date:20190514



*Fay Dowker* @DowkerFay Apr 28
[ https://twitter.com/DowkerFay/status/1122550653287579649 ]

"First of 3 lectures by Rafael Sorkin setting out the view that quantum 
theory is most fruitfully thought of as a generalization of classical 
stochastic processes and should be thought of in terms of histories."
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJb47yt9hgc


*Rafael Sorkin*

*re-formulating quantum mechanics entirely as a theory of quantal 
histories, without ever needing to call on state-vectors, measurements, or 
external agents as fundamental notions*
- https://perimeterinstitute.ca/people/rafael-sorkin

@philipthrift

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/61118c31-79ad-48bc-b24b-cb17aaf005b5%40googlegroups.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon



On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 7:29:07 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/14/2019 9:49 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> What is truth? (Pontus Pilate). Arithmetical statements are true if they 
>> are theorems derived from the axioms. 
>>
>
> This is false. In every consistent system of axioms there are statements 
> that are true but cannot be derived from the axioms. 
>
>
> That's not true. There are axiomatic systems that are complete.  
>
> In other words truth =/= proof, truth is always greater that what can be 
> proved.
>
>
> That's because you have recourse to an idea of "true" that is outside of 
> logical inference...such as "empirically true".
>
> Brent
>



An axiom system *A* being complete just means that for every (syntactically 
well-formed) sentence *s* in the language of *A*, either *s* or ~*s* can be 
proved via the rules of deduction of *A*.



BTW, while Church-Turing is not a useful "thesis", Curry-Howard is.

  proofs = programs

(The informal word "model" does not come up in programming language theory 
- PLT - that I can surmise, except in the context of a "model of 
computation/programming" - lambda calculus, pi calculus, functional, 
process-oriented. Its use in physics is a bit confusing. For example, 
regarding the equation of the Standard Model as written out by mathematical 
physicist Matilde Marcolli:

 
https://www.sciencealert.com/images/Screen_Shot_2016-08-03_at_3.20.12_pm.png

is the equation itself of the Standard Model here a "model", or is the 
interpretation of this equation a "model"?)

@philipthrift 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/e9d026a6-8100-492f-a141-09c6aee4c6f0%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Precision

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 8:07:07 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 9:24:05 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> > On 12 May 2019, at 09:08, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote: 
>> > 
>> > ‘I believe there are 
>> 15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,914,527,116,709,366,231,425,076,185,631,031,296
>>  
>> protons in the universe, and the same number of electrons.’ 
>> > 
>> > Eddington, Arthur S. 1939. The Philosophy of Physical Science. 
>> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 170. The beginning of the Chapter 
>> XI, The Physical Universe. 
>>
>> Lol. 
>>
>>
> The number is curiously not that different from the currently understood 
> number.
>
> To be honest I think there is only one electron in the universe. All these 
> electrons we see are just the same electron weaving through space and time.
>
> LC
>  
>
>> I guess this concerns the observable universe, which has grown a lot 
>> since 1939. (Cf Hubble and “Hubble) 
>>
>> Any idea of why that particular number? Beyond the apparent joke? 
>>
>> Bruno 
>>
>>
>>
>> \
>
>

The number of electrons and protons stays the same?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production

Pair production is the creation of a subatomic particle and its 
antiparticle from a neutral boson. Examples include creating an electron 
and a positron, a muon and an antimuon, or a proton and an antiproton. Pair 
production often refers specifically to a photon creating an 
electron–positron pair near a nucleus. 

In 2008 the Titan laser aimed at a 1-millimeter-thick gold target was used 
to generate positron–electron pairs in large numbers.

That "there is only one electron in the universe. All these electrons we 
see are just the same electron weaving through space and time" would 
explain telepathy and precognition.

@philipthrift

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/faea4aed-e509-42d8-9a12-c6e20f580532%40googlegroups.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread Bruce Kellett

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:49 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 6:06 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 1:50 AM Jason Resch  wrote:
>>
>
>>> Most scientists would say quarks are real, because they are part of
>>> successful theories which have explanatory power.
>>>
>>
>> That is the semantic part of scientific realism -- the entities in our
>> most successful theories correspond to elements of reality. That is just to
>> acknowledge that the ontology is theory dependent -- not mind independent.
>> So quarks may or may not be real -- we will probably never know.
>>
>
> So what is wrong with the theory that the integers are real? (arithmetic
> is successful, after all)
>

Nothing is wrong, except that you are using a different notion of "real".
Integers are invented by humans, even though there is intersubjective
agreement about them.

Why would I want to? Mathematics is useful for describing the results of
>> our observations and experiments. It is a convenient language. Do you think
>> that English sentences are part of a mind-independent reality?
>>
>
> Because arithmetical realism explains more while assuming less.
>

The trouble with this is that it does no such thing. Arithmetical realism
does not even explain consciousness, much less physics. Can mechanism
explain the quale 'red'?

.

>  I think they are an excellent starting point. It is much easier,
> conceptually for me to accept 2+2=4 is true, has always been and always
> will be true, and needs no reason to be true,
>

But that is a matter of definition, not of ontology. Truth in arithmetic
does not imply existence.

> rather than the alternative, which is to accept the physical universe as
> we see it exists on its own, independently of anything else or any other
> reason. For what reason would such a physical universe exist, why does it
> have this form, was it caused by something else, is there more beyond it?
>

As I have said, science does not answer 'why' questions. It describes and
predicts -- which is as good an understanding as you will ever get.

> Arithmetical realism provides a simple, elegant answer to these questions,
> and moreover answers many more questions than assuming the physical
> universe at the start.
>

No, it does not. Arithmetical realism does not actually answer any
questions. It cannot explain consciousness any more than it can explain the
existence of space and time, much less derive their properties.

> Believing that there is something mind-independent to explain is better --
>> as long as one explores what this might mean, rather than assuming the
>> answer from the start.
>>
>
> We both assume something mind independent. You think it is the physical
> universe, I think it is the integers.  My assumption of the integers not
> only explains why we have an objective field of mathematics, but with
> Mechanism, it explains the emergence of the appearance of the physical
> universe (without having to assume the physical universe). So I get to
> explain two things with one assumption.
>

But mechanism has not done this. It is claimed that it can explain physics,
but we have yet to see any evidence that it can explain anything.

> Since you start with physicalism, and deny the objective existence of
> arithmetical truth, you are confronted with the problem of explaining where
> arithmetical truth comes from. You say it comes from axioms but since Godel
> this has been known to be false.  Your assumption can explain the physical
> universe, but not the objective nature of arithmetical truth.
>

Incompleteness is not an objection to my contention that arithmetical truth
is a deduction from the axioms. If some alternative notion of 'truth' calls
some proposition that is not a theorem 'true', then you simply expand you
axiom base. Nothing particularly profound here. The same is true of
physical theories -- if they do not explain something that is observed
(viz. 'true'), we change the theory.

