are not variable, but terms in the universal wave, and we just don't know which terms
apply to us. If it was hidden variable in the EPR sense, then by Bell, they would be
non-local, and you would conclude falsely (like Clark) that the MWI has to be non local
(which I doubt very much)

But is it non-local? The FPI is based on find yourself in a particular universe (where
the measurement was "up" say) so that's an indicial variable labeling that universe. Now
you may say that indicial label really only applies to the forward lightcone relative to
the measurement. But if is one of an EPR pair, it must also carry a variable value that
tells it it is correlated with the the other particle of the EPR pair, so that in the
overlap of their forward lightcones the statistis will violate Bell's inequality.
Otherwise you could get the same statistics using non-entangled pairs at the two measuring
devices.

Brent

Re: What are wavefunctions?


On 2/3/2014 11:49 PM, LizR wrote:
I did wonder once if, since the holographic principle implies that the information in a 
universe is proportional to the surface area of the Hubble sphere, could it be that the 
information in the /multiverse/ is proportional to the volume of the Hubble sphere?


(Although I guess the multiverse probably contains way more info than that...)


But presumably only because it can have much bigger Hubble spheres. For a given size 
Hubble sphere, which is to say for a given epoch after the big bang, there are only 
finitely many different possible Hubble spheres.


At least that's the theory.

Brent

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:54:26 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 04 Feb 2014, at 12:46, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 
>
> > On 4 February 2014 22:32, Bruno Marchal > 
> wrote: 
> > 
> >>> My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless   
> >>> to 
> >>> ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon. 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is 
> >> consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain   
> >> activity. 
> >> So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully? 
> > 
> > It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to 
> > ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial 
> > question. 
>
> Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an   
> abuse of language to be short). 
>
> The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body)   
> could not refer to an epiphenomenon? 
> Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be   
> meaningless? 
>
> If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that meaningless? 
> It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible? 
>
> And is it meaningless to ask such question? 
>
> May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it   
> looks just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask". 
>
> I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to   
> see many nuances and possibilities in this context. 
>
>
>
> > 
> >> Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and   
> >> consciousness is 
> >> only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p,   
> >> but still 
> >> a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p   
> >> phenomenon, why 
> >> not? 
> >> 
> >> Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an   
> >> epiphenomenon? 
> > 
> > We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet 
> > we can still refer to it. 
>
> May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter   
> yet we can still refer to it]. 
>
> But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp,   
> and the arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar   
> questions, why we cannot explain some truth. 
>
> I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained,   
> above the more elementary assumptions. 
>

I think we must explain the elementary assumptions also, and then we find 
that sense can only be self-explanatory. Nothing else can be self 
explanatory because explanation itself can't be anything other than a way 
of making sense.
 

> I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has   
> fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to   
> understand". 
>

I think that if you aren't seeing that sense is fundamental, it is because 
you have stopped questioning it when you get to a comfortable level of 
objective-seeming simplicity. I'm seeing simplicity itself as a concept - a 
quality which is revealed not by some mechanism, but by sanity itself - a 
sanity shared by all phenomena without having to be taught or practiced 
like arithmetic.

Craig
 

>
> You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or   
> introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there   
> indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort   
> of miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events.   
> Mind can "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this   
> without violating the physical laws. But eventually it makes the   
> physical laws emerging on something non physical (which comp allows to   
> limit on arithmetical truth or combinators truth, ...). 
>
> Bruno 
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 
>
>
>
>

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Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 10:56 AM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:

> Hi Jesse,
>
> Well, we disagree here
>


What part of what I said do you disagree with? Do you disagree that in the
context of relativity, "sections" of the four-dimensional structure should
be taken to refer to simultaneity surfaces? And do you not think that if
someone says a sentence of the form "we should think of physical reality as
A instead of, as hitherto, as B", this indicates that they are setting up a
contrast between A and B, and endorsing A and suggesting that B is
outdated? This is really quite a straightforward sentence structure! If you
take this sentence as endorsing B than you either have terrible reading
comprehension, or your desire to believe Einstein agreed with you is
overriding your ability to read normally (confirmation bias).



