Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Le 09-mai-07, à 18:50, Brent Meeker a écrit : > > Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> Le 09-mai-07, à 09:08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : >> >>> Of course reality doesn't change. The question of map versus >>> territory is *not* an all or nothing >>> question. *sometimes* the map equals the territory. Most of the >>> time >>> it does not. >> >> >> This is an important point where I agree with Marc. With or without >> comp the necessity of distinguishing the map and the territory cannot >> be uniform, there are "meaning"-fixed-point, like when a map is >> embedded continuously in the territory (assuming some topology in the >> map and in the territory, this follows by a fixed point theorem by >> Brouwer, which today admits many interesting computational >> interpretations. >> >> Bruno > > I don't think you can define a topology on "meaning" that will allow > the fixed point theorem to apply. A whole and rather important subfield of computer science is entirely based on that. It is know as denotational semantics. Most important contributions by Dana Scott. You can look on the web for "Scott domains". Or search with the keyword "fixed point semantics topology". Sometimes the topology is made implicit through the use of partial order and a notion of continuous function in between. Indeed the topological space used in this setting are not Hausdorff space, and are rather different from those used in geometry or analysis. A nice book is the one by Steve Vickers. It has provide me with supplementary reason to single out the Sigma_1 sentences as particularly important in the comp frame. (Topology via Logic, Cambridge University Press, 1989: http://www.amazon.ca/Topology-via-Logic-Steven-Vickers/dp/0521576512). Here are some links: http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw50/schellekens.html http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~slonnegr/plf/Book/Chapter10.pdf http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Lattices/slides/zhang.pdf I could say more in case I come back on the combinators. Cf: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/msg05958.html because there are strong relation between fixed point semantics, the paradoxical combinators, and the use of the (foirst and second) recursion theorem in theoretical computer science. But ok all that could become very technical of course. ... I thought you knew about fixed point semantics, perhaps I miss your point ... Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Le 09-mai-07, à 09:08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > >> Of course reality doesn't change. The question of map versus >> territory is *not* an all or nothing >> question. *sometimes* the map equals the territory. Most of the time >> it does not. > > > This is an important point where I agree with Marc. With or without > comp the necessity of distinguishing the map and the territory cannot > be uniform, there are "meaning"-fixed-point, like when a map is > embedded continuously in the territory (assuming some topology in the > map and in the territory, this follows by a fixed point theorem by > Brouwer, which today admits many interesting computational > interpretations. > > Bruno I don't think you can define a topology on "meaning" that will allow the fixed point theorem to apply. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Le 09-mai-07, à 09:08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > Of course reality doesn't change. The question of map versus > territory is *not* an all or nothing > question. *sometimes* the map equals the territory. Most of the time > it does not. This is an important point where I agree with Marc. With or without comp the necessity of distinguishing the map and the territory cannot be uniform, there are "meaning"-fixed-point, like when a map is embedded continuously in the territory (assuming some topology in the map and in the territory, this follows by a fixed point theorem by Brouwer, which today admits many interesting computational interpretations. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Le 09-mai-07, à 06:16, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > It's true that consistency/precise alone doesn't imply > existence, but they are factors that one can take into account. > OK. But consistency of a mathematical theory having sufficiently rich models so that they support self-observing entities could be enough for a notion of relative existence. I think physical existence is always of that type, making it an indexical. I disagree with those who think that any mathematical structure is a "physical object". This is, imho, a category mistake. On the contrary "physical existence" seems to be (with comp) an "inside" internal" first person (plural) sum on a distinguished set of relatively defined mathematical structures. I will say more in a general sum up I intend to send (including the non technical account of the why and how of the L interview. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 5:55 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > But what is mathematics? It's three things I think: Categories, > Relations and Propositions. Of these, Relations and Propositions > refer to discrete (finite) knowledge. But Categories includes the > other two, since categories can also deal with the infinite. So it > would appear that the ultimate root of it all is *Categories* > (Category Theory). Number Theory/Sets are general kinds of category. > Machines/Computer Science deal with finite categories.- Hide quoted text - > Slight corrections. Categories, Relations, Propositions can of course all deal with the infinite. But it's Categories that are fundamental (the most general mathematical concepts). The TOE (theory of everything) is *itself* a class (in OOP) as I mentioned. But it should be classified as a 'Category'. Now based on my arguments that in the case of mathematical categories the map is the terriority, you see the miracle?Remember: The TOE is *itself* a category. The *theory* of all reality IS reality :D Peculiar indeed. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 6:46 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > But according to your "map=territory" philosophy all these incompatible > theories exist physically. What does that mean? All but one of them must > describe some other universe and we just don't know which ones? Or do you > mean they "exist physically" as representational tokens in the brains of > physicists? They certainly don't exist like tables and chairs. > > Brent Meeker- I shall try to clarify here., since this is a pretty bad mis- understanding of what I've been saying. Most of the time it's true that theories and reality are indeed two different things. In this thread, Stathis gave some examples in which I agreed that the theory was obviously *not* the reality. For instance, in the case of the concept of an 'election', the terms there are just human constructs used to simplify what was going on. And in the case of for instance, observation of chimpanzees, 'laws of chimpanzee behaviour' had no reality outside human conceptions as I clearly agreed. So it's hard to see how it could came across to you that I was arguing for such an obviously absurd premise that map=territory always. Only in the case of some highly peculiar concepts was I arguing this. (namely certain non-reductionistic mathematical and abstract/ informational concepts). I was arguing that these concepts are the exception to the general rule that map is not territory. ie I was arguing that mathematical/certain informational concepts have a highly peculiar nature which breaks the general rule. And then only in the cases where we are dealing with a true/consistent theory. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 9, 5:57 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> How can Everett's "every possibility is realized" be logically compatible >> with Bohm's "there's only one, deterministic outcome", we just don't know >> which one" and Griffith's "it's a probabilistic theory so some things happen >> and some don't". I can hardly imagine less compatible interpretations of >> the same mathematics. I could add Cramer's transactional interpretation and >> Feynmann's zig-zag in time interpretation. Are all those maps or >> territories? > > Well of course the ontological details are indeed quite incompatible. > The status of QM is still very much 'in the air' at the moment, so we > don't yet know with any degree of certainty. But that can (and > should) change once both theory and observation progresses in the > future. And will reality change too - or is reality different from theories that describe it? > > But most of these interpretations do use some similiar concepts. As I > mentioned, the idea of some sort of 'wave of possibilities' for > instance. Even Bohm's 'only one outcome' still uses the wave concept > (the guiding 'pilot wave'). So it's not as if 'anything goes', > ontologically speaking. Progress is being made. > > >>> Further, all of them actually use some of the >>> same concepts they just ascribe different ontological status to them. >>> On the wiki: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics >>> Of course it wouldn't be surprising if QM were modified in the >>> future. But all interpretations make use of something like a 'wave of >>> possibilities', by the Alain Aspect experiements, it's known that >>> future theories would have to have either non-locality or >>> indeterminism. And there are other general empirically established >>> features of QM that would have to remain the same. >> Of course every physicist from Newton to Einstein would have said there are >> generally empirically established features of mechanics like locality, >> determinism, independence of momentum and position variables, and flow in >> phase space that must remain the same. >> >> Brent Meeker- > > The example I gave of the Alain Aspect experiments (testing Bell > inequality) did point to proof of some quite specific features - > according to these experiments, all future theories replacing QM would > have to have either indeterminism > or non-locality. So progress is made... But according to your "map=territory" philosophy all these incompatible theories exist physically. What does that mean? All but one of them must describe some other universe and we just don't know which ones? Or do you mean they "exist physically" as representational tokens in the brains of physicists? They certainly don't exist like tables and chairs. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 6:46 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 9, 5:57 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >> How can Everett's "every possibility is realized" be logically compatible > >> with Bohm's "there's only one, deterministic outcome", we just don't know > >> which one" and Griffith's "it's a probabilistic theory so some things > >> happen and some don't". I can hardly imagine less compatible > >> interpretations of the same mathematics. I could add Cramer's > >> transactional interpretation and Feynmann's zig-zag in time > >> interpretation. Are all those maps or territories? > > > Well of course the ontological details are indeed quite incompatible. > > The status of QM is still very much 'in the air' at the moment, so we > > don't yet know with any degree of certainty. But that can (and > > should) change once both theory and observation progresses in the > > future. > > And will reality change too - or is reality different from theories that > describe it? > Of course reality doesn't change. The question of map versus territory is *not* an all or nothing question. *sometimes* the map equals the territory. Most of the time it does not. > > But according to your "map=territory" philosophy all these incompatible > theories exist physically. What does that mean? All but one of them must > describe some other universe and we just don't know which ones? Or do you > mean they "exist physically" as representational tokens in the brains of > physicists? They certainly don't exist like tables and chairs. > > Brent Meeker- To say that map=territory always would obviously be absurd. Only in the case of the parts of our theories which are *correct* does the map equal the territory. When our theories are wrong, these theories are quite different to reality and certainly don't physically exist ;) The fact that we can't know for sure which parts of our theories are wrong and which are right isn't a problem. Most of the time the map is not the territory. But for *some* concepts (correct concepts!) it is. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 9, 3:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>> Infinite sets and infinitesimals are a lot more than 'mathematical >>> conveniences'. There are precise logical theories for these things >>> (As I mentioned before - Cantor worked out the theory of infinite >>> sets, Robinson/Conway worked out the theory of infinitesimals). >> Being logically consistent and/or precise doesn't imply existence. There >> are consistent theories in which there is a cardinality between the integers >> and the reals. But there are also consistent theories which deny such a >> cardinality. Does that mean some set exists with that cardinality or not? > > It depends on which theory has the most explanatory power when it > comes the concepts in need of explanations. Which explanation best > simplifies or *integrates* our knowledge? That is the criteria one > should use. It's true that consistency/precise alone doesn't imply > existence, but they are factors that one can take into account. > Empirical measurement isn't the defining factor either. Esoteric math > concepts by definition are far removed from direct empirical data but > progress is still made. > > >>> It's true that infinite sets are not used in comptuer science (which >>> is all about discrete/finite math) but beware of making assumptions >>> about reality purely on the basis of what can be measured ;) >> If it can't be measured even indirectly, like an infinitesimal, then whether >> it is kept in your model of reality is mostly a matter of convenience. > > See above. Math seems to be a branch of knowledge which falsifies > this view. Mathematicians don't regard differences between theories > as 'mere convenience', even though the theories under definition may > be far removed from direct empirical observations. The view you've > just stated seems to be a logical positivist/intrumentalist view of > science. Again, I don't think the criteria for existence is not > whether something can be measured (which by the way would itself > always involve some theoretical judgement calls- since I think you > yourself said that all observations are theory laden). The criteria > for existence should be absed on the explanatory power of the concept > and the extent to which it *integrates* knowledge. > > > But QM assumes a fixed background spacetime, which is inconsistent with general relativity - so one of them (or more likely both) are wrong. Brent Meeker >>> There are *degrees* of rightness/wrongness. Later successful >>> theories of reality will still have to have some of the same features >>> of the earlier theories in areas where the earlier theories were >>> empirically proven. >> But the earlier theories were NOT empirically proven - they were found to >> hold over the observable domain. Later they were disproven in a wider >> domain and replaced by another theory, e.g. thermodynamics was replaced by >> statistical mechanics. Where they overlapped they agreed on the >> observations, what could be measured, but they didn't agree on the ontology. >> So it is the facts, the observations, that are the aspects of reality that >> are preserved as theories change. Not the mathematics and not the ontology. > > Not sure it's as bad as you are making out. The mathematics of the > earlier successful theory can still be shown to be a special case of > (or apporximations to) the later theory. Further, it's not clear that > all the ontology from the earlier theories is being thrown away. > >>> For instance it's been proven from the EPR >>> experiments that any theory that replaces current QM still has to >>> have some of the same general features such as a 'wave of >>> possibilities/sum over histories', non-locality or uncertainties and >>> so on. >> There are already at least three formulations of QM, Griffiths', Bohm's, and >> Everett's that are logically incompatible at the level of fundamental >> ontology - and yet they are described by exactly the same mathematics. >> >> Brent Meeker > > It's not so clear that the different interpretations really are > logically incompatible. How can Everett's "every possibility is realized" be logically compatible with Bohm's "there's only one, deterministic outcome", we just don't know which one" and Griffith's "it's a probabilistic theory so some things happen and some don't". I can hardly imagine less compatible interpretations of the same mathematics. I could add Cramer's transactional interpretation and Feynmann's zig-zag in time interpretation. Are all those maps or territories? >Further, all of them actually use some of the > same concepts they just ascribe different ontological status to them. > On the wiki: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics > > Of course it wouldn't be surprising if QM were modified in the > future. But all interpretations make use of