Further, I don't see any hope for how you can ever hope to explain why the
> physical universe has the laws that it does.
>

Maybe that is just geography. In some theories, other universes have
different laws. So why bother to explain why we see these laws and not
others? They are just a feature of the local landscape -- geography.

Why is it quantum mechanical, why are the laws so simple compared to the
> total information state of the universe,
>

We can explain that by observing that we propose laws that are as simple as
possible, consistent with the data. The laws are simple because we make
them that way!

> do altogether other universes exist?  There is hope of getting answers to
> these questions starting from the assumption of the integers, but there is
> not if your starting assumption is the physical universe itself.
>

There is no evidence that any of these questions can be answered by
starting from arithmetical realism. Besides, one does not ask why the orbit
of the earth is wha

Re: Precision

2019-05-14 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 9:24:05 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> > On 12 May 2019, at 09:08, Evgenii Rudnyi > 
> wrote: 
> > 
> > ‘I believe there are 
> 15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,914,527,116,709,366,231,425,076,185,631,031,296
>  
> protons in the universe, and the same number of electrons.’ 
> > 
> > Eddington, Arthur S. 1939. The Philosophy of Physical Science. 
> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 170. The beginning of the Chapter 
> XI, The Physical Universe. 
>
> Lol. 
>
>
The number is curiously not that different from the currently understood 
number.

To be honest I think there is only one electron in the universe. All these 
electrons we see are just the same electron weaving through space and time.

LC
 

> I guess this concerns the observable universe, which has grown a lot since 
> 1939. (Cf Hubble and “Hubble) 
>
> Any idea of why that particular number? Beyond the apparent joke? 
>
> Bruno 
>
>
>
>
> > 
> > -- 
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
> Groups "Everything List" group. 
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send 
> an email to everyth...@googlegroups.com . 
> > To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2158abf8-82c9-8b49-eeb1-43415021244d%40rudnyi.ru.
>  
>
>
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/eae6b0b3-4255-4262-8f1b-08cf26418660%40googlegroups.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List




On 5/14/2019 9:49 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


What is truth? (Pontus Pilate). Arithmetical statements are true
if they are theorems derived from the axioms.


This is false. In every consistent system of axioms there are 
statements that are true but cannot be derived from the axioms.


That's not true. There are axiomatic systems that are complete.

In other words truth =/= proof, truth is always greater that what can 
be proved.


That's because you have recourse to an idea of "true" that is outside of 
logical inference...such as "empirically true".


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/b6356661-df48-36eb-2ac6-70430b5b4a5f%40verizon.net.

Re: Aeon: "AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals"

2019-05-14 Thread Bruce Kellett

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:04 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 9:34 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 12:07 PM Jason Resch 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Do you not think counterfactuals are useful in evaluating theories?
>>>
>>
>> Not particularly. What use is it to speculate about what happens in
>> unrealised scenarios? We want to know what happens in real life...
>>
>
> Because life isn't a single event. Future events happen too. The purpose
> of the brain is to plan for those future events and respond in a manner
> consistent with our best understanding of the world. If a theory can't
> handle couterfactuals, it can't even make predictions.
>

OK. I was not thinking that making predictions involved counterfactuals in
the sense that the antecedent is necessarily false. Any law-like
generalisation supports simple counterfactuals: 'Sugar dissolves in water'
licenses 'If this sugar cube were dropped in water it would dissolve'; but
 'All the coins in my pocket are silver' does not yield 'If this penny were
in my pocket it would be silver'. Counterfactual reasoning has only limited
application or utility.

Bruce

>
> Jason
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjYP5F2ng7gRPHD9ubhZRUrm1XvCtQo9%3D5wf%3DG1%2BZ2enQ%40mail.gmail.com
> 
> .
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTtLft021_6x%3D%3DBN9h3b5%3Dppmj5CRMNJ1OPxL4o%3DuwGTA%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 5/14/2019 1:20 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Tue, May 14, 2019, at 00:55, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:

On 5/13/2019 4:18 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
3) Or maybe it's "what the brain does", as many physicalists like to
say. My body as mass, because the atoms that make up my body amount
to that mass. What amounts to my consciousness? What are the
building blocks? There is no accounting, there is no description in
yours or van Neumann's sense.

But there are models that work. That was my point in citing AI
projects like Watson

I mention this outside of our main discussion: Watson is mostly IBM
marketing hype for scientifically-illiterate business executives. I
say this as an AI researcher, not an AI-denialist. It does not deserve
a place alongside serious research endeavors in the field. The
Jeapordy player was cool, some nice papers came out of it (I have them
and have read them all), but that is about it. The rest is just a
bullshit business brand around cloud-stuff and old-fashioned business IT.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3321138/did-ibm-put-too-much-stock-in-watson-health-too-soon.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/07/02/is-ibm-watson-a-joke/
https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/stop-the-hype-the-real-value-of-ibm-watson-is-driving-small-incremental-business-value/
https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/08/you-can-call-it-hype-but-watson-is-getting-marketers-roi/

Etc.

and AlphaGO.

AlphaGO is pretty cool. My feeling is that you are doing with AI what
physicists tend to accuse outsiders to the field of doing with quantum
physics: mysticism. I'm not accusing you of being the Deepak Chopra of
AI-mysticism, I hold you in much higher regard than that, but I think
maybe you lack the depth of understanding to see that there isn't as
much there there as you might assume.

AlphaGO is essentially a minimax decision tree. Go is infamous for
leading to combinatorial explosion even more severely than chess, so
decision trees where considered a no-go for a long time. The genius
move here is to train a feed-forward neural network to prune the tree,
providing something akin to intuition and making the decision tree
both tractable and effective against expert human players.
Reinforcement learning was used to train the tree by having the agents
play against themselves (not in the first iteration of AlphaGO, but I
think we can simplify a bit for the purpose of this discussion).

This is all very neat and clever, but nothing was discovered in terms
of computer science that wasn't already well-known in the 1980s. It
just so happens that these approaches finally became feasible due to
sufficiently powerful hardware. Now, this is no small achievement, and
I have maximum respect for the AlphaGO team. But I failed to see what
was learned in terms of how intelligence works, let alone what this
has to do with consciousness, anymore than say, performing some linear
algebra with NumPy or whatever.

The building blocks are perception, information processing, values,
and action.

