Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: It's not enough to assert that evolutionary designs (teleonomy) and rational designs (teleology) are different, I am asking you to explain how it is possible for them to be different The difference is Evolution doesn't understand the concept of one step backward 2 steps forward for one thing, I went into considerable more detail about this in my last post and also gave you 4 more reasons how and why intelligent design is different from random mutation and natural selection. given your assumption that the latter evolved from the former. The environment is far far too complex to hard wire in all the rules about the best way for an organism to survive, there are just too many of them. But Evolution found that if it could wire together just a few cells it could start to use a few inductive rules; being inductive it didn't always cause the organism to do the right thing for survival but it succeeded more that it failed and that was a huge advance. Later more cells got wired together and you started to get something you could call a brain and more complex inductive rules could be taken advantage of, and animals that were really good at this got their genes passed onto the next generation. Sill later Evolution found a way for these brains to use statistics and rules of thumb and eventually even deduction. When brains got to this point Evolution was no longer the only way that complex objects could get built, there was a much better and faster way. you are stating that post biological processes are *very* different from everything else in the universe, Yes. and therefore very special Yes. but then denying that there is any relevant difference between biology (the sole source of teleology and reason) and *everything else in the entire cosmos*. I don't know if biology exists anyplace other than on the earth, if it doesn't then 3 billion years ago something happened on earth that was different from anything else in the entire cosmos. I don't know if intelligence and culture exists anywhere other than the earth but if it doesn't then less that a million years ago something happened to a biped on this planet that was different from anything else in biology here or anywhere else. And in the last 50 years its become increasingly clear that biology will not be the only source of teleology and reason for much longer. You haven't explained anything. In just my last post I did a better job at explaining something than I've ever seen you do. Your ability to think and reason is nothing other than nature's poor design. Yes, if I was designed better I could reason better. Before long computers will be designed better. I'm not the one saying that biological systems have qualities that inorganic systems cannot, you are. I'm saying they do not, I'm not saying they cannot. But you are saying that the experiences of the more interesting organisms can easily be produced in the pre-evolutionary stupidity of chemistry or physics. Yes, if you put those inorganic parts together in the right way you could make some very interesting things but Evolution never figured out how to do it because of the flaws inherent in the process which I explained in considerable detail in my last post. Human designers don't have those limitations and will find the job if not easy at least far easier, and they operate at a enormously faster time scale than Evolution does. Then you admit that it would make more sense for human consciousness as you conceive of it to be hosted in a skull or knee cap rather than a brain. It just so happens that we showed up in brains. I can't make any sense out of that, I don't know what you're trying to say, I hope it's not that consciousness has a position. There can be logic without reason or intuition, and there can be intuition without logic without reason, but there cannot be reason without intuition. Einstein would have agreed with me Einstein's intuition about physics was usually (but not always) correct , your intuition about consciousness is obviously wrong, as obviously wrong as X is not Y and X is not not Y. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: The difference is Evolution doesn't understand the concept of one step backward 2 steps forward for one thing, I went into considerable more detail about this in my last post and also gave you 4 more reasons how and why intelligent design is different from random mutation and natural selection. That is not what I am asking. You are describing ways that they are different, not explaining how it is possible for these differences to arise. I don't understand the question because I'm not clear on what these differences refers to. Blue-green algae survives all over the world since the Pre-Cambrian Era. Survival is not complex. Acquire nutrients. Reproduce. The end. Blue-green algae are astronomically complex compared to inorganic chemicals, and they are beautifully adapted to fill one niche, but that's not the only niche in the environment and the others can only be filled by organisms that are even more complex than Blue-green algae. But Evolution found that if it could wire together just a few cells it could start to use a few inductive rules; This is pure metaphor. Yes, many, perhaps most, of the most profound ideas in the universe are. Evolution doesn't 'find' anything. You are falsely attributing intention and analysis to an unconscious process. It's poetic license, it just never occurred to me that somebody would be so foolish as to think that I meant that random mutation and natural selection was conscious and intended to do anything. And because I still think such misunderstanding is extremely unlikely unless one wants very much to misunderstand something and because I believe such informal language is useful in talking about Evolution I intend to continue doing so. Evolution = The right things in the right places don't die. Nothing else. And Darwin's genius was in finding how wonderful things can come from something as simple as that. This is the last sentence in Darwin's 1859 book The Origin of Species: There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” In just my last post I did a better job at explaining something than I've ever seen you do. Congratulations, you have a very high opinion of yourself. Thanks for the congratulations, and I do think that post was good, very good, I wish you'd read it. I'm not the one saying that biological systems have qualities that inorganic systems cannot, you are. I'm saying they do not, I'm not saying they cannot. We agree then. I only say that there may very well be an important reason why they do not which cannot be accessed by existing theory. There are indeed important reasons but they can be accessed by existing evolutionary theory and I explained how in a previous post that you correctly deduced I rather liked. if I was designed better I could reason better. Before long computers will be designed better. By natural people who were designed by natural selection. Before long one generation of computers will design the next more advanced generation, and the process will accelerate exponentially. You aren't seeing my point that if human designers are nothing but evolved systems, then they must have the same limitations as evolution itself That is nuts! If tools couldn't do something that people can't then there would be no point in them making tools. And water vapor can't smash your house but water vapor can make a tornado and a tornado can. I am saying that there is no reason for biology to exist in your worldview. Biology doesn't have any cosmic purpose for existing, but there are reasons. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand the question because I'm not clear on what these differences refers to. The differences between evolutionary nature (teleonomy) and rational design (teleology) that we are talking about. For God's sake! (Note: poetic license in use, I don't believe in God) I wrote a detailed post last month explaining how and why things that evolved are different from things that are designed by something that is smart and why Evolution is inferior to design at producing complex objects. Apparently you didn't see it so I repeated it just a few days ago. If something I said was unclear I will try to expand on the topic, or if you disagree with part of it I am prepared to debate you, but don't just keep asking the same damn question over and over again and pretend you never saw my answer. Any meta-molecular system is going to be complex compared to a molecular system, That's what meta means, and a very big thing is larger than a big thing. The inorganic geology of the Earth as a whole is much more complex than a single cell Bullshit!! Geology may be large but if we're talking complexity it's finger painting compared to the smallest cell. Darwin wasn't trying to explain awareness itself. That was part of Darwin's genius, picking the right problem to work on. He knew that explaining awareness was out of reach in his day as it is in ours so he didn't waste his time trying, he also knew that explaining the origin of life was out of reach although it's starting to become so in our day. Darwin figured that the problem of how a self reproducing organism could diversify into a bewildering number of species, one of which had a very large brain and opposable thumbs, might be within reach for a man of sufficient talent in his day. And He was right. There is no bridge however from evolution of biological forms and functions to the origin of experience, I might not know exactly how that bridge operates but I know that such a bridge between experience and intelligence MUST exist because otherwise experience could not have evolved on this planet; and it has, at least once for certain, and probably billions of times. It [Evolution] offers no hint of why complex intelligence should be living organisms and not mineral-based mechanisms. If you'd read the post that I sent TWICE in the month of September you'd know that Darwin's theory does explain why that is, but the post was rather long and it did contain a few big words and so you didn't read it and prefer to keep asking the same questions over and over. Before long one generation of computers will design the next more advanced generation, and the process will accelerate exponentially. Maybe. My guess is that in 50 years, someone will still be saying the same thing. Somebody will be saying that in 50 years no doubt about it, but the someone won't be biological. If tools couldn't do something that people can't then there would be no point in them making tools. And water vapor can't smash your house but water vapor can make a tornado and a tornado can. But water vapor can't make tools no matter how fast it's moving or for how long. We can choose to make tools which extend the power of our intentions There are reasons that water vapor makes tornadoes and there are reasons that humans make tools. Biology doesn't have any cosmic purpose for existing, but there are reasons. Are there? Yes. Like what? I've answered this before: Chemistry, a planet with liquid water, a energy source like the sun, and lots of time. There is no purpose in any of that because intelligence is in the purpose conferring business not chemistry or water or energy or time. So there is no purpose to biology but there are reasons. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: how can reason be completely different from evolution if reason itself is a consequence of nothing but evolution. Random mutation can wire together a small number of cells such that if there is a sudden change in the light levels in the environment, like a shadow covering it, a snail will retreat into its shell. This mutation will aid in survival so it will enter into the next generation. A further random mutation might be such that if the shadow does not lead to a attack the connection between shadow and retreat into your shell will be weakened, and if it does lead to a attack the connection will be reinforced. This is the utilization of rudimentary induction, something not seen in the inorganic world until humans started making computers. Evolution is just random mutation and natural selection, and induction is not part of any of that, but it can and has produced something that is. And simple induction is the first step toward more complex inductions, and then deduction and then large brains that produce minds that argue about philosophy. You say that they are different but you explain nothing of how it is possible for evolution to become so different from itself. Evolution hasn't changed a bit in billions of years, it's still just mutation and natural selection and it doesn't have a scrap of induction or deduction or intelligence in it , but it has managed to produced billions of things that do because in their niche those things pass on their genes better than things that don't have those properties. And Evolution has produced at least one thing that's conscious too. What does Darwin being right about evolution have to do with you being right about biology being unnecessary? As I've said before, Evolution can't see consciousness only intelligence, and yet Evolution produced consciousness at least once with me, therefor consciousness must be a byproduct of intelligence. And we now know for a fact that biology is not necessary for intelligence so it's not necessary for consciousness either. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Wrote: Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 degrees! First of all, 360 degrees rotation is present in the flagela of the bacteria, invented about 3800 million years ago I know, that's why I said macroscopic. It's easy to make if the wheel is microscopic because nutriments can just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, but people did. under intense comet bombardement. try to do it yourself in the same conditions Oh I think if I tried real hard I could figure out how to make a wheel that you didn't need a electron microscope to see, particularly if you gave me 3.8 billion years to work on the problem. But the task stumped Evolution. If there is no weel in natural evolution is because legs are far superior. Claiming that nature could find no use for a macroscopic part that could move in 360 degrees, a part like a neck or a shoulder or a wrist or a ball bearing, is simply not credible. And I have no doubt that a supersonic bird or a propeller driven whale or a fire breathing lizard or a nuclear powered cow could successfully fill environmental niches, but making such a thing was just too hard for random mutation and natural selection to do. The claim of superiority of reason over nature is the last vestige of unjustified antropocentrism Anthropomorphism is a very useful tool but like any tool it can be misused; not all anthropomorphisms are unjustified. in its most dangerous form: Pride and self worship. Guilty as charged, I'm a big fan of pride and self worship, it may be a bit dangerous but is sure beats the hell out of worshiping God. evolution works simultaneously with infinite variables Evolution does not work in the rarefied realm of pure mathematics it works in the physical world, and as near as we can tell in physics there is not a infinite number of anything. we NEVER are sure of knowing in FULL the reasons behind an evolutionary design True, but we don't need to know all the reasons to make something better; we don't know all the factors than caused bone to have the exact composition that it does, but a human made titanium girder is a hell of a lot stronger than any bone. That gives evolutionary design an appearance of mess poor design It certainly does! This is NOT the case. Baloney. Evolution has no need to be perfect because an organism need not be perfect, it just needs to be a little better than the competition. Just look at the cells of the retina of the eye of any vertebrate animal, the blood vessels that feed those cells and the nerves that communicate with them aren’t in the back of the eye as would be logical but at the front, so light must pass through them before the light hits the light sensitive cells, this makes vision less sharp than it would otherwise be and creates a blind spot right in the middle of the visual field. No amount of spin can turn this dopey mess into a good design, a human engineer would have to be drunk to come up with a hodgepodge like that. If evolution and reason collide, the prudent is to consider that the reason don´t know enough. That's not being prudent that's just making lame excuses for Evolution. In the case of invertebrates nature got it right and so in the eye of a squid it put the blood vessels and nerves in the back of the eye as any idiot can see where they belong, but it's far too late for Evolution to give that improvement to vertebrates because it would have to go backwards and start over, and with Evolution every change must confer a immediate advantage; Evolution can never admit that it made a mistake in the past but must always blindly march forward, a human designer can swallow his pride junk his old design an create a new and better standard. natural evolution does not start from scratch it has to modify previous designsz Exactly, and that is a huge disadvantage, Evolution can't erase anything it can only add new crap on top of the old crap because every change must confer a immediate advantage. Consider the task of changing the tire on a car and imagine if every single part of the task no matter how small, every movement of a bolt every adjustment of both the flat and the good tire, must confer a IMMEDIATE advantage to the operation of the car. You'd never get the tire changed! while reason without the help of tradiction, operates from scratch. Yes, so a human can jump directly from the tangled mess of DOS to a clean streamlined operating system like LINUX, but Evolution can only add even more tangled bells and whistles to DOS. John K
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 5:54 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: When you say Random mutation can wire together a small number of cells such that if there is a sudden change in the light levels in the environment, like a shadow covering it, a snail will retreat into its shell, you have assumed sense and awareness to begin with. I can reproduce the same rudimentary behavior with a few dozen transistors, or vacuum tubes, or mechanical relays; if you assume that simple snail has awareness then my machines do too. in theory, random mutation can't wire together anything. Huh? Nothing can be wired together in a universe which is devoid of any capacity for detections, responses, and their meta-consequences. I don't know what you're talking about, a toy robot can and does detect things and makes responses that are determined by what it detects. This is already awareness. If particle X coming into contact with particle Y is awareness then everything is aware, which is equivalent to nothing is aware. For a concept to have meaning you need contrast. You are already assuming a mechanism in which one thing can have something to do with another thing I'm not assuming machines exist, I know for a fact that they do. where there can be a such thing as 'light levels' or other experiences of coherent sensation/detection. You are already assuming participatory efficacy in the perception event Photoelectric detectors have existed for a long time and Einstein explained how they work in 1905, I'm not sure I'd say these machines perceive the light but if you want to use that word I won't argue the point. the snail will retreat into its shell means that something is able to detect the external condition and causally effect the behavior of the cells of the snail to the point that they physically contract and move into a different position within the shell. And a high school kid for his science fair project could make a robot snail that does the exact same thing, and he probably wouldn't even win first place. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: Yes, so a human can jump directly from the tangled mess of DOS to a clean streamlined operating system like LINUX, but Evolution can only add even more tangled bells and whistles to DOS. John K Clark Actually, one could argue with this analogy. Linux bears no ancestral relationship with DOS - rather it is descended (in some sense) from Unix, I know, that was my point. If Evolution was dissatisfied with DOS it couldn't start from scratch and switch to a new operating system like Linux or Unix, it could only add more bells and whistles to DOS. Actually it's even worse than that, imagine if you had to improve DOS but you couldn't remove a single line of code or even part of a line unless it conferred a IMMEDIATE advantage to the operation of the system, nor could you add a line of code no matter how short unless it conferred a IMMEDIATE advantage to the operation of the system. Linux had less of a requirement to be backward compatible, Yes, even for human designers once a standard is set it's not practical to switch to a new one unless its enormously better; and with Evolution it's flat out impossible because it can't backtrack its steps, that's why we're stuck with an eye with the blood vessels and nerves put in backward. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: To paraphrase Carl, 'First, you have to invent the universe.' You want to know why there is something rather than nothing and Science can't provide a good answer to that, but depending on exactly what you mean by nothing it can give some pretty good half answers, and at least it can explain why there is a lot rather than very little. Religion can't even give half answers, not to anything. If you smuggle in teleology into your metaphysics a priori, then you have already given evolution the power to behave sensibly. I'm not doing any smuggling, I'm openly saying that a high school kid can make a robot that behaves sensibly with just a few transistors. This is begging the question since what you are supposed to be proving is how teleological systems can come out of mathematical probability alone. I can't do that and never claimed I could, and you can't do it either. I'm saying that conscious systems must be a byproduct of intelligent systems because otherwise Evolution would have no reason to produce them and they would not exist on this planet, and yet we know with certainty that they do; or rather I know with certainty that one does. In mathematics there is something called a existence proof or non-constructive proof, in it you don't provide an example but you do prove that a object with certain properties must exist; I can't say how intelligence makes consciousness but I have a existence proof that it does. Without smuggling teleology in the first place, there is nothing to mutate. Huh? Of course there is something to mutate, genes, and genes are not in the teleology business, they are not interested in purpose because genes are not intelligent and only intelligence can get into the teleology business, but genes are still interested in causes. Nothing can make sense or define itself, Two hydrogen atoms don't need to define themselves nor do they need to make sense out of things to get together and form a molecule. Does your universe come with toy robots built in? Do toy robots appear by themselves from quantum foam? No. Everything is not only aware, Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware. everything is awareness. Robots are something so robots are aware too, but that's not very interesting because if everything is awareness then awareness is not very interesting. You might as well say everything is klogknee. We are talking about how inert matter or abstract probability becomes it's exact opposite - living, sentient agents. Yes, in other words we are talking about Evolution. You seem to have no way to grasp the difference between the menu and the meal. There is no such thing as a robot snail. I've heard it all before, in that analogy and a million like it you keep insisting that a intelligent human can only play the role of the meal and a intelligent computer can only play the role of the menu, but your Fart Philosophy has not provided a single reason to convince me that is in fact true. before anything can have an evolutionary consequence, there already has to be something making sense of something by itself Why? RNA can't make sense out of anything but some RNA chains can reproduce faster than others, and that gives them a Evolutionary advantage. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: I'm openly saying that a high school kid can make a robot that behaves sensibly with just a few transistors. Only because he lives in a universe in which the possibility of teleology is fully supported from the start. We know with absolute certainty that the laws of physics in this universe allow for the creation of consciousness, we may not know how they do it but we know for a fact that it can be done. So how on Earth does that indicate that a conscious computer is not possible? Because it doesn't fart? you have erroneously assumed that intelligence is possible without sense experience. No, I am assuming the exact OPPOSITE! In fact I'm not even assuming, I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage, and I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITH consciousness confers no additional Evolutionary advantage (and if you disagree with that point then you must believe that the Turing Test works for consciousness too and not just intelligence). And in spite of all this I know for a fact that Evolution DID produce consciousness at least once, therefore the only conclusion is that consciousness is a byproduct of intellagence. Adenine and Thymine don't have purpose in seeking to bind with each other? I don't even know what a question like that means, who's purpose do you expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? How do you know? I know because I have intelligence and Adenine and Thymine do not know because they have none, they only have cause and effect. How is it different from our purpose in staying in close proximity to places to eat and sleep? And to think that some people berated me for anthropomorphizing future supercomputers and here you are anthropomorphizing simple chemicals. Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware? Because then we wouldn't be aware of having this conversation. And we are aware of having this conversation because everything is aware, except of course for computers. Robots are something No, they aren't something. That is just a little too silly to argue. Everything is awareness Are you certain, I thought everything is klogknee, or maybe its everything is 42. evolution requires that something be alive to begin with. Evolution requires something that can reproduce itself, there is no universally agreed on definition of life so if you want to say that viruses and RNA strings and crystals and clay patterns and Von Neumann Machines are alive I won't argue with you and will agree that Evolution requires that something be alive to get started. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Evolution outshines reason by far
