subject:"Re\: Theology or not theology \(Re\: COMP theology\)"



On 04 Apr 2012, at 06:05, John Clark wrote:




On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 8:06 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:



 The point is that comp predicts white noise. That something else  
predicts white noise too is not relevant in the proof.


So in the setup the screen changes at RANDOM and comp predicts white  
noise will be the most likely result, and you think that is  
significant?


The WM setup and the Universal waves are deterministic.




Everything predicts that. OK, then I have a marvelous new thought  
experiment, let X = Y. I maintain that comp predicts that X= Y and I  
have made a wonderful new discovery too.


   you should expect the WM duplication as equivalent with the  
throw of a random coin, etc. But you don't need to agree with that  
analysis. You need only to agree that there is an indeterminacy


  Of course there is a indeterminacy!

 Don't say of course. That is not so obvious as your posts  
illustrates.


it's not obvious that the outcome of a RANDOM coin flip is  
uncertain? I thought it was.


I was clearly talking about the duplication.





 In the 3-view there is no randomness at all. In the protocol, we  
don't change the pixels randomly, neither in the comp multiplication- 
movie experience, nor in the quantum wave which evolves  
deterministically. The point is that the randomness bears on the  
first person experiences. We get this directly with comp, without  
assuming QM.


Nothing new. People have only known about Quantum Mechanics for  
about a century but they've known about randomness for many  
thousands of years. And you've made randomness a measure of  
ignorance rather than a property of the thing itself and that's how  
it should be, and what people have always done. This is demonstrated  
by the Monty Hall problem, a new car is behind one door and a goat  
behind the other two, you pick a door at random and Monty opens a  
door you didn't pick and shows you a goat and gives you the  
opportunity to change your choice of a door if you wish. Monty knows  
what door the prize is behind and you do not, so Monty could pick  
the correct door with a probability of 100% but the best you can do  
at first is 33.3%, after he lest you change your choice and pick  
another door you know a little more and your probability increases  
to 66.6%, Monty's probability stays at 100% and the thing itself,  
the new car, has no probability at all.


Incidentally the great mathematician Paul Erdos admitted he could  
never get his head around the Monty Hall problem and it always  
seemed paradoxical to him, this despite him having no trouble  
whatsoever in understanding many other things of staggering  
complexity and of far greater abstraction. It's weird.


He got it eventually, when asked the same question with a bigger  
number of boxes. But there is nothing relevant to the question I am  
asking you.





 so if I told you before the duplication that you would see  
Washington AND Moscow I would be correct, Bruno Marshal will indeed  
see both cities.


 That the 3-view on the 1-view.

And that should be more than good enough thank you very much!


Why did you change Marchal into Marshal in the quote?




 But the probabilities bears on the 1-views themselves.

As I've said many many times before, give me a single concrete  
example of two things being identical by the 3-view but not by  
the 1-views themselves and you will have won this argument, do  
that and I will publicly declare you've made a major philosophical  
discovery. Just one example is all I ask. I think this is the key to  
our disagreement.


The duplication. After the duplication
In the 3 view I am in both cities
In the 1-view I feel oneself in only one city.
Another example is in the step 2.
In fact you ask me what I give in each step, and you don't see it  
because you persistently confuse them.





 You can ascribe the consciousness of Bruno Marshal to both, but  
each one will ascribe their present here and now type of  
consciousness only to themselves subjectively.


Why did you change Marchal into Marshal again in the quote?





I don't know what here and now type of consciousness is. We both  
agree that speaking of consciousness occupying a place in space has  
little meaning and I would argue a absolute time for a consciousness  
is not a productive idea either. You could freeze a mind for a  
billion years and then start it up again and it wouldn't notice it  
unless it has senses that can detect the outside world, and even  
then the mind couldn't tell if it had stopped for a billion years or  
what it was looking at had jumped ahead a billion years.


You confuse consciousness of being here and now with consciousness  
would be here and now.





 Asking why you are the Moscow man not the Washington man is  
exactly like asking why you are Bruno Marshal and not John K Clark.


 Possible. I do agree with this. But there is a difference. John  
and Bruno have already differentiated.

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-04 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 You confuse consciousness of being here and now with consciousness
 would be here and now.


How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as crystal
clearly as you just did ?


   And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial
 application of the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow man if
 events transpire so that I meet the definition of the Moscow man, namely
 that I see Moscow.


  Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.


The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man and the
reason I'm the Washington man is that I saw Washington and the probability
the Helsinki man will see Moscow and Washington is 100%. What more is there
to say on this rather dull subject?


I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two things
 being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you
 will have won this argument




 I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.
 or
 I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
 Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and seeing W),


Right.

 But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.


WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno Washington
is different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has memories, that is to
say physical changes in the brain, of the sights and sounds of Washington
while the other has brain changes signifying the sights and sounds of
Moscow; because of the changes in physical structure the two brains operate
differently, or to say the same thing with different words, I the third
party can see that the mind of Bruno Washington is different from the mind
of Bruno Moscow.  Provided that Washington is different from Moscow (I've
never been to Moscow but I imagine that it is) then the brain of Bruno
Washington is physically different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, and I
the third party observer can see those physical differences, and if the
construction of those two objects are different then the way they operate,
the mind, is different too.

Try again. Give me a single concrete example of two things being identical
by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you will have won
this argument.

  Who cares? How is it relevant to the copies if the original is cut or
 not cut as long as he's read?



 If the original is cut, the probability to wake up at Helsinki is 0.


But the Helsinki man is not a copy, it's irrelevant to the copies in Moscow
and Washington what happens to the original.

 By comp we can simulate Moscow and Washington precisely enough so that
 you cannot see the difference for some non null interval. The question is
 do you agree that this does not change the evaluation of the
 indeterminacy?


Yes I agree it does not change, this 1-view indeterminacy of yours is
nonsense if the cities are real and its nonsense if the cities are
virtual.

 John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


 You confuse consciousness of being here and now with  
consciousness would be here and now.


How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as  
crystal clearly as you just did ?


You can be conscious of being here and now. That expression is  
traditional, and used in many place, and we have already used it to  
illustrate the fact that the cnscious feeling here and now is  
undoubtable, as opposed to the idea that being conscious five minutes  
ago and five minutes from now is already doubtable, and you did agree.


I was just saying that consciousness of a localization does not entail  
the localization of consciousness. You argument was confusing those  
two different thing. We agree that consciousness is not something  
localisable, but this does not entail that we cannot have a conscious  
experience of being localised somewhere, like when we say I visited  
Bombay last week-end.






  And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial  
application of the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow  
man if events transpire so that I meet the definition of the Moscow  
man, namely that I see Moscow.



 Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.

The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man and  
the reason I'm the Washington man is that I saw Washington and the  
probability the Helsinki man will see Moscow and Washington is 100%.  
What more is there to say on this rather dull subject?


That you give the probability that the guy will be in W and M from a  
third person point of view, when we ask the probability on his future  
first person point of view. the criteria of confirmation is given, by  
definition, from the result of the self-localization provided by the  
persons after their duplication.
In that case, it cannot be 100%, because the guy in M does not feel  
himself to be in W, and vice versa.
You still confuse the 3-view on the 1-views (an outsider can ascribe  
the consciousness of John K Clark to both persons in each city), with  
the 1-views on the 1-views (Ah, I see I am the one in W and Ah, I  
see I am the one in M). In Helsinki, he could not know in advance  
which one he can happen to be. If you think he could, give me the  
algorithm.








   I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two  
things being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views  
themselves and you will have won this argument



 I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.
or
I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and  
seeing W),


Right.

 But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.

WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno  
Washington is different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has  
memories, that is to say physical changes in the brain, of the  
sights and sounds of Washington while the other has brain changes  
signifying the sights and sounds of Moscow; because of the changes  
in physical structure the two brains operate differently, or to say  
the same thing with different words, I the third party can see that  
the mind of Bruno Washington is different from the mind of Bruno  
Moscow.  Provided that Washington is different from Moscow (I've  
never been to Moscow but I imagine that it is) then the brain of  
Bruno Washington is physically different from the brain of Bruno  
Moscow, and I the third party observer can see those physical  
differences, and if the construction of those two objects are  
different then the way they operate, the mind, is different too.


But this contradict the fact that you agree both person are the  
Helsinki guy. You are again transforming I cannot know for sure I  
will feel myself in W or M with I can be sure that the guy in M will  
see M and the guy in W will see W, which is does not answer the  
question in asked to him in Helsinki.






Try again. Give me a single concrete example of two things being  
identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and  
you will have won this argument.


  Who cares? How is it relevant to the copies if the original is  
cut or not cut as long as he's read?


 If the original is cut, the probability to wake up at Helsinki is 0.

But the Helsinki man is not a copy, it's irrelevant to the copies in  
Moscow and Washington what happens to the original.


Of course, but the question is asked before the reading is done. The  
question is asked to the guy in Helsinki before the experiment is  
done. So the probability is 1/3, instead of 1/2 in the preceding WM  
duplication with annihilation of the original.


It is equivalent to a multiplication by three, with a null delay of  
reconstitution on one branch. Isn't it?





 By comp we can simulate Moscow and Washington precisely enough so

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-04 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/4/4 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be


 On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:

 On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  You confuse consciousness of being here and now with consciousness
 would be here and now.


 How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as crystal
 clearly as you just did ?


 You can be conscious of being here and now. That expression is
 traditional, and used in many place, and we have already used it to
 illustrate the fact that the cnscious feeling here and now is
 undoubtable, as opposed to the idea that being conscious five minutes ago
 and five minutes from now is already doubtable, and you did agree.

 I was just saying that consciousness of a localization does not entail the
 localization of consciousness. You argument was confusing those two
 different thing. We agree that consciousness is not something localisable,
 but this does not entail that we cannot have a conscious experience of
 being localised somewhere, like when we say I visited Bombay last
 week-end.





And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial
 application of the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow man if
 events transpire so that I meet the definition of the Moscow man, namely
 that I see Moscow.


  Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.


 The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man and the
 reason I'm the Washington man is that I saw Washington and the probability
 the Helsinki man will see Moscow and Washington is 100%. What more is there
 to say on this rather dull subject?


 That you give the probability that the guy will be in W and M from a third
 person point of view, when we ask the probability on his future first
 person point of view. the criteria of confirmation is given, by definition,
 from the result of the self-localization provided by the persons after
 their duplication.
 In that case, it cannot be 100%, because the guy in M does not feel
 himself to be in W, and vice versa.
 You still confuse the 3-view on the 1-views (an outsider can ascribe the
 consciousness of John K Clark to both persons in each city), with the
 1-views on the 1-views (Ah, I see I am the one in W and Ah, I see I am
 the one in M). In Helsinki, he could not know in advance which one he can
 happen to be. If you think he could, give me the algorithm.







 I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two things
 being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you
 will have won this argument




  I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.
 or
 I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
 Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and seeing
 W),


 Right.

  But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.


 WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno Washington
 is different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has memories, that is to
 say physical changes in the brain, of the sights and sounds of Washington
 while the other has brain changes signifying the sights and sounds of
 Moscow; because of the changes in physical structure the two brains operate
 differently, or to say the same thing with different words, I the third
 party can see that the mind of Bruno Washington is different from the mind
 of Bruno Moscow.  Provided that Washington is different from Moscow (I've
 never been to Moscow but I imagine that it is) then the brain of Bruno
 Washington is physically different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, and I
 the third party observer can see those physical differences, and if the
 construction of those two objects are different then the way they operate,
 the mind, is different too.


 But this contradict the fact that you agree both person are the Helsinki
 guy. You are again transforming I cannot know for sure I will feel myself
 in W or M with I can be sure that the guy in M will see M and the guy in W
 will see W, which is does not answer the question in asked to him in
 Helsinki.




 Try again. Give me a single concrete example of two things being identical
 by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you will have won
 this argument.

   Who cares? How is it relevant to the copies if the original is cut or
 not cut as long as he's read?



  If the original is cut, the probability to wake up at Helsinki is 0.


 But the Helsinki man is not a copy, it's irrelevant to the copies in
 Moscow and Washington what happens to the original.


 Of course, but the question is asked before the reading is done. The
 question is asked to the guy in Helsinki before the experiment is done. So
 the probability is 1/3, instead of 1/2 in the preceding WM duplication with
 annihilation of the original.

 It is equivalent to a multiplication by three, with a null delay of
 reconstitution on one branch. Isn't it?



  By comp we can simulate Moscow and Washington precisely enough

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-04 Thread meekerdb


On 4/4/2012 10:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 You confuse consciousness of being here and now with consciousness 
would be
here and now.


How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as crystal clearly as you 
just did ?


You can be conscious of being here and now. That expression is traditional, and used in 
many place, and we have already used it to illustrate the fact that the cnscious feeling 
here and now is undoubtable, as opposed to the idea that being conscious five minutes 
ago and five minutes from now is already doubtable, and you did agree.


I was just saying that consciousness of a localization does not entail the localization 
of consciousness. You argument was confusing those two different thing. We agree that 
consciousness is not something localisable, but this does not entail that we cannot have 
a conscious experience of being localised somewhere, like when we say I visited Bombay 
last week-end.





  And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial 
application of
the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow man if events transpire 
so that
I meet the definition of the Moscow man, namely that I see Moscow.



 Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.


The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man and the reason I'm the 
Washington man is that I saw Washington and the probability the Helsinki man will see 
Moscow and Washington is 100%. What more is there to say on this rather dull subject?


That you give the probability that the guy will be in W and M from a third person point 
of view, when we ask the probability on his future first person point of view. the 
criteria of confirmation is given, by definition, from the result of the 
self-localization provided by the persons after their duplication.
In that case, it cannot be 100%, because the guy in M does not feel himself to be in W, 
and vice versa.
You still confuse the 3-view on the 1-views (an outsider can ascribe the consciousness 
of John K Clark to both persons in each city), with the 1-views on the 1-views (Ah, I 
see I am the one in W and Ah, I see I am the one in M). In Helsinki, he could not 
know in advance which one he can happen to be. If you think he could, give me the 
algorithm.







   I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two 
things being
identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you 
will have
won this argument


 I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.
or
I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and seeing W),


Right.

 But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.


WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno Washington is different 
from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has memories, that is to say physical changes in 
the brain, of the sights and sounds of Washington while the other has brain changes 
signifying the sights and sounds of Moscow; because of the changes in physical 
structure the two brains operate differently, or to say the same thing with different 
words, I the third party can see that the mind of Bruno Washington is different from 
the mind of Bruno Moscow.  Provided that Washington is different from Moscow (I've 
never been to Moscow but I imagine that it is) then the brain of Bruno Washington is 
physically different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, and I the third party observer can 
see those physical differences, and if the construction of those two objects are 
different then the way they operate, the mind, is different too.


But this contradict the fact that you agree both person are the Helsinki guy. You are 
again transforming I cannot know for sure I will feel myself in W or M with I can be 
sure that the guy in M will see M and the guy in W will see W, which is does not answer 
the question in asked to him in Helsinki.






Try again. Give me a single concrete example of two things being identical by the 
3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you will have won this argument.


  Who cares? How is it relevant to the copies if the original is cut 
or not
cut as long as he's read?

 If the original is cut, the probability to wake up at Helsinki is 0.


But the Helsinki man is not a copy, it's irrelevant to the copies in Moscow and 
Washington what happens to the original.


Of course, but the question is asked before the reading is done. The question is asked 
to the guy in Helsinki before the experiment is done. So the probability is 1/3, instead 
of 1/2 in the preceding WM duplication with annihilation of the original.


It is equivalent to a multiplication by three, with a null delay of reconstitution on 
one

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 04 Apr 2012, at 20:45, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2012/4/4 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be

If any one else can help John K Clark to make his point, please help
him. If some people believe, like I begin to believe, that John
Clark only fake to not understand, and that I should abandon to try,
please give your opinion, because I begin to feel like we are going
in circle,

I think you should abandon. John Clark does not want to discuss, he
suffers the I am the best mind in the world, you moron when in
fact he has just shut down his own brain, it's pathetic.

It looks like that. Now, in my experience I have rarely met someone
stopping at step 3, and arguing for that. Those who stop at step three
usually consider that any text containing the word consciousness is
crackpot and rarely try to argue. This makes John Clark rather
exceptional. But then he does not succeed in explaining what he fails
to understand, and its dismissive tone make me suspect that he might
be psychologically stuck somehow. I still think he might get the
haha at the seven step. I might still try a little bit. Feel free to
comment his answer. I appreciate your short notes which are very often
quite clear.

There has been another exception. A friend of mine took 4 years to get
the point, and that he told me he would have prefer not to know! That
reaction might suggest psychological difficulties, and looks similar
to the reaction of many people after smoking Salvia. Fundamental
science needs more courage than smartness, I think.

Bruno

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

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 04 Apr 2012, at 21:04, David Nyman wrote:


On 4 April 2012 18:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

If any one else can help John K Clark to make his point, please  
help him. If
some people believe, like I begin to believe, that John Clark only  
fake to
not understand, and that I should abandon to try, please give your  
opinion,
because I begin to feel like we are going in circle, always coming  
back with
what I see as a confusion between the 3-views on the many 1-views  
of all
doppelgangers, and the 1-views as lived individually by each  
doppelgangers,
and which is on what the probability, asked before the experience  
begins, is
asked. How can John not seen that difference? Is he only joking or  
what? Any

idea?


It's not entirely clear to me that John is more committed to
clarifying the issues than to trying to make a fool of you.  I'm
beginning to suspect the latter might be the case, though I would
prefer to be charitable in my assessment of the motives of anyone who
commits so much time to posting on this list.


I try to be charitable, but then I am afraid that people will get  
bored, especially when we get into circle.





As for helping, I
notice that he hasn't commented on any of the points I raised in my
recent post in this regard, though others have done so.


Yes. I should perhaps wait that he answers your posts.




As someone
once remarked, the obvious can be elusive,


Well said.



so disagreement is no
problem,


On the contrary. It is the reason of the discussion.





but there must be an underlying commitment to seriousness and
respect for the dialogue to be fruitful.


And this is the hard part to judge. That's why I was asking. I will  
try to be a bit charitable, but I am also trying to understand why  
people can stuck themselves so much, despite showing that they can  
reason.


Thanks for the help,

Bruno




On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


You confuse consciousness of being here and now with  
consciousness

would be here and now.



How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as  
crystal

clearly as you just did ?


You can be conscious of being here and now. That expression is  
traditional,
and used in many place, and we have already used it to illustrate  
the fact
that the cnscious feeling here and now is undoubtable, as opposed  
to the
idea that being conscious five minutes ago and five minutes from  
now is

already doubtable, and you did agree.

I was just saying that consciousness of a localization does not  
entail the

localization of consciousness. You argument was confusing those two
different thing. We agree that consciousness is not something  
localisable,
but this does not entail that we cannot have a conscious experience  
of being
localised somewhere, like when we say I visited Bombay last week- 
end.








  And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial
application of the anthropic principle, I will become the  
Moscow man if
events transpire so that I meet the definition of the Moscow  
man, namely

that I see Moscow.




Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.



The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man  
and the
reason I'm the Washington man is that I saw Washington and the  
probability
the Helsinki man will see Moscow and Washington is 100%. What more  
is there

to say on this rather dull subject?


That you give the probability that the guy will be in W and M from  
a third
person point of view, when we ask the probability on his future  
first person
point of view. the criteria of confirmation is given, by  
definition, from
the result of the self-localization provided by the persons after  
their

duplication.
In that case, it cannot be 100%, because the guy in M does not feel  
himself

to be in W, and vice versa.
You still confuse the 3-view on the 1-views (an outsider can  
ascribe the

consciousness of John K Clark to both persons in each city), with the
1-views on the 1-views (Ah, I see I am the one in W and Ah, I  
see I am
the one in M). In Helsinki, he could not know in advance which one  
he can

happen to be. If you think he could, give me the algorithm.








   I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two  
things
being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views  
themselves and you

will have won this argument






I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.

or
I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and  
seeing

W),



Right.


But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.



WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno  
Washington
is different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has memories, that  
is to
say physical changes in the brain, of the sights and sounds of  
Washington

while the other has brain

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 04 Apr 2012, at 21:52, meekerdb wrote:


On 4/4/2012 10:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


snip


 By comp we can simulate Moscow and Washington precisely enough  
so that you cannot see the difference for some non null interval.  
The question is do you agree that this does not change the  
evaluation of the indeterminacy?


Yes I agree it does not change, this 1-view indeterminacy of  
yours is nonsense if the cities are real


You have not shown that. It is non sense for you because you keep  
avoiding the difference between the 3-view-on-1-view,  and  
the 1-view themselves (or 1-view on 1-view). You oscillate between  
trivial, non sense, and 100%. I can't figure out what is your  
objection.




and its nonsense if the cities are virtual.


The question is asked. If you believe in comp, you know that after  
the duplication you will not feel to be in two places at once, so  
it makes sense to evaluate (or to try to evaluate) the chance that  
you will be in this or that city. If you say 100% for Washington,  
by definition of the 1-views, the you-in-Moscow will have to admit  
having been wrong, and vice versa.


Likewise, in the multiplication movie experience, the white-noise  
movie is far more probable that seeing any particular movie,  
because the majority of the John K Clark will see such random movie.


Just keep in mind that the question is asked always before the  
duplication experience and that the answer you give before   
the experience is verified by interviewing all the resulting person  
about their personal experiences, not about the experience of their  
doppelgangers.


So I ask you again what is the probability that you will actually  
live the experience seeing the movie flying circus in the  
multiplication movie experience. remember that by definition, to  
verify your answer, I will ask to each John K Clark which movie  
they have actually seen and ask them if that confirms their  
prediction. the answer all movie is already no more possible,  
because you already know, by comp, that you, any of your yous,  
will feel to see only one movie.


I notice that it seems clear enough if you just duplicate the diary.


Right. It is the point of approximating the first person experience by  
the memory or the diary. So it reduces the 1/3 distinction into going  
through the teletransportation or just looking at it from outside.
And for the probability, you can replace the human observer by an  
inference inductive machine. The whole UDA can be done in the third  
person way.





You write This diary will be in Washtington. and then when there  
are two diaries, the one in Washington is right and the one is  
Moscow in wrong.  The diaries don't need to experience anything.  As  
macroscopic objects they have definite spacetime locations and don't  
exist in a M+W superposition.  The use of indicial pronouns only  
produces a little semantic confusion.  I think John's presentation  
of his thought experiment is wrong - although it's logically  
possible, it's nomologically impossible and not just  
technologically.  Creating two copies of a person must be two  
distinguishable copies just by position and instantaneously  
swapping their positions is not nomologically possible.  Somewhat  
the same problem affects the transporter thought experiment.  There  
will necessarily be a discontinuity between the copies and the  
original - both in body and in consciousness.


But such a discontinuity is relative to the implementation, and  
accepted as part of accepting that the brain is digital. So it is not  
clear if consciousness can see that discontinuity, except by the bare  
fact of being in a place and then in another one. More realistic real  
duplication would need encoding time, reconstitution time, but those  
becomes non relevant at the step seven.




I don't think that's fatal to Bruno's argument, but we need to get  
through the argument to see what aspects of the thought experiment  
it actually relies on and which are otiose.


Excellent point. A scientist rarely stops when he does not get a  
point, he always continue, because the next steps can indeed clarify  
what is or not missing, or important, in previous points. The fact  
that John talks like he found a fatal flaw let me suspect he want to  
dismiss the reasoning at the start.

And his tone is ad hominem, which can be a bit boring at time.

I don't want to dream about the number of posts needed to explain the  
step 8 to him ...


And I am afraid he will not appreciate the abstract theory of  
intelligence which profiles on the comp horizon, and which almost  
equates intelligence with modesty ...


Hmm ...







If any one else can help John K Clark to make his point, please  
help him. If some people believe, like I begin to believe, that  
John Clark only fake to not

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-04 Thread Joseph Knight



Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 4, 2012, at 1:45 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 
 2012/4/4 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
 
 On 04 Apr 2012, at 18:26, John Clark wrote:
 
 On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 
  You confuse consciousness of being here and now with consciousness 
  would be here and now.
 
 How in the world could anybody be confused by a idea stated as crystal 
 clearly as you just did ? 
 
 You can be conscious of being here and now. That expression is traditional, 
 and used in many place, and we have already used it to illustrate the fact 
 that the cnscious feeling here and now is undoubtable, as opposed to the 
 idea that being conscious five minutes ago and five minutes from now is 
 already doubtable, and you did agree.
 
 I was just saying that consciousness of a localization does not entail the 
 localization of consciousness. You argument was confusing those two different 
 thing. We agree that consciousness is not something localisable, but this 
 does not entail that we cannot have a conscious experience of being localised 
 somewhere, like when we say I visited Bombay last week-end.
 
 
 
  
   And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial 
  application of the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow man if 
  events transpire so that I meet the definition of the Moscow man, namely 
  that I see Moscow.
 
 
  Which avoids again to answer to the question asked.
 
 The reason I'm not the Moscow man is that I'm the Washington man and the 
 reason I'm the Washington man is that I saw Washington and the probability 
 the Helsinki man will see Moscow and Washington is 100%. What more is there 
 to say on this rather dull subject?
 
