Re: Exact Theology was:Re: Kim 2.4 - 2.5
Bruno, sorry for taking it jokingly (ref: Steinhart): Latest research revealed that Shakespeare's oeuvre was not written by William Shakespeare, but by quite another man named William Shakespeare. John From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-l...@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 4:57:17 AM Subject: Re: Exact Theology was:Re: Kim 2.4 - 2.5 Ah bravo Günther, now I am depressing :( I don't succeed in finding my Steinhart book. I don't either find the book on the net, and I begin to doubt it is a book by the same Steinhart. I have some doubt that my Steinhart has Eric as first name. I remember only that the book was taking Pythagorus very seriously, which is rare in the literature. Once I find the information, I will let you know. Your Steinhart seems interesting too (and open to Pythagorus), like Leslie is interesting too, btw. Of course those people seems not to be aware of all the progress in the field ... Have a good day, Bruno Le 11-janv.-09, à 16:54, Günther Greindl a écrit : Which one did you have? Was it good? (I only know his papers) Cheers, Günther Bruno Marchal wrote: Gosh, you make me realize that I have lost my book by Steinhart. . I did appreciated it some time ago. Thanks for the references. Best, Bruno On 09 Jan 2009, at 21:26, Günther Greindl wrote: Hello, My domain is theology. scientific and thus agnostic theology. I specialized my self in Machine's theology. Or Human's theology once assuming comp. The UDA shows (or should show) that physics is a branch of theology, so that the AUDA makes Machine's theology experimentally refutable. Will machines go to paradise? Some related work: http://www.ericsteinhart.com/abstracts.html Especially: Steinhart, E. (2004) Pantheism and current ontology. Religious Studies 40 (1), 1 - 18. ABSTRACT: Pantheism claims: (1) there exists an all-inclusive unity; and (2) that unity is divine. I review three current and scientifically viable ontologies to see how pantheism can be developed in each. They are: (1) materialism; (2) platonism; and (3) class-theoretic pythagoreanism. I show how each ontology has an all-inclusive unity. I check the degree to which that unity is: eternal; infinite; complex; necessary; plentiful; self-representative; holy. I show how each ontology solves the problem of evil (its theodicy) and provides for salvation (its soteriology). I conclude that platonism and pythagoreanism have the most divine all-inclusive unities. They support sophisticated contemporary pantheisms. and Steinhart, E. (2003) Supermachines and superminds. Minds and Machines 13 (1), 155 - 186. ABSTRACT: If the computational theory of mind is right, then minds are realized by computers. There is an ordered complexity hierarchy of computers. Some finite state machines realize finitely complex minds; some Turing machines realize potentially infinitely complex minds. There are many logically possible computers whose powers exceed the Church-Turing limit (e.g. accelerating Turing machines). Some of these supermachines realize superminds. Superminds perform cognitive supertasks. Their thoughts are formed in infinitary languages. They perceive and manipulate the infinite detail of fractal objects. They have infinitely complex bodies. Transfinite games anchor their social relations. Especially the first paper (concerning Pythagorenaism) is interesting. Best Wishes, Günther http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.grei...@univie.ac.at Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory
Jason: your idea sounds sound. I wonder if it is not a variation of the situation according to which in facto there is only ONE outcome under given circumstances of the actual OM, but we have the creativity of imagining more than just the one that occurs? I formulated this when I did not like the 'bifurcation' with which the lit was spread full some time ago. Then I argued that the scientist (who maybe a normal person as well) cannot propose more ways for a process to proceed than the (occurring) ONE allowed by the totality and its combined consequence, the other(s) are only speculations. Besides I argued against the bi: nature is not restricted to only TWO ways to choose from and introduced the 'multifurcation' insted (to deny.G). I was so proud to agree with Schrodinger (ha ha). John - Original Message - From: Jason To: Everything List Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:48 PM Subject: RSSA / ASSA / Single Mind Theory With ASSA/RSSA there is the assumption that there is a sampling, that of all observers (or observer moments) one is selected and experienced. Consider momentarily, that no sampling was taking place? Is this view consistent and valid? Note that by no sampling I mean no discrimination. Instead of one oberserver or observer-moment being chosen, all are chosen and all are experienced. In this regard the pronoun you becomes meaningless, it could be said that all perspectives are experienced by a single mind. When a person is born an observer is not created, rather the universe gains a new perspective upon itself. The same is true in all the paradoxes of duplication/copying of observers. Instead of there being a 50% chance of experiencing Washington or Moscow there is a 100% chance the universe perceives both viewpoints. I do not believe there would be any noticeable difference if this single mind experienced each observer-moment serially, simultanesouly, or each for eternally. Although I think it is simpler to say every observer-moment is being experienced eternally, as each brain state exists eternally in platonia. If this view happens to be consistent, then by Occam's razor it should be perferred over ASSA or RSSA since it does not require there be any sampling. After I developed this idea, I found that it was almost identical to ideas held by Erwin Schrödinger, who said: There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousness. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. and [...] the plurality of sensitive beings is mere appearance (maya); in reality they are all only aspects of the one being. * Quotes obtained from http://www.cts.cuni.cz/~havel/work/schroe94.html -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.5.4/768 - Release Date: 4/19/2007 5:32 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism
Dear Bruno, allow me to interleave below as [JM]: remarks. John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism Le 09-avr.-07, à 16:40, John M a écrit : Stathis, I am weary about the view of 'computationalism' based on that emryonic binaryly digital toy we used yesterday. I let my tech. immagination wander and think about analog computers dealing in meanings and functions rather than bits 0 or 1. BM: But there is no universal analog computers. Analog machines can be made universal by making them able to compute the sinus function, but this is a way to implement a digital universal machine in an analog one. And then why would real analog machine be more able able to deal with meaning and functions? [JM]: I am not talking about 'analogizing' the digital kraxlwerk. I am REALLY referring to a NEW incention (discovery), like the digital computer was originally, dealing with some contraption of comparing - handling concepts, functions, meanings, ideas.I agree: it is beyond our today's level of reality(!). I do not believe that the digital-comp select analoguizing function can be universalized. I am talking about a principally different action of the future in spe. Free idea (your 'science'). In such sense SUCH 'physical 'COMPUTER' will run a conscious program, Why? You talk like if it was obvious that consciousness is related with actual third person real numbers (analog object)? At least comp explains completely why consciousness is related to real numbers, but only from the first person perspective. This is coherent with the fact that consciousness is a first person notion. [JM]: When I formulate my thoughts I do not start from 'numbers', real, Godel or not. Math comes in my thoughts as PART of a world - whether such world exists or not - and not vice versa. So far I did not get a satisfactory argument from 'outside the numbers-started image' why the elusive numbers should be responsible for all change and activity. Hence my number=god. Ref: your next remark. not a mechanisedly 'consciousified' digital program. John, with all my friendly respect, I think you miss the impact of Godel's theorem. Somehow, we know (provably so with the comp assumption) that we don't know what numbers or machines are capable of. But ok, you are just arguing for the non-comp assumption. I have nothing against it, unless you pretend that the mind-body problem would be easier to solve in such frame. it is actually not the case. [JM]: WHAT mind-body problem? the fiction of 'matter' as body upon the unidentified ideational existence? Making the essence dependent from the consequentially drawn-up physical world? Adding third person infinities makes things more complex, and in general such moves are used to hide the problem instead of solving it or even just better formulating it. [JM]: your problem when starting from the math-concept If called 'computer' at all, it is a tool. Call it 'god' and you are out. * I cannot blame Peter to be stubborn in that's we have, (rather: see), that's we love pragmatism. I am irresponsible enough to allow speculative conditional fantasy. That's my definition of science. Speculative conditional fantasy. Even Grand Mother physics, with theories like the sun will rise tomorrow, become scientific only when grandmother adds let's hope. All theories are hypothetical, even the implicit theories our brain supports since million years. Of course those theories are more difficult to put in doubt. But science appears when people have been able to take distance with such obvious truth, like the primacy of the material world. [JM]: thanks for the consentual formulating. Of course only into my 'narrative'. But IMO advancement needs a free unrestricted mind and includes fantastic ideas. OK. But not if those fantastic ideas are used to burry problems instead of formulating them or solving them. It could perhaps be arguable that fantastic ideas like God or its dual idea Matter have been used since a long time to bury the initial deep questioning. [JM]: only if one starts from your 'beginning'. My narrative is immune to such difficulties - of course I have no complete system. Right or wrong. And of course I am not certain myself. That is the best I wish you ... Bruno [JM]: thanks for the response John http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.2.0/756 - Release Date: 4/10/2007 10:44 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism
Bruno, addendum to my post before. You wrote: BM: But ok, you are just arguing for the non-comp assumption. [JM]: No, I just speak about 'another type' comp, a non-digital contraption that handles meaning, function, without the crutches of the (hypothetical? at least unidentified) numbers - those mysterious factors creating the world. Some fantasized earlier about using the 'digital-type' computer-idea with proteins as chips, I think the analogy came from the biological complexity. That, too, is the application of the inadequate past into a better future in my opinion. I am hoping for something NEW. I leave open the 'origination' of which the smartest brains could only utter some fantasy so far. Within their theory. In my 'narrative' I shove the qiestion under the rug of the plenitude. It is the ultimate 'given' I use (redfaced). We have no way to penetrate those fundaments which we cannot penetrate. (Trivial enough?) In spite of your perevious remark that a L-M CAN deduce things beyond our (its?) cognitive limitations. BTW: what do you mean by interviewing the L-machine? John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism
Thanks, Quentin. It seems AoC is not contrary to the line I represented. * To your other post: I did not feel any pejorating in Peter's Brunoism. Bruno is appreciated with his 23rd c. views. (He joked about it, calling the list as 100 years ahead, himself 200). I have only ONE (logic?) objection: we all 'think ' with our 21th c. brains and 'organize' nature (existence, world, origins, etc.) - i.e. a sort of 'prescription for nature, how it *ever* 'should be' built - accordingly. It is different from the 'turtle', Kronos', 'Indra's', the 'Big Manitou's', even the 'Big Bang's' follies at different levels of our actual epistemic developmental stages. So is even the 23rd c. Brunoism in 21st c. math logic. My precise prescription is: - We don't know, we can speculate. - Speculation is good, I do it, but I beware of drawing to long consecutive series upon its ASSUMED circumstances and warn others to regard them as 'facts' especially in the nth level of lit. repetitions (by calling it my 'narrative' to begin with). Whether 'numbers' originated the conscious mind or vice versa, (even if Bruno restricts this idea to the natural integers, for the sake of simplicity), whether those unidentified numbers have any force-activity to construct anything, or is it something else still undiscovered today, generating even the numbers (math) in OUR thinking, (substituted by an unknowable god concept in many minds), is MY open question. The 'mind-body' thesis is no good answer, because mind is unidentified and body is not a primary concept (mostly assumed as 'material', in the 'physical' figment of our explanatory sequence in learning about the world). My ramblings conclude into: it all may be right (in conditional). My criticism aims at triggering (teasing?) better arguments. So are my questions. Best regards John M - Original Message - From: Quentin Anciaux To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 5:48 PM Subject: Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism Hello, While Peter did not answer your question about AoC... AoC means, I think, Axiom of Choice see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice . The correct sigle (in french this is the word, don't know the correct term in english) is AC. Regards, Quentin On Sunday 08 April 2007 00:47:41 John M wrote: IZ wrote: ...arithmetic? It's widely agreed on In my oppinion scientific argumentation is not a democratic vote. Scientists overwhelmingly agreed in the Flat Earth. THEN: science changed and the general vote went for heliocentrism. THEN... IZ continued: ... Otherwise there would (b)e problems about the existence of those platonic objects which can only be defined with certain, disputable axioms, such as the AoC. Axioms in my wording are fictions necessary to prove OUR theory. (They may be true?) (What is AoC?) IZ also refers to Brent's 'continua'. In my nat. sci. views a discontinuum is an abrupt change in CERTAIN data. Can be a 'is' or 'is not', but could be only an aspect in which WE find an abrupt change, while in other aspects there is continuum. Now 'what we call it' (abrupt or slow - even monotonous change) is scale-dependent, depends on the magnitude of our applied measuring system. Measure it in parsecs, all our terrestrial items are homogenous. Measure in nanometers, a 'glass' is a heterogenous system. I find the 'Planck' measure just a domain in human (physical?) aspects, not providing a bottom-size for nature. (I.e. for Our thinking only. ) As I explained the origination of the biochemicals certain (outside?) factors in the material 'mass' ('mess?) disproportionated certain components into diverse (localised) agglomerations and a concentration potential- difference arose between certain domains. Such potential gradients (in the still homogenous = continuous mass) acted as transport-barriers, turned into hypothetical (and later: veritable) 'membranes' for a discontinuum. From the material-transport view the same substrate became discontinuous. (Hence: cell-walls etc.) Otherwise it was considerable as a homogenous (continuous?) biomass. Similar 'domain'related' arguments can work in human consciousness as originated from (Platonic?) math (numbers) - or vice versa. I appreciate Bruno's inadvertent if we accept UD/comp etc.etc. formula. Hard to beat, especially since so far there is NO successfully applicable (not even a dreamed-up) alternative developed sufficiently into a hopeful replacement for the many millennia evolved 'physical view' of our reductionist conventional science. Even the new ways start from there if not in veritable sci-fi. John M - Original Message - From: 1Z To: Everything List Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 12:57 PM Subject: Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism
Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism
IZ wrote: ...arithmetic? It's widely agreed on In my oppinion scientific argumentation is not a democratic vote. Scientists overwhelmingly agreed in the Flat Earth. THEN: science changed and the general vote went for heliocentrism. THEN... IZ continued: ... Otherwise there would (b)e problems about the existence of those platonic objects which can only be defined with certain, disputable axioms, such as the AoC. Axioms in my wording are fictions necessary to prove OUR theory. (They may be true?) (What is AoC?) IZ also refers to Brent's 'continua'. In my nat. sci. views a discontinuum is an abrupt change in CERTAIN data. Can be a 'is' or 'is not', but could be only an aspect in which WE find an abrupt change, while in other aspects there is continuum. Now 'what we call it' (abrupt or slow - even monotonous change) is scale-dependent, depends on the magnitude of our applied measuring system. Measure it in parsecs, all our terrestrial items are homogenous. Measure in nanometers, a 'glass' is a heterogenous system. I find the 'Planck' measure just a domain in human (physical?) aspects, not providing a bottom-size for nature. (I.e. for Our thinking only. ) As I explained the origination of the biochemicals certain (outside?) factors in the material 'mass' ('mess?) disproportionated certain components into diverse (localised) agglomerations and a concentration potential- difference arose between certain domains. Such potential gradients (in the still homogenous = continuous mass) acted as transport-barriers, turned into hypothetical (and later: veritable) 'membranes' for a discontinuum. From the material-transport view the same substrate became discontinuous. (Hence: cell-walls etc.) Otherwise it was considerable as a homogenous (continuous?) biomass. Similar 'domain'related' arguments can work in human consciousness as originated from (Platonic?) math (numbers) - or vice versa. I appreciate Bruno's inadvertent if we accept UD/comp etc.etc. formula. Hard to beat, especially since so far there is NO successfully applicable (not even a dreamed-up) alternative developed sufficiently into a hopeful replacement for the many millennia evolved 'physical view' of our reductionist conventional science. Even the new ways start from there if not in veritable sci-fi. John M - Original Message - From: 1Z To: Everything List Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 12:57 PM Subject: Re: Speaking about Mathematicalism On 3 Apr, 20:08, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: That brings up an issue which has troubled me. Why arithmetic? It's widely agreed on. Otherwise there would e problems about the existence of those platonic objects which can only be defined with certain, disputable axioms, such as the AoC. Mathematical physics commonly uses continua. Most speculate that this is an approximation to a more discrete structure at the Planck scale - but I don't believe there has ever been any rigorous proof that this kind of approximation can work. If we are to suppose that arithmetic exists because statements like 2+2=4 are true independent of the physical world, then it seems that calculus and analysis and geometry and topology should also exist. Tell that to an intuitionist! I initially thought the idea of using arithmetic as the foundational ur-stuff was attractive because I assumed that infinities could be avoided, i.e. allowing only potential infinities as in intuitionist mathematics. But it appears that diagonalization arguments are essential to Bruno's program and those require realized infinities. Brent Meeker we are not *in* a mathematical structure, we are distributed in an infinity of mathematical structures, and physicality emerges from the interference of them. Why a wavy interference? Open problem. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.26/750 - Release Date: 4/6/2007 9:30 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
Stathis: let me keep only your reply-part and ask my question(s): - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:34 PM Subject: Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter? On 3/25/07, Mark Peaty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SKIP - Sorry, Mark, this goes to Stathis, who wrote: *-SP: Standard computationalism is just the theory that your brain could be replaced with an appropriately configured digital computer and you would not only act the same, you would also feel the same. - * JM I am not implying that you accept it, just scribble down my remarks to the topic - in accordance maybe with your opinion. 1. Standard? meaning our embryonic-level (first model) 0-1 binary digital mechanism? Do we really believe that our human complexity is that simplistic and ends at the inner surface of our skull? Even there (locally restricted) we know only a bit of what our thinking mind is capable of/doing. Some of these features are reproduced into binary digital churnings and that is the standard. A robot of limited capabilities (maybe if in certain aspects even exceeding the limits of our human activity details). I think 'comp' as Bruno uses the word and compares it to a L-machine is not like such 'standard': it may be analogous, or, if digital: of unlimited variance (infinitary, not only binary), and not even simulable in our today's epistemy. 2. Replaced? meaning one takes out that goo of neurons, proteins and other tissue-stuff with its blood suply and replace the cavity (no matter how bigger or smaller) by a (watch it): *digital* computer, appropriately configured and electric flow in it. For the quale-details see the par #1. 3. you - and who should that be? can we separate our living brain (I mean with all its functionality) from 'YOU', the self, the person, or call it the simulacron of yourself? What's left? Is there me and my brain? As I like to call it: the brain is the 'tool' of my mind, mind is pretty unidentified, but - is close to my-self, some call it life, some consciousness, - those items we like to argue about because none of us knows what we are talking about (some DO THINK they know, but only something and for themselves). 4. feel who/what? the transistors? (Let me repeat: I am not talking about Transistor Stathis). *-SP: Bruno goes on to show that this entails there is no separate physical reality by means of the UDA, but we can still talk about computationalism - the predominant theory in cognitive science - without discussing the UDA. And in any case, the ideas Brent and I have been discussing are still relevant if computationalism is wrong and (again a separate matter) there is only one universe. Stathis Papaioannou-* JM Yes, we today KNOW about only 1 universe. But we believe in a physical reality what we 'feel', 'live it' and hold as our 'truth' as well. Even those 'more advanced' minds saying they don't believe in it, cry out (OMIGOD!) when Dr. Johnson's stone hurts their toe in the shoe. I like to draw comparisons between what we know today and what we knew 1000, 3000, or 5000 years ago and ask: what will we 'know' just 500 years ahead in the future by a continuing epistemic enrichment? (If humanity survives that long). Please, readers, just list the answers alphabetically. Cheerz John Mikes -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.18/733 - Release Date: 3/25/2007 11:07 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Believing ...
Bruno, those 'idealistic' definitions from Leibnitz and Descartes are not experienced in - - what is called usually as science. Look at the Laws of physics, does engineering doubt them? The statements of 'logic', arithmetic, etc. etc. are all believed as FIRM laws. Now that is what I call 'reductionist = to consider a topical limited cut from the totality for the relevant (?) observations WITHIN such (what I call: model), and draw conclusions if there were nothing else to consider. That is what Academia (tenure-Nobel) does and what - as I wrote - most editing companies accept for publication. This is close to what young minds get brainwashed into in college education. e.g. Physics 101 etc. (Neurology not exempted). Absolutely different from what you and I said. No 'flexible mind' allowed. I hope you accept my terms for 'reductionist science' G, John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 7:36 AM Subject: Re: Believing ... Le 21-mars-07, à 22:18, John Mikes a écrit : Academic - tenure - even Nobel type conventional science is rfeductionistic in this sense.. I agree: SCIENCE should be as you identified it. Thanks for telling. I thought, a bit naively perhaps, that after Descartes and Popper, say, it was part of common knowledge that science, properly understood, is an arrow from doubts to ... more and more doubts, and cannot, thus, be reductionist. You know, people like Leibniz and even the young Hilbert thought that a machine could exist capable of answering, at least in principle, all question about numbers, actually all question about machine as well, including herself. Now we know that we can interview machine as powerful as we want, as far as they remain self-referentially correct, they remain extraordinarily modest. If you ask to such a machine if she will ever say a bullshit, well, the young one crash immediately (transforming herself into a universal dovetailer btw), the older one answer that either they will say a bullshit, or that they ... might say a bullshit(*). Bruno (*) For the modalist: I will prove a falsity or it is consistent that I will prove a falsity Bf v DBf(same as Dt - ~BDt). With the older modal notation: []f v []f (same as t - ~[]t ) B = [] = Godel purely arithmetical provability predicate (Beweisbar) D = = ~B~= ~[]~ Recall that, as Aristotle already got, ~B = D~ and ~D = B~ (in the alethic mode: not necessary p = possible not p ; not possible p = necessary not p. See my older modal posts. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.17/730 - Release Date: 3/22/2007 7:44 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
Stathis and Brent: ineresting and hard-to-object sentiments. Would it not make sense to write instead of we are (thing-wise) - the term less static, rather process-wise: We do (in whatever action)? John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 3:23 PM Subject: Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 3/19/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 3/19/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If there are OMs which don't remember being you then they are not going to be part of your stream of consciousness. There's the rub. Almost all my OMs *do not* include consciously remembering being me (or anyone). And if you suppose there is an *unconscious* memory component of an OM then there's a problem with what it means to have an unconscious part of consciousness. Well, how do you maintain a sense of being you in normal life? Certainly not consciously. If you are absent-mindedly staring at a tree you at least have a sense that you have been staring at the tree, rather than drowning in the ocean a moment ago. I have that sense transiently - and its isolated and unconnected to the OM in which I was staring at the tree, except through the content it shares, i.e. my staring at a tree - the one as perception and the other as memory of a perception. You are also aware that you haven't grown 10cm taller or suddenly changed sex - that is, you would immediately be aware of these things had they happened, even though you are not actively thinking about them or their absence. So a bland sameness from moment to moment constitutes a sense of memory and continuity of identity, What's a sense of memory? Is it conscious? I'm not conscious of one. I'd say it's the default model we use when we think, Am I the same person I was a few minutes ago? Don't feel and different. Must be. It seems you are using consciousness in a more specific sense than I am. I am just referring to the process of having any experience - of not being unconscious. since an OM that deviated substantially from this would either not be considered as a successor OM or immediately alert you that something strange had happened. But as you argued earlier OMs don't communicate. They are not related except by their conscious content. So an OM never has knowledge of another OM against which to measure its deviation. One might experience an OM whose content was, I'm a different person than I was ten minutes ago because I now notice a discontinuity in my memory. but I'm not sure even that would break my feeling of being me. No, there are obviously multiple factors involved, from memory to continuity of perception and perhaps even a primary sense of identity separate from these other cues. But if at any moment these factors have zero conscious activity, they could in theory be eliminated, although they might need to be brought into play again in an instant. My point is that, at least as I experience it, consciousness, the inner narrative we tell ourselves, is far too weak, to lacking in content, to create a chain of experience. Memory cannot do it because one is rarely, consciously remembering anything. What creates the chain is something unconscious - something not observed and so not part of an OM. Unconscious factors affecting our sense of continuity of identity must do it through affecting conscious factors. That would follow if we were always conscious of our sense of continuity of identity, but I don't think we are. I may think of it from time-to-time, but generally I don't have any sense of identity to be affected. That's the problem I see with OMs. They are usually conceived as what people not on this list call thoughts, the sort of thing expressible in simple sentence. They don't come with a subordinate clause, and this thought is by Brent Meeker. Suppose some unconscious factor X were partly responsible for placing my last second of consciousness in sequence. That means that if X had been different, my conscious experience would have been different. I can't claim that X plays a role while maintaining that I would
Re: Believing ...
BRUNO: I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few exception. Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, he certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a lobian machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has to be unnameable and god-like, even if it is just a pagan notion of god. Bruno - I cannot offer myself as the example you missed so far, because - as I explained - I do not consider myself conform to MY definition of an atheist. Theists do beluieve in primitive matter, created by their God. The previous Pope even undersigned to the Big Bang (some version). * Being a he you pointed to (rejcted though as 'atheist') I really do not ' believe. What I find logically not so repugnant - as either the reductionist science fables nor the religious hearsay - is a 'story' and I call it my NARRATIVE to just speak about an origination of our world and uncountable others in a less nausiating way. And yes, you may call my 'plenitude' a 'god', outside (not above) OUR mother-nature AND unidentified to the limit of minimum information. Not sitting as an old man on cloud. John M : Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 7:25 AM Subject: Re: Believing ... Le 20-mars-07, à 13:02, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : On 3/20/07, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit : Brent Meeker quoted: Atheism is a belief system the way Off is a TV channel. --- George Carlin Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism. An atheist has indeed a rich belief system: 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference) 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond the Aristotelian Matter reification.) 1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities (i.e. belief for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask in all seriousness as you are a logician and there *is* a huge difference, logically if not practically, between atheism and agnosticism. Of course (cf Brent's comment) we are on the verge of a purely vocabulary discussion. If you define God by a big white male sitting on a cloud, there is a case of comparing God and Santa Klaus. If you define god by ultimate meaning or ultimate theory of everything including persons and feeling, quanta and qualia, ..., or even more generally by god = truth about us, then it is different. Now most religions accept or even define God by its transcendance and unnameability, making truth an elementary lobian machine/entity's God, and this is enough for coming back to serious theology. The gap between truth about a machine and provability by that machine already illustrates the necessity of distinguishing the scientific and religious discourse of machines. Pure theology can be (re)defined by truth minus science. Then, lobian theology is controlled by the G/G* mathematical gap, and their intensional (modal) variants. Talking or acting or doing anything in the name of God leads to inconsistency and most probably suffering. In the scientific (= doubting) discourse, we can use use the term God like we can use the term first person, but we cannot talk *in* those names. 2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a material universe than other people. I have never met an atheist who does not believe in primitive matter. Well, today even theist believe in primitive matter, with few exception. Now, if an atheist does not believe in primitive matter, he certainly believe in something, all right. And if he does fundamental research, he certainly believe in something fundamental, and then if he is a lobian machine, then it can be shown that that fundamental thing has to be unnameable and god-like, even if it is just a pagan notion of god. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Believing ...
