subject:"Re\: Edge.org\: 2014 \: WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT\? The Computational Metaphor"


Thanks for the explanation, Richard.
Bruno


On 26 Jan 2014, at 23:23, Richard Ruquist wrote:





On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:09 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:05, Richard Ruquist wrote:





On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


On 24 Jan 2014, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body  
problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed  
with comp, it is the concrete laptop which appears as an  
(unconscious preprogrammed) idealization.


Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.

No need in reifying it. You need just to believe in their truth.



For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the  
planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but  
he uses a complex universal machine to fail us on this.


Yes I appreciate this viewpoint.  Actually I'm pretty agnostic  
about what's really real.  At any given time it's the ontology of  
our best theory; where best is not sharply defined but is  
measured by some mixture of predictive power, consilience,  scope,  
definiteness, and accuracy.


OK.


Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it seems very  
weak on the other measures.


I am not sure. If comp is correct, and if there is no flaw in UDA,  
comp predicts the existence of physical laws. I don't know of any  
other theory doing that. And it is constructive, we get already the  
quantum logic, and they have to define the whole measure, by the UDA.


Bruno,

In string theory the physical laws and constants depend on how the  
hyper-EM flux winds thru the (500 or so) topo holes in the Calabi- 
Yau compact manifolds (ie., particles of 6d space).


OK. What is an hyper-EM? (Hyper means ?)

That is my way of referring to the electric flux that winds thru the  
6d-particles of space:


Flux - The fluxes in M Theory is similar to the electric fluxes but  
have nothing to do with electrons or photons. The presence of fluxes  
has the effect of holding the manifold's shape in place. The  
electric fluxes from an enclosed surface is equal to the number of  
charges within, similarly the fluxes in M Theory also comes with  
whole numbers of a certain unit (through each hole in the manifold).  
It drastically increases the complexity of the landscape. Especially  
when they act on the pointy end of the compactified manifold  
stretching it into a long, narrow neck. The result is to produce lot  
of valleys on the landscape with negative vacuum energy  
(cosmological constant), which is contrary to observation in the  
real world. Now the brane comes to the rescue.
Brane - Similar to the antiparticle in the point approximation,  
every brane also has its antibrane. Anitbrane has a tendency of  
attracting to the pointy end and add energy into the valley to make  
the vacuum energy positive. Thus, by a mix of a little of  
everything, a point on the landscape turns out to have a small  
positive cosmological constant - just like the observation in the  
real world. It is also found that D-brane can stabilize the size as  
well as the shape of the compactified manifold (like the steel-belt  
in radial tire) at least in the Type IIB theory. This function is  
crucial in the superstring theory, otherwise the 6 hidden dimensions  
would become unwinded and getting infinitely large. Then we would be  
living in ten dimensional space instead of the usual three

http://universe-review.ca/R15-26-CalabiYau02.htm#moduli

That may constitute a prediction of the laws and constants except  
that the relationship between the laws and particular windings in  
not known (but the same may be true of comp).


Interesting.
String theory is a physical theory which makes me envisage that  
number theory might be the measure winner. There are many formal  
similarities suggesting this, but I can't really judge, and only the  
theological approach (with G*) preserves the first person/thrid  
person relation in a way enlightnening for an explanation of the  
quanta/qualia relation.


Bruno



Richard

It is fuzzy on the precise frontier between geography and physics,  
but it explains at least the difference, which is not even existing  
in physics, except by a vague inference. Comp explains the maning  
of aw in physical laws.




That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up with some  
surprising testable prediction.


It is really a question of making people understanding the S4Grz, X  
and Z logics. The math is there. Just technical difficulties, to  
sum up. It is for the next generation.




This is just standard science.  It's not some Aristotelean  
prejudice. It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop- 
quantum-gravity.


You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to  
be more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many  
people have

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 26 Jan 2014, at 23:26, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear LizR,

You and Bruno have often complained that my postings lack rigor...
For a nice formal representation of Heraclitean streams click here
and read the bit about hypersets. BTW, this is a concept almost
identical to what Lou Kauffman uses in his notion of eigenforms.

It is the Dx = xx method. I don't see what is Heraclitean. On the
contrary, it is Parmenidian, and the Heraclitean aspect is recovered
by the p nuance. More on this later (we need more modal logic).

Bruno

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com
wrote:

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think
about it in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is
implicit in the heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-
simultaneous owner of the experiences in all the pigeon holes).
Without the flashlight, I think what people do is think of
themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other and then, as
it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
pigeon holes from there.

Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through
the amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then
can be related to the universal consciousness of the universal
person. In that sense we are right now the same person, but
relatively amnesic of all particularities which distinguish us.

Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's
the right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as
something of an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.

I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp
it is a sort of delusion.

Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by
showing what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the
brain fools us into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't
too much of a stretch from imagining living in 5 minute segments to
realising that we could equally well live in instants, with all of
our memory being what's there right now, what's available to us in
that instant, that pgeonhole. After all, logically, given the
assumption of locality in physics, that's all we'd expect to be
available.
'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
grotesque and absurd illusion.'

'How's that?'

'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is
supposed to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain
in this business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past
to future is wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it
subjectively. But we're the victims of a confidence trick...

Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late

HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely
from the well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-
rolling stream, the progression; the ordering of events are the
mere products of the stream, not the origin of the streaming.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 Jan 2014, at 01:36, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the
idea that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we
passively come to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us
to believe that change is an illusion that somehow persists.

Is that not contradictory? You are asking us to believe in a time
independent to us, and to not believe in a reality independent to us.

Bruno

Can we try a different set of concepts?

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:28 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com
wrote:

Dear LizR,
:
the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But
we're the victims of a confidence trick...

What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire
discussion of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a
priori order of the holes, it is a subjective delusion that we
obtain because of our inability to see the whole lot.

His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of
time can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the
pigeon holes, together with certain rules linking them together. The
rules are basically equivalent to thermodynamics (unsurprisingly, we
wouldn't get consciousness in a universe without an entropy
gradient). As one of his characters explains...

John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the
pigeon holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You
find in it a story, as you might find one of those little slips of
paper in a Christmas cracker. But you also find statments about the
stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You decide to check up on
whether these statements about the stories in the other pigeon holes
are right or not. To your surprise you find the statments made about
earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on, are
substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon holes on
the other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things aren't so
good. You find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies. This turns
out to be the same wherever you happen to look, in every pigeon
hole. The statements made about pigeon holes on the other side are
at best diffuse and at the worst just plain wrong. Now let's
translate this parable into the time problem. We'll call the
particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining, the
present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find
substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later pigeon
holes, the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of correct
statments, we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit further. What I
want to suggest is that the actual world is very much like this.
Instead of pigeon holes we talk about states.'

Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to all
the holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in.
From the subjective, inside view, all moments are the present when
they're being experienced, and we only experience a flow of time
because of their contents (a fact which Memento guy illustrates
nicely, of course).

This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle
introduces a flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the
flashlight is used is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside
the pigeon-holes is of continuous subjective experience. In fact,
the existence or nonexistence of the flashlight is irrelevant to the
subjective experience. The flashlight was introduced so the
characters could think about sampling each pigeon hole, as though
they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's eye view.
But of course in reality they can only take the internal, frog's
eye view.

Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and
the laws relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective
experience of time.

--
Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher
Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the
use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may
contain information that is

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 Jan 2014, at 02:55, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 8:37 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 27 January 2014 13:39, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com
wrote:

Dear LizR,

By that standard we would still be living in caves

Teehee. Have you been reading Camille Paglia...

No... good to know. I will try not to use that phrase...

Personally I think this should be a touchstone for all people with
unconventional ideas. Once you can explain them so I understand
them, you're definitely onto something!

pffft, I have only pitiful excuses. It takes a lot of time and
concentration to write this stuff... I have less and less to
dedicate for this List. :_(

Sorry, knowledge does not come cheaply. :_( It has taken me
countless hours of reading to get to where I am.. What is one to do,
when trying to explain an idea that is unconventional? I can't seem
to just shut up...

Look to Bruno as an example, perhaps? He's trying to educate me in
modal and predicate logic (I think) so I can better get to grips
with comp.

I like his pedagogy. I have learned a lot from him as well. It is
wonderful to be able to sit at the feet of Masters.

I just wish I could figure out how to get him (and you!) to
acknowledge that there is a distinction that makes a difference
between a thing and its representation. There are rules and
principles of distinctions that make a difference... I am still
learning of those.

Good, because you do confuse often the numbers and their
representions. That happens when you argue that 17 is prime is not a
truth independent of us. You coinfuse the fact that 17 is prime with
the knowledge of that fact, which needs human beliefs and
representations.

Bruno

--
Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher
Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 Jan 2014, at 03:25, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear LizR,

George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form are the place to start...

I am not sure. I can appreciate what he did, and what Kauffman did
from it, but my experience is that to begin with Spencer Brown makes
the study of logic more confusing. It is hard stuff disguised in false
simplicity. That's my feeling. Beginners must grasp standard logic
first, I think.

Bruno

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 9:22 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 27 January 2014 14:55, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com
wrote:
I just wish I could figure out how to get him (and you!) to
acknowledge that there is a distinction that makes a difference
between a thing and its representation. There are rules and
principles of distinctions that make a difference... I am still
learning of those.

I am very amenable to acknowledging that distinction. I am not my
photograph, or my name, or my image in a mirror. The universe is not
the contents of the equations of string theory ... unless it turns
out that it is, of course, but if that is the case, then it's an
exception. Which is probably why some people think Max Tegmark is a
bit of a crackpot.

--
Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher
Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 27 Jan 2014, at 05:49, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/26/2014 7:22 PM, LizR wrote:
On 27 January 2014 15:25, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com 
 wrote:

Dear LizR,
   George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form are the place to start...

I'll add that to my reading list.


But on which end?  :-)


If you add all Stephen's links in the list, you risk a memory overflow.

Bruno




Brent

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread Stephen Paul King

Dear Bruno,

I think that where we differ is in how we think of numbers: I see them as
merely representational, Parmenidean, you see them as more. The Heraclitean
aspect is far more than p for me.

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 4:54 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 26 Jan 2014, at 23:26, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear LizR,

You and Bruno have often complained that my postings lack rigor... For a
nice formal representation of Heraclitean streams click
herehttp://books.google.com/books?id=vurIJEFut8QCpg=PA55lpg=PA55dq=jon+barwise+streams+hypersetssource=blots=eYJKhMJR1-sig=GD2rTwSNtcLpqnm2K3eqE24THNohl=ensa=Xei=Y4rlUu2tCIW-sQSf74HYBwved=0CGMQ6AEwBw#v=onepageq=jon%20barwise%20streams%20hypersetsf=false
and
read the bit about hypersets. BTW, this is a concept almost identical to
what Lou Kauffman uses in his notion of eigenforms.

It is the Dx = xx method. I don't see what is Heraclitean. On the
contrary, it is Parmenidian, and the Heraclitean aspect is recovered by the
p nuance. More on this later (we need more modal logic).

Bruno

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Stephen Paul King
stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think about
it in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is implicit in the
heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-simultaneous owner of
the
experiences in all the pigeon holes). Without the flashlight, I think what
people do is think of themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other
and then, as it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
pigeon holes from there.

Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through the
amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then can be
related to the universal consciousness of the universal person. In that
sense we are right now the same person, but relatively amnesic of all
particularities which distinguish us.

Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's the
right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as something of
an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.

I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp it is a
sort of delusion.

Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by
showing what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain
fools us into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a
stretch from imagining living in 5 minute segments to realising that we
could equally well live in instants, with all of our memory being what's
there right now, what's available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole.
After all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's
all we'd *expect* to be available.

'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
grotesque and absurd illusion.'

'How's that?'

'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed
to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this
business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
the victims of a confidence trick...

Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late

HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely from
the well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-rolling stream,
the progression; the ordering of events are the mere products of the
stream, not the origin of the streaming.

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Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread Stephen Paul King

Dear Bruno,

   No, time is observer dependent as well as observers supply the measures.
Recall that I see time as a local measure of change. Change itself is not
observer dependent, it flows eternally as the potential to Be of Becoming.


On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 5:00 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 27 Jan 2014, at 01:36, Stephen Paul King wrote:


   Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea
 that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come
 to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that
 change is an illusion that somehow persists.



 Is that not contradictory? You are asking us to believe in a time
 independent to us, and to not believe in a reality independent to us.


 Bruno






   Can we try a different set of concepts?


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:28 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King 
 stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,
  :
 the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is wrong.
 I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're the
 victims of a confidence trick...

   What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire
 discussion of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a priori
 order of the holes, it is a subjective delusion that we obtain because of
 our inability to see the whole lot.


 His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of time
 can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the pigeon holes,
 together with certain rules linking them together. The rules are basically
 equivalent to thermodynamics (unsurprisingly, we wouldn't get consciousness
 in a universe without an entropy gradient). As one of his characters
 explains...

 John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the pigeon
 holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You find in it a
 story, as you might find one of those little slips of paper in a Christmas
 cracker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker. But you also
 find statments about the stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You
 decide to check up on whether these statements about the stories in the
 other pigeon holes are right or not. To your surprise you find the
 statments made about earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on,
 are substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon holes on
 the other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things aren't so good. You
 find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies. This turns out to be the
 same wherever you happen to look, in every pigeon hole. The statements made
 about pigeon holes on the other side are at best diffuse and at the worst
 just plain wrong. Now let's translate this parable into the time problem.
 We'll call the particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining,
 the present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find
 substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later pigeon holes,
 the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of correct statments,
 we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit further. What I want to suggest
 is that the actual world is very much like this. Instead of pigeon holes we
 talk about states.'

 Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to *all*the 
 holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in. From
 the subjective, inside view, all moments are the present when they're
 being experienced, and we only experience a flow of time because of their
 contents (a fact which Memento guy illustrates nicely, of course).

 This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle introduces a
 flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the flashlight is used
 is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside the pigeon-holes is of
 continuous subjective experience. In fact, the existence or nonexistence of
 the flashlight is irrelevant to the subjective experience. The flashlight
 was introduced so the characters could think about sampling each pigeon
 hole, as though they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's
 eye view. But of course in reality they can only take the internal,
 frog's eye view.

 Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and the
 laws relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective experience
 of time.


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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 Jan 2014, at 13:21, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

I think that where we differ is in how we think of numbers: I see
them as merely representational, Parmenidean, you see them as more.

But numbers can be used to represent things, like an address, but they
are not themselves representational.

The Heraclitean aspect is far more than p for me.

What more, and how do you prove that?

Bruno

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 4:54 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:

On 26 Jan 2014, at 23:26, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear LizR,

You and Bruno have often complained that my postings lack
rigor... For a nice formal representation of Heraclitean streams
click here and read the bit about hypersets. BTW, this is a concept
almost identical to what Lou Kauffman uses in his notion of
eigenforms.

It is the Dx = xx method. I don't see what is Heraclitean. On the
contrary, it is Parmenidian, and the Heraclitean aspect is recovered
by the p nuance. More on this later (we need more modal logic).

Bruno

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com
wrote:

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But
it's the right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck
Hoyle) as something of an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon
hole analogy.

I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp
it is a sort of delusion.

Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by
showing what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how
the brain fools us into thinking we have continuous existence. It
isn't too much of a stretch from imagining living in 5 minute
segments to realising that we could equally well live in instants,
with all of our memory being what's there right now, what's
available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole. After all,
logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all
we'd expect to be available.
'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
grotesque and absurd illusion.'

'How's that?'

'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is
supposed to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain
in this business: the idea of time as a steady progression from
past to future is wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it
subjectively. But we're the victims of a confidence trick...

Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 27 Jan 2014, at 13:24, Stephen Paul King wrote:


Dear Bruno,

   No, time is observer dependent as well as observers supply the  
measures.


Sorry, I don't understand.




Recall that I see time as a local measure of change.



As long as you don't give me what you assume and what you derive, this  
kind of talk is too much precise to be clear.


Then, if you assume time or becoming, your theory is incompatible with  
computationalism.




Change itself is not observer dependent, it flows eternally as the  
potential to Be of Becoming.


This does not help.

Bruno








On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 5:00 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


On 27 Jan 2014, at 01:36, Stephen Paul King wrote:



  Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the  
idea that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we  
passively come to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask  
us to believe that change is an illusion that somehow persists.



Is that not contradictory? You are asking us to believe in a time  
independent to us, and to not believe in a reality independent to us.



Bruno







  Can we try a different set of concepts?


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:28 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com 
 wrote:

Dear LizR,
 :
the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is  
wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But  
we're the victims of a confidence trick...


  What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire  
discussion of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a  
priori order of the holes, it is a subjective delusion that we  
obtain because of our inability to see the whole lot.


His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of  
time can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the  
pigeon holes, together with certain rules linking them together.  
The rules are basically equivalent to thermodynamics  
(unsurprisingly, we wouldn't get consciousness in a universe  
without an entropy gradient). As one of his characters explains...


John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the  
pigeon holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You  
find in it a story, as you might find one of those little slips of  
paper in a Christmas cracker. But you also find statments about the  
stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You decide to check up  
on whether these statements about the stories in the other pigeon  
holes are right or not. To your surprise you find the statments  
made about earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on,  
are substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon  
holes on the other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things  
aren't so good. You find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies.  
This turns out to be the same wherever you happen to look, in every  
pigeon hole. The statements made about pigeon holes on the other  
side are at best diffuse and at the worst just plain wrong. Now  
let's translate this parable into the time problem. We'll call the  
particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining, the  
present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find  
substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later  
pigeon holes, the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of  
correct statments, we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit  
further. What I want to suggest is that the actual world is very  
much like this. Instead of pigeon holes we talk about states.'


Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to all  
the holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in.  
From the subjective, inside view, all moments are the present  
when they're being experienced, and we only experience a flow of  
time because of their contents (a fact which Memento guy  
illustrates nicely, of course).


