Re: Regarding Aesthetics
Why should there be only one correct TOE? Can't we simultaneously inhabit alternative universes that are currently indistinguishable to us yet differ on a fundamental level? - 3-line Narnia - C.S. LEWIS: Finally, a Utopia ruled by children and populated by talking animals. THE WITCH: Hello, I'm a sexually mature woman of power and confidence. C.S. LEWIS: Ah! Kill it, lion Jesus! - McSweeney's - 2008/9/15 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sep 15, 6:08 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But the question is whether there would be any *functional* difference. Brent Meeker Sure, if reductionism were true, half of physics wouldn't work. Yudkowsky claims: It is not that reality itself has an Einstein equation that governs at high speeds, a Newton equation that governs at low speeds, and a bridging law that smooths the interface. Reality itself has only a single level, Einsteinian gravity. Ref: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/excluding-the-s.html#more But this another non-sequitur in a long long of misconceptions, superficial analysis and non-sequiturs from him. In his example, of course it's true there's only one correct equation (the Einstein one), but this mathematical *equation'* references *physics concepts* on several different levels of abstraction. It's the *concepts* that are non-reducible, not the *equations*. The physics of forces (Newtonian mechanics is not reducible to the physics of simple geometric solids (Greek physics) , nor is the physics of space-time fields (Relativity) reducible to the physics of forces. Each of these (greek physics, newtonian mechanics, relativistic physics) introduced new physical concepts which weren't reducible to the earlier ones. It's not so much that new physics concepts *replaced* the older ones, rather that the new concepts were at * a higher-level of abstraction* than the old. I Also note that modern String Theory says that the fabric of theory itself is composed of concepts of Category Theory, which are high- level mathematical representations of lower-level ones. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
On 11 Sep 2008, at 19:06, Brent Meeker wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we are due for yet another extension to logic, one which will contain Bayesianism as a special case. But logic is also the manipulation of sequences of propositions. No matter how clever, you still need to something else to supply meaning. I think meaning only arises in relation to action within an environment. That is a magical move, unless you put some infinities perhaps. Selection among an infinity of environment would explain a little more, yet it is not enough. I think Bruno had it right, it's all Category Theory- and make the next big leap forward in logic, we need to start using the concepts from Category Theory and apply them to logic, to develop a new logic capable of going beyond Bayesianism and dealing with the semantics of information. But how? Listen to this: bGiven two categories C and D a functor F from C to D can be thought of as an *analogy* between C and D, because F has to map objects of C to objects of D and arrows of C to arrows of D in such a way that the compositional structure of the two categories is preserved./b No meaning there either. Caterorial logician and algebraist would differ with you on this. Again I don't think it is enough, but at least category theory gives a frame for the notion of reductive meaning, that is, when meaning is given by a faithful embedding of some unknown into something we already know meaningfully. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 10, 5:06 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes there is. In fact descriptions with fewer free parameters are automatically favored by Bayesian inference. http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/papers/ockham.pdf Brent Meeker Nice try. That's an interesting paper, but it's merely one guys attempt to try to define the problem in terms of Bayesianism. It does not provide solutions to (a) and (b), which remain unresolved. I didn't say it solved all problems. I just pointed out that Bayesian inference does inherently favor simplicity. These types of attempts to try to reduce Occam's razor to Bayes soon run into a big big problem, which I have already mentioned: There is more than one meaure of complexity. For example, *information* is not the same thing as *knowledge*. Shannon information is simply a measure of the degree of randomness in a string, whereas *knowledge* is more a measure of the amount of work that went into producing a string (ie it is *meaningful* information). Knowledge is usually defined as true belief that is casually connected to the facts that make it true. That has nothing to do with work (free energy? computational steps?). You can certainly do a lot of work and end up with a false belief. Effective use of Occam's razor also requires us to judge the simplicity/complexity of *meaningful information* (ie knowledge), not just Shannon information. Bayesianism Induction cannot possibly do this, since it cannot handle the *semantics* (meaning) of the information, only the Shannon information. Bayesian inference only assigns probabilities to propositions in such a way as to maintain a certain kind of consistency. It already assumes that these propositions have meanings - otherwise it would be impossible to say what it meant for one to have a certain probability. It's just an extension of logic to allow values between true and false. This it is because it only deals with the *functional* aspects of information... ie patterns as they appear to external observers, rather than what the patterns signify ( the *semantic* aspects of information). But patterns only signify (have a semantic meaning) in a context that includes action and goals. How information influences those actions provides a functional definition of it's content. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
