Re: CTM and the UDA (again!)
Sorry for the comment delay, Jesse, (also, I sent this yesterday, but it seems not having go through). On 25 Jul 2014, at 23:22, Jesse Mazer wrote: 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, We need to start from assuming something (if we want do fundamental science). By to have the computation I meant, to have the theory in which we assume enough so that we can define and prove the existence of the computations. Elementary arithmetic is enough, but there are other theories, like the combinators, or the abstract billiard ball, or quantum topology, etc. 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. With step 1-6, yes. But less so with step 7 and 8 which still follows from the CTM). With step 7, yes again, assuming a small (without big portion of UD*) primitive physical universe. (It already looks like avoiding a question/problem (measure problem). If I try to dig on your theory, I will have to ask eventually what you mean by primitive physical universe, as it looks like and now there is a miracle. And step 8 just makes it worst. It shows that the miracle asks for an infinite amount of magic, so you need a specially weak Occam razor to expect this from reality. 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? I was talking about what we have to assume to define the computations and reason about them, and to study the expectation of simple person (like the one described by the 8 arithmetical points of view on arithmetic). The idea I'm suggesting for a physically based measure involves identifying the physical universe/multiverse with a particular unique computation--basically,
Re: It Knows That It Knows
So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? Kim -- 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 28 July 2014 22:07, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? I applaud the sentiment, if not the logic. It does seem awfully boring to just be a pile of molecules. -- 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 28 Jul 2014, at 8:14 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 July 2014 22:07, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? I applaud the sentiment, if not the logic. It does seem awfully boring to just be a pile of molecules. Thank you, Liz. One thing I am not is logical. I don't expect to make sense to everyone. I cannot get over the feeling that the whole of observable reality is some kind of con job. Perhaps I need to see a shrink. I admire greatly David Nyman sliding down Occam's razor and landing unscathed. He is a very valiant fellow. Actually, comp is terrifying. Those who flee to the safe havens of physical reality are the lucky ones. They have the ability to see refuge where there is none. There is no physical reality - there is only the interaction of persons. Persons are the only real things. Which is why comp teaches me enormous respect for persons. The humility and the modesty thing of comp is what bends my mind in its favour. If persons are the only reality then we are all stuck with each other, eh? Kim -- 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 27 July 2014 16:15, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: 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). I can make sense of this. Yet, in the TOE extracted from comp, we can forget such a knower, as we don't really need to know if P or ~P is true, just that it is true independently of us (little ego). But any epistemic view on such a P requires a knower. It is an open question to me if it makes sense to say that the ultimate truth (arithmetical truth) is really a knower or not. I realise that I'm pushing rather hard on my intuition here, so I don't insist, but I think whenever one talks about true independently of the little ego one is tacitly relying on a default knower to take up the strain. Consequently we cannot escape the epistemic view, even if that view is (tacitly) that of God who sees and inteprets everything on our behalf. Would it still mean anything to say that P is true or not true independent of God's view on the matter? Perhaps it is only in some sense like this that the ultimate or (assuming comp) arithmetical truth is a knower. I think I see it well now. I intuit something similar, and even something stronger (coming from salvia), which I can feel as making comp wrong, ... but I think that is still only in some 1p view. This is going in the direction that the real knower *is* arithmetical 1p-truth, the p in []p p, and that the body or representation, or belief, []p is filtering consciousness. If this is true, there should be account of people saying that they felt being more conscious when some part of the brain is destroyed, or made non-functional, and that seems to be the case, both with dissociative drugs, but also with people lacking the hypo-campus: they definitely feel something more in the form of a perpetual presence. Brains do not produce consciousness, it would reduce consciousness, by filtering it through the differentiation of histories. Dying (with amnesia) would become a platonist remembering of our universal consciousness. The two way road between Earth and Heaven would be amnesia, in both direction, like salvia suggests. Interesting. Have you read My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor? She is