Re: Hitch

2013-07-12 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On 07/10/2013 11:18 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 I use atheists in the (Google) sense of B~g.   ~Bg is agnosticism (in
 the mundane common sense).
 
 Some atheists seem to oscillate between the two definitions,
 opportunistically.

The issue is that both of those require some specific 'g' to be claimed,
before either of them may apply.

But first 'g' has to be well-defined, coherent, and logically possible,
before either of the above can even make sense.  My experience is that
few religious claims make it past this hurdle; there is therefore not
really anything to believe or not believe in.

So we're left with the state of our belief system unchanged, and
optimization of our finite resources means we just don't think about
these sorts of things.

I suppose that's neither 'atheism' or 'agnosticism'.

Johnathan Corgan


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Re: Hitch

2013-07-10 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote:


 My point is that if one takes atheism to be the rejection of all
 conceptions of god, then because those ideas are conceptions of god from
 various religions, then someone who remains atheist after exposure to those
 ideas (rather than agnostic) has rejected them, and worse, has done so
 without any justification.  This is anti-scientific because there is some
 evidence for these propositions.  Even if that evidence does not convince
 you, there is no reason to reject them until evidence comes out against the
 theories on which they are based.


This thread has devolved somewhat into arguing definitions, but I'll bite
anyway.

Anyone can posit theories or claims; it is up to those persons to present
credible evidence supporting those claims.

If the claims themselves are incoherent or not logically possible, no
evidence can be presented.

If the evidence presented in support of those claims is not actually
supportive, or is not possible to evaluate, then no further action need be
taken.

If the evidence presented is simply that a proposition is possible, well,
many things that are possible are still not true; this is not evidence.

If the evidence presented is I would like/feel happier/be less scared in a
world where this is true, this is of course not evidence.

If the evidence presented is If this were true, it would be consistent
with these other things that I believe are true, it is not evidence.

If the evidence presented is I can't make sense of the world unless this
is true, it is not evidence.

If the evidence presented is Everyone believes this, you should too, it
is not evidence.

If the evidence presented is Believe this or we will kill you, it is not
evidence.

In all these cases, there is no burden on anyone else to reject these
assertions, as no evidence has been presented in support of them.

In the realm of theistic beliefs, we were all born lacking any; we were all
born atheists.  Some people have come to believe various religious claims
as true, and thus have become theists of different varieties.

For some of us, these claims have never risen beyond any of the categories
above, and hence we remain atheists, without the need to reject anything,
having not taken any action whatsoever.  We simply remain in our state of
lacking any theistic beliefs.  We do not need to encounter specific
evidence against these sorts of claims.

So if you have a specific claim to make, and actual evidence to support it,
we'll listen.  But we don't start out as rejecting all conceptions of
God; we're just happily living our lives and not spending much time
worrying about these matters, except perhaps recently on this mailing list.

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?

2013-07-08 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On 07/08/2013 02:16 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

 This one is very interesting, but the fact that Pi was a poor choice for
 the constant makes the equation considerably more ugly than it should
 be.  There is a growing movement to usurp the number Pi with the much
 more important constant 2*Pi
 (see: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html ).  If we call that new
 number tau (t).  Then Euler's identity becomes:
 
 e^(t * i) = 1

I think part of the appeal of the original formulation is realizing that
the result of an exponentiation of a positive number can be a negative
number.  While this is unremarkable with complex exponents, many people
are only used to seeing real (or even just integer) exponents.

Johnathan

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Re: The Leibniz-Taoist solution: Matter is mind, mind is matter

2013-05-20 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 More to the point of my original comment, though, you frequently make
 statements about how it follows from this an explanation of quantum,
 qualia, matter, etc., using references to modal logic, Plotinus' theory of
 matter, the eight hypostases, and other very high-level concepts.

 I guess I'm just having trouble connecting the dots in between.


 It took me 30 years of math to get that. But I am giving the dots right
 now on the FOAR list (as I have done already on this list). The difficulty
 is in the work already done by Gödel, Löb, Solovay, relating provability to
 the G logic, the relation between provability and computability, etc. I
 suggest you look at the FOAR list, for not psuhing me to duplicate the
 informations, thanks.


Of course.  I'll go get myself subscribed to that list, thanks.

Johnathan

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Re: The Leibniz-Taoist solution: Matter is mind, mind is matter

2013-05-19 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 Feel free to ask more from this post, though. If you understand the FPI,
 the rest follows from logic and some passive theoretical computer science,
 I think.


Yes, I understand UDA 1-7 and the concept that first-person indeterminacy
arises from the one's current state being the possible future state of an
infinity of prior computational states (give the assumptions of the
argument.)  It's less clear to me how this would translate to an
expectation value or measure on the space of possible future states from
this one.

More to the point of my original comment, though, you frequently make
statements about how it follows from this an explanation of quantum,
qualia, matter, etc., using references to modal logic, Plotinus' theory of
matter, the eight hypostases, and other very high-level concepts.

I guess I'm just having trouble connecting the dots in between.

Johnathan

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Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its independence

2013-05-18 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 4:23 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 17 May 2013, at 22:52, Johnathan Corgan wrote:

 A common occurrence reported by users of Salvia Divinorum is that of
 having lived an entire alternate life in the few minutes of intoxication,
 and even being surprised and confused for a moment while the drug wears off
 that this is their real life and the one they remember was the drug induced
 one.


 Yes, that's quite a Maury effect, indeed. Utterly amazing and sometimes
 extremely confusing.


This reminds me of the the Star Trek TNG episode The Inner Light, where
Picard lives a third of a lifetime in 25 minutes under the control of a
space artifact they encounter.  The artifact was created by a doomed race
as a way of preserving/propagating their culture, and implants the memory
of having lived as a resident of their planet into Picard.  (One of the few
ST episodes to get away from the technobabble and explore some real science
fiction themes.)

Salvia might be the Hubble of introspection.


Just reading through the written experience reports on Erowid, it's amazing
how completely different the subjective effects of Salvia are vs. more
traditional psychedelic drugs. It's no wonder many of them end with I
will never do this again.

I wonder what could be learned about how the mind works by studying these
in a scientific, experimental setting.

Dissociative in general are quite interesting. And salvia is highly
 selective in the dissociation, and seems to be very healthy and helpful, so
 such studies are needed, that's for sure.


Unfortunately, at least in the United States, the legal standards for
public scientific studies of drugs require them to be conducted in the
context of assessing their efficacy as therapeutic agents.  It's unlikely
that any protocol would be approved that was simply designed to study the
effects described above.  It's also pretty unlikely to ever be able to do a
double-blind experiment with Salvia. :)

Johnathan

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Re: The Leibniz-Taoist solution: Matter is mind, mind is matter

2013-05-18 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 3:37 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 Matter is a first person plural sharable border by collections of machines
 which multiplied collectively on the set of all computations.


It sure would nice if you could unpack this sentence, word by word, to help
make its meaning more clear.

Johnathan

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Re: That the mind works even after the brain ceases to function suggests its independence

2013-05-17 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 Salvia and DMT seem to have NDE like effects


A common occurrence reported by users of Salvia Divinorum is that of having
lived an entire alternate life in the few minutes of intoxication, and even
being surprised and confused for a moment while the drug wears off that
this is their real life and the one they remember was the drug induced one.

