Re: Nerve cells in the human brain can "count"

[Philip Thrift]

This seems to me to support *mathematical fictionalism* [ 
https://www.iep.utm.edu/mathfict/ ] - specifically, how the brain processes 
mathematics as a type of fiction.


https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-09-nerve-cells-human-brain.html

*Each quantity therefore creates a specific activity pattern in the human 
brain. ... When we see a certain digit, certain brain cells fire. However, 
the digit neurons and the quantity neurons are not identical: The digit "3" 
excites completely different nerve cells than a quantity of three points.*


https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdfExtended/S0896-6273(18)30741-4

*Single Neurons in the Human Brain Encode Numbers*

Summary
*Our human-specific symbolic number skills that underpin science and 
technology spring from nonsymbolic set size representations. Despite the 
significance of numerical competence, its single-neuron mechanisms in the 
human brain are unknown. We therefore recorded from single neurons in the 
medial temporal lobe of neurosurgical patients that performed a calculation 
task. We found that distinct groups of neurons represented either 
nonsymbolic or symbolic number, but not both number formats simultaneously. 
Numerical information could be decoded robustly from the population of 
neurons tuned to nonsymbolic number and with lower accuracy also from the 
population of neurons selective to number symbols. The tuning 
characteristics of selective neurons may explain why set size is 
represented only approximately in behavior, whereas number symbols allow 
exact assessments of numerical values. Our results suggest number neurons 
as neuronal basis of human number representations that ultimately give rise 
to number theory and mathematics.*


- pt


On Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 4:24:25 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
> I'm not sure whether this is evidence for Bruno's Platonism or it just 
> shows why it's a common illusion.
>
> Brent
>
>
>  Forwarded Message 
>
> Nerve cells in the human brain can 'count' September 21, 2018, University 
> of Bonn 
>

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-09-nerve-cells-human-brain.html
>

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Fwd: Nerve cells in the human brain can "count"

[Brent Meeker]

I'm not sure whether this is evidence for Bruno's Platonism or it just 
shows why it's a common illusion.


Brent


 Forwarded Message 


 Nerve cells in the human brain can 'count'


 September 21, 2018, University of Bonn
 

Nerve cells in the human brain can 'count' 
 

Professor Florian Mormann from the Department of Epileptology at the 
University of Bonn. Credit: © Rolf Müller/UKB-Ukom


How do we know if we're looking at three apples or four? Researchers at 
the Universities of Bonn and Tübingen are now one step closer to 
answering this question. They were able to demonstrate that some brain 
cells fire mainly for quantities of three, others for quantities of four 
and others for other quantities. A similar effect can be observed for 
digits: In humans, the neurons activated in response to a "2" are, for 
instance, different from the neurons activated for a "5." The results 
also demonstrate how humans learn to handle number symbols in comparison 
to quantities. The study is published online in the journal /Neuron/.


People are born with the ability to count. Shortly after birth, babies 
can estimate the number of events and even perform simple calculations. 
But what exactly happens in the brain 
? And do we process abstract 
numbers differently from concrete quantities? Researchers from the 
Department of Epileptology at the University of Bonn and neurobiologists 
from the University of Tübingen have investigated these two questions. 
They benefited from a special feature of Bonn University Hospital: The 
epileptology clinic located there specializes in brain surgery. The 
clinic's doctors seek to cure epilepsy patients 
 by means of an 
operation in which they remove the diseased nerve tissue. In some cases, 
they first have to insert electrodes into the patient's brain in order 
to ascertain the location of the epileptogenic focus. As a side effect, 
researchers can use this to watch patients think.


In the current study, surgeons inserted extremely fine microelectrodes 
into the temporal lobes of nine epilepsy patients. "This enabled us to 
measure the reaction of individual nerve cells to visual stimuli," 
explains Prof. Dr. Dr. Florian Mormann, head of the Cognitive and 
Clinical Neurophysiology group. The scientists showed their subjects a 
different number of points on a computer screen—sometimes only one, 
sometimes four or even five. "We were able to demonstrate that certain 
nerve cells fired primarily in response to very specific quantities," 
explains Esther Kutter, lead author of the study. "For example, some 
were activated mainly by three dots, others by one."


Each quantity therefore creates a specific activity pattern in the human 
brain. "We have written a classification algorithm that evaluates this 
pattern," Mormann explains. "This allowed us to use the arousal state of 
the nerve cells to read how many points our respective subject could see."