> but thinking we know for sure the details of what Einstein believed is
> probably a lost cause
>

Why should it be? He said plenty on the subject, we can look at his quotes,
just as we would do if we wanted to know his opinion on any subject. (do
you think it's a "lost cause" to determine whether he believed the Sun's
gravity could deflect light rays, for example?) Aside from quotes already
mentioned, if you want to educate yourself on the subject you might try
reading the book Bruno mentioned, Pale Yourgrau's "Einstein and Gödel"
which recounts the extensive discussions Einstein had with Gödel on the
subject of block time.

Jesse



> - for me at least, but you of course can always call him up and ask him,
> since in your view he still actually exists as a block time time line!
>
> Let me know when you get an answer and I'll be a believer in block time
> too!
> :-)
>
> Best,
> Edgar
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 10:14:43 AM UTC-5, jessem wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:19 AM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:
>>
>>> Jesse,
>>>
>>> I agree that the evidence is that Einstein very probably believed in a
>>> non personal God of the universe. But there are those who try to prove he
>>> believed in a personal Biblical God and they do come up with some quotes
>>> they claim support their belief.
>>>
>>
>> But you said *you* thought his quotes on God were inconsistent, not just
>> that some other people might incorrectly infer belief in a Biblical God
>> from his quotes. Can you think of any comments of his that *you* think are
>> inconsistent with a Spinoza-esque pantheist God?
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> The quote you provide re an objective now are simply referencing the
>>> non-simultaneity cases of clock time which are well known but as I've
>>> pointed out ad nauseum do NOT falsify an actual present moment. That is
>>> clearly shown by the twins having NON-simultaneous clock times in the exact
>>> SAME present moment.
>>>
>>
>> He referred to "sections" of the four-dimensional structure and the idea
>> that none of these "sections" can "represent 'now' objectively", so clearly
>> he wasn't just talking about individual readings on local clocks, but
>> rather the spacelike simultaneity surfaces (surfaces of constant coordinate
>> time) used by inertial frames. Though as I've mentioned before, inertial
>> frames can be defined in terms of a hypothetical *network* of clocks
>> filling all of space, which have been "synchronized" in their rest frame,
>> so in this sense simultaneity surfaces are based on clock readings.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> And as this quote points out "the concepts of happening and becoming are
>>> indeed NOT completely suspended, just more complicated".
>>>
>>
>> Yes, just like plenty of eternalists would say.
>>
>>
>>>  And he goes on to note that there is an "EVOLUTION of a three
>>> dimensional existence in time" which clearly indicates what he really
>>> believed in was a 4-dimensional universe in which things EVOLVE, happen and
>>> change.
>>>
>>
>> No, he said that we "should think of physical reality as a
>> four-dimensional existence, INSTEAD OF, AS HITHERTO, the evolution of a
>> three dimensional existence." In other words, he was contrasting the older
>> view of physical reality as "the evolution of a three dimensional
>> existence" with the newer view of "a four-dimensional existence", and
>> saying the latter is how we "should" think of things.
>>
>> Jesse
>>
>> That is NOT block time. It's a 4-dimensional universe in which things
>>> change and happen and become, though in a more complicated way than the old
>>> Newtonian way.
>>>
>>> So I would argue against your interpretation based on this quote...
>>>
>>> And of course using the present "in the ordinary everyday way" of direct
>>> observation is itself strong evidence that a present moment does actually
>>> exist and block time doesn't, and that everybody that uses it that way
>>> implicitly and most explicitly believe that
>>>
>>>
>>> Edgar
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday, February 3, 2014 10:34:46 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote:


 On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:

