Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 July 2014 02:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But from the above I'm led to wonder whether you've actually read the MGA, so I repeat them here for convenient reference: Hi Brent - did you see my response to this? David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 Jul 2014, at 21:25, David Nyman wrote: On 14 July 2014 18:26, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Such explanations are bottom up all the way down. Hence there is simply no place in that explanatory hierarchy for any supplementary notion of computation distinguishable from what is already fully embodied in physical action. Hmm... You do the non relevant mistake again (or I misinterpret you badly). I am afraid that what you say here for physics can be applied to arithmetic too. No doubt I may be mistaken (I'm trying to be clear enough to be wrong). Computation per se may indeed be reducible to just the basic number relations, in something like the sense that matter, under physicalism (phys), is reducible to just the basic physical relations. I think so. With complex nuances which would lead us astray. But ISTM, that comp is redeemed from (or as you say vaccinated against) reduction (and by the same token zombie-hood) by the irreducible emergence of the internal views. Yes. But the point is that to make sense of this, we will need the higher 3p description, like the arithmetical beweisbar, []p, (or any arithmetically sound extensions like you and me if comp is true), which despite being a (universal) number, will still have its own dynamic, relatively to some master universal numbers (which run it, in arithmetic). The arithmetical truth contains out of time all such relations/ computations, and indeed with comp, that defines both the ONE (arithmetical truth), and the intelligible (here the part of arithmetical truth concerning a machine []p) Then Gödel's incompleteness, more acuratly Löb's theorem (which extends Gödel a bit), makes that if we define knowledge by true (justified) belief, or more aptly (to avoid Gerson error) if we define knowing p, by (believing p) p, the knower get its new essence (as gerson thinks correctly that the ancient insisted on) *from the machine first person view, where the conjunction of probable and truth leads to a subject provably undefinable by the machine. The machine's intuition will be that she is not a machine, and she will understand the transcendence of the bet done when saying yes to a digitalist surgeon. It is much more difficult to see how phys can be redeemed in any comparable way without resorting at least tacitly to comp (at which point the difficulties begin anew). This in my opinion already does not eliminate the reality of the 3p high level description, but of course constitutes a threat to eliminate the role of consciousness. But do you think that the 3p high-level description would be equally real if (somehow) it were not ultimately redeemable by the internal views (e.g. if, counter-factually, my own high-level 3p description merely resulted in zombie-hood)? I think we have to think so. Arithmetizing meta-arithmetic, does not make disappear the meta-arithmetic. We need both that all arithmetical formula make sense, or at least the sigma_1 one, to get the UD considered existing independently of us, and which define the measure which will channel the instantiation of the first person consciousness fluxes. We need arithmetical truth (which includes many levels, not all first person perceptible) to see how from inside, consciousness grows with the G* minus G (and intensional variants). Of course all this makes sense only from inside, and consciousness get the number sense here through some reminiscence of where it all starts. Here physicalism fails, almost because it is not interested in consciousness. Here QM (and especially Everett-QM) should open the mind of the physicists that such a reductionism mind = brain state is failing. Yes, this is the point I have been making for some time now. But the machine itself has a natural knower associated to it. Forgive me for not commenting more extensively on your remarks (which I will study) but this seems to me to be the absolutely capital point. Yes, and as Gerson missed, that has been solved by Theaetetus. Socrate (and many philosophers) criticize Theaetetus definition, because it does look like a 3p description. But with beweisbar playing the role of belief, the arithmetical version of the Theaetetus provides a counter-example. []p p is provably not definable in arithmetic, or in any language that a universal can ever understand. The machine can still point on it, and give, like God, local nickname, like me or you. I will come back later on how to justify the abyssal difference of essence between '[]p and []p p. ISTM above all else that a natural knower is the crux of the redemption of the first person from exhaustive physical reduction and effective elimination. It's precisely the radical absence of such a natural knower in the reductive hierarchy of phys - indeed the irrelevance of such a knower to its defining mode of explanation - that I've continually had in
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 15 Jul 2014, at 15:53, Richard Ruquist wrote: On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 4:25 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Jul 2014, at 02:04, meekerdb wrote: Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. The MG is supposed to have been made at some right substitution level, by us, by chance (whatever), then (and here I am not sure of Quentin's wording, but each computation at some level is emulated in parallel at infinitely many coarse grained level in arithmetic, that looks like more primitive computations. To give an example, imagine a Lisp program computing a factorial function. You have a well defined computation in term of the stepping (tracing) function associated to an interpreter Lisp and the input (factorial 5), say. As Lisp is a universal number, that *counts* as a computation. But then imagine the computation of the Lisp program emulating a boolean Graph (Nor gates and their link and delays) emulating a Z80 processor, emulating itself a Lisp interpreter computing (factorial 5) with the same algorithm as above. Does that comp for a computation of (factorial 5). It does. Is it the same computation? Not really. It is a different path in the UD*. If that process incarnate the conscious flux, then both does, but one if (by construction) at the simplest right level (program in Lisp computing fact 5), and the other is, notably, emulating a lower level, that is the Boolean graph of the Z80 processor. Are they the same because they both compute 5!; even if they used different algorithms? No. If they use different algorithm, the function computed is the same, but the computation differs. But in the above case, I suppose it is the same algorithm, but we look at the implementation at a lower level. Again the computation differ at that lower level, and does not differ at the higher level. In the UD*, this will correspond to different phi_i(j)^n, and thus different computations, but equivalent from the point of view of the factorial (say). Bruno That suggests the concept of Computation Paths (CP). And that in cases where two different CPs find the same number, the CPs form a feedback loop; hence the arithmetic is quickly self- referential; I am not sure why two CP ending on a same number would lead to a feedback loop. Self-reference exist through the solution of the second recursion theorem of Kleene, basically the Dx = XX, with the bizarre quote. and prime numbers are not self-referential, an indication of their importance.. Well, a big prime number might certainly be both universal, self- referential, and prime. But universal is not an intrinsic notion like prime, it depend on the local universal number. Bruno Richard And, yes, knowing the universal number and its data, you know, or can derive, the counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. Well, I agree, that is why we need to distinguish []p and []p p, and []p p. Universal numbers can justify their own incompleteness and they can bet, and intuit, the thing with respect to which it is incomplete. The []p is just a believer. The p nuance is equivalent with giving him a world satisfying p. The p nuance consists in keeping intact the relation between belief and truth (or God, or Real world, etc.). The math shows that such nuances obeys different, but related, laws. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my consciousness. Sure, me too. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence of numbers as any more than elements fo language. This is conventionalism. I consider that this view is refuted by number theory implicitly, and by mathematical logic explicitly. The existence of not of infinitely many prime number twins is everythi,g but conventional. With comp, the existence of your dreams in arithmetic, and their relative proportions, are not conventional. So it is not like choosing a universal