a neuro-scientist who suffered a massive stroke due to the bursting of an aneurysm in her left hemisphere (from which she fortunately ultimately recovered). In her memoir she describes the changes in consciousness that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the almost complete shut-down of her left hemisphere. Of course there were major losses to specific functions (especially language) but what was fascinating was that there was also what one could only describe as a concomitant expansion in her degree of consciousness. It was indeed as if her left hemispherical function had been a filter through which her stream of consciousness had been narrowed. Of course it's a very long way from this to any idea that a brain is not required for consciousness and indeed her own view, as a neuroscientist, was that her altered experience was a result of the relative disinhibition of her right hemisphere. After all, her experience tended to re-normalise as her left hemisphere recovered its function, although some aspects of the altered state have subsequently remained with her. Perhaps one could take the view that even if no *particular* brain is required to manifest a person in a reality, such manifestation will always be in terms of *some* brain or other. This would be a bit like Hoyle's universal person, whose multifarious personas and memories are partitioned by the mutually amnesic relation between its different brains. For such a person, dying is merely a particular case of the general phenomenon of forgetting one reality the better to recollect another. Could one identify such a universal person with the p of arithmetical truth? And why do you think that such an identification might imply that comp was wrong? But you may be right, as God changed his mind, and sent a cop at my home at 3 o'clock in the morning, with my bag, and everything in it (including also some cannabis and salvia!). Quite efficacious the police here, very gentle too. Yes, that's cool :) Wow. David On 25 Jul 2014, at 17:37, David Nyman wrote: 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
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 28 July 2014 11:25, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Actually, comp is terrifying. Rest assured, it terrifies me too. I think the terror stems, in a sense, from the persistent (and I guess, at the terrestrial level, essential) illusion of control. The idea that I could be precipitated into any experience whatsoever with no say-so on my part is what seems terrifying. Interestingly, I've sometimes experienced a mild version of this fear immediately before falling asleep. It's the fear of losing control to the dreaming state; a kind of existential claustro (or agora) phobia. I've tried to rationalise the terror induced by comp in various ways. For starters, it's not a fear of something in prospect, because if comp is true *it's true right now*. My preferred intuition here, which (despite having been unsuccessful in persuading Bruno) I still feel is not inconsistent with comp, is Hoyle's universal person. It's perfectly possible to think of experience in terms of an endless logical sequence of self-relating observer moments (or experiential monads). Recall that Bruno sometimes says that comp is a theory of reincarnation. If so, then Hoyle's analogy serves as a kind of heuristic in terms of which we are reincarnated afresh into personhood in each and every moment. To put it another way, at the universal perspectival limit, each and every moment is itself an experience of death and rebirth. Now there's a thought. 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: CTM and the UDA (again!)
On 27 July 2014 19:38, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: Again I am asking about the logic that explains *why* we should abandon the notion of a primitive universal computation given that we agree with steps 1-6. I thought when you said the UD would dominate, you were trying to give an argument for why any notion of a primitive universal computation would somehow become irrelevant to determining measure as long as we assume it contains an eternally-running UD (which if true would certainly be a good argument for abandoning the primitive universal computation as an irrelevant hypothesis, like the argument for abandoning an absolute reference frame in relativity because even if it existed it would have no measurable consequences). Maybe I misunderstood you, though. I'm sure that Bruno can give you a much better and more comprehensive answer than I can on this. However I would reiterate that it is Step 7 and Step 8 which (ISTM) are essential to understanding the dominant role of the UD. Steps 1-6 establish the indeterminacy of localisation after copying and the insensitivity of such localisation to delays in (re-)constitution. These steps are all based on the initial assumption (Step 0) that consciousness is correlated with some classically (and finitely) describable level of brain function that can consequently be copied (at least in principle). But up to (and including) Step 7 it is assumed that all such computation is nevertheless always instantiated by some kind of primitively-physical computer. There's been lot of quibbling about what primitive is supposed to mean here, but AFAICS it just means anything we agree as basic (i.e. underlying everything else) and irreducible. So primitively-physical means that certain (i.e. physical) computations, and these alone, are assumed to comprise the primitive base for everything else. The original point of this thread, as I've said, was to reiterate the implications of Steps 7 and 8 in terms of the reversal of physics and computation. I won't recapitulate the arguments here, since they're already given earlier in the thread. In summary, the conclusion is that, to salvage comp or CTM, we must abandon the notion of primitive physics (at least as being relevant in explanation) in favour of primitive computation. But primitive computation mustn't in the first instance be understood as *some computation in particular* taking this basic and irreducible explanatory role. We are looking rather for something that will stand for a definition of *computation itself*. To establish this notion we need to posit an ontology sufficient to emulate computation itself. In the UDA, arithmetical relations are accepted as sufficing for this purpose (consult the expert for details) and, in terms of such relations, a sigma_1 complete theory is accepted as defining the necessary scope of computation. The establishment of such a basis for computation itself, free of any purportedly more-primitive restriction on its scope, is what lets, so to speak, the central notion of the UD off the leash. In terms of such a theory, an infinitely fractal structure, consequent on the recursive dovetailing implicit in any such theory, will come to dominate statistically the residual measure of any computation in particular. This seems (admittedly with some hand-waving on my part) to be rather obvious in general, if not specific, terms. 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: John Searle on consciousness
On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 5:55 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I think he falls into the same camp as Fred Hoyle - someone who manages to get something completely wrong Fred Hoyle's Steady State Theory started out as a perfectly respectable scientific idea, it turned out to be false but that's OK, it happens to the best of us. On the other hand Searle's ideas were never scientific and were clearly idiotic from day one. Hoyle's real error was in continuing to support Steady State long after new evidence made it clear that is was not true; and Hoyle had other ideas that verged on the crackpot. But to be fair Hoyle is also the guy who figured out how supernovas produced all the natural elements except for Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron. And Fred Hoyle also wrote some of the best science fiction novels I've ever seen, especially The Black Cloud. Unlike Hoyle as far as I know Searle has never done anything worthwhile. whatever a computer does is just the movement of electrons around circuits And whatever a human brain does is just the movement of molecules and ions around neurons. That word just sure covers a lot! If that proves a computer can't be conscious then it also proves that humans aren't conscious; and except for me maybe that's the case. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 28 Jul 2014, at 12:07, Kim Jones wrote: So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? I don't think so for the 3-self, which *is* the hosting apparatus. It is the one I denote often by []p, and which plays the role of the man in Plotinus (man just means non-god, or terrestrial being, ...) Note that the 3p-self will have a logic (G, and G*)which is (are) NOT depending of the hosting apparatus, but only on its correctness or its consistency. The 1p-self, alias the first person, the soul, S4Grz, []p p, ... is independent of the hosting apparatus, except for his/her local memories (contained in the []p part of the []p p. It is up to you to recognize it, and may be to recognize as yourself the part which is universal and common to all conscious beings. Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? Well, keep in mind that when we do science, or when we try to do science, we are not supposed to base our assumptions (still less their conclusion) on what we wish, despite eventually we might learn that it does perhaps depends practically on what we wish (but we can't wish that a priori). What if I don't want to obey to the gravitation law? Well, you can use gravitation to fly, notably thanks to gravitation, the air, needed for the wings, stay on Earth ... But, yes, with comp, the person is somehow more real than matter, but the numbers are in a similar sense more real (more ontologically real, say) than the person, who is still really real, even if only epistemologically, like matter. Bruno Kim -- 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 28 Jul 2014, at 12:25, Kim Jones wrote: On 28 Jul 2014, at 8:14 pm, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 July 2014 22:07, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? I applaud the sentiment, if not the logic. It does seem awfully boring to just be a pile of molecules. Thank you, Liz. One thing I am not is logical. I don't expect to make sense to everyone. I cannot get over the feeling that the whole of observable reality is some kind of con job. Perhaps I need to see a shrink. I admire greatly David Nyman sliding down