Well, if "perception" is a building block then there is already an
implicit perceiver, so you are begging the question. Reminds me of
this joke:

Easy way to make your own megaphone!
You just need:

1- Some duct tape
2- A megaphone

You say "there is no accounting" but that's because you're using
"accounting" as a synonym for "explain". The accounting in
scientific theory is in terms of a model that works. You're
demanding of a theory of consciousness that will do for consciousness
what general relativity/*does not do*/ for the metric or for the
stress-energy tensor, what Darwin/*did not do*/ for reproduction with
variation.

Darwin didn't have the full story, but now the main things are
accounted for. We know how nucleic acids can be sequenced in very long
molecules, thus digitally encoding the shape of proteins, that then
fold into 3D shapes according to the laws of physics and can interact
and compose themselves in ways that eventually generate complex
organisms, that can interact to mix their respective strands of
nucleic acids and create incubating environments for new, similar
organisms to be generated.

There are several scientific fields dedicated to the numerous details
that I am glossing over in the silly explanation above.

That's why people tend to think science explains more than it does. In
well developed fields the explanations can get very deep and go thru a
lot of diverse fields. Our explanation of consciousness is still
shallow. it's pretty much limited to what will shut off consciousness
or give halluciantions, and some mapping of functions in the brain. But
when the explanation gets deep and detailed, will you still notice that
it leads to a "dead end"? Do you notice that general relativity "dead
ends" with no explanation of why mass

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread Bruce Kellett

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:49 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 6:06 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 1:50 AM Jason Resch  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for it. It cannot
>>> be derived from or defined by labels.
>>>
>>
>> What is truth? (Pontus Pilate). Arithmetical statements are true if they
>> are theorems derived from the axioms.
>>
>
> This is false. In every consistent system of axioms there are statements
> that are true but cannot be derived from the axioms. In other words truth
> =/= proof, truth is always greater that what can be proved.
>

Read what I said. "Arithmetical statements are true if they are theorems
derived from the axioms." I think that you might agree with this. But this
does not mean that there are not true things that are not theorems of the
given axiom system (if you extend the notion of 'truth') -- but they are
theorems in a more powerful (extended) axiom system. Incompleteness is only
a problem if you think that the axiom system you started from covers
everything. This is not unlike physics -- we start from some theory and
find things that a true but which cannot be derived within the theory. So
we go to a new, extended, better theory.

Incompleteness is not particularly powerful or mysterious.

In arithmetic we define the integers. We find that these have properties
that are not fully axiomatizable. So what. We have created a world (model)
which we explore and discover certain things. But we created this world. We
could create any number of worlds -- the world of sets, Riemannian
manifolds, or whatever. These would all have their own incompleteness
results. But they are all created worlds. Once created, they have an
independent existence. But the physical world differs in that we did not
create it -- it is the ultimate given.

Bruce

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTQ4Y%3DP0R%3D3rb08A%3Di3a9tfO7duHrmE%3DzJf5mXboU_-3w%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 5/14/2019 2:33 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:47 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
> wrote:

On 5/14/2019 9:10 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 4:46 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything
List mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> wrote:

On 5/13/2019 8:50 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for
it. It
> cannot be derived from or defined by labels.

And it depends on the model.

Saying truth depends on the model is like saying facts about
something depend on what you are talking about.
When I said arithmetical truth, it should be clear the model is
arithmetic, and so arithmetical truth are the facts concerning
arithmetic.

But which arithmetic? There is more than one model of Peano's
axioms for example. But , you say, I mean the natural numbers
model of arithmetic...but the natural numbers are something
hypothesized from empirical observation.

I see a 100% analagous situation to the natural sciences:

"There's more than one model of gravitation for example. But, you say
I mean the gravitation of our universe...but gravitation is something
hypothesized from empirical observation."

"Model" means different, almost complementary, things in physics and
mathematical logic. Physicist would call Newton's theory a model of
gravity, the physical phenomenon. Mathematicians would axiomatize
Newton's theory and then look around for something that satisfied the
axioms, which they would call "the model". The physical phenomenon,
gravity, would not be a model of Newton's theory, because it doesn't
correctly model the advance of the perihelion of Mercury.

Axiomatic systems are just like theories in the sciences. They
attempted to systematize what is out there. But we can never be sure
our models correctly reflect the reality. We can only hope to improve
our models over time to become more powerful in what they can explain.

Explanation is cheap. Prediction is dear.

Which is why it's undefinable within the
system.

Could you clarify this point?

There is more than one model of PA and "true" is relative to the
model.

I think you mean "provable" is relative to the model.

No, provable depends only on the axioms and the rules of inference.
"True" depends on the model. Everything provable is true in every
model. But the truth value of what isn't provable can vary depending on
the model.

In Newton's gravity you could "prove" something about the expected
orbital velocity of Mercury in that model. It just wouldn't be true
when compared to reality.

Right, and we only have one reality.

And also why it's not the same as the "true" in "It is true
that snow is white."

How is it different?

Snow is defined ostensively, as are the natural numbers.

Do we agree that the true properties of the natural numbers are
objective? If so no need to debate this any further.

It's a matter of equivocating on "the natural numbers". If you regard
them as a theory of things, the way you learn them at your mother's
knee, then there are objective truths "Two garbanzo beans plus two chick
peas make four beans." the way "Snow is white." But if you want to
evaluate the truth of "2+2=4" that's a proposition in arithmetic. If
it's PA then it's true in every model because it's a theorem. But when
you say there are true statements of arithmetic that aren't provable in
PA, what they are depends on the model.

I'm sure Bruno can explain this better than I can. I only took a couple
of semesters of symbolic logic.

Brent

Jason

But what mathematicians (like Goedel) prove theorems about is the
axiomatic system. That's why Bruno makes the point that
provability is well defined but truth isn't (in mathematics).

Brent

Jason
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the

Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
.
To view this discussion on the web visit

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgQZz3nO%2BOKaiWZrtmbVivC8E_0BtwfjhW7hm9PjRoZ_Q%40mail.gmail.com

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google

Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
.
To view this discussi

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 3:47 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 5/14/2019 9:10 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 4:46 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 5/13/2019 8:50 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>> > But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for it. It
>> > cannot be derived from or defined by labels.
>>
>> And it depends on the model.
>
>
> Saying truth depends on the model is like saying facts about something
> depend on what you are talking about.
> When I said arithmetical truth, it should be clear the model is
> arithmetic, and so arithmetical truth are the facts concerning arithmetic.
>
>
> But which arithmetic?  There is more than one model of Peano's axioms for
> example.  But , you say, I mean the natural numbers model of
> arithmetic...but the natural numbers are something hypothesized from
> empirical observation.
>

I see a 100% analagous situation to the natural sciences:

"There's more than one model of gravitation for example. But, you say I
mean the gravitation of our universe...but gravitation is something
hypothesized from empirical observation."

