Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:30, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:


On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:


On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:
OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but here's a thought  
that has intrigued me. Computationalism (and let's not worry for  
the time being about whether one buys Bruno's UDA) states that  
consciousness supervenes on computation. This necesssarily  
implies (by Church thesis)  that the hardware doesn't matter.  
This commits us to some unintuitive scenarios in which thought is  
instantiated by means of carrier pigeons delivering letters with  
symbols written on them, or dominoes falling or whatever. It's  
assumed that such a computation must reach a certain level of  
complexity in order to become conscious, though what level of  
complexity is not specified. According to some views (Brent has  
expressed this position), it is necessary that the computations  
reference a "world", though I'll admit I don"t understand the  
rationale for that exactly. Important though is that it is  
neither necessary that the computations are carried out in some  
localised "device"/brain nor that they are carried out by  
"wetware".


So my thinking is this: isn't evolution precisely such a  
computation?


I take it you mean life is doing a computation which consists of  
finding ways to live and reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing   
THE paradigmatic genetic algorithm.


Exactly.
It is undoubtedly an extremely complex calculation (more so than  
any human thought has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references  
a world". Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this context as well, or  
the capacity for self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in  
relation to an evolutionary computation. Certainly it is a highly  
recursive procedure with a continual self-environment feedback  
loop. I don't understand Loebianity sufficiently to say whether  
genes , or the gene-environment system, might possess it. However  
I'm also not sure if it's required for consciousness, or merely  
self- consciousness. I don't see that the possession of qualia  
demands the possession of self-awareness, though I can also see  
that it is at least conceivable that an evolutionary feedback  
system might possess  a kind of self-reference.


Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus  
Church thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that  
evolution may be a conscious process - indeed the onus should be  
on us to say why it wouldn't be conscious. Which does not mean I  
am suggesting some mystical additional ingredient. Evolution  
would still be described objectively in terms of random mutation  
plus environmental selection, but this process may have an  
interior component, its own "1P".


Yes, I think that's right in a sense.  Life in a sense forms a  
representation of the world.   If a alien scientist were told just  
about the living organisms on Earth he could infer a great deal  
about the inorganic aspects of the planet.   I don't know if you  
could say it's self-aware, except by inclusion of ourselves.  The  
problem is that it may be conscious in such a different way from  
humans or animals that it doesn't really add anything to our  
understanding of it to say it is conscious.  I've sometimes had a  
similar idea about the atmosphere and weather.  Isn't weather a  
kind of computation performed by the atmosphere and isn't it aware  
of things in its environment like solar heating, ocean currents  
and temperatures, human activities like jet liners and burning  
fossil fuel,...


Yes. But then isn't an orbiting planet carrying out a computation?  
Isn't a river? Isn't an atom doing quantum computing? It almost  
becomes a matter of perspective whether any given physical process  
is a computation or not, e.g., if someone wanted to compute the  
route that water would take down a given slope, they could  
"compute" it analogically with actual water on an actual slope.  
Which, combined with computationalism, seems like the (ahem)  
slippery slope to panpsychism, which I am happy enough with, but  
which I suspect to be too mystical for your metabolism...


I don't see anything mystical about saying all those physical  
processes are computations, i.e. they are also information  
processes.  Have you slipped over from computation to assuming they  
are conscious?


Computationalism is precisely that assumption (that computation  
equates to consciousness).


No, it's the assumption that some particular computation  
instantiates consciousness.


OK.
Computation is a pure 3p notion.
Consciousness is a pure 1p notion.
Nothing can be more different.
A computation just can makes it possible for a person to manifest its  
consciousness relatively to a universal number/environment.






However, usually the 

Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Nov 2015, at 08:23, Pierz wrote:




On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 8:39:12 PM UTC+11, Russell Standish  
wrote:

On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 08:55:09PM -0700, Pierz wrote:
>
> Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus  
Church
> thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution  
may be a
> conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it  
*wouldn't* be

> conscious.

I don't think we know enough about consciousness to really say one way
or the other, so no the onus is not on anyone.

"Onus" or not, computationalists should at least attempt to be  
consistent. If genetic algorithms are considered potentially  
conscious, then it is legitimate to ask why evolution itself would  
not be. One should examine all the ramifications of a theory and not  
simply wave the uncomfortable ones away by saying "we can't know."  
It's often in the pursuit of the implications of a theory to the  
last possible limit that things get interesting - think Einstein  
pursuing the constancy of the speed of light to its logical  
conclusion. It's also where the theory's flaws are likely to be  
exposed. It seems to me though that computationalists are generally  
mainly interested in explaining away the apparent mystery of the  
Hard Problem of consciousness in the brain,


That is right. mechanism is usually used by materialist to stop  
thinking to the question, and when they think about the question they  
are often lead to eliminativisme.


But the UDA shows that this does not work: on the contrary the hard  
problem of consciousness becomes twice harder, as it leads to an hard  
problem of matter to: explaining the appearance of matter, without  
assuming anything physical. But then the math shows that it is the  
case, with the Solovay split surprise that we get the explanation of  
why they are qualia and quanta, and why qualia *seems* so hard to  
explain.





rather than overturning the conception of nature as an unconscious  
machine. But that is what it leads to ISTM - at least the  
Putnamesque, functional type version of CTM.



Putnam's functionalism is a particular case of computationalism. It is  
computationalism with the idea that the substitution level is  
implicitly rather high (but still left unprecise).


Bruno




Nevertheless, I highly suspect that our human consciousnesses are in
fact evolutionary processes, which I know is an answer to a very
different question.


--


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


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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 06:17, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Which is just your idiosyncratic way of saying that we have to  
apply a projection operator.


No, we have to recover the "projection operator" from the  
computationalist quantization. It is a math problem.


So do it.


That has been the subject of the PhD thesis. I can explain all the  
detail, but you will need to invest more time in computer science/ 
mathematical logic. It is not a simple problem. UDA took a flash in my  
childhood, AUDA took 30 years of works (in part because some people  
makes me doubt of some results or conjecture I made for years, until I  
saw them solved and published by others, to which I refer. The problem  
now is that those interested in metaphysics seem to be not enough  
patient to do the math. Philosophy attracts often people who dislike a  
lot math and "exact" science. My whole main point is that with  
computationalism, the mind body problem is translated into a problem  
in math.

And the solution is given by the
[i]p, p sigma_1, with i = 1, 2, 3, and [1]p = []p & p, [2]p = []p &  
<>t,
and [3]p = [2]p & p  (and [] is Gödel's beweisbar, and <>t = ~[]~t =  
~[]f).






The trouble with your FPI approach is that it does not explain the  
inter-subjective agreement that is an essential part of our  
experience. All people experience the same "classical" world (in  
which they agree about the observed basis vectors that are robust  
against environmental decoherence)


The indexical quantization provides the path toward the solution or  
the lack of solution. Don't confuse the intuitive FPI of the UDA,  
and its translation in math based on the Gödel-Post-Turing-Kleene  
technic which makes the self-reference mathematically precise.


Don't confuse it with what?


Sorry, it is my bad english. Don't confuse the intuitive FPI of the  
UDA *with* its translation in math (based on the Gödel-Post-Turing- 
Kleene technic which makes the self-reference povs mathematically  
precise).









The full space might well still be 'there' (in whatever sense  
you like), but the fact that the observer is conscious of only  
part of that space involves a projection operator. And  
projection operators are not time symmetric or unitary. This is  
the partial trace problem, and it remains unsolved.


It is exactly what Everett solved, assuming mechanism, by taking  
into account the personal point of view of the isolated system  
with respect to what it is isolated and not isolated. Everett  
shows this does not depend on the bases.


He showed no such thing. The basis according to which the  
"classical" world is projected out is absolutely crucial. We would  
not observe the same world in any other basis. The basis we do  
observe is the one that is robust against environmental  
decoherence -- any other basis is not robust, so rapidly devolves  
into the robust (einselected) basis.


The choice of the bases is what Zurek have explained. That extends  
Everett.


I think you should study Zurek at little more closely. He did not  
actually explain the choice of basis. His result was that the basis  
had to be robust against environmental decoherence -- which is true,  
but does not give the actual basis. Position space is a Hilbert  
space, not a basis for a Hilbert space.


?