On Sep 9, 9:04 am, Günther Greindl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a pertinent paper, just published: Unmasking the Truth Beneath the Beauty: Why the Supposed Aesthetic Judgements Made in Science May Not Be Aesthetic at All Cain S. Todd International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 22, Issue 1 March 2008 , pages 61 - 79 DOI: 10.1080/02698590802280910 Cheers, Günther If it comes down to an argument , between a computer scientist and a philosopher, never trust the philosopher. It's time for me to call in my big guns Jürgen Schmidhuber http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html Cheers --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
Gunther, Let me further clarify: The problem with Bayesianism is that there is no precise definition of 'simplicity' and 'complexity' for finite strings, which is needed to effectively apply the principle of Occam's razor. To elaborate: (a) There is no measure of simplicity/complexity for finite strings (b) There is no way to justify why compressed descriptions of theories should be favored (Occam's razor) We then apply Schmidhuber's theory of beauty. According to Schmidhuber: Schmidhuber's Beauty Postulate (1994-2006): Among several patterns classified as comparable by some subjective observer, the subjectively most beautiful is the one with the simplest (shortest) description, given the observer's particular method for encoding and memorizing it. See refs [1-5] http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html Then, its clear that (a) and (b) are in fact being resolved via aesthetic judgements. On Sep 9, 6:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 9, 9:04 am, Günther Greindl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a pertinent paper, just published: Unmasking the Truth Beneath the Beauty: Why the Supposed Aesthetic Judgements Made in Science May Not Be Aesthetic at All Cain S. Todd International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 22, Issue 1 March 2008 , pages 61 - 79 DOI: 10.1080/02698590802280910 Cheers, Günther If it comes down to an argument , between a computer scientist and a philosopher, never trust the philosopher. It's time for me to call in my big guns Jürgen Schmidhuberhttp://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html Cheers --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gunther, Let me further clarify: The problem with Bayesianism is that there is no precise definition of 'simplicity' and 'complexity' for finite strings, which is needed to effectively apply the principle of Occam's razor. To elaborate: (a) There is no measure of simplicity/complexity for finite strings (b) There is no way to justify why compressed descriptions of theories should be favored (Occam's razor) Yes there is. In fact descriptions with fewer free parameters are automatically favored by Bayesian inference. http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/papers/ockham.pdf Brent Meeker We then apply Schmidhuber's theory of beauty. According to Schmidhuber: Schmidhuber's Beauty Postulate (1994-2006): Among several patterns classified as comparable by some subjective observer, the subjectively most beautiful is the one with the simplest (shortest) description, given the observer's particular method for encoding and memorizing it. See refs [1-5] http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html Then, its clear that (a) and (b) are in fact being resolved via aesthetic judgements. On Sep 9, 6:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 9, 9:04 am, Günther Greindl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a pertinent paper, just published: Unmasking the Truth Beneath the Beauty: Why the Supposed Aesthetic Judgements Made in Science May Not Be Aesthetic at All Cain S. Todd International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 22, Issue 1 March 2008 , pages 61 - 79 DOI: 10.1080/02698590802280910 Cheers, Günther If it comes down to an argument , between a computer scientist and a philosopher, never trust the philosopher. It's time for me to call in my big guns Jürgen Schmidhuberhttp://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html Cheers --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Regarding Aesthetics
On Sep 10, 5:06 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes there is. In fact descriptions with fewer free parameters are automatically favored by Bayesian inference. http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/papers/ockham.pdf Brent Meeker Nice try. That's an interesting paper, but it's merely one guys attempt to try to define the problem in terms of Bayesianism. It does not provide solutions to (a) and (b), which remain unresolved. These types of attempts to try to reduce Occam's razor to Bayes soon run into a big big problem, which I have already mentioned: There is more than one meaure of complexity. For example, *information* is not the same thing as *knowledge*. Shannon information is simply a measure of the degree of randomness in a string, whereas *knowledge* is more a measure of the amount of work that went into producing a string (ie it is *meaningful* information). Effective use of Occam's razor also requires us to judge the simplicity/complexity of *meaningful information* (ie knowledge), not just Shannon information. Bayesianism Induction cannot possibly do this, since it cannot handle the *semantics* (meaning) of the information, only the Shannon information. This it is because it only deals with the *functional* aspects of information... ie patterns as they appear to external observers, rather than what the patterns signify ( the *semantic* aspects of information). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