 That you give the probability that the guy will be in W and M from a third 
 person point of view, when we ask the probability on his future first person 
 point of view. the criteria of confirmation is given, by definition, from the 
 result of the self-localization provided by the persons after their 
 duplication. 
 In that case, it cannot be 100%, because the guy in M does not feel himself 
 to be in W, and vice versa.
 You still confuse the 3-view on the 1-views (an outsider can ascribe the 
 consciousness of John K Clark to both persons in each city), with the 1-views 
 on the 1-views (Ah, I see I am the one in W and Ah, I see I am the one in 
 M). In Helsinki, he could not know in advance which one he can happen to be. 
 If you think he could, give me the algorithm. 
 
 
 
 
 
  
I repeat yet again, give me a single concrete example of two things 
  being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and 
  you will have won this argument
 
  
  I have been duplicated in W and M and I feel myself in W.
 or
 I have been duplicated in W and M and i feel myself in M.
 Those are different in the 1-views (as different as seeing M and seeing W),
 
 Right.
 
  But are equal in the 3-view, where I am in both cities.
 
 WRONG! From my 3-view I can clearly see that the brain of Bruno Washington 
 is different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, one has memories, that is to 
 say physical changes in the brain, of the sights and sounds of Washington 
 while the other has brain changes signifying the sights and sounds of 
 Moscow; because of the changes in physical structure the two brains operate 
 differently, or to say the same thing with different words, I the third 
 party can see that the mind of Bruno Washington is different from the mind 
 of Bruno Moscow.  Provided that Washington is different from Moscow (I've 
 never been to Moscow but I imagine that it is) then the brain of Bruno 
 Washington is physically different from the brain of Bruno Moscow, and I the 
 third party observer can see those physical differences, and if the 
 construction of those two objects are different then the way they operate, 
 the mind, is different too.
 
 But this contradict the fact that you agree both person are the Helsinki guy. 
 You are again transforming I cannot know for sure I will feel myself in W or 
 M with I can be sure that the guy in M will see M and the guy in W will see 
 W, which is does not answer the question in asked to him in Helsinki.
 
 
 
 
 Try again. Give me a single concrete example of two things being identical 
 by the 3-view but not by the 1-views themselves and you will have won 
 this argument.
 
   Who cares? How is it relevant to the copies if the original is cut or 
  not cut as long as he's read?
  
  If the original is cut, the probability to wake up at Helsinki is 0. 
 
 But the Helsinki man is not a copy, it's irrelevant to the copies in Moscow 
 and Washington what happens to the original.  
 
 Of course, but the question is asked before the reading is done. The question 
 is asked to the guy in Helsinki before the experiment is done. So the 
 probability is 1/3, instead of 1/2 in the preceding WM duplication with 
 annihilation of the original.

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-03 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 02 Apr 2012, at 18:14, John Clark wrote:


On Sun, Apr 1, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 you've added tons of bells and whistles but for all the complex  
convolutions you have not added one single bit of additional  
information about what is likely to happen.


 On the contrary, comp entails that you should expect white noice  
for the multiplication movie experience


But non-comp predicts exactly the same thing simply because the  
number of states the screen can be in that we would put in the  
category white noise is far greater than the number of states we  
would put in the Monty Python movie category; and this would be  
true even if the Bible thumpers were right about the soul and  
consciousness, which means your thought experiment and all the  
numerous copies of you are a useless complication in investigating  
these questions.


The point is that comp predicts white noise.
That something else predicts white noise too is not relevant in the  
proof.







 that you should expect the WM duplication as equivalent with the  
throw of a random coin, etc. But you don't need to agree with that  
analysis. You need only to agree that there is an indeterminacy


Of course there is a indeterminacy!


Don't say of course. That is not so obvious as your posts illustrates.  
After all, officially the thesis has been rejected (in Brussels,  
before it being accepted in Lille) at step 3. This might be enough to  
say that it is new, and not understood so quickly by many.




A key part of your thought experiment is that a million pixels on a  
screen change at RANDOM 60 times a second from black to white for 2  
hours,


In the 3-view there is no randomness at all. In the protocol, we don't  
change the pixels randomly, neither in the comp multiplication-movie  
experience, nor in the quantum wave which evolves deterministically.  
The point is that the randomness bears on the first person  
experiences. We get this directly with comp, without assuming QM.




being RANDOM you can't (or at least should not) be certain what  
you'll see on the screen. If Everett is right the indeterminacy is  
purely a measure of lack of information on your part and that  
information exists you just don't have it. If you knew what branch  
of the multiverse you were in, what particular universe you were in,  
you'd know for certain what you were going to see on that screen; if  
you are in a Monty Python branch you will see a Monty Python movie  
and if you're in a white noise branch you'll see white noise. Once  
again your 1-view indeterminacy brings nothing new to the mix.


What is new is that we get it without postulating quantum physics. It  
is not so new, I publish it in the 80 (and make it public before in  
many conferences).


But the question is not if it is new or not. The question is do you  
get the point of step 3, which shows that comp entails that objective  
indeterminacy on the subjective experiences.


(Note also that objective is used temporarily. later we will see  
that physically objective is not a 1-view, but a 1-plural view. yet,  
at this stage, we can use objective, because it refers only to the  
content of a diary of an outsider looking at the experience without  
doing it himself).





I can hear you say, but that's the point, you don't know what branch  
you are in until you see white noise or Monty Python on that screen.  
But according to Everett until you see something unique on that  
screen that nobody else in any universe sees you are not in that  
branch because that branch does not exist, seeing Monty Python is  
exactly what makes it the Monty Python branch.


There is a little nuance, the one between duplication of worlds or  
differentiation of worlds. But it is not really relevant at this  
stage. So indeed, that's the point. But note that comp does not assume  
QM, yet explains the existence of a phenomenologically similar  
indeterminacy.





 So I think we could move on step 4. You cannot stop in a middle on  
a proof on the pretext that you have learn nothing.


I can understand your desire to gloss over this major difficulty


?
I thought you just grasped it. What major difficulty? The only one you  
have ever mentionned as been shown to be a confusion of 1-view and 3- 
view (or on the 3-view on the 1-views, and the 1-views themselves.  
Reread perhaps the preceding posts).





and move on, but I feel that if a proof has made a blunder it's  
pointless to read more.


Which blunder?






  There is a difference between anything can happen in the  
reality, and anything can happen in the next moment.


And what difference is that?


The conditional probabilities. Everett, and also comp (as you will see  
later) predict that everything (consistent) happens, but with  
different relative probability. If I put water on the gas, there are  
worlds where it freeze, and there are worlds where it boils hot. To  
take a decision I need to have trust that I

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-03 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 02 Apr 2012, at 18:40, meekerdb wrote:


On 4/2/2012 9:14 AM, John Clark wrote:



 If Everett is right the probability must be derived from the  
statistics of measurements *as described by the wave evolution*.


If Everett is right then you can use the square of the absolute  
value of the Schrodinger Wave Equation to help you guess which  
branch you are in, he says it's the best guess you can make with  
the limited information you have at your disposal, it's not perfect  
but it's the best we can do. However if Everett is right everything  
that can happen to you will happen to you somewhere in some branch  
of the multiverse.


Except there is the same equivocation on you as in Bruno's  
transporter.


Exactly. Quentin has already done that remark, and it is a bit of a  
mystery that John seems to have no problem for the QM indeterminacy in  
Everett QM, and seems to have a problem in the comp classical frame.


As David points out, John Clark did understand step 3, at some point.   
I think this too. Then he seems unable to acknowledge it, and he comes  
back with his confusion between 3-view on 1-views and the 1-views  
themselves.


Bruno

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



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-03 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 8:06 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 The point is that comp predicts white noise. That something else predicts
 white noise too is not relevant in the proof.


So in the setup the screen changes at RANDOM and comp predicts white noise
will be the most likely result, and you think that is significant?
Everything predicts that. OK, then I have a marvelous new thought
experiment, let X = Y. I maintain that comp predicts that X= Y and I have
made a wonderful new discovery too.

   you should expect the WM duplication as equivalent with the throw of
 a random coin, etc. But you don't need to agree with that analysis. You
 need only to agree that there is an indeterminacy


   Of course there is a indeterminacy!


  Don't say of course. That is not so obvious as your posts illustrates.


it's not obvious that the outcome of a RANDOM coin flip is uncertain? I
thought it was.

 In the 3-view there is no randomness at all. In the protocol, we don't
 change the pixels randomly, neither in the comp multiplication-movie
 experience, nor in the quantum wave which evolves deterministically. The
 point is that the randomness bears on the first person experiences. We get
 this directly with comp, without assuming QM.


Nothing new. People have only known about Quantum Mechanics for about a
century but they've known about randomness for many thousands of years. And
you've made randomness a measure of ignorance rather than a property of the
thing itself and that's how it should be, and what people have always done.
This is demonstrated by the Monty Hall problem, a new car is behind one
door and a goat behind the other two, you pick a door at random and Monty
opens a door you didn't pick and shows you a goat and gives you the
opportunity to change your choice of a door if you wish. Monty knows what
door the prize is behind and you do not, so Monty could pick the correct
door with a probability of 100% but the best you can do at first is 33.3%,
after he lest you change your choice and pick another door you know a
little more and your probability increases to 66.6%, Monty's probability
stays at 100% and the thing itself, the new car, has no probability at all.

Incidentally the great mathematician Paul Erdos admitted he could never get
his head around the Monty Hall problem and it always seemed paradoxical to
him, this despite him having no trouble whatsoever in understanding many
other things of staggering complexity and of far greater abstraction. It's
weird.

 so if I told you before the duplication that you would see Washington
 AND Moscow I would be correct, Bruno Marshal will indeed see both cities.


  That the 3-view on the 1-view.


And that should be more than good enough thank you very much!

 But the probabilities bears on the 1-views themselves.


As I've said many many times before, give me a single concrete example of
two things being identical by the 3-view but not by the 1-views
themselves and you will have won this argument, do that and I will
publicly declare you've made a major philosophical discovery. Just one
example is all I ask. I think this is the key to our disagreement.

 You can ascribe the consciousness of Bruno Marshal to both, but each one
 will ascribe their present here and now type of consciousness only to
 themselves subjectively.


I don't know what here and now type of consciousness is. We both agree
that speaking of consciousness occupying a place in space has little
meaning and I would argue a absolute time for a consciousness is not a
productive idea either. You could freeze a mind for a billion years and
then start it up again and it wouldn't notice it unless it has senses that
can detect the outside world, and even then the mind couldn't tell if it
had stopped for a billion years or what it was looking at had jumped ahead
a billion years.

 Asking why you are the Moscow man not the Washington man is exactly like
 asking why you are Bruno Marshal and not John K Clark.


  Possible. I do agree with this. But there is a difference. John and
 Bruno have already differentiated. But in the WM duplication experience, we
 duplicate instantaneous computational state by a special duplicator
 machine, so that we can ask the question to the guy before the duplication.


And the only answer you can receive will come from a trivial application of
the anthropic principle, I will become the Moscow man if events transpire
so that I meet the definition of the Moscow man, namely that I see Moscow.

 you can give no examples where according to the 3-view things are
 identical but according to the 1-view they are not, although it's easy to
 find examples where according to the 1-view things are identical but by the
 3-view they are not.


 That's my point.


I really wish it was.

 So you grasp very well the difference between 1-view and 3-view.


Yes.

 so I have no clue what difficulties you seem to have but never succeed to
 convey.


Then I will give you a clue of

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-02 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Apr 1, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


  you've added tons of bells and whistles but for all the complex
 convolutions you have not added one single bit of additional information
 about what is likely to happen.


  On the contrary, comp entails that you should expect white noice for the
 multiplication movie experience


But non-comp predicts exactly the same thing simply because the number of
states the screen can be in that we would put in the category white noise
is far greater than the number of states we would put in the Monty Python
movie category; and this would be true even if the Bible thumpers were
right about the soul and consciousness, which means your thought experiment
and all the numerous copies of you are a useless complication in
investigating these questions.

 that you should expect the WM duplication as equivalent with the throw of
 a random coin, etc. But you don't need to agree with that analysis. You
 need only to agree that there is an indeterminacy


Of course there is a indeterminacy! A key part of your thought experiment
is that a million pixels on a screen change at RANDOM 60 times a second
from black to white for 2 hours, being RANDOM you can't (or at least should
not) be certain what you'll see on the screen. If Everett is right the
indeterminacy is purely a measure of lack of information on your part and
that information exists you just don't have it. If you knew what branch of
the multiverse you were in, what particular universe you were in, you'd
know for certain what you were going to see on that screen; if you are in a
Monty Python branch you will see a Monty Python movie and if you're in a
white noise branch you'll see white noise. Once again your 1-view
indeterminacy brings nothing new to the mix.

I can hear you say, but that's the point, you don't know what branch you
are in until you see white noise or Monty Python on that screen. But
according to Everett until you see something unique on that screen that
nobody else in any universe sees you are not in that branch because that
branch does not exist, seeing Monty Python is exactly what makes it the
Monty Python branch.

 So I think we could move on step 4. You cannot stop in a middle on a
 proof on the pretext that you have learn nothing.


I can understand your desire to gloss over this major difficulty and move
on, but I feel that if a proof has made a blunder it's pointless to read
more.

  There is a difference between anything can happen in the reality, and
 anything can happen in the next moment.


And what difference is that?

 If Everett is right the probability must be derived from the statistics
 of measurements *as described by the wave evolution*.


If Everett is right then you can use the square of the absolute value of
the Schrodinger Wave Equation to help you guess which branch you are in, he
says it's the best guess you can make with the limited information you have
at your disposal, it's not perfect but it's the best we can do. However if
Everett is right everything that can happen to you will happen to you
somewhere in some branch of the multiverse.

 The distinction you are introducing concerns what the outsider can write
 in his diary (the 3-view), it does not bear on the individual diary
 contents (the 1-views).


I see, the contents of the diary are 3-view but the diary contents are
1-view. No I take that back, I don't see.

 After the experience, both concedes that they feel in one city, as they
 describe in their respective diary, and both recognize that they don't feel
 to be in both city, and that they don't feel any possible sensation of
 their respective doppelganger.


And both will record in their diary that they are Bruno Marchal, in fact
they both insist on this point very very strongly, and I the outside
observer can find absolutely no reason to say that one is more Bruno
Marchal-like than the other, so if I told you before the duplication that
you would see Washington AND Moscow I would be correct, Bruno Marchal will
indeed see both cities.

 But n Helsinki you cannot know for sure in which city you will wake up.


Asking why you are the Moscow man not the Washington man is exactly like
asking why you are Bruno Marchal and not John K Clark.

  But exactly what does your 50% really mean? You're treating it not as a
 measure of ignorance


  Well, you can treat it as a measure on ignorance, by using the PUP
 principle.


 I wish you'd stop expecting people to remember what all your homemade
acronyms mean.


  Basically the 1-view is the subjective(*) experience, and the 3-view is
 what an outsider can objectively described.


Then you can give no examples where according to the 3-view things are
identical but according to the 1-view they are not, although it's easy to
find examples where according to the 1-view things are identical but by the
3-view they are not. So when you complain that I'm just looking at things
from the 3-view and from only that view are

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-02 Thread meekerdb


On 4/2/2012 9:14 AM, John Clark wrote:


 If Everett is right the probability must be derived from the statistics of
measurements *as described by the wave evolution*.


If Everett is right then you can use the square of the absolute value of the Schrodinger 
Wave Equation to help you guess which branch you are in, he says it's the best guess you 
can make with the limited information you have at your disposal, it's not perfect but 
it's the best we can do. However if Everett is right everything that can happen to you 
will happen to you somewhere in some branch of the multiverse.


Except there is the same equivocation on you as in Bruno's transporter.

Brent

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread meekerdb


On 3/31/2012 11:11 AM, David Nyman wrote:

The alternative to this analysis is to abandon MWI (or comp) as
inconsistent with the empirical facts.  This is the tack Kent in fact
adopts, proposing a mechanism for the pruning of all but one of the
alternative branches,


I think he just proposes pruning the density matrix cross-terms by some mechanism.  Once 
they are gone then the realized branch is just 'selected'  stochasitcally per the Born 
rule.  I've often contemplated such a move based on the idea that there be a smallest 
non-zero quantum of probability; but I've not seen a way to make that work.


Brent



in the absence of which he clearly feels the
empirical facts cannot be justified.  I don't happen to agree with his
reasons, but such a proposal is consistent with his view of the likely
subjective consequences of duplication.


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread David Nyman

On 1 April 2012 07:04, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 I think he just proposes pruning the density matrix cross-terms by some
 mechanism.  Once they are gone then the realized branch is just 'selected'
  stochasitcally per the Born rule.  I've often contemplated such a move
 based on the idea that there be a smallest non-zero quantum of probability;
 but I've not seen a way to make that work.

Thanks for that clarification.  That being said, he is nevertheless
explicit that the crucial distinction between what he wants to suggest
and MWI is that only one branch can be considered as having been
actualised. Given his scepticism about Wallace's analysis of the
probable subjective consequences of duplication, this is what he feels
he needs for his scheme to be plausible in the face of the empirical
facts.

By the way, the reasons he gives for that scepticism seem to me to
imply some sort of individuated crypto-dualism.  For example, he says
that Wallace doesn't address the possibility that future copies
might be subjectively discontinuous with the you that exists
presently; consequently that particular you could be consigned to
subjective oblivion.  He concedes that, whether considered physically
or informationally, the copies possess every feature that presently
determines your empirical self-identification.  The conjunction of
these two stipulations suggests that, despite everything, some
personal essence is not copied; rather, each doppelganger acquires
its own freshly minted personal self-hood, and yours is annihilated.

I've attempted to conceive how one might put this to the test, even in
imagination, but I've not come up with anything.  This kind of rampant
confusion over pronouns is the chief reason I favour the universal
mind heuristic as a way of conceiving the subjective state of affairs.
 In terms of this heuristic, I always denotes the unique but
discontinuous subjectivity of an infinity of self-ordering personal
histories.  Since the subjective locus is not itself subject to
change, every perspective is mine, but not all perspectives are
associated with David Nyman.  It may seem strange at first, but it
unravels surprisingly many of the conceptual puzzles.

David

 On 3/31/2012 11:11 AM, David Nyman wrote:

 The alternative to this analysis is to abandon MWI (or comp) as
 inconsistent with the empirical facts.  This is the tack Kent in fact
 adopts, proposing a mechanism for the pruning of all but one of the
 alternative branches,


 I think he just proposes pruning the density matrix cross-terms by some
 mechanism.  Once they are gone then the realized branch is just 'selected'
  stochasitcally per the Born rule.  I've often contemplated such a move
 based on the idea that there be a smallest non-zero quantum of probability;
 but I've not seen a way to make that work.

 Brent



 in the absence of which he clearly feels the
 empirical facts cannot be justified.  I don't happen to agree with his
 reasons, but such a proposal is consistent with his view of the likely
 subjective consequences of duplication.


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread David Nyman

On 31 March 2012 01:09, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 That seems like conjuring a mystery out of nothing. Is your question why is
 my observational perspective associated with my brain?

It's only a mystery out of nothing if you have already accepted as
unproblematic the primitive existence of my brain.  Even given the
assumption of a primitive micro-physicality, we lack any purely
PHYSICAL principle capable of making a fundamental ontological
distinction between the generalised ensemble in its entirety, and any
specifically-isolated composite object. The ascription of composite
brain-hood to some domain of the micro-physical ensemble is an a
posteriori ascription from an already-established observational
perspective.  Hence to attribute said perspective to an epiphenomenon
of such an ascription amounts to putting the ontological cart before
the epistemological horse.

David

 On 3/30/2012 4:23 PM, David Nyman wrote:

 On 30 March 2012 19:54, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:

   The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
   nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
   this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
   Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
   problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
   situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the
  other
   doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
   experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent

 
   It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.  Brent
  and
   David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the
  system.

 Sure, but even if one believes that to be the case, it is still taken
 entirely for granted that there is some natural principle for the
 selection of THIS physical system from the class of all such systems.


 ?? I guess I don't understand the question.  If my experience is a process
 in my brain then what more selection is required?


 To appeal, a posteriori, to the fact that one's observational
 perspective is apparently associated with this particular system and
 not any other is merely to argue in a circle; since that is what we
 are trying to explain we cannot adduce it as the explanation.


 That seems like conjuring a mystery out of nothing. Is your question why is
 my observational perspective associated with my brain?

 Brent



 As I said before, the requirement for some principle of selection, in
 this sense, is rarely made explicit, but nonetheless implicitly relied
 on.  More often than not our particular localisation in space and time
 has been consigned to the realm of psychology or illusion, as in
 Einstein's reputed remark, as though it were somehow possible to
 disarm this inconvenient observational fact with scare quotes.  So
 what intrigued me about Hoyle's idea (and according to Gribbin it was
 rather more than a fictional conceit for him) was precisely that his
 making it explicit exposed an elephant in the room that few others
 were prepared to acknowledge.

 David


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread Bruno Marchal


Hello Stephen,


On 31 Mar 2012, at 18:29, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 3/31/2012 3:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



Comp is just the assumption that we are machine, to said it  
shortly. Then it is shown as a consequence that not only we cannot  
neglect the physical reality, but that we have to retrieve it from  
arithmetic, without using any probabilistic *selection*. Comp is  
the problem, not the solution. Only the materialist believe wrongly  
that comp solves the mind problem, and *they* take matter for  
granted. Pretending that comp neglects problem is contrary to the  
facts, because comp just shows precisely where the problems come  
from (the taking granted of the physical reality).


Bruno



Dear Bruno,

   I wish I could feel comfortable with such a focused area so that  
we can neglect all other considerations. I agree with your judgement  
about materialists, but am not so sanguine about the idealist as  
having all the answers.



Nobody said that the idealist has all answers. If comp is true, he has  
only all questions, really, so to speak.


What is said is that IF comp is true, then we are necessarily lead to  
arithmetical (or equivalent) idealism. That's the result.


Idealism is not part of the comp assumption. It is part of the  
theorem. Comp has to be idealist.


If you belief, for whatever reason, that idealism is false, then COMP  
is false. You can't survive with a digital, even material, brain, by  
virtue of a physical computer emulating your brain at some level.






My motivations are different from yours. I am wrestling with the  
ontological implications of physics and so our interests cross in  
many places.


Only if comp is part of your theory. I have not yet seen any real,  
precise, non comp theory, so I cannot judge them.



I have proposed an alternative ontology theory that appears to solve  
the mind-body problem without having to resort to epiphenomena,  
which by your own admission infects both materialism and idealism.


You forget many of our discussions. Comp, + the usual Occam, leads to  
the disappearance of matter. Matter does not become an epiphenomenon,  
for its observation becomes a psychological or biological or (better  
imo) theological phenomenon. There are no epiphenomena.


Materialists which are not eliminating consciousness makes often it  
into an epiphenomenon, because they admit it exists. But comp makes  
primitive matter into pure and simple non existence. You can  
reintroduce it logically, and that would make it into an  
epinoumenon, like invisible horses driving car, or ether, or  
phlogistic. That's different.


Bruno



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



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread David Nyman

On 1 April 2012 21:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 I'm all in favor of epistemology first.  But that means point-of-view comes
 first, and only some things happen comes second.  The primitive,
 micro-physical ensemble is an ontological assumption way down the line.

No argument from me on that!  But, in the light of epistemology
first, can you make any sense of the notion of consciousness as an
epiphenomenon of its own constructions?

David

 On 4/1/2012 4:55 AM, David Nyman wrote:

 On 31 March 2012 01:09, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:

 That seems like conjuring a mystery out of nothing. Is your question why
 is
 my observational perspective associated with my brain?

 It's only a mystery out of nothing if you have already accepted as
 unproblematic the primitive existence of my brain.  Even given the
 assumption of a primitive micro-physicality, we lack any purely
 PHYSICAL principle capable of making a fundamental ontological
 distinction between the generalised ensemble in its entirety, and any
 specifically-isolated composite object. The ascription of composite
 brain-hood to some domain of the micro-physical ensemble is an a
 posteriori ascription from an already-established observational
 perspective.  Hence to attribute said perspective to an epiphenomenon
 of such an ascription amounts to putting the ontological cart before
 the epistemological horse.

 David


 I'm all in favor of epistemology first.  But that means point-of-view comes
 first, and only some things happen comes second.  The primitive,
 micro-physical ensemble is an ontological assumption way down the line.

 Brent


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-04-01 Thread meekerdb


On 4/1/2012 1:28 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 1 April 2012 21:02, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:


I'm all in favor of epistemology first.  But that means point-of-view comes
first, and only some things happen comes second.  The primitive,
micro-physical ensemble is an ontological assumption way down the line.

No argument from me on that!  But, in the light of epistemology
first, can you make any sense of the notion of consciousness as an
epiphenomenon of its own constructions?


No sure.  But if I do succeed in that, starting from being conscious of stuff, I can 
follow the chain back to consciousness.  I don't need to forget where I came from.


Brent
Hence a Reality, yes. But not necessarily a physical reality. Here is the
logical dependence:
NUMBERS - MACHINE DREAMS - PHYSICAL - HUMANS - PHYSICS - NUMBERS.
  --- Bruno Marchal



David


On 4/1/2012 4:55 AM, David Nyman wrote:

On 31 March 2012 01:09, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.netwrote:


That seems like conjuring a mystery out of nothing. Is your question why
is
my observational perspective associated with my brain?

It's only a mystery out of nothing if you have already accepted as
unproblematic the primitive existence of my brain.  Even given the
assumption of a primitive micro-physicality, we lack any purely
PHYSICAL principle capable of making a fundamental ontological
distinction between the generalised ensemble in its entirety, and any
specifically-isolated composite object. The ascription of composite
brain-hood to some domain of the micro-physical ensemble is an a
posteriori ascription from an already-established observational
perspective.  Hence to attribute said perspective to an epiphenomenon
of such an ascription amounts to putting the ontological cart before
the epistemological horse.