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 Jul 2014, at 02:04, meekerdb wrote: Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. The MG is supposed to have been made at some right substitution level, by us, by chance (whatever), then (and here I am not sure of Quentin's wording, but each computation at some level is emulated in parallel at infinitely many coarse grained level in arithmetic, that looks like more primitive computations. To give an example, imagine a Lisp program computing a factorial function. You have a well defined computation in term of the stepping (tracing) function associated to an interpreter Lisp and the input (factorial 5), say. As Lisp is a universal number, that *counts* as a computation. But then imagine the computation of the Lisp program emulating a boolean Graph (Nor gates and their link and delays) emulating a Z80 processor, emulating itself a Lisp interpreter computing (factorial 5) with the same algorithm as above. Does that comp for a computation of (factorial 5). It does. Is it the same computation? Not really. It is a different path in the UD*. If that process incarnate the conscious flux, then both does, but one if (by construction) at the simplest right level (program in Lisp computing fact 5), and the other is, notably, emulating a lower level, that is the Boolean graph of the Z80 processor. Are they the same because they both compute 5!; even if they used different algorithms? No. If they use different algorithm, the function computed is the same, but the computation differs. But in the above case, I suppose it is the same algorithm, but we look at the implementation at a lower level. Again the computation differ at that lower level, and does not differ at the higher level. In the UD*, this will correspond to different phi_i(j)^n, and thus different computations, but equivalent from the point of view of the factorial (say). Bruno And, yes, knowing the universal number and its data, you know, or can derive, the counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. Well, I agree, that is why we need to distinguish []p and []p p, and []p p. Universal numbers can justify their own incompleteness and they can bet, and intuit, the thing with respect to which it is incomplete. The []p is just a believer. The p nuance is equivalent with giving him a world satisfying p. The p nuance consists in keeping intact the relation between belief and truth (or God, or Real world, etc.). The math shows that such nuances obeys different, but related, laws. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my consciousness. Sure, me too. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence of numbers as any more than elements fo language. This is conventionalism. I consider that this view is refuted by number theory implicitly, and by mathematical logic explicitly. The existence of not of infinitely many prime number twins is everythi,g but conventional. With comp, the existence of your dreams in arithmetic, and their relative proportions, are not conventional. So it is not like choosing a universal number, it's saying that some things exist and some don't. Define exist. If you say exists physically then you beg the question, and I will ask you to define physics. Define exists. See the preceding post. The TOE derived from the mechanist reincarnation belief, needs only to agree with the first order standard definition, mainly that a theory proves that something exists having some property P when the theory verifies (proves) P for some object. It is the rule A(x) - B / ExA(x) - B, (useful in more general setting), or more simply the classical A(n) / ExA(x). But that begs the question of whether the axioms are true. It is just existence relative to some axioms and rules of inference. Isn't that why you include p...to assume the truth of the axioms in some world? Then the points of
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 4:25 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Jul 2014, at 02:04, meekerdb wrote: Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. The MG is supposed to have been made at some right substitution level, by us, by chance (whatever), then (and here I am not sure of Quentin's wording, but each computation at some level is emulated in parallel at infinitely many coarse grained level in arithmetic, that looks like more primitive computations. To give an example, imagine a Lisp program computing a factorial function. You have a well defined computation in term of the stepping (tracing) function associated to an interpreter Lisp and the input (factorial 5), say. As Lisp is a universal number, that *counts* as a computation. But then imagine the computation of the Lisp program emulating a boolean Graph (Nor gates and their link and delays) emulating a Z80 processor, emulating itself a Lisp interpreter computing (factorial 5) with the same algorithm as above. Does that comp for a computation of (factorial 5). It does. Is it the same computation? Not really. It is a different path in the UD*. If that process incarnate the conscious flux, then both does, but one if (by construction) at the simplest right level (program in Lisp computing fact 5), and the other is, notably, emulating a lower level, that is the Boolean graph of the Z80 processor. Are they the same because they both compute 5!; even if they used different algorithms? No. If they use different algorithm, the function computed is the same, but the computation differs. But in the above case, I suppose it is the same algorithm, but we look at the implementation at a lower level. Again the computation differ at that lower level, and does not differ at the higher level. In the UD*, this will correspond to different phi_i(j)^n, and thus different computations, but equivalent from the point of view of the factorial (say). Bruno That suggests the concept of Computation Paths (CP). And that in cases where two different CPs find the same number, the CPs form a feedback loop; hence the arithmetic is quickly self-referential; and prime numbers are not self-referential, an indication of their importance.. Richard And, yes, knowing the universal number and its data, you know, or can derive, the counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. Well, I agree, that is why we need to distinguish []p and []p p, and []p p. Universal numbers can justify their own incompleteness and they can bet, and intuit, the thing with respect to which it is incomplete. The []p is just a believer. The p nuance is equivalent with giving him a world satisfying p. The p nuance consists in keeping intact the relation between belief and truth (or God, or Real world, etc.). The math shows that such nuances obeys different, but related, laws. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my consciousness. Sure, me too. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence of numbers as any more than elements fo language. This is conventionalism. I consider that this view is refuted by number theory implicitly, and by mathematical logic explicitly. The existence of not of infinitely many prime number twins is everythi,g but conventional. With comp, the existence of your dreams in arithmetic, and their relative proportions, are not conventional. So it is not like choosing a universal number, it's saying that some things exist and some don't. Define exist. If you say exists physically then you beg the question, and I will ask you to define physics. Define exists. See the preceding post. The TOE derived from the mechanist reincarnation belief, needs only to agree with the first order standard definition, mainly that a theory proves that something exists having some property P when the theory verifies (proves) P for some object. It is the rule A(x) - B / ExA(x) - B,