Perhaps something akin the Maury Effect is happening, where the *memory* of
having lived an entire alternate life is somehow created within the mind as
result of the drug effect, which would then be 1p indistinguishable from
actually having happened.

Salvia seems to have an uniquely dramatic effect on the mind's subjective
experience of episodic and semantic memory, identity, body image, time
duration, and consciousness.  I wonder what could be learned about how the
mind works by studying these in a scientific, experimental setting.

Johnathan

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Re: 1p-indeterminacy and brains

2012-06-24 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 2:37 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 Hameroff is a crackpot.  If microtubles were the source of consciousness my
 finger would be conscious; microtubles are in almost all cells.

This does not follow.

The ion channels which support the propagation of event potentials
down the length of an axon in the central nervous system also exist in
a variety of forms outside the brain.  Yet it is only in the brain
these ion channels have become organized by evolution to sustain
complex patterns of firing.

Likewise, it is logically possible that microtubules could have one
function in the brain and yet another in the rest of the body.

That said, I find Hameroff's argument for entangled microtubules very
unconvincing.  Crackpot? Perhaps--there does indeed seem to be an
element of consciousness is weird, quantum entanglement is weird,
therefore brains must work by quantum entanglement.

Johnathan

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Re: Help with mailing list configuration

2012-02-01 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:07 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am not the one helping you: I am a computer illitterate and use the
 Internet (since 1988) on a trial and error basis.

Thanks John, I appreciate your willingness to help.  However, my email
was a mild (and perhaps altogether ineffective) attempt at humor
poking fun at the amount list traffic devoted to unproductive arguing
on certain topics.

No worries.

Johnathan Corgan

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Help with mailing list configuration

2012-01-31 Thread Johnathan Corgan
I have a filter set in my mail software such that any Everything List
thread that has more than 20% of the comments by Craig Weinberg gets
put into a special folder.  I find this helps me to prioritize my
reading.

It's really working well!  But something must be wrong, as I haven't
seen any other threads come through in a long time.

Someone please help me debug my settings.

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: UDA reducing physics to number theory

2011-11-21 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 7:19 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 I will answer Johnathan's question asap, but I have three busy days and I
 want to take some time to do that. The answer is, imo, contained in the
 conclusion of UDA, and made clearer (technically) with AUDA, but I guess I
 shopuld explain this more clearly.

Bruno--thank you for your consideration, and of course please take as
much time as you like in composing an answer to my (admittedly
demanding) questions.  My hope is to spur further work in this area by
participants of this list; unfortunately, much of the maths are beyond
my current training.  And perhaps I am asking you to restate things
you already demonstrate in your thesis that I'm just not aware of.  If
so, it is not my intent to have you belabor the points on my behalf.

I very much look forward to your answers, whenever you have the
opportunity to write them down.

Thank you,

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: bruno list

2011-09-05 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 6:25 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote:

 You know, I was raised in the USSR where the official religion was atheism
 and materialism. The results were disastrous.

Um, I rather suspect the disaster was from having an official
religion, enforced by men with guns, regardless of whichever form it
took.  That would also include, of course, enforcing the lack of
religion, or atheism.

Johnathan

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Re: The Brain on Trial

2011-06-28 Thread Johnathan Corgan

 Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul have introduced a bill in the
 U.S. House of Representatives that would allow states to legalize or
 otherwise liberalize marijuana laws without interference from the
 federal government.
 
 Brent

Purely symbolic--it will never make it out of committee. Still, how
many House bills are co-authored by Frank and Paul?  Strange bedfellows
indeed.

Johnathan

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Re: Is QTI false?

2011-03-31 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Or something like that. Quantum logic (and also its arithmetical form) has
 many notion of implication. The one above is the closer to the Sazaki Hook
 which Hardegree used to show that orthomodularity in quantum ortholattice is
 related to the notion of counterfactual. You will find the reference in my
 papers.

 Unfortunately orthomodularity is still an open problem in the arithmetical
 'quantum logic'. Eric Vandenbusche is currently trying to optimize the G*
 theorem prover to get an answer.

And here I thought I was making progress in understanding Bruno's
thesis.  I clearly have a *long* way further to go in my studies :-)

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: UDA query

2010-01-08 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote:

 Isn't it?  Bruno presents comp as equivalent to betting that replacing
 your brain with a digitial device at the appropriate level of substitution
 will leave your stream of consciousness unaffected.  From this people are
 inferring that the discrete states of this digital brain instantiate
 observer moments.  But suppose (which I consider likely) the digital brain
 would have to have a cycle time of a billionth of a second or less.  I don't
 think you believe you have a different conscious thought every billionth of
 a second.  What it means is that a state of your consciousness corresponds
 to a million or so successive states of the digitial computation.  These
 sets of a million states can then of course overlap.  So the idea of
 discrete observer moments doesn't follow from yes doctor.

It's plausible that observer moments correspond to what are called
chaotic attractors in complex systems theory.

The brain passes through a complex, dynamic trajectory of states.  A
stable attractor is a cycle of discrete states that repeats exactly,
in the case of a limit cycle, or more often, retraces a similar but
not exact trajectory, in the case of a chaotic attractor.  Chaotic
attractors are robust to perturbation, up to a point, and many complex
systems can be characterized by a succession of chaotic attractors
separated by rapid transitions driven by external perturbations
exceeding some threshold.  I use the term meta-state as a synonym
for chaotic attractor in this context.

My working hypothesis is that nervous systems developed into complex
systems capable of generating quasi-stable meta-states which were
evolutionarily advantageous, and over (evolutionary) time, were able
to reach a level of organization which eventually produced
consciousness.

In this model, brains are continuously cycling through patterns of
firing, which, absent external stimuli, are self-sustaining in some
sort quasi-stable chaotic fashion, or meta-state.  Sensory input of
various types may be ignored if it doesn't reach a threshold of
activation which tips the brain into a new meta-state.  Or, novel
sensations may drive the system into a new meta-state (dynamic cycle)
that corresponds to some classification of that input in the context
of whatever the current meta-state is.

Observer moments, then, correspond to some subset of meta-states in
the brain.  They aren't discrete states of zero duration, but
trajectories of states in a chaotic cycle.  A succession of these
meta-states would then make up a stream-of-consciousness.

As an aside, I strongly suspect that in practice, our sensory input
serves to constrain the brain into a (relatively) small set of
meta-states that has allowed us to survive in a harsh evolutionary
context, and produces what may be called consensus reality (I think
Bruno calls this 1st-person plural.)  Other chaotic systems do spend
most of their time in a small subset of possible states.  Yet there is
evidence that perturbing the brain in a variety of ways (fasting,
breathing exercises, meditation, religious contemplation, drugs,
disease, injury, etc.) can allow it to wander off into meta-states
that are quite subjectively different from the typical states
associated with normal functioning.

All of the above speculation could still hold true in a
non-physicalist, computationalism-based view of consciousness, where
one would replace brain with computational substrate at appropriate
level of substitution.

Johnathan Corgan
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Re: Why I am I?