David


I'm all in favor of epistemology first.  But that means point-of-view comes
first, and only some things happen comes second.  The primitive,
micro-physical ensemble is an ontological assumption way down the line.

Brent


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-31 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 30 Mar 2012, at 23:29, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 2:48 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/30/2012 4:08 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 3:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Take my favorite thought experiment. Suppose I design two Mars
Rovers and I want them to coordinate their movements in order
to round up Martian sheep. I can easily distribute the
artificial intelligence between the two of them, using data
links so whatever one sees the other sees (incidentally this,
minus the AI, is what combat aircraft software does now) and so
there is a single top level decision routine on top of local
decision routines about maneuvering around obstacles and
managing internal states.

OK, I'll bite. That AI program is running on the combination
of the two pieces of hardware, this is no different than how
Watson runs on a much of connected servers. But think about it,
does not the data correlated to the sensors on one of the Rovers
have to be synchronized with the data from the other Rover so
that their manuevering can be controled. How exactly is the
internal model of this system built so that it can 'consider
itself' as being both exploring some pile of rocks east of Mt.
Olympus while the other Rover is taking a dirt sample in some
crater 500 kilometers away. It is not possible for two fixed
points to exist on one compact and closed manifold. You can only
have one at a time. What you describe is more like a Rover with
a multiple personality disorder.

You're suffering from a failure of imagination. It can make a
model in which it considers itself has having to bodies at two
different places. It wouldn't even be hard to
program. If you can experience two different places
and you can act in two different places you ARE in two different
places.

Brent
--

Hi Brent,

Could you give us a brief explanation of how this would work?
I will readily admit to a failure of imagination here.

Just as you have two eyes providing two 2D views of the world which
your brain merges into one 3D model, one can merge the data streams
from many different sensors located in disparate places to create a
single unified model. Military systems do this for battlefield
awareness. And this model can include a 'self'. The self is
usually located where the hardware is because evolution requires
that the hardware/self be protected.

Brent

Hi Brent,

Interesting. ... merge ... streams ... to create a single
unified model How is this not consistent with my original claim
above? My claim is that a single unified model must obtain and that
the notion of 1-p identity follows directly from this and thus if no
unification can obtain neither does a 1-p. What did you imagine
that I was claiming? What I have been trying to point out is that
the single unified model must be such that there are no logical or
resource conflicts. I go further to claim that this is an example of
the SAT problem in applied logic. It is known that SAT is an NP-
Complete problem and thus the computational complexity issues must
be addressed.
I have been arguing that COMP neglects these complexity issues
completely and seemingly does so by eliminating the necessity to
consider the actual physical implementations of the computations,
preferring instead to postulate some Platonic realm where
computations have particular properties merely on the basis, it is
argued, that the truth valuations of Sigma_1 sentences is completely
independent of our knowledge of their content. I see this as
equivalent to saying that since there exist strings of numbers that
are solutions to NP-Complete problems then we don't need to worry
about actually having to find them and thus bypass problems like
SAT. Instead we are offered an interesting form of Occasionalism or
Accidentalism to explain how it is that we actually do experience a
physical world.

Comp is just the assumption that we are machine, to said it shortly.
Then it is shown as a consequence that not only we cannot neglect the
physical reality, but that we have to retrieve it from arithmetic,
without using any probabilistic *selection*. Comp is the problem, not
the solution. Only the materialist believe wrongly that comp solves
the mind problem, and *they* take matter for granted. Pretending that
comp neglects problem is contrary to the facts, because comp just
shows precisely where the problems come from (the taking granted of
the physical reality).

Bruno

Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-31 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 31 Mar 2012, at 01:23, David Nyman wrote:

On 30 March 2012 19:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the
other

doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent

It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.
Brent and
David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the
system.

Sure, but even if one believes that to be the case, it is still taken
entirely for granted that there is some natural principle for the
selection of THIS physical system from the class of all such systems.
To appeal, a posteriori, to the fact that one's observational
perspective is apparently associated with this particular system and
not any other is merely to argue in a circle; since that is what we
are trying to explain we cannot adduce it as the explanation.

As I said before, the requirement for some principle of selection, in
this sense, is rarely made explicit, but nonetheless implicitly relied
on. More often than not our particular localisation in space and time
has been consigned to the realm of psychology or illusion, as in
Einstein's reputed remark, as though it were somehow possible to
disarm this inconvenient observational fact with scare quotes. So
what intrigued me about Hoyle's idea (and according to Gribbin it was
rather more than a fictional conceit for him) was precisely that his
making it explicit exposed an elephant in the room that few others
were prepared to acknowledge.

Exactly. What comp shows is that each time a physicist use a physical
law to make a physical prediction, he is using an identity principle,
a selection principle, and an induction principle, which is
incompatible with comp. He assumes his mind is attached to one brain
and that there is no other equivalent brain existing in reality, to be
able to transfer his 3p reasoning on its future 1-view. Comp makes the
mind-body problem *more* difficult, by showing that those principles
are not applicable.

Reality is more subtle than the physicist want us to believe.

Bruno

David

On 3/30/2012 4:38 AM, David Nyman wrote:

doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent

It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.
Brent and
David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the
system.

Brent

, or
indeed here rather than there, or now rather than then. Subjective
localisation is simply assumed, or trivialised, as in Einstein's
remark “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a
stubbornly persistent illusion”.

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-31 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Mar 29, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 You should care to be able to answer the simple question: what do you
 expect to feel in the multiplication-movie experience


I would expect to feel exactly the same as if duplicating chambers and
multiple copies of myself were not involved. If you perform whatever
calculations you think are needed to produce your patented 1-view
indeterminacy I would not be one bit wiser than if I calculated
probabilities using regular old conventional probability methods, you've
added tons of bells and whistles but for all the complex convolutions you
have not added one single bit of additional information about what is
likely to happen.

 You said you favor Everett's QM.


Yes, but the universe will be the way is and doesn't care if I favor it or
not, so it may or may not be true. And if Everett is right then there is a
100% probability that anything that can happen will happen, but using
statistics in this way would not produce anything we could use, just as the
1-view probability of something can not tell me anything I didn't already
know.

 You did not answer Quentin when he commented that with Everett the
 Universe is a duplicating chamber, so that your charge again the
 coimp-1-indeterminacy applies to Everett QM too.


In the first place I like Many Worlds for esthetic reasons but I'm far from
certain it's true. More important, in the thought experiment about the
cities we have access to all the branches and can see what all the copies
are doing, but that is not the case with Everett. If Everett is correct
then probability is not inherent in the event itself but is just a measure
of our ignorance. As you point out Many Worlds is a deterministic theory so
if we had a bird's eye view of everything probability would be a useless
tool because everything would have a probability of 100% or 0%.

But I can hear you scream but you still wouldn't know for certain if you
will see Washington. I say the probability is 100% you say it is 50%, how
can we tell who is correct? I say that after the experiment if I find you
and you says that he is in Washington and only Washington then my
prediction was proven correct, and I can do exactly that. If after the
experiment if you find you and he says that he is 50% in Washington then
your prediction was proven correct, but you can't find anybody like that.

You concede that you will indeed say you are in Washington and only
Washington, but you correctly point out that you will also say you are in
Moscow and only Moscow. I agree and say that means the probability you will
see Moscow and only Moscow is also 100%, but you disagree and say it is
50%. I say the fact that you say you are in Washington and only Washington
in no way weakens the claim that you are in Moscow and only Moscow.

I predict there is a 100% chance there is a 100% chance you will feel like
you are in one city and one city only, and it's not a problem for me to
have two yous with 100% because YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED. But exactly what
does your 50% really mean? You're treating it not as a measure of ignorance
but as if it's part of the thing itself even though it's a deterministic
process, as if there is a 100% chance you will feel like you are 50% in
Moscow and a 100% chance you will feel like you are 50% in Washington. And
that does not correspond to the experimental results.

  My complaint is that the diaries add nothing, it's obvious that if the
 diaries the people remember writing are identical then the people are too,
 and if they aren't then the people aren't either.


  But the you contradict your statement


Did I? I hate it when that happens.

 that both the guy in W and in M have the right to say that they are the
 guy who was at Helsinki, which makes indeed sense with comp.


True it does make sense, the Washington guy is the Helsinki guy and the
Moscow guy is the Helsinki guy and the Moscow guy is not the Washington guy
and the Washington guy is not the Moscow guy. It's all very clear, but
where did I contradict myself?

 And to add to the confusion sometimes you admit that they would feel the
 same, but then in your next breath you start talking about how it's
 identical in the 3-view but not the 1-view.


  Could you quote me and be more precise.


Bruno, 3-view and 1-view are your terms, you invented them not me, if
you did not think things could be the same in one view but not the other,
if you thought the two things were identical then why the hell did you go
to all the trouble to give them different names?

 In the step three experience we are talking about, they will give quite
 different answer.


Then obviously they become different people and the thought experiment
becomes rather dull.

 The third party does not know which one is you and you don't know either.


  The W guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in W.
 The M guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in M.


Yes, assuming they

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-31 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/31/2012 3:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



Comp is just the assumption that we are machine, to said it shortly. 
Then it is shown as a consequence that not only we cannot neglect the 
physical reality, but that we have to retrieve it from arithmetic, 
without using any probabilistic *selection*. Comp is the problem, not 
the solution. Only the materialist believe wrongly that comp solves 
the mind problem, and *they* take matter for granted. Pretending that 
comp neglects problem is contrary to the facts, because comp just 
shows precisely where the problems come from (the taking granted of 
the physical reality).


Bruno



Dear Bruno,

I wish I could feel comfortable with such a focused area so that we 
can neglect all other considerations. I agree with your judgement about 
materialists, but am not so sanguine about the idealist as having all 
the answers. My motivations are different from yours. I am wrestling 
with the ontological implications of physics and so our interests cross 
in many places. I have proposed an alternative ontology theory that 
appears to solve the mind-body problem without having to resort to 
epiphenomena, which by your own admission infects both materialism and 
idealism.


Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-31 Thread David Nyman

On 31 March 2012 17:24, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:

  You should care to be able to answer the simple question: what do you
  expect to feel in the multiplication-movie experience

 I would expect to feel exactly the same as if duplicating chambers and
 multiple copies of myself were not involved.

Q.E.D.  This is the entire point of step 3.  To repeat, in your own
words above I would expect to feel exactly the same as if duplicating
chambers and multiple copies of myself were not involved.  Indeed, if
you had reason to expect to feel anything else, that alone would force
you to abandon both MWI or comp, as Adrian Kent argues forcefully in
the papers Brent referenced.

Kent quotes David Wallace's three logical options for the subjective
consequences of MWI branching, of which the first (separately located
simultaneous consciousnesses) and third (oblivion) clearly are at odds
with your expectation to feel exactly the same as if...multiple
copies of myself were not involved.  Wallace agrees with you - as he
puts it, the remaining option is I should expect to become one or the
other future self.  This implies, he goes on to say, that in the
absence of some strong criterion as to which copy to regard as
“really” me, I will have to treat the question of which future self I
become as (subjectively) indeterministic.”

The alternative to this analysis is to abandon MWI (or comp) as
inconsistent with the empirical facts.  This is the tack Kent in fact
adopts, proposing a mechanism for the pruning of all but one of the
alternative branches, in the absence of which he clearly feels the
empirical facts cannot be justified.  I don't happen to agree with his
reasons, but such a proposal is consistent with his view of the likely
subjective consequences of duplication.

I hope you can now see that Kent and Wallace both formulate the issue
of duplication equivalently to step 3 of the UDA.  Assuming that,
unlike Kent, you don't wish on this basis to rule out the MWI or comp
hypotheses, the first-person indeterminacy with respect to
duplication is equivalent to what Wallace describes as treat(ing) the
question of which future self I become as (subjectively)
indeterministic.”

David


 On Thu, Mar 29, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  You should care to be able to answer the simple question: what do you
  expect to feel in the multiplication-movie experience


 I would expect to feel exactly the same as if duplicating chambers and
 multiple copies of myself were not involved. If you perform whatever
 calculations you think are needed to produce your patented 1-view
 indeterminacy I would not be one bit wiser than if I calculated
 probabilities using regular old conventional probability methods, you've
 added tons of bells and whistles but for all the complex convolutions you
 have not added one single bit of additional information about what is likely
 to happen.

  You said you favor Everett's QM.


 Yes, but the universe will be the way is and doesn't care if I favor it or
 not, so it may or may not be true. And if Everett is right then there is a
 100% probability that anything that can happen will happen, but using
 statistics in this way would not produce anything we could use, just as the
 1-view probability of something can not tell me anything I didn't already
 know.

  You did not answer Quentin when he commented that with Everett the
  Universe is a duplicating chamber, so that your charge again the
  coimp-1-indeterminacy applies to Everett QM too.


 In the first place I like Many Worlds for esthetic reasons but I'm far from
 certain it's true. More important, in the thought experiment about the
 cities we have access to all the branches and can see what all the copies
 are doing, but that is not the case with Everett. If Everett is correct then
 probability is not inherent in the event itself but is just a measure of our
 ignorance. As you point out Many Worlds is a deterministic theory so if we
 had a bird's eye view of everything probability would be a useless tool
 because everything would have a probability of 100% or 0%.

 But I can hear you scream but you still wouldn't know for certain if you
 will see Washington. I say the probability is 100% you say it is 50%, how
 can we tell who is correct? I say that after the experiment if I find you
 and you says that he is in Washington and only Washington then my prediction
 was proven correct, and I can do exactly that. If after the experiment if
 you find you and he says that he is 50% in Washington then your prediction
 was proven correct, but you can't find anybody like that.

 You concede that you will indeed say you are in Washington and only
 Washington, but you correctly point out that you will also say you are in
 Moscow and only Moscow. I agree and say that means the probability you will
 see Moscow and only Moscow is also 100%, but you disagree and say it is 50%.
 I say the fact that you say you are in Washington and only

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Take my favorite thought experiment. Suppose I design two Mars Rovers and I want them
to coordinate their movements in order to round up Martian sheep. I can easily
distribute the artificial intelligence between the two of them, using data links so
whatever one sees the other sees (incidentally this, minus the AI, is what combat
aircraft software does now) and so there is a single top level decision routine on top
of local decision routines about maneuvering around obstacles and managing internal states.

OK, I'll bite. That AI program is running on the combination of the two pieces of
hardware, this is no different than how Watson
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-14-ibm-jeopardy_N.htm runs on a much of
connected servers. But think about it, does not the data correlated to the sensors on
one of the Rovers have to be synchronized with the data from the other Rover so that
their manuevering can be controled. How exactly is the internal model of this system
built so that it can 'consider itself' as being both exploring some pile of rocks east
of Mt. Olympus while the other Rover is taking a dirt sample in some crater 500
kilometers away. It is not possible for two fixed points to exist on one compact and
closed manifold. You can only have one at a time. What you describe is more like a Rover
with a multiple personality disorder.

You're suffering from a failure of imagination. It can make a model in which it considers
itself has having to bodies at two different places. It wouldn't even be hard to
program. If you can experience two different places and you can act in two different
places you ARE in two different places.

Brent

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 29 Mar 2012, at 21:47, meekerdb wrote:


On 3/29/2012 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.


I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that  
you are using here, so as to convince me and others that it  
refutes indeed the indeterminacy about the first person  
experience displayed in the WM duplication thought experience  
(UDA step 3).


Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience,  
and given that you are the one claiming that there is no  
indeterminate outcome, I will ask to give us an algorithm  
predicting the result of the future self-localization experience.


The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is  
deterministic.  And it has the same problems being given a  
probabilistic interpretation as EQM.  If you duplicated a coin in  
the transporter experiment the question, Where will you expect to  
find the coin. has the same problems as Where do you expect to  
find yourself.  The implication is that self is not a unique  
'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to be) but is process  
that can be realized in different media.


I agree. But the experience is lived as unique, so we can follow  
Plotinus in using the term soul for the owner of the 1-view, that  
is, the knower. From its pov, it is not duplicable, in the trivial  
sense that the duplication is never part of his experience.


You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that  
conscious experience is something a certain physical body, a brain,  
does.  But if conscious experience is a process then it is certainly  
possible to create a process that is aware of being in both  
Washington and Moscow at the same time.


Or you are just a giant with one foot in W and one foot in M. But  
that's not relevant for the issue I was talking about, where complete  
brain are reconstituted separately in the two places.




Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The  
Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and  
we would tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So  
then the question becomes what do you mean by not experiencing  
duplication?  Is it a mere tautology based on how you define  
'consciousness'?


I do not define consciousness, and for the reasoning I am using an  
approximate notion of first person (the content of the diary which is  
transported in the teleportation or duplication device. And yes, it  
makes the non experiencing of duplication, and the non experiencing  
of reconstitution delays obvious. That was the goal.








He would not know if we did not give him the protocol.
mathematically, this is related to the fact that no machine can  
know which machine she is, already seen clearly by Post and  
(re)intuited by Benacerraf, and intuited by the machine itself,  
accepting the Theaetetus' definition of knowledge.


I am not sure the problem of probability is identical in QM and  
COMP. In QM, Everett showed that the P = A^2 principle does not  
depend on the choice of the base,


I don't think that's correct.  'A' is the amplitude of the  
projection on certain basis determined by what is measured.  Yes the  
Born rule can be applied whatever basis is chosen, but the  
projection produces different A's.


No problem with this.




so that A can be considered as measuring the relative proportion of  
possible accessible relative realities. This does not work with  
finite multiverse, but it works with infinite multiverse,


But infinite multiple worlds create a measure problem.  That's one  
of Adrian Kent's points.


In all case of multiplication, be it through comp or QM, there is a  
measure problem. With comp, the mind-body problem is transformed into  
a justification of the physical laws through a measure problem.







and Gleason theorem justifies the unicity of the measure,


I'm not sure what you mean by that?




Gleason’s theorem, formulated and proved by Andrew M. Gleason in  
1957, is a state-
ment about measures on Hilbert spaces of dimension at least three. The  
theorem states
that the only possible probability measures on such spaces are  
measures µ of the form
µ(a) = Tr(ρPa ), where ρ is a positive semi-deﬁnite self-adjoint  
operator of unit trace, and

where Pa is a pro jection operator for pro jection onto the subspace a.
Postulating that any orthogonal basis in some Hilbert space  
corresponds to a measure-
ment and that quantum systems can be represented by such spaces, we  
can understand
the pro jection operators as representing yes-no observables a1 ,  
commuting pro jectors cor-
responding to yes-no questions that can be simultaneously answered (or  
asked). Any
(measurable) property a of the system is then uniquely associated with  
a subspace (which
could be one-dimensional i.e. a vector) of the system’s Hilbert space  
- within this frame-
work,

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread Richard Ruquist

David,
Selection was even earlier proposed by Leibniz in his Monadology philosophy
along with many other principles about half of which have been confirmed by
scientific theory and experimentation.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/leibniz.htm
Richard David Ruquist

On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 9:20 PM, David Nyman da...@davidnyman.com wrote:

 On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
  experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
  conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to
 create a
  process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
  time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or
 The
  Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we
 would
  tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the
 question
  becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
  tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

 Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
 possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
 grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
 the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
 with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
 such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
 lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

 AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
 process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
 that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
 duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
 mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
 (however exotic) or not.

 Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
 objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
 possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
 ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.  But the
 latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
 empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
 of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
 be 100%!

 Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
 theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.  Kent's proposal is a
 process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
 different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
 in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
 manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
 selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
 reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
 novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
 Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
 (apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
 Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
 implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
 them acknowledge it explicitly.

 David

  On 3/29/2012 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
  On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:
 
  On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
  And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.
 
 
  I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you
 are
  using here, so as to convince me and others that it refutes indeed the
  indeterminacy about the first person experience displayed in the WM
  duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).
 
  Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and
 given
  that you are the one claiming that there is no indeterminate outcome,
 I will
  ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result of the future
  self-localization experience.
 
 
  The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is deterministic.
   And it has the same problems being given a probabilistic
 interpretation as
  EQM.  If you duplicated a coin in the transporter experiment the
 question,
  Where will you expect to find the coin. has the same problems as
 Where do
  you expect to find yourself.  The implication is that self is not a
  unique 'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to be) but is process
 that
  can be realized in different media.
 
 
  I agree. But the experience is lived as unique, so we can follow
 Plotinus
  in using the term soul for the owner of the 1-view, that is, the knower.
  From its pov, it is not duplicable, in the trivial sense that the
  duplication is never part of his experience.
 
 
  You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
  experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
  conscious experience is a process then

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/30/2012 3:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


Take my favorite thought experiment.  Suppose I design two Mars 
Rovers and I want them to coordinate their movements in order to 
round up Martian sheep.  I can easily distribute the artificial 
intelligence between the two of them, using data links so whatever 
one sees the other sees (incidentally this, minus the AI, is what 
combat aircraft software does now) and so there is a single top 
level decision routine on top of local decision routines about 
maneuvering around obstacles and managing internal states.


OK, I'll bite. That AI program is running on the combination of 
the two pieces of hardware, this is no different than how Watson 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-14-ibm-jeopardy_N.htm 
runs on a much of connected servers. But think about it, does not the 
data correlated to the sensors on one of the Rovers have to be 
synchronized with the data from the other Rover so that their 
manuevering can be controled. How exactly is the internal model of 
this system built so that it can 'consider itself' as being both 
exploring some pile of rocks east of Mt. Olympus while the other 
Rover is taking a dirt sample in some crater 500 kilometers away. It 
is not possible for two fixed points to exist on one compact and 
closed manifold. You can only have one at a time. What you describe 
is more like a Rover with a multiple personality disorder.


You're suffering from a failure of imagination.  It can make a model 
in which it considers itself has having to bodies at two different 
places.  It wouldn't even be hard to program.  If you can experience 
two different places and you can act in two different places you ARE 
in two different places.


Brent
--

Hi Brent,

Could you give us a brief explanation of how this would work? I 
will readily admit to a failure of imagination here.


Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread David Nyman

On 30 March 2012 03:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 My reading of Kent is that he rejects MWI.  I don't think he believes there
 is a single conscious copy and the rest are zombies; he believes there's
 just one world and it is 'selected' probabilistically.

Yes, I understand that.  My point is that Kent disbelieves (as his
arguments contra Wallace show) that a single conscious perspective is
either logically or naturally consistent with the objective existence
of multiple copies, and it is this disbelief that motivates his
suggestion of an objective selection process to dispose of all but one
of them.  By contrast, the heuristic I suggest (i.e. an informal way
of thinking about the situation) is subjective (albeit impersonally
so) rather than objective, in the sense that it doesn't involve
eliminating the unselected branches.  It is curious to me that
others have seemingly dismissed this possibility because of the
apparent threat of zombies, or what David Albert somewhat gothically
refers to as mindless hulks.  But there is another way to conceive
this.  In essence, it's the perspective of a universal consciousness
with amnesia for states other than those associated with the momentary
selection of a current history.

From this perspective, other people with whom we interact (including
our own bodies) stand in approximately the role of avatars in a video
game.  It is highly relevant in this regard that the
empirically-discoverable game physics never requires the presumption
of conscious states (or indeed anything else outside its own closed
system of transformation rules) in order to explain their behaviour.
The selection of mutually-exclusive moments by the universal mind
might imply that only one of these avatars is conscious at one time,
but on reflection this corresponds rather precisely to what we are
trying to explain.  Subjectivity is never simultaneous as
experienced (which is equivalent to the claim that it can't be
duplicated); the ability to synchronise clock times between different
(objectively characterised) subjects is a different matter.

The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the other
doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent, or
indeed here rather than there, or now rather than then.  Subjective
localisation is simply assumed, or trivialised, as in Einstein's
remark “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a
stubbornly persistent illusion”.

 Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
 objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
 possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
 ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.


 But in Bruno's transporter experiment there isn't *a* singular perspective,
 there are two different ones.

Now you're doing a John!  Sure, there are two different ones
objectively, but there's only one subjectively.  Unless you want to
take the tack of rejecting comp or MWI on that basis (which is a
possibility) this forces you to accept that the existence of two
copies must indeed (somehow) be compatible with your experiencing a
single perspective.  The heuristic I propose makes this unproblematic
AFAICS, though it does indeed force re-consideration of exactly who
you are, and invokes the measure problem with particular
vengeance.  But that is unavoidable, ISTM, with any proposal in this
domain, as indeed is the determination of subjective localisation as
an ancillary assumption.

 Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
 theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.

 But then Everett's QM doesn't explain the facts - because there is no
 selection.  That's part of Kent's criticism.

I agree.  It can't explain the facts without selection, on which it
relies implicitly (and I don't understand why this doesn't strike more
people as problematic).  But I also don't believe that Kent's proposal
on its own goes all the way to dealing with the deficiency he exposes,
as I explain above.

David

 On 3/29/2012 6:20 PM, David Nyman wrote:

 On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:

 You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
 experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
 conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create
 a
 process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
 time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or
 The
 Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread David Nyman

On 30 March 2012 10:11, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote:

 David,
 Selection was even earlier proposed by Leibniz in his Monadology philosophy
 along with many other principles about half of which have been confirmed by
 scientific theory and experimentation.
 http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/leibniz.htm
 Richard David Ruquist

Thanks for reminding me of this - I hadn't read Leibniz for a long
while.  However, on a rapid re-perusal I can only discover one
instance of his referring to selection:

53. Now as there are an infinity of possible universes in the ideas
of God, and but one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient
reason for the choice of God which determines him to select one rather
than another.

