subject:"Free will in MWI"

On May 23, 1:54 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 22, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

   Nominated for a reason or nominated for no reason.

   Wrong. I am doing the nominating.

 You are doing the nominating for a reason or you are doing the nominating
 for no reason.

Reason is not nominating anyone by itself. I am doing the nominating
by reasoning. Reasons don't care what I nominate, but I do.


   I have many reasons

 Then you are deterministic.

In the sense that I make determinations, but if that's true than being
deterministic means having free will, and so the word loses all
meaning.

 Many reasons do not make something less
 deterministic, it just makes it more complex; but if there were NO reasons
 then things really would be different, then things would be random.

Many reasons is important because there is a conscious agent who can
not only understand existing reasons and pick from among them, but who
can *generate new reasons themselves*.


  I can create a new course of action

 And you created that new course of action for a reason (or reasons) in
 which case it was deterministic, OR you created that new course of action
 for no reason, not even one, in which case your action was random.

I understand what you are saying completely. I understand that in
theory it should make sense. What I have been telling you though, is
that rigid logic is not sufficient the phenomenological reality of the
actual universe we inhabit. You are literally thinking in black and
white. In that metaphor, free will is the unquestionable existence of
color.


   which cannot be reduced to 'for a reason or no reason'.

 There is only one thing that can not be reduced to X or not X, gibberish.

There are many terms for that approach to thinking. I would call it
epistemological fascism or Aristotelian reductionism. It's good for
some things, but not everything, certainly not for explaining
awareness itself.


  When you say I want to do some things and don't want to do other things
  how
  is that not free will?

 So, you demand to know what the reason was that caused me to write what I
 did. If I said I wrote that for no reason at all then I am certain you
 would interpret that as a admission that I had lost the argument.

There is no such thing as winning or losing an argument without free
will. I have reasons and you have yours and we are impotent
spectators. There can be no argument.

 But you
 are a fan of the free will noise so I don't understand why me saying I
 had no reason for doing something would not satisfy you.

You can say you had no reason for writing that but I know it isn't
true, because I have free will to decide whether I trust my own sense
or to accept an external position as my own.


 However I personally think it's bad form to write things for no reason,

That sounds like you are making a free will choice out of a personal
preference rather than involuntarily watching reasons do your writing
for you. What is allowing you to do that? What reason do you have for
wanting to take credit for 'personally thinking'? What is this
'personally think' ASCII noise?

 and
 so as it happens I did have a reason for writing what I wrote. The word
 will is not logically contradictory because I want to do something for a
 reason OR I want to do something for no reason.

Who said that what you want to do matters? What reason do you have to
believe that? Don't you see that you are using free will to choose to
deny free will?

 In free will I don't want
 to do something for a reason AND I don't want to do something for no
 reason; and that's what makes the free will noise triple distilled extra
 virgin 100% pure GIBBERISH.

Several people have tried to explain this to you here several times,
but your ego is too invested in it. The argument ended as soon as you
said I don't want... That is free will and nothing else. Do you say,
'these reasons want'? No, it's I who does the wanting and choosing and
creating. I have reasons. Reasons do not have me.


 So the reason that caused my writing to differentiate  between will and
 free will is that one is gibberish and the other is not.

Without free will, there would be no difference between the two. You
take consciousness for granted and then deny that it exists.


  You can argue that this feeling of wanting to do things is an illusion

 I honestly don't know what to make of that. In the first place illusion is
 a perfectly real subjective phenomena and in the second place it's true, we
 really do want to do some things and not do other things.

So then we agree, the feeling is real.


   but that leaves the problem of what would be the point of such a feeling
  to exist in the universe that is purely deterministic.

 If the universe determines that my life has no meaning then the universe
 can kiss my ass because the universe is not in the meaning conveying
 business, intelligence is.

Do you imagine that meaning and intelligence

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 23, 10:05 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
  There is obviously at least a small probability that you will decide
  to sleep under a bush tonight.

  Only because of how we have defined probability and our assumptions
  about what it possible. There is nothing to say those definitions and
  assumptions relate to something real.

 If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
 then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
 My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
 you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

I approve of it completely as an exercise in abstraction, but yes, I
am confident that a universe of probability alone cannot generate
sense of any kind.










  You would have to admit that under your
  concept of free will, otherwise in a deterministic single universe you
  would be compelled to sleep in your bed, which I don't have a problem
  with but you do. In a deterministic multiverse, you will definitely
  sleep in your bed in most universes (loosely most if they are
  infinite in number) and definitely sleep under a bush in a few. You
  can't be sure in which type of universe you will end up in so the
  future is indeterminate.

  I understand the theory, and it would be interesting if we were in a
  theoretical universe, but ultimately it's absurd. It's Horton Hears A
  Who on crack. There would be a quintillion universes for every dust
  mite's turd's journey through the bed sheets. All it accomplishes is
  to find a way of arguing a way that everything in the universe is real
  except our own will is real. Somehow our ordinary experience is a
  magical exception because the idea of our decision making power makes
  us uncomfortable to explain.

 So are you saying that you don't believe in the multiverse or are you
 saying that the multiverse, if it were to exist, would leave no room
 for free will?

I'm saying that if it existed its irrelevant, and that the only reason
we are reaching for it is out of desperation with the inadequacy of
our models. Without making sense the keystone of any model of realism,
you will end up reaching for the unreal as a deus ex machina.










   No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
   for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
   superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
   libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
   but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
   counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
   universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
   Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
   of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
   movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
   that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
   view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

  Whether it's true or not is a separate question but it does allow for
  your future to be truly indeterminate in a deterministic multiverse.
  The teleportation thought experiments we often talk about here model
  this in a simpler way.

  But it does it by neutralizing any significance of one outcome over
  another. Why do we care about determining anything if we have no power
  to change it?

 It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
 your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
 is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
 bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
 yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
 uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
 better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
 freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
 you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
 go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
 bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
 could change your mind.


What point would there be to making any of those outcomes seem
significant to us if every bad decision inevitably has its own
universe anyhow, regardless of our choices?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-24 Thread John Clark

On Thu, May 24, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

Reason is not nominating anyone by itself. I am doing the nominating


Are you doing the nominations for a reason? There are only two possible
answers.

 Reasons don't care what I nominate, but I do.


And if you were constructed differently you would care about different
reasons.

In the sense that I make determinations, but if that's true than being
 deterministic means having free will, and so the word loses all meaning.


Finely! I thought this day would never come but at last you start to get
the point, at least for a instant.

 who can *generate new reasons themselves*.


Did you generate new reasons for a reason? There are only two possible
answers.

 rigid logic is not sufficient the phenomenological reality of the actual
 universe we inhabit.


You don't know any science and now you admit you believe even logic is
unimportant, and yet you still expect to unlock the secrets of the universe
just by sitting in your armchair and thinking, and you don't even have to
think very hard because the colloquial terms that are key to your ideas
don't need to be put under a microscope. Well good luck with that little
endeavor, you're going to need it.

 There is no such thing as winning or losing an argument without free
 will.


I knew it could not last, for a instant you understood that the noise had
no meaning but now you're right back to saying free will, and cows still
say moo and ducks still say quack.

 You can say you had no reason for writing that but I know it isn't true


Interesting, you may not think my reasons are good but you think they are
reasons nevertheless; so you think I'm deterministic.

 I have free will to decide [...]


Did you decide for a reason? There are only two possible answers.

 That sounds like you are making a free will choice


A choice made for a reason or a choice made for no reason. There is no
third alternative.

 out of a personal preference


The reason I have that personal preference is because that's the way my
brain is wired, or perhaps there was no reason at all and thus random.


  What reason do you have for wanting to take credit for 'personally
 thinking'?


So you think I'm deterministic, you want to know what caused me to do what
I did. Well, if there was a reason it was because that is the way my brain
is wired, of course there may not have been a reason at all, it could have
been random.

 What is this 'personally think' ASCII noise?


From this and other things you have said I gather that you believe that
thinking and the fact that things happen for a reason or the don't is
contradictory, but I'll be damned if I understand why that is supposed to
be true. I don't see the connection.


  What reason do you have to believe that?


Once again you demand to know the cause of my belief, you want to know the
reason behind it. Once again you assume I am deterministic, and no doubt in
your next breath you will insist that I am not deterministic, and not
random either!

 Don't you see that you are using free will to choose to deny free will?


The idea is not good enough to deny, free will is so bad it's not even
wrong. And I choose to say that free will is gibberish for a reason or I
say free will is gibberish for no reason, there is no third alternative.

 The argument ended as soon as you said I don't want...


I don't want for a reason or I don't want for no reason, there is no third
alternative.


  I have reasons.


Then you are deterministic.

 Reasons do not have me.


I don't know what that means so this is a case where there may actually be
a third alternative. Reasons do not have you for a reason, or reasons do
not have you for no reason, or reasons do not have you is gibberish.


  You take consciousness for granted and then deny that it exists.


What the hell are you talking about?? Consciousness is the one thing I'm
absolutely certain of, my consciousness anyway, but I don't see what that
has to do with the price of eggs, I thought we were discussing determinism
and randomness.

 In the first place illusion is a perfectly real subjective phenomena and
 in the second place it's true, we really do want to do some things and not
 do other things.


  So then we agree, the feeling is real.


Certainly.

 Do you imagine that meaning and intelligence are not part of the universe?


No.

 We made the laws out of our own free will


Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string free will means.

 Whatever happens, happens.


I think that's probably true, the alternative, whatever happens doesn't
happen just does not ring true to me somehow.

 Why or how could anything try to interfere with that in a deterministic
 universe?


The question is moot, the universe is not deterministic, some things happen
for no reason.

 Then we are deterministic.


  Sure, but we also have free will.


Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string free will means.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

, you want to know the
 reason behind it.

No. I want you to admit that your reasons are your own and not
determined for you exclusively by foreign elements.

 Once again you assume I am deterministic, and no doubt in
 your next breath you will insist that I am not deterministic, and not
 random either!

You are certainly deterministic in part, and you certainly have free
will. Random is debatable. It may be the case that nothing is random
in an absolute sense.


  Don't you see that you are using free will to choose to deny free will?

 The idea is not good enough to deny, free will is so bad it's not even
 wrong. And I choose to say that free will is gibberish for a reason or I
 say free will is gibberish for no reason, there is no third alternative.

Dodging the question. Again. Don't you see that you are using free
will right now?


  The argument ended as soon as you said I don't want...

 I don't want for a reason or I don't want for no reason, there is no third
 alternative.

What do you mean by 'I don't want'? What meaning does that ASCII
string have without free will. It is nothing whatsoever except a
direct assertion of your free will. I don't want. What is the reason
for I? What is the reason for want?


   I have reasons.

 Then you are deterministic.

No, I didn't say that I am reasons. I have a car too, am I a car?


  Reasons do not have me.

 I don't know what that means so this is a case where there may actually be
 a third alternative. Reasons do not have you for a reason, or reasons do
 not have you for no reason, or reasons do not have you is gibberish.

Reasons don't have me because they don't exist independently of
experience. If that were not the case, though, and my reasons could
have reasons, then I would be their reason. Me. My free will is their
reason. I buy you flowers and the reason for you getting flowers is my
will to send them to you. The reason is me. The reason is my free
will. The only question is can you admit that I'm right. I am nearly
certain the answer is no.


   You take consciousness for granted and then deny that it exists.

 What the hell are you talking about?? Consciousness is the one thing I'm
 absolutely certain of, my consciousness anyway, but I don't see what that
 has to do with the price of eggs, I thought we were discussing determinism
 and randomness.

We are discussing free will. Which is the sole purpose of your
consciousness. Note the title of the thread. Not 'Determinism and
Randomness in MWI' but Free will in MWI.


  In the first place illusion is a perfectly real subjective phenomena and
  in the second place it's true, we really do want to do some things and not
  do other things.

   So then we agree, the feeling is real.

 Certainly.

  Do you imagine that meaning and intelligence are not part of the universe?

 No.

  We made the laws out of our own free will

 Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string free will means.

So you don't deny that I am absolutely right.


  Whatever happens, happens.

 I think that's probably true, the alternative, whatever happens doesn't
 happen just does not ring true to me somehow.

It's an expression. You may have heard of it.


  Why or how could anything try to interfere with that in a deterministic
  universe?

 The question is moot, the universe is not deterministic, some things happen
 for no reason.

And some reasons happen for people's will.


  Then we are deterministic.

   Sure, but we also have free will.

 Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string free will means.

Hahahaha, it NEVER gets old.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
 then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
 My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
 you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

 I approve of it completely as an exercise in abstraction, but yes, I
 am confident that a universe of probability alone cannot generate
 sense of any kind.

Probability alone cannot generate sense, for that you need a brain of
some type. However, the brain must be either probabilistic or
deterministic. You still haven't explained the third category, neither
probabilistic nor deterministic. If I assert that I have special dice
which are neither probabilistic nor deterministic, what am I
asserting? How could we tell if I was telling the truth?