2009-12-05 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 All of this indicates that salvinorin A has potent but short-lived
 effects on the brain systems involved in memory, identity, body image
 and perception of time and space (along with a host of other effects
 not discussed here).  Regardless of one's view on the use of these
 substances to alter one's cognition, it seems there is a great
 opportunity to study these effects to zero in on how these brain
 systems are related to our subjective experience of reality.

 Very difficult task, but very interesting, and probably parts of the
 experience/experiments needed to build an artificial brain.

A double-blind study protocol to test for particular effects would be
difficult to design, no doubt.  I don't understand your reference to
the need for an artificial brain.

However, it would still be possible to carry out experimentation to
correlate subjective reports of these altered 1-pov percepts with
3-pov data obtained by FMRI, EEG, etc.  Unfortunately, current laws
in the U.S. restrict experimentation of this type to therapeutic
applications.  It is possible to test to see whether MDMA is a
successful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, but not, say
only to find out the dose/response curve for its psychedelic
properties.

Absent those types of studies, it would still be enormously
educational for someone to conduct a meta-analysis of the many
thousands of first-hand written and recorded reports of Salvia
Divinorum use.  While far from being a random sample, at least one
would have a better map of the territory to guide further research.

 Well, if we define a drug by something harmful and addictive, then
 salvia is not known to be a drug today, because there are no evidence
 it is harmful nor evidence it is addictive.

Indeed, animal studies to date have shown that salvinorin A
administration reduces the levels of dopamine in the portions of the
brain associated with addiction and craving, which is exactly opposite
the effects of strongly addictive and euphoriant drugs like cocaine
and methamphetamine.  Whether this is true in human brains remains to
be seen (and difficult to study due to reasons above).

In any case, this discussion is probably more relevant in other
forums.  I brought it up only because we frequently discuss
consciousness, memory and identity, and lo and behold there is a drug
which has radical effects on the subjective experience of all three,
and a body of written reports to examine.

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: Why I am I?

2009-12-04 Thread Johnathan Corgan
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote:

 I thought it was impossible to live that and to be able to come back from
 such an experience, but it happens that with salvia divinorum, some subject
 can live the experience of quasi-total amnesia, where not only you forget
 which human you are, but you can forget what a human is, what time is, what
 space is, and yet, retrospectively, after coming back, you realize that
 despite having forgot everything, you were still conscious, and you were
 still considering you as a living entity of some sort.

 I've not had that experience, but I might try it.  I think though that even
 in such a state one must have some short-term (~second) memory to have a
 human kind of consciousness.  Obviously you now have memories of what it was
 like.  I have known people with severe Alzheimer's disease who seemed merely
 reactive and apparently had no memory, even short term.  I don't think they
 were as conscious as my dog or the fish in my pond.

Experience reports of Salvia Divinorum (or salvinorin A, it's chief
psychoactive compound) use in the literature contain many common
themes related to memory deficits, and represent a fascinating
uncontrolled study in the phenomenology of consciousness.  There are
of course many concurrent effects (visual and auditory hallucinations,
somatic sensations, distortions of body image, etc.) shared with other
hallucinogens, but the impact on memory seems unique.

At typical dose levels resulting from smoking the plant leaves or
fortified extracts of the plant leaves, many users later report that
they had forgotten they had taken a drug, and were confused (and often
terrified) about why they were experiencing what they were.  This is
reported as a sudden onset phenomena, not a gradual one, and is often
compared to the feeling of waking up in a strange place with no memory
of how one got there.  This suggests that one action of the drug is to
disrupt the last few minutes of episodic memory formation.  However,
these same reports also state that as the effect of the drug began to
peak and then wear off, usually in a matter of a few minutes, the
users suddenly recalled the events leading up to their intoxicated
state.  This then suggests that, at these doses, the drug only
disrupts access to recent episodic memory, but the memory is still
formed for later recall.  This is different from the form of permanent
memory loss that occurs in head injury cases where the victim cannot
ever recall the moments leading up to, say, a vehicle collision.

At higher doses, a common theme is that (along with the prior episodic
amnestic effects) the user reports having forgotten key fundamental
concepts like what being human is or what space is.  This sort of
semantic memory loss is difficult to imagine, but it is fascinating
that even under such extreme conditions, the user is experiencing a
stream-of-consciousness that can later be recalled.  Less frequently,
reports at higher doses describe feeling like all of my prior reality
was a joke being played on me, and I was experiencing the REAL
reality, and everything that happened before was just a construction
or movie set.

Some users go on to report even more bizarre cases where they report
having lived another lifetime somewhere else, and are shocked and
dismayed when the drug begins to wear off that it was all a dream,
and that this reality is the real one.  This sounds like a more
extreme version of our normal REM sleep, where when dreaming, one
doesn't usually realize one is dreaming, but sorts things out upon
awakening.

Compounding these impacts on memory are reports of changes in body
image and identity.  One recurring theme (that is shared with other
hallucinogens) is the feeling of merging with objects in one's
visual field.  This is reported as both incorporating the physical
object into one's body image and changing one's perspective to be that
of the object.  In one case, a user reported that I actually KNEW
what it was like to be a swing set, to live every day in the
playground and be happy when children were using me, and sad when the
park was closed.

Another unique aspect of the effects of salvinorin A is its extremely
short-lived activity.  Most reports seem to indicate that the smoked
form of the drug wears off in as little as 10-15 minutes, completely
returning the user to baseline in less than a half-hour.

All of this indicates that salvinorin A has potent but short-lived
effects on the brain systems involved in memory, identity, body image
and perception of time and space (along with a host of other effects
not discussed here).  Regardless of one's view on the use of these
substances to alter one's cognition, it seems there is a great
opportunity to study these effects to zero in on how these brain
systems are related to our subjective experience of reality.

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: no-go for the penrose-hameroff proposal

2009-08-18 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Tue, 2009-08-18 at 11:09 -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:

 It has long been noted that microtubles are ubiquitous in the cells of other 
 organs, not 
 just in the brain.

While I find the Penrose/Hameroff proposal very unconvincing for other
reasons, this is not one of them.

There are many shared organelles that are in both neuronal and
non-neuronal cell bodies.  It is a matter of organizing them for use one
way or another.  The voltage-gated sodium ion channel pore used for
propagating an event potential down an axon is also present in cells
outside the nervous system, yet the brain is able to use them to effect
(dare I say?) computation.

So it is at least plausible that microtubules, though ubiquitous
throughout the body, have been recruited and honed by evolution to
operate in the fashion proposed by Penrose/Hameroff in the nervous
system.  

Personally, I think their whole agenda is misguided, an example of
brains are mysterious, quantum mechanics is mysterious, therefore,
brains operate using quantum mechanics.

The mystery of quantum mechanics largely disappears with no-collapse
and decoherence anyway.

Johnathan Corgan


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Re: Dreaming On

2009-08-07 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 11:35 -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:

 But as Bertrand Russell, David Hume and many mystics have pointed out you can 
 wake up and 
 realize there is consciousness but the I that possesses it is a fiction.

There are also many common reports of what is colloquially called ego
loss in the hallucinogenic literature.  Users report the experience of
being conscious in that they are awake, perceiving sensory data, and
performing motor functions, but they have no sense of self or I.

Johnathan Corgan


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Re: The seven step series

2009-07-10 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Fri, 2009-07-10 at 22:24 +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 I suddenly feel sorry putting too much burden on just one  
 correspondent in the list, and I would appreciate if someone else  
 could propose answers or any remarks to the exercises.