This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle  
introduces a flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the  
flashlight is used is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside  
the pigeon-holes is of continuous subjective experience. In fact,  
the existence or nonexistence of the flashlight is irrelevant to  
the subjective experience. The flashlight was introduced so the  
characters could think about sampling each pigeon hole, as though  
they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's eye view.  
But of course in reality they can only take the internal, frog's  
eye view.


Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and  
the laws relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective  
experience of time.



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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread Richard Ruquist

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 7:24 AM, Stephen Paul King 
stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

 Dear Bruno,

No, time is observer dependent as well as observers supply the
 measures. Recall that I see time as a local measure of change. Change
 itself is not observer dependent, it flows eternally as the potential to
 Be of Becoming.


Physical change is observer dependent particularly in a multiverse where
everything is physical.





 On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 5:00 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 27 Jan 2014, at 01:36, Stephen Paul King wrote:


   Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea
 that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come
 to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that
 change is an illusion that somehow persists.



 Is that not contradictory? You are asking us to believe in a time
 independent to us, and to not believe in a reality independent to us.


 Bruno






Can we try a different set of concepts?


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:28 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King 
 stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,
  :
 the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
 wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
 the victims of a confidence trick...

   What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire
 discussion of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a priori
 order of the holes, it is a subjective delusion that we obtain because of
 our inability to see the whole lot.


 His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of time
 can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the pigeon holes,
 together with certain rules linking them together. The rules are basically
 equivalent to thermodynamics (unsurprisingly, we wouldn't get consciousness
 in a universe without an entropy gradient). As one of his characters
 explains...

 John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the pigeon
 holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You find in it a
 story, as you might find one of those little slips of paper in a Christmas
 cracker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker. But you also
 find statments about the stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You
 decide to check up on whether these statements about the stories in the
 other pigeon holes are right or not. To your surprise you find the
 statments made about earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on,
 are substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon holes on
 the other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things aren't so good. You
 find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies. This turns out to be the
 same wherever you happen to look, in every pigeon hole. The statements made
 about pigeon holes on the other side are at best diffuse and at the worst
 just plain wrong. Now let's translate this parable into the time problem.
 We'll call the particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining,
 the present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find
 substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later pigeon holes,
 the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of correct statments,
 we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit further. What I want to suggest
 is that the actual world is very much like this. Instead of pigeon holes we
 talk about states.'

 Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to *all*the 
 holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in. From
 the subjective, inside view, all moments are the present when they're
 being experienced, and we only experience a flow of time because of their
 contents (a fact which Memento guy illustrates nicely, of course).

 This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle introduces
 a flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the flashlight is used
 is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside the pigeon-holes is of
 continuous subjective experience. In fact, the existence or nonexistence of
 the flashlight is irrelevant to the subjective experience. The flashlight
 was introduced so the characters could think about sampling each pigeon
 hole, as though they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's
 eye view. But of course in reality they can only take the internal,
 frog's eye view.

 Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and the
 laws relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective experience
 of time.


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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread meekerdb


On 1/26/2014 2:14 PM, LizR wrote:
Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing what life would 
be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us into thinking we have 
continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch from imagining living in 5 minute 
segments to realising that we could equally well live in instants, with all of our 
memory being what's there right now, what's available to us in that instant, that 
pgeonhole. After all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all 
we'd /expect/ to be available.


There's a play Random by a local playwright, Michael Perlmutter, in which a psychiatrist 
is treating a man who claims that he doesn't live his life in order.  He remembers 
segments of his childhood, but also some segments of the future and with gaps in between.  
Of course each segment has a consistent arrow of time within it.


Brent

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread LizR

On 27 January 2014 23:56, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 On 27 Jan 2014, at 05:49, meekerdb wrote:

  On 1/26/2014 7:22 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 27 January 2014 15:25, Stephen Paul King 
 stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

  Dear LizR,
 George Spencer-Brown's Laws of 
 Formhttp://www.lawsofform.org/lof.htmlare the place to start...


  I'll add that to my reading list.


 But on which end?  :-)


 If you add all Stephen's links in the list, you risk a memory overflow.


:-)

I'm starting to appreciate that. Maybe I can just keep a symbolic
representation of them...

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread LizR

On 28 January 2014 01:21, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear Bruno,

   I think that where we differ is in how we think of numbers: I see them
 as merely representational

 What do they represent?

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread LizR

On 28 January 2014 09:42, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/26/2014 2:14 PM, LizR wrote:

 Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing
 what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us
 into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch
 from imagining living in 5 minute segments to realising that we could
 equally well live in instants, with all of our memory being what's there
 right now, what's available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole. After
 all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all
 we'd *expect* to be available.


 There's a play Random by a local playwright, Michael Perlmutter, in
 which a psychiatrist is treating a man who claims that he doesn't live his
 life in order.  He remembers segments of his childhood, but also some
 segments of the future and with gaps in between.  Of course each segment
 has a consistent arrow of time within it.


The man's name isn't Billy Pilgrim, perchance?

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-27 Thread meekerdb

On 1/27/2014 2:20 PM, LizR wrote:
On 28 January 2014 09:42, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net
wrote:

On 1/26/2014 2:14 PM, LizR wrote:

Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing
what life
would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us into
thinking we
have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch from imagining
living in
5 minute segments to realising that we could equally well live in instants,
with
all of our memory being what's there right now, what's available to us in
that
instant, that pgeonhole. After all, logically, given the assumption of
locality in
physics, that's all we'd /expect/ to be available.

There's a play Random by a local playwright, Michael Perlmutter, in which
a
psychiatrist is treating a man who claims that he doesn't live his life in order.
He remembers segments of his childhood, but also some segments of the future and

with gaps in between. Of course each segment has a consistent arrow of
time within it.

The man's name isn't Billy Pilgrim, perchance?

Nope. And I don't believe the play's been performed other than the local run. Perlmutter
is shopping it around.

Brent

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:05, Richard Ruquist wrote:





On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


On 24 Jan 2014, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body  
problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed with  
comp, it is the concrete laptop which appears as an (unconscious  
preprogrammed) idealization.


Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.

No need in reifying it. You need just to believe in their truth.



For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the  
planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but  
he uses a complex universal machine to fail us on this.


Yes I appreciate this viewpoint.  Actually I'm pretty agnostic about  
what's really real.  At any given time it's the ontology of our best  
theory; where best is not sharply defined but is measured by some  
mixture of predictive power, consilience,  scope, definiteness, and  
accuracy.


OK.


Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it seems very  
weak on the other measures.


I am not sure. If comp is correct, and if there is no flaw in UDA,  
comp predicts the existence of physical laws. I don't know of any  
other theory doing that. And it is constructive, we get already the  
quantum logic, and they have to define the whole measure, by the UDA.


Bruno,

In string theory the physical laws and constants depend on how the  
hyper-EM flux winds thru the (500 or so) topo holes in the Calabi- 
Yau compact manifolds (ie., particles of 6d space).


OK. What is an hyper-EM? (Hyper means ?)


That may constitute a prediction of the laws and constants except  
that the relationship between the laws and particular windings in  
not known (but the same may be true of comp).


Interesting.
String theory is a physical theory which makes me envisage that number  
theory might be the measure winner. There are many formal similarities  
suggesting this, but I can't really judge, and only the theological  
approach (with G*) preserves the first person/thrid person relation in  
a way enlightnening for an explanation of the quanta/qualia relation.


Bruno



Richard

It is fuzzy on the precise frontier between geography and physics,  
but it explains at least the difference, which is not even existing  
in physics, except by a vague inference. Comp explains the maning of  
aw in physical laws.




That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up with some  
surprising testable prediction.


It is really a question of making people understanding the S4Grz, X  
and Z logics. The math is there. Just technical difficulties, to sum  
up. It is for the next generation.




This is just standard science.  It's not some Aristotelean  
prejudice. It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop- 
quantum-gravity.


You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to  
be more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many  
people have speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more  
fundamental, but nothing definite has been predicted.  So if comp  
showed that the octonions were necessary that would be quite  
convincing.


Unfortunately my intuition does not come from comp, here. I would  
have like that too, but now, that would be wishful thinking.
But you should understand that we have no choice. If comp is  
correct, and if we don't put consciousness under the rug, the  
*whole* of physics is a theorem in arithmetic, concerning what any  
universal machine can predict from any of its states (even in  
simulation). Comp gives new strong invariants for physics: the  
choice of phi_i, and the choice of the observer in the phi_i.
That's the main point: an explanation that no theory of  
consciousness can avoid a derivation of the physical reality  
appearances from arithmetic or equivalent.


It seems from the little I know that comp at most predicts 8  
different variations of laws and constants whereas string theory  
predicts at different variation for every unique winding, which may  
be as many as 10^1000 different variations. Perhaps that is  
testable. Richard


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 25 Jan 2014, at 17:51, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/25/2014 3:07 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
And even if they did, why would that cause me to say no to the  
doctor.



By the UDA. If you say yes to the doctor, physics emerges from  
all computations, and even plausibly from those who do not stop,  
which have a higher measure than those which stops.


I doubt that physics depends on what I say to anyone.


Hmm I am of course alluding to the content of the saying. Physics  
does not depend on what you say to the doctor, but on the possible  
truth that you might survive with the artificial brain.





But the question is, what if materialism is true and I say yes to  
the doctor.  I just don't see how saying yes to the doctor commits  
me the rest of the argument.


Then you died, or you are in a simulation (of materialism, wmaking it  
true in some local sense) or God is malicious (to be short).






And on the question of measure, when I write a computer program that  
doesn't stop with an answer as I intended it is sometimes because it  
has entered a loop.  Aren't non-stopping programs like that going to  
dominate the measure of computations by the UD?


Probably, not. The winners will be more like the computations of Pi or  
sqrt(2). No loop, and some exploitation of the random noise, to  
multiply locally the deep and interesting (in Bennett sense)  
consistent and co-consistent (sharable) histories.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:



On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think  
about it in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is  
implicit in the heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non- 
simultaneous owner of the experiences in all the pigeon holes).  
Without the flashlight, I think what people do is think of  
themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other and then, as it  
were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of pigeon  
holes from there.


Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through  
the amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then  
can be related to the universal consciousness of the universal  
person. In that sense we are right now the same person, but  
relatively amnesic of all particularities which distinguish us.


Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's  
the right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as  
something of an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.


I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a  
primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp it  
is a sort of delusion.





I realise that right now is an intrinsically indexical concept


Yes. It fits quite well with Galileo, Einstein and Everett sort of  
relativity, but with a wider scope defined notably by the arithmetical  
truth.




and Hoyle quite definitely means us to understand that each co- 
existent pigeon hole in his 3p-block concept can indeed be  
interpreted as its own right now, ...


OK



... unchangingly.


That might be the word too much imo. Like a number, a computational  
state, even considered among the computation going through it, does  
not seem to me to be an object on which change can even be applied. It  
is out of time and space considerations. The 1p associated to it is  
related to computations which, from that 1p view, correspond to a  
dynamical scenario. But the time aspect is a construct from that (set  
of) number relations.





But he also sees that if he leaves it at that, he has not yet  
explicitly defined any principle that could suffice to break the  
unchanging symmetry of the co-existing block from the 1p perspective.


The problem for me was a bit of the contrary. The theaetetical  
definition of consciousness or knowledge explain easily the lack of  
symmetry, because you recover it through it. Bp  p does provides  
the non symmetry, and indeed even an antisymmetry making a 1p-moment  
irreversible.
But, by UDA, we have to recover physics and its core symmetry, notably  
through something like p-[]p, as I will explain probably in the  
modal thread.
But how to get symmetry from non symmetry? That was the problem.  
Eventually, the miracle s that when we restrict the p on the sigma_1  
p (the computable p), we do extract a symmetry from the  
antisymmetry, with making the logic of physics collapsing into pure  
logic (non modal) logic.







In this bare scenario, each of us should rather expect our  
experience, if anything, to be permanently confined to that of a  
single pigeon hole right now -


I don't think so. permanently again introduces time where there is  
none.
Imagine that I stop your (digital, say) brain for some period of time,  
you will not feel anything.
The feeling of time is only brought by the dynamical aspect of the  
computations, which involves the steps of those computations, which  
are defined through atemporal number relations.
I am not sure why we should expect our experience to be confined in a  
permanent single pigeon hole.






i.e. not momentarily, but unchangingly.


Change is intrinsically relative, I think.





And what would that be like? Not very much, it might seem.

Consequently, he explicitly posits (and purely, I insist, as a  
sleight of intuition) an unobservable change - the replacement of  
one pigeon hole by another in the unique context of what must be  
understood, unequivocally, as a single, universal right now.


I think that this introduce a difficulty which is not present in the  
purely indexical approach. A present moment defines its memorized  
past, and potential futures. The right now is a particular  
semantical fixed point. It is probably universal, but just in the  
sense that all self-reflecting creature can find it by introspection.





IOW, Hoyle's contention is that each moment of consciousness can be  
intuited as the singularised state of a universal solipsist whose  
successive re-combinations of remembering and forgetting suffice to  
break the panoptic symmetry.


I think that is correct, and indeed an indirect consequence of  
incompleteness for logic of the first person.
The Bp  p defines the solipsist or the universal first person,  
and the breaking of the symmetry.





At the least, it seems possible that our experience (i.e. from

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread John Mikes

On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:
  *Bruno*, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my
input).
  *JM: What IS the 'mind' you PRESERVE?*
 *BM:* My consciousness. - It means that I can surivive in the usal
clinical sense,
the brain digital replacement. I don't need to define my
consciousness to
say yes to a doctor. No more than I need to define pain to
the doctor who
look at me. I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the
doctor is serious.

*JM:Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
not *
*duplicate. It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
knowable *
*within today's inventory.*

*BM: *No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the
truth of
comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
Plato-Plotin
gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
(his theology and physics).
(
Bruno,  *M Y consciousness is (my) 'response to relations'* whatever show
up.
It includes lots of unknown items (with unknowable qualia?) beside the ones
handled WITHIN my brain.
So I do not trust the 'doctor's digital contraption to include  *ME -
(total) - o*nly my
temporary brainfunction, i.e. knowledge-base of mine as of today. Your
true
theology is a mystery to me. How true can it be?
Devising our physical world is a human effort due to the temporary status
of our
inventory. To think beyond it is sci-fi (cf my ref. to Liz about Jack Cohen
and J.
Stewart's Collapse of Chaos and Figment of Reality - the
Zarathustrans).

John M





On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:

 Bruno, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my input).

 What IS the *'mind'* you PRESERVE?


 My consciousness.
 It means that I can surivive in the usal clinical sense, the brain digital
 replacement.
 I don't need to define my consciousness to say yes to a doctor.
 No more than I need to define pain to the doctor who look at me.
 I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the doctor is serious.




 Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do not
 duplicate. (It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable within today's inventory.


 No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the truth
 of comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).




 I find 'mindcontent' different from 'mind' (what I don't really know) and
 package it into 'mentality'. .

 I have no squalm against arithmetical reality - a notion deduced from
 (human?) math-thinking.


 Arithmetical Realism is the idea that human are correct when thinking that
 the number relation are true even for the non humans.
 It is not because a human believe in x, that x is necessarily false for
 non humans. Anyway, it because I can conceive that AR is false, that I
 politely put it in the bag of the hypotheses.



 What I mean as 'reality' (if it 'exists' - another 'if' to explain) is a
 belief that it SHOULD  be - as most of us think of the world. No evidence,
 no facts.

 Physical World (and whatever pertains to it: like 'physixs') is an
 up-to-date explanation of yesterday's knowledge of some phenomena we
 adjusted up to our capabilities in a 'world'-image we derived.


 Yes, but that is why I do not assume anything being both primitive and
 physical. You make my point.
 But I need to start from some assumptions, and I use 2+2=4, and the yes
 doctor, which links computer science and theology. The physics is then
 explanied constructively by the theology of the true machine, with true
 some technical precise sense (due to Tarski).




 Existence is loosly identified in my vocabulary: whatever we MAY think of
 DOES exist in our mind (see above). Not necessarily in formats we are
 (capable of) handling. 3p evidence? who said so?


 Eventually we have to look at nature to try to refute the theory. But you
 are right, it is not 3p evidence, but only (with comp) 1p-plural sharable
 evidences.


 Time? I can't walk without crutches. My crutches don't walk alone.


 ?



 Axioms? a reversed logic, not the theorems (theories?) are
 axiom-dependent, the axioms are made to facilitate the theoretical 'dasein'
 of theorems. Artificially.

 and so on.


 ? If you use agnosticism to demolish all theories, you kill science, and
 will get the authoritative arguments instead, like the pseudo sciences and
 religions.
 On the contrary, I think that agnosticism should favor the theoretical
 approach, as it remains modest and NEVER pretends to provide truth, only
 light and shadows on the unknown.

 Bruno




 John M



 On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 6:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 17 Jan 2014, at 23:24, John Mikes wrote:

 Stathis and

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear Folks,

  I agree with John's most resent remark and his recommendation of the
books. Here is a nice review of Collapse of Chaos:

http://www.thenewhumanities.net/books/Book%20Reviews44.html


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:43 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:
   *Bruno*, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my
 input).
   *JM: What IS the 'mind' you PRESERVE?*
  *BM:* My consciousness. - It means that I can surivive in the usal
 clinical sense,
 the brain digital replacement. I don't need to define my
 consciousness to
 say yes to a doctor. No more than I need to define pain to
 the doctor who
 look at me. I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the
 doctor is serious.

 *JM:Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not *
 *duplicate. It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable *
 *within today's inventory.*

 *BM: *No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the
 truth of
 comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin
 gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).
 (
 Bruno,  *M Y consciousness is (my) 'response to relations'* whatever show
 up.
 It includes lots of unknown items (with unknowable qualia?) beside the
 ones
 handled WITHIN my brain.
 So I do not trust the 'doctor's digital contraption to include  *ME -
 (total) - o*nly my
 temporary brainfunction, i.e. knowledge-base of mine as of today. Your
 true
 theology is a mystery to me. How true can it be?
 Devising our physical world is a human effort due to the temporary status
 of our
 inventory. To think beyond it is sci-fi (cf my ref. to Liz about Jack
 Cohen and J.
 Stewart's Collapse of Chaos and Figment of Reality - the
 Zarathustrans).