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com wrote: I explained in a post above why evolution does not select weels. An autonomous living being must be topologically connected, and weels are not. Explaining why Evolution is incompetent does not make it one bit less incompetent. No autonomous robot with weels can work for long time without supoort. And a biological organism can not work for a long time period. Everything dies. And the Laxey Water Wheel won't last forever either but it was built in 1854 and still works fine. And John Harrison's big wooden clock at Brocklesby Park contains lots and lots of wheels, it was built in 1722, needs virtually no maintenance and works beautifully to this day. . Evolution does not work in the rarefied realm of pure mathematics it works in the physical world, and as near as we can tell in physics there is not a infinite number of anything. Evolution works with the computer of all reality Evolution works with physical reality and as I said physics has not found a infinite number of anything. It is massivelly parallel. Yes. it has the maximum paralellism that may be achieved Bullshit. Evolution isn't the maximum of anything and never produces the perfect solution to a problem, it just produces a solution; and then a few years or maybe a few million years later it produces a solution that is a little bit better but still very far from perfect. Just look at the cells of the retina of the eye of any vertebrate animal, the blood vessels that feed those cells and the nerves that communicate with them aren’t in the back of the eye as would be logical but at the front, so light must pass through them before the light hits the light sensitive cells, this makes vision less sharp than it would otherwise be and creates a blind spot right in the middle of the visual field. No amount of spin can turn this dopey mess into a good design, a human engineer would have to be drunk to come up with a hodgepodge like that. This desing is better because it permits the eye to rotate. How the hell does the nutrient support pipeline and communication cable coming out of the front of the eye where it interferes with the light make an eye easier to rotate than if all that support machinery were out of the way and came out the back?? And a invertebrate like a squid which has all the eyes plumbing and nerves at the back as anybody can see they should be can move its eyes in ways that we can not. If we turn our head sideways our eyes do too, but a squid can keep its eyes horizontal if it wants to. And the eye is far from the only example of Evolutionary incompetence. The vagus nerve connects the brain to the larynx, in a giraffe the two organs are less than a foot apart, but the vagus nerve is more than 15 feet long, it runs all the way down the neck and then double backs and goes back up the neck to the larynx; no human designer would be that stupid. evolution does not work by modofying the best design every time. tha´ts wrong. Yes that's wrong and it's wrong for two reasons: 1) Evolution never ever works with the best design. 2) Even if it did there would be no need to modify it because its already the best design. He works with all variations that the genetic code can produce. BULLSHIT!! Evolution hasn't even come close to investigating all variations that the genetic code can produce! The human genome has 3.2 billion base pairs, there are 4 bases so that means there are 4^3,200,000,000 variations of the human genetic code; by means of comparison, there are only about 4^90 atoms in the observable universe, calling that number astronomically smaller doesn't do it justice but it's the best word I could come up with. So there must be potential humans being that would be superior to any that has ever been born using any criteria for superior you care to name. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: We know with absolute certainty that the laws of physics in this universe allow for the creation of consciousness, we may not know how they do it but we know for a fact that it can be done. Absolutely not. We know no such thing. We do unless we abandon reason and pretend that the non answers that religion provides actually explain something, or that your Fart Philosophy explains something when it says that consciousness exists because consciousness exists. Computers which have been programmed thus far don't have conscious experiences. Would you agree that is a fact? No, I most certainly do NOT agree that it is a fact that computers are not conscious, nor is it a fact that Craig Weinberg has conscious experiences; it is only a fact that sometimes both behave intelligently. I understand that the capacity to have a conscious experience is inversely proportionate to the capacity fro that experience to be controlled from the outside. So the more stimulation you get through your senses of the outside environment the less conscious you become. Huh? I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage Which fact is that? That intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage. Having difficulty with your reading comprehension? Which intelligent behavior do you know that you can be certain exists without any subjective experience associated with it? I am aware of no such behavior. The only intelligent behavior I know with certainty that is always associated with subjective experience is my own. But I know with certainty there are 2 possibilities: 1) Intelligent behavior is always associated with subjective experience, if so then if a computer beats you at any intellectual pursuit then it has a subjective experience, assuming of course that you yourself are intelligent. And I'll let you pick the particular intellectual pursuit for the contest. 2) Intelligent behavior is NOT associated with subjective experience, in which case there is no reason for Evolution to produce consciousness and I have no explanation for why I am here, and I have reason to believe that I am the only conscious being in the universe. I know for a fact that intelligent behavior WITH consciousness confers no additional Evolutionary advantage (and if you disagree with that point then you must believe that the Turing Test works for consciousness too and not just intelligence). Yet you think that consciousness must have evolved. Yes. No contradiction there? No contradiction there if consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence, a massive contradiction if it is not; so massive that human beings could not be conscious, and yet I am, and perhaps you are too. You think that every behavior in biology exists purely because of evolution Yes. except consciousness, which you have no explanation for My explanation is that intelligence produces consciousness, I don't know exactly how but if Evolution is true then there is a proof that it does. I know for a fact that Evolution DID produce consciousness at least once, therefore the only conclusion is that consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence. A byproduct that does what??? A byproduct that produces consciousness. Having difficulty with your reading comprehension? who's purpose do you expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? The purpose of their attraction to each other. That's nice, but I repeat, who's purpose do you expect Adenine and Thymine to serve? Where do you think your intelligence to know this comes from? Surely it is the result in large part of Adenine and Thymine's contribution to the intelligence of DNA. If everything (except for some reason computers!) is intelligent, if even simple molecules are intelligent then the word has no meaning and is equivalent to nothing is intelligent or everything is klogknee or nothing is klogknee. Robots are something No, they aren't something. That is just a little too silly to argue. You think that a picture of a pipe is a pipe, so you think that a machine made of things is also a thing. You are incorrect. I think that a picture of a pipe is something, you don't and you are not just incorrect you are silly. I don't experience anything other than awareness So you say. However you won't believe that a computer is conscious regardless of how brilliantly it behaves or how vehemently it insists that it is, so why should I believe you when you claim to be conscious? space intentionally left blank for the supercomputers of the future to come back in time with their super conscious intelligence and join the conversation I don't see the point of that, no matter what they did no matter how brilliantly or nobly they conversed you'd still insist they were not conscious because you think that the elements in their brain
Re: The real reasons we don’t have AGI yet
How David Deutsch can watch a computer beat the 2 best human Jeopardy! players on planet Earth and then say that AI has made “no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence” is a complete mystery to me. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Ok, which computers do you think have conscious experiences? Windows laptops? Deep Blue? Cable TV boxes? How the hell should I know if computers have conscious experiences? How the hell should I know if people have conscious experiences? All I know for certain is that some things external to me display intelligent behavior and some things do not, from that point on everything is conjecture and theory; I happen to think that intelligence is associated with consciousness is a pretty good theory but I admit it's only a theory and if your theory is that you're the only conscious being in the universe I can't prove you wrong. Is it a fact that you have conscious experiences? Yes, however I have no proof of that, or at least none I can share with anyone else, so I would understand if you don't believe me; however to believe me but not to believe a computer that made a similar claim just because you don't care for the elements out of which it is made would be rank bigotry. Stimulation that you get thorough your senses of the outside environment does not control you. The difference between influence and control is just one of degree not of kind. Usually lots of things cause us to do what we do, if all of them came from the outside then its control, if only some of the causes were external and some were internal, such as memory, then its influence. intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage. Having difficulty with your reading comprehension? but what example or law are you basing this on? Who says this is a fact other than you? It almost seems that you're trying to say that intelligent behavior gives an organism no advantage over a organism that is stupid, but nobody is that stupid; so what are you saying? Who claims to know that intelligence without consciousness exists? I give up, who claims to know that intelligence without consciousness exists? The only intelligent behavior I know with certainty that is always associated with subjective experience is my own. But I know with certainty there are 2 possibilities: 1) Intelligent behavior is always associated with subjective experience, if so then if a computer beats you at any intellectual pursuit then it has a subjective experience, assuming of course that you yourself are intelligent. And I'll let you pick the particular intellectual pursuit for the contest. 2) Intelligent behavior is NOT associated with subjective experience, in which case there is no reason for Evolution to produce consciousness and I have no explanation for why I am here, and I have reason to believe that I am the only conscious being in the universe. I choose 3) The existence of intelligent behavior is contingent upon recognition and interpretation by a conscious agent. That's EXACTLY the same as #1, you're saying that intelligent behavior without consciousness is impossible, I can't prove it but I suspect you're probably right. And if we are right then a computer beating you at a intellectual task is evidence that it is conscious, assuming only that you yourself are intelligent and conscious. Behavior can be misinterpreted by a conscious agent as having a higher than actual quality of subjectivity when it doesn't But that's what I'm asking, what behavior gave you the clue that it would be a misinterpretation to attribute consciousness to something? This started with your question Which intelligent behavior do you know that you can be certain exists without any subjective experience associated with it? I said there was no behavior to enable us to determine what is conscious and what is not, all you're basically saying is that conscious intellectual behavior is intellectual behavior in which consciousness is involved; and I already knew that, and it is not helpful in figuring out what is conscious and what is not. No being that we know of has become conscious by means of intelligence alone. Other than ourselves we know with certainty of no other being that is conscious PERIOD. All we can do is observe intelligent behavior and make guesses from there. Every conscious being develops sensorimotor and emotional awareness before any cognitive intelligence arises. How they hell do you know? Babies cry before they talk. Yes, without a doubt babies exhibit crying behavior before talking behavior, their brains need further development and they need to gain more knowledge before they can advance from one sort of behavior to another; and that is perfectly consistent with my belief that emotion is easy but intelligence is hard. You think that every behavior in biology exists purely because of evolution Every biological structure exists purely because of Evolution, however one of those physical structures, the brain, allows for a far far richer range of behavior than Evolution can provide, behaviors contingent on astronomically complex
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I have no trouble at all saying that zero computers are conscious and that all living people have had conscious experiences. Fine say what you want, but I'll never be able to prove you right and I'll never be able to prove you wrong so what you're saying on that subject, even if you're managing to say it with no trouble, is of little interest. Why do you think that you know that? What makes a behavior intelligent? Over how long a time period are we talking about? Is a species as a whole intelligent? Are ecosystems intelligent? Caves full of growing crystals? Sorry but 6 rhetorical questions in a row exceeds my rhetorical quota. When did I ever say that I am the only conscious being in the universe? I give up, when did you say that you are the only conscious being in the universe? And if you didn't say it I'd be curious to know why you did not say it as no behavior by your fellow creatures can prove you are not. They are literally automatons. Computers and automatons are no different from you, they do things for a reason or they do not do things for a reason. A rock will not sing showtunes if given a chance. That is totally incorrect. A rock will sing show tunes so beautifully it will make the original cast of Cats weep, all it needs is for the atoms in the rock to be organized in the correct way, and to do that all you need is very small fingers and information. If they [computers] caused everything to happen without us, then there would be no us. Yes. What does that have to do with this idea of yours that intelligence can exist without consciousness? I don't know because I don't know what the hell you're talking about. That's not my idea, in fact although I can't prove it I've said many times that I very strongly suspect that intelligence can NOT exist without consciousness, that's why I very strongly suspect that my fellow human beings are conscious like me, at least they are when they are not sleeping or under anesthesia or dead. The reason I'm so confident of this is that Evolution would have no reason to produce consciousness if it were not linked with intelligence. I give up, who claims to know that intelligence without consciousness exists? You. Very insistently: intelligent behavior WITHOUT consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage. Yes I said that and I stand by the fact that intelligent behavior without consciousness confers a Evolutionary advantage over non-intelligent behavior with or without consciousness, and I stand by my comment that intelligent behavior with consciousness confers no additional Evolutionary advantage. However important consciousness may be to us to Evolution it's a useless fifth wheel, and yet it produced this useless thing, so it must be a byproduct of something that is not useless, like intelligence. A computer beating you at chess is evidence that the intelligent behavior of conscious computer programmers is effective at fooling you that the computer is intelligent and conscious. Fooling you?? It is a factual depiction of reality that the computer beat you at chess and there is no doubt about it, its right there in front of your eyes! You lost, the computer won, its a fact. If there is any fooling going on it's directed inward and you're trying to fool yourself into thinking that you have not really lost, or you're just being a sore looser and whining that the computer cheated in some vague undefined way. And if the computer's intelligence, as displayed by skillfully playing the game, is just due to the intelligent behavior of conscious computer programmers then I don't understand why the machine can beat those programmers as easily as it beat you. And I don't even understand why you believe those computer programmers were conscious. what behavior gave you the clue that it would be a misinterpretation to attribute consciousness to something? Every behavior of a computer gives me the clue. They will sit and do the same thing over and over forever. It's true that existing computers seem a tad autistic, but then humans went to great pains to give them that attribute. They [computers] are incapable of figuring out when they are wrong Exactly precisely like some human beings I know. Piaget proved it. Bullshit! Piaget proved stuff about behavior but he proved nothing about consciousness, not even that it exists. I agree that emotion is more primitive than actual intelligence So you think it would be easier to make a emotional computer than a intelligent one. behavior that is not hardwired in the genes. Sounds like free will. Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII characters free will mean. My explanation works (at least to the extent that you have no counterfactuals). I don't understand what sort of counter factual you're talking about. Why is panexperientialism begging the question if it's true? Because it just says that
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 10 Oct 2012, at 13:31, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal I think that consciousness, intelligence and some measure of free will are necessary and inseparable parts of life itself. consciousness / \ / \ / \ / life \ /\ / \ free will--**intelligence I agree with this. I'm curious what there is in free will that you agree with, I neither agree nor disagree with it. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Conscious robots
On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Consciousness is easy if you already have consciousness. It is impossible if you don't. But you believe in panexperientialism, you believe that everything is conscious, so if you are correct then consciousness is not only possible it's easy. QED. Everything assumes that consciousness exists as a possibility in the universe It's not a assumption it's a fact that for consciousness to exist there must have been a time when the possibility of the existence of consciousness existed. In a similar way some religious types have criticized Krauss's book A Universe From Nothing because it's not really nothing, its just from very very little because Krauss had to start from a place where there was at least the potential for something, and they insist that very potential is something. Apparently those same religious types don't consider God to be something, and for once I agree with them. prior to the existence of the universe It's not clear what that means. Without the universe you can't have time because time involves change and if nothing exists then nothing changes; and without time the word prior has no meaning. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Free Will-- You need enough freedom My difficulty with the free will noise is not the will part, you want to do some things and don't want to do others and that's clear, my difficulty is with the free part; and all you're saying is that free will is a will that is free so that does not help me. to make a choice of your own. A choice made for a reason or a choice made for no reason; it's deterministic or it's random. Strictly speaking, I prefer the term self-determination meaning by anything inside your skin. And that thing inside your skin that made you choose X rather than Y came to be there for a reason (memory, your DNA, environmental factors, etc) or it came to be inside your skin for no reason at all in which case it was random. I still have absolutely no idea what the free will noise is supposed to mean and a very much doubt that you or anybody else does either; and yet despite not having the slightest idea of what it means they will continue to passionately believe it. Weird. I neither believe nor disbelieve in free will. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if rather than is
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Comp seems to avoid this insurmountable problem by avoiding the issue of whether the computer actually had an experience, only that it appeared to have an experience. So comp's requirement is as if rather than is. In other words exactly precisely the same procedure you have used every hour of every day of every year of your waking life to determine if your fellow human beings are behaving as if they are conscious or not. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:28 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It's [free will] a simple enough concept I think that's true, although I may be using a somewhat different meaning of the word simple than you are. that it is used in law courts True. a venue not noted for metaphysical sophistication Astronomically true!! Free is the contrary of coerced. But I don't know what coerced will means either. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The missing agent of materialism
On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 , Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: IMHO everything that happens happens for a reason. Opinions, humble or otherwise, really don't count for much, the universe will continue doing what it is doing regardless of your opinion; and modern physics tells us that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that everything that happens happens for a reason. But for the sake of argument let's assume you're correct, then you are as deterministic a cuckoo clock. The reason can be physical or IMHO mental. It makes perfect sense to say I picked X and not Y just because I wanted to, in that case there was a reason for me doing what I did just as there was a reason for the cuckoo clock doing what it did. And because everything happens for a reason then there must be a reason I wanted to pick X not Y. Which is IMHO why life, intelligence and free will are inseparable. It's astonishing how so many people say that free will is of central importance and yet not one of them can give a coherent explanation of what the hell it's supposed to mean. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Keep in mind that I use the compatibilist definition of free will, which is the (machine) ability to exploits its self-indetermination (with indetermination in the Turing sense, (not in the comp first person sense, nor the quantum one). It is basically the ability to do conscious choice. I can't keep it in mind because the above sounds very much like gibberish. Intelligence implies free will, and free will implies consciousness. And even if it wasn't gibberish it would be circular because your definition of free will involves consciousness. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: So you see no reason to draw a legal distinction between a banker to takes money from his bank to support a more lavish life style and one who does it to keep a bank robber from shooting him? No. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Keep in mind that I use the compatibilist definition of free will, which is the (machine) ability to exploits its self-indetermination (with indetermination in the Turing sense, (not in the comp first person sense, nor the quantum one). It is basically the ability to do conscious choice. I can't keep it in mind because the above sounds very much like gibberish. What exactly sounds like gibberish? Well, to list the gibberish we should probably begin with the comp first person sense, but that's just the start. We mustn't forget the very word compatibilists because they like to make noises like free will and determinism are compatible ideas without having the slightest idea what free will means. Or compatibilist, who insist that free will can exist for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics but fail to realize that if it exists for any reason, metaphysical or otherwise, then it's deterministic. And lets not forget those who insist that in order to qualify as free will the conscious choice must not be done for a reason AND it must not not be done for a reason. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if rather thanis
On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: if you could tell me how to determine if a computer has intelligence The same way I determine if one of my fellow human beings is intelligent, if he beats me at a intellectual task then he's intelligent, in fact he's more intelligent than I am at least at that task. A few people are more intelligent than me at nearly everything, some are better at only a few very specialized tasks and some are better than me at nothing, like people in a coma or dead people. free will What a odd sequence of ASCII characters, perhaps your keyboard had a malfunction. consciousness I detect consciousness in computers the exact same way I determine it in my fellow human beings, I guess. I guess that if they're behaving intelligently then they're conscious. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Yes, Doctor!
On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 , Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: NDEs are like UFOs. Yes they're both bullshit. The trouble with UFOs is that people forget what the U stands for and keep identifying the damn thing as a flying saucer from another planet; I see a light in the sky and I don't know what it is, therefore it's a spaceship full of aliens. Bullshit is it not? The trouble with NDEs is that people forget what the N stands for, because as Monty Python taught us decades ago, being nearly dead just isn't good enough. CDEs would be far more interesting, when you find somebody that has been COMPLETELY dead and buried for a decade or two and comes back and tells us what experiences he had then talk to me again. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Yes, Doctor!