Occam's razor and landing unscathed. He is a very valiant fellow. Actually, comp is terrifying. Comp is a bit terrifying with respect to death, especially for those who believed in mortality and in rest in peace, which is no more clear, so it makes death more unknown, and we fear the unknown. Comp is also more terrifying with respect to the bad news from the news, as somehow, each suffering on this planet is ours, or a promise that it is ours. Those who flee to the safe havens of physical reality are the lucky ones. They have the ability to see refuge where there is none. There is no physical reality - there is only the interaction of persons. Persons are the only real things. Don't forget that with comp, even the persons are emerging from the numbers. Of course that makes them more solid, as the number truth are very solid themselves. But the persons, even the universal person, is a derived notion (from inside the arithmetical truth/reality). Which is why comp teaches me enormous respect for persons. The humility and the modesty thing of comp is what bends my mind in its favour. I agree. I like that too. There is an eleventh Commandment: don't repeat the 10 Commandments and trust me for the private advertising. But I think I am not supposed to say this. It is in our own G*, and I sin by overconfidence in self-correctness. (Better not to do that before smoking salvia). If persons are the only reality then we are all stuck with each other, eh? We are the same person, but to recognize ourself needs work. Perhaps the difficulty is proportional to the size of the brain (as it might be a filter of consciousness). The differentiation helps for that unique person to enrich its experience and to get a super-meta-stereo view on different parts of the (inside) reality, also. I don't know if any of this is true, but I think it follows from taking seriously the idea that the human body obeys computable laws as far as its experience relative support is concerned. Bruno Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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. 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: CTM and the UDA (again!)
On 27 Jul 2014, at 15:56, David Nyman wrote: Yes, that is still assumed at Step 7. But it's interesting that Bostrom gets quite close to some of the implications of UD*. I don't think there is any coincidence here. Bostrom mentioned the UDA and the FPI in his talk at the ASSC 2004, but like many he did not succeed in referring to my name, as it is badly seen in some circle like some people witnessed already (when drunk enough). Bostrom acknowledged this to me. Just the lasting consequences to what I have been asked to describe in the secret of the amoeba. The academy is the best thing in the realities, yet, it too *can* sucks lamentably, and always, note, when people attribute protagorean virtue to themselves, like free-exam, or scientific, ... You might not agree, but as much as I think theology should go back to academy, I think philosophy need to go back to the coffee club (as it tends to do, actually). Academic philosophy is sometimes used as authoritative argument against science domain, when all honest researcher know such disciplinary frontiers are tools and means, not answers or theories. We tolerate a big amount of lack in rigor in the human sciences, and that explains in part the misery of many on this planet, and our perpetual repetition of similar errors in our human relations. It is not that science would have an answer. It is precisely because it has none but an invitation to look by oneself, in oneself. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: John Searle on consciousness
On 29 July 2014 02:35, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 5:55 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I think he falls into the same camp as Fred Hoyle - someone who manages to get something completely wrong Fred Hoyle's Steady State Theory started out as a perfectly respectable scientific idea, it turned out to be false but that's OK, it happens to the best of us. However he also stuck to it even when the evidence to the contrary was completely overwhelming. But I don't think the cosmologists and astrophysicists interviewed by Nigel Calder were ONLY talking about the Steady State. The prove Fred wrong meme involved a number of ideas - and Violent Universe was published in the early 70s, or around then, so it was most likely to do with other *cosmological* ideas, since I'm pretty sure that was before Sir Fred decided AIDS came from space and evolution was like a typhoon in a junkyard, and so on. (And it was when he was still writing decent SF.) whatever a computer does is just the movement of electrons around circuits And whatever a human brain does is just the movement of molecules and ions around neurons. That word just sure covers a lot! Hence the quote marks. Don't worry I just love being quoted out of context. If that proves a computer can't be conscious then it also proves that humans aren't conscious; and except for me maybe that's the case. It supposedly proves that the materialist paradigm doesn't explain consciousness, according to comp. Personally I have yet to be convinced (hence those damn quote marks.) -- 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: CTM and the UDA (again!)