Position provides a basis for the Hilbert space, which is independent  
of the choice of that basis. we could use momentum instead, and  
described the position by linear combination of momentum, and Zurek  
wil still justify that the subject with a brain will handle the  
position more easily than using the momentum.


I am not sure I can make sense of "Position space is a Hilbert space".  
An Hilbert space is closed for linear combination (even infinite) of  
any element belonging to any bases chosen in the Hilbert space.


Bruno



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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:36, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 3:15 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


​>> ​​2+2=5 is a numerical relationship as is 2+2=4, the only  
way to segregate the​ numerical​ relationships that express a  
truth from the many that don't is to make a calculation, and the  
only way anybody has ever​ made a calculation​ in the entire  
history of the world is by using matter that obeys the laws of  
physics.


​> ​Then you reject the excluded middle principle.

​No. If sentence X says "2+2=5" then sentence X expresses a  
numerical relationship, that association may or may not belong to  
the category "true" but it's certainly a relationship. The problem  
isn't that true mathematical relationships don't exist it's that  
false ones do too,


In physics and the everyday life too, but why should we take into  
account false proposition into account?





and the only way anybody has ever been able to separate true  
statements from false statements is by using matter that obeys the  
laws of physics.


The whole point of realism is that the truth is independent of the  
fact that we verify them. If not, you could say anything, both in  
physics and in arithmetic.


In G we have [](p & q) <-> ([]p & []q), but we don't have [](p v q) <- 
>([]p v []q). Indeed, we have [](<>t v ~<>t) trivially, but we don't  
have []<>t v []~<>t.





And that is my explanation for why INTEL makes microprocessors out  
of silicon and not out of definitions and theorems;


INTEL use silicon because he wants that the object or people supported  
by its computation can manifest itself relatively to our most probable  
computations in arithmetic.




Bruno, you have no coherent explanation for that fact.


That is why this is part of the hard problem of consciousness, and my  
goal was to show exactly this.
That is far from being enough to refute computationalism and its  
consequence, as the alternate theories do not exist or are fairy  
tales. Then, the math part shows indeed that the logic of the  
observable obeys a non trivial quantum logic, which shows that the  
normality of silicon/or-similar, and its local necessity to have  
physical stable computations, might still be a consequence of  
computationalism, as it should indeed.


Comp predicted the many-computations, which arguably are confirmed by  
the fact that physicist came up with the idea independently of the  
computationalist reasoning, then the math confirms the quantum  
mathematical structure, and the symmetries of physics at the bottom,  
and perhaps the linearity of evolution. From the symmetries, and  
Noether-like theorem, we might get enough to have the unicity of the  
standard model (like recent works in quantum logic suggest). Anyway, I  
do not defend the truth of computationalism, I just point on the  
difficulties, that you seem to begin to comprehend.


Bruno



​

​ John K Clark​





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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Oct 2015, at 23:28, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 10/27/2015 3:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


On 28 Oct 2015, at 1:30 AM, John Clark  wrote:




On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 5:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:


​ >> ​ ​From examples in the physical world. You can give as  
many botanical definitions of the word  "tree" as you want but it  
will just be a word defined by other words that are themselves  
defined by yet more words that are If you tried to dig for  
meaning all you'd find is a endless loop, it would just be a game  
where words aremanipulated  
according to the rules of botany until somebody forgot about  
definitions and pointed to the ​ASCII string "t-r-e-e" and then  
pointed to a large photosynthesizing organism made largely of  
cellulose that exists in the physical world. Then even a martian  
would notice a correspondence between this game of manipulating  
symbols called "botany" that humans had invented and the way these  
large photosynthesizing organism made largely of cellulose live.


​ > ​ What about a virtual world with trees and observers, and  
no I/O devices connecting it to outside trees?


There would ​ still be I/O devices connected to the ​virtual  
trees made by a computer that operated according to the laws of  
physics, if not the trees wouldn't even be virtual.  And the books  
on both virtual botany and real botany would still be more than a  
just a symbol manipulation game, they would have  semantic  
content ​ because there would be a ​ correspondence between ​  
the way the  symbols ​ are manipulated and the way the virtual  
(or real)   large photosynthesizing organism live. ​ Regardless  
of if they are virtual or real ​if you want to know how trees  
live studying those botany symbols in virtual (or real) books will  
help, so they must have  semantic content ​ .


The requirement that a computation be able to interact with the  
real world puts a restriction on what qualifies as a computation.  
You've challenged Bruno many times to perform a difficult  
computation using his Platonic computer. Well, that computation is  
occurring in front of you now in the thermal motion of the atoms in  
your desk, which under an appropriate interpretation are  
implementing a Turing machine. But you and Bruno don't have that  
appropriate interpretation, and if you did, you would have the  
result of the calculation already. In other words, the thermal  
motion computation is not understandable as such in, and cannot  
interact with, the world at the level of the substrate of its  
implementation; so it would usually be said that either there is no  
computation being implemented, or it is being implemented only in a  
trivial and useless sense. But remove the requirement for  
interaction in the real world, and this objection falls down. The  
computation is being implemented, your difficult calculation has  
been completed, and it is being appreciated by the virtual  
observers who are clapping and cheering - even though you can't  
hear them.


That's essentially Bruno's MGA, except it stops one step short.   
Bruno takes the last step and says even if the atoms of your desk  
were doing absolutely nothing there is an interpretation in which  
that is a computation; hence the atoms are superfluous.   But  
clearly then it is the interpretation which is providing the  
computation.




I do not agree with this. We might have something like that with  
analogical computation, if that could ever mean something, but with a  
computation in the sense of Church, you must be able to name the  
universal number doing the computation, and there are virtually no  
chance that a sequence of digital states constitute a computation  
(which does have the right counterfactuals). In the MGA we arrive at  
the idea that nothing do any specific computation by assuming  
materialism and mechanism, but that is what is judged absurd in the  
reductio ad absurdum to show the incompatibility between materialism  
and mechanism.


If someone pretend that a rock or something do a computation, I will  
ask here which one, and what is the universal number doing it, and  
what is the program (or how to justify that there is a program, even  
in principle).


Some physicist estimates that there is no computation at all in  
nature: only continuous analogical partial imitation of computation.  
For them, computations exists *only* in arithmetic, which is not  
implemented in nature, which use real numbers, and which approximates  
the natural numbers by infinite trigonometrical functions. I am open  
to that idea, but I think we just don't know. Computationalism might  
entaill something like that.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Virgin Birth

[PGC]

On Monday, November 2, 2015 at 1:14:28 AM UTC+1, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 08:22:13AM -0800, PGC wrote: 
> > 
> > The questions are comp related. I don't know why you *wouldn't* find it 
> > interesting as somebody who has written on duplication in comp context, 
> > even if you don't buy Samiya's take. PGC 
> > 
>
> Samiya was referring to the well-known phenomena of parthenogenesis, 
> which can be understood as a natural form of cloning. Biologists get 
> excited about this, because sexual reproduction is still a rather 
> mysterious fact of the biological world, and there have been examples 
> of quite complex animals doing away with sex altogether (the classic 
> example is certain species of shark). 
>
> It has nothing to do with comp duplication, which are thought 
> experiments about duplicating conscious experiences, not genetic 
> cloning, which is as old as the hills - as any twin can attest. 
>

Your statement assumes no relation between what you see as "biology" and 
"duplicating conscious experience". But without stating the theoretical 
background and placing all terms one would logically or mathematically use 
on the table, it remains as unclear as many of your statements. This seems 
therefore closer to your personal preference rather than an argument. 
Mathematical Self-Reproduction is a fascinating and standard idea, e.g. in 
the Kleene sense. This may not interest you or be relevant to your 
approach, but some of us enjoy the technical side of clarifying duplication 
used in UDA with the appropriate background.  

Thankfully, Bruno sometimes permits the filming of his lectures and even 
though theology is not directly treated here, clarifying the terms 
necessary for such theological discussions, assuming comp, could serve 
perhaps as an example to Samiya and others that *theological arguments 
should not be mixed with scientific facts without careful consideration of 
compatibility between arguments and statements, assuming different 
backgrounds/domains*, as errors can be made rather quickly.