The scientists also observed an interesting effect: Although the neurons 
 were "set" to a certain 
quantity, they also responded to slightly different quantities. A brain 
cell set to quantities of three also fired in response to two or four 
points, but weaker. With one or five points, however, it could hardly be 
activated. Experts call this the "numerical distance effect." Prof. Dr. 
Andreas Nieder from the University of Tübingen, co-supervisor of the 
study, demonstrated the same phenomenon in experiments on monkeys. 
"Numbers are processed in our brains in exactly the same way as in the 
brains of monkeys," he says. "This confirms monkeys as an indispensable 
model for research into the processing of quantitative information."


How we process digits, i.e. symbols that represent quantities, cannot be 
answered with the help of animals. The scientists have now been able to 
show for the first time that this works in principle in a similar way as 
with quantities: When we see a certain digit, certain brain cells fire. 
However, the digit neurons and the quantity neurons are not identical: 
The digit "3" excites completely different nerve cells 
 than a quantity of three 
points.


Another observation is even more exciting: "The digit neurons also have 
a numerical distance effect," says Mormann. "They are also stimulated 
not only by the exact digit, but also by its neighbors—but only very 
weakly." Nevertheless, this phenomenon shows that we learn digits 
differently from simple characters. In a sense, the neurons have learned 
that the value of a 3 is only slightly different from a 2 or a 
4—otherwise, they would not also respond to these two digits. Digits 
therefore seem to be 

Re: The codical-material universe

[John Clark]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 6:17 AM Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> *you are right, computation needs a notion of change, but not of physical
> change, which emerge from the notion of relative change already definable
> in arithmetic.*
>

So you've abandoned the idea mathematics is eternal and universal.
Arithmetic will be different an hour from now and Arithmetic in Washington
is not the same as Arithmetic in Moscow.

>>You can't have a block-view of reality or of anything else without a
>> block, and time is one of the dimensions of that block, and time is the one
>> and only reason the geometry of that block is Non-Euclidean.
>
>
> *>In your religion. *
>

What are you talking about? I've said nothing controversial, its been known
for a century the block universe is Non-Euclidean because, due to the time
dimension, the Pythagorean theorem is different in Minkowski space than it
is in Euclidean geometry. If X is the spatial distance between 2 events for
an observer and T is the time it takes light to cover that distance for
that same observer and c is the speed of light then the invariant spacetime
distance S between events can be found with the formula S^2= (cT)^2 -X^2.
T and X will be different for different observers but S will be the same
for ANY observer. Notice the minus sign in there, Euclid and Pythagoras
said it should be a plus and that's why it's Non-Euclidean.

*>No problem with your theory, but it contradict your belief
> in computationalism.*
>

I know what I mean by "computationalism", intelligent behavior can be
produced by computations,  but I can't comment on the above because like
"The Helsinki man" I don't know what you mean by computationalism.


> >>And I predicted that would happen long before the experiment started.
>
>
> *>That implies the first person indeterminacy.*
>

So something is indeterminate if it is predictable? Now I don't know what
you mean by "indeterminate" either.

>   >>> *Wat I request is that you tell me what the H-guy can expect to
> live*
> >>And what I request of you
>
> >*You avoid answering.*
>

True. I can't answer until I know what the question is, and I won't know
that until you tell me exactly what you mean by "the H-guy". Remember
people duplicating machines are involved so you must be far more precise
than you are in normal everyday life.

>>Just answer the following question: "After the experiment is completed
>> and the 1 H-guy became 2 H-guys what 1 and only 1 city did the H-guy end up
>> in?”
>
>
> *>That is like building the confusion between first and third person view,
> to makes the question not answerable.*
>

If the question is not answerable then I'm not the one who is confused.
It's your idiotic "question" not mine!


> >> If you can't answer that then it was not a experiment
>
>
> *>No. It means that the H-guy (if he survives, which is the case assuming
> computationalism) cannot predict the particular outcome he will feel to
> live. *
>

Tell me exactly what the referent to the personal pronoun "he" is in the
above is and I will tell you if I agree with your statement or not.

 > *We have agreed since day one what we mean by the H-guy.*
>

Refresh my memory then, what do you mean by "the H-guy"?  This is important
because it not only involves what the prediction is about but also who is
supposed to make the prediction. Are they the same people?

>>Seeing Moscow is the one and only reason the Helsinki man became the
>> Moscow man. So why did I see Moscow? Because I'm the Moscow man. Why am
>> I the Moscow man? Because I saw Moscow.
>
>
> >*Trivially. *
>

Yep, it would be hard to find anything more trivial, but its your thought
experiment not mine.