Bruno, a different reflection from Stathis's, but similarly not a counter-argument First off: George Carlin is a comedian and his humorous remarks are not subject to be discussed in a serious argumentation. I like him - at least the old Carlin. * to your #1: :your atheist has got to believe in the existence (maybe only as a valid topic) something to deny it. To speak about it in a yes/no fashion. He had to accept that it is a topic. This is why I formulated an atheist needs a god to deny. * to your #2: Not to believe in something is IMO not implying to believe in something else. Anything else. Not even 'generally'. Example: a solipsist. Or a 'comp' pantheist. (Caution: this word just appeared without consideration, I do not argue for its reasonable application). Agnostic IMO is just pointing to the lack of well defined knowledge about ANYTHING, not restricted to god or religion, as it earlier was used. I consider myself a 'Science-Agnostic because the ideas I take for most acceptable have no firm(?) foundations. * to the reply of Stathis - reading:: - 1) Do you believe we should also be agnostic about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? If so, should the balance of belief in these entities (i.e. belief for/against) be similar to that in the case of God? I ask in all seriousness as you are a logician and there *is* a huge difference, logically if not practically, between atheism and agnosticism. 2) I don't know that atheists are much more likely to believe in a material universe than other people. Stathis Papaioannou - I consider his #1 - AS: asantaclausist or atoothfairyist - not 'agnostic' - like: atheist. (Unless you believe in 'something like that' to exist). An agnostic is not sure but does not deny the existence FOR SURE. The difference, as I feel, between I don't know and I no that no - as I take Bruno's emphasis. (And I try to use only my own common sense logic). With StP's #2 I agreed above. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 7:27 AM Subject: Re: Believing ... Le 01-mars-07, à 00:35, Brent Meeker a écrit : Brent Meeker quoted: Atheism is a belief system the way Off is a TV channel. --- George Carlin Carlin makes the typical confusion between atheism and agnosticism. An atheist has indeed a rich belief system: 1) he believes that God does not exist (unlike an agnostic who does not believe that God exists: that makes a huge difference) 2) he generally believes in a material or Aristotelian Universe (despite its contradiction with comp, or with QM, or with some physically reproducible facts, and despite any proof or argument beyond the Aristotelian Matter reification.) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
Glad to have misread your consiousness as being not unconscious. I agree with you even in the 'life' part, except that I consider that darn elusive 'consciousness' still on, when you sleep or are anesthesized. You (whatever it is) are still responding to the information you get: you wake up to the alarm clock, or from unconsciousness. There are different 'levels' to be included into that noumenon. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 7:13 PM Subject: Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter? On 3/20/07, John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stathis: it seems you apply some hard 'Occami\sation' to consckiousness: as I see you consider it as 'being conscious - vs. unconscious'. The physiological (mediacal?) way. In my experience from reading and intenrnet-discussing Ccness for over 15 years - most researchers consider it more than that: the noun (Ccness) is only partially related to the adjective (conscious - maybe of).. This is why I included into my identification of it not only acknowledgement referring to the awareness-part, but also 'and response to' which implies activity in some process. Considering our world as a process it has not too much merit to identify an importqan noumenon (still not agreed upon its content) as a snapshot-static image of a state. Some equate Ccness with life itself (good idea, life is another questionmark). Your anesthesiologistic version has its audience, but so has the wider sense as well. John M I thought my sense was wider. You can be conscious even though you are not actually analysing sensory input, remembering things from your past, and so on. And I'm not sure that life can be equated with consciousness because you are still alive, and even your neurons are still for the most part going about their business, when you are asleep or anaesthetised. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: String theory and Cellular Automata
Bruno: thanks for the info. Very educational (although I skip reading Christof's entire text). From your excerpt: I have a 2nd question: how about waves? they must be made of the same 'stuff' as the 'strings', maybe in a lesser number of dimensions. And let me skip my retrograde series of going through (the) other concepts... They are all deductions from the (as you put it) primitive material world view, and its closed model, called physics. At the end of my 'skipped' series you may find 'numbers', I may wish to go further (but cannot?) Regards John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 10:25 AM Subject: Re: String theory and Cellular Automata You could be interested by a paper introducing String theory as a syntactical logical structure by the other Schmidhuber (Juergen's brother Christof): Here: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0011065 What are strings made of? The possibility is discussed that strings are purely mathematical objects, made of logical axioms. More precisely, proofs in simple logical calculi are represented by graphs that can be interpreted as the Feynman diagrams of certain large-N field theories. Each vertex represents an axiom. Strings arise, because these large-N theories are dual to string theories. These ``logical quantum field theories'' map theorems into the space of functions of two parameters: N and the coupling constant. Undecidable theorems might be related to nonperturbative field theory effects. This is infinitely better than Wolfram pure classical CA approach which has no rules for distinguishing 1 and 3 person notion, and so miss the idea of internal emerging physical laws. Le 14-mars-07, à 10:23, Mohsen Ravanbakhsh a écrit : I'm thinking there's some kind of similarity between string theory and depicting the world as a big CA. In String theory we have some vibrating strings which have some kind of influence on each other and can for different matters and fields. CA can play such role of changing patterns and of course the influence is evident. Different rules in CA might correspond to various basic shapes of vibration in strings... I don't know much about S.T. but the idea of such mapping seems very interesting. -- Mohsen Ravanbakhsh. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.15/728 - Release Date: 3/20/2007 8:07 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
Jason, do you really consider YOUR (= ours, as of humans of today) capability of any 'ordering' - according to what WE find orderable - the ONLY possible 'ordering' that be? To include the word 'disorder' makes no difference. Noise? anything not fitting into what we can compute to fit into our order. Random? ditto. Chaos? what we cannot (today) assign to already discovered - YES - order. I give some credence to our ignorance (epistemically still undiscovered parts). We choose our 'models' to be studied/observed according to our knowledge of order. John M - Original Message - From: Jason To: Everything List Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 3:50 PM Subject: Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter? Stathis Papaioannou wrote: I'm not sure what you mean by the order of your current observer moment. Stathis Papaioannou I see how my wording was confusing. What I meant by order was order vs. disorder, e.g. we are experiencing a well structured observer moment as opposed to white noise, even though the vast majority of conceivable observer moments would consist of white noise. A SSA would say we are not experiencing white noise/white rabbits because those OM's have a lower statistical measure. While not assuming an SSA, one could only explain our current experience on this planet as an infinitesmally small and rare occurance among the unlimited set of possible observer moments. Jason -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.13/725 - Release Date: 3/17/2007 12:33 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter?
Stathis: it seems you apply some hard 'Occami\sation' to consckiousness: as I see you consider it as 'being conscious - vs. unconscious'. The physiological (mediacal?) way. In my experience from reading and intenrnet-discussing Ccness for over 15 years - most researchers consider it more than that: the noun (Ccness) is only partially related to the adjective (conscious - maybe of).. This is why I included into my identification of it not only acknowledgement referring to the awareness-part, but also 'and response to' which implies activity in some process. Considering our world as a process it has not too much merit to identify an importqan noumenon (still not agreed upon its content) as a snapshot-static image of a state. Some equate Ccness with life itself (good idea, life is another questionmark). Your anesthesiologistic version has its audience, but so has the wider sense as well. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 5:54 AM Subject: Re: Statistical Measure, does it matter? On 3/19/07, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 3/19/07, *Brent Meeker* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If there are OMs which don't remember being you then they are not going to be part of your stream of consciousness. There's the rub. Almost all my OMs *do not* include consciously remembering being me (or anyone). And if you suppose there is an *unconscious* memory component of an OM then there's a problem with what it means to have an unconscious part of consciousness. Well, how do you maintain a sense of being you in normal life? Certainly not consciously. If you are absent-mindedly staring at a tree you at least have a sense that you have been staring at the tree, rather than drowning in the ocean a moment ago. I have that sense transiently - and its isolated and unconnected to the OM in which I was staring at the tree, except through the content it shares, i.e. my staring at a tree - the one as perception and the other as memory of a perception. You are also aware that you haven't grown 10cm taller or suddenly changed sex - that is, you would immediately be aware of these things had they happened, even though you are not actively thinking about them or their absence. So a bland sameness from moment to moment constitutes a sense of memory and continuity of identity, What's a sense of memory? Is it conscious? I'm not conscious of one. I'd say it's the default model we use when we think, Am I the same person I was a few minutes ago? Don't feel and different. Must be. It seems you are using consciousness in a more specific sense than I am. I am just referring to the process of having any experience - of not being unconscious. since an OM that deviated substantially from this would either not be considered as a successor OM or immediately alert you that something strange had happened. But as you argued earlier OMs don't communicate. They are not related except by their conscious content. So an OM never has knowledge of another OM against which to measure its deviation. One might experience an OM whose content was, I'm a different person than I was ten minutes ago because I now notice a discontinuity in my memory. but I'm not sure even that would break my feeling of being me. No, there are obviously multiple factors involved, from memory to continuity of perception and perhaps even a primary sense of identity separate from these other cues. But if at any moment these factors have zero conscious activity, they could in theory be eliminated, although they might need to be brought into play again in an instant. My point is that, at least as I experience it, consciousness, the inner narrative we tell ourselves, is far too weak, to lacking in content, to create a chain of experience. Memory cannot do it because one is rarely, consciously remembering anything. What creates the chain is something unconscious - something not observed and so not part of an OM. Unconscious factors affecting our sense of continuity of identity must do it through affecting conscious factors. Suppose some unconscious factor X were partly responsible for placing my last second of consciousness in sequence. That means that if X had been different, my conscious experience would have been different. I can't claim that X plays a role while maintaining that I would not have noticed anything different without X. You could use that as a definition of unconscious: if it were removed, you would not notice any change. Of course you can deny that there is any chain and think of it more like network of paths
Re: The Meaning of Life
Brent: ...No parent expects to receive anything but satisfaction from raising their children - as perfectly well explained by Darwin. And how dare you assert that money I sent to Katrina victims was simply calculated to get something back. There are many possible Darwinian explanations for feelings of altruism; but apparently you haven't bothered to find them... What is this? a mental blockage? How could you forget (disregard) your 1st sentence in the 2nd? Are you a formalistical materialist to expect ONLY monetary rewards for money (or anything else) spent? S a t i s f a c t i o n is not a reward? Feeling good about something? Besides such feelings - indeed - might have developed from 'real' return: raising young means having a community-protection when getting old (as the most primitive idea). As complexity grew such ideas get also more complex. Luv is a composition. Not a primitive John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:03 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Tom Caylor wrote: On Mar 6, 5:19 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Caylor wrote: A source that has given us the crusades and 9/11 as well as the sister's of mercy. No a very sufficient source if nobody can agree on what it provides. I don't like simply saying That isn't so, but nobody can agree on what it provides, referring to the source of ultimate meaning, I was referring to the sufficient source of *morality*. Such a source should be able to provide an unambiguous standard that is so clear everyone agrees - if it existed. is not true. In fact it's very remarkable the consistency, across all kinds of cultures, the basic beliefs of truly normative morality, evidence for their being a source which cannot be explained through closed science alone. Why not? Why isn't Darwin's or Scott Atran's or Richard Dawkin's a *possible* explanation. And how is God did it an explanation of anything? It's just a form of words so ambiguous as to be virtually empty. God meant different things to the crusaders and the 9/11 jihadists, to the Aztecs and the Conquistadores, to the Nazi's and the Jews. So just because they use the same word doesn't mean they are referring to the same thing. We've talked about this before. Darwin cannot explain giving without expecting to receive. Where do you get this nonsense?? Do you just make it up as you need it? No parent expects to receive anything but satisfaction from raising their children - as perfectly well explained by Darwin. And how dare you assert that money I sent to Katrina victims was simply calculated to get something back. There are many possible Darwinian explanations for feelings of altruism; but apparently you haven't bothered to find them. ...skipped the rest... Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: JOINING post
Dear Mindaugas. you wrote: Analogically, if we find that our world is some cellular automata ... I PRESUME THIS IS your STARTING POINT: if... if not, if we find that our world is more(?) than a cellular automaton - which is in my word-use 'reductionist' - then the world is NOT governed by some simple rules. We don't set rules, we select models, count/identify in them the occurrences and deduct what happened most which then is called law. And the world is not GOVERNED. it is a process of them all. Nothing can be excluded from the interefficiency, because that would lead to separate worlds - which may well be, but we do not know about them. So your 'origination point' is causally connected (your word) to the rest of the totality and its process. A 'next step' segmentually observed. Initial state? I don't believe the narrative of the physical cosmology, because it has logical flaws even in human logic. I made another narrative, which may not be more 'true', but eliminates SOME flaws. You can make another one. We know nothing about that 'origin', it was before the 'time' of Loebian machines (even before my time). We can speculate, it is cheap. John - Original Message - From: 明迪 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 2:45 AM Subject: Re: JOINING post Dear John, I feel I understand your view and distinction of origination point and origination. Origination is entailment of origination point. Origination point is part of our world (the item to be originated). Is that correct? Now, my opinion is that there is no origination of the origination point, because whatever it may be, it is connected to the item to be originated through causality. What I mean is, if we were to find some relatively simple rule generating our world, then we could actually try to reduce it to some even simpler rule. It is now thought of that some rules governing cellular automata are irreducible, since there seem to be no simpler rule to produce the patterns they some cellular automata produce, however, suppose that our world is governed by some relatively simple rule. In this case, there is a rule to reduce most if not all of the cellular automata rules, since it actually produces all the cellular automata that we know :-).with the initial state that we do not know, we could try to find the world produced by an even simpler rule, that eventually produces the initial state of our world. Mindaugas Indriunas On 3/8/07, John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I feel a misunderstanding here: origination point IMO is part of the item to be originated, the pertinent 'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from. As I used 'origination refers to the entailment producing such point - if we use a 'point' to start with. Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its' entailing circumstgances we have no access to. I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and preferred one. Hence the misunderstandability. Sorry. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 明迪 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 10:45 AM Subject: Re: JOINING post Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the same as the word 'origination-point'. You said: (1) 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. And you also said: (2) we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely). From (2) claim it logically follows a statement we can reach to items later or equal to origination-point. I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement. Mindaugas Indriunas On 3/5/07, John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Mindaugas Indriunas, what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use in our speculations only our present cognitive inventory of our existing mind. No information from super(extra)natural sources included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely). Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg cannot 'generate' information about ' no information' topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion. What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the conventionally outlined scientific method. John M --- 明迪 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear John Mikes. I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only to 1 part of your letter: 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. If we do come up
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument
I was so glad to have some 'text' on UD(A), comp, the P-words (Platonia, Paeano, Plotinus), the hypostases, in your post. Alas! Still all techy, only for the adepts. Not in Mark's required plain language. (English or what?) (I still stumble among them). My question now: How do we distinguish Everything from Almost Everything? We are still 'walled in' by our (or: OK, let's call it: the Loeb machine's) knowledge base. How can we know that we include things we do not know ABOUT? (Part of the real total Everything, of course) and build our 'world' on a partial model - called (our?) Everything? Then, by some event unforeseeable some 'left-out' effect may show up and we happily and self-justifiedly refuse it, as nonsense (happened many times in the conventional reductionist sciences). How are we better? We have no idea if we know but a negligible bit or almost all. We may be the laughing stock for an alien with wider knowledgebase (and: 'smarter'). Ad vocem 'smarter': I am sorry for the greatgrandkids who - in your remark of yesterday may not be smarter than we are, just have a wider source of information (epistemy). Does that mean that you do not believe we are 'smarter' than humans of 2-3 millennia ago? (Could be, because you base much knowledge on Plato etc., - the old Greeks). I still hold to the Leninian wisdom that quantity turns into quality and increasing the info-basis MAY(?) result in also smarter understganding - i.e. better wisdom. So I put on hold my regret for the greatgrandkids for now. Regards John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 11:02 AM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument Le 17-mars-07, à 00:11, Brent Meeker a écrit : But what is Platonia - Tegmarks all mathematically consistent universe? or Bruno's Peano arithmetic - or maybe Torny's finite arithmetic (which would be a much smaller everything). And how do things run in Platonia? Do we need temporal modes in logic, as well as epistemic ones? Brent, for what I understand, you seem to believe in both a material primitive universe, and in the computationalist hypothesis. It is just up to you, then, to find an error in the Universal Dovetailer argument. This is a proof, a destructive platonic thought experiment in the sense of James Brown (the lboratory of mind) that you cannot have both materialism and computationalism. The argument should make us more modest: it shows that we have to explain matter from mind. Then I provide a path for extracting physics from numbers, by interviewing Peano Arithmetic, or any lobian machine, and *she* forces an important number of nuanced distinction between computing, proving, knowing, and an infinity of commitment gamblings: which correspond to the (arithmetical hypostases): p (truth) Bp (provable) Bp p (knowable, correctly provabie) Bp Dp (gamblings) Bp Dp p (correct gambling, feeling) And the incompleteness phenomenon multiplies by 2 most of the hypostases, by distinguishing what the machine can say about them and what is true about them. This gives 8 modal logics, which, as I have explained some time ago, determines each a geometrical (Kripke) multiverse. It makes comp (and the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus theology) experimentally testable. As I said in the FOR list, we have to take into account two major discovery: The universal machine (talks bits) The other universal machine (the quantum universal machine, she talks qubits). The UDA shows that if comp is true there is necessary a path from bits to qubits, and, by the G G* distinction, it provided an explanation of both quanta and qualia from numbers (and addition and multiplication). I have not extracted the measure (nor do I think Russell did to be honest), but I have extracted the logic of certainty (credibility one) associated to each hypostasis, and those corresponding to Plotinus Matter (or our measure *one*) is already perhaps enough quantum like to justify a quantum topology or deep enough universal machine. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.12/724 - Release Date: 3/16/2007 12:12 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Thanks for a clear mind, Bruno. But isn't it obvious? We can know about what we don't know ONLY if we do know 'about it'. Copernicus did not know that he does not know radioactivity. Aristotle did not denigrate the linearity of QM because he did not know these items. My 'firm' knowledge of my ignorance stems from earlier memory: I know (remember) not having learnt many things I would have needed later on (by laziness or lack of interest). Nowadays I find myself exposed to other items of my ignorance and feel lazy to start studying things I did not study at 21. Don't even have the time (?) and tutor (school) - plus: I have a suspicious (violent?) mind and start arguing instead of learning. So I stay stupid (but happily so). Have a good weekend you too Machine John PS For some (taste?) reasons I like 'organisation' - or 'organism' - better than 'machine', which carries a notion of a composition (contraption): structural and designed ingredients assembled for some purpose. Loebian machine is different, (I hesitate to call it 'unlimited' or the questionable 'infinite') but the word is not. - J. - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:00 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Le 14-mars-07, à 20:51, John Mikes a écrit : I am not in favor of human omniscience. The more a machine knows, the more she is able to see the bigness of its ignorance. Knowledge for lobian machine is really like a lantern in an infinite room. The more powerful is the lantern, the more bigger the room seems to be. So I certainly agree with you. Meaning: perhaps we are both wrong! Bon week-end, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument
I looked at your paper, interesting. One question: what do you mean by exist (Notably: does NOT exist)? We think about it (no matter in how vague terms and weak understanding), we talk about it, our mind has a place in our thinking for that term, - does this not suffice for (in a WIDER??? meaning) existence? I agree: it is logically (physically?) hardly identifiable but do we stand only on a (material?) physical basis? And I make no difference between infinite small and infinite big. None of them understandable. Brent's 'infinitesimal' is a good idea in this topic, yet I consider it scale-oriented, an infinitesimally close in 1000 orders of magnitude smaller scale can be 'miles' away. (No 'real' miles implied) - Best regards John M - Original Message - From: Torgny Tholerus To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:58 AM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument Le 14-mars-07, à 08:51, Torgny Tholerus a écrit : (among others) Infinity is a logically impossible concept. Infinity Does Not Exist. -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question.
Bruno and Brent: Are we back at the Aris-total i.e. the sum considered more than its (material-only!) components? Complexity of an assemblage includes more than what a reductionist 'component-analysis' can verify. Qualia, functions, even out-of-boundary effects are active in identifying an item. It is in our many centuries old explanatory ways to say a proton and an electron make a H-atom and vice versa. First off: hydrogen (gas) is not the assemblage of H-atoms, it is an observational item that - when destructed in certain ways - results in other observables resembling H-atoms or even protons and electrons (if you have the means to look at them - not in an n-th deduction and its calculations). Same with 'other' atoms - molecules, singularly or in bunch. Reduced to a 2-D sketch. Nice game, I spent 50 years producing such (macromolecules that is) and 'studied'/applied them. Of course none of the destruction-result carries the proper charactersitics of the original ensemble. And NO proper 'observation' does exist. It is the explanatory attempt for a world(part?) - not understood, just regarded as a model of whatever our epistemic enrichment has provided to THAT time. This is the 'reducing': to visualize this part as the total and utter the Aristotelian maxim. One can not extrapolate 'total ensemble' characteristics from studying the so called parts we discovered so far. We can think only within our already acquired knowledge. John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 2:30 PM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question. Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 14-mars-07, à 04:42, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : On 3/13/07, *Bruno Marchal* [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You could say that a hydrogen atom cannot be reduced to an electron + proton because it exhibits behaviour not exhibited in any of its components; Nor by any juxtaposition of its components in case of some prior entanglement. In that case I can expect some bits of information from looking only the electron, and some bits from looking only the proton, but an observation of the whole atom would makes those bits not genuine. It is weird but the quantum facts confirms this QM prediction. Quantum weirdness is an observed fact. We assume that it is, somehow, an intrinsic property of subatomic particles; but perhaps there is a hidden factor or as yet undiscovered theory which may explain it further. That would be equivalent to adding hidden variables. But then they have to be non local (just to address the facts, not just the theory). Of course if the hidden factor is given by the many worlds or comp, then such non local effects has to be retrospectively expected. But then we have to forget the idea that substance (decomposable reality) exists, but numbers. If you admit non-local hidden variables then you can have a theory like Bohmian quantum mechanics in which randomness is all epistemological, like statistical mechanics, and there is no place for multiple-worlds. You could get a neutron at high enough energies, I suppose, but I don't think that is what you mean. Is it possible to bring a proton and an electron appropriately together and have them just sit there next to each other? Locally yes. I'm not sure what you mean by locally. Since they have opposite charge they will be attracted by photon exchanges and will fall into some hydrogen atom state by emission of photons. Brent Meeker In QM this is given by a tensor product of the corresponding states. But it is an exceptional state. With comp it is open if such physical state acn ever be prepared, even locally. There is no sense to say an atom is part of the UD. It is part of the necessary discourse of self-observing machine. Recall comp makes physics branch of machine's psychology/theology. Isn't that the *ultimate* reduction of everything? Given that a theology rarely eliminates subjects/person, I don't see in what reasonable sense this would be a reduction. Not really because the knot is a topological object. Its identity is defined by the class of equivalence for some topological transformation from your 3D description. If you put the knot in your pocket so that it changes its 3D shape (but is not broken) then it conserve its knot identity which is only locally equivalent with the 3D shape. To see the global equivalence will be tricky, and there is no algorithm telling for sure you can identify a knot from a 3D description. People can look here for a cute knot table: http
Re: The Meaning of Life
- Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:34 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (Brent's question skipped)... BM: Assuming comp, we can know that science will never been able to explain where natural numbers come from. That's an insoluble mystery. It makes science open. Forever. But then comp *can* explain (but does not yet provide more than an embryo of explanation, yet already confirmed) where waves and particles come from, and also, unlike physics, why waves and particles can hurt (cf G/G*). Bruno A question in the 1st par: (Not the assuming or not part): it is the nature of that particular type 'science' prohibiting to disclose the origin of ANY numbers. * As evolutionary complexity (and I emphasize this 'comp') goes, the hominid compared things, fingers, etc. and found 2 (two) hands/feet. Paralle to its mental development it realized 5 fingers on each. Compared to children in the cave and as the veins in his neck widened (through increasing holes in the skull etc.) for more blood into the developing neuronal brain, named the 'count', added both hands if there were many kids and so on. I skip the ramifications, counting was developed with 'numbers named' and it is only a quanti developmental difference to arrive at a Hilbert space, or CQD. The growing neural complexity allowed the coordination of hand-muscles to make the hand-ax a projectile, something chimps have not yet achieved. It went in quantitative (no qualitative emergence and no random invention) steps to the spacerocket application. Then, gradually, the human mind became capable of more complexity - to explain natural observation at the level of the time in a quantised (physicalistic) fashion. * In another science-view, if we look at the processes as in a reductionist model separation, the numbers may appear as God, creating the universe. Unexplainably. It is another viewpoint of another form of 'science'. The above is not my obsession, I see it as free thinking. * Bruno, I looked at your 'knots' (my head still spins from them) and agree to their topological - math view, no need of a material input. Which one was Alexander's? Best wishes John M http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.11/723 - Release Date: 3/15/2007 11:27 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Thank you, Russell John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 6:56 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life I think high energy physicists talk about colour charge, rather than colour pole, but this is by analogy to electricity with its +ve -ve charges, rather than analogy to magnetism with its north and south poles. However at the level of analogy, which is what your story is, this distinction is unimportant. In the real world, objects tend to be electrically neutral (even when charged, objects have only a slight imbalance between positive and negative charges). This is a not quite analogy to the need for magnets to always have two poles. Incidently, physicists also talk about monopoles, but aside from one isolated experiment, monopoles have never been seen. With the strong force, the colours can never be imbalanced on everyday objects. Only quarks have colour. Bigger objects from protons up are said to be white or colourless. The reason for this is confinement, but I'll let you look that up on Wikipedia if you're interested. Cheers On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 04:04:59PM -0400, John Mikes wrote: Russell, I apologize for my flippant quip of yesterday, it was after several hours of reading and replying internet discussion lists. Besides: it was true.G I never considered the features named as distinguishing 'colors' in QCD as poles. Also it is new to me that the strong force has 3 poles. In my usage a 'pole' represents ONE charge of the TWO we know of - the positive and the negative. Well, it seems those non-physicists are simpleminded brutes. It felt so good to 'invent' something (for fun) beyond our grasp. What nature would that 3rd pole present in the strong force? (I ask this question, because I did not read about the 3-pole distinction of it). Cheers John M On 3/12/07, Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 11:58:58AM -0400, John Mikes wrote: In the sci-fi I wrote in 1988-89 I depicted the 'story' of human evolving as done by an experiment of aliens from another universe, to which I assigned energy with 3 (three) poles. One +, one -, and a THIRD one. (Maybe your math could formulate this, but I could not. I accepted it as something beyond our human mind. The strong force has 3 poles. To think about them in a human fashion, we name them red, green and blue, and the theory describing the strong force is called quantum chromodynamics. It doesn't seem beyond the human mind at all. I dare say if we had a reason to have a theory with four poles, someone will come up with a way of thinking about these too. Prof Russell Standish -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.11/723 - Release Date: 3/15/2007 11:27 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Thanks, Russell, 4 Poles may play bridge. John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 9:19 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 11:58:58AM -0400, John Mikes wrote: In the sci-fi I wrote in 1988-89 I depicted the 'story' of human evolving as done by an experiment of aliens from another universe, to which I assigned energy with 3 (three) poles. One +, one -, and a THIRD one. (Maybe your math could formulate this, but I could not. I accepted it as something beyond our human mind. The strong force has 3 poles. To think about them in a human fashion, we name them red, green and blue, and the theory describing the strong force is called quantum chromodynamics. It doesn't seem beyond the human mind at all. I dare say if we had a reason to have a theory with four poles, someone will come up with a way of thinking about these too. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.8/718 - Release Date: 3/11/2007 9:27 AM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Danny wrote: To avoid God are we back to some kind of primitive physical idea that there is something about the nature of reality that will forever prohibit intelligence from emulating it? JM: I suppose 'our intelligence' is part of 'us' and we are part of the nature of reality (whatever that may be, god, or existence, or...). My grandparents had a cellar with a trap door to descend, a maid-girl came crying that the door does not open. As it turned out: she was standing on it when trying to lift it (parable for us understanding 'all' we are part of). Bruno asked: God has to choose only among QM universes? Does that God obey QM Eself? JM: whatever WE decide is our restrictive opinion. Bruno accepted that 'we' are 'god' so mu answer to the question is: NO, I as god do not. I consider QM a product of the product (etc) of that 'reality' we try to assign to it. (Sorry,Bruno, I do not start from 'numbers' to build up the existence. So far they stayed unidentified/able upon the many questions I (and others) asked. They still seem to be - as Bohm said - products of the human thinking. (See above: product of the product of the pr...etc.) Bruno: It is impossible to build a universal *prover* or knower. But we can build universal classical or quantum constructor or computer. JM: Build, or think about it? (Alice, the builder?) Bruno: ...I prefer translate the primitive physical idea as the idea that there is a primitive physical world which is responsible for appearances. JM: I like the translation into idea. It implies that an 'idea' cannot be responsible for appearances we think to receive in our mind. Appearances are just that. Our - if you prefer - mind's interpretation of 'something' - reality. Still: human thinking. Question: which one of us (humans) CAN think with anything else than a human mind? If we accept Bruno's we are god then it is a human god. Not capable of 'building' the existence from the existing existence. (Cf: trapdoor) Danny: ...If the answer is yes the whole debate over God seems to become a silly argument over semantics. JM: If the answer is 'no' or anything, it IS as well. If somebody 'believes' in a personal relationship with any god-phantom halucination based on ANY selective hearsay assumption, you cannot make him accept (substitute) a scientific' scrutiny. (I may elaborate on selective, hearsay, and assumption, if I must). * I would be happy to see an expansion of what kind of assumption Bruno was mentioning in the last sentence. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:42 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Le 07-mars-07, à 18:50, Danny Mayes a écrit : If you assume an ensemble theory, whether it be an infinite MWI or Bruno's UD in the plenitude, is it POSSIBLE to avoid God? For the purposes of this question I'll define God as an entity capable of creating everything that would be observed to exist in a (all possible) quantum mechanical universe. God has to choose only among QM universes? Does that God obey QM Eself? To avoid God are we back to some kind of primitive physical idea that there is something about the nature of reality that will forever prohibit intelligence from emulating it? We cannot, knowingly, emulate a first person in any third person way. For example we can emulate perfectly both the comp and the quantum indeterminacy .. up to the measurement procedure, which can still be emulate but only by emulating the observer himself. But this can be done with any classical or quantum universal machine, but then only serendipitously. I prefer translate the primitive physical idea as the idea that there is a primitive physical world which is responsible for appearances. But this already contradict the comp hypothesis (for example by the UDA argument, but you can also look at Plotinus or Proclus). That it is impossible even in theory to build a kind of universal quantum constructor? It is impossible to build a universal *prover* or knower. But we can build universal classical or quantum constructor or computer. Or is the idea one that physics will forever prohibit intelligence from acquiring the resources necessary to achieve such a feat? Neither math nor physics prohibit this. Math only prohibit universal machine prover or knower. How can you have everything, but not have something capable of creating everything? If you assume for instance the UD in the plenitude (no intelligent action required), doesn't it eventually describe intelligence with access to infinite or near infinite resources capable of creating an artificial UD? Sure. But why? The UD is needed in an argument. Real platonic UDs are enough for the rest. Note that this can and should be tested. If the answer is yes the whole debate over God seems to become a silly argument over
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question.