Thanks goes out to Bruno for making the effort to put some lectures out 
there in video form. I enjoy Bruno's posts and it is nice to have them 
complemented by video material from time to time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATl86jBfwqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76iuXcVOAuc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5etar0vQYnI

And not yet shared with this list, the second part of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibedqHdXCKU=youtu.be=5

Please tell me if there are any problems with the links and hope you guys 
enjoy. PGC


 

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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruce Kellett]

On 3/11/2015 8:50 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The choice of the bases is what Zurek have explained. That extends 
Everett.


I think you should study Zurek at little more closely. He did not 
actually explain the choice of basis. His result was that the basis 
had to be robust against environmental decoherence -- which is true, 
but does not give the actual basis. Position space is a Hilbert 
space, not a basis for a Hilbert space.


?

Position provides a basis for the Hilbert space, which is independent 
of the choice of that basis. we could use momentum instead, and 
described the position by linear combination of momentum, and Zurek 
wil still justify that the subject with a brain will handle the 
position more easily than using the momentum.


I am not sure I can make sense of "Position space is a Hilbert space". 
An Hilbert space is closed for linear combination (even infinite) of 
any element belonging to any bases chosen in the Hilbert space.


Basic quantum mechanics. Observables are represented by hermitian 
operators, possible measurement results are the eigenvalues of such 
operators. The operators act in the Hilbert space spanned by the 
complete orthonormal set of eigenvectors. The problem is that the form 
of the operator is not determined by the theory, and the eigenvectors of 
each possible operator in the space provide a different possible basis. 
By completeness, each possible basis can be expressed as linear 
combinations of the vectors of any other basis -- these are the 
(infamous) quantum superpositions.


The choice of basis (or equivalently, the choice for the form of the 
operator) is the basis problem of quantum mechanics. Zurek's 
einselection is an attempt to solve this problem by finding a basis (and 
associated set of eigenvalues) that is robust against environmental 
disturbance. It turns out, by Bohr's Correspondence Principle, that the 
basis corresponding to the classical position variable is robust in this 
sense, but that scarcely solves the general basis problem because it is 
essentially a circular argument -- stable classical values come out if 
we build in classical variables.


Bruce

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Re: Virgin Birth

[Brent Meeker]

Thanks for posting those links.

Brent

On 11/3/2015 5:13 AM, PGC wrote:
Thanks goes out to Bruno for making the effort to put some lectures 
out there in video form. I enjoy Bruno's posts and it is nice to have 
them complemented by video material from time to time:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATl86jBfwqI 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76iuXcVOAuc 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5etar0vQYnI 



And not yet shared with this list, the second part of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibedqHdXCKU=youtu.be=5

Please tell me if there are any problems with the links and hope you 
guys enjoy. PGC


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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 4:49 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 3/11/2015 8:50 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The choice of the bases is what Zurek have explained. That extends 
Everett.


I think you should study Zurek at little more closely. He did not 
actually explain the choice of basis. His result was that the basis 
had to be robust against environmental decoherence -- which is true, 
but does not give the actual basis. Position space is a Hilbert 
space, not a basis for a Hilbert space.


?

Position provides a basis for the Hilbert space, which is independent 
of the choice of that basis. we could use momentum instead, and 
described the position by linear combination of momentum, and Zurek 
wil still justify that the subject with a brain will handle the 
position more easily than using the momentum.


I am not sure I can make sense of "Position space is a Hilbert 
space". An Hilbert space is closed for linear combination (even 
infinite) of any element belonging to any bases chosen in the Hilbert 
space.


Basic quantum mechanics. Observables are represented by hermitian 
operators, possible measurement results are the eigenvalues of such 
operators. The operators act in the Hilbert space spanned by the 
complete orthonormal set of eigenvectors. The problem is that the form 
of the operator is not determined by the theory, and the eigenvectors 
of each possible operator in the space provide a different possible 
basis. By completeness, each possible basis can be expressed as linear 
combinations of the vectors of any other basis -- these are the 
(infamous) quantum superpositions.


The choice of basis (or equivalently, the choice for the form of the 
operator) is the basis problem of quantum mechanics. Zurek's 
einselection is an attempt to solve this problem by finding a basis 
(and associated set of eigenvalues) that is robust against 
environmental disturbance. It turns out, by Bohr's Correspondence 
Principle, that the basis corresponding to the classical position 
variable is robust in this sense, but that scarcely solves the general 
basis problem because it is essentially a circular argument -- stable 
classical values come out if we build in classical variables.


I think that would have been better expressed if you had noted that the 
robust basis is not necessarily the position basis.  As Schlosshauer 
notes, for atomic size things it is often the energy eigenvalues that 
are robust.   But we didn't predict that; we have discovered it 
empirically.


So would it be a complete solution of the measurement problem if we 
could predict which basis choice would provide robust eigenvalues? Would 
this prediction start from a very complex instrument/environment 
interaction Hamiltonian?  It seems that if it did we'd be in the 
position of having to do stat mech on the interaction, which would again 
involve assumptions about chaos and averaging?  I think we might run 
into Chris'es "cat in the tree" problem.


Brent

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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 1:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 06:17, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Which is just your idiosyncratic way of saying that we have to 
apply a projection operator.


No, we have to recover the "projection operator" from the 
computationalist quantization. It is a math problem.


So do it.


That has been the subject of the PhD thesis. I can explain all the 
detail, but you will need to invest more time in computer 
science/mathematical logic. It is not a simple problem. UDA took a 
flash in my childhood, AUDA took 30 years of works (in part because 
some people makes me doubt of some results or conjecture I made for 
years, until I saw them solved and published by others, to which I 
refer. The problem now is that those interested in metaphysics seem to 
be not enough patient to do the math. Philosophy attracts often people 
who dislike a lot math and "exact" science. My whole main point is 
that with computationalism, the mind body problem is translated into a 
problem in math.

And the solution is given by the
[i]p, p sigma_1, with i = 1, 2, 3, and [1]p = []p & p, [2]p = []p & 
<>t,
and [3]p = [2]p & p  (and [] is Gödel's beweisbar, and <>t = ~[]~t = 
~[]f).


The solution to what?  And what does it mean "given by".

Brent

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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Nov 2015, at 13:49, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 3/11/2015 8:50 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The choice of the bases is what Zurek have explained. That  
extends Everett.


I think you should study Zurek at little more closely. He did not  
actually explain the choice of basis. His result was that the  
basis had to be robust against environmental decoherence -- which  
is true, but does not give the actual basis. Position space is a  
Hilbert space, not a basis for a Hilbert space.


?

Position provides a basis for the Hilbert space, which is  
independent of the choice of that basis. we could use momentum  
instead, and described the position by linear combination of  
momentum, and Zurek wil still justify that the subject with a brain  
will handle the position more easily than using the momentum.


I am not sure I can make sense of "Position space is a Hilbert  
space". An Hilbert space is closed for linear combination (even  
infinite) of any element belonging to any bases chosen in the  
Hilbert space.


Basic quantum mechanics. Observables are represented by hermitian  
operators, possible measurement results are the eigenvalues of such  
operators. The operators act in the Hilbert space spanned by the  
complete orthonormal set of eigenvectors. The problem is that the  
form of the operator is not determined by the theory, and the  
eigenvectors of each possible operator in the space provide a  
different possible basis. By completeness, each possible basis can  
be expressed as linear combinations of the vectors of any other  
basis -- these are the (infamous) quantum superpositions.


OK.




The choice of basis (or equivalently, the choice for the form of the  
operator) is the basis problem of quantum mechanics. Zurek's  
einselection is an attempt to solve this problem by finding a basis  
(and associated set of eigenvalues) that is robust against  
environmental disturbance. It turns out, by Bohr's Correspondence  
Principle, that the basis corresponding to the classical position  
variable is robust in this sense, but that scarcely solves the  
general basis problem because it is essentially a circular argument  
-- stable classical values come out if we build in classical  
variables.


I don't think this is circular if you accept classical  
computationalism (even without its immaterialist consequence). To  
develop cognitive ability, the machine needs to be able to make enough  
clear distinction between its mental states, its memories, and that  
with Everett+Zurek justifies the classical behavior of what we are  
usually talking about, like when believing that it rains, or not.