 It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
 your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
 is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
 bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
 yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
 uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
 better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
 freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
 you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
 go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
 bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
 could change your mind.


 What point would there be to making any of those outcomes seem
 significant to us if every bad decision inevitably has its own
 universe anyhow, regardless of our choices?

When I worry about a decision I worry about what sort of universe I
will find myself in. In one universe I made a good decision and am
happy, in another I made a bad decision and am unhappy. If I didn't
worry about it, for example if I walked across the road without
looking, then I am more likely to end up in a universe where I am
unhappy.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-24 Thread meekerdb

On 5/24/2012 4:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

I approve of it completely as an exercise in abstraction, but yes, I
am confident that a universe of probability alone cannot generate
sense of any kind.

Probability alone cannot generate sense, for that you need a brain of
some type. However, the brain must be either probabilistic or
deterministic. You still haven't explained the third category, neither
probabilistic nor deterministic. If I assert that I have special dice
which are neither probabilistic nor deterministic, what am I
asserting? How could we tell if I was telling the truth?

Before Newton the idea that the world might be deterministic was hardly even
comprehensible. It was generally supposed that events were partly determined by effective
causes but they were also subject to the unpredictable influence of agents (like God and
people). Randomness, before quantum mechanics, was just a way to model ignorance. So, to
get to your question, what was neither probabilistic nor deterministic were 'agents'.
Agents were recognized as being unpredictable but non-random in the sense of exhibiting
purpose. Now we (except for Craig) recognize that these properties can be found in
machines, like chess players or AI with learning. They can be either probabilistic (in
the inherent sense by having QM random number generators) or deterministic but
unpredictable simply because they are complex and learn from their experience.

It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
could change your mind.

What point would there be to making any of those outcomes seem
significant to us if every bad decision inevitably has its own
universe anyhow, regardless of our choices?

When I worry about a decision I worry about what sort of universe I
will find myself in. In one universe I made a good decision and am
happy, in another I made a bad decision and am unhappy. If I didn't
worry about it, for example if I walked across the road without
looking, then I am more likely to end up in a universe where I am
unhappy.

But do you decide to worry or not?

Brent

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 24, 7:55 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
  If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
  then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
  My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
  you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

  I approve of it completely as an exercise in abstraction, but yes, I
  am confident that a universe of probability alone cannot generate
  sense of any kind.

 Probability alone cannot generate sense, for that you need a brain of
 some type.

How do you know? Lots of living organisms don't have brains. Worms.
Jellyfish. Bacteria that signal each other to act en masse. Sea
anemones seem pretty sensitive to me.

However, the brain must be either probabilistic or
 deterministic.

It doesn't matter what the brain's limitations are. It seems to me
that the psyche uses the brain like a tool. The brain is a 3-D shadow
of an 8-D temporal phenomena.

You still haven't explained the third category, neither
 probabilistic nor deterministic. If I assert that I have special dice
 which are neither probabilistic nor deterministic, what am I
 asserting? How could we tell if I was telling the truth?

The third category is intention. It's quite ordinary and
straightforward. Understood implicitly among all cultures and people.
If you have special dice that determine their rolls intentionally, you
could not tell the difference, but they could. That's because motive
originates from within and is private.










  It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
  your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
  is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
  bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
  yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
  uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
  better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
  freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
  you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
  go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
  bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
  could change your mind.

  What point would there be to making any of those outcomes seem
  significant to us if every bad decision inevitably has its own
  universe anyhow, regardless of our choices?

 When I worry about a decision I worry about what sort of universe I
 will find myself in. In one universe I made a good decision and am
 happy, in another I made a bad decision and am unhappy. If I didn't
 worry about it, for example if I walked across the road without
 looking, then I am more likely to end up in a universe where I am
 unhappy.

But you just create millions of universes where you get hit by a car
no matter what you decide. What would be the point of having a sense
of a personal stake in this particular version of you?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 24, 9:54 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 Now we (except for Craig) recognize that these properties can be found in
 machines, like chess players or AI with learning.  They can be either 
 probabilistic (in
 the inherent sense by having QM random number generators) or deterministic but
 unpredictable simply because they are complex and learn from their experience.

I don't say that AI is without purpose, only that it is without it's
own purpose. AI is a prosthetic extension of human intelligence. A
learning AI has the purposes which have been programmed into it, but
it cannot develop it's own purposes and agendas. A learning AI can
only learn what we let it learn. That isn't meaningful intelligence,
sentience, feeling, or agency. It's a pre-recorded logical algorithm
superimposed on a low level inorganic substrate.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-24 Thread meekerdb


On 5/24/2012 9:24 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On May 24, 9:54 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net  wrote:

Now we (except for Craig) recognize that these properties can be found in
machines, like chess players or AI with learning.  They can be either 
probabilistic (in
the inherent sense by having QM random number generators) or deterministic but
unpredictable simply because they are complex and learn from their experience.

I don't say that AI is without purpose, only that it is without it's
own purpose. AI is a prosthetic extension of human intelligence. A
learning AI has the purposes which have been programmed into it, but
it cannot develop it's own purposes and agendas.


And you are a NI that has been programmed by evolution.


A learning AI can
only learn what we let it learn. That isn't meaningful intelligence,
sentience, feeling, or agency. It's a pre-recorded logical algorithm
superimposed on a low level inorganic substrate.


And it's meaningful that you are attracted to women?  That you find shit repulsive?  That 
you find babies cute?


Brent

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
   --- Schopenhauer

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On 5/25/12, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

However, the brain must be either probabilistic or
 deterministic.

 It doesn't matter what the brain's limitations are. It seems to me
 that the psyche uses the brain like a tool. The brain is a 3-D shadow
 of an 8-D temporal phenomena.

Without the psyche how would the brain behave differently?

You still haven't explained the third category, neither
 probabilistic nor deterministic. If I assert that I have special dice
 which are neither probabilistic nor deterministic, what am I
 asserting? How could we tell if I was telling the truth?

 The third category is intention. It's quite ordinary and
 straightforward. Understood implicitly among all cultures and people.
 If you have special dice that determine their rolls intentionally, you
 could not tell the difference, but they could. That's because motive
 originates from within and is private.

That's not a third category. Determined or probabilistic is a
description of externally observable behaviour. So if you claim that
you could not tell the difference with the special dice, you are
admitting that intention is consistent with either determinism or
randomness, which is what I have been saying all along.

 When I worry about a decision I worry about what sort of universe I
 will find myself in. In one universe I made a good decision and am
 happy, in another I made a bad decision and am unhappy. If I didn't
 worry about it, for example if I walked across the road without
 looking, then I am more likely to end up in a universe where I am
 unhappy.

 But you just create millions of universes where you get hit by a car
 no matter what you decide. What would be the point of having a sense
 of a personal stake in this particular version of you?

I can only experience one universe at a time, so if I cross carefully
I am more likely to experience  a universe where I don't get hit.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-23 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 22, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

  Nominated for a reason or nominated for no reason.


  Wrong. I am doing the nominating.


You are doing the nominating for a reason or you are doing the nominating
for no reason.


  I have many reasons


Then you are deterministic. Many reasons do not make something less
deterministic, it just makes it more complex; but if there were NO reasons
then things really would be different, then things would be random.

 I can create a new course of action


And you created that new course of action for a reason (or reasons) in
which case it was deterministic, OR you created that new course of action
for no reason, not even one, in which case your action was random.


  which cannot be reduced to 'for a reason or no reason'.


There is only one thing that can not be reduced to X or not X, gibberish.

 When you say I want to do some things and don't want to do other things
 how
 is that not free will?


So, you demand to know what the reason was that caused me to write what I
did. If I said I wrote that for no reason at all then I am certain you
would interpret that as a admission that I had lost the argument. But you
are a fan of the free will noise so I don't understand why me saying I
had no reason for doing something would not satisfy you.

However I personally think it's bad form to write things for no reason, and
so as it happens I did have a reason for writing what I wrote. The word
will is not logically contradictory because I want to do something for a
reason OR I want to do something for no reason. In free will I don't want
to do something for a reason AND I don't want to do something for no
reason; and that's what makes the free will noise triple distilled extra
virgin 100% pure GIBBERISH.

So the reason that caused my writing to differentiate  between will and
free will is that one is gibberish and the other is not.

 You can argue that this feeling of wanting to do things is an illusion


I honestly don't know what to make of that. In the first place illusion is
a perfectly real subjective phenomena and in the second place it's true, we
really do want to do some things and not do other things.


  but that leaves the problem of what would be the point of such a feeling
 to exist in the universe that is purely deterministic.


If the universe determines that my life has no meaning then the universe
can kiss my ass because the universe is not in the meaning conveying
business, intelligence is. A cloud of hydrogen gas a billion light years
away can not give meaning to me but I can give meaning to it, and if the
universe doesn't like that fact the universe can lump it.


  We interpret and execute the law


Here we go again. We interpret and execute the law for a reason or we
interpret and execute the law for no reason.

 There are laws we are compelled to observe and preserve


Then we are deterministic.

 but the way we choose to do that [...]


We choose the way we do that (and it does not matter what that is) for a
reason or we choose the way we do that for no reason.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-23 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 There is obviously at least a small probability that you will decide
 to sleep under a bush tonight.

 Only because of how we have defined probability and our assumptions
 about what it possible. There is nothing to say those definitions and
 assumptions relate to something real.

If it is absolutely certain that you won't sleep under a bush tonight
then it is impossible that you will do so and the probability is zero.
My understanding is that you don't approve of this sort of certain as
you believe it leaves no room for free will or even consciousness.

 You would have to admit that under your
 concept of free will, otherwise in a deterministic single universe you
 would be compelled to sleep in your bed, which I don't have a problem
 with but you do. In a deterministic multiverse, you will definitely
 sleep in your bed in most universes (loosely most if they are
 infinite in number) and definitely sleep under a bush in a few. You
 can't be sure in which type of universe you will end up in so the
 future is indeterminate.

 I understand the theory, and it would be interesting if we were in a
 theoretical universe, but ultimately it's absurd. It's Horton Hears A
 Who on crack. There would be a quintillion universes for every dust
 mite's turd's journey through the bed sheets. All it accomplishes is
 to find a way of arguing a way that everything in the universe is real
 except our own will is real. Somehow our ordinary experience is a
 magical exception because the idea of our decision making power makes
 us uncomfortable to explain.

So are you saying that you don't believe in the multiverse or are you
saying that the multiverse, if it were to exist, would leave no room
for free will?

  No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
  for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
  superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
  libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
  but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
  counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
  universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
  Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
  of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
  movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
  that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
  view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

 Whether it's true or not is a separate question but it does allow for
 your future to be truly indeterminate in a deterministic multiverse.
 The teleportation thought experiments we often talk about here model
 this in a simpler way.

 But it does it by neutralizing any significance of one outcome over
 another. Why do we care about determining anything if we have no power
 to change it?

It doesn't neutralise significance. In one universe you wake up in
your bed and you tell yourself that you made a good decision, your bed
is warm and comfortable and it would have been stupid to sleep under a
bush. In another universe you wake up under a bush and you tell
yourself that you made a good decision, even though you were cold and
uncomfortable, because you have achieved your purpose of empathising
better with homeless people. In each case you made your own decision,
freely, with good reason and according to the laws of physics. Before
you made the decision you were not completely sure which way you would
go. Right now, you can say you're pretty sure you will wake up in your
bed tomorrow and I would bet that that is what will happen, but you
could change your mind.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-22 Thread John Clark

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 In addition to approving of one presented option and disapproving of
 another,


Approved for a reason or approved for no reason.

 free will allows us to nominate our own option for approval.


Nominated for a reason or nominated for no reason.

 I don't see much of a difference between 'will' and 'free will'.


The meaning of will is clear and its existence beyond dispute, I want to do
some things and don't want to do other things. But free will means that
simultaneously something happened for no reason and that same something did
not happened for no reason; this is not even nonsense because there is no
sense for it to be opposite to. The stories of Lewis Carroll are nonsense
but they are not gibberish, the free will noise is gibberish.

They are both colloquial


Translation: Shallow. Not thought through. Vague. Ignorant.

 terms that don't need to be put under a microscope.


Philosophers have been studying these terms for thousands of years without
the use of modern tools like microscopes and logic and the scientific
method, and that is why they have made precisely ZERO progress in all that
time. All your posts could have been written by any philosophically minded
well educated man living in 1000BC, but the thing is the human race has
learned far more good philosophy since then, but not from philosophers.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-22 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 21, 7:44 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 4:00 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
  In a branching multiverse where all possibilities happen at a decision
  point, some versions of you decide to type the sentence and others do
  not. This could be completely deterministic for the multiverse as a
  whole: x versions of you will definitely type it, y versions of you
  will definitely not.

  I understand the theory, but my example shows how that appears not to
  be the case, since my experience of intending to do something almost
  always results in an experience where I do what I intended. I can
  control the probability range that it will happen through the strength
  of my motive and the clarity of my sense.

  However, from your point of view, you don't know
  which version of you you will experience, so your future is
  indeterminate /  random / probabilistic, not deterministic.