 John M





 On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:

 Bruno, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my input).

 What IS the *'mind'* you PRESERVE?


 My consciousness.
 It means that I can surivive in the usal clinical sense, the brain
 digital replacement.
 I don't need to define my consciousness to say yes to a doctor.
 No more than I need to define pain to the doctor who look at me.
 I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the doctor is serious.




 Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do not
 duplicate. (It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable within today's inventory.


 No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the truth
 of comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).




 I find 'mindcontent' different from 'mind' (what I don't really know) and
 package it into 'mentality'. .

 I have no squalm against arithmetical reality - a notion deduced from
 (human?) math-thinking.


 Arithmetical Realism is the idea that human are correct when thinking
 that the number relation are true even for the non humans.
 It is not because a human believe in x, that x is necessarily false for
 non humans. Anyway, it because I can conceive that AR is false, that I
 politely put it in the bag of the hypotheses.



 What I mean as 'reality' (if it 'exists' - another 'if' to explain) is a
 belief that it SHOULD  be - as most of us think of the world. No evidence,
 no facts.

 Physical World (and whatever pertains to it: like 'physixs') is an
 up-to-date explanation of yesterday's knowledge of some phenomena we
 adjusted up to our capabilities in a 'world'-image we derived.


 Yes, but that is why I do not assume anything being both primitive and
 physical. You make my point.
 But I need to start from some assumptions, and I use 2+2=4, and the yes
 doctor, which links computer science and theology. The physics is then
 explanied constructively by the theology of the true machine, with true
 some technical precise sense (due to Tarski).




 Existence is loosly identified in my vocabulary: whatever we MAY think of
 DOES exist in our mind (see above). Not necessarily in formats we are
 (capable of) handling. 3p evidence? who said so?


 Eventually we have to look at nature to try to refute the theory. But you
 are right, it is not 3p evidence, but only (with comp) 1p-plural sharable
 evidences.


 Time? I can't walk without crutches. My crutches don't walk alone.


 ?



 Axioms? a reversed logic, not the theorems (theories?) are
 axiom-dependent, the axioms are made to facilitate the theoretical 'dasein'
 of theorems. Artificially.

 and so on.


 ? If you use agnosticism to demolish all theories, you kill science, and
 will get the authoritative arguments instead, like the pseudo sciences and
 religions.
 On the contrary, I think

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Also see:
http://files.meetup.com/1819750/%2313%20-%20Ian%20Stewart%20-%20Figments%20of%20Reality.pdf


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Stephen Paul King 
stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

 Dear Folks,

   I agree with John's most resent remark and his recommendation of the
 books. Here is a nice review of Collapse of Chaos:

 http://www.thenewhumanities.net/books/Book%20Reviews44.html


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:43 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:
   *Bruno*, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate
 my input).
   *JM: What IS the 'mind' you PRESERVE?*
  *BM:* My consciousness. - It means that I can surivive in the usal
 clinical sense,
 the brain digital replacement. I don't need to define my
 consciousness to
 say yes to a doctor. No more than I need to define pain to
 the doctor who
 look at me. I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the
 doctor is serious.

 *JM:Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not *
 *duplicate. It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable *
 *within today's inventory.*

 *BM: *No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for
 the truth of
 comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin
 gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).
 (
 Bruno,  *M Y consciousness is (my) 'response to relations'* whatever
 show up.
 It includes lots of unknown items (with unknowable qualia?) beside the
 ones
 handled WITHIN my brain.
 So I do not trust the 'doctor's digital contraption to include  *ME -
 (total) - o*nly my
 temporary brainfunction, i.e. knowledge-base of mine as of today. Your
 true
 theology is a mystery to me. How true can it be?
 Devising our physical world is a human effort due to the temporary status
 of our
 inventory. To think beyond it is sci-fi (cf my ref. to Liz about Jack
 Cohen and J.
 Stewart's Collapse of Chaos and Figment of Reality - the
 Zarathustrans).

 John M





 On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:

 Bruno, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my input).

 What IS the *'mind'* you PRESERVE?


 My consciousness.
 It means that I can surivive in the usal clinical sense, the brain
 digital replacement.
 I don't need to define my consciousness to say yes to a doctor.
 No more than I need to define pain to the doctor who look at me.
 I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the doctor is serious.




 Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not duplicate. (It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable within today's inventory.


 No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the
 truth of comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true,
 then Plato-Plotin gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is
 refuted. (his theology and physics).




 I find 'mindcontent' different from 'mind' (what I don't really know)
 and package it into 'mentality'. .

 I have no squalm against arithmetical reality - a notion deduced from
 (human?) math-thinking.


 Arithmetical Realism is the idea that human are correct when thinking
 that the number relation are true even for the non humans.
 It is not because a human believe in x, that x is necessarily false for
 non humans. Anyway, it because I can conceive that AR is false, that I
 politely put it in the bag of the hypotheses.



 What I mean as 'reality' (if it 'exists' - another 'if' to explain) is a
 belief that it SHOULD  be - as most of us think of the world. No evidence,
 no facts.

 Physical World (and whatever pertains to it: like 'physixs') is an
 up-to-date explanation of yesterday's knowledge of some phenomena we
 adjusted up to our capabilities in a 'world'-image we derived.


 Yes, but that is why I do not assume anything being both primitive and
 physical. You make my point.
 But I need to start from some assumptions, and I use 2+2=4, and the yes
 doctor, which links computer science and theology. The physics is then
 explanied constructively by the theology of the true machine, with true
 some technical precise sense (due to Tarski).




 Existence is loosly identified in my vocabulary: whatever we MAY think
 of DOES exist in our mind (see above). Not necessarily in formats we are
 (capable of) handling. 3p evidence? who said so?


 Eventually we have to look at nature to try to refute the theory. But
 you are right, it is not 3p evidence, but only (with comp) 1p-plural
 sharable evidences.


 Time? I can't walk without crutches. My crutches don't walk alone.


 ?



 Axioms? a reversed logic, not the theorems (theories?) are
 axiom-dependent, the axioms are made to facilitate the theoretical 'dasein'
 of theorems. Artificially.

 and so

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

 On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think about it
 in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is implicit in the
 heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-simultaneous owner of the
 experiences in all the pigeon holes). Without the flashlight, I think what
 people do is think of themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other
 and then, as it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
 pigeon holes from there.


 Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through the
 amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then can be
 related to the universal consciousness of the universal person. In that
 sense we are right now the same person, but relatively amnesic of all
 particularities which distinguish us.


 Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's the
 right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as something of
 an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.


 I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
 primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp it is a
 sort of delusion.

 Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing
what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us
into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch
from imagining living in 5 minute segments to realising that we could
equally well live in instants, with all of our memory being what's there
right now, what's available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole. After
all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all
we'd *expect* to be available.

'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a grotesque
and absurd illusion.'

'How's that?'

'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed to
bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this business:
the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is wrong. I
know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're the
victims of a confidence trick...

Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

 On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think about it
 in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is implicit in the
 heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-simultaneous owner of the
 experiences in all the pigeon holes). Without the flashlight, I think what
 people do is think of themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other
 and then, as it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
 pigeon holes from there.


 Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through the
 amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then can be
 related to the universal consciousness of the universal person. In that
 sense we are right now the same person, but relatively amnesic of all
 particularities which distinguish us.


 Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's the
 right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as something of
 an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.


 I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
 primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp it is a
 sort of delusion.

 Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing
 what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us
 into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch
 from imagining living in 5 minute segments to realising that we could
 equally well live in instants, with all of our memory being what's there
 right now, what's available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole. After
 all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all
 we'd *expect* to be available.

 'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
 grotesque and absurd illusion.'

 'How's that?'

 'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed
 to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this
 business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
 wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
 the victims of a confidence trick...

 Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late


HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely from the
well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-rolling stream, the
progression; the ordering of events are the mere products of the stream,
not the origin of the streaming.


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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread Richard Ruquist

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:09 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:05, Richard Ruquist wrote:




 On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 24 Jan 2014, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:

  On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body
 problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed with comp,
 it is the concrete laptop which appears as an (unconscious preprogrammed)
 idealization.


 Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.


 No need in reifying it. You need just to believe in their truth.



  For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the
 planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but he uses
 a complex universal machine to fail us on this.


 Yes I appreciate this viewpoint.  Actually I'm pretty agnostic about
 what's really real.  At any given time it's the ontology of our best
 theory; where best is not sharply defined but is measured by some mixture
 of predictive power, consilience,  scope, definiteness, and accuracy.


 OK.


  Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it seems very weak
 on the other measures.


 I am not sure. If comp is correct, and if there is no flaw in UDA, comp
 predicts the existence of physical laws. I don't know of any other theory
 doing that. And it is constructive, we get already the quantum logic, and
 they have to define the whole measure, by the UDA.


 Bruno,

 In string theory the physical laws and constants depend on how the
 hyper-EM flux winds thru the (500 or so) topo holes in the Calabi-Yau
 compact manifolds (ie., particles of 6d space).


 OK. What is an hyper-EM? (Hyper means ?)


That is my way of referring to the electric flux that winds thru the
6d-particles of space:


   1. Flux - The fluxes in M Theory is similar to the electric fluxes but
   have nothing to do with electrons or photons. The presence of fluxes has
   the effect of holding the manifold's shape in place. The electric fluxes
   from an enclosed surface is equal to the number of charges within,
   similarly the fluxes in M Theory also comes with whole numbers of a certain
   unit (through each hole in the manifold). It drastically increases the
   complexity of the landscape. Especially when they act on the pointy end of
   the compactified manifold stretching it into a long, narrow neck. The
   result is to produce lot of valleys on the landscape with negative vacuum
   energy (cosmological constant), which is contrary to observation in the
   real world. Now the brane comes to the rescue.
   2. Brane - Similar to the antiparticle in the point approximation, every
   brane also has its antibrane. Anitbrane has a tendency of attracting to the
   pointy end and add energy into the valley to make the vacuum energy
   positive. Thus, by a mix of a little of everything, a point on the
   landscape turns out to have a small positive cosmological constant - just
   like the observation in the real world. It is also found that D-brane can
   stabilize the size as well as the shape of the compactified manifold (like
   the steel-belt in radial tire) at least in the Type IIB theory. This
   function is crucial in the superstring theory, otherwise the 6 hidden
   dimensions would become unwinded and getting infinitely large. Then we
   would be living in ten dimensional space instead of the usual three

http://universe-review.ca/R15-26-CalabiYau02.htm#moduli

 That may constitute a prediction of the laws and constants except that the
 relationship between the laws and particular windings in not known (but the
 same may be true of comp).


 Interesting.
 String theory is a physical theory which makes me envisage that number
 theory might be the measure winner. There are many formal similarities
 suggesting this, but I can't really judge, and only the theological
 approach (with G*) preserves the first person/thrid person relation in a
 way enlightnening for an explanation of the quanta/qualia relation.

 Bruno


 Richard


 It is fuzzy on the precise frontier between geography and physics, but it
 explains at least the difference, which is not even existing in physics,
 except by a vague inference. Comp explains the maning of aw in physical
 laws.



  That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up with some surprising
 testable prediction.


 It is really a question of making people understanding the S4Grz, X and Z
 logics. The math is there. Just technical difficulties, to sum up. It is
 for the next generation.



  This is just standard science.  It's not some Aristotelean prejudice.
 It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop-quantum-gravity.

 You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to be
 more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many people have
 speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more fundamental, but
 nothing

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Stephen Paul King
stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

Dear LizR,

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

On 26 January 2014 23:03, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 25 Jan 2014, at 14:15, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think about it
in Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is implicit in the
heuristic (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-simultaneous owner of the
experiences in all the pigeon holes). Without the flashlight, I think what
people do is think of themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other
and then, as it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
pigeon holes from there.

Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through the
amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then can be
related to the universal consciousness of the universal person. In that
sense we are right now the same person, but relatively amnesic of all
particularities which distinguish us.

Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's the
right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as something of
an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy.

I gues that's why some people want time, if not present-time, as a
primitive. I can understand the feeling, but I think that with comp it is a
sort of delusion.

Watching Memento gives some idea of what's really going on, by showing
what life would be like after a partial breakdown of how the brain fools us
into thinking we have continuous existence. It isn't too much of a stretch
from imagining living in 5 minute segments to realising that we could
equally well live in instants, with all of our memory being what's there
right now, what's available to us in that instant, that pgeonhole. After
all, logically, given the assumption of locality in physics, that's all
we'd *expect* to be available.

'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
grotesque and absurd illusion.'

'How's that?'

'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed
to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this
business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
the victims of a confidence trick...

Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late

HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely from the
well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-rolling stream, the
progression; the ordering of events are the mere products of the stream,
not the origin of the streaming.

Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher

Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of
the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, confidential and
exempt from disclosure under applicable law or may be constituted as
attorney work product. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of
this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
message in error, notify sender immediately and delete this message
immediately.

Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher

Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread John Mikes

Stephen: thanks for your consent and the book review. I have the oher one.
John


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Stephen Paul King 
stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

 Dear Folks,

   I agree with John's most resent remark and his recommendation of the
 books. Here is a nice review of Collapse of Chaos:

 http://www.thenewhumanities.net/books/Book%20Reviews44.html


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:43 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:
   *Bruno*, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate
 my input).
   *JM: What IS the 'mind' you PRESERVE?*
  *BM:* My consciousness. - It means that I can surivive in the usal
 clinical sense,
 the brain digital replacement. I don't need to define my
 consciousness to
 say yes to a doctor. No more than I need to define pain to
 the doctor who
 look at me. I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the
 doctor is serious.

 *JM:Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not *
 *duplicate. It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable *
 *within today's inventory.*

 *BM: *No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for
 the truth of
 comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin
 gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).
 (
 Bruno,  *M Y consciousness is (my) 'response to relations'* whatever
 show up.
 It includes lots of unknown items (with unknowable qualia?) beside the
 ones
 handled WITHIN my brain.
 So I do not trust the 'doctor's digital contraption to include  *ME -
 (total) - o*nly my
 temporary brainfunction, i.e. knowledge-base of mine as of today. Your
 true
 theology is a mystery to me. How true can it be?
 Devising our physical world is a human effort due to the temporary status
 of our
 inventory. To think beyond it is sci-fi (cf my ref. to Liz about Jack
 Cohen and J.
 Stewart's Collapse of Chaos and Figment of Reality - the
 Zarathustrans).

 John M





 On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:

 Bruno, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my input).

 What IS the *'mind'* you PRESERVE?


 My consciousness.
 It means that I can surivive in the usal clinical sense, the brain
 digital replacement.
 I don't need to define my consciousness to say yes to a doctor.
 No more than I need to define pain to the doctor who look at me.
 I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the doctor is serious.




 Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not duplicate. (It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable within today's inventory.


 No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the
 truth of comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true,
 then Plato-Plotin gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is
 refuted. (his theology and physics).




 I find 'mindcontent' different from 'mind' (what I don't really know)
 and package it into 'mentality'. .

 I have no squalm against arithmetical reality - a notion deduced from
 (human?) math-thinking.


 Arithmetical Realism is the idea that human are correct when thinking
 that the number relation are true even for the non humans.
 It is not because a human believe in x, that x is necessarily false for
 non humans. Anyway, it because I can conceive that AR is false, that I
 politely put it in the bag of the hypotheses.



 What I mean as 'reality' (if it 'exists' - another 'if' to explain) is a
 belief that it SHOULD  be - as most of us think of the world. No evidence,
 no facts.

 Physical World (and whatever pertains to it: like 'physixs') is an
 up-to-date explanation of yesterday's knowledge of some phenomena we
 adjusted up to our capabilities in a 'world'-image we derived.


 Yes, but that is why I do not assume anything being both primitive and
 physical. You make my point.
 But I need to start from some assumptions, and I use 2+2=4, and the yes
 doctor, which links computer science and theology. The physics is then
 explanied constructively by the theology of the true machine, with true
 some technical precise sense (due to Tarski).




 Existence is loosly identified in my vocabulary: whatever we MAY think
 of DOES exist in our mind (see above). Not necessarily in formats we are
 (capable of) handling. 3p evidence? who said so?


 Eventually we have to look at nature to try to refute the theory. But
 you are right, it is not 3p evidence, but only (with comp) 1p-plural
 sharable evidences.


 Time? I can't walk without crutches. My crutches don't walk alone.


 ?



 Axioms? a reversed logic, not the theorems (theories?) are
 axiom-dependent, the axioms are made to facilitate the theoretical 'dasein'
 of theorems. Artificially.

 and so on.


 ? If you use

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear John,

  LOL your most welcome. :-) Those books where part of my
(on-going)education. It is great to see them mentioned.


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:36 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 Stephen: thanks for your consent and the book review. I have the oher one.
 John


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Stephen Paul King 
 stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:

 Dear Folks,

   I agree with John's most resent remark and his recommendation of the
 books. Here is a nice review of Collapse of Chaos:

 http://www.thenewhumanities.net/books/Book%20Reviews44.html


 On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:43 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:
   *Bruno*, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate
 my input).
   *JM: What IS the 'mind' you PRESERVE?*
  *BM:* My consciousness. - It means that I can surivive in the usal
 clinical sense,
 the brain digital replacement. I don't need to define my
 consciousness to
 say yes to a doctor. No more than I need to define pain to
 the doctor who
 look at me. I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the
 doctor is serious.