Bruno, please read my italic comments between your lines. Thanks for Stathis to rush to my rescue (reductionsm), Stathis wrote: Reductionism means breaking something up into simpler parts to explain it. What's wrong with that? I will try to write my own version, a bit (not much) different. John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 10:45 AM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question. Le 10-mars-07, à 18:42, John M a écrit : I don't deny the usefulness of science (even if it is reductionist) ... How could science be reductionist? Science is the art of making hypotheses enough clear so as to make them doubtable and eventually testable. My take on reductionist is to 'reduce' the observation to a boundary-enclosed model as our choice. It is a necessity for us, because we are not capable to encompass the totality and all its ramifications into our mind's work at once. Reduced (reductionist ) view is the way how humanity gathered our knowledge of the world. (Probably other animals do the same thing at their mind-level). What I see here - and thank you, Bruno, for it, - you are using a more advanced view of science than what I referred to as the conventional - historic, topically fragmented sciences of old. Where e.g. physics is based on the 'primitive' physical (material) worldview and biology is what Darwin visualized. Reductionist sciences established our technology. You use it, I use it. We just start to 'think' beyond it. * No scientist will ever say there is a primitive physical universe or an ultimate God, or anything like that. All theories are hypothetical, including grandmother's one when asserting that the sun will rise tomorrow. The roots of our confidence in such or such theories are complex matter. I wish we had more of your scientists. Academia as a general establishment is not so advanced yet. Don't confuse science with the human approximation of it. Something quite interesting per se, also, but which develops itself. Lobian approximations of it are also rich of surprise, about oneself. Now this is exactly what I mean. I would like to read a definition of 'science' as you formulate it. Then again: how many 'scientists' have ever heard of a Lobian m? We are living here (list) in a vacuum and I was talking non-vacuum. * Science or better, the scientific attitude, invites us to listen to what the machine can say and dream of, nowadays. How could such an invitation be reductionist? Here we go again: is the 'machine' superhuman? does it tell us things beyond our comprehension? How? We (Loeb etc.) invented and outlined it and its functionality. How can it be beyond those limits? * I would say science is modesty. It is what makes faith necessary and possible. Faith in what? Not in 'hearsay', not in Alice-land, not in (really) reduced models of age-old worldviews. The 'supernatural' is a cop-out for the modesty to say: I know not . * With comp, when science or reason grows polynomially (in a trip from G to G* for example), then faith has to grow super-exponentially. I hope you have (Mark's) PLAIN ENGLISH TRANSLATION to that in non-mathematico lingo. * Bruno regards John http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question.
Cher Quentin, let me paraphrase (big): so someone had an assumption: BH. OK, everybody has the right to fantasize. Especially if it sounds helpful.Then some mathematically loaded minds calculated within this assumption with quantities taken from other assumptions (pardon me: quantizing within other models in science). Then someone takes the results for real and examines if it gives infinity - a good game in the assumed topic. Then Olala: there it is. So: call it singularity. What? the 3+th level of an assumption, already taken as a fact in science. Careful analysis can show similar 'evolution' of other fiction into scientific facts. I don't deny the usefulness of science (even if it is reductionist) I happily use the results and even DID contribute to it, but when it comes to understanding - or at least evaluate reasonability, I use Occam's COMB to remove the added conclusions upon assumptions. No hard feelings, it is MY opinion, and I am absolutely no missionary. John M - Original Message - From: Quentin Anciaux To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 6:03 PM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument - and Thanks and a dumb question. Hi John, Singularity is just a name that means that the solutions of the equations describing the BH gives infinity... It's what is a singularity. Does the infinity is real (we must still be in accordance about what it means) is another question, but accepting GR as a true approximation of reality, singularity existence is a real question. Quentin On Friday 09 March 2007 23:37:49 John Mikes wrote: i ENVY YOU, guys, to know so much about BHs to speak of a singularity. I would not go further than according to what is said about them, they may wash off whatever got into and turn into - sort of - a singularity. Galaxies, whatever, fall into those hypothetical BHs and who knows how much Dark Matter (the assumed), we just don't know - it all may be neatly stuffed in and escape from the habitual description of the 'singularity' as an indiscernible structural view, - or - as seemingly you assume: they homogenize (paste?) it all into a - well - singularity-content. Whoever KNOWS more about singularities, BHs, Dark Matter, should speak up - please: NO assumptions ('it got to be's) or deductions of such! John M On 3/8/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 3/9/07, Mark Peaty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MP: Two thoughts come to my suspicious mind. 1/ [Not far from the post-Freudian speculation :-] ... Attendance within the event horizon of a common or garden galactic variety black hole would seem to incorporate a one-way ticket *to* the singularity, would it not? Yes, but it could take a very long time to get there in a massive enough black hole. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument
Stathis: your starting the argument: IF the M-W-I(dea) is valid, it it seems to imply...which is a bit shaky (what if not?) - the law-like is a breakable compromise between confro nting arguments. Do I read some denigration of the White Rabbit? (coming from a wide interpretation of all possible) Now to the meat of it: have you ever tried to outline the 'mind' of the early hiominid to survive? Before Immanuel Kant and even the Mother Goddess? Maybe with some notion of the most advanced and best weaponry 'ever': the hand--ax? or the 'mind' of an amoeba? Just asking questions in extension of ourselves. John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 8:46 PM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument SP wrote to BM: How so? The Many Worlds idea seems to imply that you survive no matter what. The consequences of natural selection obtain only within worlds which are law-like - and we're back to the white rabbit problem. You survive if a sufficiently close analogue of your mind survives. This can theoretically happen in many ways other than the obvious one (survival of your physical body): in parallel worlds, in a distant part of our own world if it is infinite in extent, in the Turing machine at the end of time. The white rabbit universes are a problem: since we don't observe them, maybe these theories are wrong, or maybe there is some other reason why we don't observe them. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: JOINING post
I feel a misunderstanding here: origination point IMO is part of the item to be originated, the pertinent 'point' (within and for) the evolving total to grow out from. As I used 'origination refers to the entailment producing such point - if we use a 'point' to start with. Such 'point' is the limit we can go back to, not further to 'its' entailing circumstgances we have no access to. I tried to adjust to a vocabulary I responded to, not my own and preferred one. Hence the misunderstandability. Sorry. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 明迪 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 10:45 AM Subject: Re: JOINING post Dear John Mikes, I thought your words 'Origin of (our) universe' are the same as the word 'origination-point'. You said: (1) 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. And you also said: (2) we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely). From (2) claim it logically follows a statement we can reach to items later or equal to origination-point. I agree (2) statement, but slightly disagree with (1) statement. Mindaugas Indriunas On 3/5/07, John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Mindaugas Indriunas, what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use in our speculations only our present cognitive inventory of our existing mind. No information from super(extra)natural sources included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely). Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg cannot 'generate' information about ' no information' topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion. What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the conventionally outlined scientific method. John M --- 明迪 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear John Mikes. I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only to 1 part of your letter: 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does produce the data that we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to (with some certainty) know it. Even the cellular automaton that is equivalent to universal turing machine, has its beginning. Mindaugas Indriunas --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: JOINING post
Dear Mindaugas Indriunas, what I meant consists of the worldview that we can use in our speculations only our present cognitive inventory of our existing mind. No information from super(extra)natural sources included. Accoredingly we CANNOT reach to earlier items than the origination-point (whatever it may be) of our existence (I called it 'universe', not quite precisely). Nor can a 'valid' ALGORITHM reach back further. Itg cannot 'generate' information about ' no information' topics. All we can speak about are intra-existence items, the rest is fantasy, sci-fi, religion. What I may use in a narrative, but by no means in the conventionally outlined scientific method. John M --- 明迪 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear John Mikes. I am sorry for the late response. I will reply only to 1 part of your letter: 1 Origin of (our) universe: we have no way to know. If we do come up with an alorythm that actually does produce the data that we postdict (predict in the past), we may be able to (with some certainty) know it. Even the cellular automaton that is equivalent to universal turing machine, has its beginning. Mindaugas Indriunas http://i.tai.lt --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quick Quantum Question.
Breent your distortion of my words may come from my mindset of a non-IndoEuropean mothertongue - in English. I wrote: ...by building further levels on unfounded assumptions - no matter how fit they may be to a theory we favor... you wrote: You imply that our theories are just a matter of favor. As I understand it has a different meaning. I imply nothing. I presume we have a similar idea about 'scientific method': not restricted to reductionist model-views, yet the 'preaching' I got about it does not rely to my text. I may 'favor' (i.e. like better than another one) a theory freely. An nth level of conclusions - based on an idea I may not approve - may be a likeable formula, I keep my mind free enough. IMO it does not 'fit' into MY 'scientific method', because the original startup was an assumption on maybe shaky grounds. I trust my sense of 'scientific' logic because it landed to me 38 patent-approvals. (=Pudding test). BM: There's a difference between wishful speculation and informed extrapolation... The question is: what is the 'information' based on? If on a model-based selective (statistical?) assumption, oops: calculative explanation, and extrapolated into beyond-model areas, then a speculation (scientific, of course)may give more reliability if based on well (better?) informed (scientific) views. I usually do not use the 'sc' word so frequently, but it seems you 'favor' it. I still owe you a reply in the Big Bang case, I am slow. John - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 1:19 PM Subject: Re: Quick Quantum Question. John Mikes wrote: Chris, I am with this list for a decade or so, and learned that this group accepts a negative position as well, not only 'hosanna' to the 'officially (here) accepted one. So here it comes: In my (heretic? and personal) view 1. universes in the Multiverse are not necessarily identical, indeed all possible (see Stathis' reply to you) means IMO diversity vs identity, so I find it unfounded that in all 'other' universes the 2nd law should flourish (indeed I consider it even here some (reductionist) model-related (and restricted) deduction from our limited observational skills and their 'historic' (applied math based) explanation). That's a good point. Of course if all possible universes eventuate with equal probability, the 2nd law will hold because that is just what is assumed by it - there are a lot more ways to age than to stay young. But why with equal probability. Bruno's UD must produce some measure on the universes it generates, but it's not clear that this agrees with the physicists equi-probable (hence the white rabbit problem. Incidentally why do we call it the white rabbit problem? White rabbits are quite common. Why isn't it the white crow problem?) 2. In my view of an interactive wholeness we exist in here (if really) - in relation to the TOTAL of THIS universe - a transfer into different background (universe?) would necessarily discontinue our complexity (uncuttable total 'self?') we are here. What may happen 'there' (if...) is at best an assumption and I would not draw further conclusions (definitely not as accepted facts!) by building further levels on unfounded assumptions - no matter how fit they may be to a theory we favor. You imply that our theories are just a matter of favor. If our theory is one supported by the scientific method (and like the 2nd law maybe very much contrary to our favor) then it is the best tool we have for speculating about things we cannot (yet?) test. There's a difference between wishful speculation and informed extrapolation. They may both be wrong, the latter is the way to bet. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Believing ...
Well, Brent, this was a post that requires multiple replies (marked JM) and a longer reflection (with my apologies). * ...individuals within that belief system will have a variety of views. Some will have some views in conflict with the belief system. JM: right. Some are converted to Islam as well. * ...they may simply stop thinking about it and rely on faith ... JM: my late brother in law did not 'dare' to die because he - catholic and an excellent natural scientist - lived in sin (had a 2nd marriage) and was afraid of Hell. In my wordset an atheist requires a god to deny and agnosticism may be an irrelevant mindset 'who cares'. * About my 'opinion' Big Bang: I wrote it several times, in varied detail, that Hubble was a genius thinking of the redshift as an optical equivalent to Dopler, marking an expanding universe, but it was not scrutinized before the scientific establishment took it for granted. Lookiong for 'other' explanations was seen as heretic and unscientific. Since 1922(Hubble) - 3 generations of scientists were brainwashed into that, (including you and me) and literally millions of experiments were carried out for *proving* it only. If a result was 'not good' it was rejected (alternate (oppositional) opinion of mine landed a quip in a friendly discussion (1997) without any further word from an MIT cosmologist: HOAX). As I said: I owe myself the distinctions of the extenf of a 'belief system'. One may be a western natural scientist and have an unusual 'belief' imbedded in it, what does not make one so 'obtuse'. The applied math is so reassuring. The fact that the regression counted backwards linearly and it was detected that the 'moves' in cosmology go nonlinearly (call it chaotic?) (e.g. many body interactions) - but more importantly: that the physical connotation was recognising in the vastly different (concentrated into a miniaturized?) universe quite similar 'laws' to our present (expanded?) world, leading to hard to swallow paradoxes - is a basis for my disbelief. Then marvellous ideas were invented (assumed?) to solve the controversial math: inflation in the first place, and others, what makes me call the cosmological Big Bang view a scientific narrative. However: mathematically/theoretically proven. Even new theories added and adjusted. The starting point still remains: did the spectra shift to a lower frequency by receding lightsources, or (guessably) by passing magnetic/electric/or else(??) fields that slow down the (observable/registrable) 'frequency' in our model of light? Or by some effects yet to be discovered, not fitting into our conventional (historic) model of the 'physical wiorld'? I consider Hubble of similar importance to the DeCusa-Copernicus duo in their establishing (changing?) a geocentric physical worldview into a heliocentric - for the coming generations - it was also temporary and later on gave place to a wider informatics. That's all, not any denigration for people with a more conventional 'scientific' basis. I even value the practical results of reductionist scientists (I am one of them). Trying to step out from the quantized reductionist model-view and its (beyond model) conclusions makes me a scientific agnostic and renders my 'talk' vague. I feel we are not there (yet) and I try a different path from the UD or comp etc. ways, with less founding, eo ipso struggling in a scientifically (=math) not so convincing train of thoughts. The quantized physical edifice of the world (in applied math) is very impressive, results in technology admirable at today's level of our expectations. When it comes to fundamental understanding (elimination of the paradoxes at least to our limited mental capacity), lately, new ideas emerged. One proof is this list. Its present lines don't represent a monopoly. Academic tenure or a Nobel prize do not mean the ultimate 'truth'. Science is not even a democratic vote. And I love the humor of G. Carlin. So what else is new? Have a good day John - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 6:35 PM Subject: Re: Believing ... John M wrote: Brent, as usual, you have hard replies. Just one exception: I do not mean 'each and individual mindset' as the term 'belief system', but this is hard to explain. Most scientifically educated westerners - or many religious faithfuls can argue among themselves. I never tried to speculate about identifying what constitutes a 'different belief system', but 'system' must be more than just shades of individual differentiation in the details. John M If you don't mean something individual by belief system, but rather some general summary of what a group of people think, then individuals within that belief system will have a variety of views. Some will have some views in conflict with the belief system. And some can
Re: Believing in Divine Destiny
Excellent, Saibal Mitra! Thanx! Now you just have to quantize the miracles into a physix that fits those scriptures - into 'physical laws' of those religions. Maybe it would require a different math as well, to make a fit. And do not forget about the calory-supply of Hell. (Brimstone requires oxygen, to burn - at least in THIS universe.) John M Original Message - From: Saibal Mitra To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 8:08 AM Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny The only connection I can think of is as follows. For any given religious text there should exist a universe which best fits those text. Saibal - Original Message - From: Wei Dai [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 11:55 PM Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list. I don't remember if I did that a year ago or not, but I certainly think the current discussion is off-topic. This mailing list is based on the premise that all possible universes exist. Unless someone can think of a connection to this idea, can we please drop this thread? I have also noticed that all of [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s posts are copy-and-pastes from online sources: http://www.islamanswers.net/destiny/recorded.htm http://www.islamanswers.net/unity/understand.htm http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070226110342AAy6SG5 http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran_proof_preservation.htm Copying other people's writings without attribution is plagiarism, which I certainly do not approve of. And aside from that, if anyone wants to reference large amounts of online material, please post a link instead of copying the text. P.S., I find that I am not always able to keep up with all of the discussions on the list. Putting my name in a post is a good way to get my attention, and please always feel free to email me directly with any administrative issues related to the list. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.4/705 - Release Date: 2/27/2007 3:24 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Believing ...
Brent, as usual, you have hard replies. Just one exception: I do not mean 'each and individual mindset' as the term 'belief system', but this is hard to explain. Most scientifically educated westerners - or many religious faithfuls can argue among themselves. I never tried to speculate about identifying what constitutes a 'different belief system', but 'system' must be more than just shades of individual differentiation in the details. John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 12:32 PM Subject: Re: Believing in Divine Destiny John Mikes wrote: Stathis: You, of all people, should realize that one belief system cannot reach over to another one. Logic - mindset is different, facts come in different shades, evidence is adjusted to the 'system', a belief system is a whole world. Brent makes the same mistake: to argue from his 'scientific' (is it really - in the conventional old sense???) mindset with statements of the faithful, but it is a geerally committed error - while you, a learned mind-scientist should know better. I am not on top of this myself: I fall frequently into arguing from my 'rational' worldview into the (rational for them) faith-induced mentality. We are the (negligible) minority. They have less doubts than us. So I thank [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (whoever he or she may be) for the valuable intofmation about the Muslim culture and take it as that. We will never get a jihadic self-sacrificer to accept that his expectation of the huris waitnig for pleasuring him 'over there' is unfounded. It is for him and who cares (in my view) for 'happenings' of our present (human) copmplexity after it dissolved (call it death) into disintegration? A year ago or so Wei Dai put an end to religious discussions on the list. That was in the Judeochristian domain. He was right on the button. Is the Judeochrismuslim argumental domain different? Such discussions cannot be resolved into any agreement of the 2 poles. Anybody arguing - MY - point? I guess it would be futile to discuss anything with you, since you believe each of us is hermetically sealed in their own belief system. I don't agree - but that's my error. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evidence for the simulation argument
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 5:35 PM Subject: Re: Evidence for the simulation argument (Brent wrote): The point is that the simulation doesn't have to simulate the whole complicated universe, only the part we can investigate and understand. -(End of his post below) ---WE???WHO--- We as Einstein or Feinstein, or John Doe? or even Mbamba Kruit from the forests of New Guinea? Does every one of us simulate(!) (into?) his personalized universe with understandability levels PERSONALLY adjusted? (and why simulate?) John --- (John Mikes wrote: --skip--) BM: You seem to have two themes: (1) The universe is more complex than current physics makes it out and may not be computable, and in comparison, (2) Our ability to comprehend things is quite limited. But these two together imply that is quite possible that we live in a simulation. If the simulation is being performed in a universe like ours, one with very complex physics, then the physics of that universe could provide a simulation that was beyond our ability to discern as a simulation - because of our limited comprehension. The point is that the simulation doesn't have to simulate the whole complicated universe, only the part we can investigate and understand. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Thank you, guys, for 2 parts in this post I cherrish most. (I was questioning the endless back-and-forth of these 'bickercussions', but from time to time there is a part that justifies the frustration of reading so much) * I leave the part from Stathis' text which I want to copy to another list (with credit to Stathis and this list - if it is not prohibited, pls advise) between dotted lines. Also: The remark of Brent opened up a little light in my head (aka activated some photons in the neurons?) about refreshing the 'pilot wave' of D. Bohm as coinciding with Robert Rosen's anticipatory principle. (Bohm's priority). * Btw I find 'metaphysics' was a false historical mock-name to reject everything outside the primitive ancient model they called (then) physics (the science). Today's physics is many times 'meta', especially when carrying a Q-name. I can relate to both of yours remarks. ( Theists etc. just wanted to ride that horse in the past. ) The wording that emerges in talks about metaphysics is a mixture of the ancient denigration and the up-to-date ideas. Is it still fruitful to argue about a past misnomer? John M PS. about 'cause' and 'positivists': if we accept the random occurrences in the existence, we just waste any effort to identify ANY order (including math). I don't think the 'positivist' is a right (denigrating?) word for the idea that everything is (deterministically) interconnected/ interinfluencing any occurrence to 'happen' - maybe not 'causing' just 'directing/facilitating' - entailing in some sense. JM - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 6:32 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life I suppose it depends on what is covered by the term metaphysics. Theists sometimes profess absolute certainty in the face of absolute lack of evidence, and are proud of it. I wouldn't lump this in together with the interpretation of quantum mechanics (I'm sure you wouldn't either, but I thought I'd make the point). ... (On /24/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:) On Feb 23, 3:59 am, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2/23/07, Tom Caylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Skip * Stathis Papaioannou I agree that positivists don't like metaphysics, and they actually don't believe in it either. The problem with this is that science is ultimately based on (and is inescapably in the context of) some kind of metaphysics, since it is in the context of the universe as a whole. There are some ways of sorting out metaphysics. In fact these criteria are mostly the same as how we sort out science (since, again, science is based on metaphysics). These are such things as fundamentality, generality and beauty. However, the fact that science conventionally has been limited to the material (whatever that means!) implies that the criteria of naturality (a viscious circle actually!) and reproducibility (another vicious circle) that we have in science cannot be applied to the universe as a whole or to metaphysics. [Side note: But even more important is to recognize that metaphysics, as well as science, is filtered for us: we are part of the universe and we are limited. So this filters out almost everything. This limits more than anything the amount of sense we can make out of Everything.] However the criterion that you are trying to enforce, that of all things having a cause even in the context of Everything and Everyone, is a positivist criteria, treating metaphysics as science. It assumes that Everything has to be part of this closed system of cause and effect. There are plenty of criteria to sort out Everything (as I've mentioned above) without getting into the positivist viscious circle. - The universe is not under any obligation to reveal itself to us. All we can do is stumble around blindly gathering what data we can and make a best guess as to what's going on. Science is just a systematisation of this process, with guesses taking the form of models and theories. However, it's all tentative, and the scientific method itself is tentative: tomorrow pigs might sprout wings and fly, even though this has never happened before. I would bet that pigs will still be land-bound tomorrow, because there is no reason to think otherwise, but I have to stop short of absolute certainty. A metaphysical position would
Re: Searles' Fundamental Error
Pls see after Jason's remark John - Original Message - From: Jason To: Everything List Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 3:42 AM Subject: Re: Searles' Fundamental Error On Feb 18, 5:46 pm, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2/18/07, Mark Peaty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My main problem with Comp is that it needs several unprovable assumptions to be accepted. I believe that to say that some special substrate is needed for consciousness, be it chemical reactions or anything else, is subscribing to an epiphenominal view. For example, there should be no difference in behavior between a brain that operates chemically and one which has its chemical reactions simulated on a computer; however if it is the chemicals themselves that are responsible for consciousness, this consciousness can have no effect on the brain because the net result will be identical whether the brain is simulated or not. To me, epiphenominalism is a logical contradiction, because if consciousness has no effect on the mind, we wouldn't wonder about the mind-body problem because the mystery of consciousness would have no way of communicating itself to the brain. Therefore, I don't see how anything external to the functioning of the brain could be responsible for consciousness. Jason --- JM: I think you are in a limitation and draw conclusions from this limited model to beyond it. Whatever we can 'simulate' is from within the up-to-date knowledge base: our cognitive inventory. That is OK - and the way how humanity developed over the eras of the epistemic enrichment since dawn. Topics are added and views change as we learn more. We are not (yet?) at the end with omniscience. So our today's simulation is valid only to the extent of today's level of knowables. Nobody can include the yet unknown into a simulation. (see the remark of Stathis: You can't prove that a machine will be conscious in the same way you are.) If you insist of considering the brain, it is OK with me (I go further in my views into a total interconnection) but from even the brain you can include into your simulation only what was learnt about it to date. The computer cannot go beyond it either. The brain does. So our model-simulation is just that: a limited model. Are we ready for surprizes? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Texas, Georgia legislators: Copernicus and Darwin a Jewish conspiracy
RegardsStephen: -- N O --. Not on this planet. 6+b peple cannot survive after the loss of coastal areas (including the ports) by the meltdown of icecaps into a substantial elevation of the sea levels. When it occurred the last time, every domain suffered its own loss, now the mass transportation is vital for humanity to survive. According to doomsayers it is a question of SOME decades. Then comes the 'real' violence Hollywood is so efficiently teching us, to kill off those on higher grounds and expand the warriors to the remaining viable habitats. IF(!!) the lack of potable water does us not in earlier. Cities in the 10 - 20+ million range want to drink and defecate a pound per day. The planet nad its biosphere WILL survive - new species will adapt to the new circumstances. Not us. and Mark: it is not a US-question. US only contributed to a speed-up of it. There is no way to 'mend' the ozone hole and recover the pollution-killed marine life in many seas. Backward! Start the teleportation. John M - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 2:08 PM Subject: Re: Texas, Georgia legislators: Copernicus and Darwin a Jewish conspiracy Hi Guys, Is there any hope for humanity if cease being a paranoid irrational mob? Onward! Stephen - Original Message - From: Mark Peaty To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:37 AM Subject: Re: Texas, Georgia legislators: Copernicus and Darwin a Jewish conspiracy The USA is doomed! What with Hollywood and these people, is there any chance that the US can really adapt itself to cope with the realities of environmental changes now coming upon the world? Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Stathis Papaioannou wrote: http://www.capitolannex.com/IMAGES2/CHISUMMEMO.pdf What can you say? Stathis Papaioannou No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.18.1/691 - Release Date: 2/17/2007 5:06 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Everything List FAQ/Glossary/Wiki
Jason, the site is great, maybe greater than I can realize today. I, as a practical computer illiterate, (never learned any computerese courses, not even from books) sat before it with awe, - admiring that it works! I might have missed it when I tried: I did not find a place to look up topics (as in an index) to read about - to my choice. Clivkably, or advised under what name to find it, not 'included' in some topic, but alphabetically. Search seemed to work like a computer: lookiong for 'exact format' only. Maybe this is too hard, however I trust your skills, professor. John Mikes - Original Message - From: Jason Resch To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 5:57 PM Subject: Everything List FAQ/Glossary/Wiki John M mentioned in a recent post that many on the Everything List may have conflicting or poor understandings of all the various terminology used on the list. Hal Ruhl brought up the fact that someone had previously tried to maintain an acronym list and FAQ for the Everything List. I thought that a wiki would suit this role rather nicely, and offered to set one up for the list. I've finished setting up the site and it is currently running on a webhost which I use and have much underutilized space on. The URL is: http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page I envision the wiki being used to explain the various concepts, acronyms, and theories so often mentioned on this list. Every account created on the wiki has its own dedicated page, which I think would be an ideal place for people to describe their backgrounds and the theories they subscribe to. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Thanks, Fellow Uncertain (agnostic...). Let me quote to your question at the end the maxim from Mark's post: I think therefore I am right! - Angelica [Rugrat] (whatever that came from. Of course we value more our (halfbaked?) opinion than the wisdom of others.People die for it. With the religious marvels: I look at them with awe, cannot state it is impossible because 'they' start out beyond reason and say what they please. The sorry thing is, when a crowd takes it too seriously and kill, blow up, beat or burn live human beings in that 'belief'. Same, if for money. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 6:49 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life I don't know a right position from a wrong one either, I'm only trying to make the best guess I can given the evidence. Sometimes I really have no idea, like choosing which way a tossed coin will come up. Other times I do have evidence on which to base a belief, such as the belief that the world was not in fact created in six 24-hr days. It is certainly possible that I am wrong, and the evidence for a very old universe has either been fabricated or grossly misinterpreted, but I would bet on being right. Wouldn't you also, if something you valued depended on the bet? Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 18:28:25 -0500 And you, Stathis, are very kind to assume that I know' a right position from a wromng one. I may be in indecision before I denigrate... On the contrary. if someone 'believes' the 6 day creation, I start speculating WHAT days they could have been metaphorically, starfting before the solar system led us to our present ways of scheduling. Etc. Etc. Accepting that whatever we 'believe' is our epistemic achievement, anything 'from yesterday' might have been 'right' (maybe except the old Greeks - ha ha). in their own rites. Sometimes I start an argument about a different (questionable?) belief just to tickle out arguments which I did not consider earlier. But that is my dirty way. I am a bad judge and always ready to reconsider. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:54 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John, Some people, including the mentally ill, do have multiple inconsistent belief systems, but to me that makes it clear that at least one of their beliefs must be wrong - even in the absence of other information. You're much kinder to alternative beliefs than I am, but in reality, you *must* think that some beliefs are wrong, otherwise you would hold those beliefs! For example, if you say you don't personally believe the earth was created in six days, but respect the right of others to believe that it was, what you're really saying is that you respect the right of others to have a false belief. I have no dispute with that, as long as it is acknowledged. Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 11:07:52 -0500 Stathiws, no question about that. What I was trying to stress was the futility of arguing from one belief system (and stressing its solely expanded truth) against a different truth and evidence carrying OTHER belief system. BTW: don't schyzophrenics (maybe multiple personalitics) accept (alternately) ALL the belief systems they carry? (=layman asking the professional). IMO we all (i.e. thinking people) are schizophrenix with our rather elastic ways of intelligence. Beatus ille qui est onetrackminded..(the 9th beatitude). To your initial sentence: do you believe (in YOUR criteria of your beliefs) that TWO people may have absolutely identical beliefs? I am almost certain that as your immune system, DNA, fingerprint and the other zillion characteristics are not identical to those of other animals, the mental makeup is similarly unique. We are not zombies of a mechanically computerized machine-identity (Oops, no reference to Loeb). Duo si faciunt (cogitant?) idem, non est idem. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:38 AM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John, You shouldn't have one criterion for your own beliefs and a different criterion for everyone else's. If Christians said, those old Greeks sang
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hal: you really believe that anybody could provide responses acceptable for all others? (I did not say understandable) Everybody sits in his own mindset and speaks his own scientific religion (=scientific belief system) - [said so, whether I aggraveted now (again) Russell or not.] We are in a pretty liquid exchange-state (liquid OM). Otherwise the idea is excellent, with multiple choice. John - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 8:49 PM Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds Hi John: Long ago there was some effort to write a FAQ for the list. Perhaps we should give it another try. Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/6/2007, you wrote: Hal and list: I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even if one thinks so. Or is it only my handicap? John M - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds Hi Bruno: I do not think I fully understand what you are saying. Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes - meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state. I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two. Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid the information generating selection in the full set. Yours Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote: Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit : As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset. This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does not reintroduce new one. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.29/673 - Release Date: 2/6/2007 5:52 PM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Searles' Fundamental Error
