RE: Atheist
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 6:11 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Atheist On 25 July 2014 12:48, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: _ From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 4:49 PM Subject: Re: Atheist On 25 July 2014 11:27, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: And in any case 'natural selection' would just be replaced by 'cultural selection' - which is natural. What is 'cultural selection' ? An ape figures out how to insert a palm frond down into a termite nest and is able to harvest a bonanza of good termite protein... soon other apes in the vicinity begin mimicking the original creative ape... with some of them learning how to perform this new neat trick (others ignoring it and still others failing to master the new skill)... in time -- if compelling enough -- the idea spreads throughout the larger grouping of culturally inter-acting apes and many of the members of the larger inter-acting group learn the new valuable technique mother apes (who have mastered the termite feeding learned behavior) begin teaching their own offspring this new valuable survival skill. After some generations the culturally learned technique is firmly established in this particular ape sub-culture, while remaining absent in other ape sub-cultures of the same species that have not been exposed to this new cultural evolution. A successful *cultural innovation* will spread (or conversely fail to propagate) in a similar manner (through a different modality of course) as biologically encoded evolution. Good ideas -- i.e. those with high survival fitness -- will tend to spread through an interacting group of individuals in a given culture, who are in fairly close contact with each other. I agree that this would have been useful in a situation like that. Do you think this is still happening in Western culture? A lot of memes appear to not have any specific survival value, although some are undoubtedly useful. But the vast majority seem to just be what happens to be fashionable at the moment - which is often the result of the whole meme thing having been hijacked to benefit a few individuals. Yes, I think it goes on all the time. Fashion is fickle as they say; so sure fashion always happens – and is marketed in today’s global markets with billions of dollars being spent to push the product out the door. But what survives is Mozart. There is a natural organic process by which the best – survivable memes – make their way into the transmitted cultural DNA (transmogrified over time by the accidental history surrounding their genesis and evolution into cultural adoption) Of course gangsters will try to hijack any and all cultures to turn them to into captive systems working for their narrow interests. I agree with you that “mass culture” is a tool of the narrow interests who seek to centralize power into an exceedingly constricted elite of the very few. But culture evolves and in some ways it follows a Darwinian trajectory, which is not always evident to us mortal beings caught up as we are in the froth of existence. Sometimes bad ideas will spread, but it is rarer. I can think of a few which have negative reproductive / survival value but have nevertheless spread, especially religious ones. I agree… however if you look at some negative ideas; cultural forms imprinting on pre-existing forms (as for example Christianity or Islam has become grafted onto preexisting cultures in often bloody genocidal manners) Why did they survive? Because they confer survivability in some manner on groups (i.e. cultures) practicing them. Negative as we may both agree that they are. For example the ability of religious zealotry to brutalize human beings and transform them into slaughter machines for god is, from a military viewpoint a distinct advantage. A teeming army of heartless zealots is a terrible meta-monster to face. So, while I agree heartedly with you as to the negativity of the message, in practice zealotry has proven to be a most useful tool in the hands of dogmatic centralized power and this confers a certain Darwinian advantage. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails
Re: Atheist
I agree to an extent, but this sort of argument tends to drift towards tautology. Whatever survives survives, and hence has survival value in some sense. But a meme that turns someone into a suicide bomber or celibate monk probably doesn't have much survival value for that person. My feeling is that memes favour *their own* survival, as Richard Dawkins suggested. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Atheist
Hi Alberto, On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: Cultural determism is incompatible with natural selection. That was plainly demonstrated by Symons in his book The evolution of human sexuality ,but it is common sense among evolutionists of any kind. Suppose that human culture determines human behaviour. Then suppose a mutant that use culture to manipulate others in order to increase his own reproductive succes, so that for example manipulate others for breeding his own kids. then this mutant very fast substitute the culturally manipulable individuals. My problem with this argument is that culture is orders of magnitude faster than evolution, so by the time the mutation occurs, there might be enough momentum on the pro-manipulation social norms that the mutants will just be considered mentally ill and thrown in hospices or jails. This already happens with violence. At face value, a mutation that makes you prone to killing without remorse should give you immense power over the more pacifist masses. But that doesn't happen, for the reasons above. That´s all. it is simple . It´s nt? Cultural determinism is not a evolutionarily stable strategy. Period. The other reasons why I think it's not so simple has to do with the constraints on evolution itself. The information encoded in a fully developed human brain is orders of magnitude greater than the information encoded in the DNA. So, unavoidably, brain development will use information encoded in the environment. There's strong evidence for this too: if a child doesn't learn how to speak until age 5, it will never be able to speak. DNA encodes a morphogenetic strategy for the brain, but the environment provides the cues for development. Of course the morphogenetic strategy may try to protect against certain attacks, but it's important to realize the highly abstract level at which it is operating. In fact, these protections appear to be so flimsy that you can brainwash teenagers into not wanting to eat with glossy magazines, or adults into not having sex (the biological prime directive) with religion. Thanks for your attention and bye. Alberto, although I don't agree with a lot of what you say, I believe I am maintaining a serious debate with you. I am open to considering your counter-arguments. Please give me the same respect and don't treat me like some brain-washed minion just because I disagree. Cheers Telmo. 