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 July 2014 02:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I appreciate your granma level explication. I'm pleased. I sometimes find your prose difficult to parse. I'm not so pleased. Sorry :-( I must admit, parenthetically, that I don't always find it simple to reconcile the relative brevity demanded by these discussions with the parallel demand for clarity and lack of ambiguity. Thanks for persisting. But from the above I'm led to wonder whether you've actually read the MGA, I promise you I wouldn't have the temerity to base an argument on something I hadn't read. However, I haven't re-read it that recently. so I repeat them here for convenient reference: Thanks (re-reads) So contrary to your, Indeed the MGA itself exploits this basic insight by showing how relations originally accepted as computational can be entirely evacuated from a physical system whilst preserving the same net physical action (including, pace Brent, the same relations with a physical environment). in the argument the physical activity is evacuated (all the gates break down, it's only a movie) and the consciousness is (hypothetically) preserved. Well, this is obviously a case where I haven't succeeded in removing all possible ambiguity, so let me try to clarify. Both MGA1 and MGA2 accept logic gates as the physical embodiment of computation at the start. In both versions the original physical action of the gates is disrupted but in some way (fortuitous in MGA1 and pre-determined in MGA2) the overall net physical action of Alice's electronic or optical brain is preserved. Since Alice is awake in MGA1 it should be clear that in this case her physical relation with her environment (i.e. her performance in the exam) is also unaffected. This is slightly more opaque in MGA2 as she is now asleep and dreaming, but as Bruno points out this is merely a detail to simplify the exposition. It would be possible if more tedious to extend the argument of MGA2 to a scenario in which Alice is awake and both the net physical action of her brain and hence its relations with its physical environment are preserved. I hope it's now clearer what I meant. The computation is evacuated (because the logic gates that have been accepted as embodying it at the start have ceased to function as such) but the physical action is preserved (because the physical system embodying Alice's brain is contrived to evolve through the equivalent physical states, extending therefore to the equivalent relation with its physical environment). To put it in grandma terms again, in either MGA1 or a waking-version of MGA2, if you were to observe Alice throughout, you would be unable to notice any difference in her overt behaviour. So now you have to decide whether she has become a zombie. The reason I claim that my pet de-construction of the notion of physical computation is implicit in the MGA is simply that arguments like this (and you could construct alternatives) are designed to make it blindingly obvious that, ex hypothesi physicalism, physical action is always, in the final analysis, what really matters. What cannot then really matter is any supplementary attribution that may or may not be applied to that action after the fact, given that the net physical action is preserved. The question of whether or not we choose to grant or withhold the attribution of computation to the net physical action of Alice's brain is irrelevant as long as it is assumed (as it must be) to act under the sole constraint of physical law. The physical facts (at whatever level of description you choose) are that its net action is unaffected and as a consequence no observer can detect a difference either in Alice's overt behaviour or its putative meaning. Indeed the question we are faced with is: could she? In the end, the point is that, as you argue yourself, computation is a fundamentally mathematical (indeed an arithmetical) notion, not a physical one. This is really crux of your argument, and I find it appealing Yes, that's really the conclusion my de-constructive argument was aiming at. I'm interested in what you find appealing about it. but not absolutely convincing. I'm not sure I fully understand why, but I'll consider the reasons you set out below. As far as we know all computation is physically associated, including our thoughts about it being abstract and immaterial. Yes, but we must tread very carefully here. If we are scrupulous about sticking to an explanatory strategy based on physical reduction we are forced to accept that both computation and our thoughts about it being abstract and immaterial are fully accountable in terms of some sort of physical action. Whether we are then still justified, without tacit supplemental assumptions, in considering such a reduction as having retroactive explanatory relevance with respect to either computation, or our thoughts about it, is what is moot. And clearly computation as a whole is more extensive than
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 Jul 2014, at 02:38, David Nyman wrote: On 13 July 2014 22:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). I can, and see what you mean, but I prefer not, because I am realist on the relations and higher 3p description too. Well, I'm still not really convinced that the fundamental assumptions of physical reduction justify your realism on the higher-level descriptions. I see, and perhaps I should not have made that remark here, as it is distracting from the issue that you discuss with Brent. I really don't think it is important (here). But actually I'm not even sure that one need insist on this to stop the notion of physical computation dead in its tracks. But only through the MGA, because at step seven, we might still, from a logical point of view, make a move toward the assumption that the real physical is not robust enough to run a significant part of the UD*. Of course that move is ad hoc, and then MGA attempts to show how much that move is ad hoc. But the existence or not of high level 3p objects is not really relevant to kill the notion of physical computation, or of primitively physical entities. And of course if one can do this then it must also, a fortiori, put a stop to any idea of linking any such notion with consciousness. This reductio was really the point of my argument and if I had to sum it up for grandma I would say that the key idea is just that, ex hypothesi physicalism, action of any sort and at whatever level of description must always be reducible to *physical action simpliciter*. So accepting physics as a TOE is equivalent to accepting both that no possible action can be omitted from its explanatory scope and that no further class of action need be appealed to in accounting for any physical state of affairs. I think from that one can already get the idea that, under such assumptions, supplementary notions such as computation are simply *redundant* in explaining physical action. Indeed the MGA itself exploits this basic insight by showing how relations originally accepted as computational can be entirely evacuated from a physical system whilst preserving the same net physical action (including, pace Brent, the same relations with a physical environment). Even in the case that we accept a notion of physical computation as an a posteriori attribution, that attribution cannot retrospectively be accepted as adding anything to the exhaustive reductive hierarchy of the physical object or system in question. To put it baldly, under physicalism, a PC or a brain is, at whatever level of description, a physical object first last and always. Any action associated with that object must, under the same assumptions, be exhaustively reducible to the explanatory basement of physical entities and relations. Such explanations are bottom up all the way down. Hence there is simply no place in that explanatory hierarchy for any supplementary notion of computation distinguishable from what is already fully embodied in physical action. Hmm... You do the non relevant mistake again (or I misinterpret you badly). I am afraid that what you say here for physics can be applied to arithmetic too. As long as we are interested only in 3p descriptions, with comp, (and with or without physicalism) we do explain completely the observable or describable action. If my goal is to predicted which next move Deep Blue, the chess program, will do, I can contend myself to start from its state description at the boolean gate level, and explain (even predict if I am quick enough, or if Deep Blue is put in pause!) the next move by just applying (a lot of times) the logical rules of the NOR, and its delays, like in principles, I can predict that Jeanne will put her hands quickly out of the fire, by solving the quantum many body problems involved at some low level. This in my opinion already does not eliminate the reality of the 3p high level description, but of course constitutes a threat to eliminate the role of consciousness. Here physicalism fails, almost because it is not interested in consciousness. Here QM (and especially Everett-QM) should open the mind of the physicists that such a reductionism mind = brain state is failing. With comp, in UDA, the mind-body problem is shown to give this new problem: explaining why apparently some sophisticated long quantum histories (the making of special universe numbers) have won the competition between all computations (as simpler concept definable in arithmetic, already assumed at some level by the physicists). At that stage, it is unclear if a solution of that problem (which would explain