Bruno--you're doing great.  I think it is the case where silence means
I understand, continue, rather than disinterest.

 There is also some sort of burden onto me, because it is hard to  
 explain the real thing concerning the seventh step, without  
 explaining or just illustrating at least some relevant portion of the  
 mathematical reality: mainly the unexpected mathematical discovery of  
 the universal functions, sets, numbers, systems, language, machine ...  
 I don't mention the absence of drawing ability which does not help.

The derivation of your thesis from first principles is a very compelling
idea.  The somewhat startling and unorthodox conclusions you espouse are
bound to cause confusion unless all their underpinnings are well
understood.  The arguments from others then can have a much more
specific target than the top-level conclusions; instead they will come
out earlier in the derivation process and at the time of introduction of
the controversial subject.

 The knowledge of most people participating to the discussion is very  
 varied, due to the extreme transdiciplinarity of the subject, and the  
 interest it can evidently have for the layman (and indeed, for any  
 universal machine).

While I do have training in math and physics, I still benefit from your
targeting the motivated layman.  Personally, I'm not interested in doing
the exercises on the list, but they are still useful to check my
understanding.

 Best regards to all of you, and thanks for letting me know your  
 interests,

By all means, proceed.  Personally, if I don't understand something or
have an objection, you'll hear about it on the list, but I think you
should take silence as assent.

Johnathan Corgan



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The seven step series

2009-06-29 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Bruno,

I think you were off to a good start with your planned series of posts
about the seven step argument.  I believe your first installment was a
discussion of set theory as one of the mathematical preliminaries to the
actual argument.

I am looking forward to your next installment.

Regards,

Johnathan Corgan



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Re: Consciousness is information?

2009-04-29 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 10:28 -0500, Jason Resch wrote:

 It
 would seem the way the brain is organized it doesn't accept perception
 of pure randomness (at least not for long, I have not yet tried the
 experiment myself).  If it can't find patterns from the senses it
 looks like it gives up and invents patterns of its own.

It is perhaps the other way around.  The portion(s) of the brain
responsible for qualia perception appear to operate as a complex,
dynamical system with a variety of chaotic attractors, and sensory
information only serves to nudge this system from one set of attractor
cycles to another.  In the absence of sensory input, these then operate
in open loop mode, and the person may experience all variety of
interesting qualia uncorrelated with the real world.

The overall mechanism of dissociative anaesthetic agents such as
Ketamine or nitrous oxide is poorly understood, but one notable property
they have is that in sub-clinical dosages they suppress sensory input
while retaining consciousness.  This results in similar, open loop
qualia.

Johnathan Corgan


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Re: [Fwd: NDPR David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction]

2009-03-04 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 12:25 +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:

  The no-cul-de-sac hypothesis is false if you allow that there is some
  means of destroying all copies in the multiverse. But there is
  probably no such means, no matter how advanced the aliens.

 Indeed, that would be like if a number could make disappear another  
 number. Even a God cannot do that!

We are a collection of particles, though the exact arrangement and
constitution of such is constantly changing.  Yet, under most
circumstances, from moment to moment our instantaneous state follows a
trajectory such that this state continues to be a member of the larger
class that is me, being conscious.  

It is again the situation of many microstates mapping to one higher
level, emergent macrostate according to some membership function, the
exact nature of which depends on your specific theory of identity.

The no cul-de-sac conjecture, more precisely, states that as the
wavefunction of our present collection of particles unitarily evolves
there will always be at least one decoherent branch of it that continues
to satisfy the macrostate membership function that is me, being
conscious, delays and copies notwithstanding.

It is at least conceivable that the collection of particles that is me
could undergo some environmental interaction such that *all* the
following entangled branches decohere into states that do *not* map to
the emergent class of me, being conscious.  Then I would be dead.

There are many questions/assumptions in the above line of reasoning.
What is the macrostate membership function that defines a set of
particles as me? As the set becomes entangled with its environment, how
and when does one decoherent branch then decohere into one or more new
branches (that are still me)? Presumably, our digital level of
substitution is much higher than the exact quantum state of this
collection of particles.  What microstate changes don't make a
difference, which do?

Johnathan Corgan



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Re: Copying?

2009-02-21 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Sat, 2009-02-21 at 15:25 -0500, Stephen Paul King wrote:

 Does this allow us to recover our method X? No, because unless the
 copy is identical, not just approximate,  we can not conclude that
 any notion of continuance of consciousness might obtain. 

It is possible (I think likely) that there is a many-to-one relationship
between exact quantum states and one conscious state, or observer
moment.  To put into Bruno's terminology, the your digital substitution
level would then be at a higher level than the exact quantum state.

If this is the case, then the method X of copying only needs to ensure
that the resultant quantum state stays within the common higher level
state to ensure continuity.

To use a thermodynamic analogy, which I find increasingly useful to
visualize these sorts of things, if the above many-to-one hypothesis
holds true, then multiple microstates map to a single macrostate.
Continuity of personal identity would allow a change in microstates
(i.e., quantum states) during copying, as long as the resultant
microstate still belonged to the same macrostate (observer moment).  

Of course, what the defining function of membership of quantum states
within an observer moment that would preserve personal identity is
unknown.  Still, as long as there is a many-to-one relationship, then
the no-cloning theorem does not rule out transfer of identity through
your method X.

Johnathan Corgan



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ASSA vs. RSSA and the no cul-de-sac conjecture was (AB continuity)

2009-02-11 Thread Johnathan Corgan

While I wasn't around for the original ASSA vs. RSSA arguments on the
list here, and I'm sure I'm risking a rehash of things back then, the
recent traffic over adult vs. child and AB continuity seems to
revolve around this anyway.

It seems intuitively obvious to me that from a 1st-person perspective, I
have to treat successor observer moments with a /conditional/
probability.  My next observer moment I face would be selected from
among only those where a), I am conscious, and b) those with memories of
this one, or more generally, with a causal thread of continuity with
this one (unitary evolution of SW).  So my subjective expectation would
then be the absolute probability of those occurring conditioned on, or
given, that the one I'm in now has already occurred.

It is an open question (to me at least) whether there are any observer
moments without successors, i.e., where the amplitude of the SW goes to
zero.  If it does not, then this implies that the always branching tree
of observer moments has no leaf nodes--rather, it becomes an ever finer
filigree of lines, but any particular point will always have a
downstream set of forks.  This is the essence of the no cul-de-sac
conjecture, and the crux of the quantum theory of immortality.

If the above is true, then the absolute measure of an observer moment
becomes irrelevant; it's clear that as one traces through a particular
branch it would always be dramatically decreasing anyway.  But the
relative measure of my next observer moment to this one becomes the
thing that drives my expectations of what I am likely to experience.
Indeed, some version of me experiences all of them, but each split copy
of me can only say to himself, what I am experiencing now was likely
(or unlikely) given where I was a moment ago.