  So you say. How much do you want to bet that I'm going to sleep in my
  bed tonight? How about for the rest of my life not including
  vacations? That's a lot of universe where I sleep under a bush or on
  the roof or in Jellystone Park.

 There is obviously at least a small probability that you will decide
 to sleep under a bush tonight.

Only because of how we have defined probability and our assumptions
about what it possible. There is nothing to say those definitions and
assumptions relate to something real.

 You would have to admit that under your
 concept of free will, otherwise in a deterministic single universe you
 would be compelled to sleep in your bed, which I don't have a problem
 with but you do. In a deterministic multiverse, you will definitely
 sleep in your bed in most universes (loosely most if they are
 infinite in number) and definitely sleep under a bush in a few. You
 can't be sure in which type of universe you will end up in so the
 future is indeterminate.

I understand the theory, and it would be interesting if we were in a
theoretical universe, but ultimately it's absurd. It's Horton Hears A
Who on crack. There would be a quintillion universes for every dust
mite's turd's journey through the bed sheets. All it accomplishes is
to find a way of arguing a way that everything in the universe is real
except our own will is real. Somehow our ordinary experience is a
magical exception because the idea of our decision making power makes
us uncomfortable to explain.










  It's
  impossible - logically impossible, impossible even if you know every
  deterministic detail of the multiverse's future history - for you to
  know which version will be the real you, since all versions have
  equal claim to being the real you. This is a quite simple, but
  counterintuitive idea.

  No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
  for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
  superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
  libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
  but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
  counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
  universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
  Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
  of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
  movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
  that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
  view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

 Whether it's true or not is a separate question but it does allow for
 your future to be truly indeterminate in a deterministic multiverse.
 The teleportation thought experiments we often talk about here model
 this in a simpler way.

But it does it by neutralizing any significance of one outcome over
another. Why do we care about determining anything if we have no power
to change it?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-22 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 22, 12:49 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

  In addition to approving of one presented option and disapproving of
  another,

 Approved for a reason or approved for no reason.

right


  free will allows us to nominate our own option for approval.

 Nominated for a reason or nominated for no reason.

Wrong. I am doing the nominating. I have many reasons, feelings,
whims, etc. but it is not necessary for me to choose any of those or
not choose any of them. I can create a new course of action which
synthesizes some existing elements and projects forward my own novel
intention which cannot be reduced to 'for a reason or no reason'.


  I don't see much of a difference between 'will' and 'free will'.

 The meaning of will is clear and its existence beyond dispute, I want to do
 some things and don't want to do other things. But free will means that
 simultaneously something happened for no reason and that same something did
 not happened for no reason; this is not even nonsense because there is no
 sense for it to be opposite to. The stories of Lewis Carroll are nonsense
 but they are not gibberish, the free will noise is gibberish.

You are defining free will as an a priori non-sequitur and then
insisting that anyone other than you is defining it that way. When you
say I want to do some things and don't want to do other things how
is that not free will? You can argue that this feeling of wanting to
do things is an illusion as far as it being truly causally efficacious
in our body and the world, but that leaves the problem of what would
be the point of such a feeling to exist in the universe that is purely
deterministic.

It's not that free will is ambiguously deterministic and non-
determistic, it's that it is orthogonal to determinism. Why? Because
our initiative is on the same level as the ground of being. There are
laws of physics and we represent some of them personally. We are the
Sheriff of voluntary muscle movement in our body and of executive
functions of our central nervous system. We interpret and execute the
law personally. There are laws we are compelled to observe and
preserve, but the way we choose to do that, what we emphasize and let
slide, those are actually up to us as individual people and nobody
else.


 They are both colloquial

 Translation: Shallow. Not thought through. Vague. Ignorant.

Not at all. Informal, popular, useful, general rather than technical
or academic.


  terms that don't need to be put under a microscope.

 Philosophers have been studying these terms for thousands of years without
 the use of modern tools like microscopes and logic and the scientific
 method, and that is why they have made precisely ZERO progress in all that
 time. All your posts could have been written by any philosophically minded
 well educated man living in 1000BC, but the thing is the human race has
 learned far more good philosophy since then, but not from philosophers.

How is that really working out for us though? 
http://thismodernworld.com/archives/7012

Maybe it's time to take our hypertrophied objectifying minds and give
subjectivity a fresh look, you know, without the chip on our shoulder.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-21 Thread John Clark

On Sun, May 20, 2012  PM Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

 Free means it is not imposed onto you. It is free because the choice was
 made by you.


I have no problem with that and I have no problem with the word will; its
meaning is clear, people want to do some things and they don't want to do
other things. On the other hand not only is it not clear if human beings
have this thing called free will it's not even clear what the hell the
term is supposed to mean.

  John K Clark















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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-21 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 21, 10:47 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, May 20, 2012  PM Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:

  Free means it is not imposed onto you. It is free because the choice was
  made by you.

 I have no problem with that and I have no problem with the word will; its
 meaning is clear, people want to do some things and they don't want to do
 other things. On the other hand not only is it not clear if human beings
 have this thing called free will it's not even clear what the hell the
 term is supposed to mean.

In addition to approving of one presented option and disapproving of
another, free will allows us to nominate our own option for approval.

I don't see much of a difference between 'will' and 'free will'. They
are both colloquial terms that don't need to be put under a
microscope. Free will is used in philosophy and implies that one's
will provides a significant degree of influence of in shaping your
destiny or circumstances, as opposed to being put upon by circumstance
to determine your every thought, feeling, and action. It emphasizes
the liberating potential of voluntary personal effort.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-21 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 4:00 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 In a branching multiverse where all possibilities happen at a decision
 point, some versions of you decide to type the sentence and others do
 not. This could be completely deterministic for the multiverse as a
 whole: x versions of you will definitely type it, y versions of you
 will definitely not.

 I understand the theory, but my example shows how that appears not to
 be the case, since my experience of intending to do something almost
 always results in an experience where I do what I intended. I can
 control the probability range that it will happen through the strength
 of my motive and the clarity of my sense.

 However, from your point of view, you don't know
 which version of you you will experience, so your future is
 indeterminate /  random / probabilistic, not deterministic.

 So you say. How much do you want to bet that I'm going to sleep in my
 bed tonight? How about for the rest of my life not including
 vacations? That's a lot of universe where I sleep under a bush or on
 the roof or in Jellystone Park.

There is obviously at least a small probability that you will decide
to sleep under a bush tonight. You would have to admit that under your
concept of free will, otherwise in a deterministic single universe you
would be compelled to sleep in your bed, which I don't have a problem
with but you do. In a deterministic multiverse, you will definitely
sleep in your bed in most universes (loosely most if they are
infinite in number) and definitely sleep under a bush in a few. You
can't be sure in which type of universe you will end up in so the
future is indeterminate.

 It's
 impossible - logically impossible, impossible even if you know every
 deterministic detail of the multiverse's future history - for you to
 know which version will be the real you, since all versions have
 equal claim to being the real you. This is a quite simple, but
 counterintuitive idea.

 No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
 for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
 superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
 libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
 but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
 counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
 universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
 Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
 of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
 movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
 that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
 view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

Whether it's true or not is a separate question but it does allow for
your future to be truly indeterminate in a deterministic multiverse.
The teleportation thought experiments we often talk about here model
this in a simpler way.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-20 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 19 May 2012, at 19:46, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 18, 2:56 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 17 May 2012, at 23:02, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 17, 2:04 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:



Sense and matter is what I search an explanation for. You start at
the
finishing line.



That's why you are looking at it upside down. There isn't an
explanation for explanation. It is both the start and finish line.


The whole AI, and comp coginitive science search, at the least,
explanation for explanation, and a part of it is rather convincing
imo. Here you beg the question by extending a lot your don't ask
philosophy, I think.


I'm not saying don't ask at all - by all means, ask away...but what is
ask made of in the first place?

It makes sense to me that comp explanations should make almost perfect
sense. They make as much sense of the universe as you can make without
factoring in sense itself. Once you factor in actual presentation of
concrete experience, you should see that there can be nothing that it
can logically supervene upon. In order for it to supervene on
arithmetic truth, you would have to show actual presentation through
arithmetic alone without any matter or energy at all to ground it in a
timespace experience within the comsos.

Arithmetic has no way to get to timespace without inventing it for no
arithmetic purpose. Arithmetic can't justify sense, it assumes sense
behind numbers and from the start and begs the question of AI by
extending the it can't be that simple philosophy.


That just saying that comp is false, without argument.










BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means
that
if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp.



So if I utter 'Toast is square', that means that eventually I will
utter 'I utter Toast is square' and then 'I utter I utter I  
utter I

utter Toast is squalre'?



In principle, except that all universal machine get bored and stop
for
contingent reason. But to do the math, some simplification are in
order.


If I'm a UM though, I don't seem to be doing that. I don't seem to  
be

recapitulating the recapitulation of everything I've ever done
continuously.


You took my words too much literally. B is really believable, not
believed.


So I am continuously making my beliefs that my beliefs that my beliefs
are believable?


No. Just that if p is believable, then p is believable is  
believable. And so one. I work in platonia with ideal machines.











And that is
a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and
me.


I never argue that sense is dependent on human consciousness at  
all.

Sense is universal and literally older than time itself.


I have no clue what is that sense and how it related to the use  
of

the word sense.


Sense should be self defining, but to be technical I'll say that  
it is

detection, participation, and organizing relations between anything
and everything.


That's OK. But why believe a priori that machines can't do that.


Because machines aren't detecting, participating, and organizing their
own relations, they are driven only by agendas external to the
assembly as a whole, which ride on top of the natural low level
agendas of the groups of molecules, their relation to other objects,
the planet, sun, etc. It's the symbol grounding problem. Metal boxes
don't feel animal joy and suffering. They may feel electromotive
enthusiasm or tactile-acoustic collision, etc, but they have no
history as biological organisms that have proven their desire to
survive.


Yet they survive, and participate with in the multiplication. You just  
feel superior, and you make unfair comparison. You could have mocked  
the bacteries, which eventually made us.










You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of  
arithmetic.



Not at all. You are assuming that arithmetic is conceivable
outside of
some kind of sense faculty


That would not make ... sense. You need a conceptor to conceive.  
But

you don't need one to make a proposition true or false.



You need a conceptor to even make a proposition in the first place.


Sure, but the truth of the proposition does not depend on the
existence of the sentence possibly used to express that proposition
later. The proposition the Moon is a satellite of Earth was  
arguably

true before humans assert propositions.


I would argue that proposition is true if and only if there is some
awareness of Moonness, Earthness, and a relation between them as well.


Yes, it is your panpsychisme. It makes both matter and mind more  
mysterious, and even if true, does not really contradict comp and its  
consequence, it needs only making the substitution level very low, and  
look at  the points of view.





If there was nothing outside of the Moon and Earth, the Earths
universe would consist of only the feeling of being the Earth and
detecting the Moon. It could not

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-20 Thread John Clark

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 All free will means is any change made because you wanted to.


That would be fine except I know that is NOT all you believe free will
means because I know you would not be happy about a calculator having free
will, but when the keys 2 + 3 and = are depressed in that sequence
the calculator wants to display a 5.

No!, I can hear you scream, that's different! Well if it's different then
obviously that's not all free will means, there is also a very
substantial gibberish component to it.


  You decide what reasons you care about


The calculator decides what LED number to light up.


 My decisions aren't events that happen unless I decide to make them
 happen.


Very deep. And a calculator can't calculate unless it's calculations
happen.

Can a cuckoo clock decide to nail the door of the clock shut?


No.

How can you tell the difference between something random and something
 caused by an agent you have no understanding of?


You can't.

 Spring is not summer.


 Why not?


I do not consider that point worth debating.


  I have never made any choice for only one reason.


So a large number of deterministic factors caused you to do what you did,
or perhaps it was random and no factors at all caused you to do what you
did; there is no third way.

 If you won't respect free will


I respect it just as much as I respect a burp.

 What you think liberty is if not free will?


The ability to do what you want to do. As I said before I have no problem
with the word will it's free will that is gibberish.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-20 Thread Craig Weinberg

 On May 20, 1:49 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

  All free will means is any change made because you wanted to.

 That would be fine except I know that is NOT all you believe free will
 means because I know you would not be happy about a calculator having free
 will, but when the keys 2 + 3 and = are depressed in that sequence
 the calculator wants to display a 5.

Would you be happy about saying that a trash can lid that says THANK
YOU means that the trash can wants to thank you?


 No!, I can hear you scream, that's different! Well if it's different then
 obviously that's not all free will means, there is also a very
 substantial gibberish component to it.

It's different because you smuggled the word 'wants' into your example
and that is a begging the question fallacy. Wants is free will. If the
calculator wants something then it has free will. If we knew that the
calculator wanted something then we wouldn't be having this
conversation. I know that the calculator does not want to show '5'. It
doesn't know what that ASCII-like shape is.

Actually that's the key to this whole exchange. Your claims of not
understanding free will are exactly why the calculator doesn't have
free will, only it's not pretending. It really doesn't know the
meaning of the words.