 *JM:Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I
 do not *
 *duplicate. It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable *
 *within today's inventory.*

 *BM: *No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for
 the truth of
 comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true, then
 Plato-Plotin
 gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is refuted.
 (his theology and physics).
 (
 Bruno,  *M Y consciousness is (my) 'response to relations'* whatever
 show up.
 It includes lots of unknown items (with unknowable qualia?) beside the
 ones
 handled WITHIN my brain.
 So I do not trust the 'doctor's digital contraption to include  *ME -
 (total) - o*nly my
 temporary brainfunction, i.e. knowledge-base of mine as of today. Your
 true
 theology is a mystery to me. How true can it be?
 Devising our physical world is a human effort due to the temporary
 status of our
 inventory. To think beyond it is sci-fi (cf my ref. to Liz about Jack
 Cohen and J.
 Stewart's Collapse of Chaos and Figment of Reality - the
 Zarathustrans).

 John M





 On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.bewrote:


 On 19 Jan 2014, at 23:54, John Mikes wrote:

 Bruno, let me use simple words (you seem to overcomplicate my input).

 What IS the *'mind'* you PRESERVE?


 My consciousness.
 It means that I can surivive in the usal clinical sense, the brain
 digital replacement.
 I don't need to define my consciousness to say yes to a doctor.
 No more than I need to define pain to the doctor who look at me.
 I might need to pray, perhaps, and to hope the doctor is serious.




 Then again your ref. to the MW duplication is irrelevant for me: I do
 not duplicate. (It goes with my answer NO to the doctor). I am more than
 knowable within today's inventory.


 No problem if you believe that comp is false. I don't argue for the
 truth of comp, I just present a reasoning explaining that if comp is true,
 then Plato-Plotin gives the right framework for a TOE, and Aristotle is
 refuted. (his theology and physics).




 I find 'mindcontent' different from 'mind' (what I don't really know)
 and package it into 'mentality'. .

 I have no squalm against arithmetical reality - a notion deduced from
 (human?) math-thinking.


 Arithmetical Realism is the idea that human are correct when thinking
 that the number relation are true even for the non humans.
 It is not because a human believe in x, that x is necessarily false for
 non humans. Anyway, it because I can conceive that AR is false, that I
 politely put it in the bag of the hypotheses.



 What I mean as 'reality' (if it 'exists' - another 'if' to explain) is
 a belief that it SHOULD  be - as most of us think of the world. No
 evidence, no facts.

 Physical World (and whatever pertains to it: like 'physixs') is an
 up-to-date explanation of yesterday's knowledge of some phenomena we
 adjusted up to our capabilities in a 'world'-image we derived.


 Yes, but that is why I do not assume anything being both primitive and
 physical. You make my point.
 But I need to start from some assumptions, and I use 2+2=4, and the
 yes doctor, which links computer science and theology. The physics is
 then explanied constructively by the theology of the true machine, with
 true some technical precise sense (due to Tarski).




 Existence is loosly identified in my vocabulary: whatever we MAY think
 of DOES exist in our mind (see above). Not necessarily in formats we are
 (capable of) handling. 3p evidence? who said so?


 Eventually we have to look at nature to try to refute the theory. But
 you are right, it is not 3p evidence, but only (with comp) 1p-plural
 sharable evidences.


 Time? I can't walk without crutches. My crutches don't walk alone.


 ?

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 11:20, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
 grotesque and absurd illusion.'

 'How's that?'

 'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed
 to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this
 business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
 wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
 the victims of a confidence trick...

 Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late


 HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely from the
 well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-rolling stream, the
 progression; the ordering of events are the mere products of the stream,
 not the origin of the streaming.


Hi Stephen

I don't see how Hoyle undermines that idea. His numbered pigeon holes seems
very close to it. He indicates that he doesn't consider time an
ever-rolling stream and later points out that the metaphorical
flashlight isn't an ordering principle, and hints that it may be
completely irrelevant to consciousness, which is purely down to the
contents of the pigeon holes, which are ordered according to certain
physical laws, such as the notes in no 157 being mainly accurate about 156
and earlier, but vague and inaccurate about 158 onwards. He appears to be
presenting a capsule theory of identity. Please explain how he undermines
the idea that time is something like an ordering principle, if I've
correctly understood that to be what you mean, and if you wouldn't mind.

Also, I don't understand the significance of your statement the ordering
of events are the mere products of the stream, not the origin of the
streaming. In the block universe view, the ordering of events is the
product of the laws of physics, which determine the shapes of world-lines
through 4D spacetime. I'm not sure what the origin of the streaming could
mean in this context (the Big Bang?)

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 11:26, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   You and Bruno have often complained that my postings lack rigor... For a
 nice formal representation of Heraclitean streams click 
 herehttp://books.google.com/books?id=vurIJEFut8QCpg=PA55lpg=PA55dq=jon+barwise+streams+hypersetssource=blots=eYJKhMJR1-sig=GD2rTwSNtcLpqnm2K3eqE24THNohl=ensa=Xei=Y4rlUu2tCIW-sQSf74HYBwved=0CGMQ6AEwBw#v=onepageq=jon%20barwise%20streams%20hypersetsf=false
  and
 read the bit about hypersets. BTW, this is a concept almost identical to
 what Lou Kauffman uses in his notion of eigenforms.

 A stream is a possibly infinite sequence of elements. - OK, that doesn't
sound too contentious.

-- 
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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

 :
the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is wrong. I
know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're the
victims of a confidence trick...

  What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire discussion
of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a priori order of the
holes, it is a subjective delusion that we obtain because of our inability
to see the whole lot.



On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 6:08 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 11:20, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

  'Because, like all of us in our daily lives, you're stuck with a
 grotesque and absurd illusion.'

 'How's that?'

 'The idea of time as an ever-rolling stream. The thing which is supposed
 to bear all its sons away. There's one thing quite certain in this
 business: the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is
 wrong. I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're
 the victims of a confidence trick...

 Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late


 HA! Hoyle here undermines the idea that we can obtain time merely from
 the well ordering of integers! I focus on the action, ever-rolling stream,
 the progression; the ordering of events are the mere products of the
 stream, not the origin of the streaming.


 Hi Stephen

 I don't see how Hoyle undermines that idea. His numbered pigeon holes
 seems very close to it. He indicates that he doesn't consider time an
 ever-rolling stream and later points out that the metaphorical
 flashlight isn't an ordering principle, and hints that it may be
 completely irrelevant to consciousness, which is purely down to the
 contents of the pigeon holes, which are ordered according to certain
 physical laws, such as the notes in no 157 being mainly accurate about 156
 and earlier, but vague and inaccurate about 158 onwards. He appears to be
 presenting a capsule theory of identity. Please explain how he undermines
 the idea that time is something like an ordering principle, if I've
 correctly understood that to be what you mean, and if you wouldn't mind.

 Also, I don't understand the significance of your statement the ordering
 of events are the mere products of the stream, not the origin of the
 streaming. In the block universe view, the ordering of events is the
 product of the laws of physics, which determine the shapes of world-lines
 through 4D spacetime. I'm not sure what the origin of the streaming could
 mean in this context (the Big Bang?)

  --
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-- 

Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher

Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

 http://www.provensecure.us/


“This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of
the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, confidential and
exempt from disclosure under applicable law or may be constituted as
attorney work product. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of
this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

Keep going! Don't stop there, hear out the fellow's definition and think
about it.

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 6:42 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

On 27 January 2014 11:26, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

Dear LizR,

You and Bruno have often complained that my postings lack rigor... For
a nice formal representation of Heraclitean streams click
herehttp://books.google.com/books?id=vurIJEFut8QCpg=PA55lpg=PA55dq=jon+barwise+streams+hypersetssource=blots=eYJKhMJR1-sig=GD2rTwSNtcLpqnm2K3eqE24THNohl=ensa=Xei=Y4rlUu2tCIW-sQSf74HYBwved=0CGMQ6AEwBw#v=onepageq=jon%20barwise%20streams%20hypersetsf=false
and
read the bit about hypersets. BTW, this is a concept almost identical to
what Lou Kauffman uses in his notion of eigenforms.

A stream is a possibly infinite sequence of elements. - OK, that
doesn't sound too contentious.

--
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Kindest Regards,

Stephen Paul King

Senior Researcher

Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

http://www.provensecure.us/

This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of
the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, confidential and
exempt from disclosure under applicable law or may be constituted as
attorney work product. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of
this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
message in error, notify sender immediately and delete this message
immediately.

Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,
  :
 the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is wrong. I
 know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're the
 victims of a confidence trick...

   What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire discussion
 of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a priori order of the
 holes, it is a subjective delusion that we obtain because of our inability
 to see the whole lot.


His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of time
can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the pigeon holes,
together with certain rules linking them together. The rules are basically
equivalent to thermodynamics (unsurprisingly, we wouldn't get consciousness
in a universe without an entropy gradient). As one of his characters
explains...

John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the pigeon
holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You find in it a
story, as you might find one of those little slips of paper in a Christmas
cracker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker. But you also find
statments about the stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You decide
to check up on whether these statements about the stories in the other
pigeon holes are right or not. To your surprise you find the statments made
about earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on, are
substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon holes on the
other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things aren't so good. You
find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies. This turns out to be the
same wherever you happen to look, in every pigeon hole. The statements made
about pigeon holes on the other side are at best diffuse and at the worst
just plain wrong. Now let's translate this parable into the time problem.
We'll call the particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining,
the present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find
substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later pigeon holes,
the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of correct statments,
we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit further. What I want to suggest
is that the actual world is very much like this. Instead of pigeon holes we
talk about states.'

Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to *all* the
holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in. From the
subjective, inside view, all moments are the present when they're being
experienced, and we only experience a flow of time because of their
contents (a fact which Memento guy illustrates nicely, of course).

This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle introduces a
flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the flashlight is used
is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside the pigeon-holes is of
continuous subjective experience. In fact, the existence or nonexistence of
the flashlight is irrelevant to the subjective experience. The flashlight
was introduced so the characters could think about sampling each pigeon
hole, as though they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's
eye view. But of course in reality they can only take the internal,
frog's eye view.

Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and the laws
relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective experience of
time.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 12:49, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   Keep going! Don't stop there, hear out the fellow's definition and think
 about it.

 It's far too complicated for my little brain. You must have noticed me
(slowly and painfully) working out the answers to Bruno's exercises...

...which brings me to Liz's 2nd law:

* If a theory can't be explained simply enough that I can understand it, it
needs more work :-)

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

  Very good points that you make, but they are peripheral What I am
trying to draw attention is: How did the order and the relating come to
pass? (in the last sentence you wrote.)

  Is is just sitting there, in eternity, and our consciousness somehow is a
reflection of this order and relating? I would buy this explanation iff
we have an account of why those particular orders and relations are
considered and not all the infinitely many others.
  Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea
that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come
to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that
change is an illusion that somehow persists.
  Can we try a different set of concepts?


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:28 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 12:48, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,
  :
 the idea of time as a steady progression from past to future is wrong.
 I know very well we feel this way about it subjectively. But we're the
 victims of a confidence trick...

   What other implication does Hoyle's phrasing have? His entire
 discussion of the pigeon holes is to point out that there is no a priori
 order of the holes, it is a subjective delusion that we obtain because of
 our inability to see the whole lot.


 His implication seems to me to be that the subjective experience of time
 can be explained as a phenomenon caused by the order of the pigeon holes,
 together with certain rules linking them together. The rules are basically
 equivalent to thermodynamics (unsurprisingly, we wouldn't get consciousness
 in a universe without an entropy gradient). As one of his characters
 explains...

 John went on, 'All right, let's come now to the contents of the pigeon
 holes. Suppose you choose one of them, say the 137th. You find in it a
 story, as you might find one of those little slips of paper in a Christmas
 cracker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker. But you also
 find statments about the stories you'll find in other pigeon holes. You
 decide to check up on whether these statements about the stories in the
 other pigeon holes are right or not. To your surprise you find the
 statments made about earlier pigeon holes, the 136th, the 135th, and so on,
 are substantially correct. But when you compare with the pigeon holes on
 the other side, the 138th, the 139th,...you find things aren't so good. You
 find a lot of contradictions and discrepancies. This turns out to be the
 same wherever you happen to look, in every pigeon hole. The statements made
 about pigeon holes on the other side are at best diffuse and at the worst
 just plain wrong. Now let's translate this parable into the time problem.
 We'll call the particular pigeon hole, the one you happen to be examining,
 the present. The earlier pigeon holes, the ones for which you find
 substantially correct statements, we call the past. The later pigeon holes,
 the ones for which there isn't too much in the way of correct statments,
 we'll call the future. Let me go on a bit further. What I want to suggest
 is that the actual world is very much like this. Instead of pigeon holes we
 talk about states.'

 Note that the description he gives of the 137th hole applies to *all* the
 holes - so the present is whichever hole you happen to look in. From the
 subjective, inside view, all moments are the present when they're being
 experienced, and we only experience a flow of time because of their
 contents (a fact which Memento guy illustrates nicely, of course).

 This is a description of a capsule theory of identity. Hoyle introduces a
 flashlight, but then shows that the order in which the flashlight is used
 is irrelevant - the 1st person view from inside the pigeon-holes is of
 continuous subjective experience. In fact, the existence or nonexistence of
 the flashlight is irrelevant to the subjective experience. The flashlight
 was introduced so the characters could think about sampling each pigeon
 hole, as though they could somehow stand outside time - take the bird's
 eye view. But of course in reality they can only take the internal,
 frog's eye view.

 Hence, imho, Hoyle is saying that it is the order of the boxes and the
 laws relating their contents that gives rise to the subjective experience
 of time.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

   By that standard we would still be living in caves Sorry, knowledge
does not come cheaply. :_( It has taken me countless hours of reading to
get to where I am.. What is one to do, when trying to explain an idea that
is unconventional? I can't seem to just shut up...



On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 7:31 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 12:49, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   Keep going! Don't stop there, hear out the fellow's definition and
 think about it.

 It's far too complicated for my little brain. You must have noticed me
 (slowly and painfully) working out the answers to Bruno's exercises...

 ...which brings me to Liz's 2nd law:

 * If a theory can't be explained simply enough that I can understand it,
 it needs more work :-)

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Stephen Paul King

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Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

 http://www.provensecure.us/


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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 13:36, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   Very good points that you make, but they are peripheral What I am
 trying to draw attention is: How did the order and the relating come to
 pass? (in the last sentence you wrote.)


This is the question of the origin of the laws of physics. I don't think
you can address that by assuming there is something special about time over
and above its usual usage as a dimension - it would be better to start with
something far more primitive, and see if you can extract time as a
dimension from it, imho. (Comp tries to do this, for example.)


   Is is just sitting there, in eternity, and our consciousness somehow is
 a reflection of this order and relating?


Yes. Although the phrase in eternity is misleading if we assume time is
emergent from something more primitive.


 I would buy this explanation iff we have an account of why those
 particular orders and relations are considered and not all the infinitely
 many others.


Presumably, assuming there *are *infinitely many others,  these ones are
considered because an anthropic selection principle places us in a universe
that is compatible with our existence.


   Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea
 that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come
 to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that
 change is an illusion that somehow persists.


OK, well if you're fed up with that sort of discussion, all I can advise is
don't engage with discussions which make this assumption (which will be
most discussions about physics, since it's a standard assumption). You may
be right about this, of course - comp comes to the same conclusion - but
the reality merchants still have plenty of evidence on their side. The onus
is on dissenters to show otherwise.

Also, I have to say that if you insist on using phrases like change is an
illusion that somehow persists that mainly seem to indicate that you don't
understand something (the whole concept of time being a dimension?) -
rather than indicating any problem with our existing understanding of
physics. So it might be worth you getting to grips with how ideas like the
block universe work, and why they are treated as unproblematic by the vast
majority of the physics community, before you attempt to demolish them.


  Can we try a different set of concepts?


As long as it's clear which concepts we're assuming, and which are open to
discussion.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 13:39, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

By that standard we would still be living in caves


Teehee. Have you been reading Camille Paglia...

Personally I think this should be a touchstone for all people with
unconventional ideas. Once you can explain them so I understand them,
you're definitely onto something!


 Sorry, knowledge does not come cheaply. :_( It has taken me countless
 hours of reading to get to where I am.. What is one to do, when trying to
 explain an idea that is unconventional? I can't seem to just shut up...


Look to Bruno as an example, perhaps? He's trying to educate me in modal
and predicate logic (I think) so I can better get to grips with comp.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Dear LizR,

   I will let Kevin Knuth answer for me:
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1831


On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 8:33 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 27 January 2014 13:36, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   Very good points that you make, but they are peripheral What I am
 trying to draw attention is: How did the order and the relating come to
 pass? (in the last sentence you wrote.)


 This is the question of the origin of the laws of physics. I don't think
 you can address that by assuming there is something special about time over
 and above its usual usage as a dimension - it would be better to start with
 something far more primitive, and see if you can extract time as a
 dimension from it, imho. (Comp tries to do this, for example.)


   Is is just sitting there, in eternity, and our consciousness somehow is
 a reflection of this order and relating?


 Yes. Although the phrase in eternity is misleading if we assume time is
 emergent from something more primitive.


  I would buy this explanation iff we have an account of why those
 particular orders and relations are considered and not all the infinitely
 many others.


 Presumably, assuming there *are *infinitely many others,  these ones are
 considered because an anthropic selection principle places us in a universe
 that is compatible with our existence.


   Like I have written previously, I am past the point of buying the idea
 that there is a Reality out there independent of us that we passively come
 to experience. I am tired of explanations that ask us to believe that
 change is an illusion that somehow persists.


 OK, well if you're fed up with that sort of discussion, all I can advise
 is don't engage with discussions which make this assumption (which will be
 most discussions about physics, since it's a standard assumption). You may
 be right about this, of course - comp comes to the same conclusion - but
 the reality merchants still have plenty of evidence on their side. The onus
 is on dissenters to show otherwise.

 Also, I have to say that if you insist on using phrases like change is
 an illusion that somehow persists that mainly seem to indicate that you
 don't understand something (the whole concept of time being a dimension?) -
 rather than indicating any problem with our existing understanding of
 physics. So it might be worth you getting to grips with how ideas like
 the block universe work, and why they are treated as unproblematic by the
 vast majority of the physics community, before you attempt to demolish them.