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: This is supposed to be a scientific discussion. Yes, so why are you talking about NDEs and UFOs? If I was interested in that crap I wouldn't read a scientific journal or go to the Everything List, I'd just pick up a copy of the National Enquirer at my local supermarket, that way I'd also get the astrology column and I could read about the diet tips of the movie stars. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: But if a computer beats you at an intelligent task, it would have to be programmed to do so. And you would have to be educated to do so. which means that its intelligence would be that of the programmer. Then how can the computer beat that very same programer? Computers cannot make free choices Computers can do things for a reason or they can do things for no reason (if they have a simple hardware random number generator), and that makes them absolutely no different than you. they have no intelligence. I don't think you really want to say that because they just beat you at a intellectual task, so if they have zero intelligence then the only logical conclusion to make is that your intelligence is less than zero. free will What a odd sequence of ASCII characters, perhaps your keyboard had a malfunction. ? ! I already asked you how you would determine the intelligence of a computer but your answer made no sense. I replied to your question with I detect consciousness in computers the exact same way I determine it in my fellow human beings, I guess. I guess that if they're behaving intelligently then they're conscious. What word didn't you understand? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Re: Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: you can see from the differences between conjoined twins, who have the same nature and nurture, the same environment, that they are not the same people That is true they are not the same people, and just like EVERYTHING else they are not the same people for a reason or they are not the same people for no reason. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Zombieopolis Thought Experiment
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 4:46 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: And lets not forget those who insist that in order to qualify as free will the conscious choice must not be done for a reason AND it must not not be done for a reason. Why? They are inconsistent Very inconsistent! so I suggest that, on the contrary, we do forget them. That is excellent advice, if philosophers never uttered the term free will again they would be far far better off. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Just because it looks to us that the computer is following rules doesn't mean that it is. So now you don't like computers because they don't follow rules, before you didn't like computers because they did follow rules. We should not assume that suddenly a disembodied conscious agent appears somewhere just because we are impressed with the sophistication of a particular reflex action. We weren't talking about consciousness we were talking about intelligence, but I can understand why you'd want to change the subject because consciousness speculation is so easy and intelligence speculation is so hard. Reflexes can be as complicated as we want to make them, it doesn't turn them into voluntary actions. Just like everything else reflexes and voluntary actions happen for a reason or they do not happen for a reason. The computer still has no choices. Just like everything else a computer chooses X and not Y for a reason or a computer chooses X and not Y for no reason. It can't throw a match because it doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings. Not true. Winning the game might not even be the computer's goal, its goal might be to cheer up the human. And the computer can certainly include the emotional state of it's human opponent in its decision making process if it had a database about how to deduce human emotions from human behavior. True, the computer might make the wrong connection between behavior and emotion, but the humans might be wrong about that too; in fact we know for a fact that sometimes they are, sometimes people misread people. What makes intelligence is the ability to step out of the system, to transcend the rules entirely or understand them in a new context. Computers don't do that. Hey Craig, no matter how hard you try to spin it, no matter how bad a loser you are, the fact remains that you just got your ass handed to you by a computer in that game of Chess you had with it, and again at checkers, and in that equation solving game, and at Jeopardy. I don't care if you or the computer transcended the rules or didn't transcend the rules because it doesn't change the fact that the computer won and YOU LOST! I remember when I was in grade school playing softball at recess the losing team ALWAYS accused the winning team of cheating, it was tradition. Adults aren't supposed to do that sort of whining, but often they do. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Since we know that our consciousness You don't know diddly squat about our consciousness, you only know about your consciousness; assuming of course that you are conscious, if not then you don't even know that. is exquisitely sensitive to particular masses of specific chemicals, yet relatively tolerant of other kinds of chemical changes, And a computer is exquisitely sensitive to particular voltages and not sensitive at all to other voltages that don't make the threshold. it suggests that we should strongly suspect that COMP is a fantasy. And so the computer strongly suspects that biological consciousness is a fantasy. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: I think he [Chambers] goes wrong by assuming a priori that consciousness is functional, I've asked you this question dozens of times but you have never coherently answered it: If consciousness doesn't do anything then Evolution can't see it, so how and why did Evolution produce it? The fact that you have no answer to this means your ideas are fatally flawed. that personal consciousness is an assembly of sub-personal parts which can be isolated and reproduced based on exterior behavior. I don't assume that at all. And I've asked you another question that you also have no answer for: If we can deduce nothing about consciousness from behavior then why do you believe that your fellow human beings are conscious when they are behaving as if they are awake, and why do you believe that they are not conscious when they are sleeping or undergoing anesthesia or behaving as if they were dead and rotting in the ground? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: You don't know diddly squat about our consciousness, you only know about your consciousness; assuming of course that you are conscious, if not then you don't even know that. If that were true, then you don't know diddly squat about what I know. Not true, I know you don't have a proof of the Goldbach Conjecture. Well OK, I don't know that with absolute certainty, maybe you have a proof but are keeping it secret for some strange reason, but my knowledge is more than diddly squat because I very strongly suspect you have no such proof and I'm probably right. But I do know for certain that you don't have a valid proof that 2+2=5 or a way to directly detect consciousness in any mind other than your own. You can't have it both ways. Either it is possible that we know things or it is not. That is most certainly true, it is possible to know things, it's just not possible to know all things. You can't claim to be omniscient about my ignorance. It's almost as if you're claiming your ignorance is vast, well I admit I am not omniscient about your ignorance, no doubt you are ignorant about things that I don't know you are ignorant of. Let's see how computer fares under a giant junkyard magnet. Let's see how you fare in a junkyard car crusher. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Did I ever say that I thought computers followed rules? I was under the impression that you believed all computers did was blindly follow programed rules. Apparently not. Not only are your ideas foolish they are inconsistently foolish, you can't even organize your nonsense. Computers are unconscious. How the hell do you know? They don't follow anything. Then why is there a multi-trillion dollar software industry that does nothing but make rules for computers to follow? The parts that computers are made of are ruled by physical states, but I would not say that they follow any rules either. So now not only do conscious computers not exist but even the laws of physics don't exist. Craig, do you honestly believe that spouting crap like that helps anyone figure out how the world works? What exactly do you think that intelligence is? I refuse to give a definition because when it comes to understanding what words mean examples are FAR more important, in fact examples are where lexicographers go to get the information needed to devise the definitions in their dictionaries. So intelligence is what you need to solve equations or play chess or beat the two best human players on the planet at Jeopardy. To exercise voluntary control is to create your own reason. And EVERYTHING that is created, including reasons themselves, including even your own reasons, was itself created for a reason, OR it was not created for a reason. There are sub-personal and super-personal reasons to create a reason Fine. but they are not sufficient to account for the next step of the creation of a new reason on the personal level. So reasons are not sufficient, that's fine, logic doesn't demand that everything have a reason; and there is a convenient word to describe something that was created for no reason, random. The computer doesn't choose anything. A function is executed, that is all. A function is executed?!! A function is a rule, that is all. And yet just a few lines above in this very post you were telling me that computers don't follow rules and that they don't follow anything. You can't even get your bad ideas straight. Let me offer a word of advice, when you debate someone a effective strategy is not to simply negate anything and everything that your opponent says, you've got to organize a logical and consistent line of attack. It can't throw a match because it doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings. Not true. Winning the game might not even be the computer's goal, its goal might be to cheer up the human. ? ! So now you are saying that we can deduce consciousness from behavior? I am saying I guess consciousness from behavior, and I do so every single hour of my waking life and I have a strong hunch you do too. I can't prove that my guess is correct but I will continue to act as if I can because I could not function if I believed I was the only conscious being in the universe and I have a strong hunch you couldn't either. Hey Craig, no matter how hard you try to spin it, no matter how bad a loser you are, the fact remains that you just got your ass handed to you by a computer in that game of Chess you had with it, and again at checkers, and in that equation solving game, and at Jeopardy. I don't care if you or the computer transcended the rules or didn't transcend the rules because it doesn't change the fact that the computer won and YOU LOST! Who cares? You Craig Weinberg will care. You will care very much when a person or a computer smarter than you uses intelligence to arrange things its way and not in ways that you Craig Weinberg would prefer. When you lose your job because a smarter person or computer can do it better than you and then fools you into giving it all your savings and then tricks you into thinking it would be a good idea to walk into the meat grinder of a dog food factory then you Craig Weinberg are going to care a great deal that YOU LOST. Adults are supposed to have outgrown seeing the world in terms of winning. Where in the world did you get that idea? Do you imagine that consciousness is a game? How should I know? I don't know diddly squat about consciousness, or to put it another way, I know precisely as much about it as you do. But I do know that games involve intelligence. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: I know you don't have a proof of the Goldbach Conjecture. Well OK, I don't know that with absolute certainty, maybe you have a proof but are keeping it secret for some strange reason, but my knowledge is more than diddly squat because I very strongly suspect you have no such proof and I'm probably right. But I do know for certain that you don't have a valid proof that 2+2=5 or a way to directly detect consciousness in any mind other than your own. Then you are claiming to know about our consciousness instead of just your own. I am claiming that you don't possess a valid proof that 2+2=5 because there is no such proof to possess. Let's see how computer fares under a giant junkyard magnet. Let's see how you fare in a junkyard car crusher. translation - I concede, I have no argument. So lets see, a giant junkyard magnet is a devastating logical argument but a junkyard car crusher is not. Explain to me how that works. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 2:40 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: If consciousness doesn't do anything then Evolution can't see it, so how and why did Evolution produce it? The fact that you have no answer to this means your ideas are fatally flawed. I don't see this as a *fatal* flaw. Evolution, as you've noted, is not a paradigm of efficient design. Consciousness might just be a side-effect But that's exactly what I've been saying for months, unless Darwin was dead wrong consciousness must be a side effect of intelligence, so a intelligent computer must be a conscious computer. And I don't think Darwin was dead wrong. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: That there are literally laws which physics obeys is a fairy tale. That statement is ignorance pure and simple. How can reason be created for a reason (circular) or created not for a reason I don't understand what part of X is Y OR X is not Y confuses you. (something from nothing)? Exactly. As I've said before there is no logical reason that every event must have a cause, logically some things can be random; and modern physics tells us that it's not only logical possible its physically actual. The computer doesn't choose anything. A function is executed, that is all. A function is executed?!! A function is a rule, that is all. No. A rule is 'don't cross the yellow lines'. Functions have domains and ranges, in this case the car and the area inside the yellow lines. A function is the use of the steering column to turn the wheels of the car. Yes. the domain is the movement of the steering column and the range the movement of the car. Huge difference. No difference. It's a shame you never studied elementary algebra. Rules do nothing unless something follows them. Something like a function. Functions potentially cause physical changes. And so can rules. You have no idea what I am talking about. True. The question now is, do you know what you are talking about? Why couldn't you function if you believed you were the only conscious being in the universe? I think we can all agree that's a pretty stupid question. As I've said, just negating everything your opponent says doesn't work, you've got to have a strategy. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: while most people are content to accept that these [physical] 'laws' simply 'are', I am more inclined to question what exactly we mean by that. It's a pity you weren't also inclined to question what exactly we mean by free will given that you love to make that sound and write that ASCII sequence so much. What law allows laws to simply exist? I don't know and don't know why such things are needed, or even desired. I am asking about the origin of 'reason' itself: I don't even know if reason had a origin and neither do you. How can reason be created (for the very first time in the cosmos) for a reason Beats me. I don't know if there was a very first time, logic does not demand that there be one; and even if there were logic doesn't demand that everything happen for a reason. fails because it is circular Describe that circle. fails because it attributes something from nothing Nothing wrong with that, and even if there were your theory would be in as much trouble as mine or anybody's theory. Do you see that you argument against free will is also an argument against the existence of any reason at all? No I don't see that. There are no arguments against free will and there are no arguments in favor of free will and there never can be any such arguments until we know what the hell free will is supposed to mean. I don't know and I am certain that you don't know either because if you did by now you would have told me; but all I get is circularity and gibberish. Tell me in a clear non-circular way what free will is and I'll be happy to debate with you if Human beings have this property or not, but until then there is nothing to debate. You are claiming that causality emerged from randomness I am claiming that I don't know, and admitting to such is far superior to claiming wisdom YOU DO NOT HAVE. Maybe causality did emerged from randomness, or maybe causality emerged from nothingness, or maybe causality didn't need to emerge from anything because it has always existed and so there was no first causal event, or maybe my brain is just too small to figure it out. I don't know and neither do you. but that free will could not have emerged the same way. Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. I got an A in algebra. And I was a math major. Functions potentially cause physical changes. And so can rules. Explain to me how exactly that happens. Use a real example please. Gravity sucks is a rule. Eggs thrown off Leaning Tower of Pisa break. Breaking eggs is physical change. Why couldn't you function if you believed you were the only conscious being in the universe? I think we can all agree that's a pretty stupid question. As I've said, just negating everything your opponent says doesn't work, you've got to have a strategy. I didn't negate anything - you did. I asked you a question. You did not answer it because you don't have an answer for it, Because Craig Weinberg doesn't think the answer to that question is obvious I can only conclude that he is the most antisocial person who ever lived, he is the one and only Human that wouldn't be profoundly psychologically troubled to discover that he was the only conscious being in the Universe. Craig Weinberg would take the news in stride and continue on with his daily activities as usual. As for me, I wouldn't be worth a bucket of warm spit if I found that out. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You are the one that is saying everything happens for a reason or not for a reason. Yes. Which category do laws fall under? I haven't the slightest idea, but I do know that it's got to be one or the other. Yet you claim that it had to originate I don't claim reason had to originate at all because it may have had no origin, or maybe it did, if so I have no idea how or why if came to be. Unlike you I have the wisdom to know when I don't know. for a reason or randomly, right? Yes, If it originated at all then it originated for a reason or it originated for no reason. You claim to have gotten a A is algebra, so why you find the concept X is Y or X is not Y so difficult to grasp is a mystery. And since reason can't originate for its own reason I'm just speculating but maybe there is something rather than nothing because nothing is a logical contradiction of some sort. Or maybe not. then it has to be random. Then It had to happen for no reason. I don't know why you keep beating this simple point to death. If reason can come out of randomness however, then it can't really be random. What?! If reason, or anything else, came out of randomness then by definition it came out of nothing, it came about for no reason, and there is nothing wrong with something happening for no reason. And it's amusing that you keep attempting (very unsuccessfully) to use reason to prove that reason is not of primary importance. And why would you want to do that? Because reason makes a hash out of your silly theories. I don't know if there was a very first time, logic does not demand that there be one; and even if there were logic doesn't demand that everything happen for a reason. All you have to do is apply your excuse to your own experience and you have free will. Maybe maybe not, I don't know because I don't know what free will is supposed to mean and neither do you. fails because it is circular Describe that circle. If the first reason Logic allows for the existence of a first reason but it doesn't demand there be one. happened for a reason then it can't be the first reason, Obviously. Reasons can't just appear out of nowhere and proliferate Why not? Things happen for no reason all the time in modern physics. So I repeat my question, describe that circle. Free will is supposed to mean the capacity to try to execute your private will publicly with relative personal autonomy. So you have free will if you have personal autonomy and you have personal autonomy if you have free will, and around and around we go. If I am locked in a dungeon, the effect of my will is constrained. I have said many times that will is a clear non circular idea, I want some things and don't want others; if I'm in a dungeon and want to leave my chains constrain my will and if I want to jump over a mountain gravity constrains my will. It is only when the word free joins up with will that we enter the wonderful world of gibberish. you claim to know that free will does not exist. No I don't claim that at all! If the only problem with free will is that it had the property of non-existence then it would not be gibberish, dragons don't exist but the word is not gibberish, it means something, just something that doesn't happen to exist; but free will is gibberish because it doesn't even mean something mythical, free will is just a noise. Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. What's the difference between that ASCII sequence and the other one, reasons The difference is 2, one contains 9 ASCII characters and the other only 7. Didn't you study subtraction in that algebra class you got a A in. Gravity sucks is a rule. Eggs thrown off Leaning Tower of Pisa break. Breaking eggs is physical change. How do the eggs follow the rule? And just as saying not X whenever your opponent says X blindly saying why X? when he says X isn't a winning debate strategy either. How does the need for social contact factor into a worldview which lacks free will? I can see that's a question because there is a question mark at the end, but that's all I know; I don't have a answer because I don't understand the question, don't know what the ASCII sequence free will means. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I do know that it's got to be one or the other. But I have just proved to you that it cannot be either one. So you have just proven that X is not Y and X is not not Y. BULLSHIT! you don't have the wisdom to know when you don't know about free will. Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. you have no problem with things happening for no reason True. yet you have a problem with people causing things to happen for their own personal reasons. Not true, I have no problem with that either. I have no problem with you doing what you do for reasons, personal or otherwise, and I have no problem with you doing what you do for no reason at all, but I do have a very big problem with you not doing either one. If something can come out of it, then it's not nothing. That would only be true if every event must have a cause, but there is no law of logic that demands that must always be true, and after more than a century of intensive experimentation on this very subject we find that there is no empirical reason to think that must always be true either. You have no idea where reason came from. It's voodoo to you. Unlike you I'm not foolish enough to think that I've unlocked all the mysteries of the universe, I'm wise enough to know that I know almost nothing, but one of the few things that I do know is that X is Y or X is not Y. If reason itself can pop into existence for no reason, then who is to say that everything doesn't also do the same? Maybe it does, I don't know, you don't know either but you think you do. It [a brick] would need a private will to hurl itself into the air. Or a volcanic eruption underneath it just as you'd need legs and muscles underneath you to jump. Why would it matter if you want some things and don't want others if you have no power to freely choose between them? I think it's very odd that you keep asking me why I wrote this or that or why I did this or that when you believe that people are not deterministic and thus do things for no reason, in fact its the very foundation of your philosophy. Of course you also believe that people don't not do things for a reason, but even leaving out that idiotic contradiction I just don't understand what you expect me to answer when you ask me why did you say that?. Free just makes the difference between being in the dungeon and being released. Why is it controversial? Assuming I don't like being in that dungeon then if you cut my chains reality is more in accordance with my will and I can do some of the things I wanted to do but couldn't do before, like leave, although I still can't do everything I want, I still can't jump over that mountain. If the only problem with free will is that it had the property of non-existence then it would not be gibberish, dragons don't exist but the word is not gibberish, it means something, just something that doesn't happen to exist; but free will is gibberish because it doesn't even mean something mythical, free will is just a noise. How do you know this? I know this because I'm not a idiot. What makes you say it? WHAT MAKES ME SAY IT?! You're asking me what makes me do something ?? You of all people are asking me that question? As you've told me about a hundred times, I said it for no reason and I didn't say it for no reason because I have this thing you call free will. If you want to be consistent in your philosophy you should never again ask me or anybody else why they said or did something because you already know why. Or at least you think you do. It's bizarre that you are so haunted by the idea of free will that you have to turn it into gibberish to keep it at bay - even if it means throwing your cherished 'reasons' under the bus. Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. I'm never trying to win a debate. Oh I believe you, certainly I do; and I was born yesterday too. I am only curious about the truth. I don't think so. If you were just curious about the truth you'd look at the facts of the world and try to find theories that might explain a little part of it, instead you find some idea you feel is pleasant and then try to shoehorn facts into it. Nobody who was starting out from first principles and was just curious about the truth would come up with the incoherent hodgepodge of circularity and logical contradictions that you have and try to pass it off as a theory. You claim that things follow rules, Some do some don't. I'm saying that a yearning for social contact isn't logical It's as logical as a dislike of social contact, and If animals with a strong inclination for social contact got their genes into the next generation better then those that didn't then logically that's the sort of animal you'd expect to see in the world. How does the need for social contact factor into a worldview which lacks free will?