> Jesse,
>
> That's possi

Re: Unput and Onput

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 10:51:02 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 4 February 2014 14:52, Craig Weinberg 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:19:51 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>>
>>> On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>>
>>> Because silicon happens to have been disallowed for biological 
 experience. Silicon and carbon are symbols and signs of the footprint of 
 experiences, not the causes of them. I suggest that we stop thinking in 
 terms of forms in space or functions in time and start thinking in terms 
 of 
 that which appreciates form and participates in function.
>>>
>>>
>>> Far be it from me to spoil the fun, but you could save yourself a lot of 
>>> typing if you simply stated at the outset that you don't accept the premise 
>>> that your consciousness would be invariant for a digital substitution of 
>>> your brain.
>>>
>>
>> Why do you assume that I haven't? If you notice, I repeatedly say that it 
>> is not the logic of Comp that I reject, it is it's beginning assumptions.
>>
>
> Fine, but then if you genuinely seek to criticise it in its own terms, as 
> you appear to do constantly, 
>

I seek to criticize it in terms of what is honest and real. Part of that is 
to assert that in order to do that, we cannot be seduced into judging Comp 
on its own terms, just as we cannot find out about who is playing a game by 
looking only at the game being played.

> then the usual rules of engagement are that you cannot in all reason 
> subsequently quarrel with the stated assumptions unless they lead to a 
> contradiction *in their own terms*. That is what Bruno asks for in a public 
> discussion and it is a very different enterprise than substituting a 
> completely different set of assumptions somewhere in the middle of the 
> argument.
>

I have never had a criticism over Bruno's argument, only his beginning 
assumptions. If Comp were possible, I have no problem with his treatment of 
it - but what I have been saying from the start is that Comp is impossible 
and it can be understood to be impossible if you question the nature of 
arithmetic itself. It's you who have assumed, erroneously, that my argument 
began in the last couple of weeks that you have been discussing it. We have 
been at this for several years now. You are in the middle of the argument, 
not me.

>
>
>>  
>>
>>>  That is, in effect, the practical encapsulation of the rest of Bruno's 
>>> argument, as he himself frequently reiterates. Silicon or carbon then have 
>>> nothing to do with the matter (no play on words intended) as computation is 
>>> a purely relational concept that is by definition invariant for any 
>>> physical instantiation. What is remarkable about Bruno's argument is that 
>>> he succeeds (in my view at least) in showing that for "physical 
>>> instantiation" to make any sense it too must be derived from computation.
>>>
>>
>> I agree with Bruno's position on physics (although computation could be 
>> derived from physics in the same way)
>>
>
> Well, it's a key goal of the UDA to show, on the starting assumptions, 
> that this leads to a contradiction and hence is false. At what point to you 
> disagree?
>

At the point where numbers are assumed to be independent entities. Numbers 
can be derived from sensible physics as easily as physics can be derived 
from sensible numbers. All that matters is where you plant the flag of 
sense. Embodied computation shows how geometric forms can emulate 
arithmetic functions.

>
> but I suggest for "computation" to make any sense it must be derived from 
>> aesthetic acquaintance, aka, sensory-motive participation.
>>
>
> Not if you would be willing to accept a digital substitute for your brain. 
> If not, none of Bruno's arguments follow anyway.
>

Right. That's my position. None of Bruno's arguments follow because they 
are based on the assumption substitution, when I am saying that sense is by 
definition that-which-can-never-be-substituted. Numbers are an irreversibly 
destructive compression of sense. They invoke a uniform fictional context 
for fictional substitution, which is why they are ideal for communication 
and mechanical control. Numbers cut off feeling. Numbers are (heh) numb.

>  
>
>>  
>>
>>>
>>> Bruno frequently refers to your ideas as non-comp precisely because it 
>>> seems clear that your would say no to the doctor. Be that as it may, I take 
>>> it that this doesn't mean that you reject any lawful connection between 
>>> whatever the brain might be said to do (at some level of analysis) and the 
>>> conscious phenomena that appear to be correlated with it. 
>>>
>>
>> Sure, I would not deny a sensible correlation, but there is no reason to 
>> suppose a direct translation.
>>
>  
> "I would not deny" is a far cry from an explanation, or even the form of 
> one. It would argue more strongly in favour of your theory if you could at 
> least indicate the shape of such an explanation, which i