Can we try a different set of concepts?


 As long as it's clear which concepts we're assuming, and which are open to
 discussion.

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Mobile: (864) 567-3099

stephe...@provensecure.com

 http://www.provensecure.us/


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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 14:50, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

I will let Kevin Knuth answer for me:
 http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1831


Thanks, I will add that to my reading list.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 27 January 2014 15:25, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,
George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Formhttp://www.lawsofform.org/lof.htmlare 
 the place to start...


I'll add that to my reading list.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-26 Thread meekerdb


On 1/26/2014 7:22 PM, LizR wrote:
On 27 January 2014 15:25, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com 
mailto:stephe...@provensecure.com wrote:


Dear LizR,
   George Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form http://www.lawsofform.org/lof.html 
are the
place to start...


I'll add that to my reading list.


But on which end?  :-)

Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 24 Jan 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/23/2014 11:59 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Only the idealized computations of Turing.  Computations in my  
computer always stop.


Because you assume that it exists in some ontological sense. That  
might be possible. My point is that if this was really the case,  
you can't say yes to the doctor qua computatio. You can say  
yes to the doctor by invoking some magic.


You've written that several times, but I don't understand the  
point.  What difference does it make if all computations stop?   
Wasn't that part of Turing's definition of a computation - a Turing  
computer process that stopped.


No. That is a successful computation. But in the mathematical space of  
all computations, many will not stop.
If we want all successful computation in a well defined computational  
space, we have to tolerate all those which do not stop. It is the  
price of universality. I can prove that again.


If all computations stop, then arithmetic is inconsistent.

Well, if you believe that there is a biggest natural number, then  
arithmetic is already inconsistent. There will be some k such that k =  
k+1, and thus 0 = 1.


You are doing the move to a small non robust but real and primitive  
physical universe. But step 8 is supposed to show how much ad hoc is  
that move.







Just because I note that my computer will always stop and presumably  
my neurons will stop, doesn't entail that all processes must stop.


OK.


And even if they did, why would that cause me to say no to the  
doctor.



By the UDA. If you say yes to the doctor, physics emerges from all  
computations, and even plausibly from those who do not stop, which  
have a higher measure than those which stops.


Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 24 Jan 2014, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body  
problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed  
with comp, it is the concrete laptop which appears as an  
(unconscious preprogrammed) idealization.


Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.


No need in reifying it. You need just to believe in their truth.




For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the  
planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but  
he uses a complex universal machine to fail us on this.


Yes I appreciate this viewpoint.  Actually I'm pretty agnostic about  
what's really real.  At any given time it's the ontology of our best  
theory; where best is not sharply defined but is measured by some  
mixture of predictive power, consilience,  scope, definiteness, and  
accuracy.


OK.


Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it seems very  
weak on the other measures.


I am not sure. If comp is correct, and if there is no flaw in UDA,  
comp predicts the existence of physical laws. I don't know of any  
other theory doing that. And it is constructive, we get already the  
quantum logic, and they have to define the whole measure, by the UDA.
It is fuzzy on the precise frontier between geography and physics, but  
it explains at least the difference, which is not even existing in  
physics, except by a vague inference. Comp explains the maning of aw  
in physical laws.




That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up with some  
surprising testable prediction.


It is really a question of making people understanding the S4Grz, X  
and Z logics. The math is there. Just technical difficulties, to sum  
up. It is for the next generation.




This is just standard science.  It's not some Aristotelean  
prejudice. It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop- 
quantum-gravity.


You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to  
be more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many  
people have speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more  
fundamental, but nothing definite has been predicted.  So if comp  
showed that the octonions were necessary that would be quite  
convincing.


Unfortunately my intuition does not come from comp, here. I would have  
like that too, but now, that would be wishful thinking.
But you should understand that we have no choice. If comp is correct,  
and if we don't put consciousness under the rug, the *whole* of  
physics is a theorem in arithmetic, concerning what any universal  
machine can predict from any of its states (even in simulation). Comp  
gives new strong invariants for physics: the choice of phi_i, and the  
choice of the observer in the phi_i.
That's the main point: an explanation that no theory of consciousness  
can avoid a derivation of the physical reality appearances from  
arithmetic or equivalent.


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread Richard Ruquist

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:22 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 24 Jan 2014, at 23:12, meekerdb wrote:

  On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body
 problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed with comp,
 it is the concrete laptop which appears as an (unconscious preprogrammed)
 idealization.


 Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.


 No need in reifying it. You need just to believe in their truth.



  For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the
 planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but he uses
 a complex universal machine to fail us on this.


 Yes I appreciate this viewpoint.  Actually I'm pretty agnostic about
 what's really real.  At any given time it's the ontology of our best
 theory; where best is not sharply defined but is measured by some mixture
 of predictive power, consilience,  scope, definiteness, and accuracy.


 OK.


  Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it seems very weak
 on the other measures.


 I am not sure. If comp is correct, and if there is no flaw in UDA, comp
 predicts the existence of physical laws. I don't know of any other theory
 doing that. And it is constructive, we get already the quantum logic, and
 they have to define the whole measure, by the UDA.


Bruno,

In string theory the physical laws and constants depend on how the hyper-EM
flux winds thru the (500 or so) topo holes in the Calabi-Yau compact
manifolds (ie., particles of 6d space). That may constitute a prediction of
the laws and constants except that the relationship between the laws and
particular windings in not known (but the same may be true of comp).
Richard


 It is fuzzy on the precise frontier between geography and physics, but it
 explains at least the difference, which is not even existing in physics,
 except by a vague inference. Comp explains the maning of aw in physical
 laws.



  That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up with some surprising
 testable prediction.


 It is really a question of making people understanding the S4Grz, X and Z
 logics. The math is there. Just technical difficulties, to sum up. It is
 for the next generation.



  This is just standard science.  It's not some Aristotelean prejudice.
 It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop-quantum-gravity.

 You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to be
 more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many people have
 speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more fundamental, but
 nothing definite has been predicted.  So if comp showed that the octonions
 were necessary that would be quite convincing.


 Unfortunately my intuition does not come from comp, here. I would have
 like that too, but now, that would be wishful thinking.
 But you should understand that we have no choice. If comp is correct, and
 if we don't put consciousness under the rug, the *whole* of physics is a
 theorem in arithmetic, concerning what any universal machine can predict
 from any of its states (even in simulation). Comp gives new strong
 invariants for physics: the choice of phi_i, and the choice of the observer
 in the phi_i.
 That's the main point: an explanation that no theory of consciousness can
 avoid a derivation of the physical reality appearances from arithmetic or
 equivalent.


It seems from the little I know that comp at most predicts 8 different
variations of laws and constants whereas string theory predicts at
different variation for every unique winding, which may be as many as
10^1000 different variations. Perhaps that is testable. Richard


 Bruno



 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread David Nyman

On 25 January 2014 09:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Maybe the difference in intuition is because she doesn't think about it in
 Hoyle's universalist way, although ISTM this is implicit in the heuristic
 (i.e. the guy is the unique and non-simultaneous owner of the
 experiences in all the pigeon holes). Without the flashlight, I think what
 people do is think of themselves as situated in some pigeon hole or other
 and then, as it were, imaginatively select some continuation sequence of
 pigeon holes from there.


 Yes. But we can still believe in the universalist view, through the
 amnesia and the return in the universal baby state, which then can be
 related to the universal consciousness of the universal person. In that
 sense we are right now the same person, but relatively amnesic of all
 particularities which distinguish us.


Yes indeed, it is the amnesia that compartmentalises us. But it's the
right now that strikes me (and, I presume, struck Hoyle) as something of
an an equivocation, at least in the pigeon hole analogy. I realise that
right now is an intrinsically indexical concept and Hoyle quite
definitely means us to understand that each co-existent pigeon hole in his
3p-block concept can indeed be interpreted as its own right now,
unchangingly. But he also sees that if he leaves it at that, he has not yet
explicitly defined any principle that could suffice to break the unchanging
symmetry of the co-existing block from the 1p perspective. In this bare
scenario, each of us should rather expect our experience, if anything, to
be permanently confined to that of a single pigeon hole right now - i.e.
not momentarily, but unchangingly. And what would that be like? Not very
much, it might seem.

Consequently, he explicitly posits (and purely, I insist, as a sleight of
intuition) an unobservable change - the replacement of one pigeon hole by
another in the unique context of what must be understood, unequivocally, as
a single, universal right now. IOW, Hoyle's contention is that each
moment of consciousness can be intuited as the singularised state of a
universal solipsist whose successive re-combinations of remembering and
forgetting suffice to break the panoptic symmetry. At the least, it seems
possible that our experience (i.e. from the inside) is *not
inconsistent*with this intuition. It occurred to me, in passing, that
this idea of
unobservable but consequential change has some analogy (but no more than
that) with the way our vision fixates successive points via saccades
which are themselves unobserved. Despite the unobservability of any
transition between visual fixations, we can hardly consistently believe
that our gaze is merely confined to any one of them.

The peculiar consequence of such an intuition is that, from the perspective
of David's typing *these very words*, Julius Caesar is no more the owner of
an experience right now than David continues to be the owner of the
experience of a moment ago. The only experience that obtains right now is
what I happen to be aware of, as a proxy for the universal solipsist to
whom both I and right now are uniquely applicable. In this way,
according to Hoyle, every moment of relative experience is lived out, in
mutual exclusion, in due course and in due measure.

I suppose, at least, we are asked to see that this multi-solipsistic
intuition is no more open to experiential refutation than the
mini-solipsism that is the butt of so many philosophical jokes (Why are
there so few of us solipsists?). After all, from the perspective of the
singular intersection of a universal right now with some element of a
3p-block, we should indeed expect to be confronted, in effect, with a
zombie world devoid of directly-observable consciousness: and that is
indeed consistent with (and the persistent puzzle of) our experience. But
do we, in truth, live out every possible moment, one at a time, in due
course and in due measure? Well, somebody, on our behalf, does precisely
this, do they not?

However, after our many discussions, I suspect that Hoyle's universalist
intuition (no doubt unsurprisingly) must be modified in the
computationalist view and I think I am gradually starting to appreciate
more and more what the differences may be. In fact I've been giving the
matter a lot of thought recently. But that is meat for another conversation.

In answer to your queries about Hoyle, I've no idea whether he met or knew
about Everett, but he certainly considered the multiverse idea. Consider
the following excerpt from October the First is Too Late (1965):

There could even be completely different universes. Go back to my decaying
nucleus. Hook up a bomb which explodes according to whether you have decay
of a nucleus or not. Make the bomb so big that it becomes a doomsday
machine. Let it be capable - if exploded - of wiping out all life on the
Earth. Let the whole thing go for a critical few seconds, you remember we
were considering whether a nucleus would decay in a

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread meekerdb


On 1/25/2014 3:07 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

And even if they did, why would that cause me to say no to the doctor.



By the UDA. If you say yes to the doctor, physics emerges from all computations, and 
even plausibly from those who do not stop, which have a higher measure than those which 
stops.


I doubt that physics depends on what I say to anyone.  But the question is, what if 
materialism is true and I say yes to the doctor.  I just don't see how saying yes to 
the doctor commits me the rest of the argument.


And on the question of measure, when I write a computer program that doesn't stop with an 
answer as I intended it is sometimes because it has entered a loop.  Aren't non-stopping 
programs like that going to dominate the measure of computations by the UD?


Brent

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-25 Thread LizR

AFAIK that is the first known statement of quantum suicide (or quantum
immortality). If Hoyle wasn't aware of Everett he certainly had similar
ideas.

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 23 Jan 2014, at 19:42, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/23/2014 1:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:34, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 1:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:33, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Only to make the UDA non valid. It works, if Brent meant a  
mathematical ultrafinitism. But this change comp, like it  
changes elementary arithmetic (which suppose at least that 0 ≠  
s(x), and x ≠ y implies s(x) ≠ s(y), which can't be true in  
ultrafinitism).

Ultrafinitism makes all current physical theories meaningless.


How can that be when all current physical theories are tested by  
computation on finite digital computers and all observations are  
finite rational numbers?


We just bet that physics is well approximated by computations,  
and indeed all known laws seems to be computable (except the  
collapse). I guess it makes sense in most case.




I'd say the meaning of theories comes in their application - not  
from an axiom system.


Because you reify reality,


LOL!  I'm reminded of what Sidney Morgenbesser said to B. F.  
Skinner, Let me see if I understand your thesis.  You think we  
shouldn't athropomorphize people?


I meant that the meaning of theories is brought by the theories  
already present in the brain (generalized or not). If not you reify  
reality, meaning, and this in a way which, when assuming comp,  
looks like magic.






an put the meaning there. But we can't do that when working on  
the mind-body problem, so we need a mathematical notion of  
reality, and the notion of model (in logician sense) plays that  
role.


That's a point where I disagree with you.  We can work on the mind  
body problem by creating intelligent machines and when we have  
created them we will infer that they have minds just as we infer  
other people have minds (nobody really believes in p-zombies) and  
we will learn to engineer those minds.


We don't believe in human p-zombie. For robots, many would argue  
that they are zombie, by construction.
Then, the constructing AI and the mind-body problem will be  
solved by itself, can only solve the easy problem, that is not  
the mind-body problem, which needs to justify the bodies without  
assuming them.




Note that there were people who tried an axiomatic approach to  
defining life - and it led nowhere, while people working  
laboratories with x-ray crystallography and stick-and-ball models  
discovered the double-helix.


Right. defining life does not make sense. Biology is easy. It  
is not confronted to the hard problem, where the 3p complete  
explanation seems to evacuate the 1p person. Comp reduces  
completely this problem by reducing physics to number's psychology/ 
theology. If not, let us isolate the flaw in the argument.






Theorizing has it's place.  Molecular biology was really inspired  
by a lecture that Erwin Schroedinger gave (and later expanded into  
his book, What is Life) and which pointed to some of the basic  
characteristic the chemistry and physics of life must have.  And  
one its contributions was to emphasize there was no need for  
magic, no elan vital.  I see computationalism playing a similar  
role in the study of consciousness.  But just like molecular  
didn't so much solve the problem of life as dissolve it, I expect  
something similar to happen in the study of consciousness.


In the case of consciousness, such dissolution will corresponds to  
Dennett kind of explaining the subject away. In biology, we can do  
everything in the 3p (the 1p plural, actually, with comp). But for  
consciousness, the 1p is not reducible. Now, that problem is solved  
by ... the oldest solution we have: Theaetetus. The universal and  
Löbian machine can refute Socrate's refutation of Theaetetus. All  
critics of that definition contains a confusion of two arithmetical  
hypostases, in the comp frame. We do have made progresses.







That for all x x ≠ x + 1, is NOT an empirical question.


It's not an empirical question in Platonia, but in the real world  
(which I reify :-) ) it is: One raindrop plus one raindrop makes  
one raindrop.  The set of the swim team with cardinality four plus  
the set of the basketball team with cardinality twelve is a set  
with cardinality 14.


If you believe that 1+1=1, you are in trouble.
That one drop added on one drop give one drop is not a refutation  
of the arithmetical statement that 1+1=2. It is a misapplication of  
a theory in a context which the theory does not handled.


Exactly my point.  And the context where is *does* apply, where it  
is *not* an empirical question, is in our language and Platonia.


OK, if you don't put too much metaphysics in Platonia. Comp's platonia  
is just (N, +, *), a structure simpler than most used by most  
physicists and mathematicians.







You can refute the theory of group by showing that (N +) is not a  
group.

That's bad philosophy, I am afraid, Brent. Come on!

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 23 Jan 2014, at 19:50, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/23/2014 2:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:45, meekerdb wrote:

snip

What makes you sure that the idea that all programs terminates is  
not also an idealisation (about a finite universal reality)?
Also, if all programs terminate, there is no more real numbers. I  
guess you will say that there are idealisation. You seem to  
know that there is a concrete reality, but the comp approach to  
the mind-body problem asks to, temporarily perhaps, doubt such  
certainty.


Of course I'm not *certain*, all theories are defeasible outside  
of Platonia.


Inside too.


But it seems like a well supported theory; at least as certain as  
you can always add one more.


All right. But the you see the conflict. You cannot have both, and  
that is the point. I don't pretend that we can always add one. I  
assume that because it is the only way to give sense to comp. You  
just agree that comp is false, which is out of my topic.


Are you equivocating on comp?  Is it not just the theory that ones  
brain could be replaced by a digital computer?  You often write the  
above as though all of your argument follows from that saying yes  
to the doctor.


Together with Church thesis (and thus with the idea that a machine (in  
Turing sense) stops or not stops.





But that is not clear to me.


It depends on the context. Only when I explain the consequence of  
comp, comp is defined by the step 0 (yes doctor + CT). But then, in  
most discussion, comp means the definition/assumption *and* its  
consequence.




It seems that it *also* assumes arithmetical realism and that you  
can always add one more.


You need that to convince yourself that the set of partial computable  
function is close for the diagonalization, which is the conceptual  
reason to trust it. Or just to define the machine in the Turing sense.
In (N, +, *) it is just a matter studied in high school to understand  
that we can always add one more.





and that the scope of substitution is not the whole universe.


To simplify step 1-6, and most reasoning, but step seven eliminates  
this.








You critics of comp is valid, if you assume that there is a bigger  
natural number.


We do agree. But then, explain me what is the (small) physical  
universe, where does it come from, and why it hurts?


Explain to me why QM is in complex Hilbert space and not real or  
quaternion.


I am not sure of that.
I don't insist, because I am a long way to prove that in comp, but I  
think the comp-QM needs the octonions.





you invent a new arithmetic, just to block an explanation. Is that  
not gross wishful thinking?


No, the *new* arithmetic is just a recognition that Peano's  
arithmetic is an idealization


In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body  
problem, it is better to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed with  
comp, it is the concrete laptop which appears as an (unconscious  
preprogrammed) idealization.
For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the  
planets you can count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but he  
uses a complex universal machine to fail us on this.




and one that we don't necessarily need to describe the world.  After  
all people used arithmetic for centuries without assuming you could  
*always* add one more.