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If you can do something for your own personal reasons then you have free will. If you demand that personal reasons still must always come from outside of the person themselves[...] But I don't demand that at all! You might picked X and not Y entirely for internal reasons, entirely because of the state of the neurons inside your very own personal head. And my computer did X and not Y entirely because of the state of its memory banks and microprocessor inside its very own personal aluminum box. That would only be true if every event must have a cause, but there is no law of logic that demands that must always be true Then maybe a new law of logic just appeared out of nowhere. Maybe, if so it wouldn't be the first time something appeared out of nowhere. But I don't understand why I should be embarrassed to have an answer to the question why is there something rather than nothing? that is not entirely satisfactory, its not as if you or anybody else can do better. X and Y are made up. Like Pepsi and Coke. They are notations. Deep man deep, Plato and Socrates eat your heart out. Was there a part of that grousing and grumbling that resembled an answer to my question? I am asking the purpose of preference in a universe devoid of ... your favorite word. As I said before, you can't ask me why I did or wrote something because according to you I have this thing called free will and so I prefer X over Y for no reason and I prefer X over Y not for no reason. I don't understand why a person with you philosophy fails to find this a perfectly reasonable, logical, and satisfying answer. For a person with your philosophy there is simply nothing more to be said. you claim that there is no law of logic that prevents being born yesterday. Maybe your memories are false. Could be. Maybe I came into existence 5 minutes ago and all the memories I have as a child were also created 5 minutes ago. I can't prove it's not true. What fact of the world do you accuse me of being unaware of that would be relevant in any way to this or any other discussion on this list? You don't know any science and you don't know any mathematics and don't even seem to think they're important, and yet you believe you've discovered the secrets of the universe. Delusions of grandeur. I am suggesting a way of understanding the relation of consciousness and physics that seems plausible to me. Before you connect physics with anything it might be helpful to know a little physics, and it you're really interested in consciousness study neurology and computer science; amateur two bit armchair philosophy just doesn't cut the mustard. You have lied to me in writing more than any person I have ever encountered. Not that it makes you a liar, but you do lie a lot. I am lying right now. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: So lets see, a giant junkyard magnet is a devastating logical argument but a junkyard car crusher is not. Explain to me how that works. Because talking about how you want to kill me in an argument about computers is pointless ad hominem venting, but talking about the effect of magnetism on computers in an argument about computers is relevant A strong magnetic field will disrupt the operation of a computer and it will disrupt the operation of your brain too, and a junkyard car crusher will disrupt the operation of both as well. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Darwin does not need to be wrong. Consciousness role can be deeper, in the evolution/selection of the laws of physics from the coherent dreams (computations from the 1p view) in arithmetic. I have no idea what that means, not a clue, but I do know that Evolution can't select for something it can't see, and I do know that Evolution can see intelligence because it produces behavior. Evolution can't see consciousness directly any better than we can, so if it produced it (and it did unless Darwin was dead wrong) then consciousness MUST be a byproduct of something that it can see. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I have no idea what that means, not a clue Probably for the same reason that you stop at step 3 in the UD Argument. Probably. I remember I stopped reading after your proof of the existence of a new type of indeterminacy never seen before because the proof was in error, so there was no point in reading about things built on top of that; but I don't remember if that was step 3 or not. You assume a physical reality, I assume that if physical reality doesn't exist then either the words physical or reality or exists are meaningless, and I don't think any of those words are. and you assume that our consciousness is some phenomenon related exclusively to some construct (brain, bodies) If you change your conscious state then your brain changes, and if I make a change in your brain then your conscious state changes too, so I'd say that it's a good assumption that consciousness is interlinked with a physical object, in fact it's a downright superb assumption. so if it [Evolution] produced it [consciousness] No. With comp, consciousness was there before. Well I don't know about you but I don't think my consciousness was there before Evolution figured out how to make brains, I believe this because I can't seem to remember events that were going on during the Precambrian. I've always been a little hazy about what exactly comp meant but I had the general feeling that I sorta agreed with it, but apparently not. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why self-organization programs cannot be alive
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Creating structure out of a random environment requires intelligence, the ability to make choices on one's own. Thus we can conclude that when the sun evaporates salty water salt crystals do not form because a liquid is a amorphous collection of molecules while a salt crystal is a highly ordered lattice of atoms. The sun, not being intelligent, simply could not have performed this task; so you might want to contact the Morton salt company and inform them that their product does not exist. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I stopped reading after your proof of the existence of a new type of indeterminacy never seen before because the proof was in error, so there was no point in reading about things built on top of that From your error you have been obliged to say that in the WM duplication, you will live both at W and at W Yes. yet your agree that both copy will feel to live in only one place Yes. so the error you have seen was dues to a confusion between first person and third person. Somebody is certainly confused but it's not me. The fact is that if we are identical then my first person experience of looking at you is identical to your first person experience of looking at me, and both our actions are identical for a third person looking at both of us. As long as we're identical it's meaningless to talk about 2 conscious beings regardless of how many bodies or brains have been duplicated. Your confusion stems from saying you have been duplicated but then not thinking about what that really means, you haven't realized that a noun (like a brain) has been duplicated but a adjective (like Bruno Marchal) has not been as long as they are identical; you are treating adjectives as if they were nouns and that's bound to cause confusion. You are also confused by the fact that if 2 identical things change in nonidentical ways, such as by forming different memories, then they are no longer identical. And finally you are confused by the fact that although they are not each other any more after those changes both still have a equal right to call themselves Bruno Marchal. After reading these multiple confusions in one step of your proof I saw no point in reading more, and I still don't. By the way, it is irrational to stop in the middle of a proof. If one of the steps in a proof contains a blunder then it would be irrational to keep reading it. By assuming a physical reality at the start That seems like a pretty damn good place to make an assumption. But the physical reality can emerge or appear without a physical reality at the start Maybe maybe not, but even if you're right that wouldn't make it any less real; and maybe physical reality didn't even need to emerge because there was no start. If you change your conscious state then your brain changes, and if I make a change in your brain then your conscious state changes too, so I'd say that it's a good assumption that consciousness is interlinked with a physical object, in fact it's a downright superb assumption. But this is easily shown to be false when we assume comp. It's not false and I don't need to assume it and I haven't theorized it from armchair philosophy either, I can show it's true experimentally. And when theory and experiment come into conflict it is the theory that must submit not the experiment. If I insert drugs into your bloodstream it will change the chemistry of your brain, and when that happens your conscious state will also change. Depending on the drug I can make you happy-sad, friendly-angry, frightened-clam, alert-sleepy, dead-alive, you name it. If your state appears in a far away galaxies [...] Then he will be me and he will remain me until differences between that far away galaxy and this one cause us to change in some way, such as by forming different memories; after that he will no longer be me, although we will still both be John K Clark because John K Clark has been duplicated, the machine duplicated the body of him and the environmental differences caused his consciousness to diverge. As I've said before this is a odd situation but in no way paradoxical. You keep defending comp, in your dialog with Craig, I keep defending my ideas, comp is your homemade term not mine, I have no use for it. You can attach consciousness to the owner of a brain, Yes, consciousness is what the brain does. but the owner itself must attach his consciousness to all states existing in arithmetic Then I must remember events that happened in the Precambrian because arithmetic existed even back then, but I don't, I don't remember existing then at all. Now that is a paradox! Therefore one of the assumptions must be wrong, namely that the owner of a brain must attach his consciousness to all states existing in arithmetic. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote I think you are missing something. It is a problem that I noticed after watching the movie The Prestige In my opinion The Prestige is the best movie made in the last 10 years, and this is one of those rare instances where the movie was better than the book. Before the movie back in 1996 I wrote a short scenario that had somewhat similar themes, this is part of it: About a year ago I started building a matter duplicating machine. It could find the position and velocity of every atom in a human being to the limit imposed by Heisenberg's law. It then used this information to construct a copy and it does it all in a fraction of a second and without harming the original in any way. You may be surprised that I was able to build such a complicated machine, but you wouldn't be if you knew how good I am with my hands. The birdhouse I made is simply lovely and I have all the latest tools from Sears. I was a little nervous but I decided to test the machine by duplicating myself. The day before yesterday I walked into the chamber, it filled with smoke (damn those radio shack transformers) there was a flash of light, and then 3 feet to my left was a man who looked exactly like me. It was at that instant that the full realization of the terrible thing I did hit me. I yelled This is monstrous, there can only be one of me, my copy yelled exactly the same thing. I thought he was trying to mock me, so I reached for my 44 magnum that I always carry with me (I wonder why people think I'm strange) and pointed it at my double. I noted with alarm that the double also had a gun and he was pointing it at me. I shouted you don't have the guts to pull the trigger, but I do. Again he mimicked my words and did so in perfect synchronization, this made me even more angry and I pulled the trigger, he did too. My gun went off but due to a random quantum fluctuation his gun jammed. I buried him in my back yard. Now that my anger has cooled and I can think more clearly I've had some pangs of guilt about killing a living creature, but that's not what really torments me. How do I know I'm not the copy? I feel exactly the same as before, but would a copy feel different? Actually there is a way to be certain, I have a video tape of the entire experiment. My memory is that the copy first appeared 3 feet to my LEFT, (if I had arranged things so he appeared 3 feet in front of me face to face things would have been more symmetrical, like looking in a mirror), if the tape shows the original walking into the chamber and the copy materializing 3 feet to his RIGHT, then I would know that I am the copy. But I'm afraid to look at the tape, should I be? If I found out I was the copy what should I do? I suppose I should morn the death of John Clark, but how can I, I'm not dead. If I am the copy would that mean that I have no real past and my life is meaningless? Is it important, or should I just burn the tape and forget all about it? you probably believe there is some stream of thoughts/consciousness that you identify with. I can't conceive of anyone disagreeing with that. You further believe that these thoughts and consciousness are produced by some activity of your brain. Yes. Unlike Craig, you believe that whatever horrible injury you suffered, even if every atom in your body were separated from every other atom, in principle you could be put back together, and if the atoms are put back just right, you will be removed and alive and well, and conscious again. Yes. Further, you probably believe it doesn't matter if we even re-use the same atoms or not, since atoms of the same elements and isotopes are functionally equivalent. Yes. We could take apart your current atoms, then put you back together with atoms from a different pile and your consciousness would continue right where it left off (from before you were obliterated). Yes. It would be as if a simulation of your brain were running on a VM, we paused the VM, moved it to a different physical computer and then resumed it. From your perspective inside, there was no interruption, yet your physical incarnation and location has changed. Yes. what happens to your consciousness when duplicated? When what is duplicated? Adjectives, like consciousness or Jason Resch, do not duplicate in the same way that nouns, like brains, do. If I exactly duplicate a iPod playing loud music the iPod is duplicated but the adjective loud is not duplicated, but if I then change the loudness level on one of them but not the other then the two differentiate. In the same way If I exactly duplicate you and a cat as you consciously look at the cat then your body and brain are duplicated but the adjective describing what the brain is doing, consciousness, is not duplicated; however if I then change one cat but not the other then the conscious experience and memories formed by observing the cat
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: it's also true that the letter e is not Shakespeare's play Hamlet, but its part of it. By that analogy, you are crediting the letter e for authoring Hamlet. The letter e did not write Hamlet and neither did one neuron inside Shakespeare's bone box, it took 10^11 of them. You can have GABA and acetylcholine without paychecks and days off but unless you move to electronics you can't have paychecks and days off without GABA and acetylcholine. Even more reason that the dumb neurotransmitters need the high level teleology to inform them. If you had one scrap of experimental evidence that wishing or wanting can alter chemical reactions, in other words if you could show that magical thinking worked, then I would concede that you are right and you will have won the argument, but there is no such evidence because that's not the way things work. You can have bricks without having the Taj Mahal, but you can't have the Taj Mahal without bricks. Exactly, you can have neurotransmitters without paychecks and days off but you can't have paychecks and days off without neurotransmitters. That doesn't mean that bricks or even bricklayers are responsible for the Taj Mahal. You also need a architect to supply the information on where to put the bricks, but it remains true that you can't have the Taj Mahal without bricks and bricklayers. My neurons can influence my consciousness Yes. but they cannot decide for me to get a better job. If you consciously decide to get a better job and if neurons can influence your consciousness as you say then you're wrong, neurons CAN decide for you to get a better job because what they do IS you. Why would the high level description level be different from the low level description? Now Craig, if you calm down and look at what you just said with a dispassionate eye I think you will admit that it was not the brightest question in the world. The short answer is that one is high and the other is low. Saying the temperature is 79 degrees and saying oxygen molecule number 93475626636574074514574 hit your nose 1.0624221 seconds ago from a south south east direction at a speed of 88.621 feet per second are both accurate descriptions of reality, but they are different. There is no unexpected gap between the behavior of those two levels of description. With subjectivity, the gap is infinite. The gap is certainly astronomically huge but I'm surprised to hear you say it was literally infinite because you're the one pushing the idea that everything can sense its environment and everything is at least a little bit conscious, so let's view the submicroscopic world with your eyes; I personally find this sort of description awkward and needlessly anthropomorphic however it is functionally equivalent to the most impersonal hard nosed description of any physicist: Two helium atoms are moving along until they sense they have made contact and then they find that they don't like each other one bit so they both decide to change the path they were moving in so they can get away from each other. And a chlorine and a sodium atom are moving along until they sense they have made contact and then they find that they passionately love each other so they decide to remain very close to each other and turn into a salt molecule; however as the temperature gets higher their love gets cooler until it gets so hot they decide to get a divorce and go their separate ways. That's a very odd way to describe what's going on but it doesn't conflict with any experimental test. Generally speaking as the accumulation of matter increases, as more atoms are involved, the range of possible behaviors gets larger and more complex, and for some very specific types of structures, like brains or computers, the growth is exponential and the range gets astronomically (but not infinitely) larger. What you are saying suggests a subjectivity where every time I almost put my hand on a hot stove a specific memory is called up and decoded (decoded into what?). I don't think it works that way, I don't think it works that way either, jerking your hand off a hot stove is just a simple reflex, but you were talking about social experiences and you have none of them except the ones where the information has been encoded by neurons, in other words the ones you remember. Let's compare. Does your computer worry about it's job? I don't know for sure, I don't even know if you worry about your job because all I can observe is behavior. I do have a theory that extrapolates consciousness and emotion from behavior and I think it's a pretty good theory but it's not proven and never will be, so I just do the best I can. If you had to bet though. If it really mattered and there was a right answer and you had to pick yes or no that you computer worries about its job, could you honestly say that it is likely? If I had to guess, and
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: What can you do with your computer that you couldn't do five years ago? Do a good job at understanding the human voice. Beat the 2 best human players at Jeopardy. Drive a car safely for many miles over very rough terrain. Discovering that 2^43112609 -1 ( a number with 12,978,189 digits) is a prime number. Improving in it's ability to play the game of Go from being routinely beaten by a child to occasionally beating professional Go players. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: I believe that comp's requirement is one of as if ratherthanis
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: What can you do with your computer that you couldn't do five years ago? Do a good job at understanding the human voice. Beat the 2 best human players at Jeopardy. Drive a car safely for many miles over very rough terrain. Discovering that 2^43112609 -1 ( a number with 12,978,189 digits) is a prime number. Improving in it's ability to play the game of Go from being routinely beaten by a child to occasionally beating professional Go players. Hardly world-transforming achievements. Incremental improvements in very limited specialized tasks, games, abstractions... Driving a car is not an abstraction, and anyway abstractions are what humans are supposed to be good at. And to most billionaires life is a game and money just the way to keep score. The improvement of manufacturing in the 20th century was orders of magnitude more significant. Which would not have happened without computers. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Continuous Game of Life
On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: A identical twin is a clone, you're talking about a exact duplicate and I would shoot him. I was given a gun and I was forced to make a very emotional decision and my duplicate was not, so I have intense memories that he does not so we are no longer the same person even if we once were. You are closer to him than the you from two weeks ago. I don't think so, in the last two weeks nothing as dramatic as having somebody point a gun at me has happened, and I haven't shot and killed anyone in the last 2 weeks either. Dramatic stuff like that changes you. And you probably go to work every day and save money only to give it to an old man and give him a nice retirement, and that old man is even less like you. So why not instead give $1,000,000 to someone who is much more like you than your future retired self? Because for him to get the money I'd have to shoot myself and if that happened I'd have a last thought and I don't want that to happen because then I'd be dead. If all experiences were equiprobable then we would expect not to see this ordered picture of text on our screens, but random snow. That doesn't follow, there may be infinite number of things to see but there is a infinite number of Jason Reschs to see them, so some of them will see ordered pictures and others white noise. In an infinite universe with infinite possibility, it's not clear to me there can be a last thought. Maybe, but I wouldn't stake my life on it. By the way the closest thing to quantum suicide I have ever heard of actually happening involved the Everett family. Hugh Everett invented the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and died of heart failure in 1982 at the age of 51, he was legally drunk at the time. He requested that his body be cremated and his ashes thrown into the garbage. Hugh's daughter Liz Everett killed herself a few years after her father's death, in her suicide note she said Funeral requests: I prefer no church stuff. Please burn be and DON'T FILE ME. Please sprinkle me in some nice body of water or the garbage, maybe that way I'll end up in the correct parallel universe to meet up with Daddy. A disturbing thought is that if there are a infinite and not just a astronomically large number of copies of you then some of then are going to be tortured for eternity. But they always have some non-zero chance of escaping to another universe (from their first person perspective). Yes some will, but some will never make it and be tortured for eternity. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: we know that nobody can answer the question why do I feel to be the one in Washington and not in Moscow. Because your eyes are sending signals to your brain of the White House and not of the Kremlin, and there is nothing more profound about it. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: People don't have to prove that they aren't machines. So says you, but a computer might have a very different opinion on the subject, and I don't think you even have a clear understanding what a machine is. it explains why Evolution bothered to produce consciousness on this planet, it explains why it produced something that it can't see. How? How? HOW?! I've explained this numerous times, If you have a problem with my explanation then say what you don't like about it, but don't just say how like a parrot! I don't know why I even bother to debate with you if you don't even bother to read what I write. Yes its conscious if the stop sign displayed intelligent behavior, but in this case if you say it did then you are not displaying intelligent behavior. Why? Why what? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We now know that computing or thinking is physical, We don't know that. We know that as well as we know anything about physics. We deduce that in the Aristotelian's theories. I have no idea what if anything that means. it takes energy to do it and it gives off heat; Actually computation can be made reversibly, without dissipation of energy. With reversible computing you can make the amount of energy used for a calculation arbitrarily small and thus the heat emitted arbitrarily close to zero BUT, as I said before, only at the price of slowing down the computation; we were talking about the theoretical feasibility of making a prediction and making a forecast of yesterday's weather is not of much use. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: We know that as well as we know anything about physics This is not valid. NOT A VALID POINT?! A priori we can be dreaming in some world based on a different physics. Or, as with comp we might belong only to sophisticated computations, Are you seriously suggesting that we trash our physics textbooks and it doesn't bother you if one of your statements does not correspond to physical experiments?? 2) the Platonist one, in which the physical reality is the border, or the shadow of a vaster invisible reality. If it's in shadow then it can't be seen so there is nothing to be gained by talking about it. we were talking about the theoretical feasibility of making a prediction and making a forecast of yesterday's weather is not of much use. No. We were talking on something else. I was talking about it, I don't know what you were talking about. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Scott Aronson on free will