Re: Block Universes

On 4 February 2014 10:14, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> But perhaps we should rather think of the frog focus as continuing to be
> fundamentally panoptic (i.e. encompassing all the frog perspectives) except
> that "down there" the extrinsic simultaneity is intrinsically broken by the
> discrete perspective of each momentary frog. If so, one could then see
> Hoyle's heuristic as a frog's eye view of the experiential consequences of
> this broken simultaneity.
>
> I think that is is what happen when we apply the theaeteus definition on
> provability, except that provability is already a symmetry broker, then the
> Theaetetus makes it even more assymetrical (irreflexive, even), and the
> miracle is more in the fact that, defining the physical reality from that
> move, we get the core symmetry back.
>

Yes, the idea I'm trying to convey is that the symmetry of the frog's
panoptic view is broken, or breaks itself, as a consequence of its
intrinsic non-simultaneity, and this, at least for me, is the intuition
that Hoyle's heuristic fundamentally conveys. This internal asymmetry of
simultaneity obviates any requirement to appeal to any further extrinsic
principle of symmetry breaking, so Hoyle's selective principle becomes
merely a conceptual ladder to be cast aside once we have used it to
imaginatively descend "down here". In a different but related sense, the
"physical symmetry" re-emerges from any one of the frog's discrete
perspectives. I guess this is what you mean by the miracle, and yes, I do
regard this as a major prize if indeed the comp assumption is correct.

> I hope I will be able to clarify this for you with the self-reference
> (modal) logics.
>

I hope so too!

David

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Re: Better Than the Chinese Room



On 04 Feb 2014, at 12:46, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


On 4 February 2014 22:32, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless  
to

ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon.




Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is
consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain  
activity.

So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully?


It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to
ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial
question.


Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an  
abuse of language to be short).


The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body)  
could not refer to an epiphenomenon?
Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be  
meaningless?


If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that meaningless?
It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible?

And is it meaningless to ask such question?

May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it  
looks just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask".


I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to  
see many nuances and possibilities in this context.






Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and  
consciousness is
only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p,  
but still
a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p  
phenomenon, why

not?

Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an  
epiphenomenon?


We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet
we can still refer to it.


May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter  
yet we can still refer to it].


But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp,  
and the arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar  
questions, why we cannot explain some truth.


I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained,  
above the more elementary assumptions.
I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has  
fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to  
understand".


You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or  
introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there  
indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort  
of miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events.  
Mind can "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this  
without violating the physical laws. But eventually it makes the  
physical laws emerging on something non physical (which comp allows to  
limit on arithmetical truth or combinators truth, ...).


Bruno




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



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Re: Unput and Onput

On 4 February 2014 14:52, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

>
>
> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:19:51 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote:
>
>> On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>> Because silicon happens to have been disallowed for biological
>>> experience. Silicon and carbon are symbols and signs of the footprint of
>>> experiences, not the causes of them. I suggest that we stop thinking in
>>> terms of forms in space or functions in time and start thinking in terms of
>>> that which appreciates form and participates in function.
>>
>>
>> Far be it from me to spoil the fun, but you could save yourself a lot of
>> typing if you simply stated at the outset that you don't accept the premise
>> that your consciousness would be invariant for a digital substitution of
>> your brain.
>>
>
> Why do you assume that I haven't? If you notice, I repeatedly say that it
> is not the logic of Comp that I reject, it is it's beginning assumptions.
>

Fine, but then if you genuinely seek to criticise it in its own terms, as
you appear to do constantly, then the usual rules of engagement are that
you cannot in all reason subsequently quarrel with the stated assumptions
unless they lead to a contradiction *in their own terms*. That is what
Bruno asks for in a public discussion and it is a very different enterprise
than substituting a completely different set of assumptions somewhere in
the middle of the argument.