By who's logic? John M - Original Message - From: Torgny Tholerus To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 1:35 PM Subject: Re: Searles' Fundamental Error Brent Meeker skrev: Torgny Tholerus wrote: Mark Peaty skrev: And next: what do you mean by 'exist'? 'Exist' is exactly the same as 'mathematical possibility'. Our Universe is a mathemathical possibility. That is why our Universe exists. Every mathematically possible Universe exists in the same way. But we can not get in touch with any of the other Universes, so from our point of view does the other Universes not exist. But what is mathematical possibility? Is it the same as logically possible? Does it rule out, The book is green and the book is red.? Or does it only rule out, The book is green and the book is not green.? Yes, it is the same as logically possible. One simple Universe is the Game of Life, with some starting configuration. This simple Universe exists in the same way as our Universe, even if nobody ever tries this starting configuration. -- Torgny Tholerus --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Searles' Fundamental Error
Mark: fascinating. I like to ask such stupid questions myself. On my question 'what is consciousness' the best answer I got was: everybody knows it from a prof-fessional. (Yes, but everybody knows it differently). Existence??? I wonder how the honored listers will vote, I would resort to the process (we think) we are in. What process? I can't see it from the inside. With 'physical' I take a more primitive stance: I consider it epistemological over our past history, to put primitive and unsatisfactory experiences (observations?) into position of the premature image we formed about the world in the past (including now). Matter-concept is still an imprtant part of it, even in E~m relations. Sensorial - in it - still has the upper hand over mental. I try to include ideation into matterly. And (after Planck) in the reverse order. My firm opinion is: I dunno. We are not yet epistemized enough to form an educated guess. * If I combine the two: physical existence (no 'primitive' included, rather implying it to ourselves) I visualize the unrestricted complexity of 'everything' (already known or not) so any teleported remnant of 'us' sounds impossible without 'all' of the combined ingredients we are part of. * I carry an intrauniverse view as a human, product of the churnings here and now and a BIG complexity-view as a spaceless-timeless multiverse BY the 'plenitude' about which we cannot know much. In between I allow a 'small' complexity-view as pertinent to our universe. For this I violate my scepticism against the Big Bang fable - and consider our universe from BB to dissipation, the entire history, as evolution. I am nowhere ready to outline these superstitions. I can't wait for Bruno's (and others') versions. John M and let me join Angelica [Rugrat](???) - Original Message - From: Mark Peaty To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 11:34 AM Subject: Re: Searles' Fundamental Error Bruno: 'Dont hesitate to ask why, I am sure few people have understand the whole point. Some are close to it, perhaps by having figure this out by themselves.' MP: Don't look at me boss ... I'm just glad I don't have to understand 'it' to be able to exist within it! SO, yes I will ask: What do you mean by 'physical'? And next: what do you mean by 'exist'? These are very basic questions, and in our context here, 'dumb' questions for sure, but without some clarification on how people are using these words, I don't think I can go any further. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ I think therefore I am right! - Angelica [Rugrat] Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Mark, Le 03-févr.-07, à 17:12, Mark Peaty a écrit : John, I share your apparent perplexity. No matter which way up I look at the things being discussed on this list, I always end up back in the same place [and yes it is always 'here' :-] which is that clearly prior to anything else is the fact of existence. I have to take this at too levels: 1/ firstly as sloganised by Mr R Descartes: 'I think therefore I am', although because I am naturally timid I tend more often to say something like: 'I think therefore I cannot escape the idea that if I say I don't exist it doesn't seem to sound quite right', That is good for you. I would say that Descartes gives a correct but useless proof of the existence of Descartes' first person. It is useless because He knew it before his argument. 2/ the macroscopic corollary of the subjective microcosm just mentioned is that it I try to assert that nothing exists that just seems to be plain wrong, and if I dwell on the situations I find myself in - beset as I am with ceaseless domestic responsibilities and work related bureaucratic constraints, the clearest simple intuition about it all is that the universe exists whether I know it or not. Nobody has ever said that nothing exist. I do insist that even me has a strong belief in the existence of a universe, even in a physical universe. But then I keep insisting that IF the comp hyp is correct, then materialism is false, and that physical universe is neither material nor primitively physical. I am just saying to the computationalist that they have to explain the physical laws, without assuming any physics at the start. It is a technical point. If we are digital machine then we must explain particles and waves from the relation between numbers, knots, and other mathematical object. Dont hesitate to ask why, I am sure few people have understand the whole point. Some are close to it, perhaps by having figure this out by themselves. In short, being anything at all seems to entail being somewhere now, and even though numbers and mathematical operations seem to be wonderfully effective at representing many aspects of things going on in the world
Re: The Meaning of Life
And you, Stathis, are very kind to assume that I know' a right position from a wromng one. I may be in indecision before I denigrate... On the contrary. if someone 'believes' the 6 day creation, I start speculating WHAT days they could have been metaphorically, starfting before the solar system led us to our present ways of scheduling. Etc. Etc. Accepting that whatever we 'believe' is our epistemic achievement, anything 'from yesterday' might have been 'right' (maybe except the old Greeks - ha ha). in their own rites. Sometimes I start an argument about a different (questionable?) belief just to tickle out arguments which I did not consider earlier. But that is my dirty way. I am a bad judge and always ready to reconsider. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 5:54 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John, Some people, including the mentally ill, do have multiple inconsistent belief systems, but to me that makes it clear that at least one of their beliefs must be wrong - even in the absence of other information. You're much kinder to alternative beliefs than I am, but in reality, you *must* think that some beliefs are wrong, otherwise you would hold those beliefs! For example, if you say you don't personally believe the earth was created in six days, but respect the right of others to believe that it was, what you're really saying is that you respect the right of others to have a false belief. I have no dispute with that, as long as it is acknowledged. Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 11:07:52 -0500 Stathiws, no question about that. What I was trying to stress was the futility of arguing from one belief system (and stressing its solely expanded truth) against a different truth and evidence carrying OTHER belief system. BTW: don't schyzophrenics (maybe multiple personalitics) accept (alternately) ALL the belief systems they carry? (=layman asking the professional). IMO we all (i.e. thinking people) are schizophrenix with our rather elastic ways of intelligence. Beatus ille qui est onetrackminded..(the 9th beatitude). To your initial sentence: do you believe (in YOUR criteria of your beliefs) that TWO people may have absolutely identical beliefs? I am almost certain that as your immune system, DNA, fingerprint and the other zillion characteristics are not identical to those of other animals, the mental makeup is similarly unique. We are not zombies of a mechanically computerized machine-identity (Oops, no reference to Loeb). Duo si faciunt (cogitant?) idem, non est idem. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:38 AM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John, You shouldn't have one criterion for your own beliefs and a different criterion for everyone else's. If Christians said, those old Greeks sang songs about their gods' miraculous exploits, really seemed to believe in them, and on top of that were pretty smart, so I guess everything in the Iliad and Odyssey must be true, then they would be consistently applying the standards they apply to the Bible. Of course, they don't: other peoples' religious beliefs are subjected to rational scrutiny and (rightly) found wanting, but their own beliefs are special. Stathis Papaioannou Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:17:57 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Stathis: is it not a misplaced effort to argue from one set of belief system ONLY with a person who carries two (or even more)? I had a brother-in-law, a devout catholic and an excellent biochemist and when I asked him how can he adjust the two in one mind, he answered: I never mix the two together. Tom is an excellent natural scientist and has brilliant arguments in it, as long as it comes to his 'other' belief system - what he, quite inderstandably - does not want to give up. We all have 'second belief bases' in our multiple schizophrenia of intelligence. Some have 'Platonia', some 'primitive matter view' - it is your profession. Do you really think you can penetrate one by arguments from another? John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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
Re: The Meaning of Life
Stathiws, no question about that. What I was trying to stress was the futility of arguing from one belief system (and stressing its solely expanded truth) against a different truth and evidence carrying OTHER belief system. BTW: don't schyzophrenics (maybe multiple personalitics) accept (alternately) ALL the belief systems they carry? (=layman asking the professional). IMO we all (i.e. thinking people) are schizophrenix with our rather elastic ways of intelligence. Beatus ille qui est onetrackminded..(the 9th beatitude). To your initial sentence: do you believe (in YOUR criteria of your beliefs) that TWO people may have absolutely identical beliefs? I am almost certain that as your immune system, DNA, fingerprint and the other zillion characteristics are not identical to those of other animals, the mental makeup is similarly unique. We are not zombies of a mechanically computerized machine-identity (Oops, no reference to Loeb). Duo si faciunt (cogitant?) idem, non est idem. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:38 AM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John, You shouldn't have one criterion for your own beliefs and a different criterion for everyone else's. If Christians said, those old Greeks sang songs about their gods' miraculous exploits, really seemed to believe in them, and on top of that were pretty smart, so I guess everything in the Iliad and Odyssey must be true, then they would be consistently applying the standards they apply to the Bible. Of course, they don't: other peoples' religious beliefs are subjected to rational scrutiny and (rightly) found wanting, but their own beliefs are special. Stathis Papaioannou Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:17:57 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Stathis: is it not a misplaced effort to argue from one set of belief system ONLY with a person who carries two (or even more)? I had a brother-in-law, a devout catholic and an excellent biochemist and when I asked him how can he adjust the two in one mind, he answered: I never mix the two together. Tom is an excellent natural scientist and has brilliant arguments in it, as long as it comes to his 'other' belief system - what he, quite inderstandably - does not want to give up. We all have 'second belief bases' in our multiple schizophrenia of intelligence. Some have 'Platonia', some 'primitive matter view' - it is your profession. Do you really think you can penetrate one by arguments from another? John M On 2/5/07, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Caylor writes: On Jan 31, 10:33 am, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. But in that case your question is just half of the question, Why do people have values? If you have values then that mean some things will be good and some will be bad - a weed is just a flower in a place you don't want it. You must already know the obvious answer to this given by Darwin. And it doesn't even take a person; even amoebas have values. I suspect you have a set answer in mind and you're looking for the question to elicit it. Brent Meeker Also Stathis wrote: Sure, logic and science are silent on the question of the value of weeds or anything else. You need a person to come along and say let x=good, and then you can reason logically given this. Evolutionary theory etc. may predict what x a person may deem to be good or beautiful, but this is not binding on an individual in the way laws governing the chemistry of respiration, for example, are binding. Unlike some scientific types, I am quite comfortable with ethics being in this sense outside the scope of science. Unlike some religious types, I am quite comfortable without looking for an ultimate source of ethics in the form of a deity. Even if this conclusion made me very unhappy, that might be reason to try self-deception, but it has no bearing on the truth. Stathis Papaioannou Brent and Stathis exemplify two possible answers to meaning. Brent reduces meaning to something based on mere existence or survival. Thus amoebas can have such meaning. Stathis says that meaning is an unanswered (unanswerable?) mystery. We just somehow self-generate meaning. My introduction of the Meaning Of Life thread asked if the Everything perspective could provide any answers to this question. Looking at the contributions since then, it looks like the answer is apparently not. This is what I expected. Thus, meaning is either limited to trivial (non-normative) values or is without basis
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Hal and list: I do not think anybody fully understands what other listers write, even if one thinks so. Or is it only my handicap? John M - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:24 PM Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds Hi Bruno: I do not think I fully understand what you are saying. Suppose your model bans white rabbits from its evolving universes - meaning I take it that all successive states are fully logical consequences of their prior state. I would see this as a selection of one possibility from two. Lets us say that you are correct about this result re your model, this just seems to reinforce the idea that it is a sub set in order to avoid the information generating selection in the full set. Yours Hal Ruhl At 11:30 AM 2/5/2007, you wrote: Le 05-févr.-07, à 00:46, Hal Ruhl a écrit : As far as I can tell from this, my model may include Bruno's model as a subset. This means that even if my theory makes disappear all (1-person) white rabbits, you will still have to justify that your overset does not reintroduce new one. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis, maybe it is a postulate that (in my mind) what you write does not make sense? A Cc generated/operated by tissue - partially transferred to parts unknown without (the?) tissue and still functions? I am a simpleminded primitive peasant, cannot condone that you, a 'thinking' person (no insult meant) accept the drawing of final conclusions upon our present insufficient knowledge base. 50 years ago everything was explained as a telephone switchboard, 150 years ago as a steam-engine. Always by metaphors we did not (yet) quite know and science was happy. Even things like phlogiston or vitality survived for some time. Today it is comp on equipment and process exceeding the present technique and things borrowed from sci-fi. And people take it SSOOO seriously! E.g. your calculation of the speed of thought upon the physical registrations of visual measurements. It is the inertia of the tool we use. Thought, by all metaphors, is timeless/spaceless, you can experimentally proove it to yourself by 'thinking' of Dzhingis Kahn, Cleopatra and Hitler around a table in South america. Or: on the Moon. You wrote:(I added the asterisks) ... *if I found myself* continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, ... -- what I would read as corrected into:: ... *if I think about myself as* making a difference for me in drawing conclusions. And you emphasized this in your subsequent sentence in IF... THEN - by the capitalization. So: if not, not. A typical 'sowhat'. I was hoping that you refer a bit to my ideas, not just repeat yours. But, alas, so are the lists Have a good weekend John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:55 PM Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds John, I guess my brain is generating my consciousness, but I regard this as a contingent fact. My conciousness is that which I experience, and if I found myself continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, brain transplant, resurrection in Heaven or whatever, then I would have survived as me. Note that I am not saying these things are possible (perhaps this is where you are scornful of the fantastic scenarios), just that IF in these situations I continued to think I was me, THEN ipso facto, I would still be me, despite losing the original body and brain. Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:54:32 -0500 Stathis: interesting. See my additional question after your reply John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds John Mikes writes: Stathis: your concluding sentence is But my brain just won't let me think this way. * Have you been carried away? Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU use in mental activity, is not predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your' brain? How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your brain' won't let it happen? OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason for won't let me. With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you indeed? * I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect. John I am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in the same way as walking is the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, my legs. I am not identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to my legs. Now, of course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and of course I can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these statements are not tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I can think or I can only walk where I can walk are. Stathis Papaioannou --- JM: so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell initiated) BRAIN the origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from 'matter' - which is the figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and incompletely observed impact received from parts unknown? Funny: you invested so many posts into the
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis: your concluding sentence is But my brain just won't let me think this way. * Have you been carried away? Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU use in mental activity, is not predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your' brain? How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your brain' won't let it happen? OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason for won't let me. With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you indeed? * I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect. John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 7:08 AM Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds Jason Resch writes: Jason Resch writes: My appologies to those on this list, this is how I should have worded my conclusion: Positive spared lives = Take replication Neutral spared lives = Take coin flip Negative spared lives = Take coin flip [SP] This is an analysis from an altruistic viewpoint, i.e. which choice will increase the net happiness in the world. What I am asking is the selfish question, what should I do to avoid being tortured? If I choose the replication it won't worry me from a selfish point of view if one person will definitely be tortured because I am unlikely to be that person. Indeed, after the replication it won't affect me if *all* the other copies are tortured, because despite sharing the same psychology up to the point of replication, I am not going to experience their pain. [JR] I think our disagreement stems from our different conceptions of consciousness. You seem to believe that once you experience an observer moment, that you are destined to experience all future observer moments of that observer. While this is the way most people see the world, I consider that to be an illusion caused by memory. i.e. We remember past observer moments so we must be moving into the future. I believe that its is just as beneficial to do something that will improve someone else's observer moments as it is to improve one's future observer moments. Just think: your current observer moment never gets to experience the fruits of its current labors, it remains in that observer moment for all time. Yet we still go to work. That is why altruism is indistinguishable from selfish behavior in my philosophy. There is no consciousness outside of brain states, brain states are consciousness, since they exist they are experienced, no one can say by who or by what, their existance is experience. Therefore it is in everyone's interest to improve reality's first person, of which every observer moment is a part. It's easy to see how evolution taught us to work for one individual's future observer moments, we defer gratification all time in order to increase the average quality of all future observer moments. I'm not advocating we all become like Mother Teresa, but I think we should understand that we are no more (or less) our future observer moments than we are other individual's observer moments. I completely agree with your view of observer moments: the person who wakes up in my bed tomorrow won't be me-now, he'll just be someone who shares most of my memories and believes he is me. In fact, if I were killed with an axe during the night and replaced with an exact copy, it wouldn't make any difference to me or anyone else, because I die every moment anyway. But the problem is, I am very attached to the illusion of continuity of conscious and personal identity even though I know how it is generated. If I give in to it, I might decide to treat everyone the same as I do myself, but just as likely I might decide to be completely reckless with my life, or even with everyone else's life. But my brain just won't let me think this way. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.17.10/651 - Release Date: 1/24/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Stathis: interesting. See my additional question after your reply John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds John Mikes writes: Stathis: your concluding sentence is But my brain just won't let me think this way. * Have you been carried away? Who is your brain to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the mechanism of your brain, the main tool YOU use in mental activity, is not predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)? More importantly: who is that me in conflict with 'your' brain? How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your brain) when 'your brain' won't let it happen? OK, let's introduce you, the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason for won't let me. With what 'tool' did you WANT to think this way? How many people are you indeed? * I am asking these stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF (I), vs. the total interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the world'. I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect. John I am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my brain, in the same way as walking is the product of a locomotion-generating mechanism, my legs. I am not identical to my brain just as walking is not identical to my legs. Now, of course I can only think what my brain will let me think, and of course I can only walk where my legs will let me walk, but these statements are not tautologies in the way that saying I can only think what I can think or I can only walk where I can walk are. Stathis Papaioannou --- JM: so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell initiated) BRAIN the origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from 'matter' - which is the figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and incompletely observed impact received from parts unknown? Funny: you invested so many posts into the (partial) teleportation and copying into other universes - did you really MEAN the transfer of tissues (like in StarTrek?) How 'bout the multiple 'copying' of matter? How can you duplicate the atoms for copying? StarTrek had only 1 copy and that, too, by 'physical' transfer. Save the wrong conclusion: I am not defending this line, I find it unreal and just mention the position of yours and others on this list for argument's sake. I find it 'interesting, but amazing' that different brains (see: the multiplicity of humans and other animals among themselves) behave like mental clones in accepting very similar 3rd person views into their 1st person ideas, to form images of the 'material world' etc. Mental images, that is, which, however you would make into their own origination? Are we all (and the world, the existnce etc.) only fiction of ourselves? Then again I feel that the 'consciousness' you generate by the brain may be very close to personality, self, the I we are talking about. Which would close the loop: there must be the 'primitive matter' forming the brain and out of that comes the 'not-so-primitive' matter, the mental complexity and all??? I agree withBruno to disagree in the absolute primitive matter concept. IMO It is only an explanatory imaging in this universe's consciousness activity to order the part of the system we so far detected. Together with space-time and OUR pet-causality - the 'within model' ordering. John PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short text explaining the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life
Or of comp, or of multiple universes, or of. (the list is almost unlimitable). Proving is tricky. In many cases SOME accept the backwards argument from phenomena assigned to an originating assumption that is now deemed proven by it. Some don't. It depends on evidence in one's personal belief system qualia (characteristics) if someone is not closed minded in his own belief system's 'monotheistic' prejudices (like e.g. of natural sciences, or of math). Has anybody proven the existence? (I mean beyond the Zenian question: who's arthritis is it?) John - Original Message - From: 1Z To: Everything List Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 9:59 AM Subject: Re: Rép : The Meaning of Life Bruno Marchal wrote: Also, nobody has proved the existence of a primitive physical universe. Or of a Platonia --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds
Dear Jason, what William wrote is the best we, humans in 2007AD can find out for the subject matter. Before 1922 (Hubble's redshift) of course the best was different. Before...and so on. Considering the best of 2325AD...??? Your applause is similarly dated. Is Mother Nature (or call her as you wish) really restricted to our today's speculations? * BTW I wanted to know more about ASSA-RSSA and Googled it, when from the American Steam Ship Association everything came up in 3,700,000+ entries, Wikipedia finally advised me to the old archive 'eskimo' of this list with Wei Dai, H. Finley, et al. posts. Since I browse the list for more than a decade, it must have been in posts too technical for me. Do you know about a 'simple' yet informative source? I find the idea (maybe) useful now for my speculations about the 'self' ('I'?), separable in the total interefficient world as grouping for more relevantly interrelated networks to be considered as self-referential? * I am not for a linear multiplication of our one-type universe as 'all possible' variations (as beyond even what we can think about today). I enjoy your input and the replies even if I do not agree with the model-position of the reigning physical sciences in spite of the fantastic results it produced as compared to the tools and housing of birds and beaver. JohnMikes The caveman said: the best ever technical advancement in our weaponry is the hand-ax. ATOMIC BOMB IS A HOAX. - j - Original Message - From: Jason To: Everything List Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:58 AM Subject: Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds William wrote: A simple way of picturing this, would be that at the big bang; the universe is 1 piece of paper, and from then on, every second, the piece(s) of paper is cut in half; giving 1, 2, 4, 8, ... universes. The total area of paper remains the same and all the pieces get smaller all the time, this means that the chance of being in a particular universe as the universe splitting progresses, even decreases :). I consider this a very insightful way of looking at it. Starting with the universe's intitial conditions defined to have probability 1, every branched history that follows will occur with some fractional probability, and the sum of all the histories in any single point of time will all have equal probabilities. In effect every point of time would be equally weighted statistically. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Dear Bruno, may I ask you to spell out your B and D? in your: Let D = the proposition God exists, ~ = NOT, B = believes. Where I think I cannot substitute your ~ for the =NOT - or, if the entire line is meaning ONE idea, that B believes both the affirmative and the negatory. Also: the difference between ~BD and ~B~D? I would like to read on and understanding the starting propositions is crucial. Sorry for my ignorance I have the feeling that we both are on the same ground in our nonexistent beliefs and I expressed that also as being an agnostic, rather than the atheist (who needs a god-concept (incl. matter, for that matter) to DENY.) It is contrary to the German common usage of gottlos (same in my language) - but we try to step further than the conventional common historically used vocabulary. Br: I do neither believe in the inexistence of God, nor in the inexistence of Matter. I wait for more data. I took a more straightforward stance when a 'believer' challenged me to prove: there is NO god, I said I can disprove only if he proved the existence. Another (redface) ignorance of mine: it seems that your Wi and Fi references appeared in the parts more technical than I could consciously absorb, so I am at a loss. Computable must mean more than Turing emulable (R.Rosen) since the unrestricted totality is not available in toto for this later concept. Br asked: You seem quite sure about that. How do you know? Why couldn'it be that *you* find this limited due to your own prejudice about numbers and machines? I was impregnated by some commi dialectic materialism over 2 decades and found a perspective of things developing gradually reasonable. AI emulates (some) human mental characteristics and I don't believe that this process has been completed. I see additional possibilities to extend into, especially in mental events we have not yet discovered. This 'feeling' is not due to my - as you say - prejudice about numbers and machines. I could not spell out such 'prejudice', not in the least because of my above argument in agnosticism: I did not get so far a firm support for the 'numbers' being the foundation of everything, so I cannot argue against such unproven idea (neither to believe). * Lobian machine: I follow a deterministic view: everything that happens is entailed by originating processes (whether we know them or not), so a 'mechanism' can be thought of (machine). I accept your (Bruno) teaching about Loeb's original description (I tried to read 'him', but it was too 'technical) so I feel free to call myself a 'loebian machine' truthfully. Especially since it is the expression used by Bruno et al. on this list. Consistent I am in MY common sense (which may be fallse). * About the underlying physical reality? it became physical only by our interpretation into matter-based model-view. Reality may be underlying - I know nothing about that - but we DO base our figments on something. Then we build up a world 'physical' (I really do not want to tease you: or mathematical - numbers based). John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 10:00 AM Subject: Rép : The Meaning of Life To avoid to much posts in your mail box, I send all my comments in this post, Hi Brent, 1a) Brent meeker wrote (quoting Jim Heldberg) : Atheism is not a religion, just as a vacant lot is not a type of building, and health is not a form of sickness. Atheism is not a religion. --- Jim Heldberg It seems to me that Jim Heldberg confuse the scientist (indeed) attitude of agnosticism and atheism. Let D = the proposition God exists, ~ = NOT, B = believes. An agnostic is someone for which the proposition ~BD is true. (And ~B~D could be true as well) An atheist is someone for which B~D is true. The atheist is a believer. As John M often says, an atheist already has some notion of God such as to be able to believe it does not exist. Now most atheist are already believer in believing religiously in Primary Matter (a metaphysical entity). I'am agnostic in both sense. I do not believe in God, nor do I believe in Matter. Those terms are not enough well defined. I do neither believe in the inexistence of God, nor in the inexistence of Matter. I wait for more data. But assuming comp, I must confess that I have *reason* to put some more credo on Plotinus, and other platonist approaches, on mind/god/matter and fundamental principle, than on the aristotelian primitive matter theory. Actually, I infer the same belief from the empirical quantum data. 1b) Brent wrote to John M: Values existed longer before humans. So you are a bit Platonist too :) 1c) Brent wrote (to Stathis): How is this infinite regress avoided in our world? By consciousness not representing the rest of the world. That is an interesting idea. You could elaborate a bit perhaps? I do agree with your
Re: The Meaning of Life
Brent M wrote: Consciousness requires interaction with an environment; consciousness implicitly requires a distinction between I and the world. MJ: I find it an excellent addage to identify Ccnss, thank you. I was searching for 'self' and found a similar trait, adding self reflective relation to it. I would change an into the and call environment the totality - but this is a minor change in wording. In the 'self' I struggled with 'closer' and 'less closely' related ambience as pertaining to the 'strength of the relationship, which would vote for Brent's an rather than my the. I was talking about conscious, as frequently used not identically to the adjective of Ccness,(e.g. 'unconscious' in sleep retains some Ccness for an alarm clock.) Is the 'addage' all of Ccness? Like another Brent-post I have to recall: Brent's excellent proposition some time ago, about why go further from a (timeless?) world we cannot really kidentified as 'originated', into a similarly uniodentified 'creator' (approximate paraphrasing), why can we not stop there and speak about 'the world' only? (Meaning: isn't one level of unknowable enough?) Of course that rang the bell of pantheism. I skip the rest of the 'rock-physics'. Regards John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 12:24 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John Mikes writes: Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would it help if I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be consistent, a rock would also have to be conscious? JM: Bruno: A rock will not read an article in the Figaro, but that is not the rock's fault. It is our usage of the human terms transferred into non-human applications, what I sense all over. Did we properly identified 'conscious'? I feel (generalized DOWN the complexity-scale) it is some 'mental sensitivity' - maybe more. Human mentality of course. Even if animals are deemed conscious, it is in human measures. Like: animals are stupid: cannot talk. Washoe chimp 'talked' US sign language and how else should a creature articulate its sounds (for human talk) without proper equipment to do so? Sensitivity with the proper premises is 'conscious' in humans - as we call it. A rock has response to information it can acknowledge, it is semantics what word we use to mark it. A pine tree does not run, a human does not fly. (how stupid, says the chicken), I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us what should count as a 1 or a 0, what should count as a red perception, and so on. These things are determined by how the computer is designed to interact with its environment, whether that mean outputting the sum of two numbers to a screen or interacting with a human to convince him that it is conscious. But what if the environment is made part of the computer? The constraint on meaning and syntax would then go, and the vibration of atoms in a rock could be implementing any computation, including any conscious computation, if such there are. John Searle, among others, believes this is absurd, and that therefore it disproves computationalism. Another approach is that it shows that it is absurd that consciousness supervenes on physical activity of any sort, but we can keep computationalism and drop the physical supervenience criterion, as Bruno has. Stathis Papaioannou I have a view that seems to me to be slightly different. Consciousness requires interaction with an environment; consciousness implicitly requires a distinction between I and the world. So when you attribute consciousness to a rock, incorporating the world as part of the rock, while the remainder of the rock is conscious that raises problems. We can say that this part of the rock is conscious of that part; making some arbitrary division of the rock. But then it's not conscious in/of our universe. When you say there is no canonical syntax, which is what allows anything to be a computation of anything else, I think that is overstates the case. Suppose a particular pair of iron atoms in the rock are magnetically aligned and the syntax counts that as 0 while anti-aligned counts as 1. Then what computation is implemented by 000...? The arbitrariness of syntax supposedly allows this to be translated into 27 or some other number. But then the translation has to have all possible words in it and the relational meanings of those words; including the words for all the numbers in that world. This places a pretty strong restriction on the size of the rock-world - there are only some
Re: Evil ?