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 14 July 2014 18:26, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Such explanations are bottom up all the way down. Hence there is simply no place in that explanatory hierarchy for any supplementary notion of computation distinguishable from what is already fully embodied in physical action. Hmm... You do the non relevant mistake again (or I misinterpret you badly). I am afraid that what you say here for physics can be applied to arithmetic too. No doubt I may be mistaken (I'm trying to be clear enough to be wrong). Computation per se may indeed be reducible to just the basic number relations, in something like the sense that matter, under physicalism (phys), is reducible to just the basic physical relations. But ISTM, that comp is redeemed from (or as you say vaccinated against) reduction (and by the same token zombie-hood) by the irreducible emergence of the internal views. It is much more difficult to see how phys can be redeemed in any comparable way without resorting at least tacitly to comp (at which point the difficulties begin anew). This in my opinion already does not eliminate the reality of the 3p high level description, but of course constitutes a threat to eliminate the role of consciousness. But do you think that the 3p high-level description would be equally real if (somehow) it were not ultimately redeemable by the internal views (e.g. if, counter-factually, my own high-level 3p description merely resulted in zombie-hood)? Here physicalism fails, almost because it is not interested in consciousness. Here QM (and especially Everett-QM) should open the mind of the physicists that such a reductionism mind = brain state is failing. Yes, this is the point I have been making for some time now. But the machine itself has a natural knower associated to it. Forgive me for not commenting more extensively on your remarks (which I will study) but this seems to me to be the absolutely capital point. ISTM above all else that a natural knower is the crux of the redemption of the first person from exhaustive physical reduction and effective elimination. It's precisely the radical absence of such a natural knower in the reductive hierarchy of phys - indeed the irrelevance of such a knower to its defining mode of explanation - that I've continually had in mind. Of course, it may still seem open to phys to make a grab for the knower associated to the machine, unless the conjunction of comp and phys can be shown to be incompatible, or at least lead to the explanatory irrelevance of the latter. I can understand your attitude here, and I draw the same conclusion, but I still think it a pity to miss any potential opportunity to de-construct the notion of physical computation in its own terms. All right, just be careful to not de-construct 3p computer science and 3p-number theory in the same élan :) Hmm.. that would be a Pyrrhic victory indeed. However, as I've said, ISTM that comp, unlike phys, has the internal resources to resist any analogous de-construction. David On 14 Jul 2014, at 02:38, David Nyman wrote: On 13 July 2014 22:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). I can, and see what you mean, but I prefer not, because I am realist on the relations and higher 3p description too. Well, I'm still not really convinced that the fundamental assumptions of physical reduction justify your realism on the higher-level descriptions. I see, and perhaps I should not have made that remark here, as it is distracting from the issue that you discuss with Brent. I really don't think it is important (here). But actually I'm not even sure that one need insist on this to stop the notion of physical computation dead in its tracks. But only through the MGA, because at step seven, we might still, from a logical point of view, make a move toward the assumption that the real physical is not robust enough to run a significant part of the UD*. Of course that move is ad hoc, and then MGA attempts to show how much that move is ad hoc. But the existence or not of high level 3p objects is not really relevant to kill the notion of physical computation, or of primitively physical entities. And of course if one can do this then it must also, a fortiori, put a stop to any idea of linking any such notion with consciousness. This reductio was really the point of my argument and if I had to sum it up for grandma I would say that the key idea is just that, ex hypothesi physicalism, action of any sort and at whatever level of description must always be reducible to *physical action simpliciter*. So accepting physics as a TOE is equivalent to accepting both that no
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 13 juil. 2014 03:31, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au a écrit : On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 02:01:38AM +0200, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. Just because two computations go through the same state does not mean they are the same computation. They could act differently on counterfactuals, for example. At the moment a counterfactual is different they diverge and do not go through the same states and as duch are different computations. Quentin I recall having fallen into a similar trap in an earlier discussion about the MGA :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 13 juil. 2014 09:58, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com a écrit : Le 13 juil. 2014 03:31, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au a écrit : On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 02:01:38AM +0200, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. Just because two computations go through the same state does not mean they are the same computation. They could act differently on counterfactuals, for example. At the moment a counterfactual is different they diverge and do not go through the same states and as duch are different computations. That means that on a given run the two computations could be the same if the counterfactual that would make them diverge are not triggered. That 's why there is always an infinity of computations going through the same state. Up until divergence they are the same. Quentin Quentin I recall having fallen into a similar trap in an earlier discussion about the MGA :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 July 2014 19:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree with Brent, and I think everybody agree, when he says that reducing does not eliminate. You are a little too quick here with your everybody, since obviously my whole point has been that I *don't* agree! I would remind you that, in an earlier iteration of this argument with Peter Jones, you said that 3p reductive explanation eliminates *ontologically*, but not *epistemologically*. This, essentially, is the distinction I've been insisting on. But we can't use that to compare consciousness/neurons to temperature/molecules-kinetic. In that later case we reduce a 3p high level to a 3p lower level. And indeed, this does not eliminate temperature. Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). However, it remains as a datum of epistemology , i.e. as an object of knowledge, perception, or cognition. Hence it can still be appealed to in explanation *in general* as long as we don't forget the original distinction at some later point in the argument when it begins to beg the question at issue. But in the case of consciousness, we have consciousness which is 1p, and neurons which are 3p. Here, the whole 3p, be it the arithmetical or physical reality fails (when taken as a complete explanation). The higher level 1p notions are not just higher 3p description, it is the intimate non justifiable (and infinite) part of a person, which wonderfully enough provably becomes a non-machine, and a non nameable entity, when we apply the definition of Theaetetus definition to the machine. I agree with all of this (indeed I've been arguing for it) but I think that the ontology/epistemology distinction I've been attempting to defend can be used to construct a reductio against the completeness, or coherence, of any exclusively 3p explanatory hierarchy. If so, this may help to further clarify arguments against the compatibility of physicalism and computationalism such as the MGA. The ontology/epistemology distinction could also perhaps be seen as noumenal/phenomenal. ISTM that 3p, in any explanatory strategy, is noumenal in that it cannot