>
>
>>  That is, in effect, the practical encapsulation of the rest of Bruno's
>> argument, as he himself frequently reiterates. Silicon or carbon then have
>> nothing to do with the matter (no play on words intended) as computation is
>> a purely relational concept that is by definition invariant for any
>> physical instantiation. What is remarkable about Bruno's argument is that
>> he succeeds (in my view at least) in showing that for "physical
>> instantiation" to make any sense it too must be derived from computation.
>>
>
> I agree with Bruno's position on physics (although computation could be
> derived from physics in the same way)
>

Well, it's a key goal of the UDA to show, on the starting assumptions, that
this leads to a contradiction and hence is false. At what point to you
disagree?

but I suggest for "computation" to make any sense it must be derived from
> aesthetic acquaintance, aka, sensory-motive participation.
>

Not if you would be willing to accept a digital substitute for your brain.
If not, none of Bruno's arguments follow anyway.


>
>
>>
>> Bruno frequently refers to your ideas as non-comp precisely because it
>> seems clear that your would say no to the doctor. Be that as it may, I take
>> it that this doesn't mean that you reject any lawful connection between
>> whatever the brain might be said to do (at some level of analysis) and the
>> conscious phenomena that appear to be correlated with it.
>>
>
> Sure, I would not deny a sensible correlation, but there is no reason to
> suppose a direct translation.
>

"I would not deny" is a far cry from an explanation, or even the form of
one. It would argue more strongly in favour of your theory if you could at
least indicate the shape of such an explanation, which is what Bruno sets
out to do for comp.

  I can reduce red to a signal of invisible data, but that doesn't mean
>> that invisible data can become acquainted with red on its own.
>>
>
Appealing to the incontrovertible acquaintance of sense does not produce a
contradiction if such incontrovertibility and such acquaintance can be
credibly justified from the starting assumptions. It's a major (I might say
astounding) virtue of comp that it is indeed able plausibly to explain both
of these features of sense and even to justify why, from the point-of-view
of the machine, there must nonetheless always be a remainder that must defy
any justification.


>
>> It's just this kind of lawful connection that I've been asking you to
>> elucidate in your theory. Even if we assume that sense is primitive, the
>> appearances are still there to be saved and these appearances are not all
>> of the same nature. One is hardly barred thereby from seeking ways of
>> explicating how, for example, the apparent behaviour of our brains and
>> bodies when we perceive could be lawfully correlated with direct
>> perception. I'm sure that you've never intended to suggested that your
>> theory merely entails that all such attempts are nugatory?
>>
>
> No, my theory only serves to expand the quantity and quality of
> correlations between not only brains and perception, but perception and
> language, language and ideas, ideas and subjects, etc.
>

Very nice, but how precisely (as opposed to poetically) are we to elucidate
such correlations? Look, you may think I'm being unduly hard on your
theory, because I appreciate that you accept that you have only sketched
out the "corners" of the framework of something that is a much larger
enterprise, as indeed does Bruno. In fact he sometimes says that he hasn't
so much solv

Re: Block Universes

2014-02-04 Thread Edgar L. Owen

Hi Jesse,

Well, we disagree here but thinking we know for sure the details of what 
Einstein believed is probably a lost cause - for me at least, but you of 
course can always call him up and ask him, since in your view he still 
actually exists as a block time time line!

Let me know when you get an answer and I'll be a believer in block time too!
:-)