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 5:57 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > How can Everett's "every possibility is realized" be logically compatible > with Bohm's "there's only one, deterministic outcome", we just don't know > which one" and Griffith's "it's a probabilistic theory so some things happen > and some don't". I can hardly imagine less compatible interpretations of the > same mathematics. I could add Cramer's transactional interpretation and > Feynmann's zig-zag in time interpretation. Are all those maps or territories? Well of course the ontological details are indeed quite incompatible. The status of QM is still very much 'in the air' at the moment, so we don't yet know with any degree of certainty. But that can (and should) change once both theory and observation progresses in the future. But most of these interpretations do use some similiar concepts. As I mentioned, the idea of some sort of 'wave of possibilities' for instance. Even Bohm's 'only one outcome' still uses the wave concept (the guiding 'pilot wave'). So it's not as if 'anything goes', ontologically speaking. Progress is being made. > > >Further, all of them actually use some of the > > same concepts they just ascribe different ontological status to them. > > On the wiki: > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics > > > Of course it wouldn't be surprising if QM were modified in the > > future. But all interpretations make use of something like a 'wave of > > possibilities', by the Alain Aspect experiements, it's known that > > future theories would have to have either non-locality or > > indeterminism. And there are other general empirically established > > features of QM that would have to remain the same. > > Of course every physicist from Newton to Einstein would have said there are > generally empirically established features of mechanics like locality, > determinism, independence of momentum and position variables, and flow in > phase space that must remain the same. > > Brent Meeker- The example I gave of the Alain Aspect experiments (testing Bell inequality) did point to proof of some quite specific features - according to these experiments, all future theories replacing QM would have to have either indeterminism or non-locality. So progress is made... --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 2:37 am, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Le 08-mai-07, à 04:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > > > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly > > are not regarded that way by scientists - the whole notion of an > > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought > > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, > > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical > > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the > > scientific method to work at all. > > Actually, although the current laws of physics does not refer to > humans, they do refer to observers, if not only through the notions of > observable and measurement.. > With Everett, the observer can be "just" a memory machine. Once a > machine, the laws of physics have to emerge from something else, like > number or information science/computer science, or mathematics. > > You are perhaps confusing the notion of objective reality with the > physicalist assumption that the objective reality is the physical > reality. This has never been proved, and indeed is already jeopardized > independently by both the quantum facts and simple hypotheses, like the > finiteness of some possible representations of the observers. > > Bruno > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Actually Bruno, been thinking a bit more and you may be right. Shouldn't perhaps have put it like I did. I'm still not totally clear on the ultimate status of the relationship between the physical and mathematical worlds - I doubt anyone is ;) One thing I *am* sure about is that all valid mathematical concepts map to physical concepts. So I accept the Tegmark thesis about mathematics in one sense: that all mathematical things are also physical. Again, physical does not have to imply concrete or finite. Some physical oconcepts have be abstract. I can only refer you to my 'Class Diagram Of Reality' which is a graphical representation of my latest attempt to classify all knowledge at the highest level of abstraction. The story behind it is that I spent 5 years of intense focus on ontology (for fans of Vernor Vinge: I became a 'zip-head' for 5 years in the field of Ontology) and the class diagram is the result of that. So it's not something I've just put up without a *lot* of deep thought. Here's the diagram: http://marc.geddes.googlepages.com/MCRT_ClassDiagram.html The three levels of reality I've talked about this thread are represented in the diagram along the up-down axis. At bottom are 'Models' (The State Level Of Reality, the most fundamental). At top are 'Systems' (The Operational or Functional Level of Reality). In middle are 'Tools' (The State-Change Level or the level of computatational physics). Physical,Mathematical and Teleological concepts are along another axis: from left to right. Incidentally, the fact that there are actually more than one ontological axis is, I believe, the source of immense confusion in the field of KR/Ontology. Don't confuse this axis with the other axis I mentioned in the previous paragraph! The Physical concepts are all represented by the left hand boxes. The Mathematical concepts are all represented by the right hand boxes. You map the concepts by mapping the physical boxes to the Mathematical boxes in the corresponding positions on the other side of the diagram. It can be seen that math and physics completely map to each other. But you may be right that in terms of *explanatory power*, mathematics is primary. The 'Reality Theory' represented by the diagram is *itself* a class - it belong in one of the mathematical boxes - the box 'Symbolic Logic' to bottom right. In that case it would appear that indeed all concepts spring from mathematics. But what is mathematics? It's three things I think: Categories, Relations and Propositions. Of these, Relations and Propositions refer to discrete (finite) knowledge. But Categories includes the other two, since categories can also deal with the infinite. So it would appear that the ultimate root of it all is *Categories* (Category Theory). Number Theory/Sets are general kinds of category. Machines/Computer Science deal with finite categories. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 3:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Infinite sets and infinitesimals are a lot more than 'mathematical > > conveniences'. There are precise logical theories for these things > > (As I mentioned before - Cantor worked out the theory of infinite > > sets, Robinson/Conway worked out the theory of infinitesimals). > > Being logically consistent and/or precise doesn't imply existence. There are > consistent theories in which there is a cardinality between the integers and > the reals. But there are also consistent theories which deny such a > cardinality. Does that mean some set exists with that cardinality or not? It depends on which theory has the most explanatory power when it comes the concepts in need of explanations. Which explanation best simplifies or *integrates* our knowledge? That is the criteria one should use. It's true that consistency/precise alone doesn't imply existence, but they are factors that one can take into account. Empirical measurement isn't the defining factor either. Esoteric math concepts by definition are far removed from direct empirical data but progress is still made. > > > It's true that infinite sets are not used in comptuer science (which > > is all about discrete/finite math) but beware of making assumptions > > about reality purely on the basis of what can be measured ;) > > If it can't be measured even indirectly, like an infinitesimal, then whether > it is kept in your model of reality is mostly a matter of convenience. See above. Math seems to be a branch of knowledge which falsifies this view. Mathematicians don't regard differences between theories as 'mere convenience', even though the theories under definition may be far removed from direct empirical observations. The view you've just stated seems to be a logical positivist/intrumentalist view of science. Again, I don't think the criteria for existence is not whether something can be measured (which by the way would itself always involve some theoretical judgement calls- since I think you yourself said that all observations are theory laden). The criteria for existence should be absed on the explanatory power of the concept and the extent to which it *integrates* knowledge. > >> But QM assumes a fixed background spacetime, which is inconsistent > >> with general relativity - so one of them (or more likely both) are > >> wrong. > > >> Brent Meeker > > > There are *degrees* of rightness/wrongness. Later successful > > theories of reality will still have to have some of the same features > > of the earlier theories in areas where the earlier theories were > > empirically proven. > > But the earlier theories were NOT empirically proven - they were found to > hold over the observable domain. Later they were disproven in a wider domain > and replaced by another theory, e.g. thermodynamics was replaced by > statistical mechanics. Where they overlapped they agreed on the > observations, what could be measured, but they didn't agree on the ontology. > So it is the facts, the observations, that are the aspects of reality that > are preserved as theories change. Not the mathematics and not the ontology. Not sure it's as bad as you are making out. The mathematics of the earlier successful theory can still be shown to be a special case of (or apporximations to) the later theory. Further, it's not clear that all the ontology from the earlier theories is being thrown away. > > >For instance it's been proven from the EPR > > experiments that any theory that replaces current QM still has to > > have some of the same general features such as a 'wave of > > possibilities/sum over histories', non-locality or uncertainties and > > so on. > > There are already at least three formulations of QM, Griffiths', Bohm's, and > Everett's that are logically incompatible at the level of fundamental > ontology - and yet they are described by exactly the same mathematics. > > Brent Meeker It's not so clear that the different interpretations really are logically incompatible. Further, all of them actually use some of the same concepts they just ascribe different ontological status to them. On the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics Of course it wouldn't be surprising if QM were modified in the future. But all interpretations make use of something like a 'wave of possibilities', by the Alain Aspect experiements, it's known that future theories would have to have either non-locality or indeterminism. And there are other general empirically established features of QM that would have to remain the same. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 9, 6:08 am, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>> On May 8, 4:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of > reductionism. (1) Infinite Sets But there is no infinite set of anything. >>> Says who? The point is that infinite sets appear to be >>> indispensible to our explanations of reality. >> All measurements yield finite numbers. Infinite sets and >> infinitesimals are mathematical conveniences that avoid having to >> worry about how small is small enough and how big is too big. Do >> you ever use infinite sets in computer science? > > Infinite sets and infinitesimals are a lot more than 'mathematical > conveniences'. There are precise logical theories for these things > (As I mentioned before - Cantor worked out the theory of infinite > sets, Robinson/Conway worked out the theory of infinitesimals). Being logically consistent and/or precise doesn't imply existence. There are consistent theories in which there is a cardinality between the integers and the reals. But there are also consistent theories which deny such a cardinality. Does that mean some set exists with that cardinality or not? > A dislike of infinities characterized the early Greeks and pre 20th > century mathematicians. It hindered the development of mathematics. > (Read the excellent books by Rudy Rucker). I've read'em. I don't dislike them - as I said calculus is a lot easier than finite differences. > It's true that infinite sets are not used in comptuer science (which > is all about discrete/finite math) but beware of making assumptions > about reality purely on the basis of what can be measured ;) If it can't be measured even indirectly, like an infinitesimal, then whether it is kept in your model of reality is mostly a matter of convenience. > It has never been established that space is discrete (a point Stephen > Hawking just recently was at pains to get across). The supposed > discreteness of space seems to be yet another dogma currently popular > with computer scientists. True, but neither is it clear that spacetime must be a continuum. > >>> No, it's because reductionism is false. We invented the >>> concepts, but (as I mentioned in the previous post) for concepts >>> which are useful there has to be at least a *partial* match >>> between the information content of the concepts and the >>> information content of reality. Therefore we can infer general >>> things about reality from knowledge of this information content. >>> Where informational content of our useful concepts is not >>> computable, this tells us that there do exist physical things >>> which also mimic this uncomputability (and hence reductionism is >>> false). >> Or that our mapping is faulty and there a mathematical concepts >> that don't map to anything physical - which I think would be >> obvious since it has been shown that a mathematical system will >> always include undecidable propositions and such propositions or >> their negation can be added to create new, mutually inconsistent >> mathematical systems. >> > > I don't see that uncomputability or undecidability has any bearing on > the issue of the mapping between the physical and mathematical. In > the multiverse view, all possible mathematical systems could be > physically real. 'Physical' does not have to mean 'finite' or > 'computable'. But the multiverse view is anything but precise and logical. Where are the multiverses? What does it mean for them to be "physically real" - but undetectable and immeasurable? > > > >>> My reality theory is a three-level model of reality (as I >>> mentioned earlier in the thread). And QM is actually at the >>> *highest* level of explanation! This is the complete reverse of >>> how QM is conventinally thought of. It makes more sense of you >>> think of the wave function of the whole universe. Then you can >>> how QM is actually the *highest level* (most abstract) >>> explanation of reality. Next level down are functional systems. >>> Then the lowest level is the particle level. All three of these >>> levels of description are equally valid. This is somewhat >>> similair to Bohm's two-level interpretation (wave function at one >>> level, particles the other level). Only I have inserted a third >>> level into the scheme. *Between* the QM wave level description >>> (high level) and the aprticle level description (low level) is >>> where I think the solution to the puzzle of consciousness may be >>> found. >> But QM assumes a fixed background spacetime, which is inconsistent >> with general relativity - so one of them (or more likely both) are >> wrong. >> >> Brent Meeker > > There are *degrees* of rightness/wrongness. Later successful > theories of reality will still have to have some of the same features > of the earlier theo