Not Euler, not the mathematicians. Natural numbers don't make sense  
without this.

People, for millenia used the grounds without assuming a big ball.
Science can be counter-intuitive, and indeed, science was born (in  
occident) from taking some distance with the WYSIWYG animal's belief.


Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread meekerdb


On 1/23/2014 11:59 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Only the idealized computations of Turing.  Computations in my computer always 
stop.


Because you assume that it exists in some ontological sense. That might be possible. My 
point is that if this was really the case, you can't say yes to the doctor qua 
computatio. You can say yes to the doctor by invoking some magic.


You've written that several times, but I don't understand the point.  What difference does 
it make if all computations stop?  Wasn't that part of Turing's definition of a 
computation - a Turing computer process that stopped.  Just because I note that my 
computer will always stop and presumably my neurons will stop, doesn't entail that all 
processes must stop.  And even if they did, why would that cause me to say no to the doctor.


Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread meekerdb

On 1/24/2014 12:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
In your aristotelian theology. But when working on the mind-body problem, it is better
to abandon all prejudices on this. Indeed with comp, it is the concrete laptop which
appears as an (unconscious preprogrammed) idealization.

Of course I'd say reifying arithmetic is a prejudice.

For some people, like Hardy, the number 8 is more concrete that the planets you can
count. Our brain makes us believe the contrary, but he uses a complex universal machine
to fail us on this.

Yes I appreciate this viewpoint. Actually I'm pretty agnostic about what's really real.
At any given time it's the ontology of our best theory; where best is not sharply
defined but is measured by some mixture of predictive power, consilience, scope,
definiteness, and accuracy. Comp is great on scope and maybe on definiteness, but it
seems very weak on the other measures. That's why I keep hoping you'll be able to come up
with some surprising testable prediction. This is just standard science. It's not some
Aristotelean prejudice. It's the same thing we ask of string theory and loop-quantum-gravity.

You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to be more fundamental
than complex Hilbert space. Of course many people have speculated that quaternions or
octonions will be more fundamental, but nothing definite has been predicted. So if comp
showed that the octonions were necessary that would be quite convincing.

Brent

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread Russell Standish

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 02:12:57PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
 
 You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to
 be more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many
 people have speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more
 fundamental, but nothing definite has been predicted.  So if comp
 showed that the octonions were necessary that would be quite
 convincing.
 

Indeed - with my derivation of QM, octonions, or more general measure
are preferred over the complex. Which naturally leads to the question
of why complex. Either octonions make no empirical difference, or a
reason will be found why commutativity of the measure is necessary, or
some experiment will be devised showing that complex number QM (ie
standard QM) is empirically wrong. Any of these three options would be
fascinating!

Cheers

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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics  hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread meekerdb


On 1/24/2014 2:58 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 02:12:57PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:

You mention that you think octonion Hilbert space will be found to
be more fundamental than complex Hilbert space.  Of course many
people have speculated that quaternions or octonions will be more
fundamental, but nothing definite has been predicted.  So if comp
showed that the octonions were necessary that would be quite
convincing.


Indeed - with my derivation of QM, octonions, or more general measure
are preferred over the complex. Which naturally leads to the question
of why complex. Either octonions make no empirical difference, or a
reason will be found why commutativity of the measure is necessary,


Measurements in standard QM is not generally commutative.  You mean 
associativity?

Baez and Heurta have written several papers on the relation of the four division algebras 
to physics. http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.0551v2.pdf


Brent


or
some experiment will be devised showing that complex number QM (ie
standard QM) is empirically wrong. Any of these three options would be
fascinating!

Cheers



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-24 Thread Russell Standish

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 06:35:16PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
 On 1/24/2014 2:58 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
 Indeed - with my derivation of QM, octonions, or more general measure
 are preferred over the complex. Which naturally leads to the question
 of why complex. Either octonions make no empirical difference, or a
 reason will be found why commutativity of the measure is necessary,
 
 Measurements in standard QM is not generally commutative.  You mean 
 associativity?

No I meant commutativity of the measure (which is the complex field of
QM). If a more general measure is used - eg quaternions, then the
axiom of commutativity is the first to go.

 
 Baez and Heurta have written several papers on the relation of the
 four division algebras to physics.
 http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.0551v2.pdf
 

Thanks - I'll take a look, although, superficially it looks like its
is dealing with a different question - maybe Lisi's theory?

 Brent
 
 or
 some experiment will be devised showing that complex number QM (ie
 standard QM) is empirically wrong. Any of these three options would be
 fascinating!
 
 Cheers
 
 
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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 23 January 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/22/2014 10:33 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 23 January 2014 08:22, Stephen Paul King 
 stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:


 We need the Becoming that is implicit in the moving flashlight, at
 least to give us a window of finite duration in time (and bits/space) to
 have a memory of what I used to be that can be compared to what I
 experience now.


  According to JA Wheeler we only need enough duration at any given
 instant to measure one bit. But in any case, all that is happening in your
 brain is happening right now. I suspect there is an illusion of an
 extended present being created, one pigeonhole at a time (let me check
 with Dan Dennett... yes, looks like there is :)


 But why illusion?  If we're taking consciousness as fundamental then we
 should take the extended present as part of it; and in that case the
 extension allows them to overlap and hence provide a time dimension.


This comment was made in the context of a block universe.


 If we're not taking consciousness as fundamental then we need to explain
 the extended present.

 Hence the reference to it being an illusion.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 23 January 2014 19:45, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.comwrote:

 Dear LizR,

   With quantum field theory we are still using the idea of a single
 space-time manifold to glue it all together but this itself could be one
 of the problems that we have in physics.


Yes, that's true. (I'm not sure that introducing an extra time dimension is
a step in the right direction though!)

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 23 January 2014 19:42, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/22/2014 10:38 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 23 January 2014 19:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 On 1/22/2014 10:21 PM, LizR wrote:

 The real world doesn't add raindrops, or most other things we think of
 as entities - adding raindrops isn't 1+1, nature is really adding something
 like 10^25 atoms to another 10^25. But it _does_ add bosons in a BEC. Even
 when the constituents are indistinguishable, nature can perform simple
 arithmetic with them.


  I'd say *we* perform simple arithmetic to describe them - but only when
 we correctly recognize what is countable and what isn't.  So the truth of
 Ax(x=/=x+1) is in Platonia.


  Platonia? Where's that, then?

 In our heads and in our language (and publications of the AMS).

 So that's where the truth or otherwise of Ax(x=/=x+1) is. OK.

I think we're all agreed that's your view on the matter, at least.

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 22 Jan 2014, at 19:06, David Nyman wrote:



On 22 January 2014 09:45, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
I think I said the fl;ashlight wasn't needed, so it isn't there, and  
so nothing moves it around. The pigeonholes stand for states of  
consciousness, so they perceive what it would illuminate, which is  
their own contents. But they can perceive those without it.


Do you really find that you can make intuitive sense of the pigeon  
hole metaphor without the flashlight? I must admit I've never been  
able to. From a 3p perspective, the idea is that the relations  
between pigeon holes map out a multiplicity of implied spatial- 
temporal trajectories, all there together. From a 1p perspective  
this would seem to transform to a fixed array of momentary points-of- 
view, again all there (or illuminated) together. I think that any  
attempt to intuit a relativised personal history from this metaphor  
cannot avoid the imaginative association with one or another  
sequence of pigeon holes.


But each state sum up a sequence. This is common in the 1p and 3p  
perspective. How could a machine distinguish different flashlight  
sequencing?





The logical alternative would seem to be to get stuck, monad-like,  
in whatever pigeon hole you first thought of.


In the 1p perspective, the past sequence is remember, in virtue of the  
computation and its handling of the self-reference. And the (immediate  
and long term) future is expected in the same way, and then confirmed  
in the states which extends the past sequence. If the ordering of the  
flaslight is changed, or if more than one flashlightning is used, why  
should any experience change?





What Hoyle was suggesting, I think, is that the necessary intuitions  
of a flow of consciousness can all be collapsed, as it were, into  
the notion of a unique sequence (in a purely logical sense) of  
randomly selected pigeon holes.


I continue I have difficulty to make sense of this. It looks like  
projecting he 1p view on the 3p description.



Such an absolute sequence must then contain all relativised  
sequences, with their logical inter-relations and differential  
measures preserved. Oddly enough, any notion of flow, as entailing  
the observation of transition between holes, is still unnecessary in  
this schema; indeed it would be incoherent. The sequencing of pigeon  
holes carries no relation of next or previous; the spatial- 
temporal structure of each pigeon hole is already conceived as both  
dynamic and self-ordering, like Barbour's time capsules.


Rather, the purpose of the logical sequence of pigeon holes - i.e.  
the beam of the flashlight - is to furnish an intuition that  
avoids the aforementioned monadic catastrophe, by conceiving a  
unique multiplex of all possible (parallel) relative sequences.  
The cost of this heuristic is that all the pigeon holes now belong  
to a sort of universal, solipsistic multiple-personality that lives  
them (and, by proxy, us) one moment at a time. It's an  
interesting idea, with more ramifications than might appear at first  
blush, and thinking in this way often sheds an intriguingly  
different light on the various thought experiments about identity  
and succession we love to argue about on this list.


Let us take the WM-duplication. Suppose that the guy in Helsinki is  
told that the randomly chosen unique flaslight sequence will  
illuminate W just after the duplication (if this makes sense).  
Should he decide that P(W) = 1 and P(M) = 0? Is the guy in M, which  
exists (even with just Behavior Mechanism), a zombie?


Bruno





David

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:34, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 1:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:33, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Only to make the UDA non valid. It works, if Brent meant a  
mathematical ultrafinitism. But this change comp, like it changes  
elementary arithmetic (which suppose at least that 0 ≠ s(x), and  
x ≠ y implies s(x) ≠ s(y), which can't be true in  
ultrafinitism).

Ultrafinitism makes all current physical theories meaningless.


How can that be when all current physical theories are tested by  
computation on finite digital computers and all observations are  
finite rational numbers?


We just bet that physics is well approximated by computations, and  
indeed all known laws seems to be computable (except the  
collapse). I guess it makes sense in most case.




I'd say the meaning of theories comes in their application - not  
from an axiom system.


Because you reify reality,


LOL!  I'm reminded of what Sidney Morgenbesser said to B. F.  
Skinner, Let me see if I understand your thesis.  You think we  
shouldn't athropomorphize people?


I meant that the meaning of theories is brought by the theories  
already present in the brain (generalized or not). If not you reify  
reality, meaning, and this in a way which, when assuming comp, looks  
like magic.






an put the meaning there. But we can't do that when working on the  
mind-body problem, so we need a mathematical notion of reality, and  
the notion of model (in logician sense) plays that role.


That's a point where I disagree with you.  We can work on the mind  
body problem by creating intelligent machines and when we have  
created them we will infer that they have minds just as we infer  
other people have minds (nobody really believes in p-zombies) and we  
will learn to engineer those minds.


We don't believe in human p-zombie. For robots, many would argue that  
they are zombie, by construction.
Then, the constructing AI and the mind-body problem will be solved  
by itself, can only solve the easy problem, that is not the mind- 
body problem, which needs to justify the bodies without assuming them.




Note that there were people who tried an axiomatic approach to  
defining life - and it led nowhere, while people working  
laboratories with x-ray crystallography and stick-and-ball models  
discovered the double-helix.


Right. defining life does not make sense. Biology is easy. It is  
not confronted to the hard problem, where the 3p complete explanation  
seems to evacuate the 1p person. Comp reduces completely this problem  
by reducing physics to number's psychology/theology. If not, let us  
isolate the flaw in the argument.






Theorizing has it's place.  Molecular biology was really inspired by  
a lecture that Erwin Schroedinger gave (and later expanded into his  
book, What is Life) and which pointed to some of the basic  
characteristic the chemistry and physics of life must have.  And one  
its contributions was to emphasize there was no need for magic, no  
elan vital.  I see computationalism playing a similar role in the  
study of consciousness.  But just like molecular didn't so much  
solve the problem of life as dissolve it, I expect something similar  
to happen in the study of consciousness.


In the case of consciousness, such dissolution will corresponds to  
Dennett kind of explaining the subject away. In biology, we can do  
everything in the 3p (the 1p plural, actually, with comp). But for  
consciousness, the 1p is not reducible. Now, that problem is solved  
by ... the oldest solution we have: Theaetetus. The universal and  
Löbian machine can refute Socrate's refutation of Theaetetus. All  
critics of that definition contains a confusion of two arithmetical  
hypostases, in the comp frame. We do have made progresses.







That for all x x ≠ x + 1, is NOT an empirical question.


It's not an empirical question in Platonia, but in the real world  
(which I reify :-) ) it is: One raindrop plus one raindrop makes one  
raindrop.  The set of the swim team with cardinality four plus the  
set of the basketball team with cardinality twelve is a set with  
cardinality 14.


If you believe that 1+1=1, you are in trouble.
That one drop added on one drop give one drop is not a refutation of  
the arithmetical statement that 1+1=2. It is a misapplication of a  
theory in a context which the theory does not handled.

You can refute the theory of group by showing that (N +) is not a group.
That's bad philosophy, I am afraid, Brent. Come on!





It is a truth, out of space and time, which is true in all models  
of RA, or PA, or ZF, etc.


Yes, it's a truth of language;


Not at all. It has nothing to do with language. A computation stops or  
not in arithmetic, independently of languages, theories, person and  
universe. of course you need to agree on the addition table and  
multiplication table to even just define what a computation is; but

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:45, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 1:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 22 Jan 2014, at 01:02, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 3:30 PM, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 3:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/21/2014 8:13 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
Why would you want to do that? It seems like an unnecessary  
extra axiom that doesn't have any purpose or utility.


It prevents the paradoxes of undeciability, Cantor  
diagonalization, and it corresponds more directly with how we  
actually use arithmetic.




I'm not sure it helps. What you may gain from avoiding paradoxes  
makes many of our accepted proofs false. E.g. Euclids proof of  
infinite primes. Or Euler's identity. Most of math would be  
ruined. A circle's circumference would not even be pi*diameter.


Would this biggest number be different for different beings in  
different universes? What is it contingent on?


You're taking an Platonic view that there really is an arithmetic  
and whether there's a biggest number is an empirical question.


Ah! I just said that is was not. Somehow you deny the reality of  
math.


Which math?  Finite arithmetic, Peano arithmetic, set theory,  
homotopy theory,...? Or in short, yes.


I was thinking of arithmetic.
I see your point as a reductio ad absurdo for my case.

A long time ago, someone told me that the consequence of comp is so  
startling that people will come with a critics of even 1+1=2. he  
advised me to not answer that critics, except by mentioning that it  
helps to complete the reduction ad absurdo.










I'm saying it's an invention.  We invented an system in which you  
can always add 1 because that was convenient; you don't have to  
think about whether you can or not.


So to use this same line of reasoning, would you say there is no  
definite (a priori) fact of the matter of  whether or not a given  
program terminates, unless we actually build a machine executing  
that program and observe it terminate?


That's kind of mixing categories since 'program' (to you) means  
something in Platonia and there you don't need a machine to run  
it.  In the physical world there is no question, all programs  
running on a machine terminate, for one reason or another.  Non- 
terminating programs are the result of over idealization.



What makes you sure that the idea that all programs terminates is  
not also an idealisation (about a finite universal reality)?
Also, if all programs terminate, there is no more real numbers. I  
guess you will say that there are idealisation. You seem to know  
that there is a concrete reality, but the comp approach to the mind- 
body problem asks to, temporarily perhaps, doubt such certainty.


Of course I'm not *certain*, all theories are defeasible outside of  
Platonia.


Inside too.


But it seems like a well supported theory; at least as certain as  
you can always add one more.


All right. But the you see the conflict. You cannot have both, and  
that is the point. I don't pretend that we can always add one. I  
assume that because it is the only way to give sense to comp. You just  
agree that comp is false, which is out of my topic.


You critics of comp is valid, if you assume that there is a bigger  
natural number.


We do agree. But then, explain me what is the (small) physical  
universe, where does it come from, and why it hurts? you invent a new  
arithmetic, just to block an explanation. Is that not gross wishful  
thinking?


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 07:35, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 10:21 PM, LizR wrote:
The real world doesn't add raindrops, or most other things we think  
of as entities - adding raindrops isn't 1+1, nature is really  
adding something like 10^25 atoms to another 10^25. But it _does_  
add bosons in a BEC. Even when the constituents are  
indistinguishable, nature can perform simple arithmetic with them.


I'd say *we* perform simple arithmetic to describe them - but only  
when we correctly recognize what is countable and what isn't.  So  
the truth of Ax(x=/=x+1) is in Platonia.


But the truth that 1 raindrop + 1 rain drop gives 1 raindrops might too.
The difficultys is to get the relevant definition of raindrop in  
Platonia, and comp shows how (in principle, given that we don't yet a  
definition of water, nor of space, etc.).


If there is no persistent perception of raindrops in Platonia-seen- 
from-inside, comp can't be correct.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 07:39, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 10:33 PM, LizR wrote:
On 23 January 2014 08:22, Stephen Paul King stephe...@provensecure.com 
 wrote:


  We need the Becoming that is implicit in the moving flashlight,  
at least to give us a window of finiteduration  
in time (and bits/space) to have a memory of what I used to be  
that can be compared to what I experience now.


According to JA Wheeler we only need enough duration at any given  
instant to measure one bit. But in any case, all that is happening  
in your brain is happening right now. I suspect there is an  
illusion of an extended present being created, one pigeonhole at  
a time (let me check with Dan Dennett... yes, looks like there is :)


But why illusion?  If we're taking consciousness as fundamental


But comp asks to not take consciousness as fundamental or primitive.



then we should take the extended present as part of it; and in  
that case the extension allows them to overlap and hence provide a  
time dimension.


OK.