Best,
Edgar

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 10:14:43 AM UTC-5, jessem wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:19 AM, Edgar L. Owen 
> > wrote:
>
>> Jesse,
>>
>> I agree that the evidence is that Einstein very probably believed in a 
>> non personal God of the universe. But there are those who try to prove he 
>> believed in a personal Biblical God and they do come up with some quotes 
>> they claim support their belief.
>>
>
> But you said *you* thought his quotes on God were inconsistent, not just 
> that some other people might incorrectly infer belief in a Biblical God 
> from his quotes. Can you think of any comments of his that *you* think are 
> inconsistent with a Spinoza-esque pantheist God?
>
>  
>
>>
>> The quote you provide re an objective now are simply referencing the 
>> non-simultaneity cases of clock time which are well known but as I've 
>> pointed out ad nauseum do NOT falsify an actual present moment. That is 
>> clearly shown by the twins having NON-simultaneous clock times in the exact 
>> SAME present moment.
>>
>
> He referred to "sections" of the four-dimensional structure and the idea 
> that none of these "sections" can "represent 'now' objectively", so clearly 
> he wasn't just talking about individual readings on local clocks, but 
> rather the spacelike simultaneity surfaces (surfaces of constant coordinate 
> time) used by inertial frames. Though as I've mentioned before, inertial 
> frames can be defined in terms of a hypothetical *network* of clocks 
> filling all of space, which have been "synchronized" in their rest frame, 
> so in this sense simultaneity surfaces are based on clock readings. 
>  
>
>>
>> And as this quote points out "the concepts of happening and becoming are 
>> indeed NOT completely suspended, just more complicated".
>>
>
> Yes, just like plenty of eternalists would say.
>  
>
>>  And he goes on to note that there is an "EVOLUTION of a three 
>> dimensional existence in time" which clearly indicates what he really 
>> believed in was a 4-dimensional universe in which things EVOLVE, happen and 
>> change. 
>>
>
> No, he said that we "should think of physical reality as a 
> four-dimensional existence, INSTEAD OF, AS HITHERTO, the evolution of a 
> three dimensional existence." In other words, he was contrasting the older 
> view of physical reality as "the evolution of a three dimensional 
> existence" with the newer view of "a four-dimensional existence", and 
> saying the latter is how we "should" think of things.
>
> Jesse
>
> That is NOT block time. It's a 4-dimensional universe in which things 
>> change and happen and become, though in a more complicated way than the old 
>> Newtonian way.
>>
>> So I would argue against your interpretation based on this quote...
>>
>> And of course using the present "in the ordinary everyday way" of direct 
>> observation is itself strong evidence that a present moment does actually 
>> exist and block time doesn't, and that everybody that uses it that way 
>> implicitly and most explicitly believe that
>>
>>
>> Edgar
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, February 3, 2014 10:34:46 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:
>>>
 Jesse,

 That's possible but it's only one quote and considering the 
 circumstances it could have just been an attempt to provide comfort to the 
 grieving family. Also Einstein is known to have spoken metaphorically at 
 times and even to seemingly contradict himself on occasion (eg. on 
 religious belief), so I think one would need to have more than just that 
 one quote to make a convincing case.

>>>
>>> All of his statements on religion I've seen seem completely consistent 
>>> with a Spinoza-esque pantheism, where do you think he contradicted himself 
>>> on religion? As for block time, that wasn't his only comment in support of 
>>> the idea, for example at http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm we 
>>> find the following even more explicit endorsement of the block time view: 
>>>
>>> 'Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no 
>>> longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of 
>>> happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet 
>>> complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality 
>>> as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of 
>>> a three dimensional existence.'
>>>
>>>  
>>>

 On the other hand I suspect one can find very many Einstein quotes in 
 which he mentions the PRESENT which would stand in direct contradictio

Fwd: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it

2014-02-04 Thread Richard Ruquist

This might be of interest

-- Forwarded message --
From: richard ruquist 
Date: Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 10:33 AM
Subject: Fw: [Swines] Matter itself doesn't make this journey, only the
information that describes it
To: "yann...@gmail.com" 




  On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:42 AM, richard ruquist 
wrote:



  On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:09 AM, Emerging Technology From the arXiv
- MIT Technology Review  wrote:
the physics arXiv
blog
--
 Quantum Internet: First Teleportation To A Solid-State Quantum
Memory
 Posted: 03 Feb 2014 09:34 AM PST
A European team of physicists has demonstrated a device that can teleport
quantum information to a solid-state quantum memory over telecom fibre, a
crucial capability for any future quantum internet.

Quantum teleportation is the ability to transmit from one location to
another without travelling through the space in between. Matter itself
doesn't make this journey, only the information that describes it. This is
transmitted to a new body that takes on the identity of the original.