Dear Stathis: my answer to your quewstion: Of course not! There is a belief systems I like and there are the others I don't. I just maintain a (maybe misplaced?) humbleness that I am not the judge to decide about the rightness of mine and not mine. Mine is better (not necessarily the best). G Otherwise I would change it as do many converts, emigrants. divorcees, or 'elevated minds' coming to some better position. The exceptional best are those of the fundamentalist fanatics (for themselves, of course), they don't even 'look' away. I liked your 'trappy' question: I used to be a faithful altar-boy, a reincarnationist, a Ouiji-board addict, a natural scientist (within the reductionist science-religion of our times in the west) and I changed lately into a view of totally interconnected complexity of a deterministically interactive existence. So I have experience. Am I biased? you bet. Best wishes John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 10:01 PM Subject: RE: Evil ? Dear John, Perhaps if you could answer just this question of Brent's, neither a straw man nor personal abuse: Do you consider all belief systems to be equal? If not what makes one better than another? Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Evil ? Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:41:55 -0500 Dear Brent, I value many of your posts higher than continue this exchange which starts to turn strawmannishly ad personam. I wanted to continue, but deleted my post before sending. I do not promise NOT to reflect to your posts in other matters, but what this developed into is - as it marks - Evil. With best regards your voodoo expert John - Original Message - From: Brent Meekermailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.commailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 7:39 PM Subject: Re: Evil ? John M wrote: Brent, sorry if I irritated you - that is felt in your response. -- You remarked: ( Upon your: ...an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? is showing. - Who is unbiased? ) You don't have to decide who's unbiased. JM: My question meant: NOBODY is unbiased. Not you, not me, whoever 'thinks' has some position which is hard to overcome. Why should everyone overcome their position. In the continuation I would appreciate to substitute your opinion word by belief system - scientific or religious. - Is there no reason to prefer science to voodoo? Ask a voodoo official. I'm asking you. A friend was raised by nuns in Chile and asked I was thinking... whereupon the nun - educatrix shouted her down: you should not think you should believe. (Have you ever believed a science-book? Say: stories told by your college-professor? ) No. And if you ask a scientist if he believes some theory you'll either get a funny look or an exposition on the evidence for and against. You cannot exclude in reasonable discussions the religious vast majority of humanity, - talking about a handful of 'free thinking' fundamentalists (science-crazed people) is a vaste of time. They are not a vast majority in most of Europe. So it is quite possible for there to be non-religious societies. In our western 'culture' the science-belief system is comparable mutatis mutandis with the religious one - noting some differences WHAT conditions are set for accepting an evidence (=truth). And is that difference unimportant? Do you consider all belief-systems to be equal? If not, what makes one better than another? Your: ??? - look in your text for imply. -- Your par: What's your evidence for that? ... You can pick the religious old, I can pkick the others, and tjhose who changed (or abandoned at all) religions. I was referring to a pristine faith of the young. The official religion of a country is politics. I don't know about your statistical figures, but social (marital?) pressure keeps lots of people as churchgoers from the many millions that don't go. Even in countries of an 'official' state-religion. Finally: ... in fact they all claim that they are immune from test. This is where they fail in their epistemological duty. You mean the epistemological duty YOU impose? They simply claim to be immune from YOUR test, they have their own 'test' and 'evidence'. That was my point. I think humans valuing knowledge is as fundamental as their valuing food and sex. So there is a recognized epistemological duty. Everyone, in every culture, is contemptuous of the fool and a fool
Re: The Meaning of Life
Stathis: I will not go that far, nor draw 'magnificent' conclusion about conscious rocks (I am not talking about the unconscious hysteria of the rhytmic crowd-noise of teenage immaturity - call them rolling or non-rolloing STONES), - I just try to call the state of being conscious an effective sensitivity (including response maybe) to information (changes?) from the ambience. (Not a Shannon-type info). John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 9:53 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life John Mikes writes: Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would it help if I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be consistent, a rock would also have to be conscious? JM: Bruno: A rock will not read an article in the Figaro, but that is not the rock's fault. It is our usage of the human terms transferred into non-human applications, what I sense all over. Did we properly identified 'conscious'? I feel (generalized DOWN the complexity-scale) it is some 'mental sensitivity' - maybe more. Human mentality of course. Even if animals are deemed conscious, it is in human measures. Like: animals are stupid: cannot talk. Washoe chimp 'talked' US sign language and how else should a creature articulate its sounds (for human talk) without proper equipment to do so? Sensitivity with the proper premises is 'conscious' in humans - as we call it. A rock has response to information it can acknowledge, it is semantics what word we use to mark it. A pine tree does not run, a human does not fly. (how stupid, says the chicken), I make the claim that a rock can be conscious assuming that computationalism is true; it may not be true, in which case neither a rock nor a computer may be conscious. There is no natural syntax or semantics for a computer telling us what should count as a 1 or a 0, what should count as a red perception, and so on. These things are determined by how the computer is designed to interact with its environment, whether that mean outputting the sum of two numbers to a screen or interacting with a human to convince him that it is conscious. But what if the environment is made part of the computer? The constraint on meaning and syntax would then go, and the vibration of atoms in a rock could be implementing any computation, including any conscious computation, if such there are. John Searle, among others, believes this is absurd, and that therefore it disproves computationalism. Another approach is that it shows that it is absurd that consciousness supervenes on physical activity of any sort, but we can keep computationalism and drop the physical supervenience criterion, as Bruno has. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ?
Brent, interleaving John --- Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John M wrote: Dear Stathis: my answer to your quewstion: Of course not! There is a belief systems I like and there are the others I don't. I just maintain a (maybe misplaced?) humbleness that I am not the judge to decide about the rightness of mine and not mine. Mine is better (not necessarily the best). G Otherwise I would change it as do many converts, emigrants. divorcees, or 'elevated minds' coming to some better position. Brent: So why do you consider yours better than others; so that you don't change? John: Are you joking, or you cannot take a joking remark? (The G in internet abbreviations means grin. Hungarian proverb: even a gipsy praises his own horse) The exceptional best are those of the fundamentalist fanatics (for themselves, of course), they don't even 'look' away. I liked your 'trappy' question: I used to be a faithful altar-boy, a reincarnationist, a Ouiji-board addict, a natural scientist (within the reductionist science-religion of our times in the west) and I changed lately into a view of totally interconnected complexity of a deterministically interactive existence. So I have experience. Am I biased? you bet. Brent: When a scientist knows his instrument is biased, he puts in a correction to remove the bias he knows about. You seem to just be making a generalization, like the scientist who says, All instruments have some bias; so this one must too. Without knowing anything about the bias, it's just the same as uncertainty. John: So noted. (However: in my feeble English 'bias' means '~prejudice' and I have yet to learn about prejudicial instruments. Unless we accept the conscious instrument e.g. a thinking yardstick). I, as a Loebian machine, may well be prejudicial). Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ?
Dear Brent, I value many of your posts higher than continue this exchange which starts to turn strawmannishly ad personam. I wanted to continue, but deleted my post before sending. I do not promise NOT to reflect to your posts in other matters, but what this developed into is - as it marks - Evil. With best regards your voodoo expert John - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 7:39 PM Subject: Re: Evil ? John M wrote: Brent, sorry if I irritated you - that is felt in your response. -- You remarked: ( Upon your: ...an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? is showing. - Who is unbiased? ) You don't have to decide who's unbiased. JM: My question meant: NOBODY is unbiased. Not you, not me, whoever 'thinks' has some position which is hard to overcome. Why should everyone overcome their position. In the continuation I would appreciate to substitute your opinion word by belief system - scientific or religious. - Is there no reason to prefer science to voodoo? Ask a voodoo official. I'm asking you. A friend was raised by nuns in Chile and asked I was thinking... whereupon the nun - educatrix shouted her down: you should not think you should believe. (Have you ever believed a science-book? Say: stories told by your college-professor? ) No. And if you ask a scientist if he believes some theory you'll either get a funny look or an exposition on the evidence for and against. You cannot exclude in reasonable discussions the religious vast majority of humanity, - talking about a handful of 'free thinking' fundamentalists (science-crazed people) is a vaste of time. They are not a vast majority in most of Europe. So it is quite possible for there to be non-religious societies. In our western 'culture' the science-belief system is comparable mutatis mutandis with the religious one - noting some differences WHAT conditions are set for accepting an evidence (=truth). And is that difference unimportant? Do you consider all belief-systems to be equal? If not, what makes one better than another? Your: ??? - look in your text for imply. -- Your par: What's your evidence for that? ... You can pick the religious old, I can pkick the others, and tjhose who changed (or abandoned at all) religions. I was referring to a pristine faith of the young. The official religion of a country is politics. I don't know about your statistical figures, but social (marital?) pressure keeps lots of people as churchgoers from the many millions that don't go. Even in countries of an 'official' state-religion. Finally: ... in fact they all claim that they are immune from test. This is where they fail in their epistemological duty. You mean the epistemological duty YOU impose? They simply claim to be immune from YOUR test, they have their own 'test' and 'evidence'. That was my point. I think humans valuing knowledge is as fundamental as their valuing food and sex. So there is a recognized epistemological duty. Everyone, in every culture, is contemptuous of the fool and a fool is someone who readily adopts false beliefs. Brent Meeker -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.9/623 - Release Date: 1/11/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ?
Brent, sorry if I irritated you - that is felt in your response. -- You remarked: ( Upon your: ...an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? is showing. - Who is unbiased? ) You don't have to decide who's unbiased. JM: My question meant: NOBODY is unbiased. Not you, not me, whoever 'thinks' has some position which is hard to overcome. In the continuation I would appreciate to substitute your opinion word by belief system - scientific or religious. - Is there no reason to prefer science to voodoo? Ask a voodoo official. A friend was raised by nuns in Chile and asked I was thinking... whereupon the nun - educatrix shouted her down: you should not think you should believe. (Have you ever believed a science-book? Say: stories told by your college-professor? ) You cannot exclude in reasonable discussions the religious vast majority of humanity, - talking about a handful of 'free thinking' fundamentalists (science-crazed people) is a vaste of time. In our western 'culture' the science-belief system is comparable mutatis mutandis with the religious one - noting some differences WHAT conditions are set for accepting an evidence (=truth). Your: ??? - look in your text for imply. -- Your par: What's your evidence for that? ... You can pick the religious old, I can pkick the others, and tjhose who changed (or abandoned at all) religions. I was referring to a pristine faith of the young. The official religion of a country is politics. I don't know about your statistical figures, but social (marital?) pressure keeps lots of people as churchgoers from the many millions that don't go. Even in countries of an 'official' state-religion. Finally: ... in fact they all claim that they are immune from test. This is where they fail in their epistemological duty. You mean the epistemological duty YOU impose? They simply claim to be immune from YOUR test, they have their own 'test' and 'evidence'. That was my point. John M PS I hate to be i nvolved in arguments on religions and am sorry to have opened my mouse. Especially not with people who 'fundamentally' are on the same side with me - just hate my trend to be 'unbiased' (= fair to both parts). JM - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 7:00 PM Subject: Re: Evil ? John M wrote: Brent: I wonder if I can make a readable sense of this rather convoluted mix of posts? I suggest the original should be at hand, I copy only the parts I reflect to. My previous post quoted remarks go by a plain JM, the present (new) inclusions as JMnow paragraphs. John M ... SP: In the case of religion, people disagree because they are selective in the evidence they accept because they want to believe something. JM: --*Everybody's prerogative.--* BM: I'm not so sure. Of course it is everyone's *political* right to base their beliefs on selective evidence - the institutions of government in liberal Western democracies recognize autonomy of thought. But isn't there an ethical duty base one's beliefs on all, or at least an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? If you don't rationally base your decisions that affect society, then I'd say you are a bad citizen - just as a person who sells his vote is a bad citizen. I think we are too tolerant of religious irrationality; in a way that we do not tolerate irrationality in any other field. Historically this is because we want to allow freedom of conscious; we mistrust government to enforce right thought. But just because we want to protect personal beliefs it doesn't follow that we should be tolerant of those beliefs when they are presented as a basis for public action. -JMnow:- Ethical duty base? I consider it culture-based and changing from society-type to historical circumstances all over. See nelow a remark on the nature of what we call 'ethics'/'morality'. Upon your: ...an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? is showing. Who is unbiased? You don't have to decide who's unbiased. But if you refuse to consider some evidence because it might conflict with your opinion while you accept other evidence of the same type because it supports your opinion, then you are guilty of bias. And if you're going to act on your opinion in a way that affects others, then I think you have an ethical duty to consider the evidence. We all live in our mindset (belief system) and call it true, etc. Available is the 'evidence' we so consider. I think we are too tolerant of religious irrationality;... and they say the same thing about
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases
Brent: I wonder if I can make a readable sense of this rather convoluted mix of posts? I suggest the original should be at hand, I copy only the parts I reflect to. My previous post quoted remarks go by a plain JM, the present (new) inclusions as JMnow paragraphs. John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 11:51 PM Subject: Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases John M wrote (previously): Interleaving in* bold*(*-* John - Original Message - *From:* Stathis Papaioannou *Sent:* Monday, January 08, 2007 4:55 AM *Subject:* RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief) Tom Caylor writes: ---SKIP Stathis Papaioannou (SP:): People disagree on lots of things, but they also agree on lots of things, many of which are on the face of it either incredible or unpleasant - because the /_evidence_ / leaves them no choice. On matters of values and religion, however, they disagree far more frequently. In the case of values this is because they are not actually disgreeing about any empirical or logical fact: JM: --*who's empiria and who's logic? Are YOU the ultimate authority?--* skip. --*Doesn't everybody. including yourself?--* SP: In the case of religion, people disagree because they are selective in the evidence they accept because they want to believe something. JM: --*Everybody's prerogative.--* BM: I'm not so sure. Of course it is everyone's *political* right to base their beliefs on selective evidence - the institutions of government in liberal Western democracies recognize autonomy of thought. But isn't there an ethical duty base one's beliefs on all, or at least an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? If you don't rationally base your decisions that affect society, then I'd say you are a bad citizen - just as a person who sells his vote is a bad citizen. I think we are too tolerant of religious irrationality; in a way that we do not tolerate irrationality in any other field. Historically this is because we want to allow freedom of conscious; we mistrust government to enforce right thought. But just because we want to protect personal beliefs it doesn't follow that we should be tolerant of those beliefs when they are presented as a basis for public action. -JMnow:- Ethical duty base? I consider it culture-based and changing from society-type to historical circumstances all over. See nelow a remark on the nature of what we call 'ethics'/'morality'. Upon your: ...an unbiased sample, of the available evidence? is showing. Who is unbiased? We all live in our mindset (belief system) and call it true, etc. Available is the 'evidence' we so consider. I think we are too tolerant of religious irrationality;... and they say the same thing about the 'infidel' - and kill us. All in THEIR rationality. In their intolerance. Do we want to be similar? down to 'their' level? SP: Jews believe that God spoke to Moses, but they don't believe that God spoke to Muhammed. I don't think there is evidence that God spoke to either of them, but if your standards of evidence are much lower than mine JM:*who (else) told you which one is lower? Different, maybe.* and you accept one, you are being inconsistent if you don't accept the other. That is, if you think the sort of evidence presented in holy books, reports of miracles, religious experience, strength of faith in followers etc. is convincing, then pretty well every religion is equally convincing. JM:*Logical flaw: different religions accept different 'holy' books (their own, that is). You are in the joke when two people meet at the railroad station and one sais: I am making a trip to a distant foreign country and the other sais: me too, so why are we not traveling together?* BM: Your seem to imply that religions and their different teachings are just personal choices - like where to go on vacation. But in fact each one teaches that their holy books are objectively true and the values in those books (as interpreted by the appropriate religious authorities) are not subjective, but are mandated by god(s) for everyone. ---JMnow:--- Seeing people changing their religions it is not mere implication. Not many people keep their early childhood pristine faith (in whatever religion) into later years of a hardened self. And none of the religions teaches the 'holiness' of the OTHER religion's 'holy' books - different from their own. SP: That is not the case if you compare the evidence for a flat Earth versus a spherical Earth, for example. JM: *(Watch out: Einstein reopened the scientific allowance for not only
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Stathis: wise words. (I find your Elvis - Jesus parable exaggerated). Values, like ethics or morale is culture related - mostly anti-natural. The natural way of life is eat the prey, animal and/or plant, kick out a competitor from your territory, once the lion killed the weaker male: eat his litter, to protect HIS own genes. We find in 'groups' some 'societal' degeneration for group-survival, which went over to more sophisticated (human?) society as tribal etc. self-defense philosophy. Developmental factors colored that into diverse belief systems (religions etc.) Values are derived from such. Credibility is also a belief-system consequence: who would have believed in 1000AD that all the angels dancing on a pin can be wiped away by a human-made atomic bomb? Or would have Plato believed in a quark? (Not more ridiculous than your stabbing me with Santa). With friendship John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 6:01 PM Subject: RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief) John, We need to have some sort of system for sorting the wrong beliefs from the less-likely-to-be-wrong ones. This is what science tries to do, although of course it can never arrive at ultimate truth precisely because it has to be open to new evidence should it come along. But we have to have some basic standards for evidence, and if we are honest we should apply that standard consistently. If someone believes that Elvis is alive because lots of people have seen him then, IMHO, that person's standards of evidence are too low. But if someone believes that Jesus rose from the dead because it says in the Bible that people saw him, but not that Elvis is alive, then not only is that person's standards of evidence too low, he is also being inconsistent. If you believe the incredible things it says in one holy book then you have forfeited your reasons for disbelieving all sorts of other incredible things. As for values, once we have ironed out our disagreements on empirical matters on which our values depend, then all we can say is, I think this and you think that: there is no basis for saying one of us is right and the other wrong. Oh, and the atheist/ agnostic thing: are you atheistic or agnostic about Santa Claus? Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 09:19:08 -0500 Interleaving in bold John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannoumailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.commailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:55 AM Subject: RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief) Tom Caylor writes: ---SKIP Stathis Papaioannou: People disagree on lots of things, but they also agree on lots of things, many of which are on the face of it either incredible or unpleasant - because the evidence leaves them no choice. On matters of values and religion, however, they disagree far more frequently. In the case of values this is because they are not actually disgreeing about any empirical or logical fact: --who's empiria and who's logic? Are YOU the ultimate authority?-- they are just saying this is the way I wish to live my life, this is what I hold to be good or important, this is what I would like other people to hold good or important. --Doesn't everybody. including yourself?-- In the case of religion, people disagree because they are selective in the evidence they accept because they want to believe something. --Everybody's prerogative.-- Jews believe that God spoke to Moses, but they don't believe that God spoke to Muhammed. I don't think there is evidence that God spoke to either of them, but if your standards of evidence are much lower than mine --who (else) told you which one is lower? Different, maybe. -- and you accept one, you are being inconsistent if you don't accept the other. That is, if you think the sort of evidence presented in holy books, reports of miracles, religious experience, strength of faith in followers etc. is convincing, then pretty well every religion is equally convincing. --Logical flaw: different religions accept different 'holy' books (their own, that is) you are in the joke when two people meet at the railroad station and one sais: I am making a trip to a distant foreign country and the other sais: me too, so why are we not traveling together? -- That is not the case if you compare the evidence for a flat Earth versus a spherical Earth, for example. (Watch out: Einstein reopened the scientific allowance for not only a heliocentric, but a geocentric world with his NO preference in a
Re: The Meaning of Life
Jamie, thanks for the post in parts to my points (e.g. the changing of definitions semantically reformulates my position nicely - without the 'atom'-example, of course) Sponging the 'gedanken..' - the falling treebranch reflects in your version the omniscient arrogant reductionist position. I go with Popper: no evidence, because we cannot encompass 'totality' (my conclusion). I would'nt go to the primitive mechanistic AI-levels to learn about mentality unlimited. Bits (and pieces) for unrestricted relations. AI simulates (mechanically?) certain aspects of human mentality - up to a limited fashion. I put it to you that this is exactly the relational key to understanding Csness. --- understanding what? (I know well MY abbreviation). Imagine youself floating totally alone in a lightless, energyless universe, with no external anything - to gauge anything by. Not motion not anything. ... What purpose would consciousness serve? I cannot imagine neither 'such' myself nor the situation at all. Consciousness is only of utile value in situations where self encounters else. I think you speak about sentience, miss the 'response' activity I feel within the (unidentified) majority of the Ccness ideas. What you described is in my terms information: some acknowledged difference. And what do you mean by s e l f ? (I really would like to know - one of the topics of my long speculations). Then again 'complexity' (I believe you use it here in form of the term 'convolutedness/complexness' not the Rosen-totality sense) is as primitive as little we include into its model (system). And you mention 'Universe - I prefer plenitude, from which arose the multiverse in its unlimited variety of universes. It's only semantic. What is that 'spacetime' you mention? I know it 'has' a fabric, but otherwise I consider it an organizational aid for our universe to understand its details in our physically-based reductionist view. John M Jan 10 - Original Message - From: James N Rose To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 10:46 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life John, My email pgm sometimes (as now) balks at quote/copying material from emails I'm replying to. So I'll do as best to reply without having your exact words to refer to. re Bruno's inquiring about how I link changes of inertia to Csness, I'll do that in a few days. re Gendankens - I won't waste time debating you. The only thing that's important about gedankens is that they isolate and highlight certain relationships which seem important to the line of inquiry. If real-event scenarios analogs can be used - all the better. But if invented, that's not criminal or necessarily 'conceptually illegal' :-) .. serves the inquiry and 'what if' exploration of relations, I WOULD SAY. re 'falling branch/tree', yes it came to be 'experienced sound' versus 'generated wave' - but originally, it was a clear 'existential' question: can a thing 'exist' if something else doesn't experience the effects OF that first thing's existence. Ie: if science hasn't acknowledged something experimentally/experientially, then the 'something' has no verity or validity. No 'proof', no existence. Unfortunately, there is a conflated/confused definition of 'proof'; it now embraces: 'explanation' and independent record. re Csness=data storage. Yes, you no longer count it sufficient for Csness. But a lot of folks do, especially AI researchers. They presume that 'memory reconstitution' is equal to Csness reconstitution. And that's not the case. re femto coma-awakening-death. it may be the gedanken you may find frustrating, and then cast it aside as 'unknowable', and if unknowable, then ..SOWHAT, but I put it to you that this is exactly the relational key to understanding Csness. What is the limit of us, or any system for that matter, to wholistically 'experience itself'. That was the opening concept notion I put forth in Understanding the Integral Universe. Imagine youself floating totally alone in a lightless, energyless universe, with no external anything - to gauge anything by. Not motion not anything. ... What purpose would consciousness serve? .. It wouldn't. Consciousness is only of utile value in situations where self encounters else. I keep on that track of logic for a while, parsing away until concluding that anykind of 'response' can be embraced as a 'primitive consciousness' - no matter that its not complex or re-reportable/transmittable/sharable. But it's at that extreme, that I conclude that any holistic system, even if minimalized in complexness of architecture, can be projected to be holistically self-sensitive in an information disseminational way. That the formative entity: spacetime - it already presumed non-discontinuous. That continuousness is the stage for disseminated information