If we're not taking consciousness as fundamental then we need to  
explain the extended present.


The relative FPI domain in UD*, or in arithmetic.

Bruno





Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 07:42, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 10:38 PM, LizR wrote:

On 23 January 2014 19:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 1/22/2014 10:21 PM, LizR wrote:
The real world doesn't add raindrops, or most other things we think  
of as entities - adding raindrops  isn't 1+1,  
nature is really adding something like 10^25 atoms to another  
10^25. But it _does_ add bosons in a BEC. Even when the  
constituents are indistinguishable, nature can perform simple  
arithmetic with them.


I'd say *we* perform simple arithmetic to describe them - but only  
when we correctly recognize what is countable and what isn't.  So  
the truth of Ax(x=/=x+1) is in Platonia.


Platonia? Where's that, then?


In our heads and in our language (and publications of the AMS).


So, 2+2=4 was meaningless before life appeared on this planet?
I can easily imagine that 2+2=4 was meaningless, but I can't  
conceive that 2+2=4 would be meaningless, if only because Platonia is  
out of time. It is not related to physics, except that physics is a  
persistent illusion coming from the machine's inside points of view in  
Platonia.


Bruno


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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

2014-01-23 Thread David Nyman

On 23 January 2014 08:39, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

Let us take the WM-duplication. Suppose that the guy in Helsinki is told
 that the randomly chosen unique flaslight sequence will illuminate W
 just after the duplication (if this makes sense). Should he decide that
 P(W) = 1 and P(M) = 0? Is the guy in M, which exists (even with just
 Behavior Mechanism), a zombie?


Oh dear no, that makes no sense whatsoever. I would humbly suggest that
this is not at all how Hoyle intended his metaphor to be applied. In my
understanding, his idea bears rather on the specific question of personal
universality. IOW, in what sense, if any, can we intelligibly conceive of
consciousness as the property of some unique, universal person (as, for
example, in Hindu or Buddhist theology)? Let us assume that we are to
understand person in the sense of the owner of some
*particular*logical ordering of conscious moments. Then, if the idea
of a universal
person is to be made intelligible in some way, it should be as the owner
of *all possible* logical orderings of conscious moments. If that be so,
the question then arises: How to make sense of the experience of such a
universal person? What could it possibly be like?

If Hoyle's metaphor, or heuristic, is considered in this way, it should I
hope be apparent that it is not any sort of proposal for a second time
dimension or indeed any kind of additional machinery. That it is not the
former should be manifest in that the flashlight is merely one possible
metaphor for the unique consideration of a logical sequence of
particularised moments, each to the exclusion of any other. It is redundant
- nor does it make any sense - to think of a mere heuristic of this sort as
necessarily introducing any supplementary or independent properties of
duration, rate or order. Its role is rather to assist us in making some
sort of intuitive sense of something that is no doubt much deeper and more
complex, without (hopefully) doing it irreparable violence.

The mental picture of the logical sequence of the flashlight's random walk
should suggest or entail no characteristic other than the momentary
filtering out of a *single* perspective. Filtered, that is, from the
otherwise panoptic view that we should presumably attribute to a
universal personhood. The question then arises: Could the intuition of such
a multiplex of random momentary filterings possibly give an adequate
account of the myriad, ordered experiential trajectories of each and every
one of us? Hoyle's answer, simpliciter, is yes it could. If that be so,
it perhaps becomes at least intelligible to reconsider some of our
favourite thought experiments as, so to speak, the interleaved dreams of
a *single* solipsistic multiple-personality. Such an attempt, I suggest,
while often bringing forth exceedingly puzzling questions in itself, can
sometimes resolve apparent paradoxes (especially those related to identity)
or at least offer some interesting nuances.

I know we have discussed these ideas before and each time I have proposed
them to you in more or less the same terms as I have just recapitulated.
However your question, quoted above, gives me pause that I have as yet
failed to communicate the real gist and point while at the same time
succeeding in attaching additional, unintended baggage. Nonetheless I don't
think we're necessarily too far apart. ISTM that Hoyle's idea must rely on
the opacity of 1p personal history to delay, suspension, etc. in the 3p
view, that you argue for in UDA 1-6. Where he goes a step further is to
generalise this to a universalist perspective (which hasn't been, I
assume, any part your own professional goal in this regard), relying on the
intuition that no moment is ever simultaneous with any other moment: not
yours, not mine. You and me can then be understood as mere proxies
for a deeper unification. This might lead us to the remarkable intuition
that the universal first-person can indeed be understood in terms of a
*unique* first-personal serialisation. That in turn might lead us to wonder
what other proxies, with whom we may bear some relation, may be
experiencing whilst we are suspended. And so forth and so on.

Though I am tempted to provide a more specific rejoinder to your question
above, I hope that it may now succeed in answering itself in the light of
the foregoing points. If so, we might find ourselves better able to
consider some of the more intriguing consequences I had in mind.

David

David

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 1:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:34, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 1:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:33, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Only to make the UDA non valid. It works, if Brent meant a mathematical 
ultrafinitism. But this change comp, like it changes elementary arithmetic (which 
suppose at least that 0 ≠ s(x), and x ≠ y implies s(x) ≠ s(y), which can't be true 
in ultrafinitism).

Ultrafinitism makes all current physical theories meaningless.


How can that be when all current physical theories are tested by computation on 
finite digital computers and all observations are finite rational numbers?


We just bet that physics is well approximated by computations, and indeed all known 
laws seems to be computable (except the collapse). I guess it makes sense in most case.





I'd say the meaning of theories comes in their application - not from an axiom 
system.


Because you reify reality,


LOL!  I'm reminded of what Sidney Morgenbesser said to B. F. Skinner, Let me see if I 
understand your thesis.  You think we shouldn't athropomorphize people?


I meant that the meaning of theories is brought by the theories already present in the 
brain (generalized or not). If not you reify reality, meaning, and this in a way which, 
when assuming comp, looks like magic.






an put the meaning there. But we can't do that when working on the mind-body problem, 
so we need a mathematical notion of reality, and the notion of model (in logician 
sense) plays that role.


That's a point where I disagree with you.  We can work on the mind body problem by 
creating intelligent machines and when we have created them we will infer that they 
have minds just as we infer other people have minds (nobody really believes in 
p-zombies) and we will learn to engineer those minds.


We don't believe in human p-zombie. For robots, many would argue that they are zombie, 
by construction.
Then, the constructing AI and the mind-body problem will be solved by itself, can only 
solve the easy problem, that is not the mind-body problem, which needs to justify the 
bodies without assuming them.




Note that there were people who tried an axiomatic approach to defining life - and it 
led nowhere, while people working laboratories with x-ray crystallography and 
stick-and-ball models discovered the double-helix.


Right. defining life does not make sense. Biology is easy. It is not confronted to 
the hard problem, where the 3p complete explanation seems to evacuate the 1p person. 
Comp reduces completely this problem by reducing physics to number's 
psychology/theology. If not, let us isolate the flaw in the argument.






Theorizing has it's place.  Molecular biology was really inspired by a lecture that 
Erwin Schroedinger gave (and later expanded into his book, What is Life) and which 
pointed to some of the basic characteristic the chemistry and physics of life must 
have.  And one its contributions was to emphasize there was no need for magic, no elan 
vital.  I see computationalism playing a similar role in the study of consciousness.  
But just like molecular didn't so much solve the problem of life as dissolve it, I 
expect something similar to happen in the study of consciousness.


In the case of consciousness, such dissolution will corresponds to Dennett kind of 
explaining the subject away. In biology, we can do everything in the 3p (the 1p plural, 
actually, with comp). But for consciousness, the 1p is not reducible. Now, that problem 
is solved by ... the oldest solution we have: Theaetetus. The universal and Löbian 
machine can refute Socrate's refutation of Theaetetus. All critics of that definition 
contains a confusion of two arithmetical hypostases, in the comp frame. We do have made 
progresses.







That for all x x ≠ x + 1, is NOT an empirical question.


It's not an empirical question in Platonia, but in the real world (which I reify :-) ) 
it is: One raindrop plus one raindrop makes one raindrop.  The set of the swim team 
with cardinality four plus the set of the basketball team with cardinality twelve is a 
set with cardinality 14.


If you believe that 1+1=1, you are in trouble.
That one drop added on one drop give one drop is not a refutation of the arithmetical 
statement that 1+1=2. It is a misapplication of a theory in a context which the theory 
does not handled.


Exactly my point.  And the context where is *does* apply, where it is *not* an empirical 
question, is in our language and Platonia.




You can refute the theory of group by showing that (N +) is not a group.
That's bad philosophy, I am afraid, Brent. Come on!





It is a truth, out of space and time, which is true in all models of RA, or PA, or ZF, 
etc.


Yes, it's a truth of language;


Not at all. It has nothing to do with language. A computation stops or not in 
arithmetic, independently of languages, theories, person and universe. 


Only

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 2:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Jan 2014, at 00:45, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 1:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 22 Jan 2014, at 01:02, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 3:30 PM, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 3:30 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/21/2014 8:13 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Why would you want to do that? It seems like an unnecessary extra axiom that
doesn't have any purpose or utility.


It prevents the paradoxes of undeciability, Cantor diagonalization, and it
corresponds more directly with how we actually use arithmetic.



I'm not sure it helps. What you may gain from avoiding paradoxes makes many 
of
our accepted proofs false. E.g. Euclids proof of infinite primes. Or Euler's
identity. Most of math would be ruined. A circle's circumference would not 
even
be pi*diameter.

Would this biggest number be different for different beings in different
universes? What is it contingent on?


You're taking an Platonic view that there really is an arithmetic and 
whether
there's a biggest number is an empirical question.



Ah! I just said that is was not. Somehow you deny the reality of math.


Which math?  Finite arithmetic, Peano arithmetic, set theory, homotopy theory,...? Or 
in short, yes.


I was thinking of arithmetic.
I see your point as a reductio ad absurdo for my case.

A long time ago, someone told me that the consequence of comp is so startling that 
people will come with a critics of even 1+1=2. he advised me to not answer that 
critics, except by mentioning that it helps to complete the reduction ad absurdo.











I'm saying it's an invention.  We invented an system in which you can 
always add
1 because that was convenient; you don't have to think about whether you 
can or
not.


So to use this same line of reasoning, would you say there is no definite (a priori) 
fact of the matter of  whether or not a given program terminates, unless we actually 
build a machine executing that program and observe it terminate?


That's kind of mixing categories since 'program' (to you) means something in Platonia 
and there you don't need a machine to run it.  In the physical world there is no 
question, all programs running on a machine terminate, for one reason or another. 
Non-terminating programs are the result of over idealization.



What makes you sure that the idea that all programs terminates is not also an 
idealisation (about a finite universal reality)?
Also, if all programs terminate, there is no more real numbers. I guess you will say 
that there are idealisation. You seem to know that there is a concrete reality, but 
the comp approach to the mind-body problem asks to, temporarily perhaps, doubt such 
certainty.


Of course I'm not *certain*, all theories are defeasible outside of Platonia.


Inside too.


But it seems like a well supported theory; at least as certain as you can always add 
one more.


All right. But the you see the conflict. You cannot have both, and that is the point. I 
don't pretend that we can always add one. I assume that because it is the only way to 
give sense to comp. You just agree that comp is false, which is out of my topic.


Are you equivocating on comp?  Is it not just the theory that ones brain could be 
replaced by a digital computer?  You often write the above as though all of your argument 
follows from that saying yes to the doctor.  But that is not clear to me.  It seems that 
it *also* assumes arithmetical realism and that you can always add one more. and that 
the scope of substitution is not the whole universe.




You critics of comp is valid, if you assume that there is a bigger natural 
number.

We do agree. But then, explain me what is the (small) physical universe, where does it 
come from, and why it hurts?


Explain to me why QM is in complex Hilbert space and not real or quaternion.

you invent a new arithmetic, just to block an explanation. Is that not gross wishful 
thinking?


No, the *new* arithmetic is just a recognition that Peano's arithmetic is an idealization 
and one that we don't necessarily need to describe the world.  After all people used 
arithmetic for centuries without assuming you could *always* add one more.


Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 2:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Jan 2014, at 07:42, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/22/2014 10:38 PM, LizR wrote:
On 23 January 2014 19:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/22/2014 10:21 PM, LizR wrote:

The real world doesn't add raindrops, or most other things we think of 
as
entities - adding raindrops isn't 1+1, nature is really adding 
something like
10^25 atoms to another 10^25. But it _does_ add bosons in a BEC. Even 
when the
constituents are indistinguishable, nature can perform simple 
arithmetic with
them.


I'd say *we* perform simple arithmetic to describe them - but only when we
correctly recognize what is countable and what isn't.  So the truth of 
Ax(x=/=x+1)
is in Platonia.


Platonia? Where's that, then?


In our heads and in our language (and publications of the AMS).


So, 2+2=4 was meaningless before life appeared on this planet?


It is part of our best theory describing how things were before life appeared 
on this planet.

Brent

I can easily imagine that 2+2=4 was meaningless, but I can't conceive that 2+2=4 would 
be meaningless, if only because Platonia is out of time. It is not related to physics, 
except that physics is a persistent illusion coming from the machine's inside points of 
view in Platonia.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/



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Re: Church thesis = non computable functions exist (Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 23 Jan 2014, at 17:05, David Nyman wrote:


On 23 January 2014 08:39, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

Let us take the WM-duplication. Suppose that the guy in Helsinki is  
told that the randomly chosen unique flaslight sequence will  
illuminate W just after the duplication (if this makes sense).  
Should he decide that P(W) = 1 and P(M) = 0? Is the guy in M, which  
exists (even with just Behavior Mechanism), a zombie?


Oh dear no, that makes no sense whatsoever. I would humbly suggest  
that this is not at all how Hoyle intended his metaphor to be applied.


You reassure me. Not that I did really believe it, but I was trying to  
illustrate why I think that such a metaphor can be misleading. Of  
course all metaphor are misleading when taken literally.




In my understanding, his idea bears rather on the specific question  
of personal universality.


Where we do cross indeed, recurrently.




IOW, in what sense, if any, can we intelligibly conceive of  
consciousness as the property of some unique, universal person  
(as, for example, in Hindu or Buddhist theology)?


The more I think of this in the comp realm, the more I think this  
means the consciousness of the universal numbers. All universal  
number. The Löbian numbers are just more chatty, which is handy for  
the interviews.







Let us assume that we are to understand person in the sense of the  
owner of some particular logical ordering of conscious moments.



All right, but the *particular* here, when defined, will look like an  
abstract primitive belief, like a type or ordering thought.


The universal number fortran might need to have the same consciousness  
than any other universal numbers.
They are the seed of the same histories or consciousness  
differentiation and dedifferentiation. That universal consciousness  
has a *particular* which might be like an altered state of  
consciousness, a moment of insanity, like a confusion between G and  
G*, perhaps.






Then, if the idea of a universal person is to be made intelligible  
in some way, it should be as the owner of all possible logical  
orderings of conscious moments.


I think that make sense, with the universal machines being the owner  
of themselves and their capacities, but of course their 1-p diffuse in  
an large forest of different particulars, although it is not exclude  
some transfinite complex relation with Truth, which participates in  
the consciousness of the universal person.
The universal first person is the intersection between truth and very  
basic principles, like addition and multiplication.




If that be so, the question then arises: How to make sense of the  
experience of such a universal person? What could it possibly be  
like?


The 1-p of the universal machine has free will, but no means, nor  
needs. Yet a lot of choices. A lot is an euphemism.  I think it is  
Vimalakirty's state of the unconceivable freedom.




If Hoyle's metaphor, or heuristic, is considered in this way, it  
should I hope be apparent that it is not any sort of proposal for a  
second time dimension or indeed any kind of additional machinery.


OK.


That it is not the former should be manifest in that the  
flashlight is merely one possible metaphor for the unique  
consideration of a logical sequence of particularised moments, each  
to the exclusion of any other. It is redundant - nor does it make  
any sense - to think of a mere heuristic of this sort as necessarily  
introducing any supplementary or independent properties of duration,  
rate or order. Its role is rather to assist us in making some sort  
of intuitive sense of something that is no doubt much deeper and  
more complex, without (hopefully) doing it irreparable violence.


I think the 8 hypostases explains well how, by incompleteness, all  
machines selves split in 2, 4, 8, 16, hypostases, and lives them all  
at once, although the arithmetical interpretation of the boxes and  
diamond changes at the speed of light.
I think you are not so incline to study the math, but I am just  
explaining the basics to Liz, and it might be an opportunity to take  
the wagon.
In a sense, the 8 hypostases are already given by an interview, well  
not really of a universal person, but of a universal scientist, which  
the universal numbers also can own, and that scientist acknowledges  
the presence of the universal person, and it can tell why she obeys  
different laws that the scientist laws.






The mental picture of the logical sequence of the flashlight's  
random walk should suggest or entail no characteristic other than  
the momentary filtering out of a single perspective.


You lost me again. I see more the universal person consciousness state  
as a blisfull peaceful state like the one of the baby in the womb of  
her/his mother.


Then it differentiates.


Filtered, that is, from the otherwise panoptic view that we should  
presumably attribute to a universal personhood.


I agree.

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 23 January 2014 23:47, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 On 23 Jan 2014, at 07:42, meekerdb wrote:

  On 1/22/2014 10:38 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 23 January 2014 19:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 On 1/22/2014 10:21 PM, LizR wrote:

 The real world doesn't add raindrops, or most other things we think of
 as entities - adding raindrops isn't 1+1, nature is really adding something
 like 10^25 atoms to another 10^25. But it _does_ add bosons in a BEC. Even
 when the constituents are indistinguishable, nature can perform simple
 arithmetic with them.


  I'd say *we* perform simple arithmetic to describe them - but only when
 we correctly recognize what is countable and what isn't.  So the truth of
 Ax(x=/=x+1) is in Platonia.


  Platonia? Where's that, then?


 In our heads and in our language (and publications of the AMS).