Johnathan Corgan


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Re: QTI euthanasia

2008-11-14 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 10:46 -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:

 That was my point.  The SWE indicates that every microscopic event that 
 happens or doesn't happen stochastically splits the wave function.  But 
 these events don't generally cause a split of Kory or other classical 
 objects.  Those objects are not in some pure state anyway.  They are 
 already fuzzy and their interaction with the environment keeps the 
 fuzzy bundle along the classical path.  There are microscopic splittings 
 that are 'within' the fuzz, but I think these are far below the 
 substitution level envisioned for your teleporter thought experiment.

I think you've hit on an area that is sufficiently ill-understood by a
layman like me to warrant further elaboration.

It seems to me there is a strong similarity here with statistical
mechanics.  If I might speak loosely, there are a large number of
quantum states that correspond to microstates of the system, while
being Kory is a macrostate.  Most microstate trajectories stay
within the boundaries of a single macrostate trajectory.  But sometimes
the microstate trajectories can diverge enough, due to an amplification
process, to cause the macrostate trajectory to divide into two.

(This of course leaves out definitions of all the above, but I hope you
get the gist of it.)

To me this makes much more intuitive sense than using words like
universes splitting into copies, or even many worlds.

Part of my difficulty in grasping some of the discussion here is that we
tend to speak of aggregrate objects consisting of many particles, yet
refer to quantum properties of individual particles when discussing
superposition, etc.  I get the single particle stuff fairly well, but
it's the transition to large systems of particles that have an aggregate
identity of me that I think is sometimes glossed over.

In statistical mechanics, aggregates have properties and behavior (like
temperature, pressure, and density) that don't exist in single particle
systems.  Likewise, macroscopic objects have independent identities
(macrostates) that persist even when their component particles go
through many changes at the atomic level.

I'm almost to the point where I understand how decoherence causes the
above to be true...

-Johnathan





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Re: How would a computer know if it were conscious?

2007-06-07 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Brent Meeker wrote:

 The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many
 children as you can raise through puberty.  Avoiding death should
 only be a subgoal.

It should go a little further than puberty--the accumulated wisdom of
grandparents may significantly enhance the survival chances of their
grandchildren, more so than the decrease in available resources in the
environment they might consume.

So I agree that once you have sired all the children you ever will, it
makes sense from an evolutionary perspective to get out of the
way--that is, stop competing with them for resources.  But the timing
of your exit is probably more optimal somewhat after they have their own
children, if you can help them to get a good start.

I do wonder if evolutionary fitness is more accurately measured by the
number of grandchildren one has than by the number of children.  Aside
from the assistance line of reasoning above, in order to propagate,
one must be able to have children that are capable of having children
themselves.

Johnathan Corgan

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Re: ASSA and Many-Worlds

2007-01-24 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 If some multiverse theory happens to be true then by your way of argument we 
 should all be extremely anxious all the time, because every moment terrible 
 things 
 are definitely happening to some copy of us. For example, we should be 
 constantly 
 be worrying that we will be struck by lightning, because we *will* be struck 
 by lightning. 

If MWI is true, *and* there isn't a lowest quantum of
probability/measure as Brent Meeker speculates, there is an interesting
corollary to the quantum theory of immortality.

While one branch always exists which continues our consciousness
forward, indeed we are constantly shedding branches where the most
brutal and horrific things happen to us and result in our death.  Their
measure is extremely small, so from a subjectively probability
perspective, we don't worry about them.

I'd speculate that there are far more logically possible ways to
experience an agonizing, lingering death than to live.  Some have a
relatively high measure, like getting hit by a car, or getting lung
cancer (if you're a smoker), so we take steps to avoid these (though
they still happen in some branch.)  Others, like having all our
particles spontaneously quantum tunnel into the heart of a burning
furnace, are so low in measure, we can blissfully ignore the
possibility.  Yet if MWI is true, there is some branch where this has
just happened to us. (modulo Brent's probability quantum.)

If there are many more ways to die than to live, even of low individual
measure, I wonder how the integral of the measure across all of them
comes out.

-Johnathan

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RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)

2006-12-28 Thread Johnathan Corgan


On Fri, 2006-12-29 at 00:37 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Sure, it's a defect in the brain chemistry, but the delusional person will give 
you his reasons for his belief: 


[...]

This is very similar to the arguments of people with religious convictions, who will cite 
evidence in support of their beliefs up to a point, but it soon becomes clear that no 
matter how paltry this evidence is shown to be, they will still maintain their belief. 


I do wonder how many non-religious beliefs are the same way, i.e.,
incorrigible in spite of the absence of evidence, or even contrary to
evidence, simply because they are convenient or permeate one's
surrounding culture.

The difference is that these people do not change their way of thinking in response to 
antipsychotic medication.


Which is fascinating to behold, as I have witnessed this very same, in
both directions, on many occasions, as patients have gone on and off
their medication.  They will also go to great lengths to justify their
change in belief structure when it's obvious it's the effect of the
chemical on their disease process.

There is a subtlety to the religious qualification you make above,
however.  There are indeed religious-oriented delusions which go away on
medication, but they tend to be ones that were only acquired through the
course of the patient's illness.  Those acquired through detailed
indoctrination in youth tend to be unaffected, as you mention.

-Johnathan


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RE: Numbers, Machine and Father Ted

2006-11-10 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 00:30 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

  http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm
 
 Great article! I initially thought that it was written by some poor, honest 
 Christian 
 genuinely struggling with the logical consequences of his beliefs. But then 
 such a 
 person would quickly either fall back on blind faith or reject his beliefs as 
 false, so 
 there can't be many around. 

One thing that stands out about this author is his even-handed,
non-strident walk through of his argument, taking claims regarding
prayer and statements in the Christian bible at face value.  There is no
politicizing, sarcasm, or innuendo.  It's almost as if he very strongly
wants these claims to be true but is forced to conclude they are not
through irrefutable logic.  

We certainly could use more people this eloquent in their presentation!

-Johnathan


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Re: Numbers, Machine and Father Ted

2006-11-08 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 09:39 -0800, Brent Meeker wrote:

  Good old-fashioned miracles are not lawlike, which is what makes them
  subject to empirical verification. If God is a Protestant, then an
  examination of a list of lottery ticket winners or people with
  serious illnesses should show that Protestants are statistically more
  likely to have their prayers answered than Catholics, Muslims or
  atheists (who wish for things, even if they don't actually pray). If
  not, then either God is not a Protestant or there is no point in
  praying for anything even if you and he are both Protestants. And yet
  I doubt that there are any Protestants, Catholics or Muslims who be
  at all perturbed by the findings of such a study, or countless other
  possible studies or experiments. 
 
 That's because for hundreds, if not thousands, of years their theologians 
 have had to explain why their God is invisible, unnoticable, 
 incompehensible, and undetectable.  So a null experimental outcome, 
 like the recent studies of the efficacy of healing prayer, is ho-hum.

For a rather lengthy, straight-faced treatment of intercessory prayer
and victims of amputation:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm

-Johnathan



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Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)

2006-10-05 Thread Johnathan Corgan

On Thu, October 5, 2006 11:49, markpeaty wrote:

 That said, I read with interest a year or two ago about certain kinds
 of insects [I think they are in North America somewhere] which lie
 dormant in the earth in some pre-adult stage for a PRIME number of
 years, 11, 13, were chosen by different species. Apparently the payoff
 for this strategy is that few predator species can match this length of
 time, and repeating cycles of shorter periods cannot 'resonate' so as
 to launch a large cohort of predators when the prey species produces
 its glut after waiting for the prime number of years.