   You decide what reasons you care about

 The calculator decides what LED number to light up.

No, it decides nothing. It has no choice. You decide what LEDs to make
it light up and you decide that stands for the number you expect. The
calculation is correct, but only because there are electromagnetic
regularities in the solid state crystals that we exploit. Those
electronic conditions are symptoms of the only real wants in the thing
- holding and releasing synchronized feelings and actions amongst
semiconducting molecules.


  My decisions aren't events that happen unless I decide to make them
  happen.

 Very deep. And a calculator can't calculate unless it's calculations
 happen.

Right, but it's calculations aren't decisions at all. It can't decide
that 2 + 3 = 17.


 Can a cuckoo clock decide to nail the door of the clock shut?



 No.

Right.


 How can you tell the difference between something random and something

  caused by an agent you have no understanding of?

 You can't.

That's what I'm saying.


  Spring is not summer.

  Why not?

 I do not consider that point worth debating.

You would if you had a position worth defending.


   I have never made any choice for only one reason.

 So a large number of deterministic factors caused you to do what you did,
 or perhaps it was random and no factors at all caused you to do what you
 did; there is no third way.

Of course there is a third, orthogonal way. Intention.


  If you won't respect free will

 I respect it just as much as I respect a burp.

No, that's false. You don't claim to not know what the word burp
means.


  What you think liberty is if not free will?

 The ability to do what you want to do. As I said before I have no problem
 with the word will it's free will that is gibberish.

All will is free to some extent. What would it mean not to have will
otherwise? If someone hypnotizes you and turns you into their slave,
would you not have lost your freedom to express will?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-19 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 18, 2:56 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 17 May 2012, at 23:02, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 17, 2:04 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  Sense and matter is what I search an explanation for. You start at
  the
  finishing line.

  That's why you are looking at it upside down. There isn't an
  explanation for explanation. It is both the start and finish line.

 The whole AI, and comp coginitive science search, at the least,
 explanation for explanation, and a part of it is rather convincing
 imo. Here you beg the question by extending a lot your don't ask
 philosophy, I think.

I'm not saying don't ask at all - by all means, ask away...but what is
ask made of in the first place?

It makes sense to me that comp explanations should make almost perfect
sense. They make as much sense of the universe as you can make without
factoring in sense itself. Once you factor in actual presentation of
concrete experience, you should see that there can be nothing that it
can logically supervene upon. In order for it to supervene on
arithmetic truth, you would have to show actual presentation through
arithmetic alone without any matter or energy at all to ground it in a
timespace experience within the comsos.

Arithmetic has no way to get to timespace without inventing it for no
arithmetic purpose. Arithmetic can't justify sense, it assumes sense
behind numbers and from the start and begs the question of AI by
extending the it can't be that simple philosophy.




  BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
  For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means
  that
  if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp.

  So if I utter 'Toast is square', that means that eventually I will
  utter 'I utter Toast is square' and then 'I utter I utter I utter I
  utter Toast is squalre'?

  In principle, except that all universal machine get bored and stop
  for
  contingent reason. But to do the math, some simplification are in
  order.

  If I'm a UM though, I don't seem to be doing that. I don't seem to be
  recapitulating the recapitulation of everything I've ever done
  continuously.

 You took my words too much literally. B is really believable, not
 believed.

So I am continuously making my beliefs that my beliefs that my beliefs
are believable?




  And that is
  a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and
  me.

  I never argue that sense is dependent on human consciousness at all.
  Sense is universal and literally older than time itself.

  I have no clue what is that sense and how it related to the use of
  the word sense.

  Sense should be self defining, but to be technical I'll say that it is
  detection, participation, and organizing relations between anything
  and everything.

 That's OK. But why believe a priori that machines can't do that.

Because machines aren't detecting, participating, and organizing their
own relations, they are driven only by agendas external to the
assembly as a whole, which ride on top of the natural low level
agendas of the groups of molecules, their relation to other objects,
the planet, sun, etc. It's the symbol grounding problem. Metal boxes
don't feel animal joy and suffering. They may feel electromotive
enthusiasm or tactile-acoustic collision, etc, but they have no
history as biological organisms that have proven their desire to
survive.




  You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of arithmetic.

  Not at all. You are assuming that arithmetic is conceivable
  outside of
  some kind of sense faculty

  That would not make ... sense. You need a conceptor to conceive. But
  you don't need one to make a proposition true or false.

  You need a conceptor to even make a proposition in the first place.

 Sure, but the truth of the proposition does not depend on the
 existence of the sentence possibly used to express that proposition
 later. The proposition the Moon is a satellite of Earth was arguably
 true before humans assert propositions.

I would argue that proposition is true if and only if there is some
awareness of Moonness, Earthness, and a relation between them as well.
If there was nothing outside of the Moon and Earth, the Earths
universe would consist of only the feeling of being the Earth and
detecting the Moon. It could not see itself as a planet unless it
figured it out through the experience of the revolving rotating moon
(forget that there would be no light without the sun) and a leap of
faith rooted in metaphor that perhaps what is inside is like what is
outside.

That would forever be a mystery however unless there is a third
similar object, so that either of the other two can confidently infer
that they are all similar objects in similar relation. You would need
that third subject to make the proposition the Moon is a satellite of
Earth true.


  True or false is a second order logic on top of that. The idea that
  you don't need a subject to make a proposition

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-19 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 18, 8:02 pm, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 1:03 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
  You haven't understood a basic point, which is important independently
  of the current discussion. This point is that if we live in a
  perfectly deterministic multiverse, our subjective experience will be
  probabilistic. This is because it is impossible for a being embedded
  in the multiverse to know in which branch he will end up. The
  impossibility is logical, not merely empirical.

  If I decide to type this sentence, the probability of both of us
  ending up in a branch of the multiverse in which this sentence appears
  before you on your screen is close to 100%. How does that work
  exactly?

  Since I know that it will appear in both of our universes, not merely
  logically or empirically but intuitively and unquestionably, does that
  mean that MWI is cannot be viable?

 In a branching multiverse where all possibilities happen at a decision
 point, some versions of you decide to type the sentence and others do
 not. This could be completely deterministic for the multiverse as a
 whole: x versions of you will definitely type it, y versions of you
 will definitely not.

I understand the theory, but my example shows how that appears not to
be the case, since my experience of intending to do something almost
always results in an experience where I do what I intended. I can
control the probability range that it will happen through the strength
of my motive and the clarity of my sense.

 However, from your point of view, you don't know
 which version of you you will experience, so your future is
 indeterminate /  random / probabilistic, not deterministic.

So you say. How much do you want to bet that I'm going to sleep in my
bed tonight? How about for the rest of my life not including
vacations? That's a lot of universe where I sleep under a bush or on
the roof or in Jellystone Park.

 It's
 impossible - logically impossible, impossible even if you know every
 deterministic detail of the multiverse's future history - for you to
 know which version will be the real you, since all versions have
 equal claim to being the real you. This is a quite simple, but
 counterintuitive idea.

No I understand the idea completely, I just think it's an obvious plug
for the inconsistencies of QM. Like Dark matter dark energy,
superposition, emergence, and entanglement. It's all phlogiston,
libido, elan vital, animal magnetism, etc. It's quite nice in theory,
but it sodomizes one side of Occam's Razor with the other. It's
counter intuitive because it's an absurd way of explaining the
universe in terms of nearly infinite nearly nonsensical universes.
Every grain of sand on every planet in the cosmos having it's own set
of universes customized to fit every pebble collision and sea tousled
movement? Seriously? With sense as a primitive you don't need any of
that. The universe is one thing with different views of itself. Each
view doesn't need to be a creator of literal separate universes.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-19 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 18, 4:12 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

  They [computers] won't EVER discover a printer that is sitting right next
  to them without having drivers loaded and configured

 And you won't EVER discover a printer sitting right next to you if you had
 no eyes or hands.

Sure I would. I could listen for it running. I could yell out, 'hey
can someone turn on the printer' or fumble around with my foot or a
cane and turn it on with my teeth.


  Did the reason change your internal programming by itself while you
  passively watched or did you voluntarily decide to commit to it?

 Voluntarily just means a change made because I wanted to, and that want
 came about for a reason or it did not come about for a reason and the free
 will noise is not needed to understand any of this.

All free will means is any change made because you wanted to. It
doesn't matter why you made the change, because the decision
ultimately is yours. You decide what reasons you care about to some
degree (any degree greater than 'not at all ever' will do to establish
some level of free will).


   How do you know the car isn't controlling your foot instead?

 As long as me and my car agree where my foot should be it wouldn't matter,
 and so far I haven't been in any major car wrecks so we seem to agree on
 where my foot should be.

That's a philosophically valid way to think about it but it's complete
crap. It's what you tell someone if you want to spend a few days in
the psych ward. If I was into multisense unrealism, I would agree,
yes, that's a cool way of thinking about it, but if I had to guess at
how the universe actually works or be run over by a riding mower, I
would go with the obvious reality that we are driving the car and the
car is going where we are driving it, not the other way around.


  According to your argument, there would be no way to tell the difference

 I believe I just said that, and if there is no way to tell the difference
 then there is no reason to care.

But if you actually can't tell the difference in reality, you are
having a psychotic episode.


  You are the one who keeps injecting random into this.

 I am just injecting the very obvious and noncontroversial fact that events
 happen for a reason or they do not.

My decisions aren't events that happen unless I decide to make them
happen.


  I don't need random at all to understand free will.

 Fine, then you think we always do things for a reason, a cuckoo clock does
 too.

Can a cuckoo clock decide to nail the door of the clock shut?


  Random is nothing but a quality of pattern recognition. If we can't find
  a pattern, we call it random.

 You're a little behind the times, a century ago most thought that was
 probably true and that everything had a cause we just don't know it, but
 today most think it's probably false and even a century ago it was known
 that there is no law of logic that demands all events have associated
 causes. However this is all irrelevant, true or false it will not help you
 explain what the hell the ASCII string free will is supposed to mean.

How can you tell the difference between something random and something
caused by an agent you have no understanding of?


  Which is it? Is spring summer or is spring not summer?

 Spring is not summer.

Why not? Spring and summer can be two different ways of referring to
the warmer time of year. Light blue could be named Cool green instead.
Words are made up. In the tropics they undoubtedly have the same word
for spring and summer. Where I live there is no meaningful difference
between the seasons anymore. It can be winter in the afternoon and
summer at night. It happens all the time.


   Spring and summer are just different degrees of the same thing

                                                     

 Yes they are *different* so spring is not summer. Do I really have to
 explain this? I was taught this in preschool. Sesame Street had a song
 about it:

 One of these things is not like the others,
 One of these things just doesn't belong,
 Can you tell which thing is not like the others By the time I finish my
 song?

 Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
 Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
 If you guessed this one is not like the others,
 Then you're absolutely...right!

Yes but I outgrew Sesame Street and narrow literalism. I understand
that the map is not the territory. I understand semiotics and
psychology. I have explained that the idea of Spring not being summer
is a relative interpretation. Where I live January is considered
winter. In Australia January isn't winter. There are always exceptions
to every arbitrary linguistic convention. Language is constantly
evolving and redefining itself.


 there are many different types of deterministic processes.

   And I choose among them and/or create my own new processes dynamically.

 You keep throwing

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't think you understand what I understand. Of course the
 limitation of the 1p view excludes information relative to a 3p view,
 but the reverse is true as well. Indeterminism emerges as a third
 person phenomenon in that subjective privacy cannot be experienced
 through it. Determinism emerges as both a first and third person
 phenomenon in the form of sense. Motive or will (or 'energy' in third
 person') emerges as an orthogonal category relative to determinism;
 self-determination, which is the impulse and capacity to make the
 indetermined determined. 'I am become will, the collapser of wave
 functions.'

You haven't understood a basic point, which is important independently
of the current discussion. This point is that if we live in a
perfectly deterministic multiverse, our subjective experience will be
probabilistic. This is because it is impossible for a being embedded
in the multiverse to know in which branch he will end up. The
impossibility is logical, not merely empirical.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-18 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 18, 10:44 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
  I don't think you understand what I understand. Of course the
  limitation of the 1p view excludes information relative to a 3p view,
  but the reverse is true as well. Indeterminism emerges as a third
  person phenomenon in that subjective privacy cannot be experienced
  through it. Determinism emerges as both a first and third person
  phenomenon in the form of sense. Motive or will (or 'energy' in third
  person') emerges as an orthogonal category relative to determinism;
  self-determination, which is the impulse and capacity to make the
  indetermined determined. 'I am become will, the collapser of wave
  functions.'

 You haven't understood a basic point, which is important independently
 of the current discussion. This point is that if we live in a
 perfectly deterministic multiverse, our subjective experience will be
 probabilistic. This is because it is impossible for a being embedded
 in the multiverse to know in which branch he will end up. The
 impossibility is logical, not merely empirical.

If I decide to type this sentence, the probability of both of us
ending up in a branch of the multiverse in which this sentence appears
before you on your screen is close to 100%. How does that work
exactly?