be known directly but stands for whatever is presumed to account for what we *can* and *do* know. So one might say that physicalism is the attempt to construct a TOE entirely in noumenal terms, independent of knowledge: a view from nowhere. ISTM that the problem this creates is exposed in at least two distinct ways. Firstly, it turns out that it is impossible FAPP to construct a reductive explanation in wholly 3p terms. All such explanations rely on levels of an explanatory hierarchy that are properly phenomenal in terms of the putative explanatory noumenon, such as temperature with respect to molecular kinetics. IOW, temperature is a phenomenon of molecular kinetics, or to put in terms of epistemology/ontology, temperature is what can be *known* with respect to molecular kinetics, as distinct from an ontological *supplement* to that kinetics. Hence it can be seen that an explanatory strategy that starts as an attempt to explain everything in terms of a 3p or noumenal ontology can't help but lay its sticky metaphysical fingers on properly phenomenal or epistemological explananda. Should it then tacitly use such explananda to *explain themselves* (as I argue in the case of computation-consciousness under physicalist assumptions) it cannot help but place itself in a viciously circular explanatory bind. OK, one may respond, let's redeem the viciousness of the circularity by explicitly abandoning the phenomenal or epistemological explananda. Who needs 'em, after all, ex hypothesi, the 3p basement-level explanatory machinery is supposed to work by itself, isn't it? But this immediately exposes the second, or complementary, problem in any purely 3p explanatory strategy. Although we can still refer to an ontological schema that is, in principle, complete (I mean, everything could be just the wave function, couldn't it?) we have now abandoned that schema entirely to the noumenal. And nothing in the noumenal explanatory basement can ever be knowable. So it is at this point its seeming completeness becomes really worrying, because it tends in the direction of the elimination of phenomena tout court. This would surely be to argue for zombie existence in a peculiarly radical way, in that the zombie, or indeed any separable entity, is now not merely unknowing but unknowable (i.e. non-phenomenal). Obviously, if comp is to avoid the same criticism, we must be able to show that it isn't prone to the same inherent deficiencies. IIUC, the 3p or noumenal level of explanation in comp isn't exactly number relations simpliciter, but rather computation *as emulated by* some
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 21:56, meekerdb wrote: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? That's my point, we need the physical (a world) to impute meaning to the computational process so that it is a computation. We seem to agree that physics is necessary, but that is the whole point of the UDA: physics is arithmetically necessary from the observational point of view of the average (in some relative sense) universal number. Physics is logically necessary = physics is derivable from something already admitted as necessary (like elementary arithmetic or any universal number). Ontologically, we need nothing more, for example, than K and S and the axioms Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz). Or, if you prefer, RA. (a very tiny fragment of Arithmetic). All we need are universal numbers capable of developing stable relations. They provably exist in the theory above. Then the simplest definition of knowledge (called the standard one by Gerson and many philosophers) can justify how meaning appears, and seems to be undefinable and non communicable by universal numbers in between universal numbers. When universal numbers or combinators are looking inward they are confronted to the []p / []p p separation. For ontological existence we need only the usual first order logical meaning given by the existencial inference rule (p(k) / ExP(x) Physical or observational existence, with some variants, are then defined (through UDA-AUDA) by something like [](Ex []P(x, a, b, c)), with the box and diamond taken from the logic S4Grz1, or Z1*, or X1*, P(x, a, b, c) is sigma_1. Note that the physical existence, and the mathematical existence (here just arithmetical) are well kept separated, like the psychological (S4Grz) is separated from the ontic (G, G*)and the observational (S4Grz1, Z1*; X1*). Bruno Brent It's strange that all the program that run on any physical machine are made of abstraction, you never program using electron... you program at the basic level with boolean logic, that you can relate to physical phenomenon, but never the other way around. Quentin is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 12 Jul 2014, at 21:28, meekerdb wrote: On 7/12/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. SNIP That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. But this depends on knowing the universal number; Well, that's a problem for the physicist. It is not a problem for an engineer, which implement some universal number, and so can indentify some computation, nor for the comp practionners, hoping his doctor bet on a right subst level. But for the reasoning, no need to recognize a universal numbers for him doing its job (in infinity many solutions of diophantine equation. which cannot be inferred from a finite piece of the computation. Nor *by* a finite piece of machinery. But that's why we will have to take into account the indeterminacies, and other limitations into account. Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. The MG is supposed to have been made at some right substitution level, by us, by chance (whatever), then (and here I am not sure of Quentin's wording, but each computation at some level is emulated in parallel at infinitely many coarse grained level in arithmetic, that looks like more primitive computations. To give an example, imagine a Lisp program computing a factorial function. You have a well defined computation in term of the stepping (tracing) function associated to an interpreter Lisp and the input (factorial 5), say. As Lisp is a universal number, that *counts* as a computation. But then imagine the computation of the Lisp program emulating a boolean Graph (Nor gates and their link and delays) emulating a Z80 processor, emulating itself a Lisp interpreter computing (factorial 5) with the same algorithm as above. Does that comp for a computation of (factorial 5). It does. Is it the same computation? Not really. It is a different path in the UD*. If that process incarnate the conscious flux, then both does, but one if (by construction) at the simplest right level (program in Lisp computing fact 5), and the other is, notably, emulating a lower level, that is the Boolean graph of the Z80 processor. And, yes, knowing the universal number and its data, you know, or can derive, the counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. Well, I agree, that is why we need to distinguish []p and []p p, and []p p. Universal numbers can justify their own incompleteness and they can bet, and intuit, the thing with respect to which it is incomplete. The []p is just a believer. The p nuance is equivalent with giving him a world satisfying p. The p nuance consists in keeping intact the relation between belief and truth (or God, or Real world, etc.). The math shows that such nuances obeys different, but related, laws. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my consciousness. Sure, me too. But Brent, and Peter Jones,