2014-07-19 13:52 GMT+02:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:43 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: There are optimimums toward what we aim to. That a mother kill his son because she don´t feel capable to breed him does not man that this is as good as not killing him and having enoug resources and support to carry along. Both things are natural and adaptive. but the former is bad and the other is good. Anyone can distinguish between both. I can distinguish between feeling good and feeling bad. I prefer feeling good. Unfortunately for me, it is rarely clear which actions make me feel good in the long term. Exercise seems to work better than other, more metaphysical prescriptions. The world is full of advice on how to be good and feel good. I tried quite a few, and they rarely work. What usually works is self-discovery through deliberate personal inquiry. I suspect that if you are sufficiently wise, you refrain from giving advice -- live and let live. I was forced to go to catholic school for 6 years. They tried to teach me what was good and bad. I never felt so miserable. Here I agree with you: possibly we have some evolutionary mechanism that makes us feel overt dominance as pain. Some people are forced to endure that pain until they get used to it, I was lucky enough to be able to escape it. Abortion doesn't really affect me. I'll have to be honest: I don't care. I don't feel anything about it. Maybe I would if I was a parent, I don't know. My parents were strongly agains abortion, so I have to assume this is just my natural response. I am not a psychopath, I feel strong empathy for certain types of human suffering. For example, seeing homeless and/or mentally ill people affects me emotionally in a quite strong fashion. Societies are similar. Of course, they can go from good to bad. And of course that as humans we have prefered states. Don´t you? Yes, but my preferred states appear to be quite different from those of other people. Diversity seems to be intrinsic to the human condition. So I am very suspicious of broad claims. I don´t know what you don´t understand , neither what this question has in common whith what I said above. You say, for example, that cultural determinism has been refuted. But I don't think this accurate. I claim that such conclusion comes from a misunderstanding of what evolution is and what it
Re: Atheist
Memes cannot survive without a human brain. We are their vehicle, but are the our effluent, or our children? -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Jul 25, 2014 3:47 am Subject: Re: Atheist I agree to an extent, but this sort of argument tends to drift towards tautology. Whatever survives survives, and hence has survival value in some sense. But a meme that turns someone into a suicide bomber or celibate monk probably doesn't have much survival value for that person. My feeling is that memes favour their own survival, as Richard Dawkins suggested. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Gödel of the Gaps
On 23 Jul 2014, at 21:21, Richard Ruquist wrote: On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:36 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 20:18, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 1:56:26 PM UTC-4, yanniru wrote: PGC, I am not being critical of Bruno. I just do not understand what he is saying. My understanding is that if comp is correct, it is both 3p and 1p correct. Bruno's argument to me has been that comp is not correct in 1p. When I ask him how he (being a machine) can understand comp to be correct, he seems to vacillate between saying that machines can learn to be more correct and saying that he himself doesn't believe comp is correct in some sense. Your sum up is misleading. I use the theory comp. I am a scientist, and so I don't even try to argue for its truth, especially that later we get the understanding that this is vain. If true, it is not provable. It might be refutable, and I give a test. No machine, nor me, can understand comp to be correct. But we can assume it, and deduce from there. Indeed, if we deduce f, we refute comp. Now, the amazing point, which I prove, is that if we accept the definition of Theaetetus of knowledge, with believability modelize by provability (which makes sense in the idea case needed for the mind-body problem), we get as mathematical consequence that the 1p cannot be defined in any 3p terms by the machine itself, and the machine can know that, both from inside 1p experience, and from reasoning in the comp assumption. The simple answer, in my view, is that the hypothesis is false. It's a great hypothesis, and if we did not experience red and dizzy and sweet then it would make perfect sense, however those experiences have no place in a universe of arithmetic truths. Because you limit your view of arithmetical truth to only the 3p objects, but the objects themselves don't do that, and we can share some definition with them and agree on that point. The soul of any machine, is not a machine. Comp tells us about a world of the intellect if the intellect created the world, but that is not the world that we actually live in, and no computer program has ever, by itself, lifted a finger, tasted a cookie, enjoyed a moment of peace, etc. The intellect is the Noùs ([]p, in qG*), the soul is the []p p, and it has no 3p description. But some 3p meta-descriptions with comp. That is why we, the numbers, have a theology. Right at the start. Bruno, Didn't I just read today a statement of yours that the soul in 3p is its description.? Richard Hi Richard, I only said that the 3p self is its description. It is the body, as seen as a code written in nature's language, or anything from which you can build that body (like the Gödel number sent by a teletransporter device). It is the []p, and can be seen as an object in arithmetic (or even in physics, temporarily). The soul, on the contrary is defined with the Theaetetus method, []p p, and appears to be not describable in any 3p way. I will come back on explaining why this is so. I have already alluded to the explanation. From scratch it is long and pretty technical. Bruno Bruno Craig On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy multipl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Richard Ruquist yan...