An alternative hypothesis put forth, equally plausible to me, is that
different species co-evolved to be dormant different prime numbers of
years.  This would  create the minimum competition for environmental
resources as they came out of their dormant period; prime numbers having
the largest least common multiple.

Of course they didn't do this with any intention or awareness; natural
selection on random variations in dormancy period length would favor this
kind of outcome.

-Johnathan

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Re: Russell's book

2006-09-12 Thread Johnathan Corgan

David Nyman wrote:

[re: QTI]
 This has obvious
 implications for retirement planning in general and avoidance of the
 more egregious cul-de-sac situations. On the other hand, short of
 outright lunacy vis-a-vis personal safety, it also seems to imply that
 from the 1st-person pov we are likely to come through (albeit possibly
 in less-than-perfect shape) even apparently minimally survivable
 situations. This struck me particularly forcibly while watching the
 9/11 re-runs on TV last night.

It's the cul-de-sac situations that interest me.  Are there truly any?
Are there moments of consciousness which have no logically possible
continuation (while remaining conscious?)

It seems the canonical example is surviving a nearby nuclear detonation.
 One logical possibility is that all your constituent particles
quantum-tunnel away from the blast in time.

This would be of extremely low measure in absolute terms, but what about
the proportion of continuations that contain you as a conscious entity?

This also touches on a recent thread about how being of low measure
feels. If QTI is true, and I'm subject to a nuclear detonation, does it
matter if my possible continuations are of such a low relative measure?
Once I'm in them, would I feel any different and should I care?

These questions may reduce to something like, Is there a lower limit to
the amplitude of the SWE?

If measure is infinitely divisible, then is there any natural scale to
its absolute value?

I raised a similar question on the list a few months ago when Tookie
Wiliams was in the headlines and was eventually executed by the State of
California.  What possible continuations exist in this situation?

 In effect, we are being presented with a kind of 'yes doctor' in
 everyday life. Do you find that these considerations affect your own
 behaviour in any way?

A very interesting question.

If my expectation is that QTI is true and I'll be living for a very long
time, I may adjust my financial planning accordingly.  But QTI only
applies to my own first-person view; I'll be constantly shedding
branches where I did indeed die.  If I have any financial dependents, do
I provide for their welfare, even if they'll only exist forever outside
my ability to interact with?

-Johnathan

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Re: Russell's book

2006-09-12 Thread Johnathan Corgan

David Nyman wrote:

 Is this in fact your expectation? And do you so plan? Forgive me if
 this seems overly personal, but I'm fascinated to discover if anyone
 actually acts on these beliefs.

It's not overly personal; I brought it up in fact.

But personally, no, I don't act on these beliefs because they are not
mine.  That is, I've not established to my satisfaction that QTI is
correct.  However, I do have an intense interest and must admit I want
it to be true.  Alas, I may only find out when I look around and wonder
why I'm the only 150 year old person :-)

It does seem to me the theory hinges on whether cul-de-sac's exist or
not, hence my earlier questioning.  I've already accepted the essential
underlying MWI explanation.

-Johnathan

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Re: Russell's book

2006-09-12 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Brent Meeker wrote:

 Everett who originated the MWI thought about QTI.  Although he never 
 explicitly said 
 he believed it, he led a very unhealthy life style smoking, drinking, eating 
 to 
 excees, never exercising and he died young, of a heart attack IIRC.  So some 
 of his 
 acquaintences have speculated that he did really believe in QTI.

Well, that's not quite rational--what is the quality of life (utility)
that succeeds surviving a heart attack?

If QTI is true, and I'm going to live a very long time, it would not
only motivate me to plan for the long term, but also to be much more
careful about my health--I'll be living in this body for much longer
than ~73 years!

-Johnathan

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Re: Technical paper on 3-dimensional time

2006-01-23 Thread Johnathan Corgan
Marc Geddes wrote:
 This is very recent (late 2005):

 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0510010

I've read this and the author's prior two papers on multi-dimensional time.

It appears that his mathematical formulation is able describe a variety
of quantum-mechanical properties by adding one or more additional time
dimensions to the classical derivations of motion, momentum, energy,
etc. As a result he ends up with a 3-space, 3-time dimension theory that
is simple and elegant. (The additional two time dimensions are closed
loops on the scale of the Plank length.)

I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough on the subject to pick out any
logical errors.  However, the papers are somewhat disorganized so it's
hard to see what assumptions are being made or what contradictions with
established theories or experiment there might be.  This also may be a
language issue as it's clear English is not the author's native tongue.

But--the papers do not make any testable predictions that I can see,
which is a big red flag.

In addition, the author is a wave function collapse kind of guy. I'm
curious how his derivation would hold up from the MWI perspective.

-Johnathan



Re: Technical paper on 3-dimensional time

2006-01-23 Thread Johnathan Corgan
Norman Samish wrote:

 I realize that there are unsolved problems in quantum mechanics that can be 
 solved by adding dimensions, whether spatial or time.  I also know that 
 added dimensions are describable mathematically, and that some (Tegmark) 
 hold that this makes them real.  However, as Jonathan points out with 
 respect to Geddes's speculation, extra dimensions are not yet testable. 
 Until they are, we can just as well invoke fairy dust - or God - or 
 whatever - to explain the QM problems.

If a theory makes predictions that are not testable, even in principle,
then it is not a scientific theory and we ignore it.

If a theory makes predictions that are testable in principle but not yet
in practical terms, one can still falsify it by demonstrating that it
fails retrodiction of experimentally demonstrated facts.

This latter was one concern I had about the referenced papers.  Barring
logical errors, his equations resulting from treating 3-space 3-time in
a classical way are able to explain particle spin, charge
quantization, the exclusion principle, wave function probabilities, and
a host of other things related to electromagnetism and gravity.  But do
they also imply things we have already experimentally demonstrated to be
false? (I personally don't have the training or skills to answer this
question.)

Even if a theory survives these two criteria--it makes predictions that
are testable in principle (even if not yet in practical terms), and it
is consistent with all known experimental facts--we can still rank it
vs. competing theories using Ockham's Razor.

I don't think we can equate Chen's Three Dimensional Time Theory with
God or fairy dust, as the God theory is not scientific and the fairy
dust theory lacks the explanatory power seen in Chen's papers.

So I'm back to my original questions.  On it's own merits, does Chen's
theory make predictions testable in principle, even if not yet feasible?
Does is retrodict known experimental facts?  Is it simpler in the Ockham
sense than prevailing theories?

The papers themselves do not address these questions. I'm looking for
others on the list to comment.

-Johnathan




Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

2005-12-31 Thread Johnathan Corgan
Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

 There are many ways to escape from this scenario. If you are Tookie, you
 will find yourself shunted into increasingly less likely situations: not
 being caught in the first place; being caught but not being found
 guilty; being sentenced to death but getting off on appeal; being
 pardoned by the Governer at the last moment; finding that you are one of
 the 1/billion people who have a natural resistance to the lethal agent.

Only your last scenario is causally connected to having received a
lethal injection.  What does shunted mean in the above?  Once I
experience having had the injection, how would I get shunted to any of
the preceding outcomes?