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 13 Jul 2014, at 10:04, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 13 juil. 2014 09:58, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com a écrit : Le 13 juil. 2014 03:31, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au a écrit : On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 02:01:38AM +0200, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. Just because two computations go through the same state does not mean they are the same computation. They could act differently on counterfactuals, for example. At the moment a counterfactual is different they diverge and do not go through the same states and as duch are different computations. That means that on a given run the two computations could be the same if the counterfactual that would make them diverge are not triggered. That 's why there is always an infinity of computations going through the same state. Up until divergence they are the same. Also because under the substitution level there are infinitely many machines competing to get your relative computational state related to your consciousness (just by the FPI on UD*). Bruno Quentin Quentin I recall having fallen into a similar trap in an earlier discussion about the MGA :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything- list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 13 Jul 2014, at 14:19, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 19:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree with Brent, and I think everybody agree, when he says that reducing does not eliminate. You are a little too quick here with your everybody, since obviously my whole point has been that I *don't* agree! I would remind you that, in an earlier iteration of this argument with Peter Jones, you said that 3p reductive explanation eliminates *ontologically*, but not *epistemologically*. This, essentially, is the distinction I've been insisting on. The problem is that a pure 3p reduction does not eliminate a 3p notion, either, except for consciousness, due to the fact that it is a pure 1p notion. It is not because I can explain prime number in terms of addition and multiplication, than prime number would not exist, that is why there is a whole 3p higher order 3p science. But that 3p science is, (and it is there that we agree, and it is the key relevant point in the thread with Brent), is that no 3p reduction at all can be done for consciousness. The analogy brain/chess playing with machine/self-playing works without eliminating the chess player, but does eliminate the chess player consciousness if we limit ourself on that analogy. But we can't use that to compare consciousness/neurons to temperature/molecules-kinetic. In that later case we reduce a 3p high level to a 3p lower level. And indeed, this does not eliminate temperature. Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). I can, and see what you mean, but I prefer not, because I am realist on the relations and higher 3p description too. Then I think it helps to single what is precisely difficult in consciousness which will be the modal difference, instead of a 3p higher description. However, it remains as a datum of epistemology , i.e. as an object of knowledge, perception, or cognition. Yes, but this will be related (not identified, with an important 3p high notion concept, like computation). Hence it can still be appealed to in explanation *in general* as long as we don't forget the original distinction at some later point in the argument when it begins to beg the question at issue. I think we agree on the main thing. But in the case of consciousness, we have consciousness which is 1p, and neurons which are 3p. Here, the whole 3p, be it the arithmetical or physical reality fails (when taken as a complete explanation). The higher level 1p notions are not just higher 3p description, it is the intimate non justifiable (and infinite) part of a person, which wonderfully enough provably becomes a non-machine, and a non nameable entity, when we apply the definition of Theaetetus definition to the machine. I agree with all of this (indeed I've been arguing for it) but I think that the ontology/epistemology distinction I've been attempting to defend can be used to construct a reductio against the completeness, or coherence, of any exclusively 3p explanatory hierarchy. Yes. But with comp, the modalities and the Theaetetus definition provides an exclusively 3p explanatory entity (truth), which we can explain cannot be recognized as such from inside, making it impossible indeed to reduce the internal 1p to that transcendent 3p from inside. If so, this may help to further clarify arguments against the compatibility of physicalism and computationalism such as the MGA. The ontology/epistemology distinction could also perhaps be seen as noumenal/phenomenal. I take it that way, but incompleteness adds nuances, and the literature. ISTM that 3p, in any explanatory strategy, is noumenal in that it cannot be known directly but stands for whatever is presumed to account for what we *can* and *do* know. So one might say that physicalism is the attempt to construct a TOE entirely in noumenal terms, independent of knowledge: a view from nowhere. ISTM that the problem this creates is exposed in at least two distinct ways. I would not do that, because, without comp, physicalism could have succeeded. Comp leads to explains everything from such a view of nowhere, but it is more like the Outer God of the greek, it is the arithmetical reality (which already is not reducible to any finitely or recursively presentable theory). The 1p is defined by a link between the 3p believer and God (truth), which is unnameable by the creature. But this distinction could have work for physicalism, except that comp truncated the soul and distribute it on infinities of computation, leading to a reduction of the physical into an epistemological statistics on 1p experiences. Firstly, it turns out that it
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/13/2014 12:25 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 12 Jul 2014, at 21:28, meekerdb wrote: On 7/12/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. SNIP That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. But this depends on knowing the universal number; Well, that's a problem for the physicist. It is not a problem for an engineer, which implement some universal number, and so can indentify some computation, nor for the comp practionners, hoping his doctor bet on a right subst level. But for the reasoning, no need to recognize a universal numbers for him doing its job (in infinity many solutions of diophantine equation. which cannot be inferred from a finite piece of the computation. Nor *by* a finite piece of machinery. But that's why we will have to take into account the indeterminacies, and other limitations into account. Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. The MG is supposed to have been made at some right substitution level, by us, by chance (whatever), then (and here I am not sure of Quentin's wording, but each computation at some level is emulated in parallel at infinitely many coarse grained level in arithmetic, that looks like more primitive computations. To give an example, imagine a Lisp program computing a factorial function. You have a well defined computation in term of the stepping (tracing) function associated to an interpreter Lisp and the input (factorial 5), say. As Lisp is a universal number, that *counts* as a computation. But then imagine the computation of the Lisp program emulating a boolean Graph (Nor gates and their link and delays) emulating a Z80 processor, emulating itself a Lisp interpreter computing (factorial 5) with the same algorithm as above. Does that comp for a computation of (factorial 5). It does. Is it the same computation? Not really. It is a different path in the UD*. If that process incarnate the conscious flux, then both does, but one if (by construction) at the simplest right level (program in Lisp computing fact 5), and the other is, notably, emulating a lower level, that is the Boolean graph of the Z80 processor. Are they the same because they both compute 5!; even if they used different algorithms? And, yes, knowing the universal number and its data, you know, or can derive, the counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. Well, I agree, that is why we need to distinguish []p and []p p, and []p p. Universal numbers can justify their own incompleteness and they can bet, and intuit, the thing with respect to which it is incomplete. The []p is just a believer. The p nuance is equivalent with giving him a world satisfying p. The p nuance consists in keeping intact the relation between belief and truth (or God, or Real world, etc.). The math shows that such nuances obeys different, but related, laws. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 13 July 2014 22:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). I can, and see what you mean, but I prefer not, because I am realist on the relations and higher 3p description too. Well, I'm still not really convinced that the fundamental assumptions of physical reduction justify your realism on the higher-level descriptions. But actually I'm not even sure that one need insist on this to stop the notion of physical computation dead in its tracks. And of course if one can do this then it must also, a fortiori, put a stop to any idea of linking any such notion with consciousness. This reductio was really the point of my argument and if I had to sum it up for grandma I would say that the key idea is just that, ex hypothesi physicalism, action of any sort and at whatever level of description must always be reducible to *physical action simpliciter*. So accepting physics as a TOE is equivalent to accepting both that no possible action can be omitted from its explanatory scope and that no further class of action need be appealed to in accounting for any physical state of affairs. I think from that one can already get the idea that, under such assumptions, supplementary notions such as computation are simply *redundant* in explaining physical action. Indeed the MGA itself exploits this basic insight by showing how relations originally accepted as computational can be entirely evacuated from a physical system whilst preserving the same net physical action (including, pace Brent, the same relations with a physical environment). Even in the case that we accept a notion of physical computation as an a posteriori attribution, that attribution cannot retrospectively be accepted as adding anything to the exhaustive reductive hierarchy of the physical object or system in question. To put it baldly, under physicalism, a PC or a brain is, at whatever level of description, a physical object first last and always. Any action associated with that object must, under the same assumptions, be exhaustively reducible to the explanatory basement of physical entities and relations. Such explanations are bottom up all the way down. Hence there is simply no place in that explanatory hierarchy for any supplementary notion of computation distinguishable from what is already fully embodied in physical action. In the end, the point is that, as you argue yourself, computation is a fundamentally mathematical (indeed an arithmetical) notion, not a physical one. And clearly computation as a whole is more extensive than any of its sub-classes. Consequently, it must be the case that, although one can construct an argument for the emergence of physical relations in the form of an observer-dependent sub-class of computation, there simply can be no parallel argument available in the opposite direction. Then I think it helps to single what is precisely difficult in consciousness which will be the modal difference, instead of a 3p higher description. I can understand your attitude here, and I draw the same conclusion, but I still think it a pity to miss any potential opportunity to de-construct the notion of physical computation in its own terms. David On 13 Jul 2014, at 14:19, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 19:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I agree with Brent, and I think everybody agree, when he says that reducing does not eliminate. You are a little too quick here with your everybody, since obviously my whole point has been that I *don't* agree! I would remind you that, in an earlier iteration of this argument with Peter Jones, you said that 3p reductive explanation eliminates *ontologically*, but not *epistemologically*. This, essentially, is the distinction I've been insisting on. The problem is that a pure 3p reduction does not eliminate a 3p notion, either, except for consciousness, due to the fact that it is a pure 1p notion. It is not because I can explain prime number in terms of addition and multiplication, than prime number would not exist, that is why there is a whole 3p higher order 3p science. But that 3p science is, (and it is there that we agree, and it is the key relevant point in the thread with Brent), is that no 3p reduction at all can be done for consciousness. The analogy brain/chess playing with machine/self-playing works without eliminating the chess player, but does eliminate the chess player consciousness if we limit ourself on that analogy. But we can't use that to compare consciousness/neurons to temperature/molecules-kinetic. In that later case we reduce a 3p high level to a 3p lower level. And indeed, this does not eliminate temperature.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/13/2014 5:38 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 13 July 2014 22:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Well, if you still hold to your earlier opinion, you should agree that, in terms of an explanatory hierarchy based on an ontology of molecular kinetics, temperature must be considered to have been eliminated *ontologically* (i.e. to have been revealed as *nothing more than* the underlying kinetics). I can, and see what you mean, but I prefer not, because I am realist on the relations and higher 3p description too. Well, I'm still not really convinced that the fundamental assumptions of physical reduction justify your realism on the higher-level descriptions. But actually I'm not even sure that one need insist on this to stop the notion of physical computation dead in its tracks. And of course if one can do this then it must also, a fortiori, put a stop to any idea of linking any such notion with consciousness. This reductio was really the point of my argument and if I had to sum it up for grandma I would say that the key idea is just that, ex hypothesi physicalism, action of any sort and at whatever level of description must always be reducible to *physical action simpliciter*. So accepting physics as a TOE is equivalent to accepting both that no possible action can be omitted from its explanatory scope and that no further class of action need be appealed to in accounting for any physical state of affairs. I think from that one can already get the idea that, under such assumptions, supplementary notions such as computation are simply *redundant* in explaining physical action. Indeed the MGA itself exploits this basic insight by showing how relations originally accepted as computational can be entirely evacuated from a physical system whilst preserving the same net physical action (including, pace Brent, the same relations with a physical environment). I appreciate your granma level explication. I sometimes find your prose difficult to parse. But from the above I'm led to wonder whether you've actually read the MGA, so I repeat them here for convenient reference: /THE FIRST THOUGHT EXPERIMENT AND THE FIRST QUESTIONS (MGA 1) : The // //lucky cosmic event.// // //One billions years ago, at one billion light years away, somewhere in // //the universe (which exists by the naturalist hypo) a cosmic explosion // //occurred. And ...// // //... Alice had her math exam this afternoon.// // From 3h to 4h, she solved successfully a problem. She though to // //herself, oh, easy, Oh careful there is trap, yet I can solve it.// // //What really happened is this. Alice already got an artificial brain, // //since a fatal brain tumor in her early childhood. At 3h17 pm one // //logical gate did broke, (resp. two logical gates, three, 24, 4567, // //234987, ... all).// // //But Alice was lucky (incredibly lucky). When the logical gate A did // //break, and for example did not send a bit to logical gate B, an // //energetic particle coming from the cosmic explosion, by pure chance, // //did trigger the logical gate B at the right time. And just after this // //happening another energetic particle fixed the gate problem.// // //Question: did this change Alice's consciousness during the exam?// // //I ask the same question with 2440 broken gates. They broke, let us say // //during an oral exam, and each time a gate broke, by sending a wrong // //info, or by not sending some info, an energetic particle coming from // //that cosmic explosion do the job, and at some point in time, a bunch // //of energetic particle fix Alice's brain.// // //Suppose that ALL the neurons/logical gates of Alice are broken during // //the exam, all the time. But Alice, I told you, is incredibly lucky, // //and that cosmic beam again manage each logical gates to complete their // //work in the relevant places and times. And again at the end of the // //exam, a cosmic last beam fixed her brain. In particular she succeed // //the exam, and she can explain later to her mother, with her sane // //(artificial) brain, that she thought tp herself, during the oral // //exam: oh, easy, Oh careful there is trap, yet I can solve it.// // //The last question (of MGA 1) is: was Alice, in this case, a zombie // //during the exam?// // //I let you think.// // // Bruno/ And /MGA 2// // // //The second step of the MGA, consists in making a change to MGA 1 so // //that we don't have to introduce that unreasonable amount of cosmic // //luck, or of apparent randomness. It shows the lucky aspect of the // //coming information is not relevant. Jason thought on this sequel.// // // //Let us consider again Alice, which, as you know as an artificial // //brain, made of logic gates.// //Now Alice is sleeping, and doing a dream---like Carroll's original // //Alice.// // //Today we know that a REM dream is a conscious experience, or better an // //experience of consciousness, thanks to the work of Hearne Laberge, // //Dement, etc.// //Malcolm's theory of