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Interleaving in bold John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:55 AM Subject: RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief) Tom Caylor writes: ---SKIP Stathis Papaioannou: People disagree on lots of things, but they also agree on lots of things, many of which are on the face of it either incredible or unpleasant - because the evidence leaves them no choice. On matters of values and religion, however, they disagree far more frequently. In the case of values this is because they are not actually disgreeing about any empirical or logical fact: --who's empiria and who's logic? Are YOU the ultimate authority?-- they are just saying this is the way I wish to live my life, this is what I hold to be good or important, this is what I would like other people to hold good or important. --Doesn't everybody. including yourself?-- In the case of religion, people disagree because they are selective in the evidence they accept because they want to believe something. --Everybody's prerogative.-- Jews believe that God spoke to Moses, but they don't believe that God spoke to Muhammed. I don't think there is evidence that God spoke to either of them, but if your standards of evidence are much lower than mine --who (else) told you which one is lower? Different, maybe. -- and you accept one, you are being inconsistent if you don't accept the other. That is, if you think the sort of evidence presented in holy books, reports of miracles, religious experience, strength of faith in followers etc. is convincing, then pretty well every religion is equally convincing. --Logical flaw: different religions accept different 'holy' books (their own, that is) you are in the joke when two people meet at the railroad station and one sais: I am making a trip to a distant foreign country and the other sais: me too, so why are we not traveling together? -- That is not the case if you compare the evidence for a flat Earth versus a spherical Earth, for example. (Watch out: Einstein reopened the scientific allowance for not only a heliocentric, but a geocentric world with his NO preference in a relative world (math would be complicated) As for the Problem of Evil, that's easy: there is no evidence that there is a God; if there is a God, there is no evidence that he cares what happens to us; if he does care what happens to us there is no evidence that he intervenes in our lives; if he does intervene there is no evidence that things are any better than they would be if he didn't intervene. --Again, you consider YOUR evidence in YOUR logic. You have the right to do so, but so has a religious person to his own ways. I am not an atheist, because an a-theist needs a god (theos) to deny and in my belief system (based on those natural sciences I was brainwashed into at college) I do not condone IN NATURE any SUPERNATURAL ideas. I just wondered why the 'god-designers' made their idol(s) with all those human fallibilities (vain, seek adoration, pick favorites, no criticism allowed, are vengeful, irate, not impartial, influenceable, cruel, punishing even unjustly (punishing for things by creational flaws etc.) and assigning this world to a creator with such flaws... And yes, I am an agnostic, because I am not convinced about the superiority of MY ideas over the ideas of others. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.7/619 - Release Date: 1/7/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:45 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (MP)... because infinity is infinity. But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms in a person and they have only a finite number of relations. So how can an exact copy require infinite resources? Brent Meeker Funny to mix up infinity with 'really big'. or (not?) 'really small'. I consider infinity as devoid of quantitative restrictions, like a zero, or whatever. Forever is (POOFF!!) instantaneously over. Infinite extension is no extension at all. Infinite time is 'just now(?) and it's over'. Our mind is not capable of starting out with a quantized idea and then switch to infinity. It comes from religious-talk what we don't understand to begin with. So much about infinite wisdom, infinite love, eternity etc. John M -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.7/618 - Release Date: 1/6/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Jamie, thanks for your reflections (I think this is the 8+th or so list we exchange ideas on since 1988 when our friendship started on Prodigy) and I - sort of - agree with Bruno's questioning about 'inertia. I think I have an idea to come closer to it: if you include into that darn Ccness (whatever one identifies it with) MY condition of a response to information, that would change the course of the 'thing going on'. I am willing to identify the unchanged 'course' (in whatever sense) with the 'inertia' of the system. (I am glad you did not include 'entropy production' into the phenomenon.) Maybe I misread you completely. * Gedankenexperiments are the pits. When somebody runs out of reason and still wants to save face, constructs one upon impossibilities, to prove a point - within the impossibilities, with impossibilities. They are tempting and tickling, just consider how much astray your example directed the conskiderations by the fabulous demon, or the 80 year maze about the EPR fantasy. Latin: Si nisi non esset, perfectus quilibet esset (IF there wouldn't be an 'if' or an 'unless' , everything would be perfect). This list spent tons of braingrease on teleportation fantasies, it looks worse than discussing religion. I condone to throw in a 'strange' idea and draw conclusion - back to reality (i.e. the reasonable topics of the discussion) but goin g into minute details of a fantasy is too much for me. Granted: sometimes good minds arrive at good conclusions in reasonable sidelines by the exercise. Another proverb (this time Hungarian): a blind han may also find a grain. My main objection is based on 'reasonable' conclusions drawn upon unreasonable conditions and applied to general considerations. But if it makes people happy, so be it. * The falling branch? I had no problem with that, it is semantic: what do you call sound? I call so what I (or others) sense from those 'physical' occurrences which may be totally present in an unattended forest - NOT causing the sensation called 'sound'. No IF, however or unless. * You asked: .. is data 'storage' alone, a sufficient requirement for 'consciousness?... Of course not. It was for me a 'maybe' in 1992, not even a 'requirement'. But if you include it - don't forget that my stance is an ignorance about what to call Ccness. Memory is likely to be includable in the choice one selects for the composition of that odd concept - and many others. * About the coma-to-death transition with a femtosecond of unobservable sentience? I wish that should be our biggest puzzle. I like to call such situations a typical case of a SOWHAT.. We may ask the angels dancing on the pinhead. * And again: I appreciate the excerpt from your preceding post copied below your post. Have a good day, my friend John - Original Message - From: James N Rose To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 3:17 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life John, You made excellent points, which I'm happy to reply to .. John M wrote: --- James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JR: ... Make it easier -- a coma patient, inert for decades, re-wakes alone in a room, registers its situation and in an instant - dies. Would that moment qualify for 'conscioueness'? JM: and how would WE know about 'that moment'? does the coma-patient push a button to register? If there is a conscious machine (human or humanoid?) he is not alone. So the 'gedankenexperiment' (as all of this kind do) fails. Jamie left out HIS version of Ccness, to better understand his points. (E. g.: Actually, gedankenexperiments have been rather successfully important - eg Maxwell's Demon. And at the end of my post, I -did- define my version of CCness: every/any event that embodies a 'change of inertia' is definable as a primitive form of both moment of action -and- event of self-environment interaction .. even and especially when it is environment-with-itself. But, John, to get back on track with your dispute points... remember the 19th century query .. 'if a tree falls in a forest and no (human) is there to hear it, is there sound?' Same question, different venue. If -you- have a sentient moment and no one else is around to acknowledge or affirm or recognize it, are you existentially 'conscious'? According to your standard, no. Your own self-awareness of 'being' is not sufficient. But - I do note that you allow for pan-sentience (a concept liberally considered for a few decades in the field of consciousness studies). JR: I put it to the list that there are several factors that are implicit and explicit to the notion of consciousness .. which we humans mis-identify and mis-weight. They involve more than the human arrogance that 'our' sentience is the gauge to measure any/all other-sentience against. JM: Earlier, when I felt an obligation to identify
RE: The Meaning of Life
Friends: Siding with Mark (almost?G) just to a 'wider' view of mentality than implied by physicalistic - physiologistic - even maybe comp-related frameworks, indicating the domains we did not even discovered, but love to disregard. Upon Marks post --- Stathis Papaioannou (wroteamong more): [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... Our bodies, including all neural tissue, are constantly falling apart and being rebuilt. Experiments with radiolabeled amino acids in mice, for example, suggest that the half life of protein in the brain is about 10 days. The turnover at synapses is even faster, a matter of minutes. So given months or years, you really are like a car in which every single component has been replaced, the only remaining property of the original car being the design Is it really? Are we a mchanistic isolated structure and an unchanging mechanism fabricates the replacements exactly according to the 'origina' blueprint? All that in a world that changes continually? Don't the 'fanricating' units also change (including the rules of fabrication? Don't the changed replacement parts influence the complexity of actions? Are we not subject to a changing world with responding to more than just 'inside' activity-patterns? That may be applicable to a computer-contraption of our present (first) embryonic primitivity and its restriction into a hardware designed exactly and exclusively for a type of software similarly designed for exclusive application, - in 'that' hardware using that ridiculously primitive binary system 'we' so ingeniously invented to simulate in a 'very first' elevation SOME of our mental functions (in the first place arithmetical ones). I am sure you do not deny a plasticity (I like elasticity better) of the mind - I would add: and body, i.e. ourselves, (everything in the world?) stemming for 'replacements' with adjustment to the changing ambiance - even unlimited environment (just consider as an example our 'plastic' recollections vs a rigid machine-memory) as in eye-witness reports. Do you have exactly the same mentality by rigidly replaced identical 'neuronal etc.' substitutes as was the little rascal who went to his first communion? Or even same-thinking as you did when joining this list? A negative to that: senescence is part of it, change is not only 'addition', it is by 'streamlining' also eliminating design-aspects all the way to destructing the 'original' design. In a world-dynamism. Complexly. John M Mark Peaty writes: Brent: 'However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as Stathis points out, you're not the same atoms you were a week ago' MP: Well! I'm not going to let YOU pull the levers or press any buttons if I have to be faxed anywhere soon! You make philosophers' copy-machines sound like props for Frankenstein's Monster or that movie 'The Fly'. Furthermore ... memory and a brain that functioned approximately the same would seem to be rather less than what Bruno's arguments about copying require. But my point is that, whilst the ideas are cute, they are also nonsense any way. Most people have problems enough living from day to day, and the only time that 'copying' of a person really has any relevance is where surgery or prosthetic augmentation of some kind really should be done to alleviate suffering or prevent premature death. As for Stathis's assertion about seemingly minor changes which commonly occur to people's brains as they get older, like the odd little stroke here and there, it is always a question of the facts in each case. Some deficiencies turn out to be crucial in terms of quality of life: loosing the use of one or two fingers could be annoying, embarrassing and on occasion quite dangerous. Losing the ability to remember the names of all the people you know, would likewise not be nice. On the other hand, losing the ability to recognise things on the left side of your world, or losing the ability to see the people you knew before as being THOSE people such that you become convinced that the person you are with is a substitute, now that could be very dysfunctional and very distressing. I have seen it written that in fact most people who survive past middle age, do in fact suffer from 'micro' strokes quite often but usually the perceived experience is that of progressively weakened memory. Not Alzheimer's which is a league of its own, but just difficulty remembering certain things. Our bodies, including all neural tissue, are constantly falling apart and being rebuilt. Experiments with radiolabeled amino acids in mice, for example, suggest that the half life of protein in the brain is about 10 days. The turnover at synapses is even faster, a matter of minutes. So given months or years, you really are like a car in which every single
Re: The Meaning of Life
--- James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 03-janv.-07, à 16:36, Stathis Papaioannou wrote (in more than one posts) : Maudlin starts off with the assumption that a recording being conscious is obviously absurd, hence the need for the conscious machine to handle counterfactuals. JR: ... Make it easier -- a coma patient, inert for decades, re-wakes alone in a room, registers its situation and in an instant - dies. Would that moment qualify for 'conscioueness'? JM: and how would WE know about 'that moment'? does the coma-patient push a button to register? If there is a conscious machine (human or humanoid?) he is not alone. So the 'gedankenexperiment' (as all of this kind do) fails. Jamie left out HIS version of Ccness, to better understand his points. (E. g.: (BM): Hans Moravec has defended in this list indeed the idea that even a teddy bear is conscious. JR: I put it to the list that there are several factors that are implicit and explicit to the notion of consciousness .. which we humans mis-identify and mis-weight. They involve more than the human arrogance that 'our' sentience is the gauge to measure any/all other-sentience against. JM: Earlier, when I felt an obligation to identify what I am talking about when I say: Consciousness(?) I generalized the concept to ANY sensitivity in ANY aspect, (as acknowledgement (and?) response to (any) information (meaning any difference that transpires) - so Hans Morawetz's teddy bear can indeed have 'consciousness' . I called that a universal (pan-)sensitivity to escape 'psycho' as in 'panpsychic'. Jamie continues about his coma-experiment: The questions arise .. could a true 'sentience' have existed in that brief span of time? I.e, what is the shortest time span of sentient (self)other awareness necessary, to qualify for consciousness? JM: after the excellent extension of the term from human udeational restrictions Jamie falls back into physics of measurable scales. I allow timeless fulgurations, but cannot condone the restricted content of simply 'awareness' (except for the anestesiologists, who indeed include into the term an observed response. I find the simulacron-pair of consciousness and life 'close', at least none of them is identified in a widely acceptable content (callable: meaning). (Hal Ruhl was the only lister who responded lately to my question about 'what do we look at (think of) when we say life, (I owe him a thankful response,) all others in dozens of posts satisfied themselves with the 'meaning' discussion without identifying what we should relate those 'meanings' to. JR: Whether human-or-not, 'situational awareness', becomes a parameter for consciousness, as well. ---(Amen, for one aspect of it)--- -time -memory/continuity -reactive/interactive capacity ... etc. not just in human terms, but allowed in a spectrum of extent, from just-greater-than-zero to some full-functional (for that system) capacity. When you take the raw parameters criteria, and shrink them down to their minimalist extents -- so that all the BASIC CONDITIONS of 'sentience' are met/present - whether for a femto-second or 2 days or a billion years; whether capable of acting-on-awareness or not, or, only capable of self-registry of received-information; and so on .. we reach a point in the existential scenario when 'computation' falls away as being 'too complex' in the conditions-spectrum. What we reach in this paring-away scenario - are qualia of existence necessary to meet MINIMALISTS conditions for sentience-of-some-sort. Which would not have to be: sentience-of-OUR-sort. In the final existential analysis for 'what is sentience/ consciousness' - it become the smallest, shortest contingient situation for an-aspect OF existence to REGISTER that some Batesian difference that makes a difference -- is co-present. JM: Is sentience a standing alone phenomenon? IMO it requires a chain of processing response-continuation to qualify as sentience. The impact of a photon is not (yet) sentience. And the famous Bateson phrase, due to a thinking Brit, is more than I need, because a stored (acknowledged) difference may not result in a 'making' of additional difference (e.g. memory) and yet it qualifies for information. Storage may be sort of a response without 'making' a difference. JR: In the final existential analysis of primary qualia of the universe, I preffered in 1996 that the most FUNDAMENTAL dynamic change in this universe is some/any CHANGE OF INERTIA from a fixed sameness. This puts the formative, functional, primal qualiatative aspect of sentience/consciousness right in the very fabric of the cosmos. It is -not- complex or human consciousness -- which emerges later. But it is the primal foundation-presence and qualia on which emerged forms of consciousness rely - in order for those complex forms to exist, as they do. Food for thought, ladies and gentlemen, food for
Re: computer pain
Stathis and Bruno: just a proposed correction to Sathis's ...build a machine that wanted to be free and was afraid of dying, and then threaten it with slavery and death. Change to: OR instead of and. That also takes care of Bruno's: there is no contradiction in a willing slave being intelligent. ... But a real slave is, I would say by definition, not willing to be slave. If the question of 'slavery or death' arises, an intelligent and life-loving person would accept (willing?) slavery. Spartacus did not. I survived a commi regime. We seem too narrowly labeling a slave. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 9:22 PM Subject: RE: computer pain Bruno Marchal writes: Le 30-déc.-06, à 07:53, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : there is no contradiction in a willing slave being intelligent. It seems to me there is already a contradiction with the notion of willing slave. I would say a willing slave is just what we call a worker. Or something related to sexual imagination ... But a real slave is, I would say by definition, not willing to be slave. OK, a fair point. Do you agree that if we built a machine that would happily obey our every command, even if it lead to its own destruction, that would (a) not be incompatible with intelligence, and (b) not cruel? For in order to be cruel we would have to build a machine that wanted to be free and was afraid of dying, and then threaten it with slavery and death. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Here we go again about the meaning of meaning and other IDs of terms we love to use w/o proper IDs. English con tribution: Tom's 3 whys can be understood in (at least?) 2 ways: 1. asking for the origination as cause of the topic, - OR 2. asking for a purpose - as a goal - of it. Since I do not consider the second aspect (at all?) I turn to the first one, which I do consider, but don't really know. In 'science' (reductionistic that is using topical model views) we search for the most obvious iniciator (entailer) within the model of observation and pronounce it 'cause'. In my (poorly identified) originational determinism it is the entire totality (who knows what that may be) and its cummulative changes that result in our observed moves (changes) and happenings. You wrote: ...science cannot create values and personal meaning. Especially not our ongoing one. I also agree with the being a person part (- as a personal FEELING), however there might be some similarity between such feeling and the one about Tom's 'God. None of them are 'instrumentally verifiable' - which btw. is no must in my value-system to be acceptable. Both (consider only these two) are prejudicial personal belief systems, naybe excluding each other in toto. And so is my position, not including either of them G). I have no such firm point as some on this list seem to have (Bruno, etc.) and stay on my well established ignorance of I dunnoG. One question, however, seems firmly askable: WHAT SHOULD WE CALL L I F E (For sure not the biochem-game, not a transcendent comp, not - maybe - a restricted (physical?) term in 'a' biosphere' and not without including WITH the 'materially' explained features an extended form of mentality - the ideation also including phenomena callable 'inanimate'). John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 10:59 PM Subject: RE: The Meaning of Life Tom Caylor writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes (quoting Bruno Marchal): [TC] My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the absence of hope. [BM] Here Stathis already give a genuine comment. You are just admitting your argument is wishful thinking. [TC] I was being too poetic ;) By despair I meant nihilism, the belief that there ultimately is no meaning. I am arguing that the ultimate source of meaning has to be personal. I'm just saything that my argument is of the form, If meaning is not ultimately based on the personal God, then there is no true meaning, because... I realised when I was about 12 or 13 years old that there could not be any ultimate meaning. I was very pleased and excited with this discovery, and ran around trying to explain it to people (mostly drawing blank looks, as I remember). It seemed to me just another interesting fact about the world, like scientific and historical facts. It inspired me to start reading philosophy, looking up words like nihilism in the local library. It also encouraged me to question rules, laws and moral edicts handed down with no justification other than tradition or authority, where these were in conflict with my own developing value system. Overall, I think the realisation that there was no ultimate meaning was one of the more positive experiences in my life. But even if it hadn't been, and threw me into a deep depression, does that have any bearing on whether or not it is true? Stathis Papaioannou It's interesting that in my observations quite a lot of people have an eye-opening experience around the age of 12 regarding the meaning of life. Perhaps it has to do with entering puberty and forming our own sense of purpose. I guess you might know something about this from your background, Stathis. For me it was when I was eleven, I think triggered by starting to go to a boarding school and living away from my parents. One night I had this overwhelming sense of God's presence, a sense of ultimate love surround me and reassure me that everything was going to be all right. And I felt a deep sense of gratitude just for being alive. It was a strict boarding school (religious!), and there was a real sense of competition, but when my mom asked me in a letter how I was doing, I said, I'm just fine, as long as they don't cut my head off! Anyway, from then on I felt centered, or at least I had a center that I could go back to, because I knew that I was loved by the One from whom Everything/Everyone comes from. My view of this is that we form our view of meaning as a process of thought about whatever resources we have. For instance, someone could look around them at the options for defining meaning, and choose not to base
Re: The Meaning of Life
Hal, so yhou look at it... (at what?) - anyway from the standpoint of the 'physical' model. Can you come closer totell what you are 'looking at'? Happy 2007! John M - Original Message - From: Hal Ruhl To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 1:57 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life One way to look at life is from the point of view of energy hang-up barriers - those various facts about the structure of our universe that slow the dissipation of useful energy concentrations. Life drills holes in these barriers and thus is on the fastest system path to maximum entropy. That could be why life appeared quickly on earth and should also do so wherever conditions permit. Life forms that are bigger [hold larger drills] and smarter [invent more kinds of drills] produce a wider variety of holes in the barriers. Since body size and brain size [complexity] have only a lower bound and the thermodynamics above gives an additional bias towards large, smart life forms to an otherwise goal less evolution, large SAS seem inevitable. Thus is life in a universe that can support it just an unavoidable thermodynamic tool and SAS just the top grade of such tool? Hal Ruhl -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.16.0/610 - Release Date: 12/30/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
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I unsubdscribe from the 'everything-list' [EMAIL PROTECTED] John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Natural Order Belief
Dear list: this was the last post I received (I think I am subscribed) Have I been (or the list?) terminated? John Mikes - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 5:27 AM Subject: Re: Natural Order Belief John, You are right, I was wrong. Those deeds are not contingent. They probably appears automatically when one give a name to God. Perhaps, God could be defined by this: it is the one which is such that once you give it a name or a definition trouble appears. Obviously such a sentence should not be taken to much literally (if we do we are led to an obvious inconsistency). So, from now on, each time I use the word God it will means the impersonal big unnameable 0-person point of view, that is Plotinus' ONE, and/or some of its possible arithmetical (set theoretical) interpretation(s), that is arithmetical truth (resp. set theoretical truth). I will recall the theory in my reply to Tom Caylor. Bruno Le 20-nov.-06, à 18:03, John M a écrit : Bruno: How far Occident? Quetzealcoatle was not much better. Orientals? did they care at all? they were occupied with their lovers. Germanics and Scandinavians? no better, not to spek about Maori, African, Hawaiian etc. requiring virgins to be thrown into the Volcano. The priests of the smarter ones ate them. Did you notice the Catholic homophag rite: Take it and eat it: it is my body. Drink it: it is my blood. And literary thousands of protestant rites follow suit. Muslims cleaned that up, they concentrate on heavennly sex (hueis). Sorry if I hurt feelings. John --- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 18-nov.-06, à 21:49, John M a écrit : Why do the religions (almost all of them) depict a god after the worst human characters: jealous, flatterable, requiring praise and blind obedience, vengeful, irate, picking favorites, even sadistic and not caring? Why does he punish for deeds done exactly as he created the sinner? I disagree with the (almost all of them). True, since a long time, in Occident, the main religions are based on such a God, probably because he looks like the terrifying father, very useful to manipulate people by fear and terror. But this is contingent, and eventually I take that sad contingent truth as a supplementary motivation to come back on serious theology, by which I mean 3-person sharable theology (even if such a theology does talk about first person unsharable notion). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.11/543 - Release Date: 11/20/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Natural Order Belief
Stathis: thanks for the psichiatry class. You brought in a new questionmark: crazy. As George Levy has proven, we all are crazy - my contention was: in that case such (general) craziness is the norm, eo ipso we all are normal. Is normalcy composed of delusions? Then why the (p)scientific identification of the delusion- n -psychiatry, which, - btw - is not that impressive to those who are not standing on the shoulders of psychiatry. You successfully wiped out the validity of that definition (one by one). [you left out the case, if someone has a 'fixed' belief, which, however is NOT false (in unidentified opinions) - is also no delusion. ] So: delusion (which I have not involved) is not applicable. If one thinks: it is, it is not valid (i.e. not applicable again?). The only solution to your post I can find is in the last par., if it refers to me. I value your right to tell your opinion and also value your opinion, but question the term 'stupid'. In who's terms? by what (cultural?) norm? Stupid seems to me a negative connotation, just could not formulate in general applicability the 'positive' features against which the deficiency would constitue stupidity. I would easily fall into a series similarly to your series about 'delusion' - invalidating every aspect one by one, by the rest. Yet: I believe in stupidity, just cannot identify it beyond my personal feelings. I even feel a difference between a stujpid bum and a stupid ass, - could not express it scientifically. Thanks for your thought provoking reflections. John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 5:25 AM Subject: RE: Natural Order Belief John, Some people believe crazy things... literally crazy things, and they require treatment for it. The definition of a delusion in psychiatry is: A fixed, false belief which is not in keeping with the patient's cultural background. So someone may have a belief that is false, but not fixed, i.e. he will revise his belief in response to contrary evidence, and that isn't a delusion. Or someone may have a belief that is both false and fixed, but it is shared by the cultural group to which he belongs, and that isn't a delusion either. This latter provision was put in mainly to exclude religious beliefs. Usually there are other markers of mental illness as well as the delusion allowing one to make a diagnosis and decide on treatment: hallucinations, sleep and appetite disturbance, personality changes and so on. Very rarely, these other signs are absent, and you are faced with deciding whether the patient is mentally ill or just has weird beliefs. The only investigation which is of help in these cases is a trial of antipsychotic medication: this has a false negative rate, in that in a minority of cases clearly psychotic symptoms do not respond to medication, but a negligible false positive rate, i.e. if the beliefs go away with antipsychotic medication and return on cessation of medication then they are definitely psychotic. Religious and other cultural beliefs do not change with medication. In other words, it is usually possible to know if someone is crazy, but more difficult to know if they are just stupid. Stathis Papaioannou From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Natural Order Belief Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:19:04 -0500 Stathis, no need to argue with me about my 'funny' supposition (just for the fun of it) - HOWEVER: 1. absolutely certain you can be in whatever is in your mind (i.e.in your belief system) because that is what you call it so. Colin's (weak?) solipsism assignes the world -(all of its input- content in your mind), the 'reality', whatever, - to YOUR mind-content as the way YOU interpret whatever you think of (incl.: experience, feel, what you get notion of, even imagine). 2. ...we may not be able to attain absolute certainty about any empirical belief, ... I was not talking about 'empirical', however our belief may be empirical: even if somebody said so and we empirically experience the content of such communication. It all depends how one restricts the 'empiria'. Some go as short as only to instrumental readings, others include OWN sensorial input, some limit it to one's logicallimitations, but a wider view (e.g. in science-educationG) may accept also the communication of (reliable?) 3rd-s. (Like e.g. religionG) We talk as we think. We think as we feel. we don't KNOW. 3. ...we can bet that some beliefs are much more likely to be true than others. Sais who? true to whom? To ME, for sure, but do I have a monopoly to the right understanding? Is there 'truth'? I just wanted to include a wider horizon (as: funny?). Not even the last thing I want to do is to argue FOR fundamentalist creationism. I don't like it is the
Re: Natural Order Belief
Stathis, no need to argue with me about my 'funny' supposition (just for the fun of it) - HOWEVER: 1. absolutely certain you can be in whatever is in your mind (i.e.in your belief system) because that is what you call it so. Colin's (weak?) solipsism assignes the world -(all of its input- content in your mind), the 'reality', whatever, - to YOUR mind-content as the way YOU interpret whatever you think of (incl.: experience, feel, what you get notion of, even imagine). 2. ...we may not be able to attain absolute certainty about any empirical belief, ... I was not talking about 'empirical', however our belief may be empirical: even if somebody said so and we empirically experience the content of such communication. It all depends how one restricts the 'empiria'. Some go as short as only to instrumental readings, others include OWN sensorial input, some limit it to one's logicallimitations, but a wider view (e.g. in science-educationG) may accept also the communication of (reliable?) 3rd-s. (Like e.g. religionG) We talk as we think. We think as we feel. we don't KNOW. 3. ...we can bet that some beliefs are much more likely to be true than others. Sais who? true to whom? To ME, for sure, but do I have a monopoly to the right understanding? Is there 'truth'? I just wanted to include a wider horizon (as: funny?). Not even the last thing I want to do is to argue FOR fundamentalist creationism. I don't like it is the utmost I go along with. But I would like a dog with 6 feet. John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:41 AM Subject: RE: Natural Order Belief John, I think the trap is to look for absolute certainty. Can I be absolutely certain that most dogs have four legs? No: there may have been a conspiracy to keep from me the fact that most dogs have six legs. Can I be absolutely certain that God did not create the world 6000 years ago? No: God may have done just that and planted evidence to make it look as if the world is much older in order to test our faith. Does this then mean that these two beliefs, that most dogs have four legs and that God created the world 6000 years ago are equally valid? No: we may not be able to attain absolute certainty about any empirical belief, but we can bet that some beliefs are much more likely to be true than others. Stathis Papaioannou Stathis: I try a 'funny' aspect. Not in Tom's rather utilitarian point (whether it is good or bad, making a person happy or inspired) but upon your questioning the 'truth' in (among others) religious stories. Consider 'numbers' as religion. How many of us (you?) had a 'revelation' about numbers per se? Mostly accepted the bible of Plato and the teachings of math-teacher priests. It became a belief-system - no argument. Is it true? Does it 'exist' in the universality? Of course, the idea lives in minds so it exists. There is no postulate that an 'existing' idea has to be matter-physics based. The 'mental world is part of the 'demental' (as you know from your professionG). Religion lives in minds, ergo the 'facts' included are true. It can be read in script and inventive people say they have revelations just like what Newton's apple brought up. We have a belief system that religion is 'not true', others: that 'religion is true'. I don't believe in AR: does it make it 'untrue'? We formulate our mindset upon stories figmented by primitive observations of what ancestors saw and speculated. So do religious people on other wavelengths. Can you ask Zeus upon Athenae? I asked Bruno upon numbers. Many people do not share MY belief ystem of the wholeness. Does it make it untrue? In who's terms? Everybody has a certain level of 'faith' in HIS OWN belief. Even the 'utilitarian' aspect is personal. The smallpox virus instigated the social structural renovation of the western world. We judge within our momentary personal interests. Maybe the demise of humankind is a good thing for the biosphere. Opimistically yours John - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 7:20 AM Subject: RE: Natural Order Belief Tom Caylor writes: (skip) SP: The problem with religious beliefs is not that they are bizarre (after all, many scientific theories at first glance are just as bizarre) but that there is no reasonable basis for deciding whether they are true. People usually choose religious beliefs because they would like them to be true or because their parents brought them up that way. It may be interesting to know if a religious belief makes a person happy, has inpired good deeds or great art, and so on, but the specific question I want answered is whether it is true. For example, it is true that the smallpox