>>Unable to predict exactly what in Helsinki?
>
>
> *>The unique city that both H-guys will see.*
>

Who do you want to make the prediction? Both H-guys didn't exist yesterday
in Helsinki there was only one. Before anybody can predict anything you
need to exist.

> *What they will write in the diary.*
>

Please tell me how that brain dead diary idea you've been pushing for years
has any relevance in this matter.

>>So which ONE did it turn out to be, Washington OR Moscow?
>
>
> *>For one copy it is W, and he could not have predicted.*
>
*For the other it is M, and he could not have predicted.*
>

True, the H man could predict all of this but the W and M men were unable
to. And there is a reason for that, it is difficult to make good
predictions or even poor ones if you don't exist.


> *>The pronouns are not ambiguous.*
>

*Then prove it!*  Just stop using goddamn personal pronouns when discussing
this issue. If Bruno knows who the referent is for all the pronouns are as
claimed then Bruno should use them. However John predicts this will not
happen because Bruno simply cannot express these ideas without copious use
of ambiguous personal pronouns. There will likely be proof that John's
prediction was correct in Bruno's very next post.

>> But even after the "exparament" is over you *STILL* don't know 

Re: Probability in MWI as self-locating uncertainty

[Bruce Kellett]

From: *Philip Thrift* mailto:cloudver...@gmail.com>>


This is strange.

This appears here on

Everything List 



when it appears to come from

Free Thinkers Physics Discussion Group 




Proof of overlapping universes?


No. It is a trouble with talking to many of the same people on multiple 
google groups!


I have posted this reply to both lists!

Bruce

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Re: Why is Church's thesis a Miracle?

[Philip Thrift]

On Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 2:48:15 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 21 Sep 2018, at 19:55, John Clark > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 7:20 PM Philip Thrift  > wrote:
>
> >> Mind is what a brain does
>>
>>  
>>
> >*And walking and running is what the legs do. *
>> *There is no "walking" like some Platonic immaterial universal except for 
>> some pair of legs to be doing it.*
>>
>
> Right, there is no thinking without a brain (biological or electronic) to 
> do it.
>
>
> Assuming your ontological commitment, but that is pseudo-religion. 
>
> Or equivalently: you confuse matter and primitive matter. Nobody doubt 
> that to have human or biological consciousness, we need a human brain or 
> some electronic device, but that is irrelevant. 
>
> What has been proved, (see Kleene’s 1952 book) is that the arithmetical 
> reality emulates all computations. No need of any more assumption than 
> Church thesis and the very elementary arithmetic.
>
> But an ontological physical reality is only metaphysical speculation or 
> hypothesis, and in our setting it is invalid to use it as a 
> counter-argument. The most you can do, if you really want to take your 
> ontology for granted, is to reject Digital Mechanism or to find a mistake 
> in my argument, without using your ontological commitment (which would beg 
> the question).
>
> Up to now, you have failed to that.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
It still seems to me that consciousness itself could be an argument against 
a purely information-based ontology. ("Information" meaning based purely on 
numbers, combinators, etc.)

Philip Goff and Michael Shermer discussed basically this:

https://scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/solving-the-mysteries-of-consciousness-free-will-and-god-with-michael-shermer-and-philip-goff/
 

via  https://twitter.com/Philip_Goff/status/1043053992916467714

(In there there is an about 1 hour podcast.)



My summary (fits in a tweet) of Goff:

"Physicalism, based on pure informationality (quantitative states and 
language} is not sufficient to explain consciousness,  but a materialism 
(one greater than physicalism) that is based on experientiality 
(qualitative states and language) in addition to informationality, may be."



- pt

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Re: Probability in MWI as self-locating uncertainty

[Philip Thrift]

This is strange.

This appears here on 

Everything List 


when it appears to come from

Free Thinkers Physics Discussion Group 



Proof of overlapping universes? 