The evolution of the brains in our branches has selected the base for  
us, from our point of view. That whole process does not depend on the  
choice of the basis. We can write the universal wave in any base, or  
in any picture, but some base and picture will be preferred for  
practical reason, as we do have a long history behind us. Then the  
robustness of the position base against environmental disturbance is  
explained by the necessity of having the classical means of the  
computationalist constraint.


Classical logic (at least for arithmetic) is part of the  
computationalist assumption, although that assumption can be weakened  
a lot (but then the proofs get longer and more complex).


Bruno






Bruce

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



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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 1:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Well, in machine's theology, the proof of the immortality of the soul 
by Socrates is valid, but is not constructive, and its practical 
aspect is dependent of you degree of appreciation of not knowing who 
you (first person are).
Then, a priori computationalist immortality seems to be something more 
to fear than to hope, but both computer science and salvia can be 
reassuring by allowing possibilities of jumps between type of 
consciousness state (but *that* is still wishful thinking, as such 
jump are hard to relate with some type of death.
Once a machine is above the Gödel-Löbian treshold, it has at each 
instant an infinite of futures,


Why not infinite pasts?  Fundamental physics is time symmetric and your 
theory of the UD doesn't have any built-in arrow of time.


and near death or near catastrophes, it continues in the closer world 
consistent with its memory. If the subject identifies too much with 
its memory, the experience can be unpleasant. Some training in "let it 
go" can help, perhaps.


In what sense can "you" continue without memories of who you are? Losing 
memories causes profound and disturbing changes in personality.  My 
father died of Alzheimers and he was a very different person, almost a 
non-person, the last years of his life.


Brent

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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 03:11:54PM -0500, John Mikes wrote:
> Russell, please: what is your take on "INTELLIGENT"?

Its a word describing cognitive ability. Not particularly well defined IMHO.


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Re: Virgin Birth

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 02:51:35PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:
> 
> 
> On 11/3/2015 2:30 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> >On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 02:05:53PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:
> >>>Biological theory says that sexual reproduction should halve the
> >>>fitness of the organism as compared with asexual (or parthenogenetic)
> >>>reproduction, so asexual reproduction should be the norm (as it is in
> >>>bacteria).
> >>But does it halve the reproductive chances of a gene; or does it
> >>give it more chances of survival?
> >>
> >Halves it, because its a 50/50 lottery whether the gene from the
> >female or the gene from the male is expressed in the offspring.
> 
> But that's for one child.  When sexual reproduction evolved the
> number of offspring for most organisms was in the thousands, so a
> given gene probably had many chances to combine with different genes
> from the other gender.
> 

It still halves the fitness relative to asexual reproduction. What
matters is relative fitness anyway (or differential fitness, as Lewontin puts
it) - it doesn't matter if the absolute numbers are of order 1
or order thousands.

The point is that when confronted which such damning evidence, a
scientist will change er theory. A vast number of explanations for
why sexual reproduction wins over asexual have been proposed, such as
parasitism, such as the elimination of genetic errors due to operating
above the error threshold (Mendel daemon hypothesis).

These are being tested in ALife experiments, and in breeding
experiments. Just that at present, there is no concensus, other than
the original naive theory must be wrong.


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Re: Virgin Birth

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 05:13:11AM -0800, PGC wrote:
> 
> 
> On Monday, November 2, 2015 at 1:14:28 AM UTC+1, Russell Standish wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 08:22:13AM -0800, PGC wrote: 
> > > 
> > > The questions are comp related. I don't know why you *wouldn't* find it 
> > > interesting as somebody who has written on duplication in comp context, 
> > > even if you don't buy Samiya's take. PGC 
> > > 
> >
> > Samiya was referring to the well-known phenomena of parthenogenesis, 
> > which can be understood as a natural form of cloning. Biologists get 
> > excited about this, because sexual reproduction is still a rather 
> > mysterious fact of the biological world, and there have been examples 
> > of quite complex animals doing away with sex altogether (the classic 
> > example is certain species of shark). 
> >
> > It has nothing to do with comp duplication, which are thought 
> > experiments about duplicating conscious experiences, not genetic 
> > cloning, which is as old as the hills - as any twin can attest. 
> >
> 
> Your statement assumes no relation between what you see as "biology" and 
> "duplicating conscious experience". But without stating the theoretical 
> background and placing all terms one would logically or mathematically use 
> on the table, it remains as unclear as many of your statements. This seems 
> therefore closer to your personal preference rather than an argument. 
> Mathematical Self-Reproduction is a fascinating and standard idea, e.g. in 
> the Kleene sense. This may not interest you or be relevant to your 
> approach, but some of us enjoy the technical side of clarifying duplication 
> used in UDA with the appropriate background.  
> 

Sorry Plato (may I call you Plato?), but parthenogenesis really has
nothing whatsoever to do with duplication as used in the UDA.

Parthenogenetic offspring are genetically identical to their parents,
just as identical twins are genetically identical to each other. They
are, however, completely different indviduals, unlike the poor sod to
have stepped into Bruno's teleporter in Brussels.

Biological theory says that sexual reproduction should halve the
fitness of the organism as compared with asexual (or parthenogenetic)
reproduction, so asexual reproduction should be the norm (as it is in
bacteria).  It does not do so, for yet mysterious reasons. I quite
like Ridley's explanation given in his book "Mendel's Daemon", but to
date, the jury is still out.

Samiya, and Christians, like to make a big thing about virgin birth,
even though to biologists it is not a miraculous or interesting thing
- apart from the obvious fact that it is not commonplace.

Cheers
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Re: Virgin Birth

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 1:57 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 05:13:11AM -0800, PGC wrote:


On Monday, November 2, 2015 at 1:14:28 AM UTC+1, Russell Standish wrote:

On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 08:22:13AM -0800, PGC wrote:

The questions are comp related. I don't know why you *wouldn't* find it
interesting as somebody who has written on duplication in comp context,
even if you don't buy Samiya's take. PGC


Samiya was referring to the well-known phenomena of parthenogenesis,
which can be understood as a natural form of cloning. Biologists get
excited about this, because sexual reproduction is still a rather
mysterious fact of the biological world, and there have been examples
of quite complex animals doing away with sex altogether (the classic
example is certain species of shark).

It has nothing to do with comp duplication, which are thought
experiments about duplicating conscious experiences, not genetic
cloning, which is as old as the hills - as any twin can attest.


Your statement assumes no relation between what you see as "biology" and
"duplicating conscious experience". But without stating the theoretical
background and placing all terms one would logically or mathematically use
on the table, it remains as unclear as many of your statements. This seems
therefore closer to your personal preference rather than an argument.
Mathematical Self-Reproduction is a fascinating and standard idea, e.g. in
the Kleene sense. This may not interest you or be relevant to your
approach, but some of us enjoy the technical side of clarifying duplication
used in UDA with the appropriate background.


Sorry Plato (may I call you Plato?), but parthenogenesis really has
nothing whatsoever to do with duplication as used in the UDA.

Parthenogenetic offspring are genetically identical to their parents,
just as identical twins are genetically identical to each other. They
are, however, completely different indviduals, unlike the poor sod to
have stepped into Bruno's teleporter in Brussels.

Biological theory says that sexual reproduction should halve the
fitness of the organism as compared with asexual (or parthenogenetic)
reproduction, so asexual reproduction should be the norm (as it is in
bacteria).


But does it halve the reproductive chances of a gene; or does it give it 
more chances of survival?


Brent


It does not do so, for yet mysterious reasons. I quite
like Ridley's explanation given in his book "Mendel's Daemon", but to
date, the jury is still out.

Samiya, and Christians, like to make a big thing about virgin birth,
even though to biologists it is not a miraculous or interesting thing
- apart from the obvious fact that it is not commonplace.

Cheers


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Re: Virgin Birth

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 02:05:53PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:
> >
> >Biological theory says that sexual reproduction should halve the
> >fitness of the organism as compared with asexual (or parthenogenetic)
> >reproduction, so asexual reproduction should be the norm (as it is in
> >bacteria).
> 
> But does it halve the reproductive chances of a gene; or does it
> give it more chances of survival?
> 

Halves it, because its a 50/50 lottery whether the gene from the
female or the gene from the male is expressed in the offspring.

Of course, the same logic would indicate that incest should be very
evolutionary advantageous - which gives a potent clue as to what's
going on.