This could perhaps be interpreted as being consistent with Kent's
proposal of an objective selection at infinity pruning out the
superfluous branches.  But if so, it is still vulnerable to my
criticism that it fails to account for subjective localisation, or in
Leibniz's terminology, why the subjective perspective of one monad is
selected at a given moment rather than another.  Can you direct me
to any other reference to this in the Monadology?

David



 On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 9:20 PM, David Nyman da...@davidnyman.com wrote:

 On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that
  conscious
  experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
  conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to
  create a
  process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
  time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or
  The
  Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we
  would
  tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the
  question
  becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
  tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

 Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
 possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
 grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
 the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
 with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
 such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
 lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

 AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
 process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
 that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
 duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
 mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
 (however exotic) or not.

 Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
 objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
 possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
 ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.  But the
 latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
 empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
 of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
 be 100%!

 Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
 theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.  Kent's proposal is a
 process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
 different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
 in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
 manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
 selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
 reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
 novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
 Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
 (apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
 Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
 implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
 them acknowledge it explicitly.

 David

  On 3/29/2012 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
  On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:
 
  On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
  And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.
 
 
  I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you
  are
  using here, so as to convince me and others that it refutes indeed
  the
  indeterminacy about the first person experience displayed in the WM
  duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).
 
  Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and
  given
  that you are the one claiming that there is no indeterminate outcome,
  I will
  ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result of the future
  self-localization experience.
 
 
  The outcome is

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/30/2012 4:08 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 3:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Take my favorite thought experiment. Suppose I design two Mars Rovers and I want
them to coordinate their movements in order to round up Martian sheep. I can easily
distribute the artificial intelligence between the two of them, using data links so
whatever one sees the other sees (incidentally this, minus the AI, is what combat
aircraft software does now) and so there is a single top level decision routine on
top of local decision routines about maneuvering around obstacles and managing
internal states.

You're suffering from a failure of imagination. It can make a model in which it
considers itself has having to bodies at two different places. It wouldn't even be
hard to program. If you can experience two different places and you can act in two
different places you ARE in two different places.

Brent
--

Hi Brent,

Could you give us a brief explanation of how this would work? I will readily admit
to a failure of imagination here.

Just as you have two eyes providing two 2D views of the world which your brain merges into
one 3D model, one can merge the data streams from many different sensors located in
disparate places to create a single unified model. Military systems do this for
battlefield awareness. And this model can include a 'self'. The self is usually located
where the hardware is because evolution requires that the hardware/self be protected.

Brent

Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)


On 3/30/2012 4:38 AM, David Nyman wrote:

The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the other
doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent


It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.  Brent and David are 
different physical systems and only one is looking at the system.


Brent


, or
indeed here rather than there, or now rather than then.  Subjective
localisation is simply assumed, or trivialised, as in Einstein's
remark “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a
stubbornly persistent illusion”.


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/30/2012 2:48 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/30/2012 4:08 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 3:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


Take my favorite thought experiment.  Suppose I design two Mars 
Rovers and I want them to coordinate their movements in order to 
round up Martian sheep.  I can easily distribute the artificial 
intelligence between the two of them, using data links so whatever 
one sees the other sees (incidentally this, minus the AI, is what 
combat aircraft software does now) and so there is a single top 
level decision routine on top of local decision routines about 
maneuvering around obstacles and managing internal states.


OK, I'll bite. That AI program is running on the combination of 
the two pieces of hardware, this is no different than how Watson 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-14-ibm-jeopardy_N.htm 
runs on a much of connected servers. But think about it, does not 
the data correlated to the sensors on one of the Rovers have to be 
synchronized with the data from the other Rover so that their 
manuevering can be controled. How exactly is the internal model of 
this system built so that it can 'consider itself' as being both 
exploring some pile of rocks east of Mt. Olympus while the other 
Rover is taking a dirt sample in some crater 500 kilometers away. 
It is not possible for two fixed points to exist on one compact and 
closed manifold. You can only have one at a time. What you describe 
is more like a Rover with a multiple personality disorder.


You're suffering from a failure of imagination.  It can make a model 
in which it considers itself has having to bodies at two different 
places.  It wouldn't even be hard to program.  If you can experience 
two different places and you can act in two different places you ARE 
in two different places.


Brent
--

Hi Brent,

Could you give us a brief explanation of how this would work? I 
will readily admit to a failure of imagination here.


Just as you have two eyes providing two 2D views of the world which 
your brain merges into one 3D model, one can merge the data streams 
from many different sensors located in disparate places to create a 
single unified model.  Military systems do this for battlefield 
awareness. And this model can include a 'self'.  The self is usually 
located where the hardware is because evolution requires that the 
hardware/self be protected.


Brent

Hi Brent,

Interesting.  ... merge ... streams ... to create a single unified 
model How is this not consistent with my original claim above? My 
claim is that a single unified model must obtain and that the notion of 
1-p identity follows directly from this and thus if no unification can 
obtain neither does a 1-p.  What did you imagine that I was claiming? 
What I have been trying to point out is that the single unified model 
must be such that there are no logical or resource conflicts. I go 
further to claim that this is an example of the SAT problem in applied 
logic. It is known that SAT is an NP-Complete problem and thus the 
computational complexity issues must be addressed.
I have been arguing that COMP neglects these complexity issues 
completely and seemingly does so by eliminating the necessity to 
consider the actual physical implementations of the computations, 
preferring instead to postulate some Platonic realm where computations 
have particular properties merely on the basis, it is argued, that the 
truth valuations of Sigma_1 sentences is completely independent of our 
knowledge of their content. I see this as equivalent to saying that 
since there exist strings of numbers that are solutions to NP-Complete 
problems then we don't need to worry about actually having to find them 
and thus bypass problems like SAT. Instead we are offered an interesting 
form of Occasionalism or Accidentalism to explain how it is that we 
actually do experience a physical world.


Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)


On 3/30/2012 2:29 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 2:48 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/30/2012 4:08 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/30/2012 3:08 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:23 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


Take my favorite thought experiment.  Suppose I design two Mars Rovers and I want 
them to coordinate their movements in order to round up Martian sheep.  I can 
easily distribute the artificial intelligence between the two of them, using data 
links so whatever one sees the other sees (incidentally this, minus the AI, is what 
combat aircraft software does now) and so there is a single top level decision 
routine on top of local decision routines about maneuvering around obstacles and 
managing internal states.


OK, I'll bite. That AI program is running on the combination of the two pieces 
of hardware, this is no different than how Watson 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-14-ibm-jeopardy_N.htm runs on a much of 
connected servers. But think about it, does not the data correlated to the sensors 
on one of the Rovers have to be synchronized with the data from the other Rover so 
that their manuevering can be controled. How exactly is the internal model of this 
system built so that it can 'consider itself' as being both exploring some pile of 
rocks east of Mt. Olympus while the other Rover is taking a dirt sample in some 
crater 500 kilometers away. It is not possible for two fixed points to exist on one 
compact and closed manifold. You can only have one at a time. What you describe is 
more like a Rover with a multiple personality disorder.


You're suffering from a failure of imagination.  It can make a model in which it 
considers itself has having to bodies at two different places.  It wouldn't even be 
hard to program.  If you can experience two different places and you can act in two 
different places you ARE in two different places.


Brent
--

Hi Brent,

Could you give us a brief explanation of how this would work? I will readily admit 
to a failure of imagination here.


Just as you have two eyes providing two 2D views of the world which your brain merges 
into one 3D model, one can merge the data streams from many different sensors located 
in disparate places to create a single unified model.  Military systems do this for 
battlefield awareness. And this model can include a 'self'.  The self is usually 
located where the hardware is because evolution requires that the hardware/self be 
protected.


Brent

Hi Brent,

Interesting.  ... merge ... streams ... to create a single unified model How 
is this not consistent with my original claim above? My claim is that a single unified 
model must obtain and that the notion of 1-p identity follows directly from this and 
thus if no unification can obtain neither does a 1-p.  What did you imagine that I was 
claiming? 


That having different points of view implied different consciousnesses.

What I have been trying to point out is that the single unified model must be such 
that there are no logical or resource conflicts. 


Of course if there is a single actor, he doesn't want to act against himself and so 
conflicts must be resolved.  But that's no different that a pilot and copilot having to 
agree on navigation.  The model only needs to be unified at the top level of action.  So 
there can be differences at lower levels, as there seem to be in the human brain.



I go further to claim that this is an example of the SAT problem in applied logic. It is 
known that SAT is an NP-Complete problem and thus the computational complexity issues 
must be addressed.


Real problems are usually different from SAT in that they admit of degrees of 
satisfaction.

I have been arguing that COMP neglects these complexity issues completely 


I'd say Bruno consciously rejects them because he sees a Platonic answer as *more 
fundamental* and hence preferable.


Brent

and seemingly does so by eliminating the necessity to consider the actual physical 
implementations of the computations, preferring instead to postulate some Platonic 
realm where computations have particular properties merely on the basis, it is argued, 
that the truth valuations of Sigma_1 sentences is completely independent of our 
knowledge of their content. I see this as equivalent to saying that since there exist 
strings of numbers that are solutions to NP-Complete problems then we don't need to 
worry about actually having to find them and thus bypass problems like SAT. Instead we 
are offered an interesting form of Occasionalism or Accidentalism to explain how it is 
that we actually do experience a physical world.


Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-30 Thread David Nyman

On 30 March 2012 19:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
 nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
 this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
 Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
 problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
 situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the other
 doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
 experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent

 It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.  Brent and
 David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the system.

Sure, but even if one believes that to be the case, it is still taken
entirely for granted that there is some natural principle for the
selection of THIS physical system from the class of all such systems.
To appeal, a posteriori, to the fact that one's observational
perspective is apparently associated with this particular system and
not any other is merely to argue in a circle; since that is what we
are trying to explain we cannot adduce it as the explanation.

As I said before, the requirement for some principle of selection, in
this sense, is rarely made explicit, but nonetheless implicitly relied
on.  More often than not our particular localisation in space and time
has been consigned to the realm of psychology or illusion, as in
Einstein's reputed remark, as though it were somehow possible to
disarm this inconvenient observational fact with scare quotes.  So
what intrigued me about Hoyle's idea (and according to Gribbin it was
rather more than a fictional conceit for him) was precisely that his
making it explicit exposed an elephant in the room that few others
were prepared to acknowledge.

David

 On 3/30/2012 4:38 AM, David Nyman wrote:

 The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
 nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
 this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
 Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
 problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
 situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the other
 doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
 experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent


 It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.  Brent and
 David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the system.

 Brent


 , or
 indeed here rather than there, or now rather than then.  Subjective
 localisation is simply assumed, or trivialised, as in Einstein's
 remark “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a
 stubbornly persistent illusion”.


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)


On 3/30/2012 4:23 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 30 March 2012 19:54, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:


  The problem with all this (as Kent makes explicit) is that there is
  nothing in the mathematics of the game physics that corresponds to
  this kind of momentary selection of subjective localisation.
  Unfortunately, his own proposal doesn't really solve the underlying
  problem, because although it can account, given the experimental
  situation, for my seeing spin-up and not spin-down (because the other
  doesn't objectively exist any longer) it cannot account for why the
  experience is of David making this observation rather than Brent


  It does if you think experience is an epiphenomena of physics.  Brent and
  David are different physical systems and only one is looking at the system.

Sure, but even if one believes that to be the case, it is still taken
entirely for granted that there is some natural principle for the
selection of THIS physical system from the class of all such systems.


?? I guess I don't understand the question.  If my experience is a process in my brain 
then what more selection is required?



To appeal, a posteriori, to the fact that one's observational
perspective is apparently associated with this particular system and
not any other is merely to argue in a circle; since that is what we
are trying to explain we cannot adduce it as the explanation.


That seems like conjuring a mystery out of nothing. Is your question why is my 
observational perspective associated with my brain?


Brent



As I said before, the requirement for some principle of selection, in
this sense, is rarely made explicit, but nonetheless implicitly relied
on.  More often than not our particular localisation in space and time
has been consigned to the realm of psychology or illusion, as in
Einstein's reputed remark, as though it were somehow possible to
disarm this inconvenient observational fact with scare quotes.  So
what intrigued me about Hoyle's idea (and according to Gribbin it was
rather more than a fictional conceit for him) was precisely that his
making it explicit exposed an elephant in the room that few others
were prepared to acknowledge.

David



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 28 Mar 2012, at 19:29, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:40 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:
  If 2 different consciousnesses can not be distinguished in my  
symmetrical room from the first person point of view or from the  
third person point of view then it seems pointless to insist that  
there are really 2 and not just one mind involved.


 We agree on this since the beginning.

Then why why why do you keep talking about things being the same  
from the 3-view but not from the 1-view.


You confuse F(x) = F(y) = x = y, with
F(x) = x.
Identical bodies have identical minds, but identical minds can have  
different bodies.





 It seems to me that you are playing with words.

Words are the only means we have to communicate with and I need to  
know what they mean and that is not always obvious in very extreme  
and unusual (but not illogical) situations.


 But you can see there are 2 bodies of Bruno Marchal just as well  
as the outside observer, and you can not tell which one is you any  
better than the outside observer can!


 No. The outsider can see both necks for example. The insider  
cannot be sure that he is not in front of some mirror, according to  
your own analysis.


No, you can touch the other fellow and he does not feel like a glass  
mirror, you can shake his hand, punch him in the jaw, do whatever 2  
people can do when they meet each other, but if I instantly  
exchanged the position of the 2 bodies you would not notice the  
slightest difference, not from the 1-view or 2-view or 3-view or any  
view, the very universe itself would notice no difference. If  
subjectively it makes no difference and objectively it makes no  
difference then call me crazy but I say it makes no difference.


 So you fail to distinguish the 1-view and the 3-view.

Yes, the universe itself can't distinguish between them and I'm not  
better than the universe.


The universe does not know you are John Clark. You do.

It seems you are eliminating the 1-view, which contradicts your  
agreement on the existence of consciousness. Consciousness is not part  
of any 3p description of the universe, yet it exists. I begin to think  
your problem is not with comp, but with the general issue of the mind- 
body problem. Your acknowledged difficulties to see Nagel points on  
the bat corroborates this.
The difference between the 1-view and the 3-view is as big as the  
difference between the diary of the W-man, and the diary of the M-man.





 OK. So what is new with comp is a form of indeterminacy which even  
in theory we cannot predict, and which does not rely on physical  
experimentation and extrapolation, nor on the same anti- 
diagonalization used by Gödel or Turing.


So in this hypothetical non quantum mechanical non Godel-Turing  
universe I could know at least in theory with 100% certainty that I  
will see Washington provided the universe was also simple enough for  
me to know the initial conditions and simple enough for me to  
calculate with them to obtain a outcome.  And because I'd know I  
would see Washington I would know with 100% certainty that I will be  
the Washington man. I ask again what is new or deep here?


You are just wrong. If you predict that you will feel to see  
Washington with 100% chance, the guy in Moscow will have all the  
memories of that prediction, and will have to admit he was wrong.







 Never say cannot be proven without adding by a specific machine  
M


There are true statements that cannot be proven by a machine that is  
both consistent and complete, and any machine powerful enough to do  
arithmetic can not be complete.


 You want to know what is the probability you will become the  
Moscow man, but the only way that can happen is if you see images of  
Moscow, that's what being the Moscow man means.


 You can apply that argument to the throwing of a coin. That  
contradicts the statement above that you can use probability for the  
coin, so why can't you use it for the probability of feeling to be  
the Moscow man?


In common usage when you say what is the probability I will see  
heads when I flip this coin? there is not a 100% chance I will see  
heads as there is in the thought experiment with the cities, but  
even more important in everyday use it is not needed to make what  
might seem like hairsplitting distinctions on who I is,  but such  
exactitude is needed if duplicating chambers are thrown into the mix.


I gave you the precise definition, with the diaries and their owners.  
But you are the one saying that this was hairsplitting and ask me to  
not come back with the diary stuff.


You seem unable to put yourself at the place of any of the resulting  
copies. The 1-I of those copies is the usual 1-I, like in can you  
touch your nose. A third person can ask them where they are, or which  
movies they saw, and get definite answers. If you make a definite  
specific prediction of which movie you will see in the movie-

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-29 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Mar 29, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Identical bodies have identical minds,


Yes.

but identical minds can have different bodies.


Who cares? It's consciousness I'm interested in.

 The universe does not know you are John Clark. You do.


In my symmetrical room example I know who John Clark is but I don't know
which body is John Clark nor do I need to know because if even the universe
does not know or care then I don't see why I should.

 I begin to think your problem is not with comp, but with the general
 issue of the mind-body problem.  Your acknowledged difficulties to see
 Nagel points on the bat corroborates this.


To foolish people nonsense makes perfect sense, and to fail to understand
incorrect ideas is a virtue not a vice. Nagel demands to know not what it
would be like if he was a bat but what it is like for a bat to be a bat;
the reason the mind-body problem has made so little progress is that to a
disturbingly large number of people Nagel's question, and ones like it,
makes perfect sense.  I'm proud to say it does not make one particle of
sense to me.

 I gave you the precise definition, with the diaries and their owners. But
 you are the one saying that this was hairsplitting and ask me to not come
 back with the diary stuff.


My complaint was not that you were doing too much hairsplitting but that
you were doing too little, hairsplitting is vital if you're using
duplicating chambers. My complaint is that the diaries add nothing, it's
obvious that if the diaries the people remember writing are identical then
the people are too, and if they aren't then the people aren't either.

 You seem unable to put yourself at the place of any of the resulting
 copies.


I believe it's you that can't imagine yourself as a copy, even if you were
identical you think you would somehow feel different. I don't. And to add
to the confusion sometimes you admit that they would feel the same, but
then in your next breath you start talking about how it's identical in the
3-view but not the 1-view.

 The 1-I of those copies is the usual 1-I, like in can you touch your
 nose. A third person can ask them where they are, or which movies they
 saw, and get definite answers.


And both will give synchronized Identical answers. The third party does not
know which one is you and you don't know either.

 And if there is any mystery and indeterminacy in this thing you call
 first person indeterminacy it quickly reduces out to types of
 indeterminacy we've already known about, some for many thousands of years
 and others for only about 80.


 You keep saying this, but don't reply to the many debunking of that idea
 that I have provided


Here we go again. Even after dozens of messages and I don't know how many
thousands of words in reply to your posts there is supposed to be a killer
point that you made in some post long ago in a galaxy far far away (that
you don't bother to repeat) that would prove you right and me wrong and is
so absolutely brilliant that my only possible strategy to deal with it is
to simply ignore it. BULLSHIT!

You believe in some form of telepathy.


BULLSHIT!

 No one can *feel* to be in two places at once


True, no ONE can feel to be in TWO places at once, but  TWO can feel to
be in TWO places at once. And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.

 John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-29 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012  Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

 Comp (and MWI) is a deterministic theory.


Many Worlds is deterministic but I don't know about comp because comp
is a homemade term never completely defined and used on this list and
nowhere else. I don't even know if I agree with comp. I will say that I
know of no law of logic that demands that every event have a cause.

 3 POV could be called the bird view, the totality view (the view in which
 comp and MWI are deterministic), 1 POV the frog view


Then from the  1 POV, the important point of view because that's the one
we live our lives, things are not deterministic.

  John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 29 Mar 2012, at 18:31, John Clark wrote:


On Thu, Mar 29, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Identical bodies have identical minds,

Yes.

but identical minds can have different bodies.

Who cares? It's consciousness I'm interested in.


We discuss only on the consequence of the comp hypothesis in cognitive  
science. It concerns the mind body problem, which involves  
consciousness and bodies.






 The universe does not know you are John Clark. You do.

In my symmetrical room example I know who John Clark is but I don't  
know which body is John Clark nor do I need to know because if even  
the universe does not know or care then I don't see why I should.


You should care to be able to answer the simple question: what do you  
expect to feel in the multiplication-movie experience, which can help  
you to get the point of step 3.






 I gave you the precise definition, with the diaries and their  
owners. But you are the one saying that this was hairsplitting and  
ask me to not come back with the diary stuff.


My complaint was not that you were doing too much hairsplitting but  
that you were doing too little,


Then do it.
Technically, you are the one throwing out the nuances I made precise.




hairsplitting is vital if you're using duplicating chambers.


You said you favor Everett's QM. You did not answer Quentin when he  
commented that with Everett the Universe is a duplicating chamber,  
so that your charge again the coimp-1-indeterminacy applies to Everett  
QM too.




My complaint is that the diaries add nothing, it's obvious that if  
the diaries the people remember writing are identical then the  
people are too, and if they aren't then the people aren't either.


But the you contradict your statement that both the guy in W and in M  
have the right to say that they are the guy who was at Helsinki, which  
makes indeed sense with comp.






 You seem unable to put yourself at the place of any of the  
resulting copies.


I believe it's you that can't imagine yourself as a copy, even if  
you were identical you think you would somehow feel different.



You keep attributing to me something I have never said.




I don't.


Me neither? I challenge you to quote me having said the contrary. You  
probably misunderstood a paragraph.





And to add to the confusion sometimes you admit that they would feel  
the same, but then in your next breath you start talking about how  
it's identical in the 3-view but not the 1-view.


Could you quote me and be more precise.







 The 1-I of those copies is the usual 1-I, like in can you touch  
your nose. A third person can ask them where they are, or which  
movies they saw, and get definite answers.


And both will give synchronized Identical answers.


In the step three experience we are talking about, they will give  
quite different answer. You are mixing different thought experiences.





The third party does not know which one is you and you don't know  
either.


The W guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in W.
The M guy know that he is a the guy in Helsinki, now instantiated in M.
They both know that they are not the guy in the other city.
They can both acknowledge the first person indeterminacy: they could  
not know in advance the city in which they feel now having been  
reconstituted.
If the guy in Helsinki has enough cognitive ability todo the thought  
experience (like AUDA suggests that all Löbian can do, and like they  
can do in somemore technical term), he will conclude without doing the  
experience that would that experience be done, he would not be able to  
predict that he will end up in M, (resp in W), although he can predict  
that he will end up with certainty in M or W.
This shows also that when you duplicate yourself you get one bit of  
information. That bit of information is part of both first person  
experience 1p. On the contrary the 3p view does not create, or  
receive, one bit of information.




 No one can *feel* to be in two places at once

True, no ONE can feel to be in TWO places at once, but  TWO can  
feel to be in TWO places at once.


And 7 billions human beings can feel to be at 7 billions different  
places.


Why not, except that usually a collection of person is not perceive as  
a person, especially when isolated and distant.






And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.


I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you  
are using here, so as to convince me and others that it refutes indeed  
the indeterminacy about the first person experience displayed in the  
WM duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).


Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and  
given that you are the one claiming that there is no indeterminate  
outcome, I will ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result of  
the future self-localization experience.


Please, don't answer me again W and M, because we already know that  
a machine cannot

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.

I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you are using here, so
as to convince me and others that it refutes indeed the indeterminacy about the first
person experience displayed in the WM duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).

Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and given that you are
the one claiming that there is no indeterminate outcome, I will ask to give us an
algorithm predicting the result of the future self-localization experience.

The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is deterministic. And it has the same
problems being given a probabilistic interpretation as EQM. If you duplicated a coin in
the transporter experiment the question, Where will you expect to find the coin. has the
same problems as Where do you expect to find yourself. The implication is that self
is not a unique 'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to be) but is process that can
be realized in different media.

Brent

Please, don't answer me again W and M, because we already know that a machine cannot
perceive a distant environment, and that she will describe, as a result of
self-localization, after the duplication and when opening the box, a precise city.

Bruno

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 29 Mar 2012, at 18:46, John Clark wrote:



On Wed, Mar 28, 2012  Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

 Comp (and MWI) is a deterministic theory.

Many Worlds is deterministic but I don't know about comp because  
comp is a homemade term never completely defined and used on this  
list


Comp is just a modern version of Descartes Mechanist assumption. I  
called it also digital mechanism. I make it more precise by  
introducing the notion of substitution level, and in making explicit  
it is a statement about consciousness. Up to now, you have used  
correctly comp (you just mess the notion of 1 and 3 person).
Comp is the hypothesis that we have a body and that we can survive a  
digital substitution of that body. There is no limit on what that body  
needs to be except for being Turing emulable. I sum up by a yes  
doctor scenario, which gives an operational notion of comp  
practitioner, and which is handy for the thought experiment.
To be completely clear on the notion of digital, I make explicit the  
Turing-Post-Church's thesis, and the minimal amount of arithmetical  
realism needed to give sense to that thesis.




and nowhere else.



That few people are aware of the consequence of comp is not  
invalidating the reasoning.




I don't even know if I agree with comp.



So you go back at step zero now?
You were saying that everyone believe in comp sometimes ago.





I will say that I know of no law of logic that demands that every  
event have a cause.


Sure. This is even exemplified by the WM duplication. For the guy in  
W, it really looks like he is chosen between {W, M} without a cause.  
Same for the guy in M.


Logic per se does not even concern events and cause, just valid or  
invalid reasoning, whatever the matter subject.






 3 POV could be called the bird view, the totality view (the view  
in which comp and MWI are deterministic), 1 POV the frog view


Then from the  1 POV, the important point of view because that's  
the one we live our lives, things are not deterministic.


Nice to hear that. So you do see the difference between the 1-POV and  
the 3-POV.