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 6:08 am, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 8, 4:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >>> I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of > >>> reductionism. > >>> (1) Infinite Sets > >> But there is no infinite set of anything. > > > Says who? The point is that infinite sets appear to be indispensible > > to our explanations of reality. > > All measurements yield finite numbers. Infinite sets and infinitesimals are > mathematical conveniences that avoid having to worry about how small is small > enough and how big is too big. Do you ever use infinite sets in computer > science? Infinite sets and infinitesimals are a lot more than 'mathematical conveniences'. There are precise logical theories for these things (As I mentioned before - Cantor worked out the theory of infinite sets, Robinson/Conway worked out the theory of infinitesimals). A dislike of infinities characterized the early Greeks and pre 20th century mathematicians. It hindered the development of mathematics. (Read the excellent books by Rudy Rucker). It's true that infinite sets are not used in comptuer science (which is all about discrete/finite math) but beware of making assumptions about reality purely on the basis of what can be measured ;) It has never been established that space is discrete (a point Stephen Hawking just recently was at pains to get across). The supposed discreteness of space seems to be yet another dogma currently popular with computer scientists. > > > No, it's because reductionism is false. We invented the concepts, but > > (as I mentioned in the previous post) for concepts which are useful > > there has to be at least a *partial* match between the information > > content of the concepts and the information content of reality. > > Therefore we can infer general things about reality from knowledge of > > this information content. Where informational content of our useful > > concepts is not computable, this tells us that there do exist physical > > things which also mimic this uncomputability (and hence reductionism > > is false). > > Or that our mapping is faulty and there a mathematical concepts that don't > map to anything physical - which I think would be obvious since it has been > shown that a mathematical system will always include undecidable propositions > and such propositions or their negation can be added to create new, mutually > inconsistent mathematical systems. > I don't see that uncomputability or undecidability has any bearing on the issue of the mapping between the physical and mathematical. In the multiverse view, all possible mathematical systems could be physically real. 'Physical' does not have to mean 'finite' or 'computable'. > > > My reality theory is a three-level model of reality (as I mentioned > > earlier in the thread). And QM is actually at the *highest* level of > > explanation! This is the complete reverse of how QM is conventinally > > thought of. It makes more sense of you think of the wave function of > > the whole universe. Then you can how QM is actually the *highest > > level* (most abstract) explanation of reality. Next level down are > > functional systems. Then the lowest level is the particle level. All > > three of these levels of description are equally valid. This is > > somewhat similair to Bohm's two-level interpretation (wave function at > > one level, particles the other level). Only I have inserted a third > > level into the scheme. *Between* the QM wave level description (high > > level) and the aprticle level description (low level) is where I think > > the solution to the puzzle of consciousness may be found. > > But QM assumes a fixed background spacetime, which is inconsistent with > general relativity - so one of them (or more likely both) are wrong. > > Brent Meeker There are *degrees* of rightness/wrongness. Later successful theories of reality will still have to have some of the same features of the earlier theories in areas where the earlier theories were empirically proven. For instance it's been proven from the EPR experiments that any theory that replaces current QM still has to have some of the same general features such as a 'wave of possibilities/sum over histories', non-locality or uncertainties and so on. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 5:59 am, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >So in the case of useful concepts there has to be a partial > > match between the information content of the concepts and the > > information content of reality. This means we can infer properties > > about reality from our concepts. The distinction between map and > > territory is not absolute. A simulated hurricane for instance, has > > *some* of the exact same *information content* as a real hurricane. > > But some is not all. The hurricane embodies the information of our fluid > dynamic model of a hurricane plus a whole lot more. This point about information is indeed the sticking point in this thread. But both here in your other post you seem to be agreeing with me! In the other post you said: "The state of an electron, relative to some apparatus or preparation, may carry some information". And here you say: "The hurricane embodies the information ". But this was precisely my point. If you indeed agree the electron itself 'is carrying information', and that the hurricane 'embodies information', then you are agreeing that there exists something in external reality which is 'information'. It is not neccessery for you to accept that reality is all information. For my points to stick you only need to agree that *some* part of external reality is *information* (or that 'reality has an informational layer or component). You seem to have agreed. > > I have never agreed that mathematics has the same ontological status as > "reality" (whatever that is). I think mathematics is all a human construct > which is used to describe reality and a lot of other stuff. I've read > Tegmark's paper; that doesn't mean I accept it as 'the truth'. > > Brent Meeker Well here is a major ontological disagreement between us then, since I think math *does* have the same status as 'reality'. It all comes down in part to the sticking point about information we've just beenarguing about. If something in reality is 'infomation', then something in reality is also math, since (discrete math at least) is all about information. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 9, 2:37 am, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Le 08-mai-07, à 04:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > > > Say what!! this is not a valid analogy since the laws of physics are > > absolutely the fundamental level of reality, where as dsecriptions of > > chimpanzee behaviour are not. > > What makes you so sure. This is a physicalist assumption, and it has > been shown non compatible with very weak form of mechanism. I would modify what I said slightly...I should have said 'the laws of physics are *a* fundamental way to describe reality. (in the sense of being able to provide in principle accurate descriptions). But they are not the *only* way to describe reality. > > > > > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly > > are not regarded that way by scientists - the whole notion of an > > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought > > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, > > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical > > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the > > scientific method to work at all. > > Actually, although the current laws of physics does not refer to > humans, they do refer to observers, if not only through the notions of > observable and measurement.. > With Everett, the observer can be "just" a memory machine. Once a > machine, the laws of physics have to emerge from something else, like > number or information science/computer science, or mathematics. > > You are perhaps confusing the notion of objective reality with the > physicalist assumption that the objective reality is the physical > reality. This has never been proved, and indeed is already jeopardized > independently by both the quantum facts and simple hypotheses, like the > finiteness of some possible representations of the observers. > > Bruno > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Well, until very recently I didn't agree with the physicalist assumption , but er... I've adopted a slightly more subtle view of things and now accept a weak form of physicalism. I now think everything has 'physical' properties associated with it. It would take a while to explain , but suffice it to say that 'physical' does not have to mean concrete or finite I gave the example of a notion like 'the laws of physics' or the 'QM Wave function'. I think there can be abstract physical concepts. Also, I think there can be more than one valid way to explain reality. For a long time I thought mathematics was the 'ultimate reality', whereas hard materialists argue that the physical world is 'ultimate reality'. But I think they're both wrong. I would agree that physics is not prior to mathematics, but I would now also say that mathematics is not prior to physics either. I place mathematics and physics on an *equal* footing. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 8, 6:03 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Yes, but the theory is our idea of that "partial match" and is a human >> construct. As a human idea, the theory is something separate. But the >> objective reality of nature (whatever it is) is not something separate to >> the objective reality of nature. Maybe we are quibbling about words, but it >> is in the spirit of Occam's Razor to have the minimum number of entities >> possible. >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou > > No! The theory is not the *idea* of the partial match. The theory > (the parts which are correct) *is identical* to to the match. But how do you know any part is correct. Thermodynamics is a very good theory, I use the thermodynamics of gases often and I get very good answers - but I know it's not exact because it's neglecting the finite number of molecules involved and approximating them as a continuum. And in fact for hypersonic flows I have to start taking the molecules into account. And *really* I know the molecules are made up of atoms and so there is dissocation at high temperatures and I need to make corrections for that and...so on. Brent Meeker >The > distinction between map and territory is dissolving. Again, you need > to keep your eye on the ball and think computer science and > information here. The theory *is information*. The reality is > *information*. Therefore, *for the particular parts of the theory > which are correct* , those parts of the theory (the abstracted > information content) *are identical* to the reality. Reality is > informationtheory is information...and at the intersection (where > the two over-lap and at the right level of abstraction) it's > *identical* information. > > Think of it another way. OOP (Object Oriented Programming) draws no > distinction between an objective 'object' and an abstracted 'class'. > You can create abstract classes (which correspond to for instance > abstract ideas) but these classes ARE THEMSELVES OBJECTS. Think about > it. They are themselves objects only in the conceptual world of the program. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 8, 4:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> >>> I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of >>> reductionism. >>> (1) Infinite Sets >> But there is no infinite set of anything. > > Says who? The point is that infinite sets appear to be indispensible > to our explanations of reality. All measurements yield finite numbers. Infinite sets and infinitesimals are mathematical conveniences that avoid having to worry about how small is small enough and how big is too big. Do you ever use infinite sets in computer science? >According to the Tegmark paper just > recently posted, math concepts map to physical concepts. We only know that some math concepts map to physical concepts and we dont' know that the mapping is perfect and in fact we have some reason to believe that it is not. >We can infer > that there must be some physical concept which can be indentified with > an infinite set. And the existence of this physical thing would be a > violation of reductionism. To escape from the conclusion we either > have to deny that infinite sets are real, or else deny the one-to-one > match between the mathematical and physical world. > >>> (2) The Laws of Physics and (3) Quantum Wave >>> Functions >>> It is established that all of these concepts are indispensible to our >>> explanations of reality and they are logically well defined and >>> supported. But none of these concepts can be reduced to any finite >>> set of empirical facts. >> That's because we invented them. > > No, it's because reductionism is false. We invented the concepts, but > (as I mentioned in the previous post) for concepts which are useful > there has to be at least a *partial* match between the information > content of the concepts and the information content of reality. > Therefore we can infer general things about reality from knowledge of > this information content. Where informational content of our useful > concepts is not computable, this tells us that there do exist physical > things which also mimic this uncomputability (and hence reductionism > is false). Or that our mapping is faulty and there a mathematical concepts that don't map to anything physical - which I think would be obvious since it has been shown that a mathematical system will always include undecidable propositions and such propositions or their negation can be added to create new, mutually inconsistent mathematical systems. > > >> QM isn't even a physical theory; it's just a set of principles for >> formulating physical theories; as classical mechanics was before it. > > Exactly so! I agree. QM is really an abstract *high-level* > explanation of reality. This sounds strange, because the QM > description is usually thought of as the *low level* (basement level) > description fo reality, but it ain't. It's true that QM may be the > basement level in the sense of *accuracy* (best scientific model so > far), but *not* in the ontological sense. As you point out, in the > *ontological* sense it's really a sort of high-level *reality shell* - > an abstracted set of principles rather a complete physical principle > in itself. > > My reality theory is a three-level model of reality (as I mentioned > earlier in the thread). And QM is actually at the *highest* level of > explanation! This is the complete reverse of how QM is conventinally > thought of. It makes more sense of you think of the wave function of > the whole universe. Then you can how QM is actually the *highest > level* (most abstract) explanation of reality. Next level down are > functional systems. Then the lowest level is the particle level. All > three of these levels of description are equally valid. This is > somewhat similair to Bohm's two-level interpretation (wave function at > one level, particles the other level). Only I have inserted a third > level into the scheme. *Between* the QM wave level description (high > level) and the aprticle level description (low level) is where I think > the solution to the puzzle of consciousness may be found. But QM assumes a fixed background spacetime, which is inconsistent with general relativity - so one of them (or more likely both) are wrong. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 8, 3:56 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>> 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly >>> are not regarded that way by scientists >> They are by the scientists I know. > > The *knowledge* we have of the laws of physics are human notions. But > the laws of physics *per se* are not. All the laws of physics we know of, or ever will know of, are. >See other post. Think computer > science and information. Our concepts are information and so is > reality. How do you know what reality is? >So in the case of useful concepts there has to be a partial > match between the information content of the concepts and the > information content of reality. This means we can infer properties > about reality from our concepts. The distinction between map and > territory is not absolute. A simulated hurricane for instance, has > *some* of the exact same *information content* as a real hurricane. But some is not all. The hurricane embodies the information of our fluid dynamic model of a hurricane plus a whole lot more. > > >>> - the whole notion of an >>> objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought >>> that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, True. But ask yourself why you think there is an objective reality, as opposed to being a brain in a vat or a simulation in a computer or a number in a UD? It's not because you perceive reality directly. >>> physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical >>> rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the >>> scientific method to work at all. >> Sure, they are precise mathematical systems, which the scientist hopes and >> intends to describe (part of) an objective reality. But the map is not the >> territory and scientists know it. > > See above. And read Tegmark's paper! ;) In the case of mathematics > the distinction between map and territory is breaking down. Remember > what we agreed on earlier - math is *both* epistemological (a map we > use to understand reality) *and* ontological (the territory itself) I have never agreed that mathematics has the same ontological status as "reality" (whatever that is). I think mathematics is all a human construct which is used to describe reality and a lot of other stuff. I've read Tegmark's paper; that doesn't mean I accept it as 'the truth'. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 8, 4:06 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On 08/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> >> >>> Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course. >>> Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave >>> Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields >>> are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM >>> fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you >>> have no objective reality left to argue about! ;) >> Actually I didn't pick it as a typo - I thought you were talking about >> elections. Elections are complex things, involving candidates, voters, >> timing, standards of empirical verification and many other rules. They also >> involve concepts such as "fairness", "democracy", "deceitfulness" and so on. >> You can't physically grasp an election or draw a circle around it. >> Nevertheless, calling it an election is just a shorthand for a collection of >> matter behaving in a certain way. There is no extra election-substance >> instilled by the universe which makes the difference between an election and >> an otherwise identical non-election, and there is no election-entity >> distinct from the behaviour of matter which we observe and call an election. >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou > > Well of course I agree with you in this case. 'Election' is a human > construct. That's why it was a horrifyingly unfortunate typo on my > point. The point is that if you try to apply the same reasoning to > everything, you'll end up saying that *everything* is just a human > construct - and throw the scientific method out the window. We don't > 'construct' those things in reality which are objective. Our concepts > *make reference* to them. The concepts may be invented, but there has > to be a match between at least *some* of the informational content of > our theories and the informational content of objective theory (or > else the concepts would be useless). Think computers and information > here. Objective reality is information. There's the sticking point. Information is about something, it's not necessarily something itself - though of course it is always embodied in some way. >And our concepts are > information too. In what sense is an electron information? The state of an electron, relative to some apparatus or preparation, may carry some information but I don't see that the electron IS information. >So there has to be a partial match between the > information content of useful concepts and objective reality. But it doesn't follow that reality IS information. Brent Meeker >That's > why we can refer a failure of reductionism from the concepts we > invented which proved useful. > > > > > > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Le 08-mai-07, à 04:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > Say what!! this is not a valid analogy since the laws of physics are > absolutely the fundamental level of reality, where as dsecriptions of > chimpanzee behaviour are not. What makes you so sure. This is a physicalist assumption, and it has been shown non compatible with very weak form of mechanism. > > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly > are not regarded that way by scientists - the whole notion of an > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the > scientific method to work at all. Actually, although the current laws of physics does not refer to humans, they do refer to observers, if not only through the notions of observable and measurement.. With Everett, the observer can be "just" a memory machine. Once a machine, the laws of physics have to emerge from something else, like number or information science/computer science, or mathematics. You are perhaps confusing the notion of objective reality with the physicalist assumption that the objective reality is the physical reality. This has never been proved, and indeed is already jeopardized independently by both the quantum facts and simple hypotheses, like the finiteness of some possible representations of the observers. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 8, 6:03 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Yes, but the theory is our idea of that "partial match" and is a human > construct. As a human idea, the theory is something separate. But the > objective reality of nature (whatever it is) is not something separate to > the objective reality of nature. Maybe we are quibbling about words, but it > is in the spirit of Occam's Razor to have the minimum number of entities > possible. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou No! The theory is not the *idea* of the partial match. The theory (the parts which are correct) *is identical* to to the match. The distinction between map and territory is dissolving. Again, you need to keep your eye on the ball and think computer science and information here. The theory *is information*. The reality is *information*. Therefore, *for the particular parts of the theory which are correct* , those parts of the theory (the abstracted information content) *are identical* to the reality. Reality is informationtheory is information...and at the intersection (where the two over-lap and at the right level of abstraction) it's *identical* information. Think of it another way. OOP (Object Oriented Programming) draws no distinction between an objective 'object' and an abstracted 'class'. You can create abstract classes (which correspond to for instance abstract ideas) but these classes ARE THEMSELVES OBJECTS. Think about it. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 8, 4:22 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of > > reductionism. > > (1) Infinite Sets > > But there is no infinite set of anything. Says who? The point is that infinite sets appear to be indispensible to our explanations of reality. According to the Tegmark paper just recently posted, math concepts map to physical concepts. We can infer that there must be some physical concept which can be indentified with an infinite set. And the existence of this physical thing would be a violation of reductionism. To escape from the conclusion we either have to deny that infinite sets are real, or else deny the one-to-one match between the mathematical and physical world. > > >(2) The Laws of Physics and (3) Quantum Wave > > Functions > > > It is established that all of these concepts are indispensible to our > > explanations of reality and they are logically well defined and > > supported. But none of these concepts can be reduced to any finite > > set of empirical facts. > > That's because we invented them. No, it's because reductionism is false. We invented the concepts, but (as I mentioned in the previous post) for concepts which are useful there has to be at least a *partial* match between the information content of the concepts and the information content of reality. Therefore we can infer general things about reality from knowledge of this information content. Where informational content of our useful concepts is not computable, this tells us that there do exist physical things which also mimic this uncomputability (and hence reductionism is false). > > QM isn't even a physical theory; it's just a set of principles for > formulating physical theories; as classical mechanics was before it. Exactly so! I agree. QM is really an abstract *high-level* explanation of reality. This sounds strange, because the QM description is usually thought of as the *low level* (basement level) description fo reality, but it ain't. It's true that QM may be the basement level in the sense of *accuracy* (best scientific model so far), but *not* in the ontological sense. As you point out, in the *ontological* sense it's really a sort of high-level *reality shell* - an abstracted set of principles rather a complete physical principle in itself. My reality theory is a three-level model of reality (as I mentioned earlier in the thread). And QM is actually at the *highest* level of explanation! This is the complete reverse of how QM is conventinally thought of. It makes more sense of you think of the wave function of the whole universe. Then you can how QM is actually the *highest level* (most abstract) explanation of reality. Next level down are functional systems. Then the lowest level is the particle level. All three of these levels of description are equally valid. This is somewhat similair to Bohm's two-level interpretation (wave function at one level, particles the other level). Only I have inserted a third level into the scheme. *Between* the QM wave level description (high level) and the aprticle level description (low level) is where I think the solution to the puzzle of consciousness may be found. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 08/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Well of course I agree with you in this case. 'Election' is a human > construct. That's why it was a horrifyingly unfortunate typo on my > point. The point is that if you try to apply the same reasoning to > everything, you'll end up saying that *everything* is just a human > construct - and throw the scientific method out the window. We don't > 'construct' those things in reality which are objective. Our concepts > *make reference* to them. The concepts may be invented, but there has > to be a match between at least *some* of the informational content of > our theories and the informational content of objective theory (or > else the concepts would be useless). Think computers and information > here. Objective reality is information. And our concepts are > information too. So there has to be a partial match between the > information content of useful concepts and objective reality. That's > why we can refer a failure of reductionism from the concepts we > invented which proved useful. > Yes, but the theory is our idea of that "partial match" and is a human construct. As a human idea, the theory is something separate. But the objective reality of nature (whatever it is) is not something separate to the objective reality of nature. Maybe we are quibbling about words, but it is in the spirit of Occam's Razor to have the minimum number of entities possible. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 8, 3:56 pm, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly > > are not regarded that way by scientists > > They are by the scientists I know. The *knowledge* we have of the laws of physics are human notions. But the laws of physics *per se* are not. See other post. Think computer science and information. Our concepts are information and so is reality. So in the case of useful concepts there has to be a partial match between the information content of the concepts and the information content of reality. This means we can infer properties about reality from our concepts. The distinction between map and territory is not absolute. A simulated hurricane for instance, has *some* of the exact same *information content* as a real hurricane. > > >- the whole notion of an > > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought > > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, > > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical > > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the > > scientific method to work at all. > > Sure, they are precise mathematical systems, which the scientist hopes and > intends to describe (part of) an objective reality. But the map is not the > territory and scientists know it. See above. And read Tegmark's paper! ;) In the case of mathematics the distinction between map and territory is breaking down. Remember what we agreed on earlier - math is *both* epistemological (a map we use to understand reality) *and* ontological (the territory itself) > > Brent Meeker- Hide quoted text - > --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 8, 4:06 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 08/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course. > > Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave > > Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields > > are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM > > fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you > > have no objective reality left to argue about! ;) > > Actually I didn't pick it as a typo - I thought you were talking about > elections. Elections are complex things, involving candidates, voters, > timing, standards of empirical verification and many other rules. They also > involve concepts such as "fairness", "democracy", "deceitfulness" and so on. > You can't physically grasp an election or draw a circle around it. > Nevertheless, calling it an election is just a shorthand for a collection of > matter behaving in a certain way. There is no extra election-substance > instilled by the universe which makes the difference between an election and > an otherwise identical non-election, and there is no election-entity > distinct from the behaviour of matter which we observe and call an election. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou Well of course I agree with you in this case. 'Election' is a human construct. That's why it was a horrifyingly unfortunate typo on my point. The point is that if you try to apply the same reasoning to everything, you'll end up saying that *everything* is just a human construct - and throw the scientific method out the window. We don't 'construct' those things in reality which are objective. Our concepts *make reference* to them. The concepts may be invented, but there has to be a match between at least *some* of the informational content of our theories and the informational content of objective theory (or else the concepts would be useless). Think computers and information here. Objective reality is information. And our concepts are information too. So there has to be a partial match between the information content of useful concepts and objective reality. That's why we can refer a failure of reductionism from the concepts we invented which proved useful. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course. > Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave > Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields > are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM > fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you > have no objective reality left to argue about! ;) Sure you can. QF are a human invention to describe what we think the micro world of the standard model is like. But physicist already know it must be wrong, because it is not consistent with the other fundamental theory of physics, general relativity. This has no effect on their belief in an objective reality, it just implies that they don't know what it is yet. But they do know a lot about it. > > Quantum Wave Functions are yet another example of a thing which cannot > be reduced to finite emprical parts. It is in fact an established > fact that QM wave functions cannot be *directly* emprically verified. > Any emprical fact or set of facts you can point to *cannot* fully > capture the QM Wave function! It is something abstract which exists > over and above any empirical facts. This is yet another example of > the failure of reductionism. What can be directly empirically verified?...Descartes, "I think therefor I am...I think". Even your perception of an ordinary object like a table or chair is theory-laden. > > I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of > reductionism. > (1) Infinite Sets But there is no infinite set of anything. >(2) The Laws of Physics and (3) Quantum Wave > Functions > > It is established that all of these concepts are indispensible to our > explanations of reality and they are logically well defined and > supported. But none of these concepts can be reduced to any finite > set of empirical facts. That's because we invented them. > > The only way to evade the conclusion that reductionism is false is (as > shown by Stathis's argument strategy) to deny that any of these > concepts has objective reality. For example to evade a failure of > reductionism as regards 'inifinite sets' one has to argue that > infinite sets are not objectively real, or not physically real. You > might get away with that argument for something as esoteric as > 'Inifnite Sets' (after all there is some legitimate doubt that these > things are real), but once you reach a concept which is clearly > fundamental and neccessery for physical reality to exist at all (ie > Quantum Wave Functions), your argument has lapsed to pure solipsism. > > Which is more likely: The laws of physics and QM wave functions are > all human fictions, or reductionism is false? It has to be one or the > other. QM isn't even a physical theory; it's just a set of principles for formulating physical theories; as classical mechanics was before it. Since we already know that QFT must be inconsistent with the dynamics of spacetime, it's an easy choice. Brent Meeker "The laws of physics are "ruleless rules" that arise not from any plan but from the very lack any plan. They are the laws of the void." --- Vic Stenger --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 08/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course. > Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave > Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields > are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM > fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you > have no objective reality left to argue about! ;) Actually I didn't pick it as a typo - I thought you were talking about elections. Elections are complex things, involving candidates, voters, timing, standards of empirical verification and many other rules. They also involve concepts such as "fairness", "democracy", "deceitfulness" and so on. You can't physically grasp an election or draw a circle around it. Nevertheless, calling it an election is just a shorthand for a collection of matter behaving in a certain way. There is no extra election-substance instilled by the universe which makes the difference between an election and an otherwise identical non-election, and there is no election-entity distinct from the behaviour of matter which we observe and call an election. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 7, 4:06 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On 07/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> We have here a clear example of an indispensible *physical* concept >>> which *cannot* be broken down or reduced to any finite lower level >>> descriptions. This proves that reductive materialism is false. >> I'm not sure that it is necessary to consider the laws of physics a separate >> ontological category. A zoologist might study the behaviour of chimpanzees, >> take notes, and summarise these notes in a paper for others to read and test >> by seeing if chimpanzees do indeed behave as claimed. The "rules of >> chimpanzee behaviour" is not separate to how chimpanzees actually behave nor >> does it have any causal effects of its own. Similarly, a physicist might >> study the behaviour of electrons and write a paper for others to read and >> test by seeing if electrons do behave in the way claimed, but these "laws of >> physics" regarding electrons are not separate to electron behaviour and have >> no causal role in electron behaviour. Electrons and chimpanzees behave in >> the way they are inclined to behave, and if we can discern patterns by >> observing them, that's just our good fortune. >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou > > Say what!! this is not a valid analogy since the laws of physics are > absolutely the fundamental level of reality, where as dsecriptions of > chimpanzee behaviour are not. > > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly > are not regarded that way by scientists They are by the scientists I know. >- the whole notion of an > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the > scientific method to work at all. Sure, they are precise mathematical systems, which the scientist hopes and intends to describe (part of) an objective reality. But the map is not the territory and scientists know it. > > If an election were merely 'inclined' to behave in a certain way > (which by the way is the pre-scientific world-view) , then what in > fact could be the cause of its behaviour? An election is not a > teleological (and non-fundamental) agent like a chimpanzee, it is a > fixed fundamental building block of reality! There could be no > explanatory theory of election behaviour without postulating some > external (and objective) laws of physics capable of 'acting upon' the > election. This seems to confuse the laws of democracy with the laws of physics. The former are enforced by the judicial system. The latter are descriptive. > > The whole scientific method is based on the notion *external* laws of > physics combined with empirical data. So in practice the term *laws > of physics* is definitely being used as if it as external objective > 'thing' or ontological category. The whole point is that its use this > way in practice (indispensible for the scientific method to work) > means that it can't in fact be broken down into merely the sum of our > empricial observations. That's true, a scientific theory always goes beyond merely summarizing observations - but it isn't always right when it does so. I think you need to read Vic Stenger's book, The Comprehensible Cosmos. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Silly spelling error in my last post - I meant 'electrons' of course. Let avoid talk of 'electrons' then, and talk about 'Quantum Wave Functions' then, since surely even Russell must agree that QM fields are fundamental (at least as far as we know). You can't say that QM fields are just human inventions - take away the base level and you have no objective reality left to argue about! ;) Quantum Wave Functions are yet another example of a thing which cannot be reduced to finite emprical parts. It is in fact an established fact that QM wave functions cannot be *directly* emprically verified. Any emprical fact or set of facts you can point to *cannot* fully capture the QM Wave function! It is something abstract which exists over and above any empirical facts. This is yet another example of the failure of reductionism. I have now given three clear-cut exmaples of a failure of reductionism. (1) Infinite Sets (2) The Laws of Physics and (3) Quantum Wave Functions It is established that all of these concepts are indispensible to our explanations of reality and they are logically well defined and supported. But none of these concepts can be reduced to any finite set of empirical facts. The only way to evade the conclusion that reductionism is false is (as shown by Stathis's argument strategy) to deny that any of these concepts has objective reality. For example to evade a failure of reductionism as regards 'inifinite sets' one has to argue that infinite sets are not objectively real, or not physically real. You might get away with that argument for something as esoteric as 'Inifnite Sets' (after all there is some legitimate doubt that these things are real), but once you reach a concept which is clearly fundamental and neccessery for physical reality to exist at all (ie Quantum Wave Functions), your argument has lapsed to pure solipsism. Which is more likely: The laws of physics and QM wave functions are all human fictions, or reductionism is false? It has to be one or the other. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 7, 4:06 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 07/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > We have here a clear example of an indispensible *physical* concept > > which *cannot* be broken down or reduced to any finite lower level > > descriptions. This proves that reductive materialism is false. > > I'm not sure that it is necessary to consider the laws of physics a separate > ontological category. A zoologist might study the behaviour of chimpanzees, > take notes, and summarise these notes in a paper for others to read and test > by seeing if chimpanzees do indeed behave as claimed. The "rules of > chimpanzee behaviour" is not separate to how chimpanzees actually behave nor > does it have any causal effects of its own. Similarly, a physicist might > study the behaviour of electrons and write a paper for others to read and > test by seeing if electrons do behave in the way claimed, but these "laws of > physics" regarding electrons are not separate to electron behaviour and have > no causal role in electron behaviour. Electrons and chimpanzees behave in > the way they are inclined to behave, and if we can discern patterns by > observing them, that's just our good fortune. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou Say what!! this is not a valid analogy since the laws of physics are absolutely the fundamental level of reality, where as dsecriptions of chimpanzee behaviour are not. 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly are not regarded that way by scientists - the whole notion of an objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned, physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the scientific method to work at all. If an election were merely 'inclined' to behave in a certain way (which by the way is the pre-scientific world-view) , then what in fact could be the cause of its behaviour? An election is not a teleological (and non-fundamental) agent like a chimpanzee, it is a fixed fundamental building block of reality! There could be no explanatory theory of election behaviour without postulating some external (and objective) laws of physics capable of 'acting upon' the election. The whole scientific method is based on the notion *external* laws of physics combined with empirical data. So in practice the term *laws of physics* is definitely being used as if it as external objective 'thing' or ontological category. The whole point is that its use this way in practice (indispensible for the scientific method to work) means that it can't in fact be broken down into merely the sum of our empricial observations. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 07:50:21PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 05/05/07, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Reductionism eliminates emergence. Reductionism is the philosophy that > > all relevant properties of something can be explained in terms of the > > properties of its components. > > > > A weaker property is supervenience. Something A supervenes on the > > physics of its component parts U if two different states of A must > > have correspondingly different states of U. > > > > This may seem like the same thing, and many people confuse the two, > > however the example of irreversible systems supervening on molecules > > with reversible dynamics clearly illustrates the difference. > > > Maybe I'm arguing over a point of language, but it still seems to me that if > A supervenes on U, then it is entirely explained by U. If A surprises > despite full knowledge of U, then that just means your knowledge of U was > incomplete: that is, you have to add to your list of properties of the > components of U that lots of them interacting in a particular way result in > thermodynamic irreversibility, or intelligence, or whatever. It's just that > sometimes the result of the interaction is obvious, and other times not. > You still seem to be missing the point. You can have Laplace's daemon's knowledge of all the particles in the universe, yet still have no idea of what it is like to be in love. OK, I'm being extreme here, but for a reason. In fact Laplace's daemon's knowledge does not tell you about a lot of things eg the wetness of water, as these latter things are simply not in "the terms of reference" of knowing about molecules. So I completely disagree. Supervenience of a system on a lower level does not entail that the lower level explains everything about the system. And in terms of the surprise thing - you haven't played much with computer programming, have you? > Incidently, you quote me as saying "reductionism has gone too > > far". Whilst this is the sort comment I might make (depending on > > context), I don't appear to make it anywhere in my book. > > > My apologies, you are right... weird when you have a *really clear* memory > of something and it turns out to be wrong. > That's alright - I've done the same thing myself. I wasn't taking offence, I was just trying to find the context to see what I actually did say. > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 05/05/07, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Reductionism eliminates emergence. Reductionism is the philosophy that > all relevant properties of something can be explained in terms of the > properties of its components. > > A weaker property is supervenience. Something A supervenes on the > physics of its component parts U if two different states of A must > have correspondingly different states of U. > > This may seem like the same thing, and many people confuse the two, > however the example of irreversible systems supervening on molecules > with reversible dynamics clearly illustrates the difference. Maybe I'm arguing over a point of language, but it still seems to me that if A supervenes on U, then it is entirely explained by U. If A surprises despite full knowledge of U, then that just means your knowledge of U was incomplete: that is, you have to add to your list of properties of the components of U that lots of them interacting in a particular way result in thermodynamic irreversibility, or intelligence, or whatever. It's just that sometimes the result of the interaction is obvious, and other times not. Incidently, you quote me as saying "reductionism has gone too > far". Whilst this is the sort comment I might make (depending on > context), I don't appear to make it anywhere in my book. My apologies, you are right... weird when you have a *really clear* memory of something and it turns out to be wrong. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