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:35 AM, Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Craig, You still talk like if I pretended that computationalism is true. I don't do that, ever. But you *do* pretend that computationalism is false, and I am waiting for an argument. I refuted already your basic argument, which mainly assert that it is obvious, but this is true already for the machine's first person point of view, and so cannot work as a valid refutation of comp. Bruno Bruno, Are you saying that comp is false for the machine's 1p POV? I find your paragraph rather confusing. Richard Not in some normative sense that you could be implying; as in comp is wrong/bad to believe for machine. For sufficiently rich machine, from their 1p point of view, comp entails set of 1p beliefs so sophisticated, that it would be consistent for such machine to assert things like: What me? A mere machine? No way, I'm much more high level/smarter/complex than that. Therefore comp must be false. - Which ISTM is what Craig keeps asserting, in authoritative sense going even much further: insisting that we believe him, without going non-comp in some 3p verifiable way. Don't know if I grasp your understanding/question though. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: Gödel of the Gaps
On 24 Jul 2014, at 04:32, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, July 23, 2014 2:36:24 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 20:18, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 1:56:26 PM UTC-4, yanniru wrote: PGC, I am not being critical of Bruno. I just do not understand what he is saying. My understanding is that if comp is correct, it is both 3p and 1p correct. Bruno's argument to me has been that comp is not correct in 1p. When I ask him how he (being a machine) can understand comp to be correct, he seems to vacillate between saying that machines can learn to be more correct and saying that he himself doesn't believe comp is correct in some sense. Your sum up is misleading. I use the theory comp. I am a scientist, and so I don't even try to argue for its truth, especially that later we get the understanding that this is vain. If true, it is not provable. It might be refutable, and I give a test. No machine, nor me, can understand comp to be correct. What do you mean by understand comp to be correct? There are plenty of Strong AI people who think that they understand comp to be correct. It is a bet. An assumption. They can understand its meaning, but they can justify its truth. So you are right or wrong according to the sense you give to understand. But we can assume it, and deduce from there. People don't think that they are assuming it for no reason, they think that they understand that mechanisms in the brain create consciousness, and that consciousness is a mathematical model within a program. Nobody can understand how a mechanism can get conscious. We can only hope that a sufficiently precise description of oneself ([]p) will preserves the soul ([]p p), that is, that the substitution will preserve the relation with truth. Indeed, if we deduce f, we refute comp. Now, the amazing point, which I prove, is that if we accept the definition of Theaetetus of knowledge, Which I don't, but ok, I think that what you are proposing that we accept is that knowledge is something like justified true belief, or []p p. Yes. It works for the goal of solving the comp mind-body problem, but of course, it does not work for the mundane beliefs and possible knowledge (which belongs to another topic). with believability modelize by provability (which makes sense in the idea case needed for the mind-body problem), we get as mathematical consequence that the 1p cannot be defined in any 3p terms by the machine itself, and the machine can know that, both from inside 1p experience, and from reasoning in the comp assumption. But people do think that their 1p can be defined by 3p terms. If you read the literature, this is the object of a very long debate, which might begin with Xenophane (about 6th century before JC) up to today. It is here that comp provides a quite interesting new light, as it shows that both the modern (who accept Theaetetus) and the ancients (who want knowledge being non propositional and non natural) get reconciliate: Like the modern, we can define, for ideally correct machine, knowledge by the theaetetus method applied to Gödel provability predicate, and this, unlike the moderns believe, lead to a non propositional and non natural notion of knower. They think that when they experience X, it is merely the firing of neuron ensemble Y. That is the identity thesis which makes no sense, neither with comp, nor with Everett QM. In their understanding, X is merely a label that represents Y. Daniel Dennett certainly has no problem 'understanding' that his 1p is nothing but 3p. Leading him to eliminate somehow consciousness. That is not quite serious. This is where I see, if I'm being generous, some inconsistency in the assertion that 1p cannot be defined in any 3p terms by the machine itself,, refering to people who are wrong (with respect to comp) is not an argument against comp, or the Theaetetus. or if less generous I would say there is deep hypocrisy or self- deception in holding the contradictory positions that 1) Bruno understands that 1p can ultimately be defined in 3p terms, It cannot, so I certainly do not believe it. []p p cannot be expressed in the language of the machine. 2) Machines cannot do 1, and 3) Bruno could be a machine. It is even more suspect since your refuting of my position hinges on 1 and 2 both being true, when it is clear to me that any compromise of 1 and 2 weaken 2 so that it has no meaning. You miss that []p p is not a description. We can come back on this when we are enough familiar with some results in mathematical logic. The simple answer, in my view, is that the hypothesis is false. It's a great hypothesis, and if we did not experience red and dizzy and sweet then it would make perfect sense, however those experiences have no place in a universe of arithmetic
Re: Gödel of the Gaps