 If that all falls through, you might find that your arrest and execution
 was all part of a dream, or that you were actually executed but your
 head was preserved and you were resurrected as a computer upload in the
 future, or you were resurrected as a result of brute force emulation of
 every possible human mind in the very far future. These latter
 possibilities may be more likely than quantum tunneling to a tropical
 island, but in the final analysis, however unlikely the escape route may
 be, if its probability is non-zero, then it *has* to happen, doesn't it?

These scenarios are all causally connected to having been lethally
injected.  But your final question goes to the heart of the issue I
raised.  What is the likeliest scenario which includes the memory of
being lethally injected?  Are there always non-zero probability
outcomes, which, according to MWI, must be realized somewhere?

-Johnathan



Re: Quantum Immortality and Information Flow

2005-12-31 Thread Johnathan Corgan
Saibal Mitra wrote:

 To me it seems that the notion of ''successor'' has to break down at cases
 where the observer can die. The Tookies that are the most similar to the
 Tookie who got executed are the ones who got clemency. There is no objective
 reason why these Tookies should be excluded as ''successors''. They miss the
 part of their memories about things that happened after clemency was denied.
 Instead of those memories they have other memories. We forget things all the
 time. Sometimes we remember things that didn't really happen. So, we allow
 for information loss anyway. My point is then that we should forget about
 all of the information contained in the OM and just sample from the entire
 set of OMs.

(After being away for a couple weeks, I'd like to follow up with yours
and others replies.)

I find this line of argument hard to follow.  I think where we differ is
that I assume there must be some physical causality connecting observer
moments.

That is, if a person is in physical state A and is experiencing state
E(A), then their next subjective moment E(B) must have some connected,
causal path between physical state A and physical state B. This
reasoning makes the materialist assumption that subjective experience E
is entirely defined by the physical state of the observer.

According to MWI, physical state A actually evolves into a superposition
of discrete physical states B, each with a different density or
measure.  So, by the logic of the previous paragraph, subjective
experience E(A) must evolve into a superposition of discrete Es, each a
function of the particular discrete physical state B it arises from, and
each with a particular measure.

Some subset of this superposition of physical states B, however, do not
support the creation of subjective experience (say, where the person has
died.)  So some proportion of E(B)'s are null.

So my original question about what is happening to Tookie now can be
rephrased as the following thought experiment:

Physical state A is Tookie lying on a gurney, experiencing E(A), which
is getting injected with lethal toxin by the State of California.

Clearly, the vast majority of the elements of superposition of states B
which follow the execution are with him being dead, and do not give rise
to any subjective experience at all.

What are the possibilities for causally connected physical states which
don't involve his death?  Which B's exist which continue to give rise to
new E(B)'s?

In other words, which observer moments for Tookie exist which include
the memories of his having received the lethal injection, but not of
dying as a result?

Does there have to be any at all?  QTI says yes, there must be, and no
matter how unlikely--there is always escape in some form.  What was
Tookie's?

-Johnathan



Re: ROSS MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE - The Simplest Yet Theory of Everything

2005-10-04 Thread Johnathan Corgan
John Ross wrote:

 My April 18, 2005 version of my Theory of Everything has recently been
 published as a patent application.  You can view it at the United States
 Patent Office web site by going to www.uspto.gov .  Click search then
 click Published Number Search under Published Applications.  Then type
 in my Patent Application Number: 20050182607.

Is it April 1st yet?  No?  How unfortunate--I wonder how often the USPTO
 has to deal with sort of thing.



Is 'Measure' infinitely divisible?

2005-09-07 Thread Johnathan Corgan
When considering possible continuations of observer-moments, one
speaks of dividing one's measure among them such that any succeeding
observer-moment has a relative proportion consistent with the quantum
amplitude of its wave function. (Or something like that.)

My first question is: Can this go on indefinitely?  Based on my
understanding of MWI, the answer is yes, but I haven't seen this
addressed before.  I think another way to ask this is, can the amplitude
of a wave function ever go to zero for all values of it's dependent
variable?  (Forgive me if this is an ill-formed question, I'm still
sorting out in my own mind what I'm trying to figure out.)

Secondly, there are value-judgment arguments made here on the list about
the desirability of taking certain actions based on the anticipated
observer-measure that would result from them, such as implied by Lee
Corbin's recent comment:

 Not sure I entirely understand, but it seems to me that we survive in
 Harry potter like universes, but only get very little runtime there
 (i.e. have very low measure in those).

I can understand the argument that one's present expectation value of an
possible outcome is related to the proportion of one's measure that
would continue in that branch of the wave function.

But here is where my first question has implications--if measure has
some finite lower bound, then eventually, all roads lead to zero at some
point.  An observer would have a strong motivation to take actions which
maximize one's future measure integral, to stave off this impending
non-existence as long as possible.

If, on the other hand, measure is infinitely divisible, then there will
always be a branch that will continue.

Finally, here's my second question: Does being in a low measure branch
somehow feel different from being in a high measure branch?  To take
the canonical example, let's say one is next to that 20 megaton H-Bomb
when it detonates.  In one branch, with a very very tiny fraction of
one's current measure, one will find himself magically tunneled and
reformed somewhere away from the danger.  The expectation value of this
happening, of course is tiny, but is non-zero, so it does happen
somewhere in the multiverse.

Now, finding oneself, after the fact, having survived the blast by
quantum tunneling, one realizes one is in a low measure branch of his
wave function.  But does it really matter?  If measure is infinitely
divisible, I don't think it does.  But if measure can run out, then
I've just brought that point in time much closer. (Of course, one could
then also argue that the quantum amplitude of surviving the blast would
likely fall below this threshold, so there would be no continuer at all.)

I've seen references to something called the no cul-de-sac theorem,
which sounds like what I'm talking about, but I can't seem to find out
more about it in Google or Wikipedia.

I also think what I've been discussing is related to the RSSA and ASSA
concepts, but I don't understand those well enough.  I think I've been
assuming RSSA here in my argument though.

Thoughts?

-Johnathan



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Re: where do copies come from?

2005-07-10 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

It is likely that multiple error correction and negative 
feedback systems are in place to ensure that small changes are not 
chaotically amplified to cause gross mental changes after a few seconds, 


On the other hand, the above may be precisely how consciousness operates!

Picture a system that traverses through many different states as 
chaotic attractor cycles, and outside stimuli act to nudge the system 
between grossly different chaotic attractors.  You have a system that 
needs to be exquisitely tuned to subtle input changes, yet also robust 
in the face of other types of changes (damage, etc.)


In the brain, these state trajectories would be neuronal firing 
patterns and synaptic chemical gradients.  Determining the chaotic 
attractors themselves would be neuronal morphology and ion channel types 
and locations.


The short-term information about a brain might not need to be stored 
in order to reconstruct a brain.  That is, individual neuron on-off 
states and synaptic chemical gradients may be how you feel and what you 
are thinking this moment--but discarding (or not measuring) this info 
might only mean the reconstructed brain would start from some blank 
state.  Chaotic attractor dynamics would pull the system into one of 
the aforementioned chaotic cycles and the system as a whole would 
eventually recreate the short-term firing patterns and chemical 
gradients needed for normal functioning.