Re: UDA revisited
See please interspaced remarks (JM) as well. General addition I would start with: In our present views, based on the limited capabilities of the mind-brain activity we can only muster for the time being... (Our mental event-horizon reaches only so far) John - Original Message - From: Russell Standish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 3:12 AM Subject: Re: UDA revisited On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 02:36:04PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: But if a physical universe is needed to run the UD, without a physical universe there is no UD. It's a circular argument unless you have some other argument showing a computation can run without physical hardware. Stathis Papaioannou The argument is that its turtles all the way down, or in other words that there is no first cause. (JM): At least not within our present mental horizon. All possible things are not restricted to our present knowledge-limits. An expression like there is none seems like a current 'theory-based' exaggeration. It seems that there are three possibilities: 1. Causal chains are infinite and unbounded 2. Causal chains are infinite but bounded (the causal chain is circular). 3. Casual chains are finite and bounded (first cause is needed) Only in case 3 is a physical universe needed to run the UD. My personal taste is for case 2, but I doubt there is any way of empirically settling the matter, and many people find all 3 options distasteful. (JM): In my 'wholeness-view' (not yet realizable) #1 is the version. Cause in this case is the impact-result of the ever changing totality, while any other (picked?) cause(s) are within a model-view. #2 seems to me like 'eat your cake and have it' . Empirically based? do we include mental experiencing to exceed the 'physical world based (conventional) observation figment? Even 'logically acceptable' seems restricted to our human ways. I resort to the (humble) position that we are not (yet?) set to say a 'final' word upon more remote features than how far our present mental event horizon reaches. (Turtle is OK). In spite of a '-*nescio* non est scientia-' (my version) maxim. Cheers (JM) Cheers - John PS - I'll need to think a bit about Colin's post... :) -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Natural Order Belief
Bruno: a beautiful position statement. Very sage and humane. Thanks John PS: unfortunately the overwhelming majority of humankind is within some kind of religious belief system and this makes a very lucrative political stock to crooks (oops: politicians, as contrasted to 'statesmen). Some thousand thinking sould cannot change the fear-based mindset of 6 billion. J - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 10:23 AM Subject: Re: Natural Order Belief Le 16-nov.-06, à 13:59, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno, I suspect you can talk about God in this way when the subject of atheism comes up because you live in post-Enlightenment Europe. It is a difficult subject, perhaps a bit out of topics or premature, but I do not believe so much in the enlightenment in Europe. It has been a very partial enlightenment ... But if you lived in a certain large English-speaking country where a substantial proportion of the population believe that God created Adam and Eve 6000 years ago and the dinosaurs died out because they didn't fit on Noah's ark, you might be less keen to suggest anything that might be construed as supporting theism. I live in one of the most catholic country in the world, with some island of atheism, but both catholics and atheists believe agnosticism (which is imo the best scientist methodology) is a mental disease. Actually atheists are even far more dogmatic than educated christians, but, ok, indeed few people here would take Adam and Eve for real history. But now, I do believe that if today so many people here and there believe seriously in religious legends or dogma, this is due to the fact that the scientific attitude in theology has been successfully banished from the academy since a long time. It is because theology is no more taken seriously that obscurity and superstition develop itself in the religious realm. Under the (neo)platonist, you have to pass exams in advanced mathematics, astronomy, music before entering the theology field. If we continue to forbid or discourage the rationalist attitude in theology, then unfounded theology and superstition will continue to reign, and ... many will use this to say we have to continue to forbid rationalism in it. I think we should cut that loop. If we don't, it is because naturalism or physicalism or materialism is the new (fake) religion with new Gods like the physical universe (a concept which does not explain a lot, and which is not clear at all once you take the fundamental question seriously, this should be clear with the UDA and any serious reasoning on the mind body problem). An honest scientist should admit that we are still very ignorant on most fundamental questions. Today it is politically correct to be open minded toward any religion and belief system. I think we should on the contrary be more demanding in rigor, in all inquiry fields. My father (who was working in the law) told me once that it is much more important to be rigorous in the human science than in exact science. Indeed, an error in the exact science leads quickly to a catastrophe (from the rejected paper, to the explosion of the laboratory ...) so that you learn quickly. An error in the human science could lead to millenaries of useless suffering if not longer. Do you see what I am trying to say? I understand Colin's feeling of being fed up with religion, I am too. But I react differently because I think that the widespread superstitions really are due to the fact that we are not taking seriously enough the fundamental matters. Recall that for me SCIENCE = DOUBT. When I say we should be serious in theology, it means we should develop and encourage that doubting attitude in theology. This is not incompatible with faith. But it is incompatible with any form of blind faith, brainwashings, etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.5/534 - Release Date: 11/14/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
See below, please John - Original Message - From: Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 12:58 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Addition to my lost and found 1st post in this topic to Marc: I wonder how would you define besides 'universe' and 'computer' the IS ? * I agree that 'existence' is more than a definitional question. Any suggestion yet of an (insufficient?) definition? (Not Descartes' s I think therefore I think I am and so on) John There's only 1 thing which is intrinsic to the idea of 'being' that I can think of: Regardless of the scale (choices = quark, atom, human, planet, galaxy), if you are to 'be' whatever it is that comprises that which you are 'being', you automatically define a perspective on the rest of the universe. It does not mean that perspective is visible, only that the perspective is innate to the situation. SoI am made of one little chunk of the universe, you another and so on. My chunk is not your chunk and vice versa. If I am an atom then I get a view of the rest of the universe (that is expressing an un-atom). The rest of the universe has a perspective view of the atom. This division of 'thing' and 'un-thing' within the universe is implicit to the situation. The division is notional from an epistemological stand point, where we 'objectify' to describe. That does not alter the 'reality' of the innate perspective 'view' involved with 'being' the described. make sense? Colin JM: maybe, not to my understanding; I separated the 'existence' from the 'IS, in which of course an 'identity' - at least similarity is involved originally. May I paraphrase your explanation: I am - 'made of a chunk of something called universe, - whatever I call so - and the 'rest of the world' is made of chunks of something different. Not too explanatory. Of course it disregards my question and starts with an implied if I exist... what the question really was. Not only I, but 'ANYTHING'. I was driving towards the difference between 'be' amd 'become' - the first a snapshot stationalized, the 2nd in an ever changing process. So: what is existence'? John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: listposting problem
This is a testing of my mail. Over the p[ast week I received back every attempt in various modes to get a post into (my?) list-mail. I receive others all right, not what I try to post. Yhis 'reply' is to a monsterp-post of Brent all erased ut kept the reply-form and using it for posting. Please disregard, it is a technical trial. JM --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
I hope this will go through.. Colin wrote --- Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Addition to my lost and found 1st post in this topic to Marc: I wonder how would you define besides 'universe' and 'computer' the IS ? * I agree that 'existence' is more than a definitional question. Any suggestion yet of an (insufficient?) definition? (Not Descartes' s I think therefore I think I am and so on) John There's only 1 thing which is intrinsic to the idea of 'being' that I can think of: Regardless of the scale (choices = quark, atom, human, planet, galaxy), if you are to 'be' whatever it is that comprises that which you are 'being', you automatically define a perspective on the rest of the universe. It does not mean that perspective is visible, only that the perspective is innate to the situation. SoI am made of one little chunk of the universe, you another and so on. My chunk is not your chunk and vice versa. If I am an atom then I get a view of the rest of the universe (that is expressing an un-atom). The rest of the universe has a perspective view of the atom. This division of 'thing' and 'un-thing' within the universe is implicit to the situation. The division is notional from an epistemological stand point, where we 'objectify' to describe. That does not alter the 'reality' of the innate perspective 'view' involved with 'being' the described. make sense? Colin It makes sense (I have to translate YOUR vocabujlaryh into mine, of course). It ramifies into SELF and Not-SELF and into the relational view of the totality. Also: it leads into my old beef that everything is consckious at its own level. What to include into 'everything' is of course a matter of debate, it mayh err into physicalism or some materialistic view of the world. Thank, Colin, I have to digest it John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
test- saved
test, disregard --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
test-2
copied new address --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Colin, I just remembered in a recent post to another list that ~15 years ago - thinking of what many think as 'consckiousness', I boiled down to 'acknowledgement and response to information', (which I identified rather as perceived difference and not the meaningles 'bit'), with the notion that it closes in to panpsychism - what I did not like because of the psycho connotation. I called the characteristic pansensitiveness. It is e.g. an ion feeling/responding to an electrical charge or a statement of a philosopher (or economist? ha ha) any variety containing any 'difference' to be perceived (acknowledged, built 'in' etc.). So 'everything' has that kind of 'consciousness' at the level of its own sophistication and quality. Psycho lists did not like it, but found it 'interesting'. * Brain? you probably cover by this name more than the highly watery neuronal etc. tissue in the skull - that would be not different from a kneecap which is just as part of the total interconnected complexity we include into self, the human with its mentality (not explained by the tissue-measurements). And good luck to your lambda integral of an artifact number - a result of dividing 2 primitive phyhsical observation-related quantities and called entropy in the reductionist physical view. I apologize for the typos, I use a new conputer (no spellchecker yet) with a barely visible keyboard, awful. (In a language which is the 5th I learned). John Original Message - From: Colin Geoffrey Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 1:58 PM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 It makes sense (I have to translate YOUR vocabujlaryh into mine, of course). It ramifies into SELF and Not-SELF and into the relational view of the totality. Also: it leads into my old beef that everything is consckious at its own level. What to include into 'everything' is of course a matter of debate, it mayh err into physicalism or some materialistic view of the world. Thank, Colin, I have to digest it John No problem... although the term everything is conscious at its own level. gets to look very pan-psychist, which makes me cringe, too. I prefer to think of it as an innate perspective whose visibility can be manipulated. Brains do it, kneecaps don't. It doesn't have the same 'magical' flavour to it that panpsychism brings along, but it looks 'panpsychistic' nontheless. Have fun digesting! Colin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Thanks, Bruno, now I have an URL for the archive, pretty comprehensive, the puzzle still prevails (not as one YOU should be concerned about): 1. why did not show up the post in the mailing as sent? 2. how come the archive got it as [EMAIL PROTECTED] i.e. the old address, when the list turned into [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...? 3.and how did the list-address of my post change from - what I wrote in sending it as: To:everything-list@googlegroups.com into To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - the 'unfound', undeliverable one? Teleportation, of a return from a HP universe? John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Cc: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:36 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Le 05-nov.-06, à 00:47, John M a écrit : Bruno, although I did not see in my list-post my comment to Marc's report about the German conference (sent before your and Saibal's posts) I may continue it (maybe copying the missing text below); Your message is in the archive though. See for example: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/maillist.html Saibal's : uncompoutable numbers, non countable sets etc. don't exist in first order logic,... is interesting: it may mean that the wholeness-view (like Robert Rosen's 'complexity' and my wholistiv views as well) do not compute with 1st order logic - what may not be fatal IMO. I use model a bit opposite to Skolem's text (sorry, I could not read your URL, my new comnputer does not (yet) have ppt installed) ? (Why would you need ppt?) - but as I decyphered Skolem's long text, it is a math-construct based on 'a theory'. A different model. My 'model' (and R. Rosen's) is an extract of the totality, a limited cut from the interconnectedness by topical, functional ideational etc. boundaries and THEORIES are based on that (usefully, if not extended beyond the margins of the model - limitedly observed to formulate them.) If this is beyond 1st order logic that is not the fault of such model-view - with uncomputable (impredicative) numbers and unlimited variables - rather shows a limitation of the domain called 1st order logic. (I put numbers in quotation, I used the word to apply it according to the here ongoing talks.) Rosen (a mathematician) also called it Turing un-emulable. Your explanation about the ZF uncountability and the uncomputability is intgeresting, I could not yet digest its meaning as how it may be pertinent to my thinking. To say more on this would need to explain more logic (with logic = a special branch of math). My point was just that it follows from Church Thesis that the classical notion of computability is absolute. Like Godel said this is a mathematical miracle, and my whole work entirely depends on that miracle (both the informal but rigorous UDA, and the formal AUDA). This is what is lacking in Tegmark for exemple, which take the mathematical reality for granted (I take only the arithmetical reality for granted). But even in the arithmetical frame, the fate of the universal machine will consist in discovering an absolutely non completely computable reality, and an infinity (transfinity) of relatively non countable structures. The mathematical advantage of comp is that it does not depends of the notion of order. I interview the PA machine in first order language because PA speaks fluently in that language, but I could interview machine talking higher order language as well (even infinitary language like when I interview angels (non turing emulable entity). I leave the original message below in case you have lost it. Bruno John M wrote - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 9:08 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 In conscience et mécanisme I use Lowenheim Skolem theorem to explain why the first person of PA see uncountable things despite the fact that from the 0 person pov and the 3 person pov there is only countably many things (for PA). I explain it through a comics. See the drawings the page deux-272, 273, 275 in the volume deux (section: Des lois mécanistes de l'esprit). It explains how a machine can eventually infer the existence of other machine/individual). Here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume2CC/2%20%203.pdf Note also that the word model (in http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/low-skol.htm ) refers to a technical notion which is the opposite of a theory. A model is a mathematical reality or structure capable of satisfying (making true) the theorem of a theory. Like a concrete group (like the real R with multiplication) satisfy the formal axioms of some abstract group theory. (Physicists uses model and theory interchangeably, and this makes sometimes
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Addition to my lost and found 1st post in this topic to Marc: I wonder how would you define besides 'universe' and 'computer' the IS ? * I agree that 'existence' is more than a definitional question. Any suggestion yet of an (insufficient?) definition? (Not Descartes' s I think therefore I think I am and so on) John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 6:44 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Le 06-nov.-06, à 03:46, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It is not a question of existence but of definability. For example you can define and prove (by Cantor diagonalization) the existence of uncountable sets in ZF which is a first order theory of sets. Now uncountability is not an absolute notion (that is the Lowenheim-Skolem lesson). Careful: uncomputability is absolute. Bruno Well, 'existence' would certainly be a stronger notion of platonism than mere 'definability'. So Bruno, what would your answer be to the question of whether the universe is a computer or not? I think it all depends on how you define 'universe' and 'computer' ;) Personally, my answer is no, I don't think the universe is a computer. I define 'universe' to mean 'everything which exists' and computer to mean 'anything which is Turing computable'. Since I think uncomputables do exist, they are part of the universe and they are not Turing computable so the universe as a whole can't be a computer. I agree with you. Even the seemingly tiny universe of numbers is full of non computable stuff. Recall that Church thesis can be used to prove the existence of non computable objects in very few lines (as I have done more or less recently in posts to John and Tom). But one doesn't need to believe in uncomputables to doubt that the universe as a whole is a computer. There is also the problem of infinite quantities to contend with. Something which is computable is most likely finite (by holographic string principles), but if there exist things with infinite extent or quntification (like space for instance) it's hard to see how the universe as a whole could be defined as a computer. Hmmm... The very notion of general computability needs the infinite (the finite realm is *trivially* (obviously) computable). So infinite per se is not directly responsible of the non computability. It is the diagonalization closure of the computable realm (I can come back on this). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.13.28/518 - Release Date: 11/4/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ZUSE
Marc,I do not argue with 'your half' of the 'answer' you gave to the conference announcement of Jürgen Schm , I just ask for the 'other part': what should we call "a computer"?'Anything' doing Comp? (meaning: whatever is doing it)?Will the conference be limited to that technically embryonic gadget - maybe even on a binary bases - we use with that limited software-input in 2006? a Turing machine?John M= --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Bruno, although I did not see in my list-post my comment to Marc's report about the German conference (sent before your and Saibal's posts) I may continue it (maybe copying the missing text below); Saibal's : uncompoutable numbers, non countable sets etc. don't exist in first order logic,... is interesting: it may mean that the wholeness-view (like Robert Rosen's 'complexity' and my wholistiv views as well) do not compute with 1st order logic - what may not be fatal IMO. I use model a bit opposite to Skolem's text (sorry, I could not read your URL, my new comnputer does not (yet) have ppt installed) - but as I decyphered Skolem's long text, it is a math-construct based on 'a theory'. A different model. My 'model' (and R. Rosen's) is an extract of the totality, a limited cut from the interconnectedness by topical, functional ideational etc. boundaries and THEORIES are based on that (usefully, if not extended beyond the margins of the model - limitedly observed to formulate them.) If this is beyond 1st order logic that is not the fault of such model-view - with uncomputable (impredicative) numbers and unlimited variables - rather shows a limitation of the domain called 1st order logic. (I put numbers in quotation, I used the word to apply it according to the here ongoing talks.) Rosen (a mathematician) also called it Turing un-emulable. Your explanation about the ZF uncountability and the uncomputability is intgeresting, I could not yet digest its meaning as how it may be pertinent to my thinking. John M - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 9:08 AM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 In conscience et mécanisme I use Lowenheim Skolem theorem to explain why the first person of PA see uncountable things despite the fact that from the 0 person pov and the 3 person pov there is only countably many things (for PA). I explain it through a comics. See the drawings the page deux-272, 273, 275 in the volume deux (section: Des lois mécanistes de l'esprit). It explains how a machine can eventually infer the existence of other machine/individual). Here: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume2CC/2%20%203.pdf Note also that the word model (in http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/low-skol.htm ) refers to a technical notion which is the opposite of a theory. A model is a mathematical reality or structure capable of satisfying (making true) the theorem of a theory. Like a concrete group (like the real R with multiplication) satisfy the formal axioms of some abstract group theory. (Physicists uses model and theory interchangeably, and this makes sometimes interdisciplinary discussion difficult). ZF can prove the existence of non countable sets, and still be satisfied by a countable model. This means that all sets in the model are countable so there is a bijection between each infinite set living in the model and the set N of natural numbers. What is happening? just that the bijection itself does not live in the model, so that the inhabitants of the model cannot see the bijection, and this shows that uncountability is not absolute. It just means that from where I am I cannot enumerate the set. But, contrariwise, uncomputability is absolute for those enough rich theories. Here I am close to a possible answer of a question by Stathis (why comp?), and the answer is that with comp you have robust (absolute, independent of machine, language, etc.) notion of everything. Comp has a Church thesis. few notion of math have such facility. Tegmark's whole math, for example, is highly ambiguous. Thanks to Saibal for Peter Suber web page on Skolem (interesting). Bruno Le 03-nov.-06, à 13:50, Bruno Marchal a écrit : It is not a question of existence but of definability. For example you can define and prove (by Cantor diagonalization) the existence of uncountable sets in ZF which is a first order theory of sets. Now uncountability is not an absolute notion (that is the Lowenheim-Skolem lesson). Careful: uncomputability is absolute. Bruno Le 03-nov.-06, à 13:43, Saibal Mitra a écrit : uncompoutable numbers, non countable sets etc. don't exist in first order logic, see here: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/low-skol.htm = Copy of my lost? note to Marc (Bov.3 - 6:59AM): Marc, I do not argue with 'your half' of the 'answer' you gave to the conference announcement of Jürgen Schm , I just ask for the 'other part': what should we call a computer? 'Anything' doing Comp? (meaning: whatever is doing it)? Will the conference be limited to that technically embryonic gadget - maybe even on a binary bases - we use with that limited software-input in 2006? a Turing machine? John M = --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message
Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7
Marc, I do not argue with 'your half' of the 'answer' you gave to the conference announcement of Jürgen Schm , I just ask for the 'other part': what should we call a computer? 'Anything' doing Comp? (meaning: whatever is doing it)? Will the conference be limited to that technically embryonic gadget - maybe even on a binary bases - we use with that limited software-input in 2006? a Turing machine? John M - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 10:09 PM Subject: Re: Zuse Symposium: Is the universe a computer? Berlin Nov 6-7 Ah the famous Juergen Schmidhuber! :) Is the universe a computer. Well, if you define 'universe' to mean 'everything which exists' and you're a mathematical platonist and grant reality to infinite sets and uncomputables, the answer must be NO, since if uncomputable numbers are objectively real (strong platonism) they are 'things' and therefore 'part of the universe' which are by definition not computable. But if by 'universe' you just mean 'physical reality' or 'discrete mathematics' or you refuse to grant platonic reality to uncomputables or infinite sets (anti-platonism or weaker platonism) then the answer could be YES, the universe is a computer. Cheers! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
--- Colin Hales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (among a lot other things, quoted and replied to): I disagree and can show empirical proof that we scientists only THINK we are not being solipsistic. I wrote in this sense lately (for the past say 40 years) but now I tend to change my solipsistic mind in view of your position - maybe the other way around, but for a mathematician (whay I amnot) a multiplication with -1 is no big deal. As I formulate my new ideas (did not elevate them to 'position') everybody with an active mind (e.g. with a mentality that generates ideas) is living in a solipsistic air of his own ideas. This is relevant to peasants, to religious fanatics, also to scientists etc. (I don't know which applies to me, I never proclaimed myself a 'scientist', am not religious and have no farm). We may pretend to see 3rd person errors (sic) but really we live in our 1st person enclave. This is OK in my own little nuthouse. I pretended to be more open and 'think' about a reality I can never attain, but behind such pretension was my hypocrisy. Thanks for adding something (even if considerable as negative) to my thinking (solipstic as it is - pardon me the pun, it is a typo). With best regards (also from me to me, but never mind: you can accept it) John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)
Peter; I try to keep out from the ongoing discussions lately (no succes to report) but sometimes I get carried away. I will barge in with 2 remarks into your text below John M --- 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David Nyman wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I did point out in my last post that there appears to be no simple way to make such reductions (between math concepts and classes of specific things). For instance no one has yet succeeded in showing how math concepts such as infinite sets and transfinite sets (which are precise math concepts) could be converted into physical notions. A also pointed to David Deutsch's excellent 'Criteria For Reality': I fail to see any 'knock-down' character in this argument. Peter says that mathematical concepts don't refer to anything 'external', and on one level I agree with him. But they are surely derived from the contingent characteristics of experience, and AFAICS experience in this context reduces to the contents of our brains. So 'infinite sets' is just a model (brain material at another level of description) which IMO counts as a 'physical notion' unless you start off as an idealist. If something is derived from experience , that does not mean it is necessarily a model of experience. The derivation might transofrm it into (a concept of ) something which does not matches expereince. Unicorns re derived from horses (or rhinos) but do not exist as such. Put simply, you can't think mathematical thoughts without using your brain to instantiate them - and you don't literally have to instantiate an 'infinite set' in the extended sense in order to manipulate a model with the formal characteristics you impute to this concept. However, we should not conclude that mathematical entities exist as ptterns of neural firing. The neural firing realises the concept, ... JM: Neural firing can refer to 'concept' if you have either 1.) topically (conceptually) marked neurons (like: the 1,000 for my poppylove, 2000 for your nosebleeding) - or 2.) distinguished type firings related to topical, within those even ceptually characterised electrical (or else - still unknown?) variations - and/or 3.) there is a topical/conceptual homunculus (organ?) registering the 'meaning' of each firing of THOSE topically marked and distinguished neurons. Otherwise the 'firing' is a physiological process, well measurable in its electrical behavior, but conceptually meaningless as far as we know today. The area of the brain where a certain activity is causing physiological activity is not 'generating' ideas. No indication so far to the generation of such mental authoritative thinking in any bunch of neurons. It is well assumed by the 'neurons only' crowd as a belief. (In congruence with your continuing statement on math). ... the mathematical entity is what the concept is about. The concept is not about neural firings (so long as what we are conceptualsiing is maths and not neurology!). ***The mathematical entity does not exist as a neural pattern.*** It does not exist at all. It is what the concept (which *does* exist as a neural pattern)[] is about. But concepts can be about things which don't exist, like unicorns. JM: Could you describe the 'neural pattern' meaning a unicorn? (or simply: a corn?) John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Counterfactual?