Axiomatic systems are just like theories in the sciences. They attempted to
systematize what is out there. But we can never be sure our models
correctly reflect the reality. We can only hope to improve our models over
time to become more powerful in what they can explain.



>
>
>
>> Which is why it's undefinable within the
>> system.
>
>
> Could you clarify this point?
>
>
> There is more than one model of PA and "true" is relative to the model.
>


I think you mean "provable" is relative to the model.  In Newton's gravity
you could "prove" something about the expected orbital velocity of Mercury
in that model. It just wouldn't be true when compared to reality.

>
>
>> And also why it's not the same as the "true" in "It is true
>> that snow is white."
>>
>>
> How is it different?
>
>
> Snow is defined ostensively, as are the natural numbers.
>

Do we agree that the true properties of the natural numbers are objective?
If so no need to debate this any further.

Jason


> But what mathematicians (like Goedel) prove theorems about is the
> axiomatic system.  That's why Bruno makes the point that provability is
> well defined but truth isn't  (in mathematics).
>
> Brent
>
>
> Jason
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgQZz3nO%2BOKaiWZrtmbVivC8E_0BtwfjhW7hm9PjRoZ_Q%40mail.gmail.com
> 
> .
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c8ccb7d1-0417-4718-aae2-484716798892%40verizon.net
> 
> .
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUhqBMhAbbO9z4225FsqOUpSqTvK2JvQ7rbYenHAKU5aQA%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List

On 5/14/2019 9:10 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 4:46 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
> wrote:

On 5/13/2019 8:50 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for it. It
> cannot be derived from or defined by labels.

And it depends on the model.

Saying truth depends on the model is like saying facts about something
depend on what you are talking about.
When I said arithmetical truth, it should be clear the model is
arithmetic, and so arithmetical truth are the facts concerning arithmetic.

But which arithmetic? There is more than one model of Peano's axioms
for example. But , you say, I mean the natural numbers model of
arithmetic...but the natural numbers are something hypothesized from
empirical observation.

Which is why it's undefinable within the
system.

Could you clarify this point?

There is more than one model of PA and "true" is relative to the model.

And also why it's not the same as the "true" in "It is true
that snow is white."

How is it different?

Snow is defined ostensively, as are the natural numbers. But what
mathematicians (like Goedel) prove theorems about is the axiomatic
system. That's why Bruno makes the point that provability is well
defined but truth isn't (in mathematics).

Brent

Jason
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgQZz3nO%2BOKaiWZrtmbVivC8E_0BtwfjhW7hm9PjRoZ_Q%40mail.gmail.com
.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c8ccb7d1-0417-4718-aae2-484716798892%40verizon.net.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Tue, May 14, 2019, at 00:55, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List wrote:
> 
> 
> On 5/13/2019 4:18 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>> 3) Or maybe it's "what the brain does", as many physicalists like to say. My 
>> body as mass, because the atoms that make up my body amount to that mass. 
>> What amounts to my consciousness? What are the building blocks? There is no 
>> accounting, there is no description in yours or van Neumann's sense.
> 
> But there are models that work. That was my point in citing AI projects like 
> Watson

I mention this outside of our main discussion: Watson is mostly IBM marketing 
hype for scientifically-illiterate business executives. I say this as an AI 
researcher, not an AI-denialist. It does not deserve a place alongside serious 
research endeavors in the field. The Jeapordy player was cool, some nice papers 
came out of it (I have them and have read them all), but that is about it. The 
rest is just a bullshit business brand around cloud-stuff and old-fashioned 
business IT.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3321138/did-ibm-put-too-much-stock-in-watson-health-too-soon.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2017/07/02/is-ibm-watson-a-joke/
https://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/stop-the-hype-the-real-value-of-ibm-watson-is-driving-small-incremental-business-value/
https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/08/you-can-call-it-hype-but-watson-is-getting-marketers-roi/

Etc.

>  and AlphaGO. 

AlphaGO is pretty cool. My feeling is that you are doing with AI what 
physicists tend to accuse outsiders to the field of doing with quantum physics: 
mysticism. I'm not accusing you of being the Deepak Chopra of AI-mysticism, I 
hold you in much higher regard than that, but I think maybe you lack the depth 
of understanding to see that there isn't as much there there as you might 
assume.

AlphaGO is essentially a minimax decision tree. Go is infamous for leading to 
combinatorial explosion even more severely than chess, so decision trees where 
considered a no-go for a long time. The genius move here is to train a 
feed-forward neural network to prune the tree, providing something akin to 
intuition and making the decision tree both tractable and effective against 
expert human players. Reinforcement learning was used to train the tree by 
having the agents play against themselves (not in the first iteration of 
AlphaGO, but I think we can simplify a bit for the purpose of this discussion).

This is all very neat and clever, but nothing was discovered in terms of 
computer science that wasn't already well-known in the 1980s. It just so 
happens that these approaches finally became feasible due to sufficiently 
powerful hardware. Now, this is no small achievement, and I have maximum 
respect for the AlphaGO team. But I failed to see what was learned in terms of 
how intelligence works, let alone what this has to do with consciousness, 
anymore than say, performing some linear algebra with NumPy or whatever.

>  The building blocks are perception, information processing, values, and 
> action.

Well, if "perception" is a building block then there is already an implicit 
perceiver, so you are begging the question. Reminds me of this joke:

Easy way to make your own megaphone!
You just need:

1- Some duct tape
2- A megaphone

>  You say "there is no accounting" but that's because you're using 
> "accounting" as a synonym for "explain". The accounting in scientific theory 
> is in terms of a model that works. You're demanding of a theory of 
> consciousness that will do for consciousness what general relativity** does 
> not do** for the metric or for the stress-energy tensor, what Darwin** did 
> not do** for reproduction with variation.

Darwin didn't have the full story, but now the main things are accounted for. 
We know how nucleic acids can be sequenced in very long molecules, thus 
digitally encoding the shape of proteins, that then fold into 3D shapes 
according to the laws of physics and can interact and compose themselves in 
ways that eventually generate complex organisms, that can interact to mix their 
respective strands of nucleic acids and create incubating environments for new, 
similar organisms to be generated.

There are several scientific fields dedicated to the numerous details that I am 
glossing over in the silly explanation above.

Under physicalism, for consciounsness, we have nada. Unless we start with the 
megaphone.

>  Maybe someday Bruno's theory will yield some interesting prediction (of the 
> future), but until then it's a theory doesn't do any work. So far it doesn't 
> even account for the effect of holding your breathe too long or ingesting 
> LSD. 