 So, 2+2=4 was meaningless before life appeared on this planet?
 I can easily imagine that 2+2=4 was meaningless, but I can't conceive
 that 2+2=4 would be meaningless, if only because Platonia is out of time.
 It is not related to physics, except that physics is a persistent illusion
 coming from the machine's inside points of view in Platonia.

 This appears to be the fundamental bone of contention between you and
Brent. He appears to believe arithmetic is a human invention which relates
to reality because, well, (waves hands, and cunningly slips AR hat on)
... it just does, somehow.

Or if it doesn't, but is out there in some sense, that fact isn't of any
fundamental importance. Hence all the robust discussion over whether there
is a biggest number...

...which reminds me of a quote from James Blish's book A Clash of Cymbals
(aka The Triumph of Time). I can't recall the exact date on which the
universe was due to end (but I'm sure it implied a universal present -
Blish's grasp of relativity wasn't the best, as his Haertel overdrive
showed, but then it was only SF) - it was in the year 4004 AD (in reference
to Archbishop Ussher of Armagh), so say it was the 6th of July for
argument's sake.

And after that 6th of July there would be no 7th of July, forever and
ever.

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 2:40 PM, LizR wrote:
This appears to be the fundamental bone of contention between you and Brent. He 
appears to believe arithmetic is a human invention which relates to reality because, 
well, (waves hands, and cunningly slips AR hat on) ... it just does, somehow.


It relates to reality as we experience it because we invented arithmetic by abstracting 
and generalizing from that experience.   It's not surprising that our ideas relate to what 
we experience.


Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 24 January 2014 11:51, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/23/2014 2:40 PM, LizR wrote:

 This appears to be the fundamental bone of contention between you and
 Brent. He appears to believe arithmetic is a human invention which relates
 to reality because, well, (waves hands, and cunningly slips AR hat on)
 ... it just does, somehow.

 It relates to reality as we experience it because we invented arithmetic
 by abstracting and generalizing from that experience.


If we abstract and generalise something from experience, I would say the
standard usage is to say that we have discovered something, rather than
invented it. For example, Isaac Newton invented an equation which he called
the law of gravitation. He did so by abstracting and generalising from
observations of the world. However, most people (outside philosophy
departments) would say that his equation describes (or attempts to
describe) a feature of the world that is genuinely out there. Similarly,
if we abstracted and generalised in order to invent 2, presumably we did
so in order to describe something we discovered, something that is
genuinely out there...

I would say most people use invented to mean that something had no
counterpart in reality, in any sense (abstract or otherwise) until someone
brought it into existence. So in that sense, I would claim we didn't
invent arithmetic or gravity. Do you agree, or would you say that
arithmetic is an invention, in this standard usage? (Or did you have some
other sense of invent in mind that I've missed?)


It's not surprising that our ideas relate to what we experience.


You seem to be trying to have this both ways. Or maybe it's just me not
getting quite where you're coming from. Is arithmetic a genuine feature of
reality that we have discovered, or is it not?

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 3:42 PM, LizR wrote:
On 24 January 2014 11:51, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net 
wrote:


On 1/23/2014 2:40 PM, LizR wrote:

This appears to be the fundamental bone of contention between you and 
Brent. He
appears to believe arithmetic is a human invention which relates to reality
because, well, (waves hands, and cunningly slips AR hat on) ... it just 
does,
somehow.

It relates to reality as we experience it because we invented arithmetic by
abstracting and generalizing from that experience.

If we abstract and generalise something from experience, I would say the standard usage 
is to say that we have discovered something, rather than invented it. For example, Isaac 
Newton invented an equation which he called the law of gravitation. He did so by 
abstracting and generalising from observations of the world. However, most people 
(outside philosophy departments) would say that his equation describes (or attempts to 
describe) a feature of the world that is genuinely out there.


But notice that is failed out there.  Elliptical orbits are still true in 1/r 
potentials, but it turned out those are idealized approximations.


Similarly, if we abstracted and generalised in order to invent 2, presumably we did so 
in order to describe something we discovered, something that is genuinely out there...


Sure, it describes a relationship between countable sets.  But I don't think that 
justifies reifying it.  Bigger also describes a relationship between objects that is 
out there, but we don't reify it.




I would say most people use invented to mean that something had no counterpart in 
reality, in any sense (abstract or otherwise) until someone brought it into existence. 
So in that sense, I would claim we didn't invent arithmetic or gravity. Do you agree, 
or would you say that arithmetic is an invention, in this standard usage? (Or did you 
have some other sense of invent in mind that I've missed?)


I think we invent theories and descriptions and we may hope and intend that they apply to 
reality, but we can't know that.  And some mathematical inventions were not intended to 
apply to anything realistic, they were just generalizations that occurred to a 
mathematician.  Of course we may say we discover a relation in something even though we 
invented it.  Just because we invent something (like Peano's axioms) it doesn't follow 
that we know all the consequences.  We certainly invented chess, but nobody knows whether 
white can always win following a Ruy Lopez opening.



   It's not surprising that our ideas relate to what we experience.


You seem to be trying to have this both ways. Or maybe it's just me not getting quite 
where you're coming from. Is arithmetic a genuine feature of reality that we have 
discovered, or is it not?


I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some aspects of reality - 
but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's Hotel.


Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some
 aspects of reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's
 Hotel.

 OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be
described by mathematics?

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor


On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote:
On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net 
wrote:


I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some aspects 
of
reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's Hotel.

OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be described by 
mathematics?


Probably not.  Or it might depend on how complete a description is required (notice that 
not all true sentences of arithmetic can be described).  Mathematics is just axiomatized 
language, a way of making sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition.  There 
might be something that can only be described fuzzily; poets have lots of candidates.  
Maybe consciousness is one. But it's like asking is there something science can't 
investigate.  Maybe, but we won't know without trying.


Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 24 January 2014 16:08, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some
 aspects of reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's
 Hotel.

  OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be
 described by mathematics?


 Probably not.  Or it might depend on how complete a description is
 required (notice that not all true sentences of arithmetic can be
 described).  Mathematics is just axiomatized language, a way of making
 sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition.  There might be
 something that can only be described fuzzily; poets have lots of
 candidates.  Maybe consciousness is one. But it's like asking is there
 something science can't investigate.  Maybe, but we won't know without
 trying.


It's just that so far, after about 500 years, we haven't managed to find
*anything* that looks remotely fundamental to the operation of the universe
that can't be described to fairly high precision by maths. I guess this is
what has led some people to wonder if there's more to it than just a way
of making sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition.

(I guess other people think we cherry pick the stuff that's mathy, and
there are vast swathes of non-mathematical stuff out there just waiting to
be discovered...)

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 1/23/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote:
On 24 January 2014 16:08, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net
wrote:

On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote:

On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some
aspects of
reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's Hotel.

OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be
described by
mathematics?

Probably not. Or it might depend on how complete a description is required
(notice
that not all true sentences of arithmetic can be described). Mathematics
is just
axiomatized language, a way of making sentences definite and avoiding
self-contradicition. There might be something that can only be described
fuzzily;
poets have lots of candidates. Maybe consciousness is one. But it's like
asking is
there something science can't investigate. Maybe, but we won't know
without trying.

It's just that so far, after about 500 years, we haven't managed to find /anything/ that
looks remotely fundamental to the operation of the universe that can't be described to
fairly high precision by maths. I guess this is what has led some people to wonder if
there's more to it than just a way of making sentences definite and avoiding
self-contradicition.

I think you're squinting through you math glasses. Everything that we can describe and
predict with high precision is described by math (for the reason I gave). So of course
whatever we think is the most fundamental theory is going to be described by math - they
alternative would to that it was described in say, poetry and metaphor. But then we'd say
that's vague and we need precise predictions to test this alternative theory.

(I guess other people think we cherry pick the stuff that's mathy, and there are vast
swathes of non-mathematical stuff out there just waiting to be discovered...)

Sure. It's the part Bruno dismisses as geography: the messy contingent stuff that
biologists describe in notebooks or we treat statistically. We *think* it can be
explained in terms of the fundamental math (Schrodinger's equation, GR, QFT) and so we
tell ourselves we've got the really real equations, and aren't they mathy! But we also
know we've thought that before and been wrong, and besides they aren't even consistent
with one another (hence Susskind and the firewall debate).

Brent

Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

Oh well, I will remove my AR hat for now and put on my poet's hat. It's
much more becoming in any case.


On 24 January 2014 16:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/23/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 24 January 2014 16:08, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some
 aspects of reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's
 Hotel.

  OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be
 described by mathematics?


  Probably not.  Or it might depend on how complete a description is
 required (notice that not all true sentences of arithmetic can be
 described).  Mathematics is just axiomatized language, a way of making
 sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition.  There might be
 something that can only be described fuzzily; poets have lots of
 candidates.  Maybe consciousness is one. But it's like asking is there
 something science can't investigate.  Maybe, but we won't know without
 trying.


  It's just that so far, after about 500 years, we haven't managed to find
 *anything* that looks remotely fundamental to the operation of the
 universe that can't be described to fairly high precision by maths. I guess
 this is what has led some people to wonder if there's more to it than just
 a way of making sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition.


 I think you're squinting through you math glasses.  Everything that we can
 describe and predict with high precision is described by math (for the
 reason I gave).  So of course whatever we think is the most fundamental
 theory is going to be described by math - they alternative would to that it
 was described in say, poetry and metaphor.  But then we'd say that's vague
 and we need precise predictions to test this alternative theory.



 (I guess other people think we cherry pick the stuff that's mathy, and
 there are vast swathes of non-mathematical stuff out there just waiting to
 be discovered...)


 Sure.  It's the part Bruno dismisses as geography: the messy contingent
 stuff that biologists describe in notebooks or we treat statistically.  We
 *think* it can be explained in terms of the fundamental math (Schrodinger's
 equation, GR, QFT) and so we tell ourselves we've got the really real
 equations, and aren't they mathy!  But we also know we've thought that
 before and been wrong, and besides they aren't even consistent with one
 another (hence Susskind and the firewall debate).


 Brent



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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Jan 2014, at 18:36, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/20/2014 12:42 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 19 Jan 2014, at 22:31, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/19/2014 9:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

But why should that imply *existence*.


It does not. Unless we believe in the axioms, which is the case  
for elementary arithmetic.


But what does believe in the axioms mean.  Do we really  
believe we can *always* add one more?  I find it doubtful.  It's  
just a good model for most countable things.  So I can believe  
the axioms imply the theorems and that 17 is prime is a  
theorem, but I don't think that commits me to any existence in  
the normal sense of THAT exists.


Because you are chosing the physicalist ostensive definition of  
what exists, like Aristotelians, but you beg the question here.


I don't see that you've explained what question I begged.  Just  
because I define things ostensively does not entail that reject  
explanations of their existence - if that's what you are implying.


Fair enough.




The point is that, in that case,  you should not say yes to the  
doctor.


Why not.  The doctor is going install a physical prosthetic.  As  
you've agreed before, it will not be *exactly* like me - but I'm  
not exactly the same from day to day anyway.


But you overlook the UDA here. The UDA is the explanation why if  
you say yes to the doctor qua computatio, the physical must be  
recovered from arithmetic, in some special way.


But that seems me an example of the misplaced concrete.  I have a  
lot more confidence in the physical functionality of a well tested  
artificial neuron than I have in the UDA.  So I may well say yes  
to the doctor without accepting arithmetical realism, the  
mathematical definition of exists, or the running of a UD.


Of course. If you really believe in a bigger natural number (that we  
can't always add one), what you say follows.
(personally I have more confidence in the fact that all natural  
numbers have a successor than in any artificial neuron, even if well  
tested).
So you criticize AR, but without AR, we can't explain Church thesis,  
and the notion of computer become ambiguous. You reject comp, by  
rejecting computer science. yes, in that case, even step 8 will not  
change your mind. Even step seven is no more valid, in that case.








You can always add magic of course. This can be used for any theory  
of physics.


I think your critics can be sum up by the belief that step 8 is non  
valid.


I am suspicious that it only proves that a zero-physics simulation  
is possible in a different world where the physics is simulated too.


I don't understand.


In other words it's conclusion is only valid if the scope is made  
arbitrarily large and the MG, in effect, becomes a different world.


In which case you say no to the doctor, and we are a long way from  
saying yes just by trusting the artificial neuron and glial cells,  
like you suggest to be a reason for saying yes without AR.


Bruno




Brent

But step 8 talks about reality, so it is not purely logical, and  
step 8 just shows how ad hoc that move is. It is made equivalent to  
the way creationist reason, except it is done for the creation  
instead of the creator.


Bruno


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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor

On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:25, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/21/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:19, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

Is it possible for a Computation to be a Model also? What is the
obstruction?

Is it possible for an apple to be an orange?

Computation are very special abstract, yet of a syntactical
nature, relations (between numbers, say, or combinators, lisp
expressions, etc.)

I have defined them by a sequence phi_i(j)^n, with n = 0, 1, 2, ...

Model are structured set (or arrows in some category) satisfying
formula.

Of course this a quite different meaning than scientists and
engineers have in mind when they say model.

Yes. It is the root of a common confusion between logician and
physicist. Logician uses model like painter, where the model is the
reality (the naked man) that the painters theorize about (paints).

They mean a theory

Yes.

which they do not assume to be complete but to only make predictions
within some limited domain - and so it may be regarded as a function
or a set of possible computations combined with an interpretation,
e.g. an elastic model of a structure.

OK. I have suggested more than once to use the term theory, and keep
model for a possible 'reality'. that would help.

Logicians are more sophisticated than physicist, they model both the
entire relationship between a theory and its models. So the notion of
theory is a modelisation of theory, and the notion of model is a
modelization of the notion of reality. That's is useful for the mind-
body problem.

Bruno

Brent

Those are quite different things. It does not mean that there are
not some relation. Usually the computations can be represented by
some object in some model of some Turing complete theory, like RA,
PA, or ZF.

Models are semantic notions, studied in model theory. Computations
are more syntactical objects (finite or infinite, though) studied
in recursion or computability theory, or in computation theory.

Bruno

On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:24 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 07:27, Stephen Paul King wrote:

No! This is not unknown. I am cobbling ideas together, sure,
think about it! What are we thinking? If the UD implements or
emulates all computations then it implements all worlds, ala
Kripke. That would include all models of self-consistent theories.

It is not that simple, alas. A computation is not a model. I have
try hard to get a relation like that, because this would simplify
the relation between UDA and AUDA. I progress on this, but that
problem is not yet solved.

Bruno

On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 1:22 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
wrote:

On 1/19/2014 10:01 PM, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Exactly, what about all the models of all the worlds that
follow different axioms? Those can possibly exist, thus they
must. What is not impossible, is compulsory!

Did you just make that up? :-)

Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:30, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2014, at 02:25, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/20/2014 5:00 PM, LizR wrote:

On 21 January 2014 06:42, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 1/20/2014 1:11 AM, LizR wrote:

On 20 January 2014 18:51, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

You seem not to appreciate that this dissipates the one  
essential advantage of mathematical monism: we understand  
mathematics (because, I say, we invent it).  But if it's a mere  
human invention trying to model the Platonic ding and sich  then  
PA may not be the real arithmetic.  And there will have to be  
some magic math stuff that makes the real arithmetic really real.


Surely the real test is whether it works better than any other  
theory.  (The phrase  
unreasonable   
effectiveness appears to indicate that it does.)


Would it work any less well if there were a biggest number?

I don't know. I would imagine so, because that would be a theory  
with an ad hoc extra clause with no obvious justification, so  
every calculation would have to carry extra baggage around. If I  
raise a number to the power of 100, say, I have to check first  
that the result isn't going to exceed the biggest number, and  
take appropriate action - whatever that is - if it will... what  
would be the point of that?


Just make it an axiom that the biggest number is bigger than any  
number you calculate.  In other words just prohibit using those  
... and so forth in your theorems.


Just to be sure, step 8 shows that a physicalist form of  
ultrafinitism (there is a primitively ontological universe, and it  
is small) is a red herring.


If you assume a mathematical ultrafinitism, then yes, UDA does no  
more go through. But mathematical ultrafinitism makes it impossible  
to even define comp, so that is really a stopping at step zero.


So, yes, an ultrafinitist *mathematician* can say yes to the doctor  
(without knowing what it does), and survive, and this is one little  
universe.


But he can't know what it does in an infinitist universe either.


Right.


I thought that's why you've always emphasized that saying yes to  
the doctor was a bet, not something one could be certain of.


The fact that the ultrafinitist can't know what he is doing, does not  
entail that the computationalist can know what he is doing. So you are  
right, but I was not implying the contrary.


Bruno





Brent



If UDA leads to mathematical ultrafinitism, that is enough a  
reductio ad absurdo to me.


God created 0, 1, ... and when getting 10^100, he felt tired and  
stop. Then he *has* to create a primitive physical universe, if he  
want see Adam and Eve indeed.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor



On 21 Jan 2014, at 21:33, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/21/2014 2:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Only to make the UDA non valid. It works, if Brent meant a  
mathematical ultrafinitism. But this change comp, like it changes  
elementary arithmetic (which suppose at least that 0 ≠ s(x), and x  
≠ y implies s(x) ≠ s(y), which can't be true in ultrafinitism).

Ultrafinitism makes all current physical theories meaningless.


How can that be when all current physical theories are tested by  
computation on finite digital computers and all observations are  
finite rational numbers?


We just bet that physics is well approximated by computations, and  
indeed all known laws seems to be computable (except the collapse).  
I guess it makes sense in most case.




 I'd say the meaning of theories comes in their application - not  
from an axiom system.


Because you reify reality, an put the meaning there. But we can't do  
that when working on the mind-body problem, so we need a mathematical  
notion of reality, and the notion of model (in logician sense) plays  
that role.
That for all x x ≠ x + 1, is NOT an empirical question. It is a  
truth, out of space and time, which is true in all models of RA, or  
PA, or ZF, etc.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Edge.org: 2014 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? The Computational Metaphor