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Re: Virgin Birth

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 2:30 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 02:05:53PM -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:

Biological theory says that sexual reproduction should halve the
fitness of the organism as compared with asexual (or parthenogenetic)
reproduction, so asexual reproduction should be the norm (as it is in
bacteria).

But does it halve the reproductive chances of a gene; or does it
give it more chances of survival?


Halves it, because its a 50/50 lottery whether the gene from the
female or the gene from the male is expressed in the offspring.


But that's for one child.  When sexual reproduction evolved the number 
of offspring for most organisms was in the thousands, so a given gene 
probably had many chances to combine with different genes from the other 
gender.


Brent



Of course, the same logic would indicate that incest should be very
evolutionary advantageous - which gives a potent clue as to what's
going on.



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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Quentin Anciaux]

PA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms
RA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_arithmetic

2015-11-03 21:17 GMT+01:00 John Mikes :

> I read it all, did not find what PA and RA are standing for.
> Can you explain in brief?
> Thanks
> John M
>
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:06 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>>
>> On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:30, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:



 On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:

 OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but here's a thought that has
 intrigued me. Computationalism (and let's not worry for the time being
 about whether one buys Bruno's UDA) states that consciousness supervenes on
 computation. This necesssarily implies (by Church thesis)  that the
 hardware doesn't matter. This commits us to some unintuitive scenarios in
 which thought is instantiated by means of carrier pigeons delivering
 letters with symbols written on them, or dominoes falling or whatever. It's
 assumed that such a computation must reach a certain level of complexity in
 order to become conscious, though what level of complexity is not
 specified. According to some views (Brent has expressed this position), it
 is necessary that the computations reference a "world", though I'll admit I
 don"t understand the rationale for that exactly. Important though is that
 it is neither necessary that the computations are carried out in some
 localised "device"/brain nor that they are carried out by "wetware".

 So my thinking is this: isn't *evolution* precisely such a
 computation?


 I take it you mean life is doing a computation which consists of
 finding ways to live and reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing  THE
 paradigmatic genetic algorithm.

 Exactly.
>>>
 It is undoubtedly an extremely complex calculation (more so than any
 human thought has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references a world".
 Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this context as well, or the capacity for
 self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in relation to an evolutionary
 computation. Certainly it is a highly recursive procedure with a continual
 self-environment feedback loop. I don't understand Loebianity sufficiently
 to say whether genes , or the gene-environment system, might possess it.
 However I'm also not sure if it's required for consciousness, or merely
 *self*- consciousness. I don't see that the possession of qualia
 demands the possession of self-awareness, though I can also see that it is
 at least conceivable that an evolutionary feedback system might possess  a
 kind of self-reference.

 Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus Church
 thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may be a
 conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it
 *wouldn't* be conscious. Which does not mean I am suggesting some
 mystical additional ingredient. Evolution would still be described
 objectively in terms of random mutation plus environmental selection, but
 this process may have an interior component, its own "1P".


 Yes, I think that's right in a sense.  Life in a sense forms a
 representation of the world.   If a alien scientist were told just about
 the living organisms on Earth he could infer a great deal about the
 inorganic aspects of the planet.   I don't know if you could say it's
 self-aware, except by inclusion of ourselves.  The problem is that it may
 be conscious in such a different way from humans or animals that it doesn't
 really add anything to our understanding of it to say it is conscious.
 I've sometimes had a similar idea about the atmosphere and weather.  Isn't
 weather a kind of computation performed by the atmosphere and isn't it
 aware of things in its environment like solar heating, ocean currents and
 temperatures, human activities like jet liners and burning fossil fuel,...

 Yes. But then isn't an orbiting planet carrying out a computation?
>>> Isn't a river? Isn't an atom doing quantum computing? It almost becomes a
>>> matter of perspective whether any given physical process is a computation
>>> or not, e.g., if someone wanted to compute the route that water would take
>>> down a given slope, they could "compute" it analogically with actual water
>>> on an actual slope. Which, combined with computationalism, seems like the
>>> (ahem) slippery slope to panpsychism, which *I* am happy enough with,
>>> but which I suspect to be too mystical for *your* metabolism...
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't see anything 

Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[John Mikes]

Russell, please: what is your take on "INTELLIGENT"?
John Mikes

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 8:20 PM, Russell Standish 
wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 11:23:47PM -0800, Pierz wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 8:39:12 PM UTC+11, Russell Standish wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 08:55:09PM -0700, Pierz wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus
> Church
> > > > thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may
> be a
> > > > conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it
> > > *wouldn't* be
> > > > conscious.
> > >
> > > I don't think we know enough about consciousness to really say one way
> > > or the other, so no the onus is not on anyone.
> > >
> > > "Onus" or not, computationalists should at least attempt to be
> consistent.
> > If genetic algorithms are considered potentially conscious, then it is
> > legitimate to ask why evolution itself would not be. One should examine
> all
> > the ramifications of a theory and not simply wave the uncomfortable ones
> > away by saying "we can't know." It's often in the pursuit of the
>
> To be fair, I never said "we can't know". What I said is "we don't
> know". I think it premature to speculate whether biological evolution
> implements a conscious program, in other words, maybe fun for pub
> talk, but generally speaking a waste of time.
>
> > implications of a theory to the last possible limit that things get
> > interesting - think Einstein pursuing the constancy of the speed of light
>
> Sure - but there are plenty of ways of doing this without falling over
> into idle speculation. The notion that consciousness is an
> evolutionary process does have some testable claims, for example.
>
> > to its logical conclusion. It's also where the theory's flaws are likely
> to
> > be exposed. It seems to me though that computationalists are generally
> > mainly interested in explaining away the apparent mystery of the Hard
> > Problem of consciousness in the brain, rather than overturning the
> > conception of nature as an unconscious machine. But that *is* what it
> leads
> > to ISTM - at least the Putnamesque, functional type version of CTM.
> >
>
> How so? It's not at all clear it has anything to say on these matters.
>
>
> --
>
>
> 
> Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> 
>
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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[John Mikes]

I read it all, did not find what PA and RA are standing for.
Can you explain in brief?
Thanks
John M

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:06 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:30, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>>
>>> OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but here's a thought that has
>>> intrigued me. Computationalism (and let's not worry for the time being
>>> about whether one buys Bruno's UDA) states that consciousness supervenes on
>>> computation. This necesssarily implies (by Church thesis)  that the
>>> hardware doesn't matter. This commits us to some unintuitive scenarios in
>>> which thought is instantiated by means of carrier pigeons delivering
>>> letters with symbols written on them, or dominoes falling or whatever. It's
>>> assumed that such a computation must reach a certain level of complexity in
>>> order to become conscious, though what level of complexity is not
>>> specified. According to some views (Brent has expressed this position), it
>>> is necessary that the computations reference a "world", though I'll admit I
>>> don"t understand the rationale for that exactly. Important though is that
>>> it is neither necessary that the computations are carried out in some
>>> localised "device"/brain nor that they are carried out by "wetware".
>>>
>>> So my thinking is this: isn't *evolution* precisely such a computation?
>>>
>>>
>>> I take it you mean life is doing a computation which consists of finding
>>> ways to live and reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing  THE paradigmatic
>>> genetic algorithm.
>>>
>>> Exactly.
>>
>>> It is undoubtedly an extremely complex calculation (more so than any
>>> human thought has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references a world".
>>> Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this context as well, or the capacity for
>>> self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in relation to an evolutionary
>>> computation. Certainly it is a highly recursive procedure with a continual
>>> self-environment feedback loop. I don't understand Loebianity sufficiently
>>> to say whether genes , or the gene-environment system, might possess it.
>>> However I'm also not sure if it's required for consciousness, or merely
>>> *self*- consciousness. I don't see that the possession of qualia
>>> demands the possession of self-awareness, though I can also see that it is
>>> at least conceivable that an evolutionary feedback system might possess  a
>>> kind of self-reference.
>>>
>>> Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus Church
>>> thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may be a
>>> conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it
>>> *wouldn't* be conscious. Which does not mean I am suggesting some
>>> mystical additional ingredient. Evolution would still be described
>>> objectively in terms of random mutation plus environmental selection, but
>>> this process may have an interior component, its own "1P".
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, I think that's right in a sense.  Life in a sense forms a
>>> representation of the world.   If a alien scientist were told just about
>>> the living organisms on Earth he could infer a great deal about the
>>> inorganic aspects of the planet.   I don't know if you could say it's
>>> self-aware, except by inclusion of ourselves.  The problem is that it may
>>> be conscious in such a different way from humans or animals that it doesn't
>>> really add anything to our understanding of it to say it is conscious.
>>> I've sometimes had a similar idea about the atmosphere and weather.  Isn't
>>> weather a kind of computation performed by the atmosphere and isn't it
>>> aware of things in its environment like solar heating, ocean currents and
>>> temperatures, human activities like jet liners and burning fossil fuel,...
>>>
>>> Yes. But then isn't an orbiting planet carrying out a computation? Isn't
>> a river? Isn't an atom doing quantum computing? It almost becomes a matter
>> of perspective whether any given physical process is a computation or not,
>> e.g., if someone wanted to compute the route that water would take down a
>> given slope, they could "compute" it analogically with actual water on an
>> actual slope. Which, combined with computationalism, seems like the (ahem)
>> slippery slope to panpsychism, which *I* am happy enough with, but which
>> I suspect to be too mystical for *your* metabolism...
>>
>>
>> I don't see anything mystical about saying all those physical processes
>> are computations, i.e. they are also information processes.  Have you
>> slipped over from computation to assuming they are conscious?
>>
>
> Computationalism is precisely that assumption (that computation equates to
> 

Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[John Mikes]

Thanks, Quentin,
I take it as a reply to my questioning PA and RA.
(the "A" in PA meaning axioms, in RA arithmetic?).

None of them satisfies my own take on 'intelligent'.
I start from the llinguistic origin (Latin: inter-lego), I *READ between* -
the lines and words, that is). To catch  a 'meaning' (sense) more
widely and accurately than a flat translation from a dictionary.
Arithmetic is restricted IMO, I see no straight penetration into the
emotional, feelable, artsy, thought-provoking, even freely anticipatory
etc. by it's application (maybe, because I am no mathematician).
Axioms I consider artificial rules made up to make (scientific?)
conclusions valid.

Maybe I am all wrong on this list.

John Mikes

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Quentin Anciaux  wrote:

> PA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms
> RA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_arithmetic
>
> 2015-11-03 21:17 GMT+01:00 John Mikes :
>
>> I read it all, did not find what PA and RA are standing for.
>> Can you explain in brief?
>> Thanks
>> John M
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:06 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:30, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:



 On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:



 On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:
>
> OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but here's a thought that has
> intrigued me. Computationalism (and let's not worry for the time being
> about whether one buys Bruno's UDA) states that consciousness supervenes 
> on
> computation. This necesssarily implies (by Church thesis)  that the
> hardware doesn't matter. This commits us to some unintuitive scenarios in
> which thought is instantiated by means of carrier pigeons delivering
> letters with symbols written on them, or dominoes falling or whatever. 
> It's
> assumed that such a computation must reach a certain level of complexity 
> in
> order to become conscious, though what level of complexity is not
> specified. According to some views (Brent has expressed this position), it
> is necessary that the computations reference a "world", though I'll admit 
> I
> don"t understand the rationale for that exactly. Important though is that
> it is neither necessary that the computations are carried out in some
> localised "device"/brain nor that they are carried out by "wetware".
>
> So my thinking is this: isn't *evolution* precisely such a
> computation?
>
>
> I take it you mean life is doing a computation which consists of
> finding ways to live and reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing  THE
> paradigmatic genetic algorithm.
>
> Exactly.

> It is undoubtedly an extremely complex calculation (more so than any
> human thought has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references a world".
> Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this context as well, or the capacity for
> self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in relation to an evolutionary
> computation. Certainly it is a highly recursive procedure with a continual
> self-environment feedback loop. I don't understand Loebianity sufficiently
> to say whether genes , or the gene-environment system, might possess it.
> However I'm also not sure if it's required for consciousness, or merely
> *self*- consciousness. I don't see that the possession of qualia
> demands the possession of self-awareness, though I can also see that it is
> at least conceivable that an evolutionary feedback system might possess  a
> kind of self-reference.
>
> Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus
> Church thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may
> be a conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it
> *wouldn't* be conscious. Which does not mean I am suggesting some
> mystical additional ingredient. Evolution would still be described
> objectively in terms of random mutation plus environmental selection, but
> this process may have an interior component, its own "1P".
>
>
> Yes, I think that's right in a sense.  Life in a sense forms a
> representation of the world.   If a alien scientist were told just about
> the living organisms on Earth he could infer a great deal about the
> inorganic aspects of the planet.   I don't know if you could say it's
> self-aware, except by inclusion of ourselves.  The problem is that it may
> be conscious in such a different way from humans or animals that it 
> doesn't
> really add anything to our understanding of it to say it is conscious.
> I've sometimes had a similar 

Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/11/2015 11:33 am, Russell Standish wrote:

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 10:55:56AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 4/11/2015 4:49 am, Brent Meeker wrote:

I think that would have been better expressed if you had noted
that the robust basis is not necessarily the position basis.  As
Schlosshauer notes, for atomic size things it is often the energy
eigenvalues that are robust.   But we didn't predict that; we have
discovered it empirically.

This is the mistake made by both Zurek and Schlosshauer: Position
and energy are variables, not bases, and for both you have the same
basis problem (both are operators in infinite dimensional Hilbert
spaces, but *different* spaces). The question as to whether a

Not different spaces - unless you're talking about completely
different experiments.


Generally one is talking about different experiments.


The basis problem is that position and energy
do not commute, so along which basis has reality decohered to? Why
does it seem to depend on what we're interested in measuring?


The position operator does not generally commute with the full 
Hamiltonian, though it may commute with the specific interaction 
Hamiltonian. It depends on what we are measuring precisely because the 
interaction Hamiltonian depends on the experimental set up. In some 
cases the interaction will be independent of the energy and momentum, in 
which case the interaction Hamiltonian commutes with the position 
operator. If the interaction is energy dependent, then generally only 
the Hamiltonian will commute with the interaction Hamiltonian (an energy 
measurement).


As I continue to stress, this is not the basis problem, this is a 
problem of which variable might have a stable basis. A basis is not an 
operator, it is a complete set of eigenvalues.



measurement is primarily one of position or of energy is  depends on
the system under study and the experimental set up. But the basis in
either position or energy space still has to be chosen. Einselection
then turns out to be rather trivial because all the measurements and
interaction Hamiltonians are always expressed in terms of the
classical counterparts of the relevant variables.



So would it be a complete solution of the measurement problem if
we could predict which basis choice would provide robust
eigenvalues? Would this prediction start from a very complex
instrument/environment interaction Hamiltonian?  It seems that if
it did we'd be in the position of having to do stat mech on the
interaction, which would again involve assumptions about chaos and
averaging?  I think we might run into Chris'es "cat in the tree"
problem.

The argument that is made is that the 'classical' world emerges from
the quantum, in the sense that the quantum is more fundamental. But
when we look into it, we find that Bohr was quite perceptive with
his Correspondence Principle: since we are essentially 'classical'
beings, we have to start with classical concepts even to begin to
build a quantum theory. I doubt that it would be even possible to
construct a quantum theory /ab initio/, without reference to
classical ideas.


Quantum theory ab-initio is fine, but I strongly suspect you will
never get the classical world emerging out of it with some extra
ingredient (which I believe is your critique). That extra ingredient I
think has been identified as the subjective - and the subjective is
possibly constrained to having to implement classical computation
(Bruno's idea), which explains why it is the classical world that
emerges from the quantum, not something else.


I disagree. I do not think the quantum mechanics /ab initio/ is in any 
way possible. Physics is done with respect to observations and 
experiments. Without prior observations we would not even know what 
variables we might want to write down, much less how they behave 
dynamically. I know it is the belief of most on this list that the 
subjective plays a central role in all of this, but I disagree. I do not 
think you can do physics, or even understand consciousness (the 
subjective) without reference to experience of the objective world.