On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 23 Jul 2014, at 21:21, Richard Ruquist wrote: On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:36 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 20:18, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 1:56:26 PM UTC-4, yanniru wrote: PGC, I am not being critical of Bruno. I just do not understand what he is saying. My understanding is that if comp is correct, it is both 3p and 1p correct. Bruno's argument to me has been that comp is not correct in 1p. When I ask him how he (being a machine) can understand comp to be correct, he seems to vacillate between saying that machines can learn to be more correct and saying that he himself doesn't believe comp is correct in some sense. Your sum up is misleading. I use the theory comp. I am a scientist, and so I don't even try to argue for its truth, especially that later we get the understanding that this is vain. If true, it is not provable. It might be refutable, and I give a test. No machine, nor me, can understand comp to be correct. But we can assume it, and deduce from there. Indeed, if we deduce f, we refute comp. Now, the amazing point, which I prove, is that if we accept the definition of Theaetetus of knowledge, with believability modelize by provability (which makes sense in the idea case needed for the mind-body problem), we get as mathematical consequence that the 1p cannot be defined in any 3p terms by the machine itself, and the machine can know that, both from inside 1p experience, and from reasoning in the comp assumption. The simple answer, in my view, is that the hypothesis is false. It's a great hypothesis, and if we did not experience red and dizzy and sweet then it would make perfect sense, however those experiences have no place in a universe of arithmetic truths. Because you limit your view of arithmetical truth to only the 3p objects, but the objects themselves don't do that, and we can share some definition with them and agree on that point. The soul of any machine, is not a machine. Comp tells us about a world of the intellect if the intellect created the world, but that is not the world that we actually live in, and no computer program has ever, by itself, lifted a finger, tasted a cookie, enjoyed a moment of peace, etc. The intellect is the Noùs ([]p, in qG*), the soul is the []p p, and it has no 3p description. But some 3p meta-descriptions with comp. That is why we, the numbers, have a theology. Right at the start. Bruno, Didn't I just read today a statement of yours that the soul in 3p is its description.? Richard Hi Richard, I only said that the 3p self is its description. It is the body, as seen as a code written in nature's language, or anything from which you can build that body (like the Gödel number sent by a teletransporter device). It is the []p, and can be seen as an object in arithmetic (or even in physics, temporarily). The soul, on the contrary is defined with the Theaetetus method, []p p, and appears to be not describable in any 3p way. I will come back on explaining why this is so. I have already alluded to the explanation. From scratch it is long and pretty technical. Bruno Thank you Bruno for explaining the distinction between self and soul. But it seems to me that if the soul can only be 1p, is there a soul for every different 1p person in the 3p self. I would prefer one soul, and even one person. Richard Bruno Craig On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy multipl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Richard Ruquist yan...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:35 AM, Bruno Marchal mar...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Craig, You still talk like if I pretended that computationalism is true. I don't do that, ever. But you *do* pretend that computationalism is false, and I am waiting for an argument. I refuted already your basic argument, which mainly assert that it is obvious, but this is true already for the machine's first person point of view, and so cannot work as a valid refutation of comp. Bruno Bruno, Are you saying that comp is false for the machine's 1p POV? I find your paragraph rather confusing. Richard Not in some normative sense that you could be implying; as in comp is wrong/bad to believe for machine. For sufficiently rich machine, from their 1p point of view, comp entails set of 1p beliefs so sophisticated, that it would be consistent for such machine to assert things like: What me? A mere machine? No way, I'm much more high level/smarter/complex than that. Therefore comp must be false. - Which ISTM is what Craig keeps asserting, in authoritative sense going even much further: insisting that we believe him, without going non-comp in some 3p verifiable way. Don't know if I grasp your understanding/question though. PGC -- You received this message
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 24 July 2014 22:18, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: To put it another way, there is nobody present for whom it could represent a difference. It still exist, or the difference 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... will need itself a knower to make sense. But with comp, we don't need more than the elementary arithmetic truth, to eventually make a knower by filtering the truth by a body or a representational set of beliefs. Well I think, in a curious way, it may indeed need a knower to make sense. I'm trying to explain one of my early morning intuitions here, which I find hard to do in an everyday state of consciousness. And of course it may just be misleading, which is why I'm trying to be explicit about it. My point is this: comp is explicitly a theory of consciousness. So let's assume that comp is indeed the *correct* theory of consciousness, and that number relations accurately represent its true ontology. If so, that ontology (as a consequence of its computational and logical elaborations) *explicitly entails* a knower, in both the 3p and 1p senses. Indeed, the explicit entailment of such a knower is ultimately what justifies, or redeems, the original assumption of the correctness of both the theory (comp) and its ontological assumptions *as a theory of consciousness*. ISTM then that, if comp is correct, it follows that there is a mutual entailment: arithmetic=consciousness. We should perhaps take pause at this point and contemplate what would be, if true, a world-shattering discovery. Now let us consider the (by assumption, counterfactual) case that comp were to have been proved false and hence that there was NO such mutual