You know I appreciate Bruno and his work very much, but this is besides the 
point here. I am not arguing that Bruno has the answers (or not), just that 
physicalism accomplishes nothing that idealism does not, and in fact see

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 12:52:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/13/2019 11:22 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 12:14:48 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 6:55:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: 
>>
>> The physical model that says consciousness is the brain processing 
>>> information by neuron's firing at synapses...a very successful model. 
>>>
>>  
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I completely missed the news of that success, explicitly stating: "a very 
>> successful model".
>>
>> Can you cite something that states that this is a scientific consensus?
>>
>> Now that is what I would call mysterian. 
>>
>> @philipthrift
>>
>
>
> http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Models_of_consciousness
>
> Summary 
>
> Because consciousness is a rich biological phenomenon, it is likely that a 
> satisfactory scientific theory of consciousness will require the 
> specification of detailed mechanistic models. The models of consciousness 
> surveyed in this article vary in terms of their level of abstraction as 
> well as in the aspects of phenomenal experience that they are proposed to 
> explain. At present, however, no single model of consciousness appears 
> sufficient to account fully for the multidimensional properties of 
> conscious experience. Moreover, although some of these models have gained 
> prominence, *none has yet been accepted as definitive, or even as a 
> foundation upon which to build a definitive model.*
>
>
> A successful model has predictive power and consilience in a certain 
> domain.  It doesn't have to predict everything to be successful.  Newton's 
> theory of gravity didn't explain why lead is heavier than iron or why the 
> planets had the orbits they have.  I only meant that the neurobiological 
> theory of the brain is successful in predicting that specific chemicals 
> that interact with neurotransmitters will affect conscious thoughts and 
> electrical stimulation of the brain will produce thoughts specific to the 
> location.  All the models mentioned in your link implicitly assume this 
> foundation of neural activity.   I notice however that Jeff Hawkins model 
> of memory->prediction is not included, although I think he's one of the 
> most  serious researchers  https://numenta.com/
>
> Brent 
>

"Neural-firing patterns" (information processing - which alone could be 
simulated in a conventional supercomputer - may be a big part of a theory, 
but may not be the whole thing. A chemical role is likely critical.

Consciousness: A Molecular Perspective
https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/4/26/htm

...
4. Panpsychism

Some proponents of information-processing theories have recently appealed 
to the philosophy of panpsychism In its most common form, as advocated for 
example in, panpsychism is primarily justified by philosophical reasoning, 
namely that it is unintelligible to get consciousness from unconscious 
matter. With physicalists, panpsychists share the standard intuition that 
macroscopic properties inevitably are the result of the dynamics of 
elementary, microscopic entities. However, they differ from standard 
physicalists in that they assume that matter, even in its most basic form, 
is conscious. Panpsychism could thus be distinguished from physicalism by 
its ontological commitment to some form of mentality inherent in all forms 
of matter.

There are problematic issues though. It seems implausible to just “merge” 
psychological with physical properties; the structures of physical and 
psychological theories are very different from each other. For example, on 
the (sub-)atomic scale individuality is a misnomer (something like “an 
individual electron” does not exist). On the level of psychology just the 
opposite is true: Individuals abound. Accordingly, the introduction of 
“proto-consciousness”, a precursor of consciousness in elementary physical 
systems, seems necessary.

The belief in proto-consciousness, however, brings with it a problem of 
emergence: How do higher forms of consciousness result from a complex 
combination of proto-consciousness? This has been called the “combination 
problem” for panpsychism, which becomes even more pressing once one has 
taken a molecular perspective. If quarks and electrons are 
(proto-)conscious, what about atoms and molecules? Atoms and molecules form 
cells which in turn form tissue that makes up the whole organism. This 
question thus naturally leads to the puzzle of identifying the point of 
emergence of higher forms of consciousness starting with 
proto-consciousness. Judging purely from empirical knowledge, it is 
implausible that it takes place at a lower level than other life-processes 
(i.e., lower than at the level of biochemistry); and it is also implausible 
that it exclusively takes place at much higher levels either, because much 
of what is biologically relevant already takes place (or is initiated) at 
the level of cellular and molecular interactions (e.

Re: for Cosmin

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 11:24:06 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 13 May 2019, at 20:24, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 12:25:38 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 10 May 2019, at 09:12, Philip Thrift  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> When someone says "consciousness is not a material thing" I think of Wile 
>> E. Coyote.
>>
>> Consciousnesses need something (matter) to hang on to. Consciousnesses 
>> just don't go floating around willy-nilly. The Coyote finds that out when 
>> he finds out he is hanging on to nothing, and looks down. 
>>
>>
>>
>> That is nice Aristotelian poetry. But you just repeat you ontological 
>> commitment in a material world, where no physicist has a consistent theory 
>> of it, nor even have tried to test its existence. What the Aspect 
>> experience has only shown, is that IF there is a physicaly reality then it 
>> can’t be a boolean reality (which would have already annoyed Aristotle).
>>
>> Then with Mechanism, “Matter” invocation needs to add some magic 
>> incompatible with YD+CT.
>> It is like invoking a God to impeach testing simpler theories which do 
>> not commit a so strong ontological commitment.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>
>
> I was shooting for Epicurean poetry (or Lucretian; Lucretius's *De rerum 
> natur*a [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura ] was a poem 
> about the philosophy of Epicurus).
>
> Aristotle's philosophy is *confused nonsense*, especially when compared 
> to Epicurus’s.
>
>
> This is weird. I appreciate Aristotle, because it is rather clear, and 
> enough precise to be refuted, with in the natural science and the theology. 
> I tend to consider him as the inventor of the notion of primitive matter, 
> that is the first which postulate the existence of a physical universe (in 
> metaphysics), but that is also the only place where he get confused (his 
> metaphysics). 
>
> As a materialist (a “believer in matter”) it is astonishing you don’t 
> appreciate Aristotle. He is really the one who got the idea that “God” is a 
> physical universe, even if he add the chiquenaude divine to create the 
> first move.
>
> Bruno
>
>
The atomistic materialist Democritus came before Aristote, and Epicurus, 
the most advanced of the atomists (as written about by Lucretius) was about 
the same time as Aristotle.

But way before them was Thales, who inspired Aristotle's thoughts on matter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus#Water_as_a_first_principle

Thales' most famous philosophical position was his cosmological 
 thesis, which comes down to us 
through a passage from Aristotle 
's *Metaphysics *. In 
the work Aristotle unequivocally reported Thales’ hypothesis 
 about *the nature of all matter 
 – that 
the originating principle of nature 
 was a single material substance 
*: *water*. Aristotle then 
proceeded to proffer a number of conjectures based on his own observations 
to lend some credence to why Thales may have advanced this idea (though 
Aristotle didn’t hold it himself).