Since I know that it will appear in both of our universes, not merely
logically or empirically but intuitively and unquestionably, does that
mean that MWI is cannot be viable?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-18 Thread John Clark

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 They [computers] won't EVER discover a printer that is sitting right next
 to them without having drivers loaded and configured


And you won't EVER discover a printer sitting right next to you if you had
no eyes or hands.

 Did the reason change your internal programming by itself while you
 passively watched or did you voluntarily decide to commit to it?


Voluntarily just means a change made because I wanted to, and that want
came about for a reason or it did not come about for a reason and the free
will noise is not needed to understand any of this.


  How do you know the car isn't controlling your foot instead?


As long as me and my car agree where my foot should be it wouldn't matter,
and so far I haven't been in any major car wrecks so we seem to agree on
where my foot should be.

 According to your argument, there would be no way to tell the difference


I believe I just said that, and if there is no way to tell the difference
then there is no reason to care.

 You are the one who keeps injecting random into this.


I am just injecting the very obvious and noncontroversial fact that events
happen for a reason or they do not.

 I don't need random at all to understand free will.


Fine, then you think we always do things for a reason, a cuckoo clock does
too.

 Random is nothing but a quality of pattern recognition. If we can't find
 a pattern, we call it random.


You're a little behind the times, a century ago most thought that was
probably true and that everything had a cause we just don't know it, but
today most think it's probably false and even a century ago it was known
that there is no law of logic that demands all events have associated
causes. However this is all irrelevant, true or false it will not help you
explain what the hell the ASCII string free will is supposed to mean.

 Which is it? Is spring summer or is spring not summer?


Spring is not summer.


  Spring and summer are just different degrees of the same thing



Yes they are *different* so spring is not summer. Do I really have to
explain this? I was taught this in preschool. Sesame Street had a song
about it:

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others By the time I finish my
song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you're absolutely...right!

there are many different types of deterministic processes.


  And I choose among them and/or create my own new processes dynamically.


You keep throwing around that word choice as if its a talisman against
uncomfortable logic, but the fact remains that every single choice you have
ever made in your life was made for a reason or it was not made for a
reason; and no amount of mixing and matching determinism and randomness
will get you where you want to go with the free will noise, not even if you
knew where you wanted it to go with it and of course you do not. All you
know is you don't like where logic leads you on the free will path, into
the mystical land of gibberish.

 There is a difference between making a determination and being determined
 to passively watch a determination


I don't know what passively determined means.

 Free will = caused by me (intentionally). You can call free will
 deterministic


You say it's caused so what the hell else except deterministic am I
supposed to call it?

What does that word mean if it includes all possibilities including
 libertarian free will?


That word salad has a question mark at the end so I guess its a question
but of exactly what I can not say. All I know is that I've been a
libertarian all my life and all my life I've known that people who like to
make the free will noise have no idea what it means.

 John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-18 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 1:03 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 You haven't understood a basic point, which is important independently
 of the current discussion. This point is that if we live in a
 perfectly deterministic multiverse, our subjective experience will be
 probabilistic. This is because it is impossible for a being embedded
 in the multiverse to know in which branch he will end up. The
 impossibility is logical, not merely empirical.

 If I decide to type this sentence, the probability of both of us
 ending up in a branch of the multiverse in which this sentence appears
 before you on your screen is close to 100%. How does that work
 exactly?

 Since I know that it will appear in both of our universes, not merely
 logically or empirically but intuitively and unquestionably, does that
 mean that MWI is cannot be viable?

In a branching multiverse where all possibilities happen at a decision
point, some versions of you decide to type the sentence and others do
not. This could be completely deterministic for the multiverse as a
whole: x versions of you will definitely type it, y versions of you
will definitely not. However, from your point of view, you don't know
which version of you you will experience, so your future is
indeterminate /  random / probabilistic, not deterministic. It's
impossible - logically impossible, impossible even if you know every
deterministic detail of the multiverse's future history - for you to
know which version will be the real you, since all versions have
equal claim to being the real you. This is a quite simple, but
counterintuitive idea.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-17 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:










On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply,  
and

thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although
it
is simpler to use comp to justify this).



If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?



Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.



Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
and,
as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
questions.


Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear  
is

to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
multiplication.


They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.


The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.


That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the  
universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable. But  
all that exist in arithmetic.





That pattern
recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.


In your non-comp theory.



We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,


That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.



and
can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what kinds of
strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or that
there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
which provides it.


Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of universal  
numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be astonished  
that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally  
true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person  
notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving  
infinities of arithmetical relations.








To say they are creatures implies a creation.


Why not. You could say that they are created by the addition and
multiplication laws. You need only to bet that 1+1=2 and alike does
not depend on us.


Because there's no mathematical logic to how or why that creation
could occur.


But there is.




If we posit a universe of arithmetic realism, how can we
accept that it falls off a cliff when it comes to the arithmetic of
it's own origins? What makes 1+1=2? Sense.


Truth. Why do you want someone to assess the truth for something being  
true. That is anthropomorphic. Th greek get well that point, and  
originate the whole scientific enterprise from there, as in the  
conclusion of this video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM

If not, it is the whole idea of a reality which makes no more sense,  
and we get solipsist or anthropomorphic.




Not primitive sense either,
but high order cognitive abstraction. There is no '1' or '2'
literally, they are ideas about our common sense - what we have in
common with everything. Numbers are literally 'figures', symbols which
can be applied mentally to represent many things,


No. That's number description. Not numbers.



and to deploy
orderly control of some physical systems - but not everything can be
reduced to or controlled by numbers.


But that's what number can discover by themselves. Once you are at the  
treshold of numbers, the complexity of the relations (even just  
between numbers) get higher than what you can describe with numbers.  
the numbers already know that, with reasonable account of what is  
knowledge.









What
necessary logic turns a nuclear chain reaction (addition and
multiplication) into a nursery for problem solving sentience?


The same logic making tiny system Turing universal. Usually some  
small

part of classical logic is enough.


Why would any kind of universality or logic entail the automatic
development of sentience? What is logical about sentience?


The illogicality of sentience. From the point of view of numbers, when  
they look at themselves, they discover, for logical reason, that there  
is something non logical about them. Then the comp act of faith  
appears to be the simplest way to restore logic, except for that act  
of faith and the belief in addition and multiplication.


Bruno


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



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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 12:01 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote

   I don't say that [the free will noise] means you're not deterministic,

 I would be glad to hear you say that except that according to illogical
 Weinbergian logic just because something is not not deterministic does not
 mean its deterministic, so I don't know what the hell you mean.

Why is it Weinbergian logic? Have you not noticed that others here who
are also trying to tell you what orthogonal means? What might that be
about in Clarkian logic?


 I say that means you can make determinations.

 If a determination is not made for a reason then its not a determination,
 it’s a crap-shoot.

Determinations are not usually made for A reason, they are made for
MANY reasons. It's always a guess to some degree and an informed
acquiescence to some degree, and a personal preference to some degree.


  Sometimes those determinations are influenced more by conditions you
  perceive as external to yourself,

 Sometimes a computer's CPU works on data already in it's memory unit, and
 sometimes it works on newly inputted data.

'Newly inputted' data is still in it's memory unit. The CPU doesn't
spontaneously generate new feelings like the human mind does.


  and sometimes it is you who are influencing external conditions.

 And sometimes computers output data to external things like printers or
 video screens or internet connections and sometimes they do not.

That's true, but they don't care whether they output or not. It's not
driven by their own intention. They won't EVER discover a printer that
is sitting right next to them without having drivers loaded and
configured to even connect.


  you can voluntarily choose to reason differently

 Yes I can change my mind, I've done it before but in the past whenever I
 changed my internal programming I have always done so for a reason, if I
 ever find myself changing my mind for no reason then I intend to call 911
 because I'm undergoing a serious medical emergency of some sort and a
 hardware malfunction is going on in my brain.

Did the reason change your internal programming by itself while you
passively watched or did you voluntarily decide to commit to it?


  If you are completely deterministic, then how do you know that the car
  isn't driving you instead of you driving a car?

 If I determine that the brake needs to be applied I find that my foot
 depresses the brake peddle and I feel (correctly I think) that I am in
 control.

How do you know the car isn't controlling your foot instead? According
to your argument, there would be no way to tell the difference as
either description of the event of braking is equally accurate and
deterministic.


  free will is neither fully deterministic nor random, nor fully not
  deterministic nor random.

 That makes no sense. You say I have free will so I don't see how
 randomness can help you clarify what that means because I is something
 but something does not cause random things to happen,

If you talk to a schizophrenic, what they say will seem more random
than someone else. Their I is causing things to happen with more
randomness.

 nothing does, so the
 concept of randomness is no help at all in understanding what the ASCII
 sequence I have free will means.

You are the one who keeps injecting random into this. I don't need
random at all to understand free will. Random is nothing but a quality
of pattern recognition. If we can't find a pattern, we call it random.
Maybe every radioactive decay event in the universe is eventually
going to synchronize to spell out God's name in Red, White, and Blue
letters on his TV screen, how would we know?


  Just as Spring is neither fully Summer nor Winter,

 Large complex things like the weather usually happen for many reasons, but
 every one of those reasons themselves happened for a reason or they did not
 happen for a reason.

Um, I'm not saying anything about the weather being deterministic or
not, I am strictly talking about how things can be arranged
orthogonally. I am disproving your claim that everything must be only
one thing or another thing.

 And one thing is beyond dispute to any logical person,
 spring is summer or spring is not summer.

Which is it? Is spring summer or is spring not summer? Isn't spring
nothing but the transition from winter to summer? Without that
transition to summer could you have spring? Spring and summer are just
different degrees of the same thing.


  If you insist upon arbitrarily reducing the universe to a single
  dimension of determined vs random, then

 Then I have understood the lesson taught on day one of logic 101, that X is
 Y or X is not Y and there is no third alternative.

You have understood that all too well, but you have not progressed to
logic 102. There are always more than two alternatives and X and Y are
symbolic constructs, not concrete realities.


  you cannot understand

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-17 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/5/17 Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com

 On May 17, 12:01 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
 wrote
 
I don't say that [the free will noise] means you're not
 deterministic,
 
  I would be glad to hear you say that except that according to illogical
  Weinbergian logic just because something is not not deterministic does
 not
  mean its deterministic, so I don't know what the hell you mean.

 Why is it Weinbergian logic? Have you not noticed that others here who
 are also trying to tell you what orthogonal means? What might that be
 about in Clarkian logic?

 
  I say that means you can make determinations.
 
  If a determination is not made for a reason then its not a determination,
  it’s a crap-shoot.

 Determinations are not usually made for A reason, they are made for
 MANY reasons. It's always a guess to some degree and an informed
 acquiescence to some degree, and a personal preference to some degree.

 
   Sometimes those determinations are influenced more by conditions you
   perceive as external to yourself,
 
  Sometimes a computer's CPU works on data already in it's memory unit, and
  sometimes it works on newly inputted data.

 'Newly inputted' data is still in it's memory unit. The CPU doesn't
 spontaneously generate new feelings like the human mind does.

 
   and sometimes it is you who are influencing external conditions.
 
  And sometimes computers output data to external things like printers or
  video screens or internet connections and sometimes they do not.

 That's true, but they don't care whether they output or not. It's not
 driven by their own intention. They won't EVER discover a printer that
 is sitting right next to them without having drivers loaded and
 configured to even connect.


Your unique argument against a program being able to be conscious (as
conscious as a human can be) is to take a non-conscious program  and to say
see it's not conscious... well yes it is not, that doesn't mean no
program can be.

Quentin



 
   you can voluntarily choose to reason differently
 
  Yes I can change my mind, I've done it before but in the past whenever I
  changed my internal programming I have always done so for a reason, if I
  ever find myself changing my mind for no reason then I intend to call 911
  because I'm undergoing a serious medical emergency of some sort and a
  hardware malfunction is going on in my brain.

 Did the reason change your internal programming by itself while you
 passively watched or did you voluntarily decide to commit to it?

 
   If you are completely deterministic, then how do you know that the car
   isn't driving you instead of you driving a car?
 
  If I determine that the brake needs to be applied I find that my foot
  depresses the brake peddle and I feel (correctly I think) that I am in
  control.

 How do you know the car isn't controlling your foot instead? According
 to your argument, there would be no way to tell the difference as
 either description of the event of braking is equally accurate and
 deterministic.

 
   free will is neither fully deterministic nor random, nor fully not
   deterministic nor random.
 
  That makes no sense. You say I have free will so I don't see how
  randomness can help you clarify what that means because I is something
  but something does not cause random things to happen,

 If you talk to a schizophrenic, what they say will seem more random
 than someone else. Their I is causing things to happen with more
 randomness.

  nothing does, so the
  concept of randomness is no help at all in understanding what the ASCII
  sequence I have free will means.

 You are the one who keeps injecting random into this. I don't need
 random at all to understand free will. Random is nothing but a quality
 of pattern recognition. If we can't find a pattern, we call it random.
 Maybe every radioactive decay event in the universe is eventually
 going to synchronize to spell out God's name in Red, White, and Blue
 letters on his TV screen, how would we know?