Reductionism eliminates emergence. Reductionism is the philosophy that all relevant properties of something can be explained in terms of the properties of its components. A weaker property is supervenience. Something A supervenes on the physics of its component parts U if two different states of A must have correspondingly different states of U. This may seem like the same thing, and many people confuse the two, however the example of irreversible systems supervening on molecules with reversible dynamics clearly illustrates the difference. Incidently, you quote me as saying "reductionism has gone too far". Whilst this is the sort comment I might make (depending on context), I don't appear to make it anywhere in my book. Cheers On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 02:31:09PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 05/05/07, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Similarly, chimpanzees are names given to a certain collection of > > chemicals that happens to behave in a particular way. The rules of > > chimpanzee behaviour are fully emergent from the rules of chemistry. > > > > In your book you say that "reductionism has gone too far" and then talk > about weak and strong emergence. Can you explain the relationship between > reductionism and emergence? > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 05/05/07, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Similarly, chimpanzees are names given to a certain collection of > chemicals that happens to behave in a particular way. The rules of > chimpanzee behaviour are fully emergent from the rules of chemistry. > In your book you say that "reductionism has gone too far" and then talk about weak and strong emergence. Can you explain the relationship between reductionism and emergence? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 02:06:36PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > I'm not sure that it is necessary to consider the laws of physics a separate > ontological category. A zoologist might study the behaviour of chimpanzees, > take notes, and summarise these notes in a paper for others to read and test > by seeing if chimpanzees do indeed behave as claimed. The "rules of > chimpanzee behaviour" is not separate to how chimpanzees actually behave nor > does it have any causal effects of its own. Similarly, a physicist might > study the behaviour of electrons and write a paper for others to read and > test by seeing if electrons do behave in the way claimed, but these "laws of > physics" regarding electrons are not separate to electron behaviour and have > no causal role in electron behaviour. Electrons and chimpanzees behave in > the way they are inclined to behave, and if we can discern patterns by > observing them, that's just our good fortune. > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > Electron is just our name for how certain quantum fields behave. The rules about electron behaviour are about our notion of an electron, not about something that is fundamentally existing. OK perhaps electron is somewhat controversial, as some people might think of electrons as fundamental. However, replace electron by proton and there is no doubt. Similarly, chimpanzees are names given to a certain collection of chemicals that happens to behave in a particular way. The rules of chimpanzee behaviour are fully emergent from the rules of chemistry. -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 07/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Still, I don't think this has any bearing on reductionism. The scientific > method is > > about how we are to go about discovering scientific truths, just as the > > adversarial method in a court of law is about how to decide guilt or > > innocence "beyond reasonable doubt". But the world is as it is > regardless of > > our methods of investigation. > > > > But it *does* have a bearing of reductionism because the very term > *laws of physics* IS itself an ontology category! The point is that > the physicals science use the concept *laws of physics* as an > ontological category, and this category requires explanation. > > We can quite legitimately ask: what does the concept *laws of physics* > refer to? (Just as we asked , in the example you gave: what does the > concept *pair of peas* refer to). In your example, we found that the > concept *pair of peas* could be broken down (reduced) to a lower level > description (ie. the system was indeed merely the sum of the parts). > But in the case of the concept *laws opf physics* we find that we > *cannot* break down (reduce) this concept to any finite set of > physical objects or processes. It is also the case that the concept > *laws of physics* is *indispensible* to the scientific method, so it > cannot be argued away as some kind of semantic trick. > > We have here a clear example of an indispensible *physical* concept > which *cannot* be broken down or reduced to any finite lower level > descriptions. This proves that reductive materialism is false. > I'm not sure that it is necessary to consider the laws of physics a separate ontological category. A zoologist might study the behaviour of chimpanzees, take notes, and summarise these notes in a paper for others to read and test by seeing if chimpanzees do indeed behave as claimed. The "rules of chimpanzee behaviour" is not separate to how chimpanzees actually behave nor does it have any causal effects of its own. Similarly, a physicist might study the behaviour of electrons and write a paper for others to read and test by seeing if electrons do behave in the way claimed, but these "laws of physics" regarding electrons are not separate to electron behaviour and have no causal role in electron behaviour. Electrons and chimpanzees behave in the way they are inclined to behave, and if we can discern patterns by observing them, that's just our good fortune. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 6, 10:51 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 06/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Non-reductive materialism *doesn't* say that a person's person state
>
> > could be different even though his physical state is unchanged. If it
> > did, you are right, it wouldn't be materialism. In all forms of
> > materialism, the person's mental state has to be completely fixed by
> > the physical state.
>
> > What non-reductive materialism *does* say is that high-level
> > properties of a complex system are not completely reducible to
> > descriptions in terms of lower level properties. That is, there exist
> > real (objective) high-level properties of a system which cannot be
> > replaced by low-level descriptions.
>
> Then it seems to be a matter of semantics. You could say that a pair of peas
> cannot be explained in terms of one pea and another pea because "pair" is a
> higher level property of the system. It's just that in the case of this
> trivial example, our minds easily and intuitively see that the pair really
> is nothing more than the sum of its parts. We might imagine
> super-intelligent beings who could immediately see all sorts of
> fantastically intricate, complex systems for what they really are.
In the particular exmaple you just gave, 'pair' is *not* an
*objectively real* high-level property of the system. In this case
'pair' is indeed just a human construct which makes it easier for us
to understand the system. The system in this example *can* be reduced
to merely the sum of the parts. But I don't think all systems can.
The deciding factor is whether the higher level description is
*indispensible* or not. (See philosophy literature for 'Argument From
Indispensibility'). In the example you gave the higher level
description ('pair') *can* be dispensed with (the system is actually
merely the sum of the parts). So this is indeed a completely
reductionistic example. but not all levels of description can be
dispensed with so easily.
>
> Unfortunately reductionism appears to *the* modern day dogma of
>
> > science and it seems to be near impossible to get through to anyone in
> > the grip of this dogma. 'Eliminative materialism' is all the rage
> > these days aka Daniel Dennett and co who think that consciousness is
> > 'just a fiction' (even though Dennett uses these same-said high level
> > cognitive processes to reason his way to his absurd conclusion).
>
> It's obviously crazy to say consciousness is just a fiction; just as it's
> crazy to say a pair of peas is just a fiction. This is not the same as
> saying that the idea of consciousness as a separate ontological entity is
> just a fiction.
True. But the two cases 'consciousness' and 'pair of peas' are quite
different. As I agreed 'pair of peas' is merely a human construct.
So let's clarfiy the terminology then: the question is whether
consciousness is merely a 'human mental construct' similair to the
term 'pair of peas' or whether consciousness does exist as an
objectively real ontological entity. I'm saying it does.
Below I gave example of things ('laws of physics' and 'infinite sets')
which cannot be reduced to seperate parts in the way the 'pair of
peas' system could.
>
> We know for sure (via the argument from indispensability) than there
>
> > exist mathematical concepts (for instance uncomputable numbers and
> > infinite sets) which *cannot* be identified with finite physical
> > processes. Yet we see great minds desperate to try to deny the
> > existence of uncomputables (J.Schmidhuber on this very list just
> > showed up recently and tried to argue that only discrete math is
> > real!) - even though in fact Cantor put infinite sets on an infallible
> > footing long ago (and Abraham Robinson did the same for
> > infinitesimals). See this link for an artilce I wrote giving a quick
> > demolition of the arguments against infinite sets:
>
> >http://archives.betterhumans.com/Members/mjgeddes/BlogPost/4710/Defau...
>
> > The bottom line is that if infinite sets are real (and they are!)
> > reductive materialism is false.
>
> I don't see how that follows, even if by "real" you mean physically real as
> opposed to mathematically real.
It follows because there are *no* finite physical parts you can point
to which identify an infinite set. Think of the 'pair of peas'
example you gave. In that example, you *could* reduce the concept
'pair of peas' to finite physical parts with which you could identify
the system. In the case of an 'inifinite set' you cannot. No finite
set of physical objects can be identified with an infinite set. We
know inifinite sets are real because they are *indispensible* to our
explanations of reality (See 'Cantor'). This shows that there exist
high level concepts which *cannot* be broken to finite parts.
Now there is a possible question mark here regarding the distinction
(as you pointed out) between mathematical reality and physical
reality.
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 06/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Non-reductive materialism *doesn't* say that a person's person state
> could be different even though his physical state is unchanged. If it
> did, you are right, it wouldn't be materialism. In all forms of
> materialism, the person's mental state has to be completely fixed by
> the physical state.
>
> What non-reductive materialism *does* say is that high-level
> properties of a complex system are not completely reducible to
> descriptions in terms of lower level properties. That is, there exist
> real (objective) high-level properties of a system which cannot be
> replaced by low-level descriptions.
Then it seems to be a matter of semantics. You could say that a pair of peas
cannot be explained in terms of one pea and another pea because "pair" is a
higher level property of the system. It's just that in the case of this
trivial example, our minds easily and intuitively see that the pair really
is nothing more than the sum of its parts. We might imagine
super-intelligent beings who could immediately see all sorts of
fantastically intricate, complex systems for what they really are.
Unfortunately reductionism appears to *the* modern day dogma of
> science and it seems to be near impossible to get through to anyone in
> the grip of this dogma. 'Eliminative materialism' is all the rage
> these days aka Daniel Dennett and co who think that consciousness is
> 'just a fiction' (even though Dennett uses these same-said high level
> cognitive processes to reason his way to his absurd conclusion).
It's obviously crazy to say consciousness is just a fiction; just as it's
crazy to say a pair of peas is just a fiction. This is not the same as
saying that the idea of consciousness as a separate ontological entity is
just a fiction.
We know for sure (via the argument from indispensability) than there
> exist mathematical concepts (for instance uncomputable numbers and
> infinite sets) which *cannot* be identified with finite physical
> processes. Yet we see great minds desperate to try to deny the
> existence of uncomputables (J.Schmidhuber on this very list just
> showed up recently and tried to argue that only discrete math is
> real!) - even though in fact Cantor put infinite sets on an infallible
> footing long ago (and Abraham Robinson did the same for
> infinitesimals). See this link for an artilce I wrote giving a quick
> demolition of the arguments against infinite sets:
>
>
> http://archives.betterhumans.com/Members/mjgeddes/BlogPost/4710/Default.aspx
>
> The bottom line is that if infinite sets are real (and they are!)
> reductive materialism is false.
I don't see how that follows, even if by "real" you mean physically real as
opposed to mathematically real.
But it doesn't stop there: Science itself (via the notion of 'laws of
> physics') uses concepts which are supposed to be *universal* in
> scope. But universals by definition cannot be empirically identified
> with any finite physical concept. Again the very use of universals
> ('laws of physics') actually falsifies the reductionist claims.