entailment. Would it not be, at the least, inconsistent to take exactly the same view of arithmetic in that case? Could arithmetic continue to represent, so to speak, exactly the same thing for us? If not, then (assuming comp), there may indeed be an unavoidable sense in which it might indeed require a knower to make sense even of basic number relations. By the same line of argument, if comp is correct, it would follow that bare physicalism (i.e. without supernumerary computational assumptions) fails as a correct theory of consciousness precisely because, properly understood, its ontology doesn't entail or require the existence of a knower. IOW, such a theory can't help but sweep the first-person under the rug. In this case the absence of a knower nullifies, rather than justifying or redeeming, the postulated ontology. And this limitation may be a direct consequence of any theory that is explicitly about what is observable (tacitly assuming a God's-eye knower/interpreter) as distinct from a theory of observation (explicitly embracing a theory of what is observable). We the computational histories existe logically before the consciousness flux differentiate into knower interpreting themselves, if we want use the computation as defined in the usual 3p theoretical computer science. I agree, but if my preceding argument has any merit, the logical existence of the computational histories and the differentiation of the consciousness flux into self-interpreting knowers are not logically independent, but rather *mutually dependent*. In that case there could be no effective distinction between Deep Blue and its physical reduction, Why? That's not true. In UD* Deep blue has the time to play basically all chess games, perhaps even with all humans, much before the UD get the simulation of our good real blue at the level of the atoms of its late real incarnation. Well, I trust you may have begun to get my drift by now. My claim is that (assuming comp) Deep Blue, considered as an entity distinct from its many reductions within UD*, is ultimately dependent (as is each and every aspect of the comp schema) on the mutual entailment of arithmetic and the conscious knower. As I said, this dependency is sometimes difficult to appreciate because we tacitly smuggle God in as the default knower that continues to observe and interpret Deep Blue even in the (counterfactual) case that there is no other possible observer/interpreter. This tacit supernumerary assumption is what may make it seem plausible that there is no need of a knower for such a distinction to be relevant (i.e. that realism about Deep Blue is justified in the absence of any possible knower). The soul has a third person origin, even God has a third person origin, as the outer God is a complete 3p reality (arithmetical truth, or the sigma_1 part). Again, I agree. Indeed ISTM that this is an absolutely essential aspect of any theory that has any hope of being a correct theory of everything, as I keep trying to point out to Craig. But my argument is that we must surely treat every part of the theory - formal or informal, 3p or 1p - with equal seriousness. Thus it is essential that there be a complete 3p reality that is coterminous with a specific aspect of arithmetical truth. But it
Re: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
Thanks for posting, Brent. Fine topics to dig into when one takes the time. And if we never take the time for these things, how can we ever expect to derive proper energetic eigenvalues for hydrogen like stuff in the wave we're surfing on, independent of distracting deadlines? The hard answer nobody wants to face is: we don't. And the result is we die as lesser men. For only idiots wait for the right wave, blinking in the sun. A proper surfer of the fundamental just goes when it's time, surfs that one right wave, and simultaneously leaves the idiots waiting for the wave in his wake... forever. Timeless cojones. Not even a contest. The gender ghost haunts this statement mumbling something about exclusion, but I just destroyed it before it could finish the sentence. No time for vain attention sinks or these kinds of silly ghosts. They will be crushed as they have dangerous property of propagating tedious boredom broadcast waves, a highly contagious, prevalent, virulent disease of our time. We shouldn't engage this nonsense; just kill it, walk away, and not bother to even contemplate looking back. The wave pushes forward regardless, and laughs at time's ridiculous routines and dead lines. Born (squared tude) again. PGC On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 8:24 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/24/2014 11:09 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 July 2014 18:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI. But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism, which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI. Brent, could you possibly summarise what you see as the essential distinction between the CS and Fuchs alternatives for dummies? I'd need to study CS's paper a little, I just read Sean's blog summary. But Fuch's quantum Bayesianism says that the collapse of the wave function is just like the collapse of a classical probability distribution when we learn the value of the random variable. It's purely epistemic. It's a sort of instrumentalism. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 24 July 2014 22:44, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: So I think you just saying I am missing the qualia - but that's the part that I think it is unreasonable to ask for an explanation of. In what terms can it be explained - I'd say none. And I don't think your explanation in terms of computation, while different and interesting, is any more complete than my physical one. The qualia per se are not the capital point IMO. What may be even Harder is precisely what comp purports to explain (and what would consequently make it more complete than physics): a deep and necessary relation between 1p and 3p logical regimes. The explanatory strategy is to show how such regimes can be specifically distinguishable whilst at the same time elucidating their inter-dependence. It also purports to explain, again specifically in terms of the relation between the two regimes, their necessary limitations of mutual reference. In terms of this schema, whatever is sharable between 3p and 1p explanatory entities and relations is to be found at the crossing-point, or common point of reference, of two specifically distinguishable logical regimes. They will finally be explicable (in comp terms) as the same thing under two distinct, though limited, descriptions. Physics (as a theory of what is observable, as distinct from a theory of observation that embraces a theory of what is observable) does not set out to explain any such relation. It is, of course, unreasonable to ask for a 1p account from any theory whose terms of reference are thus explicitly limited. To the extent that any such relation is confronted in physical terms, there is typically a reliance (usually tacit) on comp as the vehicle. There is also what is possibly an even more deeply tacit reliance on a God's-eye default knower/interpreter. Indeed it is only because of this latter assumption that we are able to talk without apparent incoherence in terms of a universe that exists independent of observation. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Atheist