To be sure I would not follow Quentin in calling them frog and bird,  
because it gives an impression that it is a question of scaling, when  
it is more a question of personal points of view (which are modeled by  
modal logic through the self-reference in AUDA). Tegmark used frog and  
bird in the sense of:  described by a term (the frog) of a quantum  
wave superposition, and the whole wave itself (the bird). Comp  
suggests that the quantum indeterminacy might be a particular case of  
the classical comp-1-indeterminacy, but this is not yet proved, and  
besides the whole UDA will show that if QM is correct, then it has to  
be that case, with the price of having to derive QM from the global  
computationalist indeterminacy, that is the one bearing on the  
universal dovetailing or elementary arithmetic. But this needs step 7.


Bruno


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



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)



On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.


I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you  
are using here, so as to convince me and others that it refutes  
indeed the indeterminacy about the first person experience  
displayed in the WM duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).


Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and  
given that you are the one claiming that there is no indeterminate  
outcome, I will ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result  
of the future self-localization experience.


The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is  
deterministic.  And it has the same problems being given a  
probabilistic interpretation as EQM.  If you duplicated a coin in  
the transporter experiment the question, Where will you expect to  
find the coin. has the same problems as Where do you expect to  
find yourself.  The implication is that self is not a unique  
'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to be) but is process that  
can be realized in different media.


I agree. But the experience is lived as unique, so we can follow  
Plotinus in using the term soul for the owner of the 1-view, that is,  
the knower. From its pov, it is not duplicable, in the trivial sense  
that the duplication is never part of his experience. He would not  
know if we did not give him the protocol.
mathematically, this is related to the fact that no machine can know  
which machine she is, already seen clearly by Post and (re)intuited by  
Benacerraf, and intuited by the machine itself, accepting the  
Theaetetus' definition of knowledge.


I am not sure the problem of probability is identical in QM and COMP.  
In QM, Everett showed that the P = A^2 principle does not depend on  
the choice of the base, so that A can be considered as measuring the  
relative proportion of possible accessible relative realities. This  
does not work with finite multiverse, but it works with infinite  
multiverse, and Gleason theorem justifies the unicity of the measure,  
for sufficiently complex physical reality (meaning the Hilbert space  
have to be of dimension bigger than 2. So in my opinion, the Born rule  
is already explained.


With COMP, as I argue, we have to justify the wave itself (assuming QM  
is correct) from the relative number relations and personal points of  
view (as done in AUDA, for the logic of measure one).


Bruno

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



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/29/2012 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.

The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is deterministic. And it has the
same problems being given a probabilistic interpretation as EQM. If you duplicated a
coin in the transporter experiment the question, Where will you expect to find the
coin. has the same problems as Where do you expect to find yourself. The
implication is that self is not a unique 'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to
be) but is process that can be realized in different media.

I agree. But the experience is lived as unique, so we can follow Plotinus in using the
term soul for the owner of the 1-view, that is, the knower. From its pov, it is not
duplicable, in the trivial sense that the duplication is never part of his experience.

You don't know that. It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious experience is
something a certain physical body, a brain, does. But if conscious experience is a
process then it is certainly possible to create a process that is aware of being in both
Washington and Moscow at the same time. Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs
in M and W. Or The Borg of Star Trek. Of course that experience would be strange and we
would tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness. So then the question becomes
what do you mean by not experiencing duplication? Is it a mere tautology based on how you
define 'consciousness'?

He would not know if we did not give him the protocol.
mathematically, this is related to the fact that no machine can know which machine she
is, already seen clearly by Post and (re)intuited by Benacerraf, and intuited by the
machine itself, accepting the Theaetetus' definition of knowledge.

I am not sure the problem of probability is identical in QM and COMP. In QM, Everett
showed that the P = A^2 principle does not depend on the choice of the base,

I don't think that's correct. 'A' is the amplitude of the projection on certain basis
determined by what is measured. Yes the Born rule can be applied whatever basis is
chosen, but the projection produces different A's.

so that A can be considered as measuring the relative proportion of possible accessible
relative realities. This does not work with finite multiverse, but it works with
infinite multiverse,

But infinite multiple worlds create a measure problem. That's one of Adrian
Kent's points.

and Gleason theorem justifies the unicity of the measure,

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

for sufficiently complex physical reality (meaning the Hilbert space have to be of
dimension bigger than 2. So in my opinion, the Born rule is already explained.

With COMP, as I argue, we have to justify the wave itself (assuming QM is correct) from
the relative number relations and personal points of view (as done in AUDA, for the
logic of measure one).

Yes, that would be a signal accomplishment.

Brent

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-29 Thread David Nyman

On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
 experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
 conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
 process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
 time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The
 Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we would
 tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the question
 becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
 tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
(however exotic) or not.

Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.  But the
latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
be 100%!

Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.  Kent's proposal is a
process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
(apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
them acknowledge it explicitly.

David

 On 3/29/2012 12:02 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


 On 29 Mar 2012, at 20:08, meekerdb wrote:

 On 3/29/2012 10:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 And YOU HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED.


 I will ask you to do the hairsplitting about that YOU, that you are
 using here, so as to convince me and others that it refutes indeed the
 indeterminacy about the first person experience displayed in the WM
 duplication thought experience (UDA step 3).

 Given that we both agree that we don't die in that experience, and given
 that you are the one claiming that there is no indeterminate outcome, I 
 will
 ask to give us an algorithm predicting the result of the future
 self-localization experience.


 The outcome is deterministic just like Everett's QM is deterministic.
  And it has the same problems being given a probabilistic interpretation as
 EQM.  If you duplicated a coin in the transporter experiment the question,
 Where will you expect to find the coin. has the same problems as Where do
 you expect to find yourself.  The implication is that self is not a
 unique 'thing' (as for example a soul is assumed to be) but is process that
 can be realized in different media.


 I agree. But the experience is lived as unique, so we can follow Plotinus
 in using the term soul for the owner of the 1-view, that is, the knower.
 From its pov, it is not duplicable, in the trivial sense that the
 duplication is never part of his experience.


 You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
 experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
 conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
 process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
 time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The
 Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we would
 tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the question
 becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
 tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)


On 3/29/2012 6:20 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:


You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The
Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we would
tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the question
becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
lived experience of observing one universe at a time.


My reading of Kent is that he rejects MWI.  I don't think he believes there is a single 
conscious copy and the rest are zombies; he believes there's just one world and it is 
'selected' probabilistically.





AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
(however exotic) or not.

Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.


But in Bruno's transporter experiment there isn't *a* singular perspective, there are two 
different ones.




But the
latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
be 100%!

Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.


But then Everett's QM doesn't explain the facts - because there is no selection.  That's 
part of Kent's criticism.


Brent


Kent's proposal is a
process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
(apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
them acknowledge it explicitly.

David


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-29 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/29/2012 9:20 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:


You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The
Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we would
tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the question
becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
(however exotic) or not.

Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.  But the
latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
be 100%!

Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.  Kent's proposal is a
process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
(apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
them acknowledge it explicitly.

David


Hi David and Brent,

I have a question. Could it be that the sense of self as 
being-in-the-world (ala Nagel's bat) is a phenomenon not at all unlike 
the uniqueness of a fixed point 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_%28mathematics%29 on a 
manifold? It seems to me that one of the key aspects of the sense of 
self or I that it is unique in its association with its location and 
its memories. Being in two places at the same time would at least be 
confusing, Try navigating with a combination of two maps - overlay the 
maps of Washington and Moscow and try to figure out where you are.


I offer the movie 12 Monkeys 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys as a fictional narrative 
exploring what happens when one's localization is split in the time 
sense. In my studies, I have considered how the various pathologies of 
consciousness sketch for us some of the fundamental aspects of 
consciousness in a 3-p'ish way. For example, the various dissassociative 
disorders ranging from phantom limb to multiple personality disorders 
and schizophrenia tell us that an individual's sense of self is strongly 
correlated with the synchronization of both temporal and spatial queues 
both internal to the brain and of a person's location. Thus being in 
two places at the same time is not that much different from having two 
sets of sense data that are disjoint (in the being in Moscow and 
Washington) such that unless a single reconciliation of the two is 
possible, there will be inevitably a splitting of the I's or 1-p.
BTW, this line of reasoning argues strongly against the Borg 
group-mind idea as possibly yielding a consciousness of the same kind as 
the one that we have because of the inability to define a single point 
of view given the wide and even disjoint nature of the panorama of 
sense data that would be involved. Consciousness is, I argue, fixed to a 
single point and cannot be distributed. Distributed behavior would more 
correlate to what the psychologist like to call the unconscious.

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/29/2012 7:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/29/2012 9:20 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote:

You don't know that. It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does. But if
conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
time. Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W. Or The
Borg of Star Trek. Of course that experience would be strange and we would
tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness. So then the question
becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication? Is it a mere
tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
possibility of either MWI or comp? IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp. Given
such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
that for ordinary consciousness. Again, either one accepts that
duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
(however exotic) or not.

Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective. But the
latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
empirically uncertain state of affairs. Without it, the probability
of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
be 100%!

Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
theory seeking to explain the empirical facts. Kent's proposal is a
process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
different basis than Copenhagen. Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
manner. BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
novella October the First is Too Late. I also found that John
Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
(apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
Deutsch and Barbour. This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
them acknowledge it explicitly.

David

Hi David and Brent,

I have a question. Could it be that the sense of self as being-in-the-world (ala
Nagel's bat) is a phenomenon not at all unlike the uniqueness of a fixed point
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_%28mathematics%29 on a manifold?

Under what mapping?

It seems to me that one of the key aspects of the sense of self or I that it is unique
in its association with its location and its memories.

Location is just part of one's model of their body. If you had two bodies, one in Moscow
and one in Washington, you'd have two viewpoints in 3-space and you'd develop a model of
having bodies in both places.

Being in two places at the same time would at least be confusing, Try navigating with a
combination of two maps - overlay the maps of Washington and Moscow and try to figure
out where you are.

Ask someone who flies radio control planes. They become able to 'place themselves' in the
plane.

I offer the movie 12 Monkeys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys as a
fictional narrative exploring what happens when one's localization is split in the time
sense. In my studies, I have considered how the various pathologies of consciousness
sketch for us some of the fundamental aspects of consciousness in a 3-p'ish way. For
example, the various dissassociative disorders ranging from phantom limb to multiple
personality disorders and schizophrenia tell us that an individual's sense of self is
strongly correlated with the synchronization of both temporal and spatial queues both
internal to the brain and of a person's location. Thus being in two places at the same
time is not that much different from having two sets of sense data that are disjoint
(in the being in Moscow and Washington) such that unless a single reconciliation of the
two is possible, there will be inevitably a splitting of the I's or 1-p.

Not at all. I take the opposite lesson. Your brain invents your sense of self. The
difference between the

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-29 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/29/2012 11:46 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/29/2012 7:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 3/29/2012 9:20 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 29 March 2012 20:47, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:


You don't know that.  It's an assumption based on the idea that conscious
experience is something a certain physical body, a brain, does.  But if
conscious experience is a process then it is certainly possible to create a
process that is aware of being in both Washington and Moscow at the same
time.  Think of a brain wired via RF links to eyeballs in M and W.   Or The
Borg of Star Trek.  Of course that experience would be strange and we would
tend to say, Yes but it's still one consciousness.  So then the question
becomes what do you mean by not experiencing duplication?  Is it a mere
tautology based on how you define 'consciousness'?

Surely it's just a necessary prerequisite for accepting the
possibility of either MWI or comp?  IOW, if one rejects, on whatever
grounds, that a unique subjective perspective could be consistent with
the objective existence of multiple copies (as I think is the case
with Kent) then one is forced also to reject both MWI and comp.  Given
such a view, neither theory could be a viable explanation for one's
lived experience of observing one universe at a time.

AFAICS, the more exotic examples you give above, e.g. a distributed
process, or a Borg-type group-mind, present no difficulties beyond
that for ordinary consciousness.  Again, either one accepts that
duplication of these states of affairs would be compatible, mutatis
mutandis, with the corresponding single universe perspective
(however exotic) or not.

Given the above, what makes it difficult to make sense of John's
objections to Bruno's argument is precisely that he accepts the
possibility of multiple copies in a comp or MWI scenario, whilst
ignoring the necessity of recovering a singular perspective.  But the
latter step is a prerequisite, in any scenario, for reproducing the
empirically uncertain state of affairs.  Without it, the probability
of every outcome - as John has continually reiterated - can only ever
be 100%!

Selection, even if only implicit, is an ineliminable feature of any
theory seeking to explain the empirical facts.  Kent's proposal is a
process that eliminates all branches but one, albeit on a somewhat
different basis than Copenhagen.  Similarly, the heuristic I suggested
in an earlier post entails selection, but in a non-destructive
manner.  BTW, I had long retained a dim recollection of a similar
selection metaphor involving pigeon holes from my youthful SF
reading, which I recently re-discovered to be Fred Hoyle's 1960's
novella October the First is Too Late.  I also found that John
Gribbin refers to this very notion in his recent Multiverse book
(apparently he was a student of Hoyle's), relating it to the ideas of
Deutsch and Barbour.  This reinforced my suspicion that they do rely
implicitly on such a selection principle, though AFAICS neither of
them acknowledge it explicitly.

David


Hi David and Brent,

I have a question. Could it be that the sense of self as 
being-in-the-world (ala Nagel's bat) is a phenomenon not at all 
unlike the uniqueness of a fixed point 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_%28mathematics%29 on a 
manifold? 


Under what mapping?

Hi Brent,

The moment to moment passage of time. Think about it, our bodies 
are constantly in flux and we are never in the same place, and yet we 
have this strange sense of I am what I remember myself to be that 
persists. How is that? Sure, we can think of moments individually in 
terms of infinite computations, but what is dovetailing them? We can 
postulate a universal dovetailer, but how does it work for multiple 
and distinct 1-p? I am not you and we are not the Man in Washington nor 
the Man in Moscow, but those ideas are considerations of individual 
snapshots and we have a movie to explain. We are many disjoint 
observers, each in our very own version of a universe and yet have the 
illusion that we are all in the same space-time... Maybe our universes 
just are similar enough that we happen to be able to agree on facts 
... Nevertheless, even taking Bruno's COMP seriously, we cannot all be 
one and the same computation for it can only have one and only one 
inside view.





It seems to me that one of the key aspects of the sense of self or 
I that it is unique in its association with its location and its 
memories. 


Location is just part of one's model of their body.  If you had two 
bodies, one in Moscow and one in Washington, you'd have two viewpoints 
in 3-space and you'd develop a model of having bodies in both places.


And what exactly is the point of view that has these two in its 
frame? This entire conversation tacitly assumes that somehow we can step 
into a frame of reference that makes us a voyeur looking down from above 
and being able to see and know some 3-p and simultaneously have the 1-p 
that you have

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-28 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 28 Mar 2012, at 06:07, John Clark wrote:


On Tue, Mar 27, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 so you do get the point of the difference of the 3-view and the 1- 
view,



Truer words were never spoken. If 2 different consciousnesses can  
not be distinguished in my symmetrical room from the first person  
point of view or from the third person point of view then it seems  
pointless to insist that there are really 2 and not just one mind  
involved.


We agree on this since the beginning. You are unclear if this means or  
not if you get the difference between the 1-view and the 3-view, given  
that I was commenting a paragraph were you were disagreeing with that  
difference.





 If this thing you call 1-comp indeterminacy were untrue then we  
would always know what the environment was going to throw at us next  
and we could always predict our actions,

 This does not follow logically.
Of course it follows logically! All 1-comp indeterminacy means is  
you never know what's coming next, a fact that is as true as it is  
trivial.


?




 very obviously this is untrue so of course 1-comp indeterminacy  
is not controversial. It's not new or deep either.


 You fail to give me the reference,

Reference? How can I give a reference when the term 1-comp  
indeterminacy is your own invention? The only reference I can give  
you is Forest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates, you never  
know what you're going to get.


?

It seems to me that you are playing with words.




 he usual coin is indeterminate by classical ignorance, but not for  
the Laplacean God.


It's irrelevant if the coin is deterministic or not because either  
way I don't know what the coin is going to do so the best I can do  
is use probabilities.


Different theories explains probabilities differently.






 but so does the copy (or maybe he really is the original and you  
are the copy), you raise your right hand and you see on the video  
monitor the both images do too, you jump up and down but you see  
both images jump up and down. Not only can't you tell if you are the  
copy or the original you can't even tell which image on that video  
screen is you and which is the other fellow. If subjectively there  
is no difference and objectively there is no difference then there  
is no difference between 3-you and 1-you.


 OK. Here you are clearly wrong, and this by your own argument. An  
outside observer can see that there are two bodies


Yes two bodies, but we're not talking about bodies, we were talking  
about points of view and consciousness.


On the contrary, we are talking on both. Indeed we are interested in  
the relation between the two.






 where the 1-view is unique, as you insist (and are right). So,  
there are two 3-you, and only one 1-you, and this makes them  
obviously different notion.


But you can see there are 2 bodies of Bruno Marchal just as well as  
the outside observer, and you can not tell which one is you any  
better than the outside observer can!


No. The outsider can see both necks for example. The insider cannot be  
sure that he is not in front of some mirror, according to your own  
analysis.




The third party sees the 2 bodies behave and answer questions in  
exactly the same way, the third party can not distinguish between  
the 2 consciousness, so it would make it meaningless to say there  
are two; the observer sees 2 chunks of matter but they are both  
behaving in a Brunomarchalian way. And you Bruno Marchal can not  
determine which of the 2 bodies is you either, if I instantly  
exchanged the position of the 2 bodies you would not notice the  
slightest change, nor could the very universe itself. None of this  
should be surprising if we understand that Bruno Marchal is not a  
noun but a adjective.


Words play. Have you read step 2? It is the step which explains more  
easily the difference between the 1-view and the 3-view, already  
without duplication.






 The difference between the 1-view and the 3-view is the difference  
between a body and the private experience of the owner of that body,  
or bodies in case of identical bodies.


The outside observer can not distinguish 2 conscious beings inside  
that cylindrical symmetrical room but only one, and the exact same  
thing is true of you Bruno Marchal, looking at the live video from  
the camera in the center of the ceiling of that room you can not  
distinguish which body is you nor could you be expected to as both  
chunks of matter are behaving in a Brunomarchalian way.


So you fail to distinguish the 1-view and the 3-view. (Re)read step 2,  
and tell me if you agree or not.





 This thing you call first person indeterminacy just means a  
person doesn’t always know what they will see or what they will do  
next, that's it; and people had discovered this fact of life many  
thousands of years before Heisenberg or Godel or Turing or you were  
born.


 You betray yourself here. You are telling me

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-28 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:40 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

   If 2 different consciousnesses can not be distinguished in my
 symmetrical room from the first person point of view or from the third
 person point of view then it seems pointless to insist that there are
 really 2 and not just one mind involved.

  We agree on this since the beginning.


Then why why why do you keep talking about things being the same from the
3-view but not from the 1-view.

 It seems to me that you are playing with words.


Words are the only means we have to communicate with and I need to know
what they mean and that is not always obvious in very extreme and unusual
(but not illogical) situations.

 But you can see there are 2 bodies of Bruno Marchal just as well as the
 outside observer, and you can not tell which one is you any better than the
 outside observer can!


  No. The outsider can see both necks for example. The insider cannot be
 sure that he is not in front of some mirror, according to your own
 analysis.


No, you can touch the other fellow and he does not feel like a glass
mirror, you can shake his hand, punch him in the jaw, do whatever 2 people
can do when they meet each other, but if I instantly exchanged the position
of the 2 bodies you would not notice the slightest difference, not from the
1-view or 2-view or 3-view or any view, the very universe itself would
notice no difference. If subjectively it makes no difference and
objectively it makes no difference then call me crazy but I say it makes no
difference.

 So you fail to distinguish the 1-view and the 3-view.


Yes, the universe itself can't distinguish between them and I'm not better
than the universe.

 OK. So what is new with comp is a form of indeterminacy which even in
 theory we cannot predict, and which does not rely on physical
 experimentation and extrapolation, nor on the same anti-diagonalization
 used by Gödel or Turing.


So in this hypothetical non quantum mechanical non Godel-Turing universe I
could know at least in theory with 100% certainty that I will see
Washington provided the universe was also simple enough for me to know the
initial conditions and simple enough for me to calculate with them to
obtain a outcome.  And because I'd know I would see Washington I would know
with 100% certainty that I will be the Washington man. I ask again what is
new or deep here?

 Never say cannot be proven without adding by a specific machine M


There are true statements that cannot be proven by a machine that is both
consistent and complete, and any machine powerful enough to do arithmetic
can not be complete.

 You want to know what is the probability you will become the Moscow man,
 but the only way that can happen is if you see images of Moscow, that's
 what being the Moscow man means.



  You can apply that argument to the throwing of a coin. That contradicts
 the statement above that you can use probability for the coin, so why can't
 you use it for the probability of feeling to be the Moscow man?


In common usage when you say what is the probability I will see heads when
I flip this coin? there is not a 100% chance I will see heads as there is
in the thought experiment with the cities, but even more important in
everyday use it is not needed to make what might seem like hairsplitting
distinctions on who I is,  but such exactitude is needed if duplicating
chambers are thrown into the mix. And if there is any mystery and
indeterminacy in this thing you call first person indeterminacy it
quickly reduces out to types of indeterminacy we've already known about,
some for many thousands of years and others for only about 80.

 Given that the probability concerns the 1-views (that is the 1-view from
 the 1-person Pov), saying 100% for Moscow and 100% for Washington entails
 that you predict that you will *feel* to be in the two places at once.


You would feel to be in two places at once except for one thing, you
has been duplicated.

  John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-28 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/3/28 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com

 On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:40 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

   If 2 different consciousnesses can not be distinguished in my
 symmetrical room from the first person point of view or from the third
 person point of view then it seems pointless to insist that there are
 really 2 and not just one mind involved.

  We agree on this since the beginning.


 Then why why why do you keep talking about things being the same from the
 3-view but not from the 1-view.


Comp (and MWI) is a deterministic theory... 3 POV could be called the bird
view, the totality view (the view in which comp and MWI are deterministic),
1 POV the frog view (and many frogs having all there 1 POV, have 1 POV
plural/shared)


  It seems to me that you are playing with words.


 Words are the only means we have to communicate with and I need to know
 what they mean and that is not always obvious in very extreme and unusual
 (but not illogical) situations.

  But you can see there are 2 bodies of Bruno Marchal just as well as the
 outside observer, and you can not tell which one is you any better than the
 outside observer can!


  No. The outsider can see both necks for example. The insider cannot be
 sure that he is not in front of some mirror, according to your own
 analysis.


 No, you can touch the other fellow and he does not feel like a glass
 mirror, you can shake his hand, punch him in the jaw, do whatever 2 people
 can do when they meet each other, but if I instantly exchanged the position
 of the 2 bodies you would not notice the slightest difference, not from the
 1-view or 2-view or 3-view or any view, the very universe itself would
 notice no difference. If subjectively it makes no difference and
 objectively it makes no difference then call me crazy but I say it makes no
 difference.

  So you fail to distinguish the 1-view and the 3-view.


 Yes, the universe itself can't distinguish between them and I'm not better
 than the universe.

  OK. So what is new with comp is a form of indeterminacy which even in
 theory we cannot predict, and which does not rely on physical
 experimentation and extrapolation, nor on the same anti-diagonalization
 used by Gödel or Turing.


 So in this hypothetical non quantum mechanical non Godel-Turing universe I
 could know at least in theory with 100% certainty that I will see
 Washington provided the universe was also simple enough for me to know the
 initial conditions and simple enough for me to calculate with them to
 obtain a outcome.  And because I'd know I would see Washington I would know
 with 100% certainty that I will be the Washington man. I ask again what is
 new or deep here?


Your bad faith ?


  Never say cannot be proven without adding by a specific machine M


 There are true statements that cannot be proven by a machine that is both
 consistent and complete, and any machine powerful enough to do arithmetic
 can not be complete.

  You want to know what is the probability you will become the Moscow
 man, but the only way that can happen is if you see images of Moscow,
 that's what being the Moscow man means.



  You can apply that argument to the throwing of a coin. That contradicts
 the statement above that you can use probability for the coin, so why can't
 you use it for the probability of feeling to be the Moscow man?


 In common usage when you say what is the probability I will see heads
 when I flip this coin? there is not a 100% chance I will see heads as
 there is in the thought experiment with the cities, but even more important
 in everyday use it is not needed to make what might seem like hairsplitting
 distinctions on who I is,  but such exactitude is needed if duplicating
 chambers are thrown into the mix.


We are talking about comp (it would also be the same if we were talking
about MWI)... the *usual everyday universe* in these settings is a
duplicating chamber. So either we can *never* talk about 'I' (but as I use
'I', this proves you're wrong), or your argument is a proof that comp (and
MWI) is false.

Quentin


 And if there is any mystery and indeterminacy in this thing you call
 first person indeterminacy it quickly reduces out to types of
 indeterminacy we've already known about, some for many thousands of years
 and others for only about 80.

  Given that the probability concerns the 1-views (that is the 1-view from
 the 1-person Pov), saying 100% for Moscow and 100% for Washington entails
 that you predict that you will *feel* to be in the two places at once.


 You would feel to be in two places at once except for one thing, you
 has been duplicated.


We know, that's not the question.