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 , meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: John Clark should get a kick out of this: http://www.scottaaronson.com/talks/ In computer science, we deal all the time with processes that are neither deterministic nor random. BULLSHIT! An example is a nondeterministic finite automaton: if you’re in state s2 and you see symbol a, you could stay where you are or you could transition to state s3. But we don’t put probabilities on these two arrows: we just say that either could happen. If you don't use probabilities then you must follow where both paths go, and that is deterministic. If you wish to make use of true probabilities you will need to add a hardware random number generator attachment to your computer because in any computer that is not malfunctioning they will ALWAYS do things for a reason regardless of what program they are running. If your program calls for a change in state of your computer to happen for no reason you've got to have some hardware where things happen for no reason, like a hardware random number generator. The guy starts off by saying he was more interested in being entertaining than being correct, but I didn't find him to be either. John K Clark Even more basic, when we design an algorithm, we don’t know which input it’s going to get, we usually don’t even know a probability distribution over inputs. All we know is, we want the thing to work for ANY input. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: the you before the duplication or the you after the duplication? All the you after, are the you before, by definition of comp. OK, but the you before is not the you after. The Helsinki man knows nothing about Moscow or Washington, not even if he still exists after the duplication, but both the Moscow man and the Washington man know all about Helsinki even if they don't know about each other. what you will live, as a first person. If your mind works deterministically then what you will live to think you see will depend on the external environment. If your mind does NOT work deterministically then what you will live to think you see will depend on absolutely nothing, in other words it is random. There is no new sort of indeterminacy involved just the boring old sort, and how you expect to draw profound philosophical conclusions from such a flimsy foundation is a mystery. You know by comp that [...] I don't know anything by comp. At one time I thought I knew what you meant by the term, but then you say consciousness was there before Evolution produced brains and that the owner [of a brain] itself must attach his consciousness to all states existing in arithmetic. So I was wrong, I don't know what comp means. Before the duplication the you is the Helsinki man, after the duplication the you is the Helsinki man and the Washington man and the Moscow man. What is the probability the Helsinki man will write in his diary that he sees Washington? 0%. The guy reconstituted in Washington will say: Gosh I was wrong. That's the problem, you're not clear who I is. The Washington man made no error because he made no predictions of any sort, only the Helsinki man did that. The Washington man and Helsinki man have identical memories up to the point of duplication but after that they diverge. What is the probability the Helsinki man will write in his diary he sees Helsinki? 100%. No. In the protocol that I have described to you many times, the probability here is 0%, as he is cut and pasted. Not copy and pasted. If the Helsinki man had never seen Helsinki then he's not the Helsinki man, if he has seen that city then he wrote so in his diary. And it is not he sees but what will he see. And the protocol assures that he will only see washington, or Moscow. Who is he? What is the probability the Washington man will write in his diary he sees Washington? 100%. The question was asked to the Helsinki man. But you said the Helsinki man was destroyed, if so then he's got a rather severe case of writers block and is writing very little in his diary. And if the duplicating process destroys the Helsinki man then the probability the Helsinki man will write anything at all in his diary is 0%. Then comp is false. OK if you say so, its your invention so whatever comp means its false; although I am a little surprised that you expect a man who no longer exists to write stuff in his diary. The question is about your first person experience. [...]The question is not about you, but about the most probable result of an experiment that you can do. You push on a button, and you localize your directly accessible body. Your? You? John Clark believes that when considering matters of identity if Bruno Marchal stopped using so many pronouns without considering what they refer to then Bruno Marchal's thinking would be less muddled. As Quentin said, it is implicit in the Everett understanding of QM. In Everett a world does not split until there is a difference between them and neither does consciousness. And the same is true in the thought experiment, If Bruno Marchal's body is duplicated and sent to Washington and Moscow but inside identical boxes then Bruno Marchal's consciousness has not been duplicated and will not be until the boxes are opened and different things are observed by the Brunos, at that point they will no longer be each other but both will still beBruno Marchal In most physics experiments, even very advanced ones at CERN, the experimenter himself is not duplicated so in the question What particle do you expect to see? it's clear who you is; Only if you assume that the universe does not contain Boltzman brains, or a universal dovetailer, It doesn't matter if Boltzman brains exist or not. In physics experiments not involving self duplications which you is involved is obvious, and it can be proven to be correct by observing that when you predicts what you will see using physical laws the prediction usually proves to be true, so all the yous must have been assigned correctly. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: let's presume that in 999 out of 1,000 almost identical standard models that exist in string theory, the half-life is 1 us. But in 1 out of those 1,000, the half life is 10 us. If you are the experimenter what can physics tell you about the particle's half life? That it's half life is really 1.01 not 1. Until the experiment is performed, even the laws of physics are not in stone. And in Bruno's thought experiment until the subjects open the door of the duplicating machine and observe the different environments of Washington and Moscow and thus are changed differently there is still only one consciousness regardless of how many bodies there are. This is a main point of Bruno's result: Bruno's main point is that we should be amazed and draw deep philosophical conclusions from the fact that the Washington man is the man who saw Washington, and be flabbergasted by the fact that he didn't become the Moscow man because he didn't see Moscow. I'm sorry but I just don't see any grand mystery here. physics is not at the bottom of the explanatory ladder Physics is at the bottom of all non-mathematical things that have an explanation, but we now know that some things have no explanation. We now know that some things are random. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: He believes he still exist, because he believes, or assumed, comp. People believe they exist and in real life they don't have or need a reason for doing so. And I no longer know what comp means. Comp is that we can survive with a digital machine replacing the brain. I have no difficulty with that, but now you tell me that it means a great many other things too, things that are clearly untrue; like consciousness was there before Evolution produced brains or the owner [of a brain] itself must attach his consciousness to all states existing in arithmetic. you are stuck in step 3 And I will remain stuck there until you fix the blunders you made in step 3; after that perhaps the additional steps that were built on that fatally flawed foundation would be worth reading. the guy in W and the guy in M are both the guy in H Yes. by definition of comp. I don't know what that is. This is enough to get the 1_indeterminacy. You don't know what your environment will be, what's new and mysterious about that? I have no duplicating machine but I still don't know if my environment will include rain tomorrow, but I can't find anything of philosophical interest in that fact . And the guy in Helsinki, if he can reason like any Löbian machine, Like your other invention comp I don't know what a Löbian machine is. What is the probability the Washington man will write in his diary he sees Washington? 100%. The question was asked to the Helsinki man. But you said the Helsinki man was destroyed, if so then he's got a rather severe case of writers block and is writing very little in his diary. The body of the guy in Helsinki is destroyed, but by comp, we have already accept that the guy itself survives. So when you say The question was asked to the Helsinki man you are asking a question to a man who's body has been destroyed. Yes the Helsinki man is also the Washington man so you could say there is a 100% chance the Helsinki man will write in his diary I see Washington. Of course the Helsinki man is also the Moscow man so there is a 100% chance the Helsinki man will write in his diary I DO NOT see Washington. There is no contradiction because you have been duplicated. If Bruno Marchal's body is duplicated and sent to Washington and Moscow but inside identical boxes then Bruno Marchal's consciousness has not been duplicated and will not be until the boxes are opened and different things are observed by the Brunos, at that point they will no longer be each other but both will still beBruno Marchal Exactly. This contradict what you say above though. I said a great deal above but I'll be damned if I see any contradiction . It doesn't matter if Boltzman brains exist or not. Of course it does matter. That the point of step 4, 5, 6, 7. Which are useless because they were built on top of a step that does not work. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: You are the one pretending being able to predict what happens after pushing the button, but you have always given a list of what can happen, which is not a prediction. A list is necessary because there are 2 things, if I know they are going to have different fates then I cannot just give one answer. And if the 2 are identical I can't single out one and say this one will have fate X while that one will have fate Y, and because they are identical it would be a useless prediction even if I could. You did not show a flow, just a confusion between 1p and 3p. Oh for heaven's sake Bruno, do you really believe I don't understand the difference between the first and third person point of view? I have no duplicating machine but I still don't know if my environment will include rain tomorrow, but I can't find anything of philosophical interest in that fact . This is not the same form of indeterminacy. The impossibility of predicting the weather is due to the deterministic chaos. In the first place pure deterministic chaos probably does not exist, and even if it did it would not be predictable because you'd have to know the initial conditions with infinite and not just astronomically good precision, and because if you wished to get a answer before the event happened the computation would generate so much heat it would create a new Big Bang. So when you say The question was asked to the Helsinki man you are asking a question to a man who's body has been destroyed. No, the question is asked before he pushes on the read/cut button. I'll bet you don't even remember the question, it was What is the probability the Washington man will write in his diary he sees Washington? and I said the answer was 100%. For some reason you believed my prediction was wrong. If you want John Clark to make other predictions about what the Helsinki man will write in the Helsinki man's diary under various circumstances John Clark will do so, but because this involves personal identity for clarity please don't use any pronouns in the question. The guy knows that he might very well be the guy in Moscow, And this illustrates what a muddle pronouns can cause; but yes it's true, the Helsinki man knows that the man in Moscow will be the Moscow man. Big deal. so he cannot assert that he will *feel* with 100% chance to be the one in Washington. Again you confuse the 3-view and the 1-view. And again you are confused by pronouns. from the first person view, as he knows that after pushing the button he will find himself being in only one city, not in two cities simultaneously. Yes but John Clark sees nothing paradoxical or contradictory about that, its just odd; and the only reason its odd is that were not accustomed to that sort of thing and the reason for that is that duplicating machines, although they violate no laws of physics are, with current technology, hard to make. And that could change. You pretend that there is 100% chance that he will feel to see Washington, and 100% chance he will feel to see Moscow and yet you agree that there is 100% chance he will see only one city If Bruno Marchal sees a contradiction in that its because pronouns have gotten the better of Bruno Marchal yet again. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why religious truth is the highest truth
Rodger, why do you believe that religious truth is truth at all, much less the highest truth? It's because most small children are genetically hard wired to unquestionably believe most of what adults tell them and to carry that belief until the day they die; that's why religious belief has a very very strong geographical pattern. Infants in the Americas were told Christian Bullshit before they were able to reason properly and so they believed it, and when they become adults they taught the same Bullshit to their children; Middle Eastern infants were taught Islamic Bullshit and Indian children were taught Hindu Bullshit. And this self reinforcing cycle of idiocy that has cursed the Human Race for so many centuries causes most people in the Americas to believe in Christianity mythology, most in the Middle East to to believe in Islamic mythology and most in India to believe in Hindu mythology. John K Clark Hi Stephen P. King Necessary truths can't be contingent, because contingent truths by definition are contingent on circumstances and so may not always be true. Scientific truth, or any truth of this world, is such. Pierce taught that consensus or pragmatic truth is supreme. What people believe in their hearts, what they believe subjectively. What they experience now. Why is pragmatic truth supreme ? Even higher than a necessary truth? 1 + 1 = 2, a statement, is a necessary truith, but the higher truth is to know that 1 +1 =2, to personally accept and believe that. If many agree, that is even better. If many, such as the Christian church, accept a truth such as God created the world, you might want to consider it. But it is only true if you pragmatically accept it as true. Lutherans call that acceptance faith. There are many forms of truth-- necessary and contingent truths, subjective and objective truths, truths by correspondence, or through coherency, pragmatic truth, eye witness truth, and so forth. In the end, one accepts the truth he has the most faith in. So faith again rules. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net +rclo...@verizon.net 11/4/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-11-03, 13:31:14 Subject: Re: Emergence of Properties On 11/3/2012 8:57 AM, Roger Clough wrote: The properties of spacetime things are what can be measured (ie facts). The properties of beyond spacetime things are propositions that can't be contradicted (necessary truths). Hi Roger, I do not assume that the can't be contradicted is an a priori fixed apartheid on truths. I define necessary truths to be contingent on many minds in agreement. -- Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But you know in davance that whatever happen, you will live only one thing. John Clark knows with certainty that John Clark will see Washington, and John Clark knows with certainty that John Clark will see Moscow, and John Clark knows with certainty that John Clark will see one and only one city, and John Clark knows with certainty that this is not paradoxical because JOHN CLARK HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. And after its all over and the dust has settled John Clark can see that John Clark's Helsinki prediction, that was made before all this started, was completely accurate. There are two 1p, as seen from the 3p view A third party has only one view, the third party's own; John Clark can't make any sense out of two 1p as seen from the 3p view. but you know in advance that you will live, only one 1p view, from your next 1p view. Just that short sentence contains you know and you will live and your next 1p view with no clear understanding of who the you is that is supposed to know or who the you that will live or who the you is that will view something because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. When you has been duplicated stop using pronouns or all statements will be ambiguous! When the self has been copied and pronouns continue to be used as before as if nothing had happened then confusion always results. Again and again and again, you answer on the future 1views And again and again Bruno Marchal says YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED and then gives them radically different experiences and then chastises John Clark for giving a list rather than a single answer when the question what will you see? is asked. But if 2 different questions are asked then one should expect 2 different answers. If Bruno Marchal wants clearer answers then Bruno Marchal should ask clearer questions by NOT USING PRONOUNS. if the 2 are identical I can't single out one and say this one will have fate X while that one will have fate Y, and because they are identical it would be a useless prediction even if I could. Irelevant as they are not identical. If before they see either city the two are not identical then the duplicating chamber is not working properly and Bruno Marchal's thought experiments are convoluted enough without introducing poorly maintained machinery into the mix. The question is about your future 1p. John Clark does not know what the question is nor, with all these duplicates running around, who your refers to, but John Clark does know that John Clark's future point of view will continue to be John Clark's point of view. One will say I feel to be only in W and the other will say I feel to be only in M, so BOTH will that they (John Clark) was wrong in Helsinki , or that he did not understand the question. John Clark will feel to be only in Washington and John Clark will feel to be only in Moscow and John Clark will know that was exactly what John Clark predicted yesterday when John Clark was in Helsinki. And John Clark has a far deeper understanding of the question than Bruno Marchal had. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Again the same main 1-3 confusion. I see nothing I can be confused about because the only point of view I can see is my own first person one, what your second or his third person point of view may be is pure speculation on my part and so I will say nothing about it. You can only say that [...] You? John Clark has been duplicated so who can only say that, me or that fellow to my right who looks just like me? You? John Clark has been duplicated so who can only say that, me or that fellow to my left who looks just like me? John Clark would be certain that *a* John Clark would die a painful death, not that it will necessarily ever matter from your (the unique John Clark before the experience) future point of view A future experience NEVER matters to the unique person occupying the present because its in the future, but when the future becomes the present just before John Clark's last painful thought John Clark will remember being John Clark of the past. Look at AUDA According to Google AUDA is either a investment firm, a Bedouin Arab leader, or a Latvian football club playing in the second-highest division of Latvian football. I don't see the relevance in any of them. Avoiding the use of pronouns there would conflate even more easily the 1-3 key distinction. I couldn't fail to disagree with you less. What you really mean by conflate is to shine a bright light on your ideas to expose their errors in stark relief. Pronouns are supposed to be used just for convenience, instead of laboriously typing Bruno Marchal the pronouns you or he can be used. But sometimes even in everyday experiences without the huge complication of duplicating chambers pronouns can lead to ambiguity. We've all had the experience of reading a very convoluted sentence and then seeing at the end and so I disagree with it and not being certain what it refers to and thus being unsure if the writer agrees with you or not. Now if we introduce duplicating chambers pronouns are a billion times more dangerous. To say that you have been duplicated and then to ask what you will see feel or want is just begging for ambiguity and confusion. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Debunking people's belief in free will takes the intention out of their movements
On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: The finding implies that free will is illusory. Free will is not illusionary. A illusion is a perfectly respectable subjective phenomena, but free will is not respectable, free will is just gibberish. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Define John Clark. Define define. the semantic of proper name is the most difficult unsolved problem in philosophy. No it is not, the meaning of pronouns like I and He and you where it is not even known what proper name they refer to because of the existence of duplicating chambers is the most difficult unsolved problem in philosophy. Comp gives hints, Hints that do me no good because I no longer know what comp means, and I strongly suspect you don't either. And after its all over and the dust has settled John Clark can see that John Clark's Helsinki prediction, that was made before all this started, was completely accurate. I don't see this at all. After the duplication all the John Clark realise that they are in only one city, And that is exactly what John Clark predicted would happen. and that they were unable to predict which one. Wrong! John Clark correctly predicted that the Moscow man would see Moscow and the Washington man would see Moscow. John Clark doesn't understand what more should be expected of a prediction; and before either saw either city John Clark does not even understand what is meant by which one. The words which city has meaning but the words which John Clark does not as long as neither has seen a city and both are still identical. You the 3p view on the 1p views, which makes indeed sense, as it is the 3p view on the 1p views that we can attribute to another, John Clark is getting tired of all this peeing and still doesn't know what the 3p view on the 1p views by two 1p as seen from the 3p view is supposed to mean. John Clark can only view John Clark's view, the first person view. You said that after the duplication the 1-views of the John Clark have been duplicated, and this contradict what you say now. John Clark said that after John Clark's body and brain has been duplicated John Clark's consciousness has NOT been duplicated because it is not a noun, it's what a noun does. There will be only one mind until the environment causes a change in one brain that is not made in the other, and after that the 2 brains operate differently and thus what they do, mind, is different and they become different people; although they are both John Clark because John Clark has been duplicated. And there is nothing contradictory in any of that, it's just odd. Only one question is asked, to only one guy: Where will you feel to be after the duplication? And the answer is Washington and Moscow. If you then asked me if I would feel like I was in one city or two I would answer just one without hesitation. And this is strange but not contradictory because I HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. If you reason like that in quantum QM without collapse, and if you look at the position of an electron in hydrogen atom, you have to answer I will find the electron is everywhere. Yes the electron is everywhere but If Many Worlds is correct then John Clark is everywhere too and has as many states to be in as the electron has places to go. So no matter where the electron is after a experiment there will always be a John Clark who observes the electron hitting that and only that point on the photographic plate. No matter where a electron is there will always be a John Clark observing it there after a experiment. pronouns have a far simpler semantic than proper name. That can't be, all pronouns are supposed to refer to a noun so can't be simpler than the noun. Bruno Marchal keeps shoving John Clark into duplicating chambers and then sends John Clark on various exciting but very different adventures and then asks what you will see; but there can be no answer because it is a incomplete question. It's like asking how much is 2 +? You opush on a button, and you look around. What will you see. What will who see? a first person indeterminacy in Helsinki, about which city you will see. Which city will who see? Define John Clark. Why? Examples are vastly more important than definitions. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: After the duplication all the John Clark realise that they are in only one city, And that is exactly what John Clark predicted would happen. And John Clark is correct on this. But that was not yet the question asked, which concerns the experience that you (in Helsinki) will lived in the future. But it is still not clear who you refers to and that is why pronouns should not be used. If you refers to the Helsinki man then you will experience no city at all because according to Bruno Marchal's thought experiment the Helsinki man is destroyed. If the question is who you will turn into the answer is the Moscow man AND the Washington man and there is no reason to expect a single answer because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED and when something has been duplicated the result is there are two things not one. All the confusion stems from the fact that Bruno Marchal blithely says that something has been duplicated but no effort is made to stop and think what that actually means. John Clark correctly predicted that the Moscow man would see Moscow and the Washington man would see Moscow. But John Clark in helsinki is not asked what will see both men, but which men he will feel to be. He? Whether the Helsinki man feels like he is the Moscow man and only the Moscow man or the Washington man and only the Washington man depends on one thing and one thing only, whether he's seen Moscow or Washington. In this case the Helsinki man has seen both so if Bruno Marchal were the Helsinki man then Bruno Marchal would feel to be in Washington only and Bruno Marchal would feel to be in Moscow only BECAUSE BRUNO MARCHAL HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. before either saw either city John Clark does not even understand what is meant by which one. This means that he lacks the cognitive ability to imagine what both the M-man and the W-man will feel. But there is no M-man or W-man until they see Moscow and Washington, it's what defines them, until then there is only the Helsinki man so it makes no sense to ask questions about which man. The Helsinki man turns into the Washington man and the Helsinki man turns into the Moscow man and all of them feel like they are exactly the same person they were before and all of them feel like they are in one and only one city. And if destroyed the Helsinki man turns into nothing, that is to say there is no longer anyone experiencing Helsinki, and if he is not destroyed then the Helsinki man remains the Helsinki man. When the word which is included in a question it implies that there can only be one answer, but this is incorrect because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. John Clark correctly predicted what will happen to everyone as can be verified by interviewing all the parties involved after the proceedings have concluded. And if Bruno Marchal has destroyed the Helsinki man John Clark should not be blamed if Bruno Marchal can't interview him afterward; if you let the poor fellow live he will say John Clark was correct about the Helsinki man too. Which city is asked to the Helsinki man Which city will the Helsinki man feel to be in? Moscow and Washington because THE HELSINKI MAN HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. which has already understand that after pushing the button and localize himself he will see only one city Exactly, but he is plural, he is not a singular pronoun because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED, so obviously the answer can not be singular and a list is required to answer the question. And obviously the answer is Moscow only and Washington only BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. Your claim to have discovered a new type of indeterminacy is just a convoluted restatement of the fact that one is not equal to two. the question is about which one, John Clark wishes Bruno Marchal would be more clear, but John Clark surmises that the question must be about which city, it can't be about which man because before the duplication and the observation of different cities there was only one man; so the answer is Moscow and Washington because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. you admit that there is only one 1p, Only 1p per person, but at last count there were 7.05 billion 1p's on this planet; and if YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED then you has become 2 people not one. The prediction is on the experience itself, so a list of experience (which is never experienced by any 1p, as you say yourself) does not make sense. If YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED and you ask about what you will experience then a list is the only answer that does make sense. Nobody has pretend that comp is contradictory. Just that you cannot predict which among W and M you will experience in the future of the Helsinki experiment. Prove that a correct prediction can't be made!! I repeat my challenge, interview all the parties involved after the experiment and show what John Clark failed to predict, find someone who testifies he experienced something that John Clark did not predict. Do
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: it is still not clear who you refers to and that is why pronouns should not be used. If you refers to the Helsinki man then you will experience no city at all because according to Bruno Marchal's thought experiment the Helsinki man is destroyed. This contradicts the time you agreed that one can survive via duplication. But it's Bruno's thought experiment and Bruno is the one who said the Helsinki man is no more, John Clark is just trying to figure out who the hell you is. When Bruno says the Helsinki man is destroyed John Clark interprets that to mean that survival has continued and nobody has died but nobody is experiencing Helsinki anymore either; If Bruno means something else by the Helsinki man is destroyed let him speak up now and clear things up. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
By step 1 we already know that only the body of the Helsinki man can be
said to be destroyed. With step one we know that the Helsinki man will
survive,
I agree, so all that's happened is that nobody is experiencing Helsinki
anymore.
in two examplars, in M and in W.
I agree completely, and by far the most important word is AND.
Then the indeterminacy comes simply from the fact that in Helsinki,
although he knows that he will survive, he cannot be sure that he (the
Helsinki man, you) will feel himself to be the one surviving in W, or the
one in M.
Or? OR?!! Bruno Marchal just said the Helsinki man will survive in two
examples, in M AND in W; and now Bruno Marchal is asking if the Helsinki
man will survive in M OR W. It makes no sense! This is a perfect example of
how the indiscriminate use of pronouns can tie one into very silly logical
contortions. Pronouns are just to save ware and tear on the typing fingers,
so if a statement simply can not be made without the use of pronouns its a
sure fire sine that the statement makes no sense and pronouns are needed to
mask the confusion.
The helsinki man knows in advance that he will not feel to be both at
once, as both future first person will live only a singular, in once
city, experience.
OK, but if he correctly predicted it where is the indeterminacy?
Only the bodies have been duplicated. The first person is never
duplicated from His/Her points of view.
The Moscow man can see a continuous trajectory from being the Helsinki man
to now being the Moscow man and the same is true of the Washington man, so
the Helsinki man has obviously been duplicated.
You are looking at yourself from the 3p view, which explains why you miss
the correct comp answer. you just don't know where you will feel to be
after pushing the button.
That's 5 uses of you in just 32 words. It's true that not using pronouns
makes language sound a little awkward but sometimes in philosophy there is
no alternative, and Bruno Marchal simply can not express the ideas that
Bruno Marchal wants to express without using pronouns, and that tells John
Clark something about the nature of Bruno Marchal's ideas.
Yes. And so, both Bruno Marchal will say that they were unable to be sure
in advance which of of being in only M (resp W) they could happen to be.
Tommy has a apple inside box X and inside box Y, things are intermittent
because Tommy is unable to be sure which box has a apple inside.
But there is no M-man or W-man until they see Moscow and Washington,
Sure. But the question is asked to the Helsinki man, who will survive in
that experience by comp. Both the W and M men are the Helsinki man.
So what's the problem?
John Clark correctly predicted what will happen to everyone as can be
verified by interviewing all the parties involved after the proceedings
have concluded.
Not at all. You said W and M. So both will say that he was wrong,
I said the Washington man will feel that he was the Helsinki man and I said
the Moscow man will feel he was the Helsinki man, ask them and see if I was
correct. I also said the Washington man will see Washington and the Moscow
man will see Moscow, ask them and see if I was right about that too.
If the man in Helsinki is not destroyed, then the indeterminacy will bear
on {H, W, M}, and the probability of being one of them is 1/3. That is step
5!
Then I'm glad I never read past step 3.
A correct prediction would have been W or M.
No! If that or is the exclusive or then that would have been quite
obviously a INCORRECT prediction. If you don't believe John Clark about
this then just interview the parties after it's all over and see for
yourself. The correct prediction would have been both W AND M.
This contradicts what you say above,
I said a lot of stuff above but I see no contradiction.