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 12:48 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Atheist I agree to an extent, but this sort of argument tends to drift towards tautology. Whatever survives survives, and hence has survival value in some sense. But a meme that turns someone into a suicide bomber or celibate monk probably doesn't have much survival value for that person. My feeling is that memes favour their own survival, as Richard Dawkins suggested. It is important to be clear about the locus of the entity that is undergoing an evolutionary process in order to avoid confusion. Cultural evolution effects cultures. A meme may have no discernable evolutionary value for individuals per se – as you point out a celibate monk is not (as far as we know) spreading their genes. In many cases ideas however do have arguably beneficial effects for the individuals. However you bring up a valid point, which I think points to the dual level of action of cultural evolution. On the one hand it acts on the individuals who are adopting it, but it also has another dimension of action and that is upon the culture itself. Cultures – I would argue undergo a kind of Darwinian evolution, with more survivable cultures prevailing over less survivable cultures. To make my case consider pure altruism, which confers no survival advantage to the individual (and as has been demonstrated in game theory is in fact a measurable handicap) Geneticists have asked themselves why this behavioral trait has survived in our species. The explanation I have seen that makes most sense to me is that cultures that have high degrees of altruism (within their culture) have a far lower transactional cost than societies that have a much lower degree of altruistic behavior. In a society where everyone is for themselves even simple transactions become expensive as the individuals involved must invest energy in order to safeguard their interests. Whereas in the altruistic culture transactions can happen much more easily with a simple hand shake. When speaking of cultural evolution it is important to keep in mind that we are speaking mostly about the cultures themselves and less about the individual members of that culture. So to go back to those suicide bombers or celibate monks – agreed not very good for the individuals involved, but the culture to which these individuals belong may derive some benefit from their culturally driven behavior. The suicide bomber is a weapon for that culture; a celibate monk removes excess males (female nuns do for excess females) from competition for agricultural properties being handed down to first born sons (or dowries given to first born daughters) Not advocating for this medieval cultural model – far from it I much prefer modern scientific (experimental verification) humanism -- rather am trying to remain abstract and removed and look at human culture as any other evolving self-learning system. Do you think cultures can evolve? Not the individual members, but the culture as an entity. Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
On 24 Jul 2014, at 19:40, meekerdb wrote: This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI. But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism, which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI. The universal machine does that too. Eventually all mode of existence are psychological, as you can guess by interpreting physics as the inside view of the arithmetical FPI undetermined machine. The observable (roughly the []p p ( p) hypostases (with p sigma_1) are mental, or machine self- referencial modalities. We just don't know yet if those dreams glue enough to determine a multiverse or a multi-multiverse, has filtered from what at the start his a giant web of (machine) dreams emulated in arithmetic. Nice post. I like Born, even when wrong. I appreciate the Born- Einstein dialog. Nice way to call the Copenhagen theory: the theory of disappearing universes, it is already closer to the brain filtration of realities, or consciousness differentiation. Bruno Brent Original Message Subject: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 15:21:04 + From: Sean Carroll donotre...@wordpress.com To: meeke...@verizon.net New post on Sean Carroll Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared by Sean Carroll One of the most profound and mysterious principles in all of physics is the Born Rule, named after Max Born. In quantum mechanics, particles don't have classical properties like position or momentum; rather, there is a wave function that assigns a (complex) number, called the amplitude, to each possible measurement outcome. The Born Rule is then very simple: it says that the probability of obtaining any possible measurement outcome is equal to the square of the corresponding amplitude. (The wave function is just the set of all the amplitudes.) Born Rule: The Born Rule is certainly correct, as far as all of our experimental efforts have been able to discern. But why? Born himself kind of stumbled onto his Rule. Here is an excerpt from his 1926 paper: That's right. Born's paper was rejected at first, and when it was later accepted by another journal, he didn't even get the Born Rule right. At first he said the probability wasequal to the amplitude, and only in an added footnote did he correct it to being the amplitude squared. And a good thing, too, since amplitudes can be negative or even imaginary! The status of the Born Rule depends greatly on one's preferred formulation of quantum mechanics. When we teach quantum mechanics to