This reminds me of the consternation that the logical positivists
experienced with the verifiability principle for what was meaningful in
science - which is not itself subject to the verifiability principle! Still,
I don't think this has any bearing on reductionism. The scientific method is
about how we are to go about discovering scientific truths, just as the
adversarial method in a court of law is about how to decide guilt or
innocence "beyond reasonable doubt". But the world is as it is regardless of
our methods of investigation.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 5, 6:21 am, Russell Standish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I agree that "coarse graining" is of supreme importance to cognition, > and this was bourne out in a conversation I had with a cognitive > science researcher from the Centre for the Mind the other day. That's good news. Glad we agree. > However, I'm not entirely sure we're on the same page. For me, "coarse > graining" is basically the L1/L2 mechanism used for emergence, and in > the definition of complexity (see my paper "On complexity and > emergence", or the relevant sections in my book). However, only two > levels of description are needed - others may be present, but are not > used, so I'm somewhat bemused at you saying there are three levels. Will look into it later. But yes, I'm sure there's definitely three levels: State Level (class level), Operational Level (functional level) and State-Change Level (computational physics level) > > UML, as I understand it, is a means of represent heirachies, object > heirarchies specifically. Whilst possible that heirarchies are > essential to cognition, nothing I can see at present mandates it. > > Cheers > UML is a general language used for data and process modelling. When I first learned it I was quite interested, because it seemed relevent to my interests (ontology and knowledge representation). But only after a grest deal of exposure to UML did it dawn on me that it *is* the secret to the entire universe :D Seriously, many of the concepts I have been intuitively groping towards had actually already been developed for me via UML and I was highly bemused that I could simply quickly fit all my ideas to UML concepts! You may be skeptical, but I think that OOP (Object Oriented Programming) and UML is definitely the correct paradigm over all other approaches. Indeed they had their roots in the attempts to model reality (via simulations). I think UML is far more profound than everyone realizes and could form the basis for a TOE (Theory Of Everything). *If* we regard everything as 'Knowledge' (*not* mere 'information' but 'knowledge') *then* from *this perspective* general DP modelling tools can be used a language for understanding everything. The three levels of reality (and hence three levels of time or cauaslity) implied by UML are so blindingly glaringly screamingly obvious that it's amazing that no-one but me appears to have noticed them ;) Cheers! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 6, 12:03 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 04/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> It seems to me that 'coarse graining' could provide a means for time
>
> > to 'stratify' into different levels. Now let me elaborate a little.
> > Coarse graining is the 'level of detail' at which we observe reality.
> > If we observe reality 'with a magnifying glass' as it were, we see
> > lots of details. As we 'zoom out' and observe more higher level
> > general features of reality, detailed information is lost. The
> > question is: Is it really true that the higher level descriptions of
> > reality are completely *reducible* to the lower level descriptions of
> > reality? (See for instance 'Non-reductive physicalism'). The idea
> > here is that 'the higher level' dsecriptions come about because of
> > coarse graining and that there are features of these higher level
> > descriptions that are not completely reducible to the lower level
> > descriptions.
>
> I've looked up "non-reductive physicalism" and it still seems to me an
> oxymoron. Could a person's mental state be different even though his
> physical state is unchanged? If so, then this implies that there is at least
> in part some non-physical process giving rise to consciousness. It may be
> the case, but it isn't physicalism.
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
Non-reductive materialism *doesn't* say that a person's person state
could be different even though his physical state is unchanged. If it
did, you are right, it wouldn't be materialism. In all forms of
materialism, the person's mental state has to be completely fixed by
the physical state.
What non-reductive materialism *does* say is that high-level
properties of a complex system are not completely reducible to
descriptions in terms of lower level properties. That is, there exist
real (objective) high-level properties of a system which cannot be
replaced by low-level descriptions.
Unfortunately reductionism appears to *the* modern day dogma of
science and it seems to be near impossible to get through to anyone in
the grip of this dogma. 'Eliminative materialism' is all the rage
these days aka Daniel Dennett and co who think that consciousness is
'just a fiction' (even though Dennett uses these same-said high level
cognitive processes to reason his way to his absurd conclusion).
We know for sure (via the argument from indispensability) than there
exist mathematical concepts (for instance uncomputable numbers and
infinite sets) which *cannot* be identified with finite physical
processes. Yet we see great minds desperate to try to deny the
existence of uncomputables (J.Schmidhuber on this very list just
showed up recently and tried to argue that only discrete math is
real!) - even though in fact Cantor put infinite sets on an infallible
footing long ago (and Abraham Robinson did the same for
infinitesimals). See this link for an artilce I wrote giving a quick
demolition of the arguments against infinite sets:
http://archives.betterhumans.com/Members/mjgeddes/BlogPost/4710/Default.aspx
The bottom line is that if infinite sets are real (and they are!)
reductive materialism is false.
But it doesn't stop there: Science itself (via the notion of 'laws of
physics') uses concepts which are supposed to be *universal* in
scope. But universals by definition cannot be empirically identified
with any finite physical concept. Again the very use of universals
('laws of physics') actually falsifies the reductionist claims.
--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 03:07:54AM -, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Been thinking about Bruno's often talked 1st person/3rd Person > division. Had a series of insights that seem to connect up to some > ideas of my own. > > Essentially my idea resolves around 'coarse graining' and the > possibility that there is more than one valid way to define > causality. On this and other lists I've often talked about the idea > that there is more than one sort of time and discussed ideas relating > to 3 dimensional time. But it was just vague speculation. Now my > early intuitions have crystallized somewhat. ... > > Now In UML (Unified Modelling Language), there seems to be an implicit > 'stratification' into three different levels of description. > I agree that "coarse graining" is of supreme importance to cognition, and this was bourne out in a conversation I had with a cognitive science researcher from the Centre for the Mind the other day. However, I'm not entirely sure we're on the same page. For me, "coarse graining" is basically the L1/L2 mechanism used for emergence, and in the definition of complexity (see my paper "On complexity and emergence", or the relevant sections in my book). However, only two levels of description are needed - others may be present, but are not used, so I'm somewhat bemused at you saying there are three levels. UML, as I understand it, is a means of represent heirachies, object heirarchies specifically. Whilst possible that heirarchies are essential to cognition, nothing I can see at present mandates it. Cheers A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
MG: "> Well, again, this is a functional description of *some* aspects of > consciousness with which we are familiar. I would say that > consciousness in general does not require does not require a self > model. Reflection on the motivation system generates self-awareness I > think, but other types of reflection don't involve self-awareness." MP: I think a point to note is that, in so far as consciousness is *about* something or other, the something or other is viewed, perceived, conceived, constructed, made 'knowable', whatever, *from a point of view*. This point of view, which is where I 'am' in the relevant context, may be just implicit in most experiences but is definitely explicit at other times. I think this reflects our general predisposition to naive realism which is the product of Darwinian evolution; in many if not most of the situations in which our early ancestors found themselves it was not particularly useful to be aware of the process of construction of the experience, in fact the energy and mind space necessary to do so would have a very high opportunity cost, life threatening in fact. To put it another way: self-awareness is a philosophical necessity but a biological luxury. MG: " > Reflection is the process of reasoning about cognitive systems (ie > cognitive systems recursively calling other cognitive systems). If > explanations of cognitive systems cannot be entirely reduced to low > level physics, then it appears that reflection must involve a new > definition of causality which cannot be reduced to mere computation. > Indeed, one could say that reflection IS a form of higher-order > causality - the higher level processes involved in reasoning about > cognitive systems and lower-level physics. Consciousness is of course > *composed* of computation and physical processes (according to all > available scientific evidence). But the *explanations* of > consciousness are not necessarily completely reducible to these > things." MP: I agree that mental reflection IS a form of higher level causality. I think though that it is NOT possible to totally reduce something to something else yet still retain the original reality in its completeness. But 'reduction', vaccinated with sufficient doses of 'ceteris paribus', is still enormously powerful. It is a central tool of scientific method. The way I see it, what we are calling reduction is in fact *synthesis* of a representational system which by definition embodies abstractions of what are considered to be the relevant essential features, usually requiring some mathematical format to obtain the maximum leverage. My acronym for what goes on is "UMSITW" [pronounced 'um-see-two'] which means Updating Model of Self In The World. I am not impressed by assertions that consciousness is sometimes not ABOUT anything in particular. I think that the kind of experiences being referred to, such as a 'no-mind' state of meditation, are what it is like to be the high gain system when, after much practice, the brain has been trained to virtually cease evoking representations. Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 5, 10:05 pm, Mark Peaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> MG: >> 'There is no doubt that the nature of consciousness is closely >> >>> associated with time in some way - but exactly how? The relationship >>> between time (time flow and also causality) may be far closer than >>> many realize. Could consciousness in fact be *identical* to time in >>> some peculiar sense? ' >> MP: How about: consciousness is simply [ie no more and no less >> than] the *registration of change* in one's model of >> self-in-the-world. >> >> My understanding, from my [admittedly-] shallow but obsessive >> and persistent reading of abstracts and articles, is that a >> reasonable case can be made that sentience in vertebrates can >> be correlated to the fact of and extent that the outcome of >> perception and action does not match expectation. The gist of >> the mechanism is that every time an 'instruction' to move or >> change perceptual focus is generated and emitted to muscles >> and/or adaptable sense organs, a matching emission goes to the >> cerebellum. There the 'expectation' - the amalgamated result of >> all previous instances - is evoked in concert with the outcome >> of the current new instance. Any discrepancies are then >> available for feedback and feed-forward to modulate the activity >> and warn of potential problems. > > That sounds like a pretty good description of *how* consciousness > arises, but it doesn't actually explain *what* consciousness in > general actually is. > >> The model of self in the world is just a bunch of network >> activations which embody/describe/denote/are the situational >> awareness and navigational controls of the entity. For human >> beings, who can tell themselves and each other stories, the >> model of self in
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On 04/05/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: It seems to me that 'coarse graining' could provide a means for time > to 'stratify' into different levels. Now let me elaborate a little. > Coarse graining is the 'level of detail' at which we observe reality. > If we observe reality 'with a magnifying glass' as it were, we see > lots of details. As we 'zoom out' and observe more higher level > general features of reality, detailed information is lost. The > question is: Is it really true that the higher level descriptions of > reality are completely *reducible* to the lower level descriptions of > reality? (See for instance 'Non-reductive physicalism'). The idea > here is that 'the higher level' dsecriptions come about because of > coarse graining and that there are features of these higher level > descriptions that are not completely reducible to the lower level > descriptions. > I've looked up "non-reductive physicalism" and it still seems to me an oxymoron. Could a person's mental state be different even though his physical state is unchanged? If so, then this implies that there is at least in part some non-physical process giving rise to consciousness. It may be the case, but it isn't physicalism. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 5, 10:05 pm, Mark Peaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > MG: > 'There is no doubt that the nature of consciousness is closely > > > associated with time in some way - but exactly how? The relationship > > between time (time flow and also causality) may be far closer than > > many realize. Could consciousness in fact be *identical* to time in > > some peculiar sense? ' > > MP: How about: consciousness is simply [ie no more and no less > than] the *registration of change* in one's model of > self-in-the-world. > > My understanding, from my [admittedly-] shallow but obsessive > and persistent reading of abstracts and articles, is that a > reasonable case can be made that sentience in vertebrates can > be correlated to the fact of and extent that the outcome of > perception and action does not match expectation. The gist of > the mechanism is that every time an 'instruction' to move or > change perceptual focus is generated and emitted to muscles > and/or adaptable sense organs, a matching emission goes to the > cerebellum. There the 'expectation' - the amalgamated result of > all previous instances - is evoked in concert with the outcome > of the current new instance. Any discrepancies are then > available for feedback and feed-forward to modulate the activity > and warn of potential problems. That sounds like a pretty good description of *how* consciousness arises, but it doesn't actually explain *what* consciousness in general actually is. > > The model of self in the world is just a bunch of network > activations which embody/describe/denote/are the situational > awareness and navigational controls of the entity. For human > beings, who can tell themselves and each other stories, the > model of self in the world clearly must include much description > of social and personal history. For the model of self in the > world to exist [and be any use at all] it must entail > representations of currently significant features of the world, > currently relevant aspects of 'self', and relevant relationships > between self and world. The representation of self incorporates > recursive self-references and therefore constitutes a process > that is present and unique [and to a great extent > unpredictable]. There is therefore something which actually > exists. The constant updating of this model of self in the world > IS the experience we call consciousness or awareness. Well, again, this is a functional description of *some* aspects of consciousness with which we are familiar. I would say that consciousness in general does not require does not require a self model. Reflection on the motivation system generates self-awareness I think, but other types of reflection don't involve self-awareness. > > What we call time can be seen as the story, or sets of stories, > we tell ourselves and each other in order to account for the > changes that are occurring and to predict and control what we > expect to occur. Calling time a 'dimension' therefore, or a set > of dimensions, seems to me to be a rather abstract fudge. > Enormously useful of course, we couldn't make social > appointments or launch space rockets without 'time', but aren't > we just reifying a human construct when we do this? > > Regards > > Mark Peaty CDES It all depends on whether high level concepts (concepts at the level of functional systems) are completely reducible to explanations in terms of low level physics. If they are (if reductionism is true) then indeed, it would appear that the passgae of time has no reality (it would be merely a useful human fiction as you point out). But if reductionism is not true (as I suspect), then time could more complex than is commonly thought. Reflection is the process of reasoning about cognitive systems (ie cognitive systems recursively calling other cognitive systems). If explanations of cognitive systems cannot be entirely reduced to low level physics, then it appears that reflection must involve a new definition of causality which cannot be reduced to mere computation. Indeed, one could say that reflection IS a form of higher-order causality - the higher level processes involved in reasoning about cognitive systems and lower-level physics. Conciousness is of course *composed* of computation and physical processes (according to all avaliable scientific evidence). But the *explanations* of consciousness are not neccesserily completely reducible to these things. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 5, 1:59 am, "Danny Mayes " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I think of time from the third person perspective as being simply a higher > >> spatial dimension above 3 dimensional volume in the same way that 3 > >> dimensional volume exists above 2 dimensional area. In other words it's > >> really the same as the other dimensions. > > >> So your comment about "3 dimensional time" is sort of right, but it is of > >> course actually 4 dimen
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
MG: 'There is no doubt that the nature of consciousness is closely > associated with time in some way - but exactly how? The relationship > between time (time flow and also causality) may be far closer than > many realize. Could consciousness in fact be *identical* to time in > some peculiar sense? ' MP: How about: consciousness is simply [ie no more and no less than] the *registration of change* in one's model of self-in-the-world. My understanding, from my [admittedly-] shallow but obsessive and persistent reading of abstracts and articles, is that a reasonable case can be made that sentience in vertebrates can be correlated to the fact of and extent that the outcome of perception and action does not match expectation. The gist of the mechanism is that every time an 'instruction' to move or change perceptual focus is generated and emitted to muscles and/or adaptable sense organs, a matching emission goes to the cerebellum. There the 'expectation' - the amalgamated result of all previous instances - is evoked in concert with the outcome of the current new instance. Any discrepancies are then available for feedback and feed-forward to modulate the activity and warn of potential problems. The model of self in the world is just a bunch of network activations which embody/describe/denote/are the situational awareness and navigational controls of the entity. For human beings, who can tell themselves and each other stories, the model of self in the world clearly must include much description of social and personal history. For the model of self in the world to exist [and be any use at all] it must entail representations of currently significant features of the world, currently relevant aspects of 'self', and relevant relationships between self and world. The representation of self incorporates recursive self-references and therefore constitutes a process that is present and unique [and to a great extent unpredictable]. There is therefore something which actually exists. The constant updating of this model of self in the world IS the experience we call consciousness or awareness. What we call time can be seen as the story, or sets of stories, we tell ourselves and each other in order to account for the changes that are occurring and to predict and control what we expect to occur. Calling time a 'dimension' therefore, or a set of dimensions, seems to me to be a rather abstract fudge. Enormously useful of course, we couldn't make social appointments or launch space rockets without 'time', but aren't we just reifying a human construct when we do this? Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On May 5, 1:59 am, "Danny Mayes " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I think of time from the third person perspective as being simply a higher >> spatial dimension above 3 dimensional volume in the same way that 3 >> dimensional volume exists above 2 dimensional area. In other words it's >> really the same as the other dimensions. >> >> So your comment about "3 dimensional time" is sort of right, but it is of >> course actually 4 dimensional. This means there are connections and >> relationships between points in this "hyperspace" that we can't imagine with >> our normal thought process because it is obviously something more than 3 >> dimensional volume. > > No, 3-d time would be quite different to the standard 4-d block > universe of general relativity. Even in relativity, the time > dimension is not exactly the same as the spatial dimenions. 3-d time > would result in a 6-d block universe (the standard 3-dimensions of > space, plus 3 extra time dimensions). > > In any event, I've kinda modified my ideas and am not longer > postulating three time dimenions in a literal sense. What I'm > suggesting is simply that there may be more than one valid way to > define causality and it may arise from the fact that there are > different levels of organization. I'm a non-reductionist. Although I > agree there may be physical properties associated with everything, > there are many different levels of organization and I'm skeptical that > higher level properties of systems are entirely reducible to > explanations in terms of the lowest level properties. This would > allow for the possibility of there being more than one valid measure > of time flow. > > >> This 4 dimensional thing is eternal, and is the multiverse. Actually that >> is not even correct because it implies the passage of an infinite amount of >> time. Time is ultimately the relationships between things and how those >> relationships change. So for the entire multiverse it exists outside of >> time, or more accurately time exists as a part of it so it does not make >> sense to discuss the whole in the context of time. >> >> From the first person point of view the sum is greater than the parts. No >> individual frame of reference creates an obse
Re: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
On May 5, 1:59 am, "Danny Mayes " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think of time from the third person perspective as being simply a higher > spatial dimension above 3 dimensional volume in the same way that 3 > dimensional volume exists above 2 dimensional area. In other words it's > really the same as the other dimensions. > > So your comment about "3 dimensional time" is sort of right, but it is of > course actually 4 dimensional. This means there are connections and > relationships between points in this "hyperspace" that we can't imagine with > our normal thought process because it is obviously something more than 3 > dimensional volume. No, 3-d time would be quite different to the standard 4-d block universe of general relativity. Even in relativity, the time dimension is not exactly the same as the spatial dimenions. 3-d time would result in a 6-d block universe (the standard 3-dimensions of space, plus 3 extra time dimensions). In any event, I've kinda modified my ideas and am not longer postulating three time dimenions in a literal sense. What I'm suggesting is simply that there may be more than one valid way to define causality and it may arise from the fact that there are different levels of organization. I'm a non-reductionist. Although I agree there may be physical properties associated with everything, there are many different levels of organization and I'm skeptical that higher level properties of systems are entirely reducible to explanations in terms of the lowest level properties. This would allow for the possibility of there being more than one valid measure of time flow. > > This 4 dimensional thing is eternal, and is the multiverse. Actually that > is not even correct because it implies the passage of an infinite amount of > time. Time is ultimately the relationships between things and how those > relationships change. So for the entire multiverse it exists outside of > time, or more accurately time exists as a part of it so it does not make > sense to discuss the whole in the context of time. > > From the first person point of view the sum is greater than the parts. No > individual frame of reference creates an observer moment because it > obviously takes the passage of some time (passage of time being another way > of saying a string of individual universe frames in the first person point > of view). Therefore the illusion of time passing and moving in one > direction is simply a result of the nature of consciousness. Consciousness > involves linear thought process and we of course only seem to experience one > outcome as you follow the line of existence of the SAS (that acronym used to > be used a lot around here!) through the multiverse. From the 3rd person > perspective, the existence of the SAS is a 4 dimensional space in this > diagram (covering its existence in every universe it is described in), but > again from its perspective on the diagram it is a one dimensional line > through points in the 4 dimensional hyperspace it existed. This is of > course its self-perceived time line. > > This idea may give us a theory as to the total information capacity of the > multiverse, which may not be infinite. It may also explain the holographic > principal, as suggested by Colin Bruce a few years ago. > There is no doubt that the nature of consciousness is closely associated with time in some way - but exactly how? The relationship between time (time flow and also causality) may be far closer than many realize. Could consciousness in fact be *identical* to time in some peculiar sense? This is in fact what I'm getting at with my suggestion that there may be more than one valid way to define causality. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!?
I think of time from the third person perspective as being simply a higher spatial dimension above 3 dimensional volume in the same way that 3 dimensional volume exists above 2 dimensional area. In other words it's really the same as the other dimensions. So your comment about "3 dimensional time" is sort of right, but it is of course actually 4 dimensional. This means there are connections and relationships between points in this "hyperspace" that we can't imagine with our normal thought process because it is obviously something more than 3 dimensional volume. This 4 dimensional thing is eternal, and is the multiverse. Actually that is not even correct because it implies the passage of an infinite amount of time. Time is ultimately the relationships between things and how those relationships change. So for the entire multiverse it exists outside of time, or more accurately time exists as a part of it so it does not make sense to discuss the whole in the context of time. >From the first person point of view the sum is greater than the parts. No individual frame of reference creates an observer moment because it obviously takes the passage of some time (passage of time being another way of saying a string of individual universe frames in the first person point of view). Therefore the illusion of time passing and moving in one direction is simply a result of the nature of consciousness. Consciousness involves linear thought process and we of course only seem to experience one outcome as you follow the line of existence of the SAS (that acronym used to be used a lot around here!) through the multiverse. From the 3rd person perspective, the existence of the SAS is a 4 dimensional space in this diagram (covering its existence in every universe it is described in), but again from its perspective on the diagram it is a one dimensional line through points in the 4 dimensional hyperspace it existed. This is of course its self-perceived time line. This idea may give us a theory as to the total information capacity of the multiverse, which may not be infinite. It may also explain the holographic principal, as suggested by Colin Bruce a few years ago. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 11:08 PM To: Everything List Subject: An idea to resolve the 1st Person/3rd person division mystery - Coarse graining is the answer!? Been thinking about Bruno's often talked 1st person/3rd Person division. Had a series of insights that seem to connect up to some ideas of my own. Essentially my idea resolves around 'coarse graining' and the possibility that there is more than one valid way to define causality. On this and other lists I've often talked about the idea that there is more than one sort of time and discussed ideas relating to 3 dimensional time. But it was just vague speculation. Now my early intuitions have crystallized somewhat. It seems to me that 'coarse graining' could provide a means for time to 'stratify' into different levels. Now let me elaborate a little. Coarse graining is the 'level of detail' at which we observe reality. If we observe reality 'with a magnifying glass' as it were, we see lots of details. As we 'zoom out' and observe more higher level general features of reality, detailed information is lost. The question is: Is it really true that the higher level descriptions of reality are completely *reducible* to the lower level descriptions of reality? (See for instance 'Non-reductive physicalism'). The idea here is that 'the higher level' dsecriptions come about because of coarse graining and that there are features of these higher level descriptions that are not completely reducible to the lower level descriptions. Now In UML (Unified Modelling Language), there seems to be an implicit 'stratification' into three different levels of description. The first level of description is the 'State Model' - here only the most general (class level) properties of something are given. The second level of description is the 'Operational Model' - the functional properties of a system are what the system is actually doing externally. (ie the systems actions on the external world). But I noticed that this level of description involves more detail - the 'coarse graining' level has changed - we are 'zooming in' on the details so to speak. Finally, the third level of description is the 'State Change Model' - here we 'zoom in' on the internal details of the causal state changes in the system. Big idea: these three levels of description in UML could correspond directly to 'three different levels' in the real world - from which could be derived three different definitions of time arising from coarse graining! In other words, time is stratified into three different levels. Here they are: State Model time:Evolution of the QM wave function: 'branching' of MWI tree (high level) Ope