Aristotle laid out his own thinking about matter and form 
 which may shed some light on 
the ideas of Thales, in *Metaphysics 
* 983 b6 8–11, 17–21. (The 
passage contains words that were later adopted by science with quite 
different meanings.)

That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes 
and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, 
but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle 
of things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature (φύσις), 
either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the 
object being saved... Thales the founder of this type of philosophy says 
that it is water.

In this quote we see Aristotle's depiction of the problem of change and the 
definition of substance . 
He asked if an object changes, is it the same or different? In either case 
how can there be a change from one to the other? The answer is that the 
substance "is saved", but acquires or loses different qualities (πάθη, the 
things you "experience").

Aristotle conjectured that Thales reached his conclusion by contemplating 
that the "nourishment of all things is moist and that even the hot is 
created from the wet and lives by it." While Aristotle's conjecture on why 
Thales held water as the originating principle of matter is his own 
thinking, his statement that Thales held it as water is generally accepted 
as genuinely originating with Thales and he is seen as an incipient 
matte

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

2019-05-14 Thread 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List




On 5/13/2019 11:22 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 12:14:48 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 6:55:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

The physical model that says consciousness is the brain
processing information by neuron's firing at synapses...a very
successful model.

Brent




I completely missed the news of that success, explicitly stating:
"a very successful model".

Can you cite something that states that this is a scientific
consensus?

Now that is what I would call mysterian.

@philipthrift



http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Models_of_consciousness


Summary

Because consciousness is a rich biological phenomenon, it is likely 
that a satisfactory scientific theory of consciousness will require 
the specification of detailed mechanistic models. The models of 
consciousness surveyed in this article vary in terms of their level of 
abstraction as well as in the aspects of phenomenal experience that 
they are proposed to explain. At present, however, no single model of 
consciousness appears sufficient to account fully for the 
multidimensional properties of conscious experience. Moreover, 
although some of these models have gained prominence, *none has yet 
been accepted as definitive, or even as a foundation upon which to 
build a definitive model.*




A successful model has predictive power and consilience in a certain 
domain.  It doesn't have to predict everything to be successful. 
Newton's theory of gravity didn't explain why lead is heavier than iron 
or why the planets had the orbits they have.  I only meant that the 
neurobiological theory of the brain is successful in predicting that 
specific chemicals that interact with neurotransmitters will affect 
conscious thoughts and electrical stimulation of the brain will produce 
thoughts specific to the location.  All the models mentioned in your 
link implicitly assume this foundation of neural activity.   I notice 
however that Jeff Hawkins model of memory->prediction is not included, 
although I think he's one of the most  serious researchers  
https://numenta.com/


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/8348f2d5-c4ce-1f89-ae81-a71b5d2b8190%40verizon.net.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 6:06 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 1:50 AM Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 7:45 AM Bruce Kellett 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I am not sure I have the time to delve into Muller's paper to find out
>>> his reasons. He is clearly misguided, because there are many viable
>>> cosmological theories that do not have a beginning of time (such as eternal
>>> inflation and related ideas) -- even if time is universally defined, which
>>> is very doubtful.
>>>
>>
>> To be clear, his result does not rule out inflation, he finds only that
>> observers can expect that there we will find a beginning in history where
>> if we try to penetrate more deeply into what happened before, it devolves
>> into a multitude of indistinguishable possibilities.
>>
>
> So he is not proposing an absolute beginning to time after all!
>
> ..
>

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of what is meant by "absolute
beginning", but I will leave you with these excerpts from the paper I
referenced, if they help:

In particular, we will see that our theory predicts (under the assumption
> just mentioned) that observers should indeed expect to see two facts which
> are features of our physics as we know it: first, the fact that the
> observer seems to be part of an external world that evolves in time (a
> “universe”), and second, that this external world seems to have had an
> absolute beginning in the past (the “Big Bang”).


If she continues computing backwards to retrodict earlier and earlier
> states of her universe, she will typically find simpler and more “compact”
> states, with measures of entropy or algorithmic complexity decreasing —
> simply because she is looking at earlier and earlier stages of an unfolding
> computation43. At some point, Abby will necessarily arrive at the state
> that corresponds to the initial state of the graph machine’s computation
> (right after the machine U has read the prefix q), where simplicity and
> compactness are maximal. At this point, two cases are possible: either
> Abby’s method of computing backwards will cease to work; or Abby will
> retrodict a fictitious sequence of “states before the initial state”,
> typically with increasing complexity backwards in time [100].


In both cases, Abby will identify a singular state in the past, where the
> universe was particularly “small” and “simple” in the algorithmic sense. If
> Abby reconstructs the previous history of her universe (the computational
> process giving rise to her asymptotic measure µ), she will see that
> complexity unfolded after this stage in a way that resembles an abstract
> computation according to simple probabilistic laws. Thus, she may call this
> initial state the “Big Bang”, and hypothesize that time had its beginning
> in this moment. This is a striking consistency with our actual physical
> observations. We will discuss further details of this in Section 11.




>
> No they didn't. Zeh's ideas of decoherence go some distance, but Everett
>>> is totally irrelevant to this.
>>>
>>
>> Do you think something more than decoherence is needed to get there?
>>
>
> Yes. You need to reduce the superposition to a mixture.
>
> 
>

What will this require in your opinion, new postulates, or simply a better
understanding of the existing postulates?


>
>
>> You seem to be using the old scholastic notion of nominalism.
>>> "In more recent usage, 'nominalism' is often employed as a label for any
>>> repudiation of abstract entities, whether universals or particulars, and
>>> thus embraces the rejection of such things as propositions, sets, and
>>> numbers."  (Oxford Companion to Philosophy, OUP, 2005)
>>>
>>
>> But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for it. It cannot
>> be derived from or defined by labels.
>>
>
> What is truth? (Pontus Pilate). Arithmetical statements are true if they
> are theorems derived from the axioms.
>

This is false. In every consistent system of axioms there are statements
that are true but cannot be derived from the axioms. In other words truth
=/= proof, truth is always greater that what can be proved.