John K Clark
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Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 4:48 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Is this controversial? Calling it indeterminate when one thing divides and becomes two because there are now two things and not one is very controversial, especially if it's supposed to be so deep and profound that it causes a revolution in philosophy. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: Can anyone explain why geometry/topology would exist in a comp universe? If numbers exist then so does geometry, that is to say numbers can be made to change in ways that exactly corresponds with the way objects move and rotate in space. For example, make the Real numbers be the horizontal axis of a graph and the imaginary numbers be the vertical axis, now whenever you multiply a Real or Imaginary number by i you can intuitively think about it as rotating it by 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction. Look at i, it sits one unit above the real horizontal axis so draw a line from the real numbers to i, so if you multiply i by i (i^2) it rotates to become -1, multiply it by i again(i^3) and it becomes -i, multiply it by i again (i^4) and it becomes 1, multiply it by i again (i^5) and you've rotated it a complete 360 degrees and you're right back where you started at i. It is this property of rotation that makes i so valuable in dealing with things that rotate in space, the best example may be electromagnetism where Maxwell used it to describe how electric and magnetic fields change in the X and Y direction (that is to say in the Real and Imaginary direction) as the wave propagates in the Z direction. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Or? OR?!! Bruno Marchal just said the Helsinki man will survive in two examples, in M AND in W; and now Bruno Marchal is asking if the Helsinki man will survive in M OR W. It makes no sense! Confusion between 1-view and 3-view. You said the Helsinki man will survive in two examples, in M AND in W. and then ask if the Helsinki man will survive in M OR W; so who's the one that's really confused around here? The Moscow man can see a continuous trajectory from being the Helsinki man to now being the Moscow man and the same is true of the Washington man, so the Helsinki man has obviously been duplicate But not his first person perspective. PRONOUNS SUCK! Who the hell does his refer to? For that matter what exactly is the Helsinki man? You said the body read in Helsinki is annihilated, I think the man still exists in Washington and Moscow and I thought you did too but apparently not because of various peeing issues you are unable to communicate coherently. You were not satisfied with the testimony of either the Washington or Moscow man and don't want to hear what they have to say, you want to know about his first person perspective. Nobody is experiencing Helsinki anymore so I repeat my question, who is his? After this experiment is concluded who's testimony would convince you that you have received correct infirmation about his first person perspective? Define bruno marchal, and john Clark. First define define. The 3-I is well known to be definable by the Dx = xx trick, I have to inform you that the Dx = xx trick is NOT well known to me and I don't know what you're talking about. So what's the problem? To evaluate your chance, in helsinki, to later feel to be the W or the M man after the duplication is done PRONOUNS SUCK!! You forget to mention that the question was: where will you feel. You forgot to mention where who will feel. You can do the thought experiment in a setting where in Helsinki you take some drug so that you become amnesic, and don't know more who you are. That's 4 yous in just 28 words, a new record. PRONOUNS SUCK!! ? ! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If numbers exist then so does geometry, that is to say numbers can be made to change in ways that exactly corresponds with the way objects move and rotate in space. I'm saying that there would be no such thing as objects, movement, space, or rotation in a comp universe. I don't know what a comp universe is because I no longer know what comp means and I no longer believe that Bruno, the inventor of the term, does either. But I do know that over the past year you have told this list that information does not exist, and neither do electrons or time or space or bits or even logic, so I don't see why the nonexistence of movement in a comp universe or any other sort of universe would bother you. You can prove this by understanding that there are no objects or spaces actually moving around in the chips of your computer. Electrons move around the chips in your computer, and potassium and sodium ions move around the Cerebral Cortex of your brain. make the Real numbers be the horizontal axis of a graph and the imaginary numbers be the vertical axis, now whenever you multiply a Real or Imaginary number by i you can intuitively think about it as rotating it by 90 degrees in a counterclockwise direction. Do you understand why computers don't need to do that? I said a lot of stuff so I'm not sure what that refers to (sometimes pronouns can really suck) but apparently you believe that computers have some innate ability that humans lack, there is something computers already know and so don't need to do that. I do know that computers calculate with complex numbers all the time, especially when rotation in 3D is important, such as calculations involving Maxwell's or Schrodinger's equation. This is my point, we have visual intuition because we have visual sense as a method of participating in a universe of sense. It would be meaningless in a universe of arithmetic. I would maintain that computers are already far better than humans in determining what a complex object will look like when it is rotated. I am saying, IF the universe were purely functional, I don't know what that means, is the universe broken? Why would there even begin to be a theoretical underpinning for a universe which remotely resembles this one? I don't have a theory that explains everything about the universe and neither does anybody else, but unlike some I am wise enough to know that I am ignorant. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Consciousness = life = intelligence
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Consciousness = life = intelligence. Therefore oak trees are intelligent and conscious. In addition, intelligence requires free will Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: the main problem is that you're striving to somehow get the Helsinki man to remember the future, To predict it. Precisely to predict its personal memory of the past, in the future. I have no idea what its personal memory of the past in the future means or who its refers to but I can predict that in the future there will be 2 people who call themselves John Clark and BOTH of them will remember being me, the Helsinki man of right now. I can also predict that one of those people will feel like he's in Washington and only Washington and the other will feel like he's in Moscow and only Moscow. So Bruno, what part of my prediction do you think I got wrong? Just like any prediction the only way to tell if it was correct or not it to wait until the future arrives and examine the evidence, in this case that means interviewing the Washington man and the Moscow Man and BOTH will say that my prediction was 100% correct. Speaking of predictions I can predict what you're response to this will be, you'll start peeing again and insisting that I'm confused. But the fact is you can't interview the Helsinki man of right now after the experiment and see if he still thinks his prediction is (was?) correct because the Helsinki man of right now will not exist in the future and nobody can remember the future, only the past. But the helsinki guy is sure that it will be W or M. That's one reason this thought experiment is so weak, it depends entirely on who the Helsinki man is; if he's you then yes he is sure it will be W or M, but if he's me then no because he is sure it will be W AND M. And it's important to keep in mind that predicting is not the same as remembering and being sure is not the same as being correct. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I have no idea what its personal memory of the past in the future means It is the content of the diary that the candidate brings with him in the teleportation box, and in which he will put the result of his self-localization after having push on the button According to your protocol the Helsinki Man is destroyed when he pushes that button so he writes nothing at all in his diary after that. As for what the Helsinki Man imagines will happen to him after he pushes that button I really don't care because that depends entirely on the particular personal beliefs of the man involved. I'm not interested in what the Helsinki man believes will happen to him I'm interested in what will really happen to him and to find that out the Helsinki man is of no use because he no longer exists in the future. To find out what happened to him we need to rely on memory not prediction and we need to interview all the parties that still exist, and that means the Washington and the Moscow man. If we do that we find that the Washington man remembers being the Helsinki man and remembers that man walking into the booth and being instantly teleported to Washington where he is alive and well, and we find that the Moscow man remembers being the Helsinki man and remembers that man walking into the booth and being instantly teleported to Moscow where he is alive and well. or who its refers to Up to the duplication, it concerns the Helsinki person, and after the duplication, it concerns all the copies. As the diary has been duplicated too in the two places, it will contain W, or it will contain M, from all possible subject being interrogated. And if John Clark had been the Helsinki man you would find that his diary contained a correct prediction of what was going to happen as can be easily verified by asking everybody that still existed. If Bruno Marchal had been the Helsinki man you would find that his diary contained a lot of mystical stuff that can only be verified by asking the Helsinki man to remember the future. In general the only way to know if a mind has survived from point A to point B on a timeline is to look back from point C, there is no way to know for sure from point A because predicting is hard, especially the future :), and because we remember the past and not the future. but I can predict that in the future there will be 2 people who call themselves John Clark That's correct. and BOTH of them will remember being me, the Helsinki man of right now. That's correct. I can also predict that one of those people will feel like he's in Washington and only Washington and the other will feel like he's in Moscow and only Moscow. That's correct. Thank you. And from this it follows that one will write W in the diary, and the other will write M. Yes. Both will agree that they were unable to predict this individual particular outcome. WHAT?!! Both will agree that was exactly precisely what the Helsinki man predicted would happen, even if the Helsinki man was Bruno Marchal, even he made the correct prediction. Bruno Marchal predicted that 2 people will feel to be the Helsinki man and Bruno Marchal predicted that nobody will be experiencing Helsinki anymore because the body there has been destroyed, and Bruno Marchal predicted that both people who feel like the Helsinki man will be experiencing one and only one city and Bruno Marchal predicted that the Washington man will be the one experiencing Washington and the Moscow man will be the one experiencing Moscow. I just don't see what more is needed for a successful prediction. So Bruno, what part of my prediction do you think I got wrong? You said W and M. here you were correct on all point, Thank you. but did not give the answer to the question asked to the Helsinki person: where you will feel to be after pushing the button, I did not answer the question for 2 reasons: 1) It's a incomplete question because with that machine and all its duplication and destruction it is not clear who you is; it's the same reason I don't answer the question how long is a piece of string?. 2) The question demands a single answer but in this case there is not one. I won't answer the question what is the one and only number that solves the equation X^2 =4 ? either because the answer is 2 AND -2, there is no one and only one answer. or what do you expect to write in the diary after pushing the button and proceed to the self-localization? It doesn't matter what the Helsinki man expects to happen it only matters what will happen, and to determine that we need to examine memory not predictions, and in this the Helsinki man is of no use to us because he can't remember the future. from their 1p view, in only one city, Yes. and the question was which one?. If you're the Washington man then the city you'll see is Washington and if you're the Moscow man then the city
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
On Sun, Nov 11, 2012Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I do know that over the past year you have told this list that information does not exist, and neither do electrons or time or space or bits or even logic, so I don't see why the nonexistence of movement in a comp universe or any other sort of universe would bother you. It bothers me because it doesn't make sense to suggest that a universe of experiences full of objects and positions can be reduced to a mechanism But a universe without electrons or time or space or bits or logic does make sense? Lack of logic makes sense? What I am pointing out is that what comp implies is a universe which looks and feels nothing like the one which we actually live in. I'm not here to defend comp, that's Bruno's job, I don't even know what the word means. It does present a plausible range of logical functions which remind us of some aspects of our minds, but I think that there is another reason for that, which has to do with the nature of arithmetic. So the fact that arithmetic can produce the exact same sort of behavior that minds are so proud of, like playing Chess or solving equations or winning millions on Jeopardy, is all just a big coincidence. If you really believe that then there is a bridge I'd like to sell you. Electrons move around the chips in your computer, and potassium and sodium ions move around the Cerebral Cortex of your brain. That doesn't matter. Doesn't matter?! If I change the position of those potassium and sodium ions in your brain it will matter very much to you because your consciousness will change. Yes that's right, the position of those meaningless objects can be the difference between ecstasy and suicidal depression, and you Craig Weinberg will never find anything that matters more than that. My point is that our senses require a particular presentation of forms and experience for us to consciously make sense, Einstein had access to the same raw data as everybody else, but being a genius he could make sense out of it even though the data was not presented in a ideal way, and once he had done that he could teach those with less powerful minds, like you and me, how to make sense out of it too. Exactly the same is true of computers. I would agree that it [a computer] is better at plotting such a complex object rotation on a screen for us to admire, but the computer itself wouldn't know an object from a string of bank transactions. Computers know nothing, I would like to know how you know that computers know nothing. Did that knowledge come to you in a dream? What a computer does is no different than what a lever does when a metal ball falls on to one side of it and the other side rises. Well... A computer is no different from a few hundred trillion levers interconnected in just the right way that rise and fall several billion times a second, and you're no different from that either. You will likely tell me again that potassium ions are no different, and you aren't wrong, but the difference is that we know for a fact that potassium ions are part of an evolved self organizing biological system that thinks Yes. and feels Although other evolved self organizing biological system behave as if they feel there is only one that I know for a fact actually does feel, and it goes by the name of John Clark. My hunch is that other biological systems can feel too, my hunch is that being biological is not necessary for that to happen but I don't know it for a fact. while no inorganic lever system seems to aspire to anything other than doing the same thing over and over again. A computer calculating the value of PI never repeats itself, it never returns to a previous state. I don't have a theory that explains everything about the universe and neither does anybody else, but unlike some I am wise enough to know that I am ignorant. Yet you claim to be omniscient about what I can't know. I didn't specifically mention you, but if you have a guilty conscience don't blame me, and I do seem to remember you saying something about having solved the AI hard problem, nobody seems very clear about exactly what that problem is but it certainly sounds hard. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 10:29 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As for what the Helsinki Man imagines will happen to him after he pushes that button I really don't care because that depends entirely on the particular personal beliefs of the man involved. That is non sense. If he's a devout Muslim he believes he will go to heaven with 77 virgins when he pushes that button, but as I said I really don't care what he believes will happen, I care about what will happen. we find that the Washington man remembers being the Helsinki man and remembers that man walking into the booth and being instantly teleported to Washington where he is alive and well, OK. He feels alive and well, and he has kept his identity. he is the Helsinki man. Yes, but he is not the only Helsinki man because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED, and that means the 1P view has been duplicated too, and that means the 1P view from the 1P view has been duplicated too, and that means the 1P view from the 1P view from the 1P view has been duplicated too So he can verify if his prediction done in Helsinki is correct. If he predicted Washington, that is correct, for him. If he predicted Moscow, that is incorrect for him, and if he predicted Washington and Moscow, that is incorrect for him (and for the other). If he predicted washington OR Moscow that is correct for him, Once upon a time there was a equation called X^2=2, and X always wondered what number he would turn out to be, and then one day a magical munchkin mathematician solved the equation and said that X was plus 2 and minus 2. All was well until minus 2 said the mathematician was wrong about who X was and that caused great strife in the land. Minus 2 said he was the solution to the equation and what's more he could prove it, and minus 2 said he was one and only one number and he certainly wasn't plus 2, so the great mathematician was wrong and was unable to predict what X would be. Unfortunately the number plus 2 started making similar claims about being the solution to the equation and got into a huge fight with minus 2, but they all added up to nothing. THE END This comes from the fact that all notions involved, including the notion of first person, in this setting, admits transparent third person description, like the diary, the bodies, etc. There is nothing in those diaries, nothing about the bodies and no third party description that I failed to predict. localizing oneself in a city. If a problem has 2 solutions that means it does not have one and only one solution. How profound. you predicted W and M. But W and M never occurs. Mr. Washington man are you also the Helsinki man? Yes. Are you now in one and only one city and is that city Washington? Yes. Mr. Moscow man are you also the Helsinki man? Yes. Are you now in one and only one city and is that city Moscow? Yes. Mr. Helsinki man, that is to say the guy who is still experiencing Helsinki, are you still the Helsinki man? Only dead silence can be heard as a answer. And so W and M ALWAYS occurs, that is to say the Helsinki man from the Helsinki man's viewpoint will be the Washington man and the Helsinki man from the Helsinki man's viewpoint will be the Moscow man. And the Helsinki man from the view of the guy who stayed in Helsinki no longer has a viewpoint of any sort. You are still confusing the guy in in this city and I feel now to be in this city And you are still confused by the fact that I is no longer singular because I HAS BEEN DUPLICATED AND SO HAS ALL OF I'S VIEWPOINTS. even if the Helsinki man was Bruno Marchal, even he made the correct prediction. Bruno Marchal predicted that 2 people will feel to be the Helsinki man and Bruno Marchal predicted that nobody will be experiencing Helsinki anymore because the body there has been destroyed, and Bruno Marchal predicted that both people who feel like the Helsinki man will be experiencing one and only one city Yes. And the question was which one?. Which what? I guess you mean which person goes to which city, I don't know what else you could mean. The answer is that the Washington man goes to Washington and the Moscow man goes to Moscow. Where is the indeterminacy? The question demands a single answer but in this case there is not one. This contradicts what you said above, that the guy knows in advance, that whoever he will feel to be, he will feel to be in a unique city. So there is a single answer There would be a single answer if he were singular but it is not because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED, and that means his viewpoint from his viewpoint has been duplicated too. W or M, but I can't be sure of which one. If I demand a single answer from the question are human beings male or female? I will always be able to find a counterexample to prove you wrong. Can you find any great philosophical significance from that fact? The question is asked to the Helsinki man, before the experience is
Re: Against Mechanism
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: If he's a devout Muslim he believes he will go to heaven with 77 virgins when he pushes that button, but as I said I really don't care what he believes will happen, I care about what will happen. That was my point. What happen does not depend on the beliefs. Then why in the name of all that's holy do you keep going on and on about what the man expects to happen? What the Helsinki man expects to happen depends entirely on the particular man involved. The Muslim will be very surprised after he pushes the button when he doesn't see 77 virgins that he was so certain he would see. I would not be at all surprised to see what I see after I push the button. And even though you make the exact same predictions I do nevertheless you say you would be surprised to see what you see after you push the button, apparently you would be surprised to find out that you were correct. You keep looking at this backward and trying to establish a chain of identity from the present to the future but that's never going to work, you've got to look from the present to the past. I know for certain that I am the John Clark of yesterday because I remember being him; if the Many Worlds theory is true then I'm not the only one who was John Clark of yesterday and some of them are now experiencing things that the John Clark of yesterday would say were astronomically (but not infinitely) unlikely, some are now experiencing vastly different things than I am now, but that doesn't make me or them any less the John Clark of yesterday. I am the John Clark of yesterday from my viewpoint, and the John Clark who was just elected Pope is the John Clark of yesterday from his viewpoint, and the John Clark who decided to become a rodeo clown is the John Clark of yesterday from his viewpoint. As for the John Clark of yesterday himself he has no voice in any of this because he is no longer around. And I know nothing for certain about the John Clark of tomorrow, I don't even know if he will exist. he is not the only Helsinki man because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED, and that means the 1P view has been duplicated too As seen from the 3-views on the 1-views. But not as seen by the 1-views. Who's 1-views? Find somebody after the experiment who complains my view was not duplicated! I dare you, show me! and that means the 1P view from the 1P view has been duplicated too, and that means the 1P view from the 1P view from the 1P view has been duplicated too As seen each time from some 3-view, but that is not what is asked. So even after a infinity of iterations you still think there has not been enough peeing and you can still factor out a p. Well where the hell is it? There is nothing in those diaries, nothing about the bodies and no third party description that I failed to predict. Indeed, but you fail to predict the first party description Using a word like the implies there is only one first party description and of course that is untrue because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. And before you start peeing I should tell you that I don't know what a 3p of a 1p is, much less a future 3p of a 1p. like if by some magic, you are all the copies at once, which would contradict comp. I don't care if it contradicts comp or not, I'm not its advocate and apparently know next to nothing about it. You keep telling me that comp implies all sorts of loony screwy things stuff that is clearly untrue, so I can only conclude that whatever comp means I don't believe a word of it. And the Helsinki man being all the copies is only a contradiction if you look at things through the wrong end of the telescope, its perfectly logical if you look from the present into the past. After the pushing on the button, nobody is in helsinki. Correct. But the helsinki man survived in W and M, Correct. And I note with pleasure that you said and not or. where both copies agree they are in once city Correct. and that they could not predict which one in advance. That depends on who's doing the prediction, I could make the correct prediction while the Muslim could not and would be surprised when he doesn't find his 77 virgins; but of course a bad prediction will not destroy his identity. The Muslim Helsinki man may be surprise to find himself in Washington and the Muslim Helsinki man may be surprise to find himself in Moscow but both remember being the Muslim Helsinki man so both are him, and predictions, good or bad, have nothing to do with it. Bad predictions are made all the time but that doesn't mean the thing making them ceases to exist, just look at Romney and the Republican party of the USA. you are still confused by the fact that I is no longer singular because I HAS BEEN DUPLICATED AND SO HAS ALL OF I'S VIEWPOINTS. Obviosuly not from the 1p perspective. Obviously?! If duplicating your body and your brain as perfectly as Mr. Heisenberg allows does not duplicate your
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: There is no mathematical justification for geometry though that I can think of. There are ways that numbers can describe geometry and ways that geometry can describe numbers. What more do you need? So the fact that arithmetic can produce the exact same sort of behavior that minds are so proud of, like playing Chess or solving equations or winning millions on Jeopardy, is all just a big coincidence. If you really believe that then there is a bridge I'd like to sell you. It's not a coincidence at all, but neither is the fact that arithmetic fails miserably at producing the sort of behavior that minds take for granted, like caring about something or having a personality. The thing I'm most eager to hear is why you said minds and not Craig Weinberg's mind. They [potassium and sodium ions in your brain] only matter to me because of the feelings and experiences their configurations make available to me. OK, there is no disputing matters of taste. what we feel is in no way linked to those objects except through empirical relation. Except for that Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play? There is no theory by which their configuration should lead to anything beyond the configuration itself. To hell with theories. Just because there is no theory to explain a phenomenon does not mean the phenomenon does not exist; nobody has a theory worth a damn to explain why the universe is accelerating but all astronomers know that it is nevertheless doing so. And there may not be a theory to explain why but there is not the slightest doubt that changes in those potassium and sodium ions cause PROFOUND changes in your consciousness and your subjective emotional state. So if ions in a few pounds of grey goo inside the bone box on your shoulders can create consciousness I don't understand why its such a stretch to imagine that electrons in a semiconductor can do the same thing, especially if they produce the same behavior. Einstein made more sense of the data was through imagination and discovery, OK. not through mechanistic data processing or accumulation of knowledge. What's the difference? How do you know that Bugs Bunny isn't tasting anything when he eats a carrot? I don't know it for a fact but I strongly suspect it because Bugs fails the Turing Test. we are a single cell which knows how to divide itself into trillions of copies. A cell in your body can divide into two or a trillion cells, but you don't know how it does it. We are not an assembly of disconnected parts. Nothing is an assembly of disconnected parts. no inorganic lever system seems to aspire to anything other than doing the same thing over and over again. A computer calculating the value of PI never repeats itself, it never returns to a previous state. It never leaves the state it's in. Calculating the value of Pi is one of the kinds of acts which requires infinite resources to complete, therefore it never gets chance to repeat itself. It's true that a real computer, unlike a theoretical Turing Machine, does not have a infinite memory and so can't be in a infinite number of states, but you don't have a infinite memory either and so your brain can't be in a infinite number of states. You and the computer are in the same boat. you have to finish 'peating' to be able to re-peat. If you believe that a real computer can't finishing peating and thus can't repeat I take it that you're retracting your comment that a computer just does the same thing over and over again. I do think that my approach does solve the Hard Problem of consciousness And your approach is that people are conscious because they use free will to make decisions and they use free will to make decisions because they are conscious. That doesn't sound very hard to me, or very deep. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: the God hypothesis
On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 7:29 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Leibniz thought that everything needs a sufficient reason to exist as it does. And we now know that Leibniz was DEAD WRONG about that, we now know that some things happen for no reason whatsoever. And in general that's the trouble with modern philosophers, they keep on quoting their ancient hero blissfully unaware of the developments made in physics or mathematics or biology that occurred in the last 400 years; they actually believe that scientific and mathematical illiteracy is no handicap in figuring out how the world works. I don't know how to explain that by anything other than the the God hypothesis. So everything needs a reason to exist. EVERYTHING. And thus God is the total explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. Are you trying to tell us with a straight face that you don't see the logical flaw in that argument? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Yes, the question is about a prediction. And my question is why is the question about prediction rather than remembering which would make far more sense. Using prediction to establish a chain of custody for your personal identity works about as well as pushing on a string. you've got to use memory and look from the present to the past, give it a try, try pulling that string. And I know nothing for certain about the John Clark of tomorrow, I don't even know if he will exist. Keep in mind the theoretical protocol. It is a theoretical and practical and empirical fact that I will never know as much about the future John Clark as the past John Clark, it's why the arrow of time has a direction. By asking them where they feel to be after opening the reconstitution box, after pushing the button in Helsinki. And them will answer I feel like I'm only in Washington AND I feel like I'm only in Moscow. I've got to say that your comments like the above make me want to pull my hair out. Yes you say, I understand that I the Helsinki man am now the Moscow man AND the Washington man. No, from the 1p, after pushing the button and opening the box, you *feel*[...] Who feels? Bruno Marchal admitted that both the Washington and the Moscow man are you, so who is you in the above? it can't be someone experiencing Helsinki because nobody is anymore. to be only the M man, or the W man. This is not in contraidction with the fact that they both feel to have been the Hlsinki man. But pronouns like you and I can't be tossed around and expect to be clear. Yes you say, I understand that I have been duplicated. Yes you say I understand that now I was one but now I am TWO. Intellectually. In the 3p view, but you, whoever you can be after pushing the button You being the Washington man AND the Moscow man. will feel to be only one of the copy. Yes the Washington man will and yes the Moscow man will, in other words yes you will . You say you understand all that, and then you ask but which ONE am I?. AHR! Because it is simple to understand that you[...] STOP HIDING BEHIND PRONOUNS! Who the hell is you?? he will not longer be singular, but both copies will still feel singular, and the question was about that feeling. If Bruno doesn't like the answer then Bruno should ask the question without using pronouns and without peeing. I repeat the precise question, asked to the H man, when he is still in Helsinki, before pushing the button. After he pushes that button the probability that the guy who is still experiencing Helsinki will see Washington or Moscow or Helsinki or anything else is zero because there is no longer a guy who is experiencing Helsinki. From the 1p view, he will never feel the presence of a split. I know. Good. you disagreed with this some times ago. BULLSHIT! In other words the environment causes a change in him and the two exact copies of the Helsinki man are not exact anymore and so become separate people You can put it that way, I know. but the indeterminacy comes from the duplication, follow by the differentiation. This is used in all the steps. I know, and that's exactly why its pointless of me to read all the steps. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: You mean the Helsinki guy. OK, so if you are the Helsinki guy and the Helsinki guy is the guy who is still experiencing Helsinki then the answer to the question what city will you see when you push that button? is no city at all. To remain the Helsinki guy, you need only to remember having been the Helsinki guy. OK, so if you are the Helsinki guy and the Helsinki guy is the guy who remembers being the Helsinki guy and BOTH the Moscow man AND the Washington man remember being the Helsinki guy then the answer to the question what city will you see when you push that button? is Washington only AND Moscow only, because you HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. And no amount of peeing is going to get you out of this mess. There is no problem with the pronouns Far from being a problem pronouns, especially personal pronouns, are absolutely essential for Bruno to communicate ideas, without them and the ambiguity they invariably produce the logical absurdity that Bruno's proof is based on would stand out in stark relief. Pronouns are good hiding places from that pesky thing called logical analysis. So now you agree that phenomenologically the comp indeterminacy is similar as the quantum indeterminacy I don't know perhaps I do agree, but before I know for sure I'll first have to figure out what comp is, and then figure out what phenomenological comp indeterminacy is; fortunately I already know what quantum indeterminacy is. Try to move on step 4, In other words try to forget that step 4 and all the steps after it are built on a foundation as sturdy as jello. Sorry I can't do that. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: There is no mathematical justification for geometry though that I can think of. There are ways that numbers can describe geometry and ways that geometry can describe numbers. What more do you need? A reason that there could possibly be a difference between the two. First you're complaining that there is no relationship between numbers and geometry and now you're complaining that there is a relationship. Make up your mind what you're unhappy about! Astronomers can't see neurons turning acoustic patterns into music though. Nobody can see that, because it may not be happening at all. Don't be ridiculous. There is certainly a connection between the patterns of neurons in a composer's brain and the patterns of sound he produces, if Beethoven were given Crack his neurons would fire differently and his symphonies would also be different. The brain is not creating consciousness. The brain is not creating consciousness. That is provably untrue. That is provably untrue. If I change your brain your consciousness changes and if you change your consciousness your brain changes. the computer knows nothing about the computations as a whole. I've been hearing you say stuff like that over and over and over and over again for one year now, and in all that time you have never once offered the smallest particle of evidence in support of your view. It isn't even a computer, I see, a computer isn't a computer and X is not Y and X is not not Y. No, I'm wrong, I don't see. Machines have parts which can be fastened, welded, or soldered together, but they are still disconnected And now connected things are disconnected. I suppose black is white too. it's just [...] It's just something that can perform most intellectual tasks and beat the hell out of you at many of them, things that until just a few years ago most were convinced only humans could accomplish. A filing cabinet can accumulate knowledge, and Google can sort the contents semantically, Just like a brain. but there is nothing there that cares about it. I've been hearing you say stuff like that over and over and over and over again for one year now, and in all that time you have never once offered the smallest particle of evidence in support of your view. Consciousness itself is an elaboration of sense, which is the capacity to make a difference and detect differences. Like a thermostat. People are conscious and have free will Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII sequence free will means. We could have a conversation over the phone where I imitate Bugs voice and describe the flavor of the carrots. That sounds like fun, lets do it! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Arithmetic doesn't even suggest geometry, let alone awareness.