   John K Clark




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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-27 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 27 Mar 2012, at 06:14, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:



 Give me a example of 2 conscious beings that are identical by  
what you call 3-view but NOT identical by what you call 1-view,  
show they deserve different names, do that and I might get a idea  
what you're talking about; but don't give me that diaries business,  
if the diaries are different a third party can see that just as well  
as the individuals who wrote them. Just one clear non mystical  
example where objectively 2 things are identical but subjectively  
they are not, that's all I ask and I don't think it's a unreasonable  
request as your proof depends on there being such a difference.


 You ask me something impossible

I agree it is impossible, so this distinction between 3-view and  
1-view that is so important in your proof turns out to be rather  
silly.


How does this follows?

What you say amounts to the following fact on which we both agree:

3-Body(A) is sufficiently similar to 3-Body(B) entails that  (1-view-A  
= 1-view-B)


And we also agree that the reverse is false:  (1-view-A = 1-view-B)  
does not make (3-Body(A) similar to 3-Body(B)).


Many posts you sent illustrates that you agree with this, and so you  
do get the point of the difference of the 3-view and the 1-view, so I  
fail to see any problem in the use of those notions.







 They are different because one live in W and the other live in W.

I previously said that it is probably meaningless to talk about the  
position of a consciousness and you agreed with me, so all the above  
means is that one consciousness forms memories caused by images of  
Moscow the other forms memories caused by images of Washington, the  
images are different so the memories are different, so the  
consciousness of the two is different so they become different people.


Yes.



The thing that differentiates the minds is not position but  
different memories, if Washington and Moscow were identical cities  
then there would still be just one consciousness, but the cities are  
very different so the two minds are two. Everybody agrees that if 2  
minds are different then there are 2 different minds, but I insist  
that if 2 minds are identical then there is really only one mind  
(not to be confused with brains)


Yes. Note that later we might still say one mind, but put different  
weight on them. This will lead to open questions, and they are  
premature here. So I agree with you, but warn that we can add some  
nuances which might play a role in the comp 1-indeterminacy measure  
problem. But I agree with all what you have said up to here, except  
the wrong attribution.




while your proof is built on the assumption that if 2 minds are  
identical they are still distinguishable at least to themselves,


Like this for example. That's non sense. I have never said that, nor  
does that play any role in the 1-indeterminacy. The 1-indeterminacy  
bears explicitly on the future different experiences. That should be  
obvious: if the experiences reains the same, the probability question  
cannot even be asked.




and that is the reason I don't think its productive to study your  
proof after that point.


... because you attribute me an idea I have never asserted, and which  
would already contradict the definition I gave for comp.






 No 1-view can be duplicated.

Why the hell not?


Exactly for the reason you insist yourself so much on. The 1-view is  
always one mind, which is identical with itself from his 1-pov.






 Both people in the two cities feel one and entire.

Both people will feel IDENTICALLY until differences between Moscow  
and Washington cause them to form different memories.


Exactly, and that is what gives sense to the question in Helsinki:  
where will I feel to be tomorrow?. The question makes sense because  
comp makes you surviving the duplication, one and entire, somewhere.


All what you say entails that in Helsinki the guy can understand that  
there is some certainties, like I will feel to be in M or in W,  and  
I will not feel to be in the two places simultaneously, If I say  
that I will feel in W, then the me in M will rightly consider that I  
was wrong, etc. Then, with this precise protocol, or its iteration,  
you can deduce that the guy is maximally ignorant on W or M, and can  
put a uniform measure of probability on the set {W, M}. That is P = 1/2.






 There is a sense for the guy in W to say that he has been  
annihilated in Helsinki and reconstituted in W.


 Then you get annihilated every time you get on a bus going from  
point A to point B. Do you really want to say that?


 That will be indeed a consequence of comp. It can be said that  
quantum mechanics, which I do not assume, *confirms* that aspect of  
comp. Good point.


So you have redefined the word annihilated so that it now means  
pretty much nothing at all, and thus  we will need to invent a new  
word

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-27 Thread Joseph Knight

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:

  On 3/23/2012 3:44 PM, Joseph Knight wrote:



 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.netwrote:

  On 3/21/2012 8:16 PM, Joseph Knight wrote:



 On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Stephen P. King 
 stephe...@charter.netwrote:


  Dear Joseph,

 How do numbers implement that necessary capacity to define each
 other and themselves? What kind of relational structure is necessary? From
 what I can tell, it looks like a net of Indra where every jewel, here a
 number, reflects all others. This is a non-well founded structure.


  You'll have to be more explicit than this if I am to make any sense of
 it.


  Dear Joseph,

 I first must say that I appreciate very much this exchange as it
 forces me to better refine my wordings and explanations. In the passage
 above I was trying to get at something that I see in the implied structure
 of numbers, given Bruno's amazing ideas. Remember, I think in pictures,
 so the relations between numbers - with their Goedelizations and Loeb
 references - is to me a network where any one entity - here an integer - is
 defined by and related to all others. It looks like the structure of an
 infinite Webster Dictionary!  What I also see is that the links are not
 of a constant length - some connections between numbers are tiny - like the
 link between prime pairs - while others are infinitely long. What I am
 trying to point out is that this structure, is very much* unlike* the
 structure that we think of when we just consider the number line where
 such a line is made up only of integers - 0, 1, 2, 3, ...


  This is all nice, but I can't understand it unless you give make this
 more formal/precise.


 Do you only think in words? I'm just curious... I will try harder to
 sketch the idea in words for you.


I do tend to think more in words or symbols than in pictures, but my intent
here is really just to get a precise understanding of what you are saying.
I hope you agree that this is necessary!



 Think of how Goedelizations and Goedel numbers work as a visual
 picture, perhaps as a poitrait by Matisse or Dali. We have a string of
 numbers that represents another set of numbers *and* some arithmetic
 operation on those numbers. Any such Goedel number is thus the equivalent
 to a handle on the space of numbers (which is, by definition, a one
 dimensional manifold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve#Topology, also
 see 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evenly_spaced_integer_topology and 
 2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_sets#Topological_spaces),
 therefore if it is possible to have an infinity of goedel numbers in the
 integers then the resulting manifold would an infinity of handles (disjoint
 manifolds) on it. How many unique paths would exist on such a manifold?
 What is the average length of a path? (Please recall the fact that a
 handle can have any size iff it is simply connected and analytic) There is
 no such an average for the only faithful sample of the set of possible
 lengths of paths is the set itself (infinite sets are isomorphic to any of
 their proper subsets).
 Remember that we can also have goedel numbers operating on (mapping
 into) dovetailed strings of goedel numbers and goedel numbers can have
 arbitrarily long number string lengths.. This makes the dimension of
 this manifold to be infinite because of the disjointness of the handles
 that are induced by the Goedelizing, thus making it (modulo the
 requirements of spaces to exist) an infinite space. It is only if the
 requirements of a 
 spacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_%28mathematics%29not being met that 
 this would not occur. Given that a geodelization
 introduces arithmetic into the set of numbers then is automatically
 qualifies a goedelized number line to be the dual of a space (via the Stone
 representation 
 theoremhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_representation_theorem
 ).


Thanks for being explicit. But as I have said before, you fail to convince
me of the relevance of these mathematical gymnastics. I can see what you
are saying, but it does not seem insightful to me.



 QED.

 The visual mode and the symbol mode of languages seem to have a
 strange conjugacy





  Numbers as Bruno is considering them, I contend, has a structure
 that mathematicians denote as non-well founded in the sense that there is
 no basic building block out of which this structure is constructed unless
 we force it into a very tight straight jacket. One example of just a
 constraint occurs when we think of numbers as von Neumann 
 numeralshttp://bmanolov.free.fr/von-neumann-integer.phpor something like: 
 s, s(), s(()), s((())), ... - where s is the null set
 which we can define in terms of Spencer-Brown's laws of form as the Double
 Cross (see
 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Laws_of_Form_-_double_cross.gif),
 my point being that we only obtain a

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-26 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 25 Mar 2012, at 06:09, John Clark wrote:




On Sat, Mar 24, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Then what the hell IS the point you are making?

 That comp entails 1-indeterminacy.

Comp entails indeterminacy PERIOD.


Comp is widely known as a 3-deterministic theory.



Give me a example of 2 conscious beings that are identical by what  
you call 3-view but NOT identical by what you call 1-view, show  
they deserve different names, do that and I might get a idea what  
you're talking about; but don't give me that diaries business, if  
the diaries are different a third party can see that just as well as  
the individuals who wrote them. Just one clear non mystical example  
where objectively 2 things are identical but subjectively they are  
not, that's all I ask and I don't think it's a unreasonable request  
as your proof depends on there being such a difference.


You ask me something impossible, and provably impossible once we  
assume comp. It is not related to the 1-indeterminacy.






 I mean that's the pont of the step 3

And that's why I think it's a waste of time to even read step 4,  
it's built on a distinction without a difference.


Where is such a thing? The 1-difference does not come from the 3- 
difference between the copies, but between their reconstitution in  
different places.






 The point of the whole UDA is to understand that physics is a  
branch of arithmetic/computer science.


As I said before, although I'm not certain I think you could very  
well be right about that, but you have not proven it because in your  
proof you make a assumption that is not only far from obvious but  
one that I believe is downright false, the assumption that 2  
identical consciousness are not identical and thus need different  
names, like view-1 and view-3.


I don't do that assumption. Tell me where. You have introduce that  
idea, in a different thought experiences, and I said that I agree with  
you. It is just non relevant.







 when the diaries diverge the person will too and become 2, both  
are the original person and neither is each other.


 Correct. That is part of the explanation of the comp indeterminacy.

I'm glad you agree that the one becomes 2 during the duplicating  
process, then obviously you cannot predict a single unique  
occurrence that those 2 things will experience because no such thing  
exists to predict,


Of course those things exist, because the copies, by comp, are not  
zombie, and, by comp, have both the same right to claim to be the  
original. They are different because one live in W and the other live  
in W.




two things can not be unique. All you're really saying in this 1- 
indeterminism stuff is that 2 is not equal to one, you can not put 2  
things (like you) into a one to one correspondence with one thing  
(like Moscow or like Washington).


I might say that indeed. I just make it more precise. And explain the  
consequences.




All your confusion stems from the fact that you say I have been  
duplicated but don't really mean it and still assume there is only  
one I. You say Bruno Marchal will feel he is in Washington only  
and Bruno Marchal will feel he is in Moscow only but I will feel  
like he is in one city and one city only, and that would be true if  
there were only one I, but there is not because *YOU* HAVE BEEN  
DUPLICATED.


This does not make sense. No 1-view can be duplicated. Both people in  
the two cities feel one and entire. So they can say I have been 3- 
duplicated (like my body in Helsinki has been duplicated), but they  
will add but now I feel one and entire in W, and I could not have  
predicted that.
The same, but more strikingly, with the movie-multiplication. Each  
resulting copies will say I have been 3-multiplied every 1/24 second  
for 90 minutes, but my personal experience is that I have seen one  
definite and precise movie, and I have no clue how I could predict  
which one I was about to see personally.






 There is a sense for the guy in W to say that he has been  
annihilated in Helsinki and reconstituted in W.


Then you get annihilated every time you get on a bus going from  
point A to point B. Do you really want to say that?


That will be indeed a consequence of comp. It can be said that quantum  
mechanics, which I do not assume, *confirms* that aspect of comp. Good  
point.




 if you grasp the 1-indeterminacy, you grasp step 3,

I grasped indeterminacy long before I started talking with you, but  
you claim that 1-indeterminacy is different from 3-indeterminacy  
and from physical indeterminacy and from mathematical indeterminacy  
and your claim is based on nothing more than the fact that the  
number 1 is not the same as the number 2.


Like you were thinking that there is only one kind of random string,  
you seems to believe that all indeterminacy are equivalent. But  
phenomenologically identical indeterminacy does not need to have the  
same 3-explanation.
Just compare

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-26 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 24 Mar 2012, at 21:10, meekerdb wrote:

On 3/24/2012 12:37 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

You keep asking who is this you

Yes.

it is the usual you, as the one you use in your everyday

The word you works fine in the usual everyday world,

No, please answer the last part of the message. The everyday world
if MWI is true, is a duplicating chamber.

Yes, and I think Bruno's argument is to show that if consciousness
is a kind of computation

It is not exactly that, but OK. Comp is really just yes doctor. A
belief in a sort of possible reincarnation. It is better to see it
that way, so that we don't need to decide, in the attempt to figure
out what matter and consciousness is, between what is Turing
computable and what is Turing recoverable through the first person
indeterminacies. I currently tend to think that consciousness is not
Turing computable, but 100% Turing recoverable. Consciousness is the
quintessence of the 1-view.

then diverging computations would produce the same kind of
uncertainty that QM does in the MW interpretation. However, that
doesn't solve the problem it just makes two problems the same.

Well, assuming both COMP, *and* QM.

So we don't know that yet.

COMP makes the problem more complex, because the SWE itself has to be
explained phenomenologically or epistemologically. If both COMP and QM
are correct, then UDA proves the existence of a deduction of QM from
COMP, that is from the comp TOE of your choice, like the tiny sigma_1
complete fragment of arithmetic.

The advantage of comp is that if you accept the knowledge notion given
by Theaetetus then COMP explains both the quanta and the qualia (by
the divine hypostases, the intensional variant of G* minus G).
Technically the quanta seem to appear there, and this makes the quanta
into first person (plural) notion, which is confirmed by Everett's
multiplication of populations of persons, the contagiousness of the
linear superposition. At the bottom of what is observable, the linear
rules, comp-apparently.

Unfortunately, the arithmetical quantization [] p is written in Z1*,
that is precisely that [] p is Bp Dp, that p is, dually, Bp v Dp,
so that []p is [](Bp v Dp) = B(Bp v Dp) D(Bp v Dp), and then to
translate some Bell inequality, you need to evaluate formula nesting
the quantization ([] ([] # ...), which makes most quantum logical
assertion of that complexity still untractable today, despite the
decidability of Z1*).

Bruno

In Everett's MWI there is a problem saying what probabilities mean,
which is just the same as the one in the transporter thought
experiment(c.f. arXiv:0905.0624v1 by Ardian Kent).

Brent

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-26 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 24 Mar 2012, at 21:21, meekerdb wrote:


On 3/24/2012 12:58 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Google on theaetetus.
Socrates asked to Theaetetus to define knowledge. Theatetus gives  
many definitions that Socrates critizes/refutes, each of them. One  
of them consists in defining knowledge by belief, in modern time  
the mental state, or the computational state of the belief and the  
knowledge is the same, and a belief becomes a knowledge only when  
it is (whatever the reason or absence of reason) true. Another one  
is the justified true belief, which is the one which you can  
translate in arithmetic with Gödel's predicate. You can read Bp   
p by I can justify p from my previous beliefs AND it is the case  
that p. To give you an example, if the snow was blue, a machine  
asserting snow is blue can be said to know that snow is blue.  
Indeed, the machine asserts the snow is blue, and it is the case  
that snow is blue (given the assumption).


The problem (for some) with that theory is that it entails that,  
when awake, we cannot know if we are dreaming or not, although in  
dream we can know that we are dreaming, the same for being not  
correct. It is not a problem for comp which makes that ignorance  
unavoidable.


For a machine that we know to be arithmetically correct, we know  
that Bp and Bp  p are equivalent. Yet, the machine cannot know  
that about herself, and the logic of Bp and of Bp  p are  
different. They obeys to the modal logics G and S4Grz, but I guess  
you need to read some book or some web pages to see what I mean here.


I find your explications of knowledge to be confusing.  You refer to  
Theaetetus who said knowledge = true belief.  But in your modal  
logic formulation B stands for either provable or proven  
(Beweisbar).  Provable and believed are too very different things.


Hmm... I am just using Dennett's intentional stance toward machine. A  
machine believes p, really means only that the machine assert p.
I limit myself to machine having their beliefs closed from the modus  
ponens rule, and obeying classical logic, and applying classical logic  
on their description etc. I limit myself on classically self- 
referentially correct machine with respect to some other possible  
machines or oracles.





I think that knowledge consists of a belief that is both true and  
causally connected to the thing believed (c.f. Gettier's paradox).


That is not incompatible with the Theaetetus' idea. Somehow the whole  
problem is there.




  Of course belief that is held because the proposition is proven  
from some axioms does have a causal connection to the axioms.


Yes. And the axioms can be any successful memes in the way to  
unravel a difficulty. Axioms which solves many problems and many class  
of problems can win local games.


I identify partially a person with the set of its beliefs. More  
concrete person can revised beliefs (normally), which is not used  
here, given that I restrict myself of the math of the correct machine.




But that is more than just believed.


Because you talk from the point of view of a much more complex  
consistent (let us hope) extension, viewed at some level.
For the interview I limit myself to an apparently simple machine with  
beliefs, that we all believe in (I hope).






The problem then arises when you say things like, We know there are  
true but unprovable facts about arithmetic.


No. About the machine. Sometimes that machine is Peano Arithmetic,  
because it is the better known Löbian theory. It is an axiomatizable  
theory, which means, by a theorem of Craig, a recursively enumerable  
set of beliefs.



We only 'know' those things in different meta-system where they do  
have a causal connection to  other axioms we hypothesize as true.


Of course. The points is that the Löbian machine does that too, and  
can even do it for themselves. This gives them ability to climb the  
constructive transfinite, and to develop talks and mind tools from  
beyond the constructive.



But ultimately we cannot 'know' that axioms are true - as you say we  
just bet on them.


I think so. Even unconsciously, when our brain conceptualizes that  
there is a reality behind the back of the computer screen. We  
extrapolate all the times, and we have partial controls and partial  
responsibilities and those kinds of things.


The nice happening here is that by the incompleteness, Bp can't be  
confused with Bp  p. By incompleteness Bf does not imply f, so Bf is  
not the same as Bf  f. (Beliefs can be wrong. Knowledge can't, by  
definition).


This shows that the same set of believed arithmetical sentences can be  
seen from many points of views. They provide an arithmetical  
interpretation of Plotinus, through what happens when a universal  
machine looks inward.


It applies to us, tangentially, as far as we are self-referentially  
correct ourselves, tangentially.


Bruno


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



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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-26 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Mar 26, 11:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 25 Mar 2012, at 22:59, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  What is it you think my theory wants you not to ask?

 Where does matter come from?

Matter comes from sense, as does 'where' and 'come from'.

 Where does sense come from?

Everywhere

Craig

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-25 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Mar 24, 3:58 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


 OK, nice. Many confuse comp (I am a machine) and digital physics
 (reality is a machine), but comp makes reality, whatever it can be,
 being NOT a machine, nor the output of a machine. It is more a
 perspective effect on infinities of computations.

A computer's 1p reality would be digital physics though. If I am Super
Mario, my universe is a digital reality. It seems that you say comp
says that Super Mario will doubt his reality is digital, which I would
agree with if I believed comp. Super Mario's reality could be a
machine or not a machine but his 1p of it is digital because I, as
programmer, have 3p views of its digits.

Of course, I say there is more to it than that: In fact Super Mario
has no 1p at all, and is only a 3p avatar simulating our own 1p world
semiotics. Our own 1p actually permeates 3p because sensemaking is
grounded in the unity of singularity as a natural self dividing into
multiplicity rather than aggregates of data imitating the 3p functions
of a self.




  UDA explains
  why the contrary occurs, through the first person indeterminacy
  bearing on a very huge and complex arithmetical reality.

  Why does hugeness, complexity, first person, or indeterminacy affect
  whether something is digital or not?

  Because there is a continuum of computational histories
  (computations)
  going through your state in arithmetic, or in the UD.

  There are histories. OK. Why does that make them digital or not?

 I assume I am a machine. Then the first person notion are NOT
 machine, they are NOT digitalisable for the first person point of view.

Does that mean that the only justification for saying they are not
digital is because our experience is not digital and you assume that
machines are like us?




  The rest follows
  from the 1-indeterminacy and its invariance for the huge delays in
  the
  UD virtual reconstitutions. Ask more if this is unclear, but you are
  supposed to have study the UDA.

  Yes, I don't really get where 'delays' come from.

 This is explained already in step 2, and then in the fact that the
 Universal Dovetailer dovetails. It run all computations, but some are
 infinite, so it runs them little pieces by little pieces, and
 introduce vast and many delays in all computations.

I have a similar view but don't limit it to computation. The cosmos is
a process of nesting frames of experience, creating a concrete
interior semiotic medium of nested frequencies ('time') and an
abstract exterior semiotic medium of nested scales ('space'). The
process is computational, but what is being computed is sense and
motive.


  Does the UDA exist
  in 'time'? Is time an inevitable epi- of +, *, and n?

 I guess you mean the UD. UDA is for the 8 step UD *Argument*.
 Yes, comp makes all notions of time phenomenological, except the UD
 time steps, which are based on the successor relation s(x) = s(x) + 1.
 But physical time and subjective duration needs longer explanations,
 and are mainly indexical first person (plural, singular) notions.

Time then exists as a consequence of UD, not a primitive within which
UD computes and wouldn't have any 'delays'.


  Still not seeing
  a connection with whether something is digital or not.

 If we are digital, our experience bears on an infinite set of
 computations, and the result is not digital. I let you study a bit
 more the UDA.



Yeah, I don't understand. Does Super Mario's experience bear on an
infinite set of computations?


  Second, the first person impression of the machine might be (and is
  necessarily, once you accept Theaetetus' insight) a non
  digitalizable
  truth, from the machine point of view.

  Which of Theaetetus' insight do you mean?

  The definition of knowledge by true belief. Kp = Bp  p.

  I think I know what that is, but since Google shows nothing at all for
  it, please spell it out for me one more time.

 Google on theaetetus.
 Socrates asked to Theaetetus to define knowledge. Theatetus gives
 many definitions that Socrates critizes/refutes, each of them. One of
 them consists in defining knowledge by belief, in modern time the
 mental state, or the computational state of the belief and the
 knowledge is the same, and a belief becomes a knowledge only when it
 is (whatever the reason or absence of reason) true. Another one is the
 justified true belief, which is the one which you can translate in
 arithmetic with Gödel's predicate. You can read Bp  p by I can
 justify p from my previous beliefs AND it is the case that p. To give
 you an example, if the snow was blue, a machine asserting snow is
 blue can be said to know that snow is blue. Indeed, the machine
 asserts the snow is blue, and it is the case that snow is blue
 (given the assumption).

 The problem (for some) with that theory is that it entails that,
 when awake, we cannot know if we are dreaming or not, although in
 dream we can know that we are dreaming, the same for being not
 correct. It is

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 23 Mar 2012, at 22:14, John Clark wrote:


On Fri, Mar 23, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 You are still avoiding the WM duplication.

There is no spliting in Many Worlds unless something is different,   
if 2 universes are identical  then they have merged and there is now  
only one universe.


I can accept that, and that is why I often said splitting/ 
differentiation. I use in comp, to make the notion of the comp- 
measure more intuitive, the Y = II rule, which means that a  
bifurcation in the future backtrack on the past.






 the copy and the original agree on what occurred, so according to  
you the first person perspective, the one that both you and I  
believe is most important, is identical; so there is only one  
perspective, one consciousness.


 Sure. This does not invalidate the point I am making. It does not  
address the point at all.


Then what the hell IS the point you are making?


That comp entails 1-indeterminacy. 5 I mean that's the pont of the  
step 3). The point of the whole UDA is to understand that physics is a  
branch of arithmetic/computer science.




 In the thought experiment I am using, the content of the diaries  
are equal up to some pages, and then they diverge.


And when the diaries diverge the person will too and become 2, both  
are the original person and neither is each other.


Correct. That is part of the explanation of the comp indeterminacy.





 The experiencer tries to predict which branch they will live.

If the experiencer believes that when something is duplicated it  
remains singular then any prediction made regarding it will be  
gibberish.


Others and myself have answered this many times.




 You continue to avoid the points.

It's rather easy to avoid your points as you have NOT mentioned a  
single one, you just tell me to follow these wonderful but phantom  
points.


Each step in the UDA has a precise point. You fail to say what is your  
problem with them.






Like Brent said, the difference is between annihilation and no  
reconstitution (= dying), and annihilation + reconstitution (=  
teleportation, or duplication, etc.).


The fact of the matter is that the Bruno Marchal of noon yesterday  
has not been duplicated or teleported or reconstituted, the Bruno  
Marchal of right now remembers being him but he is different and has  
memories that other version did not have; so if you insist that the  
Helsinki man is dead


Not only I don't insist on that, but I have never asserted it.



then to be consistent you must say that Bruno Marchal of noon  
yesterday is dead, and if you insist that the Helsinki man has been  
annihilated then to be consistent you must say that Bruno Marchal of  
noon yesterday has been annihilated. Are you certain you really want  
to do this?


There is a sense for the guy in W to say that he has been annihilated  
in Helsinki and reconstituted in W.






 Please, answer my post of the 19 mars,

I don't know what 19 mars is and I thought I'd responded to all your  
posts but if I missed one where you made everything clear (I'm not  
holding my breath) then please resend it.


See below, you have fail to answer more than four posts.





Things are rather simple.

Yes, but not simple in a good way.

 You pretend that there is no 1-indeterminacy.

I insist that indeterminacy exists in every one of the many thought  
experiments proposed by members of this list during the last month,  
but you pretend to have discovered a brand new form of it never  
known before. I see no evidence you have done anything of the sort.


As you said yourself the 1-indeterminacy which accompanies the  
classical self-duplication is the building block of the whole UDA. You  
said it was nonsense. It looks you grasp it now, although it is not  
clear that you have seen how different it is from all other form of  
indeterminacy known before. But if you grasp the 1-indeterminacy, you  
grasp step 3, and so tell me what you think about step 4 (in sane04).