> "Snow is white" (Brent) is true because it corresponds with the facts.
> These are different notions of truth.
>
> .
>
>
>>
>>> We might discover some of their properties, but we can never know the
>>> "thing" in itself. Theoretical entities are generally dealt with by
>>> nominalism, as above.
>>>
>>
>> Most scientists would say quarks are real, because they are part of
>> successful theories which have explanatory power.
>>
>
> That is the semantic part of scientific realism -- the entities in our
> most successful theories correspond to elements of reality. That is just to
> acknowledge that the ontology is theory dependent -- not mind independent.
> So quarks may or may not be real -- we will probably never know.
>
>
So what is wrong with the theory that the integers are real? (arithmetic is
successful, after all)


>
> Calabi-Yau

Re: for Cosmin


> On 13 May 2019, at 20:24, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 12:25:38 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 10 May 2019, at 09:12, Philip Thrift > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> When someone says "consciousness is not a material thing" I think of Wile E. 
>> Coyote.
>> 
>> Consciousnesses need something (matter) to hang on to. Consciousnesses just 
>> don't go floating around willy-nilly. The Coyote finds that out when he 
>> finds out he is hanging on to nothing, and looks down. 
> 
> 
> That is nice Aristotelian poetry. But you just repeat you ontological 
> commitment in a material world, where no physicist has a consistent theory of 
> it, nor even have tried to test its existence. What the Aspect experience has 
> only shown, is that IF there is a physicaly reality then it can’t be a 
> boolean reality (which would have already annoyed Aristotle).
> 
> Then with Mechanism, “Matter” invocation needs to add some magic incompatible 
> with YD+CT.
> It is like invoking a God to impeach testing simpler theories which do not 
> commit a so strong ontological commitment.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> I was shooting for Epicurean poetry (or Lucretian; Lucretius's De rerum 
> natura [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura 
>  ] was a poem about the 
> philosophy of Epicurus).
> 
> Aristotle's philosophy is confused nonsense, especially when compared to 
> Epicurus’s.

This is weird. I appreciate Aristotle, because it is rather clear, and enough 
precise to be refuted, with in the natural science and the theology. I tend to 
consider him as the inventor of the notion of primitive matter, that is the 
first which postulate the existence of a physical universe (in metaphysics), 
but that is also the only place where he get confused (his metaphysics). 

As a materialist (a “believer in matter”) it is astonishing you don’t 
appreciate Aristotle. He is really the one who got the idea that “God” is a 
physical universe, even if he add the chiquenaude divine to create the first 
move.

Bruno




> 
> @philipthrift
>  
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/b0f3ab8f-d71f-4beb-bdad-a4fdb2dd2e13%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1F49FAEA-13E7-4791-A38B-8A0DB4F02AB9%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 4:46 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 5/13/2019 8:50 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> > But then what is arithmetical truth? We have no label for it. It
> > cannot be derived from or defined by labels.
>
> And it depends on the model.

Saying truth depends on the model is like saying facts about something
depend on what you are talking about.
When I said arithmetical truth, it should be clear the model is arithmetic,
and so arithmetical truth are the facts concerning arithmetic.

> Which is why it's undefinable within the
> system.

Could you clarify this point?

> And also why it's not the same as the "true" in "It is true
> that snow is white."
>
>
How is it different?

Jason

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgQZz3nO%2BOKaiWZrtmbVivC8E_0BtwfjhW7hm9PjRoZ_Q%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Aeon: "AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals"

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 9:34 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 12:07 PM Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 5:34 PM Bruce Kellett 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, May 14, 2019 at 6:08 AM Jason Resch 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 11:30 PM Bruce Kellett <
 bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> From: Jason Resch 
>
> On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 12:26 AM Bruce Kellett <
> bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>> From: Jason Resch 
>>
>
>
>> To clarify, let me enumerate stages of the argument such that we can
>> be clear which one we are speaking of:
>>
>> 1. Your brain can be replaced with a functionally equivalent physical
>> component which implements its functions digitally (here we change 
>> nothing
>> about our assumption of what the physical universe is)
>> 2. Following from #1, your consciousness can supervene on an
>> appropriately programmed digital computer
>>
>> That implies that my consciousness is just a single computation,
>> potentially implemented on a linear Turing machine.
>>
>
> That I said supervene implies that a many-to-one relationship between
> computations and mental states.
> This is no different from any other functionalist or even physicalist
> theories of mind.  That there are neutrinos going through your brain means
> there are different physical states, but these neutrinos (supposedly) 
> don't
> alter your conscious state. Therefore, that many different different
> patterns of neutrinos in your brain result in the same mental/conscious
> state suggests a many-to-one relationship between physical states and
> mental states.
>
> The important point here is that only one pattern of neutrinos exists
> in my brain at any one time. It is not the case that I am a superposition
> of several different patterns. Think of it this way: You can describe the
> action of the brain in consciousness at several different levels: The
> functional level (this brain is conscious); the neuronal level (these
> particular neurons are firing); the chemical level (these particular
> neurotransmitters are flowing here and there); the molecular level (these
> neurons and neurotransmitters are made up of such and such molecules
> interacting in these ways); or the level of atoms, quarks, electromagnetic
> fields, etc, which make up the molecules. All of these levels of
> description are possible, but the all describe the same single brain in
> action. There are not separate simultaneous consciousnesses according to
> each level of description - each underlying program if you like.
> Consciousness is a unitary thing, it is not made up of the sum over, or
> statistics of, many different computational streams. There may be 
> different
> level of description, but there is only one consciousness for each 
> physical
> brain.
>
>
> Hi Bruce,

 I did not mean to suggest that there were multiple consciousnesses
 manifested by one brain, but rather my point is that many different
 physical states can correspond to the same conscious state.  I.e., if the
 neutrinos in your brain were in a different pattern right now, I would
 wager that your consciousness would not be any different.

>>>
>>>  That may well be the case, but I fail to see the relevance of such an
>>> observation. My consciousness supervenes on my brain as it is now -- it
>>> does not supervene on other possibilities. If you think it does, then prove
>>> it!
>>>
>>
>> Do you not think counterfactuals are useful in evaluating theories?
>>
>
> Not particularly. What use is it to speculate about what happens in
> unrealised scenarios? We want to know what happens in real life...
>
>
Because life isn't a single event. Future events happen too. The purpose of
the brain is to plan for those future events and respond in a manner
consistent with our best understanding of the world. If a theory can't
handle couterfactuals, it can't even make predictions.