On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I would never claim there is no relationship between numbers and geometry, I claim that there is no function which geometry serves for arithmetic. Pythagoras discovered and proved his famous theorem using geometry, only later was it expanded into the world of numbers. There is certainly a connection between the patterns of neurons in a composer's brain and the patterns of sound he produces, if Beethoven were given Crack his neurons would fire differently and his symphonies would also be different. A correlation among patterns in brain activity and acoustic vibration does not imply that vibrations in the air turn into an experience of sound. There is a test to determine which of our competing claims is true. Lets monitor a composers brain, say John Williams, and see if Crack makes the neurons in his brain fire in a atypical manner, if it does let him compose some music under the influence of Crack. Then we bring in a panel of music critics and ask them if the new composition is in Williams typical style. Do you really think they will say it sounds just like the Star Wars theme? A computer is a collection of switches, Yes. but it is only a collection in our imagination. Bullshit. The switches don't know that they are part of a collection. Yes, and a neuron in your brain doesn't know it's part of a collection. They don't know there is a computer And a neuron doesn't know there is a brain. Computers are great at doing very boring things very quickly. That's why people are so bored with computers, boring computers like Xbox's and iPones and Blu Ray players and iPods. Nyeaaah...What's up Doc? ! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 11:15 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: John Clark keeps saying that after the duplication John Clark will be in both places. Not from its personal subjective view (1p). Pronouns are Bruno Marchal's crutch and now it joins the pantheon. Where subjectivity is concerned if things are identical from a third person perspective they are certainly identical from any first party one. If you think I'm wrong give me a counterexample. They are not identical. One body is reconstituted in W, and the other in M. Position is a very poor way to establish personal identity, you'd become a different person every time you take a walk, or the Earth rotates on its axes. In fact how do you even know what position you or your copy are in? If you instantly exchange the position of you and a identical copy of you inside identical rooms in Washington and Moscow neither you nor the copy will notice the slightest difference. And an outside observer will not notice a difference either. The very universe itself will not notice that any exchange has occurred! Objectively it makes no difference and subjectively it makes no difference. If the difference is not objective and the difference is not subjective then that rather narrows down your options in pointing out just where that difference is. Ever hear of The Identity Of Indiscernibles? The philosopher who discovered it was Leibniz about 1690. He said that things that you can measure are what's important, and if there is no way to find a difference between two things then they are identical and switching the position of the objects does not change the physical state of the system. Leibniz's idea turned out to be very practical, although until the 20th century nobody realized it, before that his idea had no observable consequences because nobody could find two things that were exactly alike. Things changed dramatically when it was discovered that atoms have no scratches on them to tell them apart. By using The Identity Of Indiscernibles you can deduce one of the foundations of modern physics the fact that there must be two classes of particles, bosons like photons and fermions like electrons, and from there you can deduce The Pauli Exclusion Principle, and that is the basis of the periodic table of elements, and that is the basis of chemistry, and that is the basis of life. If The Identity Of Indiscernibles is wrong then this entire chain breaks down and you can throw Science into the trash can. So you agree now that the situation is equivalent, with respect to probability, for QM and comp? Comp is your thing not mine and I have no idea if its equivalent to QM. Until one duplicate sees Moscow and the other duplicate does not the two brains produce first person experiences that neither a third party nor the first party itself can distinguish between; and if there is only one thing it's nonsensical to ask which one? about anything. Again, what you say is obvious, and non relevant. Not relevant?! There are 2 cities and if there are all identical then there is only one Bruno Marchal regardless of how many brains and bodies of his are around, so it's meaningless to ask the question which one will see Washington? because there is nothing to choose from, at that point there is only one. Now it is possible that the environment of Washington will change one of those copies into the Washington man and that man will be the one the environment of Washington changes. What else do you expect to say about it? he question is asked to the H-man, about which city he will see Pronouns are Bruno Marchal's crutch. 1) In Helsinki you are put under anesthesia, then sent to W or to M, according to a random coin choice. You wake up in a room, open the door and see that you are in a city. 2) same protocol as in step 3, except that the annihilation is done when you are under anesthesia. I don't remember what step 3 is, and if we're talking about what things will be like after something was annihilated I don't see how it matters if it was done under anesthesia or not, The very fact that you are doing remark like that show that you agenda is just being negative about me, I have nothing against you and seem a nice enough fellow, but you did say the notion of Löbian machine is completely standard and that is not true. If you got the 3-Ed right, you might have got the 3-view on the 1-Ed right, but not their personal 1-view on those 1-view, as they are unique. Ah this explains everything, you believe in the soul and the duplicating chamber can duplicate anything except for the soul. I don't. W represents the first person experience Who's first person experience? Of the guy opening the door and seeing W. Oh you mean the guy who is turned into the the Washington man by the environment. And you want to know who that guy is. Well he's the guy who was turned into the the Washington man by the environment and before
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I wonder if your disagreement stems from different concepts of a self sampling assumption Absolute Self Sampling Assumption (ASSA) vs. Relative Self Sampling Assumption (RSSA). I don't know which assumption is better and I don't see how it matters, at least not now at our current state of ignorance. Nobody knows how many observers are possible, and even if we did nobody knows how many of those possible observers actually exist. I do know that in a thought experiment where lots of exact and near exact copies of John Clark are running around and somebody asks what will you see? it's rather helpful to know who the hell the pronoun refers to; Bruno says you refers to the Helsinki man but it's clear he doesn't mean it because in his next breath he says the Helsinki man is the Moscow man AND the Helsinki man is the Moscow man but you will not see Helsinki and Moscow. So who is you? Then again, perhaps John goes even further than ASSA or RSSA, in that he (at least at times) appears to deny any interrelation or continuation between observer moments, treating the H-man, W-man, and M-man as entirely independent observer moments There is a connection from the present to the past in that both the W-man and M-man emember being the H-man and thus both are the H-man. However there is no connection from the present to the future because the W-man and the M-man don't know what the other is thinking seeing or doing and thus are not each other and have become separate people. As for the H-man himself, by that I mean the man who is still experiencing Helsinki, he can no longer look into the past or future or even the present because nobody is experiencing Helsinki anymore. So in the middle of this complex stew of a thought experiment somebody asks a question about what you will see I don't know what the pronoun refers to, and when it becomes increasingly clear that the questioner himself isn't sure who the pronoun refers to I get grouchy. there would be no reason to try to make coffee, or to save money in the bank, or do anything for that matter, But that should be no problem for believers in the free will noise, they think people do things for no reason all the time, in fact they're proud of it. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: But according to computationalism your conscious moment is attached to some computer program, and computer programs progress until they halt. And a computer program is constantly changing so consciousness is constantly changing too, and that's a good thing because a static consciousness is no consciousness at all. Therefore you could identify the future self as at least one of the natural progressions of any program going through a state which results in your current experience. You can identify your past state as one that produced your present state, but it's hard to identify with your future state when you don't know what it will be. That's why predicting isn't as good as remembering and its what causes the arrow of time. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: You can identify your past state as one that produced your present state, but it's hard to identify with your future state when you don't know what it will be. I don't see why one's knowledge (partial or complete) is required to identify with something. And I don't see how you can identify with something you don't know anything about. I know for a fact that a memory of John Clark of yesterday exists, but as for John Clark of tomorrow, I can hope but I don't even know that he will exist. I maintain that nobody feels in their gut that he is the man he predicts he will be tomorrow but rather the man he remembers being yesterday. we can say I am some program, and My next experience will be that of the future evolution of this program even when we don't know what program that is. In other words whatever will be will be because the next step in your program could be STOP, you just don't know. But at least on this step I still have memories of the past states of the program. In some contexts memory is more reliable than prediction but not in all. I would put more faith in the sun rising next morning than in my correct recalling of what I ate for breakfast last week. Very few things are as predictable as the rotation of the Earth, and even then if there had been a category 9 earthquake anyplace on the planet since the sun went down sunrise could be a few milliseconds earlier or later than you expected. In general there is no doubt that we know the past better than the future and that's what gives time a direction. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 5:15 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But strictly speaking they cannot be identical. For example it is statistically certain that they will be thinking different thoughts as they revive from the transport. I don't know what statistics you're referring to but I do know that when statistics are involved certainty rarely is. The no-cloning theorem already ensures that they cannot be identical at the level of quantum state The no cloning theorem says that you can't duplicate the quantum state of a particle (although you can transport one at the speed of light, that is to say you can destroy the quantum state here and recreate it over there). But if we become a new person every time a particle in our head changed state we'd become a new person about 10^43 times a second. and the very interactions with the environment that make them quasi-classical will ensure they are not identical even at a much higher level than the molecular. The duplicates would need some sort of feedback mechanism to keep the two brains in synchronization, non linear effects would amplify tiny variations into big differences, but that is a engineering detail and this is a thought experiment, so we cut back on needless complications. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: the H-man doesn't have the right to call himself the W or M man because they don't exist yet and the future is always uncertain. Well, not always, but certainly in this case. This betrays that you get the point. The H-man cannot say it will be the M-man, or the W-man We're talking about the future so the H-man can't be certain that the machine is going to work or even that you were telling the truth when you said you had a duplicating machine. And even if the H-man was certain of all that he knows nothing about either Washington or Moscow and knows nothing about what sights and adventures his future self will have in either city so the Helsinki man can't identify with either the Washington man or the Moscow man; however they can and do identify with them because they remember being him and they know more about the past than the future, that's why time has a direction. ? ! From the third person, after the duplication As a point of interest, up to this point it's OK to use the word you, it's clear who the pronoun refers to. and box opening But at the instant the box is opened and different things revealed you is turned into the Washington man and you is turned into the Moscow man, so back in Helsinki to ask what will you see? is ambiguous. the brain differentiate quickly Perhaps, it depends on how different Washington is from Moscow. and the question is about which differentiation you will live. The question is who is you, is it: A) The man who is still experiencing Helsinki B) The men who remember being the Helsinki man C) Neither of the above but just a unspecified other. Your answer seems to be C and that is at the root of your confusion. The prediction is on which different brain (the one in W after the box is open, versus the one in M) you will feel to own. Both answers can be confirmed by people who remember being the Helsinki man; John Clark doesn't know how that relates to you and Bruno Marchal doesn't know either, if Bruno Marchal did know Bruno Marchal would stop using personal pronouns when Bruno Marchal knows of the confusion they create, but then clarity my not be desired if ideas are bad. The Helsinki guy cannot be sure if he will experience seeing W or M. WHO THE HELL IS HE??? Some guy who will have an experience. He is notably, the Helsinki guy. But it's not just you, Bruno Marchal is also inconsistent on who the Helsinki guy is, sometimes he's: 1) the guy experiencing Helsinki and then the Helsinki guy will see no city at all when he pushes that button, not even Helsinki; but at other times Bruno Marchal says 2) the Helsinki guy is the Moscow man seeing Moscow and only Moscow AND the Helsinki guy is the Washington man seeing Washington and only Washington. I can accept either definition of the Helsinki man but not both, for me to understand what you're trying to say you need to make up your mind. Bruno Marchal just agreed that the Helsinki guy will turn into the Washington guy and see Washington AND Bruno Marchal just agreed that the Helsinki guy will turn into the Moscow guy and see Moscow In the 3p view on the 1p views. It might be helpful if Bruno Marchal could explain, without using pronouns but by giving the subject a actual name, how the 3p view on the 1p views (whatever that is) differs from some other view. But the guy in Helsinki knows that he will with certainty feel to be in one city, And that is exactly what happens he will feel to be in Washington and only Washington and he will feel to be in Moscow and only Moscow because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED. and obviously he cannot predict which one. One? How can there be one? There are two cities and two hes. he cannot predict his future 1view, I don't know what he can or can not predict because I don't know who he is, but I just predicted the Helsinki man's future and I was correct, assuming the Helsinki man is not just the guy experiencing Helsinki. so obviously the Helsinki guy will see Moscow AND the Helsinki guy will see Washington. That's correct, but does not address the question which is about the unique future 1view that he will live with certainty. If that's correct, and it is, then obviously there is no unique future 1 view for the Helsinki man, although there is a unique past one for the Moscow man and the Washington man. Here you persist in avoiding the question about the future unique first person view, That is the exact point where Bruno Marchal's reasoning fails, in a world with duplicating chambers the future first person view is NOT unique, the Helsinki man's future includes being BOTH the Moscow man AND the Washington man. However even with duplicating chambers the past first person view remains unique, the Washington man was the Helsinki man and only the Helsinki man and the Moscow man was the Helsinki man and only the Helsinki man You just
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: it's not a question of keeping their brains syncronized. They will *never* be in syncrony. Never is a long time. And two atomic clocks can run in synchrony even though they are sensitive to far far astronomically far thinner slices of time than anything biological. Even though the same information is sent to Moscow and Washington, the processes of reconstructing the man from Helsinki will not be identical; the non-linearities and random effects like cosmic rays and K40 decays will mean the two clones are already different before they have enough brain to think anything. Sure in the real world it's hard to isolate things completely from the environment, but this is a thought experiment so anything that doesn't violate the basic laws of physics is fair game; what's more this is about philosophy and everybody knows philosophy has nothing to do with the real world. Of course people change moment-to-moment yet we identify them as 'the same person'. Yes. So I think the point of this is that the continuity of identity relies entirely on the memory of the two clones - their shared memories of the Helsinki man. There is no other sense in which they can be considered 'the same' Until the environment changes one but not the other there may be 2 bodies and 2 brains but there is only one mind, but when one remember something the other doesn't they differentiate, but as long as they still remember being the Helsinki man they both are the Helsinki man. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: The you are all the guy who feel to be you, all the time. So you is you. Thanks for clearing that up. You are using the pronouns in the confusing way, as you use you, when I use always 1-you, and 3-you. In the mulitiplication, the 3-yous multiplies, and the 1-you mutliply too, in the 3-views, but not from any of each possible 1-views. So from the 1-views, it is like a sequence of random event, Bruno Marchal says John Clark is confusing in the use of the pronoun you and then give us the above incredible stew of mashed yous. But it's not just you, Bruno Marchal is also inconsistent on who the Helsinki guy is, sometimes he's the guy experiencing Helsinki and then the Helsinki guy will see no city at all when he pushes that button, not even Helsinki; This contradicts comp. If you say so. This confirms that I know almost nothing about comp, and have little desire to know more. It would mean he did not survive classical teleportation No it does not, it just means that if you define the Helsinki Man as the man who's experiencing Helsinki and after the button is pressed nobody is experiencing Helsinki anymore then there is no Helsinki man anymore; but of course that's no problem to the former Helsinki man, he's doing fine in Washington AND Moscow. And this illustrates why precision of language is so important in a world with duplicating chambers. Just look at the context, and chose the meaning which makes the point consistent. It seems obvious for most. As a mathematician you must know that it is the step that is so obviously true that you don't even bother to mention it that has brought many a proof to grief. It might be helpful if Bruno Marchal could explain, without using pronouns but by giving the subject a actual name, how the 3p view on the 1p views (whatever that is) differs from some other view. After the duplication: There is one relevant 3p view, and it is: John-Clark-M enjoys Russian coffee and John-Clark-W enjoys American coffee. There are two relevant 1-p views, which are I enjoy a russian coffee. And, I enjoy American coffee. And I am John Clark the Helsinki guy and after the button is pushed I John Clark the former Helsinki guy will enjoy a russian coffee and I John Clark the former Helsinki guy will enjoy a American coffee. obviously there is no unique future 1 view for the Helsinki man, Why? Even in the 3p views, they are two unique (subjectively unique) futures. That is a blatant contradiction, if there are 2 of something then it's not unique. However even with duplicating chambers the past first person view remains unique, the Washington man was the Helsinki man and only the Helsinki man and the Moscow man was the Helsinki man and only the Helsinki man Very good! Thank you, but it doesn't work the other way because time has a direction, entropy increases the the present to the future. So the pronoun you doesn't refer to anything Why? It refers clearly to two persons, One pronoun is used to refer to two entirely different people in complex thought experiment involving personal identity and Bruno Marchal wonders why such a clear pronoun could possibly cause confusion. But then again, for advocates of bad ideas confusion is a good thing. The prediction W is wrong But I find Bruno Marchal in Washington and Bruno Marchal informs me that the prediction was correct. You have to listen to Bruno Marchal in Moscow too. Why? Will Bruno Marchal in Moscow somehow convince me that Bruno Marchal in Washington was incorrect about Bruno Marchal being in Washington? I don't think so because there is nothing wrong about 2 things being at 2 places at the same time and there are two of you because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. OK Bruno, the experiment is long over and now that you have all the information you will ever have on the matter what would have been the correct prediction back in Helsinki, W or M? I'm not asking for a prediction, the experiment is now in the past so interview anybody and everybody and tell me did you see W or M? Bruno Marchal insists there is one unique answer so let's hear it! ? ! On the contrary they all agree with W or M, ad they all live W, or M. Well which is it? The experiment is over and it's time to find out, did it turn out to be W or M? It's silly to assign a 50-50 probability, or any other probability (except 100% or 0%) AFTER something has happened. If you send a photon toward 2 slits quantum mechanics can give you probabilities about where the photon will hit a photographic plate, but that's all. it can't give you certainty. However once the experiment is over you can tell where it hit the plate with no doubt whatsoever and you don't need abstruse philosophy or advanced equations to do it, you just develop the photographic plate. This experiment is over too and Bruno Marchal predicted
Re: Against Mechanism