Bruce

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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 10:55:56AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> On 4/11/2015 4:49 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
> >I think that would have been better expressed if you had noted
> >that the robust basis is not necessarily the position basis.  As
> >Schlosshauer notes, for atomic size things it is often the energy
> >eigenvalues that are robust.   But we didn't predict that; we have
> >discovered it empirically.
> 
> This is the mistake made by both Zurek and Schlosshauer: Position
> and energy are variables, not bases, and for both you have the same
> basis problem (both are operators in infinite dimensional Hilbert
> spaces, but *different* spaces). The question as to whether a

Not different spaces - unless you're talking about completely
different experiments. The basis problem is that position and energy
do not commute, so along which basis has reality decohered to? Why
does it seem to depend on what we're interested in measuring?


> measurement is primarily one of position or of energy is  depends on
> the system under study and the experimental set up. But the basis in
> either position or energy space still has to be chosen. Einselection
> then turns out to be rather trivial because all the measurements and
> interaction Hamiltonians are always expressed in terms of the
> classical counterparts of the relevant variables.
> 
> 
> >So would it be a complete solution of the measurement problem if
> >we could predict which basis choice would provide robust
> >eigenvalues? Would this prediction start from a very complex
> >instrument/environment interaction Hamiltonian?  It seems that if
> >it did we'd be in the position of having to do stat mech on the
> >interaction, which would again involve assumptions about chaos and
> >averaging?  I think we might run into Chris'es "cat in the tree"
> >problem.
> 
> The argument that is made is that the 'classical' world emerges from
> the quantum, in the sense that the quantum is more fundamental. But
> when we look into it, we find that Bohr was quite perceptive with
> his Correspondence Principle: since we are essentially 'classical'
> beings, we have to start with classical concepts even to begin to
> build a quantum theory. I doubt that it would be even possible to
> construct a quantum theory /ab initio/, without reference to
> classical ideas.
> 

Quantum theory ab-initio is fine, but I strongly suspect you will
never get the classical world emerging out of it with some extra
ingredient (which I believe is your critique). That extra ingredient I
think has been identified as the subjective - and the subjective is
possibly constrained to having to implement classical computation
(Bruno's idea), which explains why it is the classical world that
emerges from the quantum, not something else.


-- 


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


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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/11/2015 4:49 am, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 11/3/2015 4:49 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 3/11/2015 8:50 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Nov 2015, at 11:23, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 2/11/2015 7:10 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The choice of the bases is what Zurek have explained. That extends 
Everett.


I think you should study Zurek at little more closely. He did not 
actually explain the choice of basis. His result was that the basis 
had to be robust against environmental decoherence -- which is 
true, but does not give the actual basis. Position space is a 
Hilbert space, not a basis for a Hilbert space.


?

Position provides a basis for the Hilbert space, which is 
independent of the choice of that basis. we could use momentum 
instead, and described the position by linear combination of 
momentum, and Zurek wil still justify that the subject with a brain 
will handle the position more easily than using the momentum.


I am not sure I can make sense of "Position space is a Hilbert 
space". An Hilbert space is closed for linear combination (even 
infinite) of any element belonging to any bases chosen in the 
Hilbert space.


Basic quantum mechanics. Observables are represented by hermitian 
operators, possible measurement results are the eigenvalues of such 
operators. The operators act in the Hilbert space spanned by the 
complete orthonormal set of eigenvectors. The problem is that the 
form of the operator is not determined by the theory, and the 
eigenvectors of each possible operator in the space provide a 
different possible basis. By completeness, each possible basis can be 
expressed as linear combinations of the vectors of any other basis -- 
these are the (infamous) quantum superpositions.


The choice of basis (or equivalently, the choice for the form of the 
operator) is the basis problem of quantum mechanics. Zurek's 
einselection is an attempt to solve this problem by finding a basis 
(and associated set of eigenvalues) that is robust against 
environmental disturbance. It turns out, by Bohr's Correspondence 
Principle, that the basis corresponding to the classical position 
variable is robust in this sense, but that scarcely solves the 
general basis problem because it is essentially a circular argument 
-- stable classical values come out if we build in classical variables.


I think that would have been better expressed if you had noted that 
the robust basis is not necessarily the position basis.  As 
Schlosshauer notes, for atomic size things it is often the energy 
eigenvalues that are robust.   But we didn't predict that; we have 
discovered it empirically.


This is the mistake made by both Zurek and Schlosshauer: Position and 
energy are variables, not bases, and for both you have the same basis 
problem (both are operators in infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, but 
*different* spaces). The question as to whether a measurement is 
primarily one of position or of energy is  depends on the system under 
study and the experimental set up. But the basis in either position or 
energy space still has to be chosen. Einselection then turns out to be 
rather trivial because all the measurements and interaction Hamiltonians 
are always expressed in terms of the classical counterparts of the 
relevant variables.



So would it be a complete solution of the measurement problem if we 
could predict which basis choice would provide robust eigenvalues? 
Would this prediction start from a very complex instrument/environment 
interaction Hamiltonian?  It seems that if it did we'd be in the 
position of having to do stat mech on the interaction, which would 
again involve assumptions about chaos and averaging?  I think we might 
run into Chris'es "cat in the tree" problem.


The argument that is made is that the 'classical' world emerges from the 
quantum, in the sense that the quantum is more fundamental. But when we 
look into it, we find that Bohr was quite perceptive with his 
Correspondence Principle: since we are essentially 'classical' beings, 
we have to start with classical concepts even to begin to build a 
quantum theory. I doubt that it would be even possible to construct a 
quantum theory /ab initio/, without reference to classical ideas.


Bruce

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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Pierz]

On Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 4:30:05 AM UTC+11, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>>
>>> OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but here's a thought that has 
>>> intrigued me. Computationalism (and let's not worry for the time being 
>>> about whether one buys Bruno's UDA) states that consciousness supervenes on 
>>> computation. This necesssarily implies (by Church thesis)  that the 
>>> hardware doesn't matter. This commits us to some unintuitive scenarios in 
>>> which thought is instantiated by means of carrier pigeons delivering 
>>> letters with symbols written on them, or dominoes falling or whatever. It's 
>>> assumed that such a computation must reach a certain level of complexity in 
>>> order to become conscious, though what level of complexity is not 
>>> specified. According to some views (Brent has expressed this position), it 
>>> is necessary that the computations reference a "world", though I'll admit I 
>>> don"t understand the rationale for that exactly. Important though is that 
>>> it is neither necessary that the computations are carried out in some 
>>> localised "device"/brain nor that they are carried out by "wetware".  
>>>
>>> So my thinking is this: isn't *evolution* precisely such a computation? 
>>>
>>>
>>> I take it you mean life is doing a computation which consists of finding 
>>> ways to live and reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing  THE paradigmatic 
>>> genetic algorithm.
>>>
>>> Exactly. 
>>
>>> It is undoubtedly an extremely complex calculation (more so than any 
>>> human thought has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references a world". 
>>> Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this context as well, or the capacity for 
>>> self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in relation to an evolutionary 
>>> computation. Certainly it is a highly recursive procedure with a continual 
>>> self-environment feedback loop. I don't understand Loebianity sufficiently 
>>> to say whether genes , or the gene-environment system, might possess it. 
>>> However I'm also not sure if it's required for consciousness, or merely 
>>> *self*- consciousness. I don't see that the possession of qualia 
>>> demands the possession of self-awareness, though I can also see that it is 
>>> at least conceivable that an evolutionary feedback system might possess  a 
>>> kind of self-reference.
>>>
>>> Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus Church 
>>> thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may be a 
>>> conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it 
>>> *wouldn't* be conscious. Which does not mean I am suggesting some 
>>> mystical additional ingredient. Evolution would still be described 
>>> objectively in terms of random mutation plus environmental selection, but 
>>> this process may have an interior component, its own "1P". 
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, I think that's right in a sense.  Life in a sense forms a 
>>> representation of the world.   If a alien scientist were told just about 
>>> the living organisms on Earth he could infer a great deal about the 
>>> inorganic aspects of the planet.   I don't know if you could say it's 
>>> self-aware, except by inclusion of ourselves.  The problem is that it may 
>>> be conscious in such a different way from humans or animals that it doesn't 
>>> really add anything to our understanding of it to say it is conscious.  
>>> I've sometimes had a similar idea about the atmosphere and weather.  Isn't 
>>> weather a kind of computation performed by the atmosphere and isn't it 
>>> aware of things in its environment like solar heating, ocean currents and 
>>> temperatures, human activities like jet liners and burning fossil fuel,...
>>>
>>> Yes. But then isn't an orbiting planet carrying out a computation? Isn't 
>> a river? Isn't an atom doing quantum computing? It almost becomes a matter 
>> of perspective whether any given physical process is a computation or not, 
>> e.g., if someone wanted to compute the route that water would take down a 
>> given slope, they could "compute" it analogically with actual water on an 
>> actual slope. Which, combined with computationalism, seems like the (ahem) 
>> slippery slope to panpsychism, which *I* am happy enough with, but which 
>> I suspect to be too mystical for *your* metabolism...
>>
>>
>> I don't see anything mystical about saying all those physical processes 
>> are computations, i.e. they are also information processes.  Have you 
>> slipped over from computation to assuming they are conscious?
>>
>
> Computationalism is precisely that assumption (that computation equates to 
> consciousness). 
>
>
> No, it's the assumption that some particular computation instantiates 
> 

Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/11/2015 1:26 pm, Russell Standish wrote:

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 11:59:41AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:

I disagree. I do not think the quantum mechanics /ab initio/ is in
any way possible.