undergraduate physics majors, we generally give them a list of postulates that goes something like this: Quantum states are represented by wave functions, which are vectors in a mathematical space called Hilbert space. Wave functions evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation. The act of measuring a quantum system returns a number, known as the eigenvalue of the quantity being measured. The probability of getting any particular eigenvalue is equal to the square of the amplitude for that eigenvalue. After the measurement is performed, the wave function collapses to a new state in which the wave function is localized precisely on the observed eigenvalue (as opposed to being in a superposition of many different possibilities). It's an ungainly mess, we all agree. You see that the Born Rule is simply postulated right there, as #4. Perhaps we can do better. Of course we can do better, since textbook quantum mechanics is an embarrassment. There are other formulations, and you know that my own favorite is Everettian (Many-Worlds) quantum mechanics. (I'm sorry I was too busy to contribute to the active comment thread on that post. On the other hand, a vanishingly small percentage of the 200+ comments actually addressed the point of the article, which was that the potential for many worlds is automatically there in the wave function no matter what formulation you favor. Everett simply takes them seriously, while alternatives need to go to extra efforts to erase them. As Ted Bunn argues, Everett is just quantum mechanics, while collapse formulations should be called disappearing-worlds interpretations.) Like the textbook formulation, Everettian quantum mechanics also comes with a list of postulates. Here it is: Quantum states are represented by wave functions, which are vectors in a mathematical space called Hilbert space. Wave functions evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation. That's it! Quite a bit simpler -- and the two
Re: [New post] Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared
On 24 Jul 2014, at 20:24, meekerdb wrote: On 7/24/2014 11:09 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 July 2014 18:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This may clarify (or provoke) discussion of Moscow vs. Washington. It's interesting that Carroll and Sebens use FPI and Sean says it increases his confidence in Everett's MWI. But in his penultimate paragraph he essentially lays out an endorsement of Fuchs QBism, which is generally seen as the instrumentalist alternative to MWI. Brent, could you possibly summarise what you see as the essential distinction between the CS and Fuchs alternatives for dummies? I'd need to study CS's paper a little, I just read Sean's blog summary. But Fuch's quantum Bayesianism says that the collapse of the wave function is just like the collapse of a classical probability distribution when we learn the value of the random variable. It's purely epistemic. It's a sort of instrumentalism. It would be purely epistemic if it made not the universe disappearing. But why postulate universe(s) at the start? We know only that there are person(s), and some agreements on 0, 1, 2, 3, ... Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 24 Jul 2014, at 23:44, meekerdb wrote: On 7/24/2014 1:37 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 23 Jul 2014, at 20:35, meekerdb wrote: On 7/23/2014 10:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 18:14, meekerdb wrote: On 7/22/2014 12:08 AM, Kim Jones wrote: On 22 Jul 2014, at 2:55 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: What part of your brain is more evolved than a cat's brain that allows you to say I know? I'm just guessing but maybe the Neocortex because it's the biggest anatomical difference between a cat's brain and mine. But I do know one thing for certain, whatever part it is if it evolved then it effects behavior; and if it effects behavior then the Turing Test works for consciousness and not just intelligence. John K Clark Are you saying that there is no consciousness without intelligence? I believe (up to here at least) consciousness can exist minus intelligence. Also, many things going on in the brain affect behaviour without necessarily having any impact on consciousness at all. I don't think the ability to say I know (or believe) I am awake has anything to do with intelligence. But it does require consciousness (even if asleep and dreaming that you said that.) What I am driving at is that it is vaguely impossible to understand anything 1p in a 3p manner. I think that is based on an unexamined idea of understand. Suppose I could monitor your brain with a super-fMRI and after long experimentation and mapping I could 'see' every thought, including distinguishing which were conscious and which weren't. And suppose using this information I could create a functional model of your brain so that given the various inputs and environmental effects, I could predict exactly what you would think, at least a few minutes in advance. And further, using this knowledge, I could use electrostimulation to cause you to have specific thoughts. And having attained this level of knowledge of many human brains, I can now make brains to order having various characteristics: musical ability, empathy, humor,... Now you will say I have not understood anything 1p (in fact my model predicts you will), but I would reply, OK, what else is there to understand? The difference between being the one knowing that he is in Washington and believing that he has a copy in Moscow with being the one knowing that he is in Moscow and believing that he has a copy in Washington. That difference is easily modelled in the physics and the fact that one will see Moscow and one will see Washington and each will remember Helsinki. I don't understand what difference you think is not understood. The description you give is pure 3p symmetrical. But now you have agreed that both diaries will describe an asymmetrical event: one will contain I am in W and not in M, and the other will contain I am in M and not in W. In the 3p view, the two diaries have not break the symmetry. But all diaries describes the breaking of that symmetry. So what? It is a result easily predicted by my physical model. Well, all right, but then you are in the UDA train again, and you know where it leads. You will need to invoke infinities (other that the FPI one) to justify the link between the subject and the 3p objects representing it. You miss the experience of the