(The above might be wrong in particulars, but I strongly suspect the 
concept of small changes perturbing a chaotic system to shift between 
chaotic attractors will play a role in the ultimate explanation of how 
neuronal processes give rise to conscious experience.)


-Johnathan




Re: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)

2005-06-30 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Jonathan Colvin wrote:


I've sometimes wondered whether some anaesthetics might work this way: put
you into a state of paralysis, and affect your short term memory. So you
actually experience the doctor cutting you open, with all the concommitant
pain, but you can't report it at the time and forget about it afterwards. If
you knew an anaesthetic worked that way, would you agree to have it used on
you for surgery?


Here is a similar situation.

I had a medical procedure performed using something called conscious 
sedation.  In this technique, a drug was administered (Versed in my 
case) which allowed me to retain consciousness and even engage my doctor 
in conversation.  Yet no long term memories were laid down.


This temporary anterograde amnesia is the same experience as above, 
except I wasn't paralyzed and was free to report any experienced pain to 
 my doctor.


In my case, this was a (supposedly) mildly painful procedure, yet I in 
fact have a puzzling gap in my continuity of memory and have no 
recollection of any pain (or of anything else) during that time period. 
 For all I know, I was in agony and had to be in full restraints to 
allow things to proceed--without anyone telling me what happened, I have 
no way to know.


Today I'd do this again without hesitation.  I wish my dentist were 
licensed to do this so the next time I have to have a root canal I can 
have no memory of it afterwards.


(As an aside, Versed is quick to act but slow to recover.  It's very 
difficult to describe the 1st person experience here but I have memories 
of something I can only call gradual awareness that got better over a 
period of a couple hours, yet the nursing staff said I was talking to 
them on and off during this whole period.  Weird.)


-Johnathan



Re: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)

2005-06-30 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Lee Corbin wrote:


When I was in high school, I read that dentists were considering
use of a new anasthetic with this property. I was revolted, and
even more revolted when none of my friends could see anything
wrong with it.

Experiences are real, whether you remember them or not.


It's interesting how different people react to things.  I've actually 
been through this (see previous post); it's not theoretical for me.  And 
I would do it again, and wish my dentist could use this technique.


(Of course, in my case, is was for a semi-surgical procedure that I 
could probably have withstood with conscious sedation; I don't think I'd 
choose this for open heart surgery!)


Here is a case where I voluntarily chose to undergo a mildly painful 
experience with the foreknowledge that I would have no recall of it.  I 
am none the worse for it.  Did I experience pain?  Yes, so I am told. 
 Was that experience real?  Sure.  Can I relive that experience in my 
memory?  Not a chance.  And that's how I wanted it.  What is so 
revolting about it?


What's behind the strong emotion here?  (You seem to have had a similar 
reaction to the events depicted in Brin's Kiln People.)


-Johnathan



Re: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)

2005-06-30 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Johnathan Corgan wrote:
(Of course, in my case, is was for a semi-surgical procedure that I 
could probably have withstood with conscious sedation; I don't think I'd 

   ^^ without
-Johnathan



Re: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)

2005-06-30 Thread Johnathan Corgan

Russell Standish wrote:


This leads to a speculation that memories are an essential requirement
for consciousness...


I agree.  Had I known then what I know now, I would have asked the 
nursing staff and doctor to question me in detail about my first person 
experience *while it was happening*, since all I can think about now is 
how I felt before and after.


Was I oriented to time, place, who I was, and what was happening to me?

Did my first person experience of consciousness seem any different? 
(Aside from the obvious mellowness that any sedative induces.)


While I was undergoing the procedure, and feeling the pain, did I regret 
the decision to be awake but not remember later?


Knowing that I would forget this, is there anything about what I was 
experiencing that I'd want to be noted so I could read about it afterward?


etc.

So I do wonder, if I was awake and responding accurately to verbal 
cues, but not laying down memories, was I really conscious?  Of 
course, it *seems* to me now that I was unconscious the whole time, with 
some odd emergent effects as the Versed wore off.  But as I've 
gathered from reading folks like Dennett, what things seem like and what 
actually is happening can be very different things.


Performing the question  answer session described above is at least 
part of my willingness to undergo conscious sedation again.


-Johnathan







Questions about MWI and mathematical formalism

2004-05-03 Thread Johnathan Corgan
I'm a layperson fascinated with quantum mechanics and the MWI, and have
reached a point where to obtain a better understanding of the
qualitative descriptions (universes splitting, measure of a
universe, etc.) I must learn the mathematical formalism.  It appears
that the popular descriptions of MWI use very loose terminology, and I
suspect much has been lost in translation.
Digging through online sources such as MathWorld, Wikipedia, and
CiteSeer, as well as reviving painful memories of matrix algebra from
university (CS), I think I've learned enough to be dangerous.  Below is
a set of (possibly incorrect) statements and questions I have.
-=-=-=-

Let |phi represent the quantum mechanical state of a system S as a
vector in Hilbert space.  The state is determined by the angle of the
vector, not it's length.  So any state multiplied by a constant is the
same physical state of the system. (Correct? Is this by decree or does
it fall out of something more fundamental?)
Let A represent a Hermitian operator corresponding to some observable of
the system S
Let {l} represent the set of eigenvalues for operator A such that

A|phi = l|phi

And finally:

{|An} is the set of eigenvectors for operator A corresponding to {l}

This set of eigenvectors (if I understand correctly) form an orthonormal
basis for the possible states of S, such that if S is in a state phi
which is not an eigenvector of observable A, it may be represented as a
linear combination of such eigenvectors:
(1)  |phi = c1|A1 + c2|A2 + ... + cn|An

In the case where |phi is indeed an eigenvector of A, then one of the
constants cn is 1 while the remainder are 0.
So far so good (I hope.)  Here are my questions:

A) What is the physical meaning of equation (1) above?  Is this what is
meant when a system is described as being in a superposition of states
that are measured by A?  Is superposition the accepted term in the MWI
or is there another?
B) In the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI), the collapse postulate states
that (somehow) as a result of a measurement, |phi actually changes to
one of {|An} with a probability related to {cn}, though I'm not sure of
the particulars.  How do you describe the probability (within the CI) of
obtaining measurement l from state |phi based on equation (1) ?  This
is the Born rule, I think, but I haven't quite grasped the math.
C) In MWI, there is no collapse postulate.  When a measurement occurs,
the quantum mechanical state of the measuring device (and ultimately the
observer) becomes a superposition as well, with each observer becoming
a linear combination of states corresponding the effect the measured
outcome has on the observer. Is this the technical meaning of splitting
universes?
D) Even in the case where the spectrum of A is discrete, the set of
constants {cn} in (1) can take on continuous values.  When an observer
splits as a result of measuring A on S, how many splits occur?  Is
there an infinity of them, each corresponding to a different set of
constants {cn}?  Or, is there a split only into the number of
eigenvectors of A, since cn|An represents the same physical state
regardless of the numerical value of cn?
E) What is the measure associated with each of the observer states
resulting from D?  How is this mathematically related to the
probability values from B)?
F) What happens when you use a different observable B?  How do the
answers to C), D), and E) change when observables A and B have different
sets of eigenvectors?  Is this the preferred basis problem?
Struggling but determined to figure this out,

-Johnathan