Sorry for the comment delay, Jesse, On 25 Jul 2014, at 23:22, Jesse Mazer wrote: 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, We need to start from assuming something (if we want do fundamental science). By to have the computation I meant, to have the theory in which we assume enough so that we can define and prove the existence of the computations. Elementary arithmetic is enough, but there are other theories, like the combinators, or the abstract billiard ball, or quantum topology, etc. 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. With step 1-6, yes. With step 7, yes again, assuming a small (without big portion of UD*) primitive physical universe. (It already looks like avoiding a question/problem (measure problem). If I try to dig on your theory, I will have to ask eventually what you mean by primitive physical universe, as it looks like and now there is a miracle. And step 8 just makes it worst. It shows that the miracle asks for an infinite amount of magic, so you need a specially weak Occam razor to expect this from reality. 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? I was talking about what we have to assume to define the computations and reason about them, and to study the expectation of simple person (like the one described by the 8 arithmetical points of view on arithmetic). 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
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 28 Jul 2014, at 12:14, LizR wrote: On 28 July 2014 22:07, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: So do we recognise this thing called a self or a subject or a person or a soul or an I or a whatever as something that is TOTALLY independent of the hosting apparatus? Why should I put up with the ridiculous notion that my brain secretes my mind which somehow projects my person? I don't believe that for one nanosecond. I am only here to enjoy the ride. If it turns out that physical reality is where the buck stops then I am horribly bored by reality. What could possibly be more boring than a bunch of atoms smugly believing that they are real and that everything that is, must be made from them? What if I don't want to be made from atoms? I applaud the sentiment, if not the logic. It does seem awfully boring to just be a pile of molecules. To defend the materialist (for a change), we might be, more than a pile of molecules, we are a colony of bacteria and protozoans (sort of), which are themselves sort of colony of macromolecules, with complex relation with each other. Then with comp, we are more in the structure itself, as we can change the atoms, and remain the same (in both the 1p and 3p self- views). And both in comp, and in Everett-QM, our bodies are more an infinite cloud of 3p finite structured atoms piles, but the 1p can't feel it that way. he feels unique, and *is* unique, from its first person view. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 28 Jul 2014, at 13:18, David Nyman wrote: On 27 July 2014 16:15, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: 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). I can make sense of this. Yet, in the TOE extracted from comp, we can forget such a knower, as we don't really need to know if P or ~P is true, just that it is true independently of us (little ego). But any epistemic view on such a P requires a knower. It is an open question to me if it makes sense to say that the ultimate truth (arithmetical truth) is really a knower or not. I realise that I'm pushing rather hard on my intuition here, so I don't insist, but I think whenever one talks about true independently of the little ego one is tacitly relying on a default knower to take up the strain. Do you think that if *that* knower get sleepy, the truth of 24 is not a prime number would vascillate? Consequently we cannot escape the epistemic view, even if that view is (tacitly) that of God who sees and inteprets everything on our behalf. God doesn't need to interpret more than the addition and multiplication of numbers, then the numbers get by themselves the taste for searching God. The same happens if we take combinators and their application law. P is absolutely true can be considered equivalent with God knows p, but personally I tend to believe that if p is arithmetical, it does not need to be known by god, or by anyone (number or not) to be true. Would it still mean anything to say that P is true or not true independent of God's view on the matter? Perhaps it is only in some sense like this that the ultimate or (assuming comp) arithmetical truth is a knower. I expect surprises here. The outer god, (the One) is a bit of trivial with comp. It is not entirely trivial, as it escape all effective theories, and can't be describe by the machines, but the main realities, like mind, matter, god and consciousness are emerging in the internal 1p reality. There the notion of god(s) acquire new meaning, richer, and somehow risky if not taken as theories. I think I see it well now. I intuit something similar, and even something stronger (coming from salvia), which I can feel as making comp wrong, ... but I