 You are subscribed to email updates from Emerging Technology From the
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Re: Block Universes

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 8:19 AM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:

> Jesse,
>
> I agree that the evidence is that Einstein very probably believed in a non
> personal God of the universe. But there are those who try to prove he
> believed in a personal Biblical God and they do come up with some quotes
> they claim support their belief.
>

But you said *you* thought his quotes on God were inconsistent, not just
that some other people might incorrectly infer belief in a Biblical God
from his quotes. Can you think of any comments of his that *you* think are
inconsistent with a Spinoza-esque pantheist God?



>
> The quote you provide re an objective now are simply referencing the
> non-simultaneity cases of clock time which are well known but as I've
> pointed out ad nauseum do NOT falsify an actual present moment. That is
> clearly shown by the twins having NON-simultaneous clock times in the exact
> SAME present moment.
>

He referred to "sections" of the four-dimensional structure and the idea
that none of these "sections" can "represent 'now' objectively", so clearly
he wasn't just talking about individual readings on local clocks, but
rather the spacelike simultaneity surfaces (surfaces of constant coordinate
time) used by inertial frames. Though as I've mentioned before, inertial
frames can be defined in terms of a hypothetical *network* of clocks
filling all of space, which have been "synchronized" in their rest frame,
so in this sense simultaneity surfaces are based on clock readings.


>
> And as this quote points out "the concepts of happening and becoming are
> indeed NOT completely suspended, just more complicated".
>

Yes, just like plenty of eternalists would say.


> And he goes on to note that there is an "EVOLUTION of a three dimensional
> existence in time" which clearly indicates what he really believed in was a
> 4-dimensional universe in which things EVOLVE, happen and change.
>

No, he said that we "should think of physical reality as a four-dimensional
existence, INSTEAD OF, AS HITHERTO, the evolution of a three dimensional
existence." In other words, he was contrasting the older view of physical
reality as "the evolution of a three dimensional existence" with the newer
view of "a four-dimensional existence", and saying the latter is how we
"should" think of things.

Jesse

That is NOT block time. It's a 4-dimensional universe in which things
> change and happen and become, though in a more complicated way than the old
> Newtonian way.
>
> So I would argue against your interpretation based on this quote...
>
> And of course using the present "in the ordinary everyday way" of direct
> observation is itself strong evidence that a present moment does actually
> exist and block time doesn't, and that everybody that uses it that way
> implicitly and most explicitly believe that
>
>
> Edgar
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 3, 2014 10:34:46 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Edgar L. Owen  wrote:
>>
>>> Jesse,
>>>
>>> That's possible but it's only one quote and considering the
>>> circumstances it could have just been an attempt to provide comfort to the
>>> grieving family. Also Einstein is known to have spoken metaphorically at
>>> times and even to seemingly contradict himself on occasion (eg. on
>>> religious belief), so I think one would need to have more than just that
>>> one quote to make a convincing case.
>>>
>>
>> All of his statements on religion I've seen seem completely consistent
>> with a Spinoza-esque pantheism, where do you think he contradicted himself
>> on religion? As for block time, that wasn't his only comment in support of
>> the idea, for example at http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm we
>> find the following even more explicit endorsement of the block time view:
>>
>> 'Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no
>> longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of
>> happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet
>> complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality
>> as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of
>> a three dimensional existence.'
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On the other hand I suspect one can find very many Einstein quotes in
>>> which he mentions the PRESENT which would stand in direct contradiction to
>>> a belief in a block universe.
>>>
>>>
>> Did he use it in the context of talking about the nature of time in
>> physics or philosophy, or was he just using it in the ordinary everyday
>> way, like talking about the "present political situation" or something? If
>> the latter, I think eternalists talk that way all the time, simultaneity
>> issues make no practical difference when you're just talking about events
>> confined to the Earth. And aside from simultaneity issues, talking about
>> the "present" doesn't preclude the possibility that other times are equally
>> real, it's just an indexical term like "here".
>>