Jason

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUjYP5F2ng7gRPHD9ubhZRUrm1XvCtQo9%3D5wf%3DG1%2BZ2enQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Towards Conscious AI Systems (a symposium at the AAAI Stanford Spring Symposium 2019)


> On 12 May 2019, at 20:38, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 12:31:12 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
> Concerning mathematical logic and theology, an incredible book is:
> 
> Cohen J. Daniel, 2007. Equations from God, Pure Mathematics and Victorian 
> Faith, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
> 
> That book shows that the whole field of mathematical logic is born from 
> Victorian Faith. I suspected this from my reading of Lewis Carroll, but I did 
> not suspect it to be so historically true. Then, it explains the way this has 
> been hidden, for the professional benefits of the whole of Mathematics, but 
> that did not help for the field of theology, alas.
> 
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> Now that book I have never heard of before!
> 
> https://books.google.com/books/about/Equations_from_God.html?id=eYtfAQAACAAJ 
> 
> 
> Incredible. (No pun intended.) 
> 
> Throughout history, application rather than abstraction has been the 
> prominent driving force in mathematics. From the compass and sextant to 
> partial differential equations, mathematical advances were spurred by the 
> desire for better navigation tools, weaponry, and construction methods. But 
> the religious upheaval in Victorian England and the fledgling United States 
> opened the way for the rediscovery of pure mathematics, a tradition rooted in 
> Ancient Greece.
> 
> In "Equations from God," Daniel J. Cohen captures the origins of the rebirth 
> of abstract mathematics in the intellectual quest to rise above common 
> existence and touch the mind of the deity. Using an array of published and 
> private sources, Cohen shows how philosophers and mathematicians seized upon 
> the beautiful simplicity inherent in mathematical laws to reconnect with the 
> divine and traces the route by which the divinely inspired mathematics of the 
> Victorian era begot later secular philosophies.
> 
> Thank you. This made my day.
> 
> @philipthrift  (Ph.D., Applied Mathematics)


You are welcome. 

Bruno




> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/29a7c08e-4570-44ff-b11b-ff76e21f8882%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/4A312105-580C-452B-97C4-230A7714CEBD%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Church's Thesis


> On 12 May 2019, at 20:17, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 10:49:14 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 9 May 2019, at 20:26, Philip Thrift > 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thursday, May 9, 2019 at 11:56:41 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 6 May 2019, at 01:40, cloud...@gmail.com <> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The Church-Turing thesis is one of the most useless ideas ever invented.
>> 
>> 
>> You know that?
>> 
>> 
>> I just say that CTT (as it is acronymized) is a type of dogmatic theism 
>> (like YHWH ). 
> 
> CT, or CTT if you prefer, is refutable. I am not sure YHWH is refutable, 
> although to prove this would require some thorough research. The 8 universal 
> machine hypostases are embedded in the neoplatonist zephirots, as I have 
> discovered recently. The neoplatonist christians, jews, and muslims are very 
> close to the (Löbian) universal machine. 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Better to ignore it.
> 
> Have you understood the simple proof of incompleteness that I gave? CTT 
> changes everything. It is the important part of Digital Mechanism, if only to 
> define “digital” in a mathematically precise way.
> 
> We can ignore it, because we could just define “computable” by 
> Turing-computable, or lambda-calculable, … but this is dishonest, and makes 
> sense only if we assume CTT.
> 
> Then, there are tuns of evidences for CT, and none against it. There are 
> evidence comping from the empirical reality, and very deep theoretical 
> evidences too.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At least in 3 ways "against":
> 
> 1. The domain of interactions (π calculus vs. λ calculus) exposes the limits 
> of CTT.
> 
> 2. The domain of experiences (aka qualia) does as well.
> 
> 3. The domain of materials: Material computing  exploits unconventional 
> physical substrates and/or unconventional computational models to perform 
> physical computation in a non-silicon and/or non-Turing paradigm.
> https://www.cs.york.ac.uk/nature/SpInspired/workshops/TEMC-2019-Tokyo/CallforAbstracts.html
>  
> 
> 
> 
> The Interactive Nature of Computing:
> Refuting the Strong Church-Turing Thesis
> Dina Goldin, Peter Wegner
> Brown University
> http://www.cse.uconn.edu/~dgoldin/papers/strong-cct.pdf
> 
> The classical view of computing positions computation as a closed-box
> transformation of inputs (rational numbers or finite strings) to outputs. 
> According to the interactive view of computing, computation is an ongoing 
> interactive process rather than a function-based transformation of an input 
> to an output. Specifically, communication with the outside world happens 
> during the computation, not before or after it. This approach radically 
> changes our understanding of what is computation and how it is modeled. The 
> acceptance of interaction as a new paradigm is hindered by the Strong 
> Church-Turing Thesis (SCT), the widespread belief that Turing Machines (TMs) 
> capture all computation, so models of computation more expressive than TMs 
> are impossible. In this paper, we show that SCT reinterprets the original 
> Church-Turing Thesis (CTT) in a way that Turing never intended; its commonly 
> assumed equivalence to the original is a myth. We identify and analyze the 
> historical reasons for the widespread belief in SCT. Only by accepting that 
> it is false can we begin to adopt interaction as an alternative paradigm of 
> computation. We present Persistent Turing Machines (PTMs), that extend TMs to 
> capture sequential interaction. PTMs allow us to formulate the Sequential 
> Interaction Thesis, going beyond the expressiveness of TMs and of the CTT. 
> The paradigm shift to interaction provides an alternative understanding of 
> the nature of computing that better reflects the services provided by today’s 
> computing technology.
> 
> The Church-Turing Thesis: Breaking the Myth
> Dina Goldin, Peter Wegner
> pdf @ 
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221652812_The_Church-Turing_Thesis_Breaking_the_Myth
> 
> According to the interactive view of computation, communication happens 
> during the computation, not before or after it. This approach, distinct from 
> concurrency theory and the theory of computation, represents a paradigm shift 
> that changes our understanding of what is computation and how it is modeled. 
> Interaction machines extend Turing machines with interaction to capture the 
> behavior of concurrent systems, promising to bridge these two fields. This 
> promise is hindered by the widespread belief, incorrectly known as the 
> Church-Turing thesis, that no model of computation more expressive than 
> Turing machines can exist. Yet Turing’s original thesis only refers to the 
> computation of functions and explicitly excludes other computational 
> paradigms such as interaction. In this paper, we identify and analyze th

Re: Precision



> On 12 May 2019, at 09:08, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:
> 
> ‘I believe there are 
> 15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,914,527,116,709,366,231,425,076,185,631,031,296
>  protons in the universe, and the same number of electrons.’
> 
> Eddington, Arthur S. 1939. The Philosophy of Physical Science. Cambridge: 
> Cambridge University Press. p. 170. The beginning of the Chapter XI, The 
> Physical Universe.

Lol.

I guess this concerns the observable universe, which has grown a lot since 
1939. (Cf Hubble and “Hubble)

Any idea of why that particular number? Beyond the apparent joke?

Bruno




> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2158abf8-82c9-8b49-eeb1-43415021244d%40rudnyi.ru.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5C1321EA-B461-4657-B909-C1F14FF11CC5%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: My book "I Am" published on amazon