think that is still only in some 1p view. This is going in the direction that the real knower *is* arithmetical 1p- truth, the p in []p p, and that the body or representation, or belief, []p is filtering consciousness. If this is true, there should be account of people saying that they felt being more conscious when some part of the brain is destroyed, or made non-functional, and that seems to be the case, both with dissociative drugs, but also with people lacking the hypo- campus: they definitely feel something more in the form of a perpetual presence. Brains do not produce consciousness, it would reduce consciousness, by filtering it through the differentiation of histories. Dying (with amnesia) would become a platonist remembering of our universal consciousness. The two way road between Earth and Heaven would be amnesia, in both direction, like salvia suggests. Interesting. Have you read My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor? She is a neuro-scientist who suffered a massive stroke due to the bursting of an aneurysm in her left hemisphere (from which she fortunately ultimately recovered). In her memoir she describes the changes in consciousness that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the almost complete shut-down of her left hemisphere. Of course there were major losses to specific functions (especially language) but what was fascinating was that there was also what one could only describe as a concomitant expansion in her degree of consciousness. It was indeed as if her left hemispherical function had been a filter through which her stream of consciousness had been narrowed. I followed a conference by her through a youtube video. Yes it is a nice case, I forget about it, thanks for the reminds. Of course it's a very long way from this to any idea that a brain is not required for consciousness and indeed her own view, as a neuroscientist, was that her altered experience was a result of the relative disinhibition of her right hemisphere. After all, her experience tended to re-normalise as her left hemisphere recovered its function, although some aspects of the altered state have subsequently remained with her. Perhaps one could take the view that even if no *particular* brain is required to manifest a person in a reality, such manifestation will always be in terms of *some* brain or other. When memories are involved and perhaps its require some participation, but not when no memories are involved. Then curiously
Re: CTM and the UDA (again!)
On 27 Jul 2014, at 15:56, David Nyman wrote: On 24 July 2014 14:50, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As I try to see if we disagree, or if it is just a problem of vocabulary, I will make comment which might, or not be like I am nitpicking, and that *might* be the case, and then I apologize. No worries. I think some of it is just vocabulary, but we'll see. My problem here is that COR is ambiguous. I don't know what you mean by sef-contained computationally-observable regime. Well, I'm sorry for having introduced yet another acronym here, but my intention was to see if I could set out the arguments of Step 7 and Step 8 in a slightly more grandma manner. So what I'm saying amounts to a definition: i.e. that once CTM has been assumed, it follows that observers and the objects of observation are thereafter confined within a computationally observable regime. And this must be true regardless of any additional assumptions we may have at the outset concerning what might be doing the computation. It seems to me that UD* *is* such a self-contained computable/ computational structure, and the existence of both the UD and UD* are *theorem* of arithmetic, which means that such a COR does not need to assume CTM (comp). Well yes, but in the spirit of the UDA, I was trying to reach this conclusion one step at a time! I'm not sure, though, what you mean by saying that CTM isn't part of the assumption of a COR. The whole point is that it is supposed to be computationally-observable, not merely computational. By its very definition, the COR sets the limits of possible physical observation or empirical discovery. In principle, any physical phenomenon, whatever its scale, could be brought under observation if only we had a big enough collider. But by the same token, no matter how big the collider, no such observable could escape its confinement within the limits of the COR. I agree, but why? here a Peter Jones can say: not at all, to have something observable, you need consciousness, and to have consciousness you need a physical primitive reality. But I'm already assuming CTM, so this implies the COR. If PJ assumes non-comp, then I say go in peace, but please give me a non-comp argument. But perhaps he is arguing for CTM but thinks we need a primitively physical computer to explain the existence of the COR. This line of argument is what we will attack next. If we accept that the existence of a COR is entailed by assuming CTM, we come naturally to the question of what might be doing the computation. How could that not be answered by the existence of COR, or by arithmetic. We