 
   Just as Spring is neither fully Summer nor Winter,
 
  Large complex things like the weather usually happen for many reasons,
 but
  every one of those reasons themselves happened for a reason or they did
 not
  happen for a reason.

 Um, I'm not saying anything about the weather being deterministic or
 not, I am strictly talking about how things can be arranged
 orthogonally. I am disproving your claim that everything must be only
 one thing or another thing.

  And one thing is beyond dispute to any logical person,
  spring is summer or spring is not summer.

 Which is it? Is spring summer or is spring not summer? Isn't spring
 nothing but the transition from winter to summer? Without that
 transition to summer could you have spring? Spring and summer are just
 different degrees of the same thing.

 
   If you insist upon arbitrarily reducing the universe to a single

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 5:49 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:









  On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
  On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply,
  and
  thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
  indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although
  it
  is simpler to use comp to justify this).

  If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
  them
  together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

  Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

  Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
  and,
  as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
  and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
  questions.

  Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear
  is
  to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
  multiplication.

  They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
  arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.

  The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
  recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.

 That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the
 universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable. But
 all that exist in arithmetic.

What are the properties of arithmetic contingent on?


  That pattern
  recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.

 In your non-comp theory.

  We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,

 That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.

Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
something and why?


  and
  can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what kinds of
  strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or that
  there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
  appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
  itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
  which provides it.

 Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of universal
 numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be astonished
 that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
 true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
 notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
 infinities of arithmetical relations.

I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very capacity
to define first person and third person as separate (opposite) on one
level, and united on another. Sense creates the arithmetical
relations, but not infinitely. Arithmetical relations are derived a
posteriori of sense embodiments. Sense generates the capacities,
intentions, symmetries, and rhythms that underlie recursive
enumeration, as well as frames the context of all sequence and
consequence. It all has to make sense. Not everything has to make
numbers. Dizzy doesn't make numbers, but it makes sense. It is a
sensation that makes sense to an embodied animal, but not to a
computer.




  To say they are creatures implies a creation.

  Why not. You could say that they are created by the addition and
  multiplication laws. You need only to bet that 1+1=2 and alike does
  not depend on us.

  Because there's no mathematical logic to how or why that creation
  could occur.

 But there is.

What is it?


  If we posit a universe of arithmetic realism, how can we
  accept that it falls off a cliff when it comes to the arithmetic of
  it's own origins? What makes 1+1=2? Sense.

 Truth.

Truth requires sense. Not everything that makes sense is true (fiction
for example), but everything that is true makes sense.

 Why do you want someone to assess the truth for something being
 true. That is anthropomorphic.

It's ontologically necessary. What is a truth without it being
detectable in some way to something?

 Th greek get well that point, and
 originate the whole scientific enterprise from there, as in the
 conclusion of this video:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM

Great video, but now you are the one anthropomorphizing. Just because
the released man doesn't create the outside world by seeing it doesn't
mean that the outside world can exist without being held together by
experienced sense relations on every level. My computer doesn't create
the internet, but that doesn't mean that the internet isn't created on
computers.


 If not, it is the whole idea of a reality which makes no more sense,
 and we get solipsist or anthropomorphic.

That's where sense comes in. Sense divides the totality into
solipsistic/anthropomorphic and objective/mechanemorphic on one level,
but bleeds through

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 7:57 am, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote:


  That's true, but they don't care whether they output or not. It's not
  driven by their own intention. They won't EVER discover a printer that
  is sitting right next to them without having drivers loaded and
  configured to even connect.

 Your unique argument against a program being able to be conscious (as
 conscious as a human can be) is to take a non-conscious program  and to say
 see it's not conscious... well yes it is not, that doesn't mean no
 program can be.

Yes, in a sense that's true, but since the only example of something
conscious we have is ourselves, the alternative is to take a non-
conscious program and say there's no reason that some future version
of it can't be just like me eventually. The former makes more sense to
me. It's not only that logic that makes me suspect the former is the
case though. There seems to be a specific, glaring lack of sentience
in all machines that does not reduce in the slightest even as machines
scale up exponentially in complexity. No byte has ever done anything
by itself, and I don't see why it ever would.

I only bring up the shortcomings of machines and programs because
that's the only common sense examples I can really use, but that's
just the tip of the iceberg. I am trying to use that common sense as a
lever to open you up the deeper understanding that I have about how
intention arises from within matter and cannot be transplanted from
the outside as with a computer. It's not a matter of Luddite neophobia
at all, believe me I am a transhumanist to the core, I just think we
are not going to get there without water, sugar, protein, lipids, etc.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-17 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 17 May 2012, at 14:21, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 17, 5:49 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:










On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:



But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply,
and
thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp,  
although

it
is simpler to use comp to justify this).



If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?



Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.



Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
and,
as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures,  
digital,
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems  
and

questions.



Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear
is
to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
multiplication.



They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.



The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.


That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the
universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable. But
all that exist in arithmetic.


What are the properties of arithmetic contingent on?


The idea is that such properties are not contingent.

You could take any universal system, instead of arithmetic. From the  
computability perspective, they are equivalent.








That pattern
recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.


In your non-comp theory.


We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,


That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.


Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
something and why?


Bp means that some universal machine utters p. Absolutely.  
Independently of you and me.

BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means that  
if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp. And that is  
a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and me.








and
can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what  
kinds of
strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or  
that

there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
which provides it.


Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of  
universal

numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be astonished
that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
infinities of arithmetical relations.


I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very capacity
to define first person and third person as separate (opposite) on one
level, and united on another. Sense creates the arithmetical
relations, but not infinitely. Arithmetical relations are derived a
posteriori of sense embodiments.


You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of arithmetic.





Sense generates the capacities,
intentions, symmetries, and rhythms that underlie recursive
enumeration, as well as frames the context of all sequence and
consequence. It all has to make sense.


We need only the idea that a reality can exists beyond human sensing.  
This is what I assume by making explicit the arithmetical realism, and  
that can be shown enough when we assume that we work locally as  
machine, at some description level.
As I already told you, to make this false, you need to build an  
explicit non computable and non Turing recoverable function having a  
genuine role for the mind. This unfortunately only makes more complex  
both mind and matter, making your non-comp hypothesis looking like a  
construct for making impossible to reason in that field.






Not everything has to make
numbers. Dizzy doesn't make numbers, but it makes sense.


But numbers does not make only numbers. They make and develop sense  
for many things far more complex than numbers, that is the point.  
Arithmetical truth itself is far beyond of numbers, yet numbers can  
relatively develop some intuition about those kind of things.
You just seems stuck in a reductionist conception of numbers and  
machines. We know such conception are wrong.





It is a
sensation that makes sense to an embodied animal, but not to a
computer.


How could we know that?

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-17 Thread Stephen P. King


On 5/17/2012 9:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 17 May 2012, at 14:21, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 17, 5:49 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:



But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply,
and
thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although
it
is simpler to use comp to justify this).



If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?



Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.



Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
and,
as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
questions.



Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear
is
to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
multiplication.



They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.



The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.


That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the
universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable. But
all that exist in arithmetic.


What are the properties of arithmetic contingent on?


The idea is that such properties are not contingent.

You could take any universal system, instead of arithmetic. From the 
computability perspective, they are equivalent.


Hi Bruno,

I would like to add comments in defense of what I think Craig is 
trying to communicate.


Universality is relative independence to a particular means of 
expression. It is not Independence in the sense of mutual isolation or 
complete absence of relations.










That pattern
recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.


In your non-comp theory.


We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,


That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.


Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
something and why?


Bp means that some universal machine utters p. Absolutely. 
Independently of you and me.

BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means that 
if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp. And that is 
a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and me.


And these statements have a definite meaning only because there is 
a relatively unambiguous structure of relations within our collective 
minds that gives meaning to them. Apart from that structure they are 
meaningless. Statements, like objects, cannot have inherent and definite 
properties other than just some spectrum of possible properties. Why? 
Because properties are the result of actual observations/interactions by 
physical systems. Absent the actual means to count the quantity of fruit 
in a basket, it is incoherent to say that a certain quantity of fruit in 
the basket. We have goten away with talking in ambiguous terms for far 
too long.










and
can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what kinds of
strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or that
there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
which provides it.


Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of universal
numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be astonished
that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
infinities of arithmetical relations.


I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very capacity
to define first person and third person as separate (opposite) on one
level, and united on another. Sense creates the arithmetical
relations, but not infinitely. Arithmetical relations are derived a
posteriori of sense embodiments.


You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of arithmetic.


No, you do. You are assuming that differences exist in the absence 
of the means to define differences.






Sense generates the capacities,
intentions, symmetries, and rhythms that underlie recursive
enumeration, as well as frames the context of all sequence and
consequence. It all has to make sense.


We need only the idea that a reality can exists beyond human sensing. 
This is what I assume

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 9:50 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 17 May 2012, at 14:21, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 17, 5:49 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
  On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
  On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply,
  and
  thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
  indeterminist first person realities (even without comp,
  although
  it
  is simpler to use comp to justify this).

  If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
  them
  together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

  Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

  Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
  and,
  as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures,
  digital,
  and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems
  and
  questions.

  Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear
  is
  to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
  multiplication.

  They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
  arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.

  The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
  recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.

  That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the
  universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable. But
  all that exist in arithmetic.

  What are the properties of arithmetic contingent on?

 The idea is that such properties are not contingent.

That's still an idea though, ie sense. Sense doesn't need that
property since it can't be explained any other way. I can explain
arithmetic sense as a category of sense, but I can't explain sense as
a category of arithmetic unless you just tack it on and say it must be
part of the package inherently.


 You could take any universal system, instead of arithmetic. From the
 computability perspective, they are equivalent.

You can run over anything with a large enough steam roller and it will
be flat. If you don't use a computability perspective, they aren't
equivalent.




  That pattern
  recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.

  In your non-comp theory.

  We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,

  That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.

  Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
  something and why?

 Bp means that some universal machine utters p. Absolutely.
 Independently of you and me.

But not independently of the universal machine's sense-motive
experience. It has to be able to tell the difference between p and
something else and characterize the nature of that difference. It has
to have the motive power to 'utter', and something has to have the
sense receptivity to detect that something might have been uttered.
Otherwise there is no uttering.

 BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
 For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means that
 if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp.

So if I utter 'Toast is square', that means that eventually I will
utter 'I utter Toast is square' and then 'I utter I utter I utter I
utter Toast is squalre'?

 And that is
 a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and me.

I never argue that sense is dependent on human consciousness at all.
Sense is universal and literally older than time itself.




  and
  can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what
  kinds of
  strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or
  that
  there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
  appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
  itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
  which provides it.

  Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of
  universal
  numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be astonished
  that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
  true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
  notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
  infinities of arithmetical relations.

  I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very capacity
  to define first person and third person as separate (opposite) on one
  level, and united on another. Sense creates the arithmetical
  relations, but not infinitely. Arithmetical relations are derived a
  posteriori of sense embodiments.

 You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of arithmetic.

Not at all. You are assuming that arithmetic is conceivable outside of
some kind of sense faculty and I don't see any reason to agree

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 10:57 am, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote:

Nice! I read your reply after I posted, it's cool that we seem to be
independently thinking along the same lines.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-17 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 17 May 2012, at 18:04, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 17, 9:50 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 17 May 2012, at 14:21, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 17, 5:49 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 16 May 2012, at 17:37, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:


But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and  
multiply,

and
thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads  
already to

indeterminist first person realities (even without comp,
although
it
is simpler to use comp to justify this).


If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby  
'adding'

them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?



Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.


Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical  
consequences,

and,
as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures,
digital,
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems
and
questions.


Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they  
appear

is
to admit that they are not themselves contained within  
addition or

multiplication.



They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.



The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
recognize the pattern which is appearing to them.



That's correct. It is contingent of the universal number, and the
universal numbers making the first one more relatively probable.  
But

all that exist in arithmetic.



What are the properties of arithmetic contingent on?


The idea is that such properties are not contingent.


That's still an idea though, ie sense. Sense doesn't need that
property since it can't be explained any other way. I can explain
arithmetic sense as a category of sense, but I can't explain sense as
a category of arithmetic unless you just tack it on and say it must be
part of the package inherently.



Sense and matter is what I search an explanation for. You start at the  
finishing line.







You could take any universal system, instead of arithmetic. From the
computability perspective, they are equivalent.


You can run over anything with a large enough steam roller and it will
be flat. If you don't use a computability perspective, they aren't
equivalent.


Which is a defect, imo.









That pattern
recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic  
logic.



In your non-comp theory.



We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,



That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.



Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
something and why?


Bp means that some universal machine utters p. Absolutely.
Independently of you and me.


But not independently of the universal machine's sense-motive
experience. It has to be able to tell the difference between p and
something else and characterize the nature of that difference. It has
to have the motive power to 'utter', and something has to have the
sense receptivity to detect that something might have been uttered.
Otherwise there is no uttering.