- pt


On Friday, September 21, 2018 at 11:38:06 PM UTC-5, Bruce wrote:
>
> From: Brent Meeker > 
>
>
> On Friday, September 21, 2018 at 12:11:01 AM UTC-5, Bruce Kellett wrote: 
>>
>> Adrian Kent (arXiv:1408.1944) makes some interesting comments about the 
>> recent argument by Sebens and Carroll (arXiv:1405.7577) that probability in 
>> MWI can be understood in terms of self-locating uncertainty -- when all 
>> outcomes of a measurement are realized in unitary quantum mechanics, 
>> probabilities might arise because one is does not know in which branch of 
>> the universal wave function one is located. Kent points out that this 
>> raises questions about how branches are formed in unitary quantum mechanics.
>>
>> The usual Everettian argument is that when one measures a state with two 
>> possible outcomes, say a spin-1/2 particle, unitary evolution takes the 
>> states representing the apparatus, observer, and environment to a FAPP 
>> orthogonal set of states branched according to each of the possible 
>> measurement results. Schematically, one writes the interaction with
>>
>>|psi> = (|+> + |->)/sqrt(2)
>>
>> as |psi>|O>, where O is the "ready" state of the observer (including 
>> apparatus and environment). Thus:
>>
>>   (|+> + |->)|O>
>> At this point there is just one observer who has not become entangled 
>> with the apparatus or the rest of the environment. To take this to the next 
>> stage, Kent points out that we use the distribution law of algebra to 
>> eliminate the above brackets, and write 
>>
>
> It seems that you are treating this mathematical rewriting as a physical 
> process.  Why insert it between 
> (|+> + |->)|O>  and |+>|O+> + |->|O->   and create the appearance of a 
> problem?
>
>
> There is a lacuna in the physical narrative at this point. Each component 
> of the superposition acts on the apparatus/observer in the same 'ready' 
> state in order to get |O+> as different from |O->. This differentiation 
> must take place before decoherence acts to diagonalize the density matrix. 
> Otherwise all terms in the density matrix would be the same and there would 
> be no distinction between outcomes. You can't just paper over this 
> explanatory gap by calling it a mathematical rewriting.
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
>
> Brent 
>
>
>|+>|O> + |->|O>  (O is uncertain which result he will see)
>>
>> which, by unitary evolution, becomes entangled with the rest of the wave 
>> function:
>>
>>   |+>|O+> + |->|O->  ( O has a definite result>
>>
>> representing observers who record '+' or '-' results, respectively. 
>> Before the last step, the observer does not know which branch he is on, 
>> hence the self-locating uncertainty that is presumed to be the origin of 
>> quantum probabilities.
>>
>> But Kent points out that there is a problem with this -- in the line in 
>> which O is uncertain, the observer has already split: there is a copy on 
>> each branch of the wave function, even though the observer has not yet 
>> interacted with the apparatus or the environment, so what caused the 
>> observer to split and appear on both branches in this way? We have used the 
>> distribution law of algebra to expand the brackets in such as way as to 
>> naively indicate that such a split has taken place. But how does this 
>> actually happen, physically? Above we are just talking about equations -- 
>> these have to be related to the physics in some unambiguous way.
>>
>> Kent comments on the problem that this causes for the Sebens and Carroll 
>> idea of probability as self-locating uncertainty. But it would seem that 
>> the problem is deeper than this. We commonly divide the Hilbert space into 
>> the tensor product of subspaces representing the apparatus and the 
>> environment, as well as the observer. Then unitary evolution is supposed to 
>> act on each component of this product space so that, ultimately, 
>> decoherence renders the branches FAPP orthogonal, and we can then talk of 
>> separate "worlds". But there is no reason to suppose that this division 
>> into convenient classical components corresponds to any actual 
>> factorization of the quantum Hilbert space -- there is no clear separation 
>> into apparatus-observer-environment, so it is reasonable to call them all 
>> the one thing, as I have done above.
>>
>> Kent comments on this situation as follows:
>> "...these are just  statements about ink on paper. To translate them into 
>> statements about one or more observers, who are uncertain about some 
>> relevant fact about their location on branches, requires some principled 
>> general account of how we start from the universal wave function and derive 
>> an ontology that includes (at least) observers 

Re: Why is Church's thesis a Miracle?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 21 Sep 2018, at 19:55, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 7:20 PM Philip Thrift  > wrote:
> 
> >> Mind is what a brain does
>  
> >And walking and running is what the legs do. 
> There is no "walking" like some Platonic immaterial universal except for some 
> pair of legs to be doing it.
> 
> Right, there is no thinking without a brain (biological or electronic) to do 
> it.

Assuming your ontological commitment, but that is pseudo-religion. 

Or equivalently: you confuse matter and primitive matter. Nobody doubt that to 
have human or biological consciousness, we need a human brain or some 
electronic device, but that is irrelevant. 

What has been proved, (see Kleene’s 1952 book) is that the arithmetical reality 
emulates all computations. No need of any more assumption than Church thesis 
and the very elementary arithmetic.

But an ontological physical reality is only metaphysical speculation or 
hypothesis, and in our setting it is invalid to use it as a counter-argument. 
The most you can do, if you really want to take your ontology for granted, is 
to reject Digital Mechanism or to find a mistake in my argument, without using 
your ontological commitment (which would beg the question).