know that both the programs and their execution can be proved to exist in elementary arithmetic. The problem comes exclusively from the people who say that *a priori* the computation are not enough, and that they need to be implemented in the primitive physical reality (that they can't define, but the point is logically meaningful until step 8). Perhaps it wasn't obvious that my intention was to recapitulate the arguments of Step 7 and Step 8. You see, ISTM that the recurrent debates over these steps of the UDA are at least in part because of ambiguities in the way people on the list have understood them (e.g. the recent unresolved discussion with Brent about Step 8). I was trying to re-state them with a view to helping to clarify their essential points. No problem! I think we all try our best. I try hard to not intervene too much in people conversation, but my hands just obeys the SWE (grin). Notwithstanding this, we may still feel the need to retain reservations of practicability. Perhaps the physical universe isn't actually sufficiently robust to permit the building of such a computer? To build it is not a problem, (I did it), but to run it for a sufficiently long time so that we have a measure problem is different. Yes, but of course I meant to build and run it for a sufficiently long time. My point here was to emphasise the underlying evasiveness of arguments that avoid the reversal at Step 7. They say, in effect: Yes, I assume CTM and accept that it implies a COR. I also accept (on the arguments of Steps 0-6 ) that, in principle, this implies that a physical computer, if run for a sufficient span of time, would indeed capture all conscious experiences with very high probability (i.e. it would dominate the COR). But I don't accept that the physical universe is robust enough to build and run such a computer and consequently I feel justified in discounting the relevance of UD* to any experiential probability calculus. It should be clear, if expressed in this explicit manner, that this is an argument from *contingency*, rather than *principle*. OK. It just that the COR idea is fuzzy for me. I am of course tempted to see an intuition of the []p p, that is the probability 1 on the probable sigma_1 sentences (or other modal nuance). This entails at some
Re: It Knows That It Knows
On 28 Jul 2014, at 13:43, David Nyman wrote: On 28 July 2014 11:25, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Actually, comp is terrifying. Rest assured, it terrifies me too. I think the terror stems, in a sense, from the persistent (and I guess, at the terrestrial level, essential) illusion of control. The idea that I could be precipitated into any experience whatsoever with no say-so on my part is what seems terrifying. Interestingly, I've sometimes experienced a mild version of this fear immediately before falling asleep. It's the fear of losing control to the dreaming state; a kind of existential claustro (or agora) phobia. I've tried to rationalise the terror induced by comp in various ways. For starters, it's not a fear of something in prospect, because if comp is true *it's true right now*. My preferred intuition here, which (despite having been unsuccessful in persuading Bruno) I still feel is not inconsistent with comp, is Hoyle's universal person. It's perfectly possible to think of experience in terms of an endless logical sequence of self-relating observer moments (or experiential monads). Recall that Bruno sometimes says that comp is a theory of reincarnation. If so, then Hoyle's analogy serves as a kind of heuristic in terms of which we are reincarnated afresh into personhood in each and every moment. To put it another way, at the universal perspectival limit, each and every moment is itself an experience of death and rebirth. Now there's a thought. We, the Löbian numbers have no problem with this. We said it out of time: t - []f. That is part of our justifiable discourse: if we have a consistent extension, that is if we don't belong to a cul-de- sac world (dead) then the next world might be a cul-de-sac world, or there is a cul-de-sac world in our vicinity. With comp, to be alive is already necessarily a near death experience. Now, there is always a danger in the use of metaphor like that if we don't make clear the basic lexicon describing the representation of one language into another, and the subjective life interpretation is a bit of a treachery here, as the subjective life is indeed, in the lexicon enforced by comp, related to the experience of the knower, which does prove the formula above (the arithmetical formal second incompleteness theorem). This 1p is the soul, and Socrates proof of its immortality applies, the soul never actually met a cul-de-sac world. This makes clearer my apprehension of Hoyle's heuristic, which might, if taken too much seriously, be on the slope of a reductionism of something 1p to something 3p. Perhaps. I do appreciate the picture and your attempt to use it for helping people to better handle the CTM. Bruno 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. 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.