 Then you have to explain to us how you predict the movie that you  
will remember having seen when the movie-multiplication experience  
is completed.


Bruno Marchal has asked this many times but despite many requests  
for clarification of who you is  such a explanation, that would  
establish a new sort indeterminacy, has not been received.


It is enough to interview each copies, they understand automatically  
what we mean by you. You are the only one having a problem with  
this. You seem to be negative and dismissive for no reason.






 and you seem to accept that 1-indeterminacy in some post, and then  
just dismiss it as trivial.


I accept 1-indeterminacy because as described by you it is  
identical to the indeterminacy in physics and mathematics that we've  
known about for a very long time,


It might be phenomenologically identical with other indeterminacy, but  
it has a simpler explanation which does not involve neither QM, nor  
Gödel or

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Mar 24, 4:32 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 23 Mar 2012, at 00:06, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world
  without converting or sampling every truth about that world
  available
  to it into digital?

  First, the fact that the digital machine converts truth about the
  world into digital, does not make that world digital.

  Which world, the one being converted or the one that has been
  converted?

 The one being converted.

Then yes, of course. I am not claiming that the entire universe
becomes digital because I turn a computer on.




  UDA explains
  why the contrary occurs, through the first person indeterminacy
  bearing on a very huge and complex arithmetical reality.

  Why does hugeness, complexity, first person, or indeterminacy affect
  whether something is digital or not?

 Because there is a continuum of computational histories (computations)
 going through your state in arithmetic, or in the UD.

There are histories. OK. Why does that make them digital or not?

The rest follows
 from the 1-indeterminacy and its invariance for the huge delays in the
 UD virtual reconstitutions. Ask more if this is unclear, but you are
 supposed to have study the UDA.

Yes, I don't really get where 'delays' come from. Does the UDA exist
in 'time'? Is time an inevitable epi- of +, *, and n? Still not seeing
a connection with whether something is digital or not.




  Second, the first person impression of the machine might be (and is
  necessarily, once you accept Theaetetus' insight) a non digitalizable
  truth, from the machine point of view.

  Which of Theaetetus' insight do you mean?

 The definition of knowledge by true belief. Kp = Bp  p.

I think I know what that is, but since Google shows nothing at all for
it, please spell it out for me one more time.




  To me speculating that a machine has a first person impression is just
  a way to plug the problem.

 With the Theaetetus definition, modeling the first person by the
 knower, and modeling belief by provability (as the incompleteness can
 justify), the machine has a first person experience.

To me all that says is that since knowledge, 'belief', and provability
have a relation, then abracadabra: first person experience.

It is a theorem,
 not a speculation.

If it is impossible to test the theorem, then what is the difference?

 Non comp makes the machine into a mechanical
 variant of a zombie.

Non-comp is the atheism of computationalism. it does not make a
machine anything, it lets machines be the inanimate puppets that they
have always been. It is comp which introduces the expectation of
sentience in machines and then balks at the idea of their absence.


  Since subjectivity doesn't make sense
  mechanically or digitally,

 This is what we ask an argument for. You beg the question.

I understand, I'm just offering insight into the psychology behind the
formulation of the idea of first person machine states.


  we'll say it's non digital and hang a
  Mission Accomplished sign. It takes advantage of the privacy and
  ineffability of subjectivity to misrepresent its absence as possible
  presence, even though our experience with machines thus far has not
  supported any presence at all.

  That is actually the case,
  because the impression of the machine is a conjunct of both a
  digitalizable belief and (some) truth, with the greek's suggested
  notion of knowledge.

  beliefs, truths, knowledge...these are abstractions to me. Tertiary
  level commentaries on experience which barely exist. Important, sure,
  but lacking in any power to initiate direct action. Which is maybe why
  a machine has no such power.

  If you negate this, it means that
  you assume the level to be infinitely low,

  No, it means I understand that your assumption that description
  can be
  quantified is simplistic and inaccurate.

  Description of my (generalized) brain. With your theory we have
  zombie.

  Never zombie, only puppet. Zombie is like calling water 'wet fire'.

  I don't think so. With the Heisenberg Matrix of the Milky way, no-one
  would be able to distinguish me or you from the behavior of the
  entity
  simulated. If comp is false, those entity who behaves exactly like
  you or me, are not conscious, and so they are by definition p-zombie.

  The word zombie privileges the expectation of consciousness, while the
  word puppet does not.

 So you beg the question here too. By definiion a zombie has no
 consciousness, but behaves like a conscious being.

A puppet does the same thing. Why not use puppet instead? There must
be some reason why you resist this change.


  The fact that the Heisenberg Matrix of the Milky
  way fails completely in detecting consciousness

 I said that we fail to do that. Not the (virtual) Milky Way.

It's our virtual Milky Way, so that's the same thing.


  does not mean that the
  simulations it takes for genuine are missing something that they

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread John Clark

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

 From a 3rd POV, there is no indeterminacy,


From a 3rd POV there is ALWAYS indeterminacy, we don't know for sure what
the thing we're looking at will do. From a 1 POV there is ALWAYS
indeterminacy, we don't know for sure what we will do until we do it. Bruno
says there is a vast difference between these two things and his entire
proof hinges on that, and this despite him conceding that this difference
does not involve atoms or information. If someone can clearly explain
exactly what is remaining that causes this difference without resorting to
mystical BULLSHIT I will concede the argument and publicly thank them for
eliminating a small part of my ignorance.

 you'll (both you) still feel singular,


Yes.

 and the you who was asked before the experience


Is now 2 because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED.



  what he expect to feel after the duplication


If he is logical he will expect to feel he is in Moscow and Washington, if
he is not I can not say what he will predict because there are many ways to
be wrong and only one way to be right.


 was unable to predict which one of the WM guy it will be, yet each one is
 only one.


But each one is you. Your premise is that object X has been exactly
duplicated but then you ask what one and only one SINGULAR event will
happen to it. The question makes no sense.



  You keep asking who is this you


Yes.


   it is the usual you, as the one you use in your everyday


The word you works fine in the usual everyday world, but when you bring
duplicating chambers into the mix concepts that you never needed to give a
second thought to become vitally important.

  John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/3/24 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com

 On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.comwrote:

  From a 3rd POV, there is no indeterminacy,


 From a 3rd POV there is ALWAYS indeterminacy,


No in the f***ing though experiment you always want to change as you see
fit.


 we don't know for sure what the thing we're looking at will do. From a 1
 POV there is ALWAYS indeterminacy, we don't know for sure what we will do
 until we do it. Bruno says there is a vast difference between these two
 things and his entire proof hinges on that, and this despite him conceding
 that this difference does not involve atoms or information. If someone can
 clearly explain exactly what is remaining that causes this difference
 without resorting to mystical BULLSHIT I will concede the argument and
 publicly thank them for eliminating a small part of my ignorance.

  you'll (both you) still feel singular,


 Yes.

  and the you who was asked before the experience


 Is now 2 because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED.



  what he expect to feel after the duplication


 If he is logical he will expect to feel he is in Moscow and Washington, if
 he is not I can not say what he will predict because there are many ways to
 be wrong and only one way to be right.


 was unable to predict which one of the WM guy it will be, yet each one is
 only one.


 But each one is you. Your premise is that object X has been exactly
 duplicated but then you ask what one and only one SINGULAR event will
 happen to it. The question makes no sense.



  You keep asking who is this you


 Yes.


   it is the usual you, as the one you use in your everyday


 The word you works fine in the usual everyday world,


No, please answer the last part of the message. The everyday world if MWI
is true, is a duplicating chamber.


 but when you bring duplicating chambers into the mix concepts that you
 never needed to give a second thought to become vitally important.

   John K Clark


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 24 Mar 2012, at 18:44, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux
allco...@gmail.com wrote:

From a 3rd POV, there is no indeterminacy,

From a 3rd POV there is ALWAYS indeterminacy, we don't know for
sure what the thing we're looking at will do. From a 1 POV there
is ALWAYS indeterminacy, we don't know for sure what we will do
until we do it. Bruno says there is a vast difference between these
two things and his entire proof hinges on that, and this despite him
conceding that this difference does not involve atoms or
information. If someone can clearly explain exactly what is
remaining that causes this difference without resorting to mystical
BULLSHIT I will concede the argument and publicly thank them for
eliminating a small part of my ignorance.

In the WM experience(s), what causes the first person difference is
the first person differentiation, into living in W and living in M.

Bruno

you'll (both you) still feel singular,

Yes.

and the you who was asked before the experience

Is now 2 because HE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED.

what he expect to feel after the duplication

If he is logical he will expect to feel he is in Moscow and
Washington, if he is not I can not say what he will predict because
there are many ways to be wrong and only one way to be right.

was unable to predict which one of the WM guy it will be, yet each
one is only one.

But each one is you. Your premise is that object X has been exactly
duplicated but then you ask what one and only one SINGULAR event
will happen to it. The question makes no sense.

You keep asking who is this you

Yes.

it is the usual you, as the one you use in your everyday

The word you works fine in the usual everyday world, but when you
bring duplicating chambers into the mix concepts that you never
needed to give a second thought to become vitally important.

John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-24 Thread meekerdb


On 3/24/2012 12:37 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


 You keep asking who is this you


Yes.

  it is the usual you, as the one you use in your everyday


The word you works fine in the usual everyday world,


No, please answer the last part of the message. The everyday world if MWI is true, is a 
duplicating chamber.


Yes, and I think Bruno's argument is to show that if consciousness is a kind of 
computation then diverging computations would produce the same kind of uncertainty that QM 
does in the MW interpretation.  However, that doesn't /solve/ the problem it just makes 
two problems the same.  In Everett's MWI there is a problem saying what probabilities 
mean, which is just the same as the one in the transporter thought experiment(c.f. 
arXiv:0905.0624v1 by Ardian Kent).


Brent


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-23 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 22 Mar 2012, at 21:31, John Clark wrote:


On Wed, Mar 21, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 This illustrates the problem I have with your ideas, it's not  
your mathematics it's the assumption you make right at the start  
which is the foundation for everything else.


 Which assumption?

Your assumption that if a identical copy of you is made everything  
may seen identical to a third party but to itself, to the copy and  
the original, they would somehow have different viewpoints even if  
everything they saw was the same and they remained identical.


I don't make that assumption.





I think that is just plain wrong.


Like Brent told you, I agree with you.




Lately you seem to be equivocating somewhat on this point and  
everybody has a right to change their mind, but if you do then  
you'll have to rewrite your proof from page 1 because that  
assumption was important.


I never made that assumption. It is in your imagination. You really  
look like you want to see something invalid in the reasoning, and then  
you imagine assertion which does not exist (or show me where).






 Those admit precise and simple definition, related to the  
duplication and multiplication thought experience.

First person = content of a diary bring in the duplication devices.

OK, but the original and the copy will both write in their diaries  
I walked into the duplicating chamber, the machine was turned on  
and a copy of me appeared right in front of me face to face,


You are still avoiding the WM duplication. You cannot invalidate an  
argument by changing the premise.




the copy and the original agree on what occurred, so according to  
you the first person perspective, the one that both you and I  
believe is most important, is identical; so there is only one  
perspective, one consciousness.


Sure. This does not invalidate the point I am making. It does not  
address the point at all.





 Third person = content of a diary of an external observers.

OK, but the third person observer will write in his diary the  
original walked into the duplicating chamber, the machine was turned  
on and a copy of him appeared right in front of him face to face,  
the third person agrees on what happened with the first person, he  
agrees with both the copy and the original.


Please come back to the reasoning.





 First person plural = content of the diaries of a collection of  
person duplicated together.


I don't see the point of this one because according to you (and me  
too) if the viewpoint is identical then the consciousness of all of  
them is identical, so the word plural serves no purpose and just  
creates confusion.


Come back to the reasoning.





but you can't give a scrap of evidence that such differences  
actually exist,


Just look at the content of the diaries.

I did, if they say the same thing then their consciousness is  
identical from their viewpoint and my viewpoint and your viewpoint  
and the Easter Bunny's viewpoint and ANY viewpoint; and if the  
diaries are different then they are different people from ANY  
viewpoint.


Come back to the reasoning. In the thought experiment I am using, the  
content of the diaries are equal up to some pages, and then they  
diverge. The experiencer tries to predict which branch they will live.






 It contains statements like I predict that I will feel to be in W  
or in M, I am in M, so I win, pr I predict that I will see Flying  
circus, but I see nothing recognizable, so I fail, etc.


If the purpose of all this predict stuff is to find a clear  
continuous path that establishes what is meant by I


You come back again on this !?!
No, the point is not to establish what is meant by I. David, Quentin  
and others (including myself) have already explain this to you.
You continue to avoid the points. Follow the reasoning and you will  
see the purpose.





then it's like pushing on a string, you're doing it backwards,  
you've got to do it from the present to the past not from the  
present to the future. Looking back the Washington man remembers  
being the Helsinki man so they both are part of the same I, and the  
Moscow man remembers being the Helsinki man so they both are part of  
the same I, but the Moscow man does not remember being the  
Washington man so they are not part of the same I.


Which is part of the explanation of the first person indeterminacy.  
Good.





 If the guy annihilated die, then he would say that P(M) = P(W) =  
1/2, and there would be no 1-indeterminacy.


Of course here I made a typo mistake (which you missed). Read P(W) =  
P(M) = 0, in case the guy dies. But as we both agree on comp, the guy  
does not die in that process.




First of all you seem to make a distinction between dying and being  
annihilated that I do not understand, and second, if either of those  
things had happened to you you wouldn't be making any predictions,  
you wouldn't be saying anything at all.



Like Brent said,

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-23 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Mar 23, 1:08 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 On 3/22/2012 9:49 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:









  On Mar 22, 8:28 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:
  On 3/22/2012 4:24 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On Mar 22, 6:09 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net    wrote:
  On 3/22/2012 2:53 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
  On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net      wrote:
  Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
  converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
  is lost.
  Sure.  What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the 
  EM spectrum.  Of
  course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the 
  digits and cannot
  capture more than a measure zero.
  Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was
  that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be
  modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world
  within it.
  I'm not sure that's so.  All of our physical models of the world are 
  based on continua.
  Continua can be described and reasoned about by a digital system and 
  continuous models can
  be computed to arbitrarily high precision (which is what we actually do 
  in science and
  engineering).
  That's because the world that they are modeling is actually not
  digital,
  Unsupported assertion.
  If the world is digital already, then why would you need to model it?
  Does a digital computer need a continua to open a digital file?

  but the model itself still is.
  No. So far as I know, no one has come up with a digital model of physics 
  that isn't
  empirically falsified - and it isn't for want of trying.  All the models 
  are continuous
  and based on real numbers.  It is just that all the calculations and 
  measurements are
  digital, i.e. based on integers.
  That's what I'm saying. A model = calculations and measurements.
  That's what I mean by the modelling itself. If I write a book about
  physics, the book can be written in English but not speculating that
  physics itself is an English phenomenon.

  If there is a machine
  intelligence in there, we know that it must live in the world that we
  give it to sample digitally, whether or not it can produce output
  which we interpret non-digitally. It's back to symbol grounding again.
  What difference does it make to symbolic grounding whether the symbol 
  refers to a
  continuum or an integer field?
  I never said that those were the two choices, you are the one who
  introduced continuity. Both analog and digital are methods of
  abstracting. I'm not talking about one kind of model versus another,
  I'm talking about concrete presentation versus abstract
  representation. My position is that our experience in the world is no
  model at all (although modeling is certainly part of it). Our
  experience is not a total experience of THE universe, but it is a
  total experience of OUR world (perceptual inertial framework), which
  includes the understanding that there is a difference and the tools to
  actually extend our world further into rest of the universe.

  The machine's world is not similarly open to expansion. It does not
  have the tools to extend its sense. You could connect a camera to Deep
  Blue through a printer port in it would never in a trillion years
  figure out how to use it.

  I have a digital CD playing on a digital receiver. The acoustic
  drivers are digital too. The music is not digital.
  Another unsupported assertion. How would you know?
  If music were digital you wouldn't need to hear it. You could look at
  a picture of the data and get the same experience.

  Some people claimed that digital audio
  sounded different - but double blind tests showed they were mistaken.
  That may be true, and that's not what I was talking about, but also I
  don't think that any kind of objective test like that prove that
  anyone is 'mistaken' about how something feels. It may be that doing a
  double blind test creates a placebo effect when subjectivity is being
  tested.

 And it might be you're blowing smoke because you don't like the facts.

Possible, but it's also because in my understanding, subjectivity
works in exactly that way.










  Just as the double slit test does unexpected things to light,
  we cannot assume that our subtle awareness can be manipulated on
  demand. That assumption itself is a cognitive bias which may very well
  contaminate the data.

  It seems to me that digital audio is colder, clearer, with more
  brittle and shallow percussion and more sibilance than analog. It's
  hard to say because I'm not comparing apples to apples, but I'm not
  sure that the experiment you are talking about did either. I don't
  know what assumptions they made. Also why does everyone seem to make
  the same exact mistake about how digital sounds to them? Why no people
  who insist that digital is more expressive and poetic?

  The CD, the
  receiver,

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-23 Thread Quentin Anciaux

From a 3rd POV, there is no indeterminacy, we know there will be two you
after the duplication.

From your 1st POV, even if you know it, you'll (both you) still feel
singular, and the you who was asked before the experience what he expect to
feel after the duplication was unable to predict which one of the WM guy it
will be, yet each one is only one.

If MWI is true, that happens every time the you/environment differentiates.
So while you insist it is gibberish to ask the guy before the experience
what he will feel, then in that condition every time you ask a question
about a future event about yourself, it is gibberish.

You keep asking who is this you... it is the usual you, as the one you
use in your everyday gibberish question about yourself if MWI is true.
(youhou \o/)

Quentin

2012/3/23 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com

 On Fri, Mar 23, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  You are still avoiding the WM duplication.


 There is no spliting in Many Worlds unless something is different,  if 2
 universes are identical  then they have merged and there is now only one
 universe.


  the copy and the original agree on what occurred, so according to you
 the first person perspective, the one that both you and I believe is most
 important, is identical; so there is only one perspective, one
 consciousness.


  Sure. This does not invalidate the point I am making. It does not
 address the point at all.


 Then what the hell IS the point you are making?

  Please come back to the reasoning. [...] Come back to the reasoning.
 [...] Come back to the reasoning.


 Is that the best retort you could come up with? Show me some reasoning and
 I'll come back to it.


  In the thought experiment I am using, the content of the diaries are
 equal up to some pages, and then they diverge.


 And when the diaries diverge the person will too and become 2, both are
 the original person and neither is each other.


  The experiencer tries to predict which branch they will live.


 If the experiencer believes that when something is duplicated it remains
 singular then any prediction made regarding it will be gibberish.

  You continue to avoid the points.


 It's rather easy to avoid your points as you have NOT mentioned a single
 one, you just tell me to follow these wonderful but phantom points.


  Follow the reasoning and you will see the purpose.


 Dear god we're back to that again!


 First of all you seem to make a distinction between dying and being
 annihilated that I do not understand, and second, if either of those things
 had happened to you you wouldn't be making any predictions, you wouldn't be
 saying anything at all.


 Like Brent said, the difference is between annihilation and no
 reconstitution (= dying), and annihilation + reconstitution (=
 teleportation, or duplication, etc.).


 The fact of the matter is that the Bruno Marchal of noon yesterday has not
 been duplicated or teleported or reconstituted, the Bruno Marchal of right
 now remembers being him but he is different and has memories that other
 version did not have; so if you insist that the Helsinki man is dead then
 to be consistent you must say that Bruno Marchal of noon yesterday is dead,
 and if you insist that the Helsinki man has been annihilated then to be
 consistent you must say that Bruno Marchal of noon yesterday has been
 annihilated. Are you certain you really want to do this?



  Please, answer my post of the 19 mars,


 I don't know what 19 mars is and I thought I'd responded to all your posts
 but if I missed one where you made everything clear (I'm not holding my
 breath) then please resend it.

 Things are rather simple.


 Yes, but not simple in a good way.


  You pretend that there is no 1-indeterminacy.


 I insist that indeterminacy exists in every one of the many thought
 experiments proposed by members of this list during the last month, but you
 pretend to have discovered a brand new form of it never known before. I see
 no evidence you have done anything of the sort.


  Then you have to explain to us how you predict the movie that you will
 remember having seen when the movie-multiplication experience is completed.


 Bruno Marchal has asked this many times but despite many requests for
 clarification of who you is  such a explanation, that would establish a
 new sort indeterminacy, has not been received.

  and you seem to accept that 1-indeterminacy in some post, and then just
 dismiss it as trivial.


 I accept 1-indeterminacy because as described by you it is identical to
 the indeterminacy in physics and mathematics that we've known about for a
 very long time, and I dismiss it as trivial for exactly the same reason. I
 want something new.

  Are you under influence?


 Yes, of logic.

   John K Clark


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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-23 Thread Stephen P. King


On 3/23/2012 3:44 PM, Joseph Knight wrote:



On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Stephen P. King 
stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote:


On 3/21/2012 8:16 PM, Joseph Knight wrote:



On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Stephen P. King
stephe...@charter.net mailto:stephe...@charter.net wrote:


Dear Joseph,

How do numbers implement that necessary capacity to
define each other and themselves? What kind of relational
structure is necessary? From what I can tell, it looks like a
net of Indra where every jewel, here a number, reflects all
others. This is a non-well founded structure.


You'll have to be more explicit than this if I am to make any
sense of it.


Dear Joseph,

I first must say that I appreciate very much this exchange as
it forces me to better refine my wordings and explanations. In the
passage above I was trying to get at something that I see in the
implied structure of numbers, given Bruno's amazing ideas.
Remember, I think in pictures, so the relations between numbers
- with their Goedelizations and Loeb references - is to me a
network where any one entity - here an integer - is defined by and
related to all others. It looks like the structure of an infinite
Webster Dictionary!  What I also see is that the links are not
of a constant length - some connections between numbers are tiny -
like the link between prime pairs - while others are infinitely
long. What I am trying to point out is that this structure, is
very much_unlike_ the structure that we think of when we just
consider the number line where such a line is made up only of
integers - 0, 1, 2, 3, ...


This is all nice, but I can't understand it unless you give make this 
more formal/precise.


Do you only think in words? I'm just curious... I will try harder 
to sketch the idea in words for you.


Think of how Goedelizations and Goedel numbers work as a visual 
picture, perhaps as a poitrait by Matisse or Dali. We have a string of 
numbers that represents another set of numbers *and* some arithmetic 
operation on those numbers. Any such Goedel number is thus the 
equivalent to a handle on the space of numbers (which is, by 
definition, a one dimensional manifold 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve#Topology, also see 1 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evenly_spaced_integer_topology and 2 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_sets#Topological_spaces), therefore 
if it is possible to have an infinity of goedel numbers in the integers 
then the resulting manifold would an infinity of handles (disjoint 
manifolds) on it. How many unique paths would exist on such a manifold? 
What is the average length of a path? (Please recall the fact that a 
handle can have any size iff it is simply connected and analytic) There 
is no such an average for the only faithful sample of the set of 
possible lengths of paths is the set itself (infinite sets are 
isomorphic to any of their proper subsets).
Remember that we can also have goedel numbers operating on (mapping 
into) dovetailed strings of goedel numbers and goedel numbers can have 
arbitrarily long number string lengths.. This makes the dimension of 
this manifold to be infinite because of the disjointness of the 
handles that are induced by the Goedelizing, thus making it (modulo 
the requirements of spaces to exist) an infinite space. It is only if 
the requirements of a space 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_%28mathematics%29 not being met 
that this would not occur. Given that a geodelization introduces 
arithmetic into the set of numbers then is automatically qualifies a 
goedelized number line to be the dual of a space (via the Stone 
representation theorem 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_representation_theorem).


QED.

The visual mode and the symbol mode of languages seem to have a 
strange conjugacy




Numbers as Bruno is considering them, I contend, has a
structure that mathematicians denote as non-well founded in the
sense that there is no basic building block out of which this
structure is constructed unless we force it into a very tight
straight jacket. One example of just a constraint occurs when we
think of numbers as von Neumann numerals
http://bmanolov.free.fr/von-neumann-integer.php or something
like: s, s(), s(()), s((())), ... - where s is the null set which
we can define in terms of Spencer-Brown's laws of form as the
Double Cross (see

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Laws_of_Form_-_double_cross.gif),
my point being that we only obtain a 'well-founded' version when
we impose a constraint of the natural' structure.


Well, of course. To talk about well-foundedness you need a class and a 
relation, not just a class. It doesn't make sense to say numbers are 
non-wellfounded.


They are non-well founded if they are

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-22 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:00 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:


 How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world


Superbly! A digital AI can make sense of it's world far better than you
can; if you doubt that statement just try competing against even a modest
chess playing computer.


  without converting or sampling every truth about that world available to
 it into digital?


It does convert much of its world to digital, if its world is large it may
not be able to convert all of it with the result that it won't be able to
make sense of all of it, but it will understand more of it than you do as
can be proven with real world testing. Undoubtedly you will say that just
because the machine beat the pants off you doesn't mean it understands the
material better than you do, and you may have told your professor that just
because you got a F on the final exam doesn't mean you didn't understand
the material better than the professor did, but I think you will find that
both remarks are equally convincing.

  John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-22 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 22 Mar 2012, at 03:00, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On Mar 21, 3:23 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 21 Mar 2012, at 17:40, Craig Weinberg wrote (partially).