Up to now, you have failed to that.

Bruno







> 
> John K Clark
>  
> 
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Re: Why is Church's thesis a Miracle?

[Bruno Marchal]

John,

I don’t see any argument. Just distracting statements, not even trying to hide 
your ontological commitment.

That is pseudo-religion. You talk like a member of the clergy.

Given the definition of the first person, the first person indeterminacy is 
probably made clearer with the iterated duplication experiment. Imagine you bet 
the definite history describing the decimal of PI (in the alphabet {W, M}. Any 
schoolboy I asked on this understand that at the first iteration, one of the 
copy will admit that his statement was wrong, although the other copy will 
assert that he was confirmed. For some that is enough to prove that in 
Helsinki, the guy should have been more cautious. But apparently you need more, 
so, we can look at the second iteration, (like I have described previously: the 
two copies come back in Helsinki, by plane say, and do the duplication again. 
Now, only one of four copies assert having been confirmed, and then again, and 
only 1/8, then 1/16, then 1/32, etc. This decrease as 1/2^n. 
A simple argument shows that whatever precise history is predicted, it can be 
confirmed only by 1/2^n. In fact the “computable stories” can even been shown 
to be negligible in the limit. So, even those who correct their prediction will 
end up into a negligible minority. By the definition of the first person 
notion, this shows that no prediction will be assessed by the vast majority of 
copies, and most copies will agree that they have been unable to predict the 
outcome (first person self-localization), and this explains what the first 
person indeterminacy means, in case you still miss it.

Handwaving and insults just confirms that you have decided to not understand.

Bruno




> On 21 Sep 2018, at 19:43, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 7:05 AM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> >>If physics is not involved then neither is time or space, so nothing about 
> >>the "machine" changes, and without change a calculation can not be made.
> 
> >See my answer in previous post.
> 
> In my experience reading your stuff twice brings no additional clarity. 
> 
> >you cannot invoke your personal metaphysics.
> 
> If  a mechanic can't fix the engine in his car without "invoking personal 
> metaphysics" then there is nothing metaphysical about it. It's just physical.
>  
> >if you assume Aristotle’s [.]
> 
> How very interesting! I believe this is the first time you've ever mentioned 
> the ancient Greeks, why didn't you do that before?  
> 
> > I use “exists” as a quantifier in some theory. The axioms are given in all 
> > textbook of logic.
> 
> Assuming logic textbooks exist did anything exist before logic textbooks 
> existed ? And if logic is more fundamental why is it that a physical machine 
> can simulate logic but logic can't simulate a physical machine?
> 
> >>Maybe there is some way other than a Turing Machine to perform a 
> >>calculation,
> 
> >That is ambiguous.
> 
> Maybe a Turing Machine can't find the answer to all nondeterministic 
> polynomial time problems in polynomial time but some other physical method 
> can, I doubt it but maybe. It's probably the greatest unsolved problem in 
> mathematics. Does P=NP? Most think the answer is no but nobody can prove it. 
> Intuitively you'd think in general it must be harder to write a book than 
> read a book and harder to write a proof than check a proof, but then again 
> these days it sometimes takes the entire mathematical community years to 
> check a proof before they conclude its valid so maybe not.
>  
> >>but whatever that way is you can be certain it involves change, and that 
> >>means its physical.
> 
> >No. We need only the local change
> 
> If you're talking about locality then you're implicitly assuming the 
> existence of time and space, and they are physical concepts.
>  
> > in the memory of the machine.
> 
> Memory is physical. It turns out that theoretically you can perform a 
> calculation without using energy but If you don't have a infinite memory then 
> at some point you're going to have to erase the scratchpad stuff you used to 
> make the calculation. And in 1961 Landauer proved it takes a minimum amount 
> of energy to erase one bit of information and he told us exactly how much 
> that is; its Boltzmann's constant times the temperature of the memory in 
> degrees Kelvin times the natural logarithm of 2. Landauer's results are 
> rooted in the Second Law Of Thermodynamics and if I could pick one thing that 
> I think physicists would still consider to be true a thousand years from now 
> it would be the second law.
> 
> Landauer's limit on the minimum it takes to erase one bit of information is a 
> very small amount of energy (.0172 electron volts) but if the amount of space 
> needed to store one bit of information keeps shrinking then in 10 or 15 years 
> computer engineers are going have to take it into consideration. Some early 
> designs for nanocomputers ignored it and