That part is let to the observer to judge.






BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means that
if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp.


So if I utter 'Toast is square', that means that eventually I will
utter 'I utter Toast is square' and then 'I utter I utter I utter I
utter Toast is squalre'?


In principle, except that all universal machine get bored and stop for  
contingent reason. But to do the math, some simplification are in order.






And that is
a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and me.


I never argue that sense is dependent on human consciousness at all.
Sense is universal and literally older than time itself.


I have no clue what is that sense and how it related to the use of  
the word sense.











and
can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what
kinds of
strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or
that
there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that  
patterns

appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense  
experience

which provides it.



Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of
universal
numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be  
astonished

that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
infinities of arithmetical relations.


I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very  
capacity
to define first person

Re: Free will in MWI

On May 17, 2:04 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 Sense and matter is what I search an explanation for. You start at the
 finishing line.

That's why you are looking at it upside down. There isn't an
explanation for explanation. It is both the start and finish line.




  You could take any universal system, instead of arithmetic. From the
  computability perspective, they are equivalent.

  You can run over anything with a large enough steam roller and it will
  be flat. If you don't use a computability perspective, they aren't
  equivalent.

 Which is a defect, imo.

It depends what you are trying to do. Flat hamsters probably make fine
footwear.




  That pattern
  recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic
  logic.

  In your non-comp theory.

  We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember,

  That's Bp - BBp. Universal machine are like that.

  Those are just letters and symbols. What or who makes them mean
  something and why?

  Bp means that some universal machine utters p. Absolutely.
  Independently of you and me.

  But not independently of the universal machine's sense-motive
  experience. It has to be able to tell the difference between p and
  something else and characterize the nature of that difference. It has
  to have the motive power to 'utter', and something has to have the
  sense receptivity to detect that something might have been uttered.
  Otherwise there is no uttering.

 That part is let to the observer to judge.

The fact that it is left to the observer to judge supports the
necessity of sense-motive participation.




  BBp means that the same universal machine now utters Bp.
  For any arithmetic (or equivalent) proposition, Bp  BBp, means that
  if that machine utters p, it will soon or later utters Bp.

  So if I utter 'Toast is square', that means that eventually I will
  utter 'I utter Toast is square' and then 'I utter I utter I utter I
  utter Toast is squalre'?

 In principle, except that all universal machine get bored and stop for
 contingent reason. But to do the math, some simplification are in order.

If I'm a UM though, I don't seem to be doing that. I don't seem to be
recapitulating the recapitulation of everything I've ever done
continuously.




  And that is
  a theorem of arithmetic, making it true independently of you and me.

  I never argue that sense is dependent on human consciousness at all.
  Sense is universal and literally older than time itself.

 I have no clue what is that sense and how it related to the use of
 the word sense.

Sense should be self defining, but to be technical I'll say that it is
detection, participation, and organizing relations between anything
and everything.




  and
  can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what
  kinds of
  strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or
  that
  there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that
  patterns
  appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
  itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense
  experience
  which provides it.

  Not really, for it appears and reappears only in the mind of
  universal
  numbers. It makes sense for them, and indeed they will be
  astonished
  that apparent material can lead to that sense. But although locally
  true, this is globally wrong. Sense is necessarily a first person
  notion, and relies on the abstract but real configuration involving
  infinities of arithmetical relations.

  I don't think sense is a first person notion, it is the very
  capacity
  to define first person and third person as separate (opposite) on
  one
  level, and united on another. Sense creates the arithmetical
  relations, but not infinitely. Arithmetical relations are derived a
  posteriori of sense embodiments.

  You confuse arithmetic and the human's apprehension of arithmetic.

  Not at all. You are assuming that arithmetic is conceivable outside of
  some kind of sense faculty

 That would not make ... sense. You need a conceptor to conceive. But
 you don't need one to make a proposition true or false.

You need a conceptor to even make a proposition in the first place.
True or false is a second order logic on top of that. The idea that
you don't need a subject to make a proposition true or false is no
different to me than the assumption of primitive matter. True to who?
In what context? If you get rid of all of the matter and energy in the
cosmos, what truth there be? Truth about what? Emptiness?


  and I don't see any reason to agree with
  that. It doesn't have to be human apprehension at all, it could be
  anything from a single atom to the totality of all mass-energy of the
  cosmos as a single unit...or even some other sensible-but-real entity
  beyond our ability to conceive through human sense. All of it has to
  make sense in some way to some thing. Something has to detect
  something.

 This explain what you start from an observer

Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
 thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
 indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it
 is simpler to use comp to justify this).

 If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding' them
 together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

I don't think you understood Bruno's original point, which was that
indeterminism (i.e. true randomness) emerges as a first person
phenomenon in a deterministic multiverse. There's no valid argument
that indeterminism is required for consciousness or decision-making,
but even if it were so, a rich enough deterministic world can still
provide it.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 16, 2:39 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:28 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:
  But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
  thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
  indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it
  is simpler to use comp to justify this).

  If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding' them
  together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

 I don't think you understood Bruno's original point, which was that
 indeterminism (i.e. true randomness) emerges as a first person
 phenomenon in a deterministic multiverse. There's no valid argument
 that indeterminism is required for consciousness or decision-making,
 but even if it were so, a rich enough deterministic world can still
 provide it.

I don't think you understand what I understand. Of course the
limitation of the 1p view excludes information relative to a 3p view,
but the reverse is true as well. Indeterminism emerges as a third
person phenomenon in that subjective privacy cannot be experienced
through it. Determinism emerges as both a first and third person
phenomenon in the form of sense. Motive or will (or 'energy' in third
person') emerges as an orthogonal category relative to determinism;
self-determination, which is the impulse and capacity to make the
indetermined determined. 'I am become will, the collapser of wave
functions.'

Craig

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
thus to contain universal internal observers, leads already to
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although
it

is simpler to use comp to justify this).

If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
them

together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
and,

as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
questions.

Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear is
to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
multiplication.

They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.

To say they are creatures implies a creation.

Why not. You could say that they are created by the addition and
multiplication laws. You need only to bet that 1+1=2 and alike does
not depend on us.

What
necessary logic turns a nuclear chain reaction (addition and
multiplication) into a nursery for problem solving sentience?

The same logic making tiny system Turing universal. Usually some small
part of classical logic is enough.

Bruno

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 16, 10:41 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 15 May 2012, at 19:44, Craig Weinberg wrote:









  On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
  thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
  indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although
  it
  is simpler to use comp to justify this).

  If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding'
  them
  together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

  Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

  Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences,
  and,
  as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
  and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
  questions.

  Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear is
  to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
  multiplication.

 They are. Anything Turing emulable appears, and reappears in
 arithmetic, related to bigger and bigger natural numbers.

The appearance is contingent though, upon something being able to
recognize the pattern which is appearing to them. That pattern
recognition is not automatically guaranteed by any arithmetic logic.
We need a physical machine that remembers that it can remember, and
can experience that memory as an event. It needs to know what kinds of
strings of remembered digits constitute a meaningful pattern, or that
there could even be such a thing as a pattern. To say that patterns
appear and reappear in arithmetic takes the appearance of pattern
itself for granted, then usurps the primacy of the sense experience
which provides it.


  To say they are creatures implies a creation.

 Why not. You could say that they are created by the addition and
 multiplication laws. You need only to bet that 1+1=2 and alike does
 not depend on us.

Because there's no mathematical logic to how or why that creation
could occur. If we posit a universe of arithmetic realism, how can we
accept that it falls off a cliff when it comes to the arithmetic of
it's own origins? What makes 1+1=2? Sense. Not primitive sense either,
but high order cognitive abstraction. There is no '1' or '2'
literally, they are ideas about our common sense - what we have in
common with everything. Numbers are literally 'figures', symbols which
can be applied mentally to represent many things, and to deploy
orderly control of some physical systems - but not everything can be
reduced to or controlled by numbers.


  What
  necessary logic turns a nuclear chain reaction (addition and
  multiplication) into a nursery for problem solving sentience?

 The same logic making tiny system Turing universal. Usually some small
 part of classical logic is enough.

Why would any kind of universality or logic entail the automatic
development of sentience? What is logical about sentience?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 15, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 That's exactly what a sore looser would say after he'd been thoroughly
 beaten by a opponent.


  If I were beaten by a human opponent, why would I accuse them of not
 making decisions? What does winning or losing a game against a non-person
 have to do with awareness and subjectivity? If you get run over by a car
 does that mean it's suspicious if you state that the driver was at fault
 and not the car?


That's a awful lot of questions and they all seem related to figuring out
why I wrote what I did, and yet I don't see how that can possibly be the
case. You think I have this thing you call free will and you say that
means I'm not deterministic, so asking me the reason I wrote that sentence
you don't like makes no sense, if I'm not deterministic then obviously
there is no reason whatsoever I wrote that sentence.

And someone might think my sentence cause you to write your list of
questions, that is to say you wouldn't have written what you did if I
didn't first write what I did; but no, you have free will too so you wrote
what you did for no reason just like me and it must have been a coincidence
that your list of questions came out right after my sentence.  And you
believe that although there was no reason behind your list of questions it
was not random either, it was caused by nothing and it wasn't caused by
nothing, and that doesn't make the free will noise a logical self
contradiction because,..., because,... because you just don't want it to be
contradictory and if you wish hard enough you can make it so.

 And even I could beat Kasparov at chess if a robot or a surgeon first
 gave Kasparov a brain lobotomy.



 But Kasparov would know the difference. Deep Blue never would.


Machines can detect when they have suffered damage just like people,
otherwise the red warning light on the dashboard of your car would never
come on.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread Craig Weinberg

On May 16, 12:41 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

  That's exactly what a sore looser would say after he'd been thoroughly
  beaten by a opponent.

   If I were beaten by a human opponent, why would I accuse them of not
  making decisions? What does winning or losing a game against a non-person
  have to do with awareness and subjectivity? If you get run over by a car
  does that mean it's suspicious if you state that the driver was at fault
  and not the car?

 That's a awful lot of questions and they all seem related to figuring out
 why I wrote what I did, and yet I don't see how that can possibly be the
 case. You think I have this thing you call free will and you say that
 means I'm not deterministic,

I don't say that means you're not deterministic, I say that means you
can make determinations. Sometimes those determinations are influenced
more by conditions you perceive as external to yourself, and sometimes
it is you who are influencing external conditions. The result is that
you are neither 100% deterministic nor 100% indeterministic.

 so asking me the reason I wrote that sentence
 you don't like makes no sense, if I'm not deterministic then obviously
 there is no reason whatsoever I wrote that sentence.

I didn't ask you the reason you wrote that sentence, I was giving
examples of how the reasoning you used in that sentence applied to
another situation doesn't work. I point this out only to present an
alternative to you that you can voluntarily choose to reason
differently if it makes the same sense to you as it does to me.

If you are completely deterministic, then how do you know that the car
isn't driving you instead of you driving a car? There are stories
about the drug scopolomine being used to turn people into 'zombies' in
Columbia...whether there is any truth to those stories or not, the
fact that we understand the difference between someone who is able to
determine their own actions vs someone who is under the control of
another would need to be explained in a deterministic world. What
difference could it make who controls you, when everyone is controlled
by physical forces?


 And someone might think my sentence cause you to write your list of
 questions, that is to say you wouldn't have written what you did if I
 didn't first write what I did; but no, you have free will too so you wrote
 what you did for no reason just like me and it must have been a coincidence

Some of us have been pointing out repeatedly that free will is neither
fully deterministic nor random, nor fully not deterministic nor
random. Just as Spring is neither fully Summer nor Winter, nor is it
completely not Summer or Winter. Subjectivity sets teleological
purpose as orthogonal to the objective determinism. If you insist upon
arbitrarily reducing the universe to a single dimension of determined
vs random, then you cannot understand consciousness as it actually is.

 that your list of questions came out right after my sentence.  And you
 believe that although there was no reason behind your list of questions

There were all kinds of reasons behind my listing of questions, but
they were mostly my reasons. I created them by reasoning.

 it
 was not random either, it was caused by nothing and it wasn't caused by
 nothing,

It was caused by me. I can be described as nothing or not nothing,
depending on what kind of thing you are comparing me to.

 and that doesn't make the free will noise a logical self
 contradiction because,..., because,... because you just don't want it to be
 contradictory and if you wish hard enough you can make it so.

It's not me that doesn't want it to be a contradiction, it's the
universe. Determinism and randomness are ideas within the experience
of conscious deliberation. Consciousness itself precedes those
categories. It determines and fails to determine. Consciousness is
like the mammal and determinism is the like the primate. You are
flipping the taxonomy and forcing reality which is far richer and
deeper than the intellect into a reduced intellectual framework that
has no way to accommodate the reality of awareness, just as you can't
draw a graph that explains 'dizzy' or 'sleepy'.


  And even I could beat Kasparov at chess if a robot or a surgeon first
  gave Kasparov a brain lobotomy.

  But Kasparov would know the difference. Deep Blue never would.