It's not just 'we' but our entire participation in the world  
that is
assumed to be digitally interchangeable. A digitizable body can  
only

exist within a digitizable universe.



False. The exact contrary has been proved.



How has it been proved? How can we be ourselves without a world to
exist in?


Sure. What has been proved is that if comp is true we can only be  
in a

non digitizable world.
Digital physics is non sense, except as tool for building approximate
theory.
Comp is not digital physics.


How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world
without converting or sampling every truth about that world available
to it into digital?


First, the fact that the digital machine converts truth about the  
world into digital, does not make that world digital. UDA explains  
why the contrary occurs, through the first person indeterminacy  
bearing on a very huge and complex arithmetical reality.
Second, the first person impression of the machine might be (and is  
necessarily, once you accept Theaetetus' insight) a non digitalizable  
truth, from the machine point of view. That is actually the case,  
because the impression of the machine is a conjunct of both a  
digitalizable belief and (some) truth, with the greek's suggested  
notion of knowledge.













If you negate this, it means that
you assume the level to be infinitely low,


No, it means I understand that your assumption that description  
can be

quantified is simplistic and inaccurate.


Description of my (generalized) brain. With your theory we have
zombie.


Never zombie, only puppet. Zombie is like calling water 'wet fire'.



I don't think so. With the Heisenberg Matrix of the Milky way, no-one  
would be able to distinguish me or you from the behavior of the entity  
simulated. If comp is false, those entity who behaves exactly like  
you or me, are not conscious, and so they are by definition p-zombie.







Study the sane04 paper.  Or search in the archive. It is a  
consequence

of comp that physics emerge from the way numbers can bet on
arithmetical relations. It is not entirely obvious.


I don't have a problem with physics emerging from comp, I have a
problem with consciousness emerging from either one.


I understand.
This is related with the fact that we can explain why consciousness is  
not entirely explainable by the machine.
The machine also find hard to believe that consciousness emerge from  
arithmetical truth. But she cannot accept this because she can  
understand the necessary transcendent aspect of any notion of truth  
encompassing the truth about herself.
What might help you is the idea that with comp, contrary to the  
(contradictory) belief that consciousness is a natural product of some  
physical activity, consciousness is an atemporal global feature of the  
arithmetical truth. Machine does not produce consciousness, they  
borrow it to the truth. With comp, there is a sense to say that only  
God is conscious, but to manifest itself relatively to machines, he  
has to be amnesic to who he is. Nature invented the brain, not to make  
machines conscious, but to make them amnesic to their true identity.  
If not, the prey would not mind escaping the predator, and life could  
not evolve.





They don't need to dream. But they can (trivially with comp that I
assume all the time). Physics appears because deep linear dreams are
shared by relatively persistent universal numbers.


Couldn't physics still theoretically appear without anything dreaming
anything? Isn't that the point of physics, to explain the world as a
structured relation which makes sense entirely in physical terms?


That's is very natural to believe. Somehow we are programmed to  
believe this. But it is false in the comp theory, as the UDA

explains, and as most mystics seems to grasp from introspection.
Note that this makes also possible to explain the physical in a non  
circular way, that is without assuming the physical.
This is counter-intuitive, and has to be counter-intuitive. We are not  
programmed to believe this, quite the contrary, as suggested by the  
above remark.










and if we have dreams we don't need numbers.



?



If our lives are being dreamed by Platonic universal principles, why
do we want to turn them into dust by seeking out the dreamers?


Because we are curious.


In Comp that can make sense that we would be curious about what can
only reveal our own lives meaningless data. In a sense realism, we are
only likely to be curious because on some level we already know that
comp is just another new dimension of meaning to explore and create
in. We know, on some level, that we don't really have to worry about
computers coming to life or developing feelings.


There is nothing to worry indeed. About machines coming to

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

2012-03-22 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 This illustrates the problem I have with your ideas, it's not your
 mathematics it's the assumption you make right at the start which is the
 foundation for everything else.


  Which assumption?


Your assumption that if a identical copy of you is made everything may seen
identical to a third party but to itself, to the copy and the original,
they would somehow have different viewpoints even if everything they saw
was the same and they remained identical. I think that is just plain wrong.
Lately you seem to be equivocating somewhat on this point and everybody has
a right to change their mind, but if you do then you'll have to rewrite
your proof from page 1 because that assumption was important.

 Those admit precise and simple definition, related to the duplication and
 multiplication thought experience.
 First person = content of a diary bring in the duplication devices.


OK, but the original and the copy will both write in their diaries I
walked into the duplicating chamber, the machine was turned on and a copy
of me appeared right in front of me face to face, the copy and the
original agree on what occurred, so according to you the first person
perspective, the one that both you and I believe is most important, is
identical; so there is only one perspective, one consciousness.

 Third person = content of a diary of an external observers.


OK, but the third person observer will write in his diary the original
walked into the duplicating chamber, the machine was turned on and a copy
of him appeared right in front of him face to face, the third person
agrees on what happened with the first person, he agrees with both the copy
and the original.

 First person plural = content of the diaries of a collection of person
 duplicated together.


I don't see the point of this one because according to you (and me too) if
the viewpoint is identical then the consciousness of all of them is
identical, so the word plural serves no purpose and just creates
confusion.

but you can't give a scrap of evidence that such differences actually
 exist,


 Just look at the content of the diaries.


I did, if they say the same thing then their consciousness is identical
from their viewpoint and my viewpoint and your viewpoint and the Easter
Bunny's viewpoint and ANY viewpoint; and if the diaries are different then
they are different people from ANY viewpoint.

 It contains statements like I predict that I will feel to be in W or in
 M, I am in M, so I win, pr I predict that I will see Flying circus, but I
 see nothing recognizable, so I fail, etc.


If the purpose of all this predict stuff is to find a clear continuous
path that establishes what is meant by I then it's like pushing on a
string, you're doing it backwards, you've got to do it from the present to
the past not from the present to the future. Looking back the Washington
man remembers being the Helsinki man so they both are part of the same I,
and the Moscow man remembers being the Helsinki man so they both are part
of the same I, but the Moscow man does not remember being the Washington
man so they are not part of the same I.

 I have no real clue what you are talking about.


I could be wrong but I have a hunch you do have a clue what I'm talking
about but you're trying to convince yourself that you do not.

 If the guy annihilated die, then he would say that P(M) = P(W) = 1/2, and
 there would be no 1-indeterminacy.


First of all you seem to make a distinction between dying and being
annihilated that I do not understand, and second, if either of those things
had happened to you you wouldn't be making any predictions, you wouldn't be
saying anything at all.

  John K Clark

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/22/2012 1:31 PM, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

This illustrates the problem I have with your ideas, it's not your
mathematics it's the assumption you make right at the start which is the
foundation for everything else.

Which assumption?

Your assumption that if a identical copy of you is made everything may seen identical to
a third party but to itself, to the copy and the original, they would somehow have
different viewpoints even if everything they saw was the same and they remained
identical. I think that is just plain wrong. Lately you seem to be equivocating somewhat
on this point and everybody has a right to change their mind, but if you do then you'll
have to rewrite your proof from page 1 because that assumption was important.

Those admit precise and simple definition, related to the duplication and
multiplication thought experience.
First person = content of a diary bring in the duplication devices.

OK, but the original and the copy will both write in their diaries I walked into the
duplicating chamber, the machine was turned on and a copy of me appeared right in front
of me face to face, the copy and the original agree on what occurred, so according to
you the first person perspective, the one that both you and I believe is most important,
is identical; so there is only one perspective, one consciousness.

I don't think Bruno disagreed with this. I know I didn't. The one consciousness only
becomes two when there is something different - in the perception of the outside
(Washington vs Moscow) or some random internal change. Your thought experiment shows that
comp implies that persons bodies can be duplicated without duplicating their consciousness
(at least for a moment or two). But as I said I don't see that this invalidates Bruno's
argument which I take to be that quantum uncertainty can be modeled by uncertainty in
personal identity.

Third person = content of a diary of an external observers.

OK, but the third person observer will write in his diary the original walked into the
duplicating chamber, the machine was turned on and a copy of him appeared right in front
of him face to face, the third person agrees on what happened with the first person, he
agrees with both the copy and the original.

First person plural = content of the diaries of a collection of person
duplicated
together.

I don't see the point of this one because according to you (and me too) if the viewpoint
is identical then the consciousness of all of them is identical, so the word plural
serves no purpose and just creates confusion.

but you can't give a scrap of evidence that such differences actually
exist,

Just look at the content of the diaries.

I did, if they say the same thing then their consciousness is identical from their
viewpoint and my viewpoint and your viewpoint and the Easter Bunny's viewpoint and ANY
viewpoint; and if the diaries are different then they are different people from ANY
viewpoint.

But they are not different people from Everett's relative state viewpoint. In that view
they are the same person who has just made different observations. I agree that is just a
semantic difference about what it means to 'be the same person'. But so far as modeling
quantum uncertainty one could as well say observing a quantum event produces a different
person and the John C. Clark who's reading this is just one of many different John C.
Clarks who happens to share my macroscopic world for the time being.

It contains statements like I predict that I will feel to be in W or in
M, I am
in M, so I win, pr I predict that I will see Flying circus, but I see
nothing
recognizable, so I fail, etc.

If the purpose of all this predict stuff is to find a clear continuous path that
establishes what is meant by I then it's like pushing on a string, you're doing it
backwards, you've got to do it from the present to the past not from the present to the
future. Looking back the Washington man remembers being the Helsinki man so they both
are part of the same I, and the Moscow man remembers being the Helsinki man so they both
are part of the same I, but the Moscow man does not remember being the Washington man so
they are not part of the same I.

I have no real clue what you are talking about.

I could be wrong but I have a hunch you do have a clue what I'm talking about but you're
trying to convince yourself that you do not.

If the guy annihilated die, then he would say that P(M) = P(W) = 1/2, and
there
would be no 1-indeterminacy.

First of all you seem to make a distinction between dying and being annihilated that I
do not understand, and second, if either of those things had happened to you you
wouldn't be making any predictions, you wouldn't be saying anything at all.

Not

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On Mar 22, 10:46 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:00 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

  How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world

 Superbly! A digital AI can make sense of it's world far better than you
 can; if you doubt that statement just try competing against even a modest
 chess playing computer.

My question was not 'How can AI make sense of its world?' but 'How can
AI make sense of its world without converting or sampling digitally?'


   without converting or sampling every truth about that world available to
  it into digital?

 It does convert much of its world to digital, if its world is large it may
 not be able to convert all of it with the result that it won't be able to
 make sense of all of it,

Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
is lost.

 but it will understand more of it than you do as
 can be proven with real world testing. Undoubtedly you will say that just
 because the machine beat the pants off you doesn't mean it understands the
 material better than you do,

I'm not sure why you keep making this point with me over and over
again. By your reasoning, 'beating' someone at some task equals
intelligence in general, so that if an electric can opener opens a can
faster than Einstein does, the can opener is smarter than Einstein.

 and you may have told your professor that just
 because you got a F on the final exam doesn't mean you didn't understand
 the material better than the professor did, but I think you will find that
 both remarks are equally convincing.

When you figure out why opening a can doesn't make you a genius, then
you should be able to apply the same logic to understand why a machine
winning at a mathematical game like chess doesn't make it intelligent.
Neither does a color copier which can forge great paintings in a
matter of seconds make it a great artist.

Craig

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)


On 3/22/2012 1:49 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Mar 22, 10:46 am, John Clarkjohnkcl...@gmail.com  wrote:

  On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:00 PM, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.comwrote:


How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world


  Superbly! A digital AI can make sense of it's world far better than you
  can; if you doubt that statement just try competing against even a modest
  chess playing computer.

My question was not 'How can AI make sense of its world?' but 'How can
AI make sense of its world without converting or sampling digitally?'




  without converting or sampling every truth about that world available 
to

it into digital?


  It does convert much of its world to digital, if its world is large it may
  not be able to convert all of it with the result that it won't be able to
  make sense of all of it,

Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
is lost.



Sure.  What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the EM spectrum.  Of 
course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the digits and cannot 
capture more than a measure zero.


Brent

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
  converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
  is lost.

 Sure.  What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the EM 
 spectrum.  Of
 course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the digits 
 and cannot
 capture more than a measure zero.


Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was
that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be
modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world
within it. Just because our ability to sense the world is not
unlimited doesn't mean that our sense is digital or a model. Our
experience of the world may not be a model at all, but a direct
presentation at the anthropomorphic level (which includes, but is not
limited to a mixture of lower level analog and digital
representations).

Even if our own world were nothing but a digital simulation, the
experience of it is not digital, which wouldn't make sense in a
digital world. Why create a floridly rich abstraction layer of sense
experience if you already have the data you need to function
optimally, or, if you have the sense experience already, why would you
need any digital data to function?

Your comment brings up another related point. As you say, we only see
a small sliver of the EM spectrum. What that means is that we
(figuratively) 'see' that we don't literally 'see' all that there is.
We can make inferences that extend beyond the literal capacities of
our direct sensation. Can machines do that? Can machines figure out
that they lack emotion on their own?

Craig

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On 3/22/2012 2:53 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote:

Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
is lost.

Sure. What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the EM
spectrum. Of
course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the digits and
cannot
capture more than a measure zero.

Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was
that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be
modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world
within it.

I'm not sure that's so. All of our physical models of the world are based on continua.
Continua can be described and reasoned about by a digital system and continuous models can
be computed to arbitrarily high precision (which is what we actually do in science and
engineering).

Just because our ability to sense the world is not
unlimited doesn't mean that our sense is digital or a model. Our
experience of the world may not be a model at all, but a direct
presentation at the anthropomorphic level (which includes, but is not
limited to a mixture of lower level analog and digital
representations).

Even if our own world were nothing but a digital simulation, the
experience of it is not digital,

You don't know that. How would continua experience differ from digital
experience?

which wouldn't make sense in a
digital world. Why create

Are you asking why God did something?

a floridly rich abstraction layer of sense
experience if you already have the data you need to function
optimally, or, if you have the sense experience already, why would you
need any digital data to function?

Your comment brings up another related point. As you say, we only see
a small sliver of the EM spectrum. What that means is that we
(figuratively) 'see' that we don't literally 'see' all that there is.
We can make inferences that extend beyond the literal capacities of
our direct sensation. Can machines do that?

Sure. Machines have extended sensory ability so, for example, they can navigate by GPS
signals which we can't even detect. Similarly, migratory birds can navigate by sensing
the Earth's magnetic field - something we do via prosthetics like compasses.

Can machines figure out
that they lack emotion on their own?

If they were sufficiently intelligent. Are there emotions that you have figured out you
lack, e.g. mother love?

Brent

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On Mar 22, 11:47 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 22 Mar 2012, at 03:00, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On Mar 21, 3:23 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
  On 21 Mar 2012, at 17:40, Craig Weinberg wrote (partially).

  It's not just 'we' but our entire participation in the world
  that is
  assumed to be digitally interchangeable. A digitizable body can
  only
  exist within a digitizable universe.

  False. The exact contrary has been proved.

  How has it been proved? How can we be ourselves without a world to
  exist in?

  Sure. What has been proved is that if comp is true we can only be
  in a
  non digitizable world.
  Digital physics is non sense, except as tool for building approximate
  theory.
  Comp is not digital physics.

  How does a digital artificial intelligence make sense of it's world
  without converting or sampling every truth about that world available
  to it into digital?

 First, the fact that the digital machine converts truth about the
 world into digital, does not make that world digital.

Which world, the one being converted or the one that has been
converted?

 UDA explains
 why the contrary occurs, through the first person indeterminacy
 bearing on a very huge and complex arithmetical reality.

Why does hugeness, complexity, first person, or indeterminacy affect
whether something is digital or not?

 Second, the first person impression of the machine might be (and is
 necessarily, once you accept Theaetetus' insight) a non digitalizable
 truth, from the machine point of view.

Which of Theaetetus' insight do you mean?

To me speculating that a machine has a first person impression is just
a way to plug the problem. Since subjectivity doesn't make sense
mechanically or digitally, we'll say it's non digital and hang a
Mission Accomplished sign. It takes advantage of the privacy and
ineffability of subjectivity to misrepresent its absence as possible
presence, even though our experience with machines thus far has not
supported any presence at all.

 That is actually the case,
 because the impression of the machine is a conjunct of both a
 digitalizable belief and (some) truth, with the greek's suggested
 notion of knowledge.

beliefs, truths, knowledge...these are abstractions to me. Tertiary
level commentaries on experience which barely exist. Important, sure,
but lacking in any power to initiate direct action. Which is maybe why
a machine has no such power.




  If you negate this, it means that
  you assume the level to be infinitely low,

  No, it means I understand that your assumption that description
  can be
  quantified is simplistic and inaccurate.

  Description of my (generalized) brain. With your theory we have
  zombie.

  Never zombie, only puppet. Zombie is like calling water 'wet fire'.

 I don't think so. With the Heisenberg Matrix of the Milky way, no-one
 would be able to distinguish me or you from the behavior of the entity
 simulated. If comp is false, those entity who behaves exactly like
 you or me, are not conscious, and so they are by definition p-zombie.

The word zombie privileges the expectation of consciousness, while the
word puppet does not. The fact that the Heisenberg Matrix of the Milky
way fails completely in detecting consciousness does not mean that the
simulations it takes for genuine are missing something that they
should have.

That they are simulations in the first place means that we intend them
to resemble something that they are not. I make a witch's head out of
a shrunken apple - that is a simulation of a witch; a puppet of a
witch. It isn't an actual witch that has been rendered a zombie. It
freaks me out that I keep having to explain this, it seems stunningly
obvious to me. I draw a dog on a paper bag, is it now a dog zombie?

The deeper insight here of course is that simulation relates only to
the intended audience. It looks like a witch or a dog only to us. It's
a text. It's symbols are not grounded in the firmament of the cosmos
like matter or biology, they are only suggestions that help 'us'
fabricate a fictional association for ourselves.




  Study the sane04 paper.  Or search in the archive. It is a
  consequence
  of comp that physics emerge from the way numbers can bet on
  arithmetical relations. It is not entirely obvious.

  I don't have a problem with physics emerging from comp, I have a
  problem with consciousness emerging from either one.

 I understand.
 This is related with the fact that we can explain why consciousness is
 not entirely explainable by the machine.
 The machine also find hard to believe that consciousness emerge from
 arithmetical truth. But she cannot accept this because she can
 understand the necessary transcendent aspect of any notion of truth
 encompassing the truth about herself.

It sounds like you mean that machines can tell what is true about
themselves so they can't accept that there is an external source of
all truth. That makes a little sense, but I have no problem

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On Mar 22, 6:09 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 On 3/22/2012 2:53 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:

  Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
  converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
  is lost.
  Sure.  What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the EM 
  spectrum.  Of
  course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the 
  digits and cannot
  capture more than a measure zero.

  Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was
  that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be
  modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world
  within it.

 I'm not sure that's so.  All of our physical models of the world are based on 
 continua.
 Continua can be described and reasoned about by a digital system and 
 continuous models can
 be computed to arbitrarily high precision (which is what we actually do in 
 science and
 engineering).

That's because the world that they are modeling is actually not
digital, but the model itself still is. If there is a machine
intelligence in there, we know that it must live in the world that we
give it to sample digitally, whether or not it can produce output
which we interpret non-digitally. It's back to symbol grounding again.
I have a digital CD playing on a digital receiver. The acoustic
drivers are digital too. The music is not digital. The CD, the
receiver, and the speakers cannot hear the music. We can safely reason
that they probably do not hear the music, yes? We can assume though
that they must sample the CD digitally though. That we know for a
fact. That's all we know for a fact. If the same were true of us, we
would have no real reason to listen to a sequence of digital codes,
but if we did there would be no reason for it to sound like anything
other than a sequence of digital codes. It should sound just like it
tastes.


  Just because our ability to sense the world is not
  unlimited doesn't mean that our sense is digital or a model. Our
  experience of the world may not be a model at all, but a direct
  presentation at the anthropomorphic level (which includes, but is not
  limited to a mixture of lower level analog and digital
  representations).

  Even if our own world were nothing but a digital simulation, the
  experience of it is not digital,

 You don't know that.  How would continua experience differ from digital 
 experience?

It's not about being able to tell the difference, it's the fact that
there is any sensory experience at all. Any kind of sensory experience
is redundant if you have a digital information transfer. It would be
functionally useless and physically implausible to the extreme.


    which wouldn't make sense in a
  digital world. Why create

 Are you asking why God did something?

God, Chief Engineer, evolution, logic, whatever.  Why does it make
sense that sense exists if you don't functionally need it?


  a floridly rich abstraction layer of sense
  experience if you already have the data you need to function
  optimally, or, if you have the sense experience already, why would you
  need any digital data to function?

  Your comment brings up another related point. As you say, we only see
  a small sliver of the EM spectrum. What that means is that we
  (figuratively) 'see' that we don't literally 'see' all that there is.
  We can make inferences that extend beyond the literal capacities of
  our direct sensation. Can machines do that?

 Sure. Machines have extended sensory ability so, for example, they can 
 navigate by GPS
 signals which we can't even detect.

Ugh. Not extended beyond *our* sensory abiility... extended beyond
*their own* sensory ability. We can't see gamma rays, but we figured
out that they (sort of) exist. Do Geiger counters ever figure out that
they are missing the visible spectrum?

 Similarly, migratory birds can navigate by sensing
 the Earth's magnetic field - something we do via prosthetics like compasses.

Yes. I know.


  Can machines figure out
  that they lack emotion on their own?

 If they were sufficiently intelligent.

That is the assumption I'm challenging.

 Are there emotions that you have figured out you
 lack, e.g. mother love?

Of course.

Craig

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Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)

On Mar 22, 8:28 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 On 3/22/2012 4:24 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:









  On Mar 22, 6:09 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:
  On 3/22/2012 2:53 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On Mar 22, 4:58 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net    wrote:
  Then you agree with me: AI cannot make sense out of its world without
  converting or sampling it digitally. That which it fails to digitize
  is lost.
  Sure.  What you don't see you don't see - which is almost all of the EM 
  spectrum.  Of
  course Bruno's theory is that it's all digital, but we're within the 
  digits and cannot
  capture more than a measure zero.
  Yes, human beings can't detect everything either, but my point was
  that we know for certain that everything in an AI's world has to be
  modeled digitally, therefore a digital brain creates a digital world
  within it.
  I'm not sure that's so.  All of our physical models of the world are based 
  on continua.
  Continua can be described and reasoned about by a digital system and 
  continuous models can
  be computed to arbitrarily high precision (which is what we actually do in 
  science and
  engineering).
  That's because the world that they are modeling is actually not
  digital,

 Unsupported assertion.

If the world is digital already, then why would you need to model it?
Does a digital computer need a continua to open a digital file?


  but the model itself still is.

 No. So far as I know, no one has come up with a digital model of physics that 
 isn't
 empirically falsified - and it isn't for want of trying.  All the models are 
 continuous
 and based on real numbers.  It is just that all the calculations and 
 measurements are
 digital, i.e. based on integers.

That's what I'm saying. A model = calculations and measurements.
That's what I mean by the modelling itself. If I write a book about
physics, the book can be written in English but not speculating that
physics itself is an English phenomenon.


  If there is a machine
  intelligence in there, we know that it must live in the world that we
  give it to sample digitally, whether or not it can produce output
  which we interpret non-digitally. It's back to symbol grounding again.

 What difference does it make to symbolic grounding whether the symbol refers 
 to a
 continuum or an integer field?

I never said that those were the two choices, you are the one who
introduced continuity. Both analog and digital are methods of
abstracting. I'm not talking about one kind of model versus another,
I'm talking about concrete presentation versus abstract
representation. My position is that our experience in the world is no
model at all (although modeling is certainly part of it). Our
experience is not a total experience of THE universe, but it is a
total experience of OUR world (perceptual inertial framework), which
includes the understanding that there is a difference and the tools to
actually extend our world further into rest of the universe.

The machine's world is not similarly open to expansion. It does not
have the tools to extend its sense. You could connect a camera to Deep
Blue through a printer port in it would never in a trillion years
figure out how to use it.


  I have a digital CD playing on a digital receiver. The acoustic
  drivers are digital too. The music is not digital.

 Another unsupported assertion. How would you know?

If music were digital you wouldn't need to hear it. You could look at
a picture of the data and get the same experience.

 Some people claimed that digital audio
 sounded different - but double blind tests showed they were mistaken.

That may be true, and that's not what I was talking about, but also I
don't think that any kind of objective test like that prove that
anyone is 'mistaken' about how something feels. It may be that doing a
double blind test creates a placebo effect when subjectivity is being
tested. Just as the double slit test does unexpected things to light,
we cannot assume that our subtle awareness can be manipulated on
demand. That assumption itself is a cognitive bias which may very well
contaminate the data.

It seems to me that digital audio is colder, clearer, with more
brittle and shallow percussion and more sibilance than analog. It's
hard to say because I'm not comparing apples to apples, but I'm not
sure that the experiment you are talking about did either. I don't
know what assumptions they made. Also why does everyone seem to make
the same exact mistake about how digital sounds to them? Why no people
who insist that digital is more expressive and poetic?











  The CD, the
  receiver, and the speakers cannot hear the music. We can safely reason
  that they probably do not hear the music, yes? We can assume though
  that they must sample the CD digitally though. That we know for a
  fact. That's all we know for a fact. If the same were true of us, we
  would have no real reason to listen to a sequence of digital codes,
  but if we

Re: Theology or not theology (Re: COMP theology)