Peter: There is a clash of concepts - as I feel. I do not 'read' what physical has to do in the fact of 'determinism': if determinism is not (deemed) as 'physical', it does not determin? Laws (physical?) do not determin anything. Explain: yes or oppose to. The deductions of the majority of the observed cases (=laws, predictions) do not act. Furthermore: If something is (or seems) impossible (= does not occur) then the possibility of a mathematical formulation of it does not make it realizable. Of course we see the difference between mental simulation and observation (who knows the truth?) but to keep George's (nonexistent-haha) sanity - we may as well differentiate between what we think as observed and what we deduce upon a theory. Your last par is absolutely true - I think in the opposite sense from why you wrote it. As history shows we may detect any 'new rules' (laws) any time to come. (Even if it is not written in the 17-19c physix bible.) I concur fully with Stathis's remark - adding that we have no acces to the other universes at this ppoint, but as we 'think' about them (mentally created them) -they may be similarly deterministic as ours. I mean: (in my view of a Multiverse), consisting of unlimited and unlimitedly different universes. We just cannot think otherwise. (Maybe some of us can on this list). John Mikes John M --- 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John Mikes writes: Peter: ... A counterfactual is a COUNTERfactual - -it is something that could have happenned but didn't. There is no reason why we should be conscious of in things we coudl have done but didn't. ... JM: It could not have happened in another way if it did happen THIS way.. WE may think - in our limited circle of knowledge - that something else was also viable, but in the deterministic world of a total (unlimited, not model-enclosed) interconnectedness - whatever happened, was the possible way of events. I am not talking about HP universes or thought experiments. Yes: the mere fact that we *think* it could have happened differently does not mean that it could have happened differently. Counterfactuals come from physical determinism, they are not contrary to it. Causal determism mean there are physical laws determining events which can be modelled by mathematival statements. The mathermatical formulation of physical laws allows you to answer hypothetical questions even if the actual situation cannot be phsyically realised for some practical reason. If the actual situation cannot be physically realised for some practical reason, there is a sense in which it is impossible -- but it is not the same sense of impossible as something which is forbidden by physical laws. It could be that there is just a single deterministic universe and we are just playing out our lives like actors in a film. God knows exactly how I'm going to finish this sentence, even if I don't until after the fact. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Brent, you ask the tuppence (or million $) questions. --- Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] asked: 1: But is this different than trying to think of new models? Somebody suggested (on another list) that MY model is the unlimited universe. I could not argue, yet it is a limited model, since our presentG knowledge is limited to the up-to-date epistemic cognitive inventory. This is why I feel comfortable to plead to be ignorant. (Irrespective of the 'truth' that I am). ---and--- 2:...- my poor brain is not up to thinking the world in it's entirety; hence I resort to models. So I'm asking for an example or even a description of how you think we should think about the world, while avoiding models. My poor brain is also reductionistic in my thinking, I cannot encompass the totality either. So I think in models, but always keep that in mind: avoid drawing conclusions upon the wholeness from results extracted from a limited model view. (Or so I think). If I make some general deductions, I use cautious grammar, allowing for diverse opinions to come up. This is not the scientific way to get a title, tenure, grants, or even the smallest Nobel prize, but it is satisfactory for me. I do not persuade others to apply it. It's my way. If there is any merit in my ideas for others, be my guest -that's the reason why I proclaim them. AND: to get the counter-ideas for my perusal. John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brent wrote: If you know the domain of your model there won't be any impact from beyond. Of course the domain is uncertain at the edges - but just because there is Grey doesn't mean there is no black and white. Our views (I did not press: definition) of a model' differs. Since I consider the totality as interrelated and interactive and the 'model' a topical cut as the object of our observation (c.f.: sciences) those boundaries we surround our (my) models are 'cutting off' the rest of the world. With all the influence it may have on events BENEATH those (selected) boundaries. I am not talking about a grey area. * Should we then resort mystical thinking or armchair philosophizing or theological revelation? I do not call your wording an argumentation (style?) ad hominem, if you know no better variant, you can refer to any one that comes to your mind. Finally: Can you do some other kind of thinking? The answer is: YES, for one there are things to which I respond I dunno but try to think in new ways which does not mean that I also completed it. But is this different than trying to think of new models? To know about something that is not perfect does not imply the obligation to 'perfect it' at the same time. I'm not asking that you perfect anything. You ask that we not be led into acceptance of model based thinking. I'm not sure there is another way to think about the world - my poor brain is not up to thinking the world in it's entirety; hence I resort to models. So I'm asking for an example or even a description of how you think we should think about the world, while avoiding models. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
--- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But 2 is just another notation for xx. Why is x 'just another notation for 2? or why is xx not (just) a notation of 3? (because Peano said so?) John M Le 16-août-06, à 02:25, Brent Meeker a écrit : Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 14-août-06, à 19:21, Brent Meeker a écrit : But how must the perfect number exist or not exist? You say you only mean it must be true that there is a number equal to the sum of its divsors independent of you. Do you mean independent only in the sense that others will know 6 is perfect after you're gone, or do you mean 6 is perfect independent of all humans, all intelligent beings, the whole world? In the second sense. The perfectness of 6 is what would make any sufficiently clever entity from any possible (consistent) worlds, existing or not, to know that. In that sense it has to be a primitive truth. You can see this through a sequence of stronger and stronger modesty principles: 1) Bruno is not so important that 6 would loose its perfection after Bruno is gone; 2) The Belgian are not so important that 6 would loose its perfectness after the Belgian are gone; 3) The European are not so important that 6 would loose ... 4) The Humans are not so ... 5) The Mammals are not so ... 6) The creature of Earth are not so ... 7) the creature of the Solar system are not so ... 8) the creature of the Milky way are not so ... 9) the creature of the local universe are not so ... 10) the creature of the multiverse are not so ... 11) the creature of the multi multi verse are not so 11) the possible creatures are not so ... Yes, I think (and assume in the Arithmetical realist part of comp) that the fact that 6 is equal to its proper divisors sum, is a truth beyond time, space, whatever ... I have the feeling I would lie to myself to think the contrary. I am frankly more sure about that than about the presence of coffee in my cup right now. I cannot imagine that the numbers themselves could go away. They are not eternal, because they are not even in the category of things capable of lasting or not with respect to any form of observable or not reality. There I think I disagree. If there were no intelligent creatures like ourselves, the infinite set of integers would not exist (I don't think they exist like my coffee does anyway). There would be xx but no number 2 that was generated by a sucessor operation under Peano's axioms. But 2 is just another notation for xx. Note that I agree that the existence of the coffee cup has not the same status than the existence of the numbers. Numbers exist independently of me. Stable cups of coffee appears only through highly involved histories/computations views from inside, and makes sense only for coffee amateurs or perhaps also tea amateurs having an open mind. Bruno --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Can we ever know truth?
Thanks, Peter John --- 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Peter, let me 'condensate YOUR interspaced remarks and add my quip to them one by one. My long blurb was enough once on the listG. John Mikes - Original Message - From: 1Z [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:12 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? (ref.:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To Stathis, Brent, and List: (ref#2): - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] (not really!) To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:22 AM Subject: Re: Can we ever know truth? ... Any alternative theory also has to make a projecto from current circumstances. [JM]: 1.Exactly what I was missing: why pick ONE and dogmatize it? 2.Who said we are ready to formulate a theory for the 'origins'? Who said we aren't ? We have theories good enough to make predictions like the 4K background radiation. You will find that unknown events are neglected in all theories. What else can you do with an unknown event ? [JM]: Consider it (or at least that there may be such) and realize the insufficiency of data for writing a bible. The wisdom you quote (accepted) does not make a 'theory' right. That's why I call 'my idea' a narrative, not even a hypothesis. I was not there. That is an argument against science in general,. Yet sciene works well in many areas. That would apply to any to any other coscmological theory. [JM]: So we should consider and use some humility. I pointed out ONE (TWO?)definite mistakes among many (see: Eric Lerner's book: The BB never happened - of course it was argued against by cosmophysicists - on 'their' bases and against Lerner's own hype which he voluteered to construct. A mistake. ). ... The Bb theorists were the lepers at one stage. They became establishment by being able ot prove their case. [JM]: The establishment bowed to the number of papers all slanted to 'prove' some details. This is just rhetoric. You desciber paper as slanted because you don't like them. Would you describe Hoyle's alternative as slanted ? They WERE indeed the establishment. See my remark on 'proof' at 'evidence' below. ... Is there evidence for any of those mechanisms ? [JM]: Not more than just considering the redshift an optical Doppler effect, which is a good idea. Those(?) mechanisms are also (based on? are?) valid theses in conventional physics - my opinion is anecdotal. I don't see what you mean ? Are you saying redshift isn't Doppler, or that it is ? LATER ON many 'measurements' were cited as supportive (in)/directly. Of what ? Popper comes to mind and Goedel with 'evidencing' from the inside of a mindset. Huh ? Which was considered and rejected. [JM]: You refer to good old Fred Hoyle' harmonica. Do you refer to all 'others' as well in the etc.? ... I thought it was possible to fathom the mystery of comsogenesis -- that is what you say above. Are you saying that, or are you promoting an alternative. John Mikes The mindset - as I see it - in the BB-cosmology is 2500 year old. Not Plato, but the Greek mythology, when P. Athenai sprang out from Zeuss' head in full armor. It isn't. The BB is a testable, quantitative theory. There is a 'seed' accountable for zillion degrees K, zillion gauss gravity, zillion erg compressed work and pertinent energy and (almost) zero space. Yet this - call it - system 'obeys' the complex rules in our conventional physical system equations of VERY narrow limitations in charaacteristics at its very birth. In full armor and fervor. They even calculated out in our time-units what happened at the 10^42 or^32 sec after the (timeless???) zero point of banging. The point of a theory is to be able to deal with hypothetical and counterfactual situations. Which was the act of a Quantum Tooth Fairy. Problems? never mind, we have a good term: inflation and it will take care of the irregular behavior of that 'seed'. And never mind how it happened, just use a linear history with linear time-scale to arrive at 'now'. Interesting. Religions are as well interesting. Rhetoric, again. John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: I think, was Difficulties in communication. . .
George: I enjoyed your wits, in Hungarian we call that to chase one's brain. I am also happy that you use sane instead of normal because the norm is insane. Please do not cut this line (style) of yours! John Mikes --- George Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 13-août-06, à 23:48, George Levy a écrit : I think also implies the concept of sanity. Unless you assume the first step I think and that you are sane, you can't take any rational and conscious second step and have any rational and conscious thought process. You wouldn't be able to hold any rational discussion. Inherent in any computational process is the concept of sanity. Maybe this is what Bruno refers to as sane machine. All right. The point will be that all machine strongly-believing or communicating or proving their own sanity will appear to be (from purely number-theoretical reasons) insane and even inconsistent. Note that machines communicating that they are *insane* (instead of sane) *are* insane, but remains consistent. This should please crazy John Mikes :) This only proves that a sane machine cannot be sure that it thinks correctly. So the sane machine would say: I think but, since I may be insane, I am not sure if I am. Only the insane machine would positively assert I think therefore I am! So we know now where Descartes belongs: in an insane asylum, so do most philosophers, religious leaders and politicians. Some mathematicians may be exempt, but only if they don't claim that Godel is right! Don't quote me! George --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
correction 8-15-06
With apologies: In my long post I referred to happenings after the BB as ...in the 10^42 or ^32 sec of the first sec... Of course I meant 10^-42 and 10^-32 first sec-fractions. John Mikes --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Can we ever know truth?
Stathis, thanks for a reply in reason - you said the million dollar word. (I will come back to 'quote' it). First: As Norman, I, too, was a very smart kid (and am still very modest - ha ha) and had ALL my experiences of a 5-year old at 5. Since then I collected 2-3 additional 'experienced' features into my 'mind'. Still unsure if they 'match' some outside real reality or just being manufactured by my incredible(!) fantasy. 'Unsure' is the word. Now in your wise position (worth remembering) you wrote The best we can do in science as in everyday life is to accept provisionally that things are as they seem. I agree and thank you for it. The BIG word is PROVISIONALLY. Then others pick it up, not only in reply-button list-posts, but in books, in teaching - over 2500 years and already after some hundred quotations people grow into believeing it - no provisioanlly, - as the TRUTH. It became science and even coomon knowledge.Taught at colleges for centuries. When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing physics are only provisionally accepted as 'real'? (I just wanted to tease members of this list. Of course on THIS list 'thinking' people gathered and such thoughts are not unusual. We are the exception.) An example is the Big Bang. Many scientists almost put it into their evening prayer. Doubting is heresy. This is why I scrutinize what we 'believe in' and try alternate narratives: do they hold water? Are the new (alternate) ideas palatable to what (we think) we experience? We shoul not forget that we are products of a long long 'evolutioary' line of development and responses arose to phenomena otherwise unexplained like the hardness of a figment we call 'tble' or the 'pain' when kicked, all fotted into the most ingenious edifice of existence - whatever THAT may be. Bruno and the numberologists wisely reduce the problem into 'numbers - math': - that is all. We really cannot encompass the known and unknown varieties of everything but I try to face our ignorance-based awe and 'hope' to open (small) windows into more than we had earlier. The 'number-line' is a good variant, I find it still insufficient. I don't want to 'numerify' my pleasure to listen to musical 'art', laugh at a good joke, or enjoying a Black Forest Cake. Would make me sorry if it turns out to be true. As George said: I am crazy, too. John Mikes --- Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Norman Samish writes: In a discussion about philosophy, Nick Prince said, If we are living in a simulation. . . To which John Mikes replied, I think this is the usual pretension. . . I think 'we simulate what we are living in' according to the little we know. Such 'simulation' - 'simplification' - 'modeling' - 'metaphorizing' - or even 'Harry Potterizing' things we think does not change the 'unknown/unknowable' we live in. We just think and therefore we think we are. This interchange reminded me of thoughts I had as a child - I used to wonder if if everything I experienced was real or a dream. How could I know which it was? I asked my parents and was discouraged, in no uncertain terms, from asking them nonsensical questions. I asked my playmates and friends, but they didn't know the answer any more than I did. I had no other resources so I concluded that the question was unanswerable and that the best I could do was proceed as if what I experienced was reality. Now, many years later, I have this list - and Wikipedia - as resources. But, as John Mikes (and others) say, I still cannot know that what I experience is reality. I can only assume that reality is how things appear to me - and I might be wrong. I think the young Norman Samish got it right: (a) I used to wonder if if everything I experienced was real or a dream. How could I know which it was? (b) I had no other resources so I concluded that the question was unanswerable and that the best I could do was proceed as if what I experienced was reality. To know the truth is to become godlike, standing outside of the world and seeing everything for what it really is... and even then you might ask yourself whether you really are omniscient or only *think* you are omniscient. The best we can do in science as in everyday life is to accept provisionally that things are as they seem. There is no shame in this, as long as you are ready to revise your theory in the light of new evidence, and it is certainly better than assuming that things are *not* as they seem, in the absence of any evidence. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
RE: Can we ever know truth? - simulation
Nick: the practical - philosopher. I refer to my 'misunderstood' expression to Bruno: NAME Calling (which was a pun, meaning we call names and assign meaning to it - in our OWN mindset, then fight for THIS meaning against another person's meaning called by the same NAME) - Bruno misunderstood it into its original un-pun (vulgar?) connotation ( - sorry, Bruno - ) well, your solipsism is such a 'name'. We live in our own one and pretend to be 'objective'. Indeed our (call it: First Person) mind formulates a 'world of solipsist reality' - one may consider it as 'primal', indeed it is a reflection to who knows what. (Norman's 'reality' vs. Brent's real real-reality). Some people are more flexible in this (internal) formulation and absorb impacts from others (what I call 3rd person impact) others just stick to 'their own'. Inevitably reformulating the topics into the original (solipsistic?) original positions to argue about. I don't believe that such cycling is a perfect one: the argued-against positions have an impact. Slow, but adjusting. It is sort of a slow 'moving on'. John Mikes --- Nick Prince [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a form of solipsism - it is difficult to attack it and defending it can be similarly time consuming. I think we have to move on and believe there is a better approach - if only to get somewhere other than back to the beginning every time. _ - Original Message - From: Norman Samish mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 12:53 PM Subject: Can we ever know truth? In a discussion about philosophy, Nick Prince said, If we are living in a simulation. . . To which John Mikes replied, I think this is the usual pretension. . . I think 'we simulate what we are living in' according to the little we know. Such 'simulation' - 'simplification' - 'modeling' - 'metaphorizing' - or even 'Harry Potterizing' things we think does not change the 'unknown/unknowable' we live in. We just think and therefore we think we are. This interchange reminded me of thoughts I had as a child - I used to wonder if if everything I experienced was real or a dream. How could I know which it was? I asked my parents and was discouraged, in no uncertain terms, from asking them nonsensical questions. I asked my playmates and friends, but they didn't know the answer any more than I did. I had no other resources so I concluded that the question was unanswerable and that the best I could do was proceed as if what I experienced was reality. Now, many years later, I have this list - and Wikipedia - as resources. But, as John Mikes (and others) say, I still cannot know that what I experience is reality. I can only assume that reality is how things appear to me - and I might be wrong. Norman Samish _ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.10.8/415 - Release Date: 08/09/06 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument - Comp
Stathis, you put me on the spot (as Brent did, to whom I still owe a reply). I have NO theory. I started to speculate about things I never had the time to read a bout, keep pace with novelties, or even contemplate while I was busy as the nonexistent hell in my day-to day D and consulting workload. I read some 2-300 NEW books o n new worldview-related topics, starting as probably the oldest one: David Bohm. Then I argued (neophyte hassle) with physicists and conservative neuro-philosophers and wrote a sci-fi. I concluded in an unlimited complexity of everything existing (another questionmark, since I was not on the basis of the physical measurements) of which human thinking formulates topics, maps, territories (=models, within boundaries) and we have a 'science' closed into our models. So I formulated a NARRATIVE for myself. (Plenitude etc.) This (answering your question: ...how it could be immune to being proved wrong? makes me immune as it is MY narrative. You don't like it? fine. It gives me easier explanations in MY (common sense) logic to many (not all) questions. Primitive? of course. Are we not all? I found similar thinkers (different theories and bases) galore and have interesting discussions on - I think - 8 lists. Counterarguments help me develop my ideas. The only one I stick to is the total interconnectedness and intereffectiveness in the totality irrespective topics we identify. Complexity exceeds the systems. We are complexity of not separable mind (what is it?) and body (our historical figment of matter, just explaining phenomena in the evolving empirical enrichment). None exists without the other. I better stop because I could not hold water in a detailed wide discussion against all that knowledge stuffed in this list. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 9:25 PM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument - Comp John, Perhaps I have misunderstood if you were presenting an alternative theory: it's easy to misunderstand the often complex ideas discussed on this list. Could you explain your theory, and how it could be immune to being proved wrong? Stathis Papaioannou Stathis, you (of all people) underestimate human optimism and self confidence. MY THEORY? the 'others' maybe, they become proven wrong and false, not mine! Then again where is an acceptable evidence? to whom? Ask Goedel, ask Popper, ask all people who 'think' differently. Bruno has different evidence for his position in his reply to my question today than I had when I asked it. Not even a (confirmed?) Pysicalexperiment is 'evidendce'. wHO do you call a 'scientist'? the one who accepts an evidence, or who does not? Best wishes John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 7:22 AM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument - Comp John M writes: Earlier we lived in a telephone central switchboard, further back in a steam-engine. Not to mention the Turtle. The 'cat' specifies IMO ignorance without prejudice. Very droll, very true! But what, then, must we do? Scientists come up with the best theory consistent with the evidence, with a willingness to revise the theory in the light of new evidence. They might not be quite as willing as they ideally should be, but that's just human nature, and they all come around to doing the right thing eventually. It would not be very helpful if we all thought, I know that whatever theory I come up with will almost certainly be proved wrong given enough time, so I won't bother coming up with a theory at all. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument - Comp
Stathis, you (of all people) underestimate human optimism and self confidence. MY THEORY? the 'others' maybe, they become proven wrong and false, not mine! Then again where is an acceptable evidence? to whom? Ask Goedel, ask Popper, ask all people who 'think' differently. Bruno has different evidence for his position in his reply to my question today than I had when I asked it. Not even a (confirmed?) Pysicalexperiment is 'evidendce'. wHO do you call a 'scientist'? the one who accepts an evidence, or who does not? Best wishes John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 7:22 AM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument - Comp John M writes: Earlier we lived in a telephone central switchboard, further back in a steam-engine. Not to mention the Turtle. The 'cat' specifies IMO ignorance without prejudice. Very droll, very true! But what, then, must we do? Scientists come up with the best theory consistent with the evidence, with a willingness to revise the theory in the light of new evidence. They might not be quite as willing as they ideally should be, but that's just human nature, and they all come around to doing the right thing eventually. It would not be very helpful if we all thought, I know that whatever theory I come up with will almost certainly be proved wrong given enough time, so I won't bother coming up with a theory at all. Stathis Papaioannou I recently read somebody's speculation that the reality we inhabit is may be a quantum computer. Presumably when we observe Schrodinger's cat simultaneously being killed and not killed, we are observing the quantum computer in action. Norman Samish ~ - Original Message - From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 2:05 PM Subject: Re: Bruno's argument - Comp To All: I know my questions below are beyond our comprehension, but we read (and write) so much about this idea that I feel compelled to ask: is there any idea why there would be 'comp'? our computers require juice to work and if unplugged they represent a very expensive paperweight. What kind of computing unit (universe? multiverse, or some other satanic 'verse') would run by itself without being supplied by something that moves it? I hate to ask about its program as well, whether it is an intelligent design? Is it a pseudnym for some godlike mystery? Are we reinventing the religion? John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.7/409 - Release Date: 8/4/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument - Comp
Apologies to the list and to Stathis especially! I replied to Stathis - and lost the text - at least I thought so. That happens in Yahoo-mail sometimes and so far I could not detect which 'key' did I touch wrong? So I wrote another one and mailed it all right. Then in the mail I detected my 'original' and lost text, it was snatched away and mailed. The two are pretty different. Redface John - Original Message - From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 8:12 AM Subject: Re: Bruno's argument - Comp Stathis: I know that whatever theory I come up with will almost certainly be proved wrong given enough time, so I won't bother coming up with a theory at all. Funny that you of all people come up with such a supposition so different from fundamental basic human nature! We all hope to be smarter than , And speculate. Even those scientists you refer to. Evidence? that is what I scrutinize. It is subject to the level of our ongoing epistemic enrichment and without later findings one settles with insufficient ones that become soon obsolete. I was challenged to propose technical levels 50 years ahead. It is impossible. I rather try to compose what and why of our present technological and theoretical status could we NOT imagine 60 years ago...it is entertaining. Man is optimist. Even myself with a cynical pessimism. John M - Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: John M everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 7:22 AM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument - Comp John M writes: Earlier we lived in a telephone central switchboard, further back in a steam-engine. Not to mention the Turtle. The 'cat' specifies IMO ignorance without prejudice. Very droll, very true! But what, then, must we do? Scientists come up with the best theory consistent with the evidence, with a willingness to revise the theory in the light of new evidence. They might not be quite as willing as they ideally should be, but that's just human nature, and they all come around to doing the right thing eventually. It would not be very helpful if we all thought, I know that whatever theory I come up with will almost certainly be proved wrong given enough time, so I won't bother coming up with a theory at all. Stathis Papaioannou I recently read somebody's speculation that the reality we inhabit is may be a quantum computer. Presumably when we observe Schrodinger's cat simultaneously being killed and not killed, we are observing the quantum computer in action. Norman Samish ~ - Original Message - From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 2:05 PM Subject: Re: Bruno's argument - Comp To All: I know my questions below are beyond our comprehension, but we read (and write) so much about this idea that I feel compelled to ask: is there any idea why there would be 'comp'? our computers require juice to work and if unplugged they represent a very expensive paperweight. What kind of computing unit (universe? multiverse, or some other satanic 'verse') would run by itself without being supplied by something that moves it? I hate to ask about its program as well, whether it is an intelligent design? Is it a pseudnym for some godlike mystery? Are we reinventing the religion? John Mikes _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.7/409 - Release Date: 8/4/2006 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.7/410 - Release Date: 8/5/2006 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Irreducibility of Consciousness
Brent: My idea was exactly what you thundered against. There is no adequate proof, science is a limited model-view, the quote from J, Neumann even more so and the court-proof is the compromise (called law) between conflicting interests in a society. Reasonable doubt relies on how stupid the contemplators are. The 'model' you formulate and examine is based on a limited view of already esta blished circle of relevance within those explanations people sweated out based on inadequate observational methods, immature conditions and thought limited by the appropriate era's epistemic cognitive inventory. \Disregarding the 'rest' (maybe not even knowing about more at that time_). I am not sitting in a complacent lukewarm water of a limited knowledge-base and cut my thinking accordingly - rather confess to my ignorance and TRY to comeup with better. I am not alone in this, not too efficient either. John M - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 5:15 PM Subject: Re: The Irreducibility of Consciousness Stathis Papaioannou wrote: John M writes (quoting SP): St: Are you suggesting that a brain with the same pattern of neurons firing, but without the appropriate environmental stimulus, would not have exactly the same conscious experience? [JM]: Show me, I am an experimentalist. First show two brains with the same pattern of (ALL!) neuron firings. Two extracted identical firings in a superdupercomplex brain is meaningless. Then, please, show me (experimentally) the non-identity of environmental impacts reaching 2 different brains from the unlimited interaction of the totality. (I wrote already that I do not approve thought-experiments). Of course, you could not have both brains stimulated in the usual manner in both environments because then they would not have identical patterns of neural firing; you would have to artificially stimulate one of the brains in exactly the right manner to mimic the stimulation it would receive via its sense organs. That would be very difficult to achieve in a practical experiment, but the question is, *if* you could do this would you expect that the brains would be able to guess on the basis of their subjective experience alone which one was which? Actually, natural experiments something like this occur in people going through a psychotic episode. Most people who experience auditory hallucinations find it impossible to distinguish between the hallucination and the real thing: the voices sound *exactly* as it sounds when someone is talking to them, which is why (if they are that sort of person) they might assault a stranger on the train in the belief that they have insulted or threatened them, when the poor fellow has said nothing at all. I think this example alone is enough to show that it is possible to have a perception with cortical activity alone; you don't even need to artificially stimulate the auditory nerve. St: That would imply some sort of extra-sensory perception, and there is no evidence for such a thing. It is perfectly consistent with all the facts to say that consciousness results from patterns of neurons firing in the brain, and that if the same neurons fired, the same experience would result regardless of what actually caused those neurons to fire. [JM]: regardless also of the 'rest of the brain'? Would you pick one of the billions copmpleting the brainwork complexity and match it to a similar one in a different complexity? But the more relevant question (and I mean it): What would you identify as (your version) of consciousness that results from neuron-fiting consistent with all the facts? My neurons fire and I am conscious; if they didn't fire I wouldn't be conscious, and if they fired very differently to the way they are doing I would be differently conscious. That much, I think, is obvious. Maybe there is something *in addition* to the physical activity of our neurons which underpins consciousness, but at the moment it appears that the neurons are both necessary and sufficient, so you would have to present some convincing evidence (experimental is always best, as you say, but theoretical will do) if you want to claim otherwise. St: As for consciousness being fundamentally irreducible, I agree completely. [JM]: Consider it a singularity, a Ding an Sich? Your statement looks to me as referring to a thing. Not a process. Or rather a state? (Awareness??) * St: It is a fact that when neurons fire in a particular way, a conscious experience results; possibly, complex enough electronic activity in a digital computer might also result in conscious experience, although we cannot be sure of that. But this does not mean that the conscious experience *is* the brain or computer activity, even if it could somehow be shown that the physical process is necessary and sufficient for the experience