 Machines can detect when they have suffered damage just like people,
 otherwise the red warning light on the dashboard of your car would never
 come on.

The red light doesn't grow out of the dashboard by itself like ours do
though. Nothing in the car will know the difference if you remove it.
Your car has no way to feel that 'It seems like something is wrong but
I'm not sure what'.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-16 Thread John Clark

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote


  I don't say that [the free will noise] means you're not deterministic,


I would be glad to hear you say that except that according to illogical
Weinbergian logic just because something is not not deterministic does not
mean its deterministic, so I don't know what the hell you mean.

I say that means you can make determinations.


If a determination is not made for a reason then its not a determination,
it’s a crap-shoot.

 Sometimes those determinations are influenced more by conditions you
 perceive as external to yourself,


Sometimes a computer's CPU works on data already in it's memory unit, and
sometimes it works on newly inputted data.

 and sometimes it is you who are influencing external conditions.


And sometimes computers output data to external things like printers or
video screens or internet connections and sometimes they do not.

 you can voluntarily choose to reason differently


Yes I can change my mind, I've done it before but in the past whenever I
changed my internal programming I have always done so for a reason, if I
ever find myself changing my mind for no reason then I intend to call 911
because I'm undergoing a serious medical emergency of some sort and a
hardware malfunction is going on in my brain.

 If you are completely deterministic, then how do you know that the car
 isn't driving you instead of you driving a car?


If I determine that the brake needs to be applied I find that my foot
depresses the brake peddle and I feel (correctly I think) that I am in
control.

 free will is neither fully deterministic nor random, nor fully not
 deterministic nor random.


That makes no sense. You say I have free will so I don't see how
randomness can help you clarify what that means because I is something
but something does not cause random things to happen, nothing does, so the
concept of randomness is no help at all in understanding what the ASCII
sequence I have free will means.

 Just as Spring is neither fully Summer nor Winter,


Large complex things like the weather usually happen for many reasons, but
every one of those reasons themselves happened for a reason or they did not
happen for a reason. And one thing is beyond dispute to any logical person,
spring is summer or spring is not summer.

 If you insist upon arbitrarily reducing the universe to a single
 dimension of determined vs random, then


Then I have understood the lesson taught on day one of logic 101, that X is
Y or X is not Y and there is no third alternative.

 you cannot understand consciousness as it actually is.


I'll be damned if I understand why determinism is supposed to be the enemy
of consciousness or why things that happen for no reason at all,
randomness, is supposed to make everything all better.

 that your list of questions came out right after my sentence. And you
 believe that although there was no reason behind your list of questions


 There were all kinds of reasons behind my listing of questions


Yes, there are many different types of deterministic processes.

 I created them by reasoning.


Yet another deterministic process.

It was caused by me.


If it's caused then it's obviously deterministic.

I can be described as nothing or not nothing


Obviously gibberish.

 It determines and fails to determine.


More of the same, up is down black is white gibberish is not gibberish and
clarity is nowhere to be found in your universe.

John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 May 2012, at 04:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 14, 2:11 pm, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
I'm saying that decision making, learning, and reinforcement are  
possible
in a deterministic world, and you are not denying it. I guess our  
points of

view are orthogonal.


I am denying that meaningful decisions, learning, or reinforcement are
possible in a deterministic world.


But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and  
thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to  
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it  
is simpler to use comp to justify this).


Bruno

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



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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread R AM

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:


 I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would
 allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a
 form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.


OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue
won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?

Ricardo.

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 5:29 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 On 15 May 2012, at 04:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

  On May 14, 2:11 pm, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
  I'm saying that decision making, learning, and reinforcement are
  possible
  in a deterministic world, and you are not denying it. I guess our
  points of
  view are orthogonal.

  I am denying that meaningful decisions, learning, or reinforcement are
  possible in a deterministic world.

 But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
 thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
 indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it
 is simpler to use comp to justify this).

If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding' them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:



  I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would
  allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a
  form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.

 OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
 decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue
 won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?

Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing,
let alone care. It doesn't know how to play Chess, it only compares
statistics which we apply to Chess playing. Deep Blue could be
executing a thermonuclear holocaust instead of winning a game and it
would never know the difference. Kasparov knows the difference though.
He is playing the game and winning or losing means something to him.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread R AM

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 
 
   I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would
   allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a
   form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.
 
  OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
  decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue
  won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?

 Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing,
 let alone care.


The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a
deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful,
some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot win
chess withouth making good decisions.

Ricardo.

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 11:59 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:









  On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
   On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
  wrote:

I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I would
allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to be a
form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.

   OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
   decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep Blue
   won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?

  Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing,
  let alone care.

 The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a
 deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful,
 some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot win
 chess withouth making good decisions.

I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess, it just
compares statistics and orders them according to an externally
provided criteria. It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that
matches any particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome. We
are able to project our own ideas and expectations onto our experience
of Deep Blue, but that doesn't mean that there is any actual decision
making going on. There is no decision, only automatic recursive
reactions.

A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to
command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs. How can good decision making
be claimed if it can just as easily be programmed to make bad
decisions? There is no symbol grounding.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread R AM

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:

 On May 15, 11:59 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg 
 whatsons...@gmail.com
   wrote:
 
 I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I
 would
 allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to
 be a
 form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.
 
OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep
 Blue
won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?
 
   Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing,
   let alone care.
 
  The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a
  deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful,
  some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot
 win
  chess withouth making good decisions.

 I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess,


I'm not sure what you don't see here. Deep Blue has several possible moves
and chooses one of them (just as Kasparov does). It makes a decision each
move. And given that it eventually gets to check-mate, Deep Blue wins chess.


 it just
 compares statistics and orders them according to an externally
 provided criteria. It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that
 matches any particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome. We
 are able to project our own ideas and expectations onto our experience
 of Deep Blue, but that doesn't mean that there is any actual decision
 making going on. There is no decision, only automatic recursive
 reactions.


Deep Blue decides what piece to move and where to move it.  That counts as
a decision to me.

A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to
 command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs. How can good decision making
 be claimed if it can just as easily be programmed to make bad
 decisions?


Because Deep Blue wins chess? How else can you win chess except by making
good decisions? Ultimately both Kasparov and Deep Blue make a move.

Ricardo.


 There is no symbol grounding.





 Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread John Clark

On Tue, May 15, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess,


That's exactly what a sore looser would say after he'd been thoroughly
beaten by a opponent.  And so the last surviving member of the species Homo
Sapiens, 4 seconds before the Godlike computer sent it to oblivion forever,
turned to the Jupiter Brain and said nevertheless I still think I'm
*really* smarter than you.

 it just [...]


But Kasparov's brain just did stuff too, only deep Blue's stuff worked
better.

 It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that matches any
 particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome.


The observable universe is not large enough to contain a filing cabinet
full of all possible chess games.

 A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to
 command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs.


And even I could beat Kasparov at chess if a robot or a surgeon first gave
Kasparov a brain lobotomy.

  John K Clark

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Re: Free will in MWI

2012-05-15 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 May 2012, at 17:28, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 15, 5:29 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

On 15 May 2012, at 04:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:


On May 14, 2:11 pm, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm saying that decision making, learning, and reinforcement are
possible
in a deterministic world, and you are not denying it. I guess our
points of
view are orthogonal.


I am denying that meaningful decisions, learning, or reinforcement  
are

possible in a deterministic world.


But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it
is simpler to use comp to justify this).


If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding' them
together, why does that generate universal internal observers?


Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences, and,  
as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,  
and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and  
questions.


Bruno


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



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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 12:47 pm, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote:









  On May 15, 11:59 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
   On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com
  wrote:

On May 15, 7:19 am, R AM ramra...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg 
  whatsons...@gmail.com
wrote:

  I would say that they cannot be meaningful in any sense, but I
  would
  allow that some may consider meaningless unconscious processes to
  be a
  form of decision, learning, or reinforcement.

 OK, let's take Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, According to you, Kasparov's
 decision making was meaningful, while Deep Blue's was not. Yet, Deep
  Blue
 won. Is this the kind of meaninglessness you are talking here?

Yes. Deep Blue didn't know the difference between winning or losing,
let alone care.

   The fact remains that good decision making can take place in a
   deterministic world. Some decision-making you will label as meaningful,
   some as meaningless. But good decision-making nevertheless. You cannot
  win
   chess withouth making good decisions.

  I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess,

 I'm not sure what you don't see here.

But I am sure what you don't see.

 Deep Blue has several possible moves
 and chooses one of them (just as Kasparov does). It makes a decision each
 move. And given that it eventually gets to check-mate, Deep Blue wins chess.

That's only the view of a human being who is familiar with chess. Deep
Blue is neither a human or familiar with chess. When you add 5+6 into
a calculator, it does not 'decide' that the answer is 11 any more than
a square peg decides it doesn't fit in a round hole. If Deep Blue had
a perspective, which it doesn't, it would have no idea who Kasparov is
or that he was the opponent. No clue that check-mating Kasparov is
good or that being check-mated is bad. The game of chess is in the eye
of the beholder, not in the computation of statistics.


  it just
  compares statistics and orders them according to an externally
  provided criteria. It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that
  matches any particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome. We
  are able to project our own ideas and expectations onto our experience
  of Deep Blue, but that doesn't mean that there is any actual decision
  making going on. There is no decision, only automatic recursive
  reactions.

 Deep Blue decides what piece to move and where to move it.  That counts as
 a decision to me.

I understand that, I'm just trying to tell you why that doesn't work.
Deep Blue decides nothing. We use Deep Blue to inform us what the most
mathematically efficient chess move is and then we can choose to
imagine that we are playing a game against an entity that is deciding
to make those moves. There is no entity there though. The computer is
a puppet.


 A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to

  command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs. How can good decision making
  be claimed if it can just as easily be programmed to make bad
  decisions?

 Because Deep Blue wins chess? How else can you win chess except by making
 good decisions? Ultimately both Kasparov and Deep Blue make a move.

You can win chess by looking at every possible outcome of every
possible move and putting them in order of how few moves will likely
end the game in your favor. There is no decision at all, you are just
organizing a stack of finite patterns in order of probable efficiency.
There is nothing to decide, you just solve the math problem and report
the result as your move. It's an idiot's way of playing chess, albeit
a very, very fast idiot.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 12:56 pm, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 15, 2012  Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote:

  I don't think Deep Blue makes any decisions or wins chess,

 That's exactly what a sore looser would say after he'd been thoroughly
 beaten by a opponent.

If I were beaten by a human opponent, why would I accuse them of not
making decisions? What does winning or losing a game against a non-
person have to do with awareness and subjectivity? If you get run over
by a car does that mean it's suspicious if you state that the driver
was at fault and not the car?

 And so the last surviving member of the species Homo
 Sapiens, 4 seconds before the Godlike computer sent it to oblivion forever,
 turned to the Jupiter Brain and said nevertheless I still think I'm
 *really* smarter than you.

I'm not sure why you want to make this about human exceptionalism.
Maybe you have an issue with superiority, but I don't. I'm really not
a big fan of our species. It means nothing to me to be 'better than a
computer' and anyone who it would mean something to I would consider
pretty juvenile. This is about making sense of what the difference
between a living organism and an inorganic machine actually is.
Machines have capacities that organisms don't, and vice versa. So
what?


  it just [...]

 But Kasparov's brain just did stuff too, only deep Blue's stuff worked
 better.

A car can beat a person running on foot too, but that doesn't mean a
car has legs or runs. Apples aren't oranges.


  It is a filing cabinet of possible chess games that matches any
  particular supplied pattern to a designated outcome.

 The observable universe is not large enough to contain a filing cabinet
 full of all possible chess games.

It doesn't have to have all possible chess games, only the ones which
relate to the opponent's pattern.


  A programmer could easily change Deep Blue to lose every match or to
  command a robotic arm to smash it's CPUs.

 And even I could beat Kasparov at chess if a robot or a surgeon first gave
 Kasparov a brain lobotomy.

But Kasparov would know the difference. Deep Blue never would. Deep
Blue would happily lose the same game over and over forever with a few
changes to its code. It would never beg you to kill them like someone
with a lobotomy might.

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI

On May 15, 1:03 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  But a deterministic world, if rich enough to add and multiply, and
  thus to contain universal internal observers,  leads already to
  indeterminist first person realities (even without comp, although it
  is simpler to use comp to justify this).

  If a wave washes one pile of sand onto another, thereby 'adding' them
  together, why does that generate universal internal observers?

 Adding is not enough. You need multiplication, and iteration.

 Then universal digital creatures appear, by logical consequences, and,
 as always, reflect themselves and all universal creatures, digital,
 and non digital, which leads them to harder and harder problems and
 questions.

Even if that's true, from where do they appear? To say they appear is
to admit that they are not themselves contained within addition or
multiplication. To say they are creatures implies a creation. What
necessary logic turns a nuclear chain reaction (addition and
multiplication) into a nursery for problem solving sentience?

Craig

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Re: Free will in MWI