Re: Real science versus interpretations of science


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:33:42 PM UTC, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
>
> All,
>
> 1. In my view real science means only the equations that actually work to 
> predict events and the logical framework in which those equations are 
> meaningfully applied. In a more restrictive sense real science is only the 
> ACTUAL computations that actually compute the actual state of reality. That 
> would mean that most of the equations of science which apply at the 
> aggregate level are just descriptions rather than actual reality 
> computations which I would claim occur only at the most elemental level. 
> Thus e.g. the laws of motion and the behavior of gases are accurate 
> DESCRIPTIONS of emergent behavior but are not actually involved in 
> computing that behavior. The real computations are programs at the 
> elemental level, and are those that compute the conservation of particle 
> properties in particle interactions, and the bonding of matter, etc. So one 
> can make a case that it is only these equations or programs that constitute 
> real science.
>
> Also note that real science does not consists of static equations that 
> require scientists to apply them, but must consist of actual running 
> programs that apply themselves without the help of scientists. Real 
> science, in my strict sense, is programatic simulation of those actual 
> programs on silicon computers of the actual programs that compute reality. 
> This is because programs, as opposed to static equations, include the 
> implicit logical context of the mathematical equations by embedding them 
> within that logical structure. Real science in this sense does not require 
> a scientist to apply it. It computes predictable results all by itself when 
> fed inputs.
>
>
> 2. All the rest is not real science but meta-theories, philosophy, or 
> interpretations of science. This is NOT to say that it is not useful or 
> valid, but just to point out its actual status. From this perspective 
> almost ALL of what currently passes for science, on this list and 
> elsewhere, is not actually science, but interpretations of science, or 
> META-science.
>
> 3. Meta-science is NOT in a one to one correspondence with the underlying 
> science it interprets because there can be and often are multiple competing 
> interpretations of the same areas of real science.
>
> 4. Interpretations of science thus obviously include projections of 
> personal world views onto the underlying science, and are creatures of 
> personal belief systems designed to help make sense of the underlying 
> science in terms of personal and socially current memes. As such they are 
> always suspect, especially because in general they are NOT always subject 
> to empirical confirmation or falsification AND they are based on personal 
> world views designed to make sense of the mundane logic of things that have 
> evolved to facilitate our functioning in our day to day environments rather 
> than to provide insight into the true nature of reality.
>
> 5. Thus we must be careful to judge interpretations of science by their 
> logical consistency with the underlying science they interpret, and always 
> be on the lookout to eliminate our personal prejudices and the mundane 
> views of reality programmed in our minds by evolution, and the syntactical 
> logic of language which has evolved to make sense of mundane rather than 
> deep reality.
>
>
> 6. Given the above, what my book, and my posts, attempt to do is: 
>
> a. Accept all current established science as it is (always subject to new 
> advances). That means I accept all the actual science (the actual equations 
> in their logical matrix) of QM, SR, GR, Chemistry, Biology, Information 
> science, Geology etc.etc. I accept everyone of these as it stands to the 
> extent it results in empirically verifiable predictions.
>
> b. Propose an entirely new and unifying INTERPRETATION of this science 
> across its entire scope, which I believe is more consistent with it and 
> more unified and explanatory than other current interpretations. If this is 
> true then it provides a much deeper insight into the true underlying nature 
> of reality...
>
> Whether I succeed at this only time will tell...
> . 
> Edgar
>
 
 OK so you are saying your theory is not real science, but 
philosophy/interpretation. 
 
Are you then saying real science comes out of philosophy/interpretation? In 
that, presumably the value you see in creating your interpretation is that 
it will eventually lead to real science? 
 
 I think the way you see science is ...incomplete. Because what 
distinguishes science is approach. If the result wasn't also distinctive 
the approach wouldn't be too special either. But I don't think you the 
approach out of the nature of science. 
 
A theory that is scientific has structural traits...only seen in science. A 
structural trait in the end theory isn't put there in an arranging process, 
but is the outcome of methodological application. So yo

Re: Better Than the Chinese Room