guys, and the fact that if you believe we are machine, then we have to justify the stability of the observable from the solution of the measure problem, on the sigma_1 sentences (with oracles) No, you have leaped a big gap from believe we are a machine to all the conclusions of the UDA. But that big gap is exactly what is detailed in the UDA. Or you insinuate that there is something wrong, but since the time this is discussed why don't you say so. I did answer your last remark on step 8. You seemed to grasp them. So to escape UDA, you need to abandon comp or invoke a God-of-the-gap (with witch you can escape *any* theory). I still don't know what you mean by the experience of the guys. Ex hypothesi my physical model predicts exactly what each one will do and say, including reports of this experience and non-verbal signals. So I think you just saying I am missing the qualia - but that's the part that I think it is unreasonable to ask for an explanation of. Why, when there is one, and which eventually does play a role in explaining the quanta. Especially that the quanta have to be particular sharable qualia for getting a first person plural notion (confirmed by QM Everett). Keep in mind that 1p singular and plural, and 3p, are notions defined entirely by self-duplication. The first person plural is when population of experiencers share teleportation boxes. In what terms can it be explained - I'd say none. And I don't think your explanation in terms of computation, while different and interesting, is any more
Re: CTM and the UDA (again!)
On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: HI Jesse, David, On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:49, Jesse Mazer wrote: Had some trouble following your post (in part because I don't know all the acronyms), but are you talking about the basic problem of deciding which computations a particular physical process can be said to implement or instantiate? If so, see my post at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list%40googlegroups.com/msg43484.html and Bruno's response at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list%40googlegroups.com/msg43489.html . I think from Bruno's response that he agrees that there is a well-defined way of deciding whether one abstract computation implements/instantiates some other abstract computation within itself (like if I have computation A which is a detailed molecular-level simulation of a physical computer, and the simulated computer is running another simpler computation B, then the abstract computation A can be said to implement computation B within itself). So, why not adopt a Tegmark-like view where a physical universe is *nothing more* than a particular abstract computation, and that can give us a well-defined notion of which sub-computations are performed within it by various physical processes? This approach could also perhaps allow us to define the number of separate instances of a given sub-computation within the larger computation that we call the universe, giving some type of measure on different subcomputations within that computational universe (useful for things like Bostrom's self-sampling assumption, which in this case would say we should reason as if we were randomly chosen from all self-aware subcomputations). So for example, if many copies of a given AI program are run in parallel in a computational universe, that AI could have a larger measure within that computational universe than an AI program that is only ever run once within it...of course, this does not rule out the possibility that there are other parallel computational universes where the second program is run more often, as would be implied by Tegmark's thesis and also by Bruno's UDA. But there is still at least the theoretical possibility that the multiverse is false and that only one unique computational universe exists, so the idea that all possible universes/computations are equally real cannot be said to follow logically from COMP. To have the computations, all you need is a sigma_1 complete theory and/or a Turing universal machine, or system, or language. Not sure I understand what you mean by have the computations, and I didn't understand the mathematical arguments you made following that. My point above is basically that even if one accepts steps 1-6 of your argument, which together imply that I should identify my self/experience with a particular computation (or perhaps a finite sequence of computational steps rather than an infinite computation, but I'll just call such a finite sequence a 'computation' to save time), it still seems to me that there is an open possible that the *measure* on different computations is defined by how often each one is physically instantiated. Are you talking about some deriving some unique measure on all computations when you say to have the computations, all you need... or are you not talking about the issue of measure at all? The idea I'm suggesting for a physically based measure involves identifying the physical universe/multiverse with a particular unique computation--basically, consider a computation corresponding to something like a Planck-level simulation of our universe, or an exact simulation of the evolution of the the universal wavefunction, then say that this computation *is* what we mean by the physical universe/multiverse. Then, if you agree there is some well-defined notion of whether a given computation contains within it some other computation (and that we can count the number of times some sub-computation has run within the larger computation after N steps of the larger computation), the measure on all computations could be determined by how frequently they each appear in the unique computation that we identify with the physical universe/multiverse. For example, say after N steps of the universal computation U, we can count the number of times that some computation A has been executed within it, and the number of times that another computation B has been executed within it, and take the ratio of these two numbers; if this ratio approaches some limit in the limit as N goes to infinity, then this limit ratio could be defined as the ratio of the physical measure of A and B within the universe/multiverse. So if A and B are two possible future observer-moments for my current observer moment (say, an observer-moment finding itself in Washington and another finding itself in Moscow in your thought-experiment), then the ratio of their physical measure could be the subjective probability