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: you agreed that the W and M experience are exclusive, making the 1-view unique from the 1-view point. Everybody has a unique viewpoint looking back into the past, nobody has a unique viewpoint looking to the future. you have to disbelieve comp. OK, you know more about your homemade word that I do so I defer to your greater expertise, I don't believe in this thing called comp. it just means that if you define the Helsinki Man as the man who's experiencing Helsinki and after the button is pressed nobody is experiencing Helsinki anymore then there is no Helsinki man anymore; but of course that's no problem to the former Helsinki man, he's doing fine in Washington AND Moscow. This contradicts what you say above. We have agree that the Helsinky man survive in both M and W John Clark can't agree with anything about the Helsinki man until John Clark knows what the Helsinki man means. If the Helsinki man is defined as the man that is currently experiencing Helsinki then nobody fits that description after the button is pushed. If the Helsinki man is anyone who remembers being in Helsinki before the button is pushed then 2 people fit that description. This shows that Bruno Marchal is being incredibly sloppy not just with pronouns but with noun phrases too, John Clark doesn't understand how Bruno Marchal expects to construct a precise mathematical proof with that sort of ambiguity. OK Bruno, the experiment is long over and now that you have all the information you will ever have on the matter what would have been the correct prediction back in Helsinki, W or M? I'm not asking for a prediction, the experiment is now in the past so interview anybody and everybody and tell me did you see W or M? Bruno Marchal insists there is one unique answer so let's hear it! they all agree with W or M, ad they all live W, or M. Well which is it? One of them. Well which is it? The experiment is over and it's time to find out, did it turn out to be W or M? It's silly to assign a 50-50 probability, or any other probability (except 100% or 0%) AFTER something has happened. This is done before. But we can confirm or refute it after. OK, you predicted it would turn out to be W or M but not both, so to confirm your prediction and claim victory all you have to do is tell me how the experiment turned out, was it W or M? If you send a photon toward 2 slits quantum mechanics can give you probabilities about where the photon will hit a photographic plate, but that's all. it can't give you certainty. However once the experiment is over you can tell where it hit the plate with no doubt whatsoever Suppose that you and me enter the same duplication box simultaneously. I can also describe the probability on which city we will both see, like with P(W) = P(M) = 1/2, and after the duplication, we open the door and we both can agree if we see W, or if we see M. So which was it W or M? It is the same with the quantum was without collapse. It's not the same at all! If I send a bunch of photons at 2 slits I can use quantum mechanics to predict that 90% of them will hit in that area of the photographic plate and 10% in that other area, and after the experiment is over we can see if my prediction was correct by developing the plate and counting the photons. But I can also send one and only one photon toward the slits and I can still have a pretty good idea about what area it will probably hit, if you bet me it would hit in the 10% area I'd take that bet because there is a 90% probability I'll double my money and only a 10% chance I'll loose it. However I'd take no bets with you on your thought experiment because you've made it clear you'd renege on the bet, even though you predicted it would be W or M but not both and even though AFTER the experiment you still could not say which one you'd still refuse to pay up. and you don't need abstruse philosophy or advanced equations to do it, you just develop the photographic plate. This experiment is over too and Bruno Marchal predicted there would be one and only one answer, either W or M. Like the photon will hit the screen here or there, despite the wave does not. Even after the measurement is done, in the QM without collapse. Before QM says the photon will hit here or there but AFTER the experiment you know with 100% certainty that the photon hit the photographic plate here and not there, and so we can test theories. In your thought experiment you used your theory and said it would be W or M but not both, AFTER the experiment you claim that all you can still say is W or M, so you really haven't made a prediction at all, thus we can conclude that it's a bad theory or a bad thought experiment or both. When we open the door of the reconstitution box, the measurement gives unambiguously a definite outcome. Then I ask yet again, was the unambiguous
Re: Against Mechanism
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 7:51 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: The experiment requires that you place yourself in the place of someone about to be duplicated and ask yourself what you expect to experience after that duplication. Various people expect all sorts of screwy things, often they are absolutely certain of it and sometimes they even turn out to be correct, but as I've said before what you expect to experience is irrelevant in this matter, what you do experience is not. And that can only be determined by remembering the past not by predicting the future. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: OK, you know more about your homemade word that I do so I defer to your greater expertise, I don't believe in this thing called comp. From your reply to Craig, I think that you do. Unless you have change your mind. I haven't changed my mind on this matter recently and until one year ago and I joined this list I had never heard of comp, so I defer to your greater expertise on the meaning of your homemade word. It now appears that I do believe in this thing called comp. you predicted it would turn out to be W or M but not both, so to confirm your prediction and claim victory all you have to do is tell me how the experiment turned out, was it W or M? OK. My prediction is W or M but not both. In that case both confirms. The prediction was not confirmed because after the experiment was over nobody said I saw W or M. And anyway only one of them is of interest because only one of them is you according to Bruno Marchal, otherwise the question which ONE did you see? would be nonsense, it's as if I had 2 apple pies and I asked which ONE is a apple pie?. You predicted W or M but not both, so which did it turn out to be? So which was it W or M? W for the W-couples, and M for the M couples. I was pleased to note that you said and not or. Before QM says the photon will hit here or there but AFTER the experiment you know with 100% certainty that the photon hit the photographic plate here and not there, before, in Helsinki you have probability, but after pushing on the button, then, in all circumstances you see a definite result In the two slit experiment the definite result was the that photon hit the photographic plate right there and not over there and no probability or theory was used or needed, all that was needed was a darkroom to develop the plate. So what was the definite result of your experiment, W or M? before, in Helsinki you have probability, but after pushing on the button, then, in all circumstances you see a definite result AND I'M ASKING WHAT IT WAS, W OR M and so we can test theories. In your thought experiment you used your theory and said it would be W or M but not both, AFTER the experiment you claim that all you can still say is W or M, In your imagination only. All the copies can say where they are after the experience. You attribute me statements that I have never said. John Clark is not interested in all the copies John Clark is only interested in you, Bruno Marchal predicted that you will only see ONE city so which ONE was you? Was you in W or was you in M? It's OK to say or in making a prediction but not in reporting a experimental result. You can test the probability, by iterating the experience, Tell me how to do this. How do you do the counting? You say that after each iteration you can put a mark next to W or M but not both, so tell me where to put the mark. When we open the door of the reconstitution box, the measurement gives unambiguously a definite outcome. Then I ask yet again, was the unambiguous definite outcome W or M? The point is that it can only be one of them, for both subject. So it was W for one of them, and M for the other. The question bears on the first person experience, Then John Clark asks yet again, which one is you? Forget about prediction, after it's all over from the first person experience which city did you end up seeing, W or M? You confuse the result of the measurement (which can only be W or only M So which one was it W or M? W for one half of the copies, and W for the other halves. Yes obviously, but Bruno Marchal insisted that you will see W or M but not both, so which one turned out to be you, the one that saw W or the one that saw M? You can't be both because that's John Clark's position. John Clark understands that Bruno Marchal's theory can't predict which one, but what was the experimental result? From the first person point of view which Bruno Marchal likes so very much which one turned out to be you? Same with the two slits: QM describes the two different outcomes of the measurement Yes QM predicts the photon will hit here or there with a certain probability, but afterward the measurement produces only one outcome, as can be seen when we develop the photographic plate There is no reduction. In Everett QM, there are many photographic plates, containing respectively different John Clark looking at them. And for each point on the plate there is a John Clark observing that the photon hit that particular spot and no other, so each time the 2 slit experiment is repeated a definite result is found, the photon hit RIGHT THERE. What definite outcome did your experiment produce, W or M? and see only one point not two, its a point right there plain as day with no doubt whatsoever. Your theory predicts or, it says there will be one and only one result so all I want to know is what
Re: Re: Against Mechanism
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Physics is deterministic, I said it before I'll say it again, it's astonishing how many people expect to make deep philosophical discoveries while remaining totally ignorant about what science has accomplished since the year 1900, if not 1800. human thought is not. So your thoughts happen for no reason whatsoever and are thus random and chaotic. That may actually explain a lot. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, if Everett is correct then the photon hit every point on that photographic plate, but for every point on the plate there is also a John Clark who, after developing the plate, sees that the photon hit that particular point right there and no other point. Thus the 2 slit experiment produces a result, it may seem a odd result to human beings but it is a definite result to every one of the infinite number of John Clarks, and to any other observer who happens to be living in that same world. And that makes it profoundly different from Bruno's experiment. Now this is the most blatant inconsistency I have seen from you thus far. If that is true then what you have seen from me has been very consistent indeed. You can see the John Clarks duplicated by the wave function experience a certain definite result Yes, the 2 slit experiment produces a rock solid result, quantum mechanics could only predict probabilities but the experiment produces a definite result, it says the photon hit right at that point with 100% certainty. either the photon took the left slit or the right slit This is a bit of a tangent and it's more difficult to do but the 2 slit experiment can be set up in such a way that you can tell which slit the photon went through, but if you do that then the photons will not produce a interference pattern on the film. In my example I assumed the usual 2 slit setup where you don't know which slit the photon went through and many photons will produce a interference pattern on the film and quantum mechanics can only give a probability on where a single photon is likely to hit the photographic plate. There are other ways to do the setup that can be instructive. Do the two-slit experiment but instead of using film to stop the photon after it pass the slits, let it head out into infinite space. If Many Worlds is correct then the entire universe splits into 2 when the photon hit's the 2 slits, and never recombines. There is nothing special about you the observer, you split just like everything else, you know that the photon went through one and only one slit, but of course you have no way of knowing which one. This is like Bruno's experiment, doing the 2 slit experiment without film produces no result. Now let's do the more usual two-split experiment and put the film back in. The universe splits just as it did before when it passed the two slits, but when the photon hits the film and it no longer exists in either universe then the 2 are identical and the universes fuse back together again. Looking back we find evidence that the photon (or electron) went through slit X only and evidence it went through slit Y only and this causes an interference pattern. Again there is nothing special about an observer in this, the same thing would happen if nobody looked at the film, or even if you used a brick wall instead of film, because the important thing is not that the photon makes a record (whatever that is) but simply that it is destroyed. Mind has nothing to do with any of this so I don't need to explain it, or measurement, or record, or observation, or consciousness. That is a very very big advantage! The key point is that universes split when they become different and merge when they become the same, and measurement doesn't enter into it. yet you are blind to the definite result of self localization after a single duplication. Why is that? Bruno said that you know that when the button is pushed you will see one city and one city only, Bruno also said that no theory can predict if the city will be W or M that you will see. Fine, but my question was after the experiment was over what was the definite result, was it W or M that you saw? I asked Bruno to do the equivalent of developing the photographic plate and report what was seen, W or M. But Bruno couldn't tell me the outcome and neither could anybody else. How many points (where the photon struck) will any of the infinite John Clarks see once the photographic plate is developed? One. Do you agree each of them sees only one outcome? Yes. Does Jason Resch agree that the number of Washingtons that John Clark will see after John Clark pushes that button is one? Does Jason Resch agree that the number of Moscows that John Clark will see after John Clark pushes that button is one? Does Jason Resch know who the hell the single unique being called you is supposed to be after the button is pushed in Bruno's thought experiment? Does Jason Resch know which one and only one city you will see after the button is pushed? John Clark would very much like to be informed about the answer to the last two questions because Bruno clearly doesn't know. Does Jason Resch? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 6:00 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Again there is nothing special about an observer in this, the same thing would happen if nobody looked at the film, or even if you used a brick wall instead of film, because the important thing is not that the photon makes a record (whatever that is) but simply that it is destroyed. But you can do the experiment with electrons too, and the electrons are not destroyed. Good point. If electrons are used in the two-split experiment a brick wall probably wouldn't do, you'd need a metal wall. Brick is a pretty good insulator so you'd end up with 2 small negatively charged spots on the wall in slightly different places; How would you get two charged spots? Would each have charge -e/2? No, if many worlds is right then the universe splits every time a electron goes through the slits, and that means there are now 2 universes and that means there are now 2 electrons and 2 Brents measuring 2 negative charges on 2 insulating walls in 2 slightly different positions. So the universes are different and do not merge and no interference is found. The experiment was originally done with photographic film, so that each electron ionized a silver halide atom resulting in a silver spot on the film. Yes. Now it's usually down is some kind of detector that amplifies the effect of each electron. Neither one has anything to do with destroying the electron. You don't need to destroy the electrons you just have to arrange things so that the effect the 2 electrons have on their universes is indistinguishable, then the 2 universes will merge back together and interference is produced. If you fire electrons at 2 slits and have sensitive detectors mounted near one slit so a record is made of which slit each of the electrons went through then the universe splits into two each time a electron is fired and it does not recombine because the 2 universes are different, one has a record of the electron going through slot X and the other has a record of it going through slot Y, and so no interference is produced on the photographic plate. But if there is no detector near a slit or no record kept of which slit it went through then the universe still splits when it goes through the 2 slits because the 2 are different, the electrons are on slightly different trajectories, but when the electrons hit the metal wall there is no longer any detectable difference between the 2 universes and so they merge back together, but there is still evidence that the electron went through slot X only and evidence it went through slot Y only and this produces the interference effect. the walls would not be the same and so the 2 universes would not be the same and so they would not merge. However if it was a metal wall the electrons would just join the general sea of free electrons in the metal and there is no way even in theory to tell one electron from another. So the walls would have the same charge and mass. But in an entangled electron pair experiment (EPR type) detecting the path of one electron destroys the interference pattern on the other leg. Yes. But also just absorbing one electron destroys the interference on the other leg. Yes, if one electron is absorbed into the electron sea of a metal and the other electron is not then obviously the 2 universes remain different and so do not recombine and so no interference is found. To maintain the interference you have to absorb the electron at the focal point of a lens so that you not only don't detect the which-way information, you erase it. I don't quite know how a lens enters into this but yes, if the which-way information is not recorded or the record erased by whatever means then the 2 universes are identical and merge and a interference pattern is seen. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Against Mechanism
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Did you mean I saw W or M, which is indeed confirmed by the two copies? Or I saw W or I saw M, which again is confirmed by the two copies? I meant that a observer who did not want to play games and honestly wanted to convey the maximum amount of information would NOT say from a first person view I saw W or M. And I meant that me would say I saw M AND me would say I saw W. They are both me in the 3-view And so obviously they are both me in the 1-view. and only one of them can be me in the 1-view. Me disagrees with Bruno Marchal about that, Bruno Marchal should just ask me and that will prove that John Clark was correct. and don't give me this first party third party crap, ANYBODY that exists after that button is pushed sees BOTH of them as Bruno Marchal from the first, second third or any other point of view you care to name. No YES!! the one in W does not see the one in M as being himself in the first person sense If they are identical the one in W does not even know if he's in W or M, and the same is true of the one in M. he just agree that the other is as much the H-man s himself Yes. but now they have differentiated. Yes but not at the instant of duplication, at the instant one sees something the other does not. Only in the 3-sense [...] Only in the 3-sense? ONLY?! I repeat my request yet again, without invoking the supernatural please give a example of 2 beings identical from the 3p but not from the 1p. If 2 things are me in the 3p then unless there are mystical supernatural entities at work they are certainly identical in the 1p Not at all, This gets to the very heart of the matter and I could not disagree with you more. If correct why can't a example be provided? they are both me in the comp sense. Then what are we arguing about? We have agree that both the W-man and the M-man can pretend rightly that they are the H-man, Yes. but their first person view have differentiated Only when one sees something the other does not, as long as they stay in those identical boxes they have not differentiated no matter how far apart the boxes are and there is only one conscious being. They feel different. If they have different memories of what happened after the duplication then yes, otherwise no. you can't use Leibniz rule for identity. I duplicate you. You and your identical copy are in 2 identical sealed boxes. I instantaneously exchange the position of of you and the copy. A third person cannot tell that anything has happened. You can not tell that anything has happened. The copy can not tell that anything has happened. So unless you can find a difference that is neither objective nor subjective then there is no difference between you and the copy. and if Bruno Marchal can dream up some other pee they're identical from that viewpoint too. Then if I give a pinch to the M-man Then the 2 are no longer identical and all bets are off. the W-man will get angry, Only if you pinch the W-man too. showing that your view entails action at a distance, telepathy, or some magic of that kind. Don't be ridiculous. you forget the point that the question is asked to the h-man, about his subjective future. And you forget that the H-man's future bifurcates so to expect a single answer is nuts. And I don't see how predictions of a subjective future is of any value in a thought experiment. I make predictions of what my subjective future will be like all the time and I turn out to be right about as often as I'm wrong. You have to take into account all copies, to get the statistics right Well then take all the copies into account and get the statistics right and tell the world the definite unambiguous result the experiment is claimed to produce! Did you end up seeing Washington or did you end up seeing Moscow? The point is, for the H-man, assuming comp, that he will survive one and entire in both city, but feel to be one city, and that he cannot predict which one. John Clark is not interested in predictions nor in theories, John Clark just wants a report on how a experiment turned out. Under some interpretations of quantum mechanics the wave function collapses and in other interpretations it does not, but regardless of which philosophical interpretation is true quantum mechanics makes the same clear statistical prediction of what will be observed. But without collapse QM is entirely deterministic, Yes. and the probabilities bears only on first person point of view Yes, and until about 80 years ago people thought that all probabilities always bear only on the first person point of view; if Everett is proven correct then people will think that way again. And I have nothing against first person subjective probabilities as long as its clear who that first person is. Bruno Marchal is unable to give a straight answer to the simple question did you end
Re: Against Mechanism
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 3:26 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: That's where you're wrong; read the paper more carefully. If you record the which-way the interference is lost. [...] The interference pattern occurs *only* if the which way information is *erased* Nope, you've got it exactly precisely backwards yet again. I quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27s_delayed_choice_experiment:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27s_delayed_choice_experiment If the experimenters know which slit it goes through, the photon will behave as a particle. If they do not know which slit it goes through, the photon will behave as if it were a wave when it is given an opportunity to interfere with itself. Or you don't like Wikipedia http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/quantum.html : * *when we don't know which slit the photons are going through, we get a wave interference pattern. When we do know which slit each photon traveled through, no interference pattern.* *Or maybe* you prefer this: *http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/* * One can set up a measurement to watch which slit a photon goes through. It can be determined that the photon went through one slit and not the other. However, once this is kind of measurement is set up, the photons will no longer collectively produce a nice pattern of bright and dark spots. Instead they will strike the screen in one big bright spot, as if there were only one slit instead of two. Or perhaps this: http://theobservereffect.wordpress.com/the-most-beautiful-experiment/ If one neglects to observe which slit a photon passes through, it appears to interfere with itself, suggesting that it behaves as a wave by traveling through both slits at once. But, if one chooses to observe the slits, the interference pattern *disappears*, and each photon travels through only one of the slits. * *Actually you don't need other people to tell you this you can figure this out on your own; if you only have one slit then obviously you know which slit the photon went through and there is no interference pattern. But if you have 2 closely slits then you don't know which slit the photon went through and you get a interference pattern. John K Clark * * -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