This is what I do in appendix D of my book. It then behooves you to
point out where exactly that is wrong.


You don't actually derive QM /ab initio/ there:  you know where you want 
to get and then make a series of appropriate assumptions. You postulate 
that the observer can choose an observable, which has a discrete set of 
possible outcomes. You then assume a probability interpretation. The 
relationship to observations is simply assumed. I do not see any 
derivation of the fact that possible outcomes of measurements are the 
eigenvalues of the corresponding operator. You have a major basis 
problem because the best you have is that a state (vector) is a linear 
sum over some complete basis set, but you don't know what that basis set 
might be, or what it might represent.


The derivation of a time evolution equation depends on the assumption of 
a classical time variable, which you assume is uniform and universal. 
You do not demonstrate that the 'Hamiltonian' you have in your time 
evolution equation is the energy operator. In fact you show nothing at 
all about H, or about any dynamics -- which presumably you take over 
from classical mechanics or something similar.


This scarcely counts as a derivation of any useful physics at all, much 
less of quantum mechanics that relates to observational results.


Bruce




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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 11:59:41AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> 
> I disagree. I do not think the quantum mechanics /ab initio/ is in
> any way possible. 

This is what I do in appendix D of my book. It then behooves you to
point out where exactly that is wrong. 

> Physics is done with respect to observations and
> experiments. Without prior observations we would not even know what
> variables we might want to write down, much less how they behave
> dynamically. I know it is the belief of most on this list that the
> subjective plays a central role in all of this, but I disagree. I do
> not think you can do physics, or even understand consciousness (the
> subjective) without reference to experience of the objective world.
> 

Modulo the fact that "objective world" is a controversial concept, I
agree. Of course one needs to refer to experience, or observation in
general. But one doesn't need to refer to specific experience, unless
one specifically needs to invoke a position basis, or an energy basis
or whatever.


-- 


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


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Re: Carroll's Paradox

[Brent Meeker]

On 11/3/2015 8:15 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 4/11/2015 1:26 pm, Russell Standish wrote:

On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 11:59:41AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote:

I disagree. I do not think the quantum mechanics /ab initio/ is in
any way possible.

This is what I do in appendix D of my book. It then behooves you to
point out where exactly that is wrong.


You don't actually derive QM /ab initio/ there:  you know where you 
want to get and then make a series of appropriate assumptions. You 
postulate that the observer can choose an observable, which has a 
discrete set of possible outcomes. You then assume a probability 
interpretation. The relationship to observations is simply assumed. I 
do not see any derivation of the fact that possible outcomes of 
measurements are the eigenvalues of the corresponding operator. You 
have a major basis problem because the best you have is that a state 
(vector) is a linear sum over some complete basis set, but you don't 
know what that basis set might be, or what it might represent.


The derivation of a time evolution equation depends on the assumption 
of a classical time variable, which you assume is uniform and 
universal. You do not demonstrate that the 'Hamiltonian' you have in 
your time evolution equation is the energy operator. In fact you show 
nothing at all about H, or about any dynamics -- which presumably you 
take over from classical mechanics or something similar.


This scarcely counts as a derivation of any useful physics at all, 
much less of quantum mechanics that relates to observational results.


Bruce


It's interesting that there seem to be many different ways to "derive" 
QM.  Vic Stenger, in his book "The Comprehensible Cosmos" derives it as 
a gauge transformation.


http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Nothing/Laws.pdf

Scott Aaronson in his book "Quantum Computing Since Democritus" derives 
it as the natural extension to probability theory that allows negative 
probability.   Of course partly this is possible because QM isn't really 
a physical theory, it's a schema for theories or a kind of meta-theory 
the way classical mechanics is a meta-theory of mechanisms.


Brent

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Re: Intelligent design - maybe?

[Brent Meeker]

I don't think anyone proposes that PA or RA are intelligent.  Bruno says 
PA is conscious the way we are; but I think that's shorthand for "has 
relationships corresponding to belief".  It's sort of like saying the 
dictionary contains the plays of Shakespeare. Intelligent is not the 
same as conscious.  As JKC is fond of saying, "Conscious is easy.  
Intelligent is hard."


Brent

On 11/3/2015 1:27 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Thanks, Quentin,
I take it as a reply to my questioning PA and RA.
(the "A" in PA meaning axioms, in RA arithmetic?).

None of them satisfies my own take on 'intelligent'.
I start from the llinguistic origin (Latin: inter-lego), I *READ 
between* -

the lines and words, that is). To catch  a 'meaning' (sense) more
widely and accurately than a flat translation from a dictionary.
Arithmetic is restricted IMO, I see no straight penetration into the
emotional, feelable, artsy, thought-provoking, even freely anticipatory
etc. by it's application (maybe, because I am no mathematician).
Axioms I consider artificial rules made up to make (scientific?)
conclusions valid.

Maybe I am all wrong on this list.

John Mikes

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Quentin Anciaux > wrote:


PA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms
RA = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_arithmetic

2015-11-03 21:17 GMT+01:00 John Mikes >:

I read it all, did not find what PA and RA are standing for.
Can you explain in brief?
Thanks
John M

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:06 AM, Bruno Marchal
> wrote:


On 02 Nov 2015, at 18:30, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 11/1/2015 11:09 PM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 6:25:57 PM UTC+11, Brent
wrote:



On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Pierz wrote:



On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 4:18:05 PM UTC+11,
Brent wrote:



On 10/31/2015 8:55 PM, Pierz wrote:

OK, a subject title designed to provoke, but
here's a thought that has intrigued me.
Computationalism (and let's not worry for the
time being about whether one buys Bruno's UDA)
states that consciousness supervenes on
computation. This necesssarily implies (by
Church thesis)  that the hardware doesn't
matter. This commits us to some unintuitive
scenarios in which thought is instantiated by
means of carrier pigeons delivering letters
with symbols written on them, or dominoes
falling or whatever. It's assumed that such a
computation must reach a certain level of
complexity in order to become conscious,
though what level of complexity is not
specified. According to some views (Brent has
expressed this position), it is necessary that
the computations reference a "world", though
I'll admit I don"t understand the rationale
for that exactly. Important though is that it
is neither necessary that the computations are
carried out in some localised "device"/brain
nor that they are carried out by "wetware".

So my thinking is this: isn't
/evolution/ precisely such a computation?


I take it you mean life is doing a computation
which consists of finding ways to live and
reproduce.  Life on Earth is executing THE
paradigmatic genetic algorithm.

Exactly.


It is undoubtedly an extremely complex
calculation (more so than any human thought
has ever been), and it undoubtedly "references
a world". Bruno mentions "Loebianity" in this
context as well, or the capacity for
self-reference. I'm not so sure about this in
relation to an evolutionary computation.
Certainly it is a highly recursive procedure
with a continual self-environment feedback
loop. I don't understand Loebianity
sufficiently to say whether genes , or the
gene-environment system, might possess it.
However I'm also not sure if it's required for
consciousness, or merely /self/-
consciousness. I don't see that the possession
of qualia demands the possession of