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 Jul 2014, at 23:57, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Thanks for your response, Bruno. Now, I ask the subjective question, which may not like the truth, or your truth. The truth is the same for everyone (by the platonist definition of truth). But we never know it *as such*, (except for consciousness) and so it can *look* different. Does knowing this advance the human condition, in your opinion? This is equivalent with asking do we need the truth?. I would say it is always better to search it, no matter what. The lies can never win the game against truth in the long run, and truth is what remains when the lies vanish. Do you think knowing this moves our species in a better direction? This may be like me asking if knowing that Pluto is not technically a planet, reduce unemployment? The two may be unrelated, however, since this is your theology, I figured I better ask you then guess on my own. It is the universal machine's theology, and it can be mine only the day I would bet on comp. I do think that, even if comp is false, the theology of machine is a nice etalon to compare all theologies. It can be seen as a tool in serious comparative theology. Then machine's theology is a very modest form of negative (neoplatonist) theology, and the possibility of its truth might help the human in recovering some modesty which could improve the quality of the life of everybody. 99,9% of the human suffering due to humans, comes from the arrogance of those who dare to believe that they can think at the place of others. Usually it is fake, it is a technic to steal your money. By its protection against reductionism, I think that machine's theology is very useful, even if wrong. It illustrates also that we can reason in that field, and this already invalidate some strong- atheist doctrines. It reminds us to be agnostic when doing (fundamental) science, both on universe, god, matter, etc. Bruno -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 10, 2014 10:31 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 09 Jul 2014, at 21:52, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. No problem. I'm always happy if I can clarify. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! The whole idea of doing science consists in trying hard to not be influenced in wishful thinking, which of course is part of many popular religion. I can understand that some philosophy search happiness, that is nice, but it might have nothing to do with the theological reality. So, how to study that theological reality, and why mathematics can help. First, please notice that I am using the term theology in his initial sense defined by Plato, and which means ultimate truth or theory of everything including the visible, like proton and galaxies, and the invisible, like numbers, consciousness, math, and who knows which possible alien, perhaps divine, entities. At the start it is better to have the less prejudices and be the most open as possible, given that the field is rather sick very often (the most fundamental science is always under the threat of abuse of power (not just theology, biology and cosmology were often perverted too). Then as theological assumption, I use the computationalist hypothesis/theory, which basically assume that the brain operation are Turing emulable, up to preserve my life and identity in case I substitute my biological brain for an artificial (and Turing emulable) device. This is not a strong hypothesis for a materialist or naturalist, as we don't know in nature any non Turing emulable phenomena. But it *is* a strong hypothesis in theology, and it implies a form of reincarnation, both in rich physical universe and in arithmetic. This leads to the mathematical comp measure problem. The solution of that problem has already been given at the propositional logic level, and the result suggests that people like Plotinus, the neoplatonists and the mystics have a discourse which is easy to interpret in arithmetic. Indeed arithmetic contains all computations, and we can interview the machine in arithmetic about their first person expectancy. In particular, the arithmetical truth plays the role of (neoplatonist) God: it has no name, is transcendent, is responsible for all beliefs and knowledge (and realities); the 'theaetetical' knower/soul or inner God, already used by Plotinus, works very well in that setting too, as it happens non nameable too (cf Ramana Maharshi and the koan who am I?), it obeys Brouwer intuitionist logic, with an addition of a temporal nuance, which structure the space of accessible
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. And is it not the case that there will exist a mapping to a different base such that this same evolution of the GOL is simulating a Python interpreter computing some different phi. This why I have trouble with the concept to two computations being in the same state. ISTM that same state is relative to the enumerated basis functions and the functions cannot be recognized from any finite sequence of states. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence of numbers as any more than elements fo language. This is conventionalism. I consider that this view is refuted by number theory implicitly, and by mathematical logic explicitly. The existence of not of infinitely many prime number twins is everythi,g but conventional. With comp, the existence of your dreams in arithmetic, and their relative proportions, are not conventional. So it is not like choosing a universal number, it's saying that some things exist and some don't. Define exist. If you say exists physically then you beg the question, and I will ask
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 Jul 2014, at 01:43, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: Emil L. Post 1936 Finite Combinatory Processes. Formulation 1. - from the concluding paragraph: The writer expects the present formulation to turn out to be logically equivalent to recursiveness in the sense of the Gödel- Church development. Its purpose, however, is not only to present a system of a certain logical potency but also, in its restricted field, of psychological fidelity. In the latter sense wider and wider formulations are contemplated. On the other hand, our aim will be to show that all such are logically reducible to formulation 1. We offer this conclusion at the present moment as a working hypothesis. And to our mind such is Church's identification of effective calculability with recursiveness.8 Out of this hypothesis, and because of its apparent contradiction to all mathematical development starting with Cantor's proof of the non-enumerability of the points of a line, independently flows a Gödel-Church development. The success of the above program would, for us, change this hypothesis not so much to a definition or to an axiom but to natural law. Only so, it seems to the writer, can Gödel's theorem concerning incompleteness of symbolic logics of a certain general type and Church's results on the recursive unsolvability of certain problems be transformed into conclusions concerning all symbolic logics and all methods of solvability. Footnote: 8 Cf. Church, lock. cit, pp. 346, 356-358. Actually the work already done by Church and others carries this identification considerably beyond the working hypothesis stage. But to mask this identification under a definition hides the fact that a fundamental discovery in the limitiations of mathematicizing power of Homo Sapiens has been made and blinds us to the need of its continual verification. Effective calculability; Post seems to insist with the incredibly clear and simple Formulation1, is merely intuitive notion. I know Church wasn't too happy with this. Continual verification, ok. PGC Nice quote of my favorite logician and (theologian without knowing it). That would have been an excellent reply to Bill Taylor, who estimated that Church's thesis *is* a definition. The natural law here is a foreseen of computationalism when seen as something we infer from biological information, which is indeed what made me believe in self- duplicability (amoeba) and digital mechanism (Molecular biology, molecular genetics) in the first place. And that needs a continual verification indeed. Bruno On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 11:46 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 23:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. if they are different computations they don't go through the same states... QED What you said is simply false. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/12/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. And is it not the case that there will exist a mapping to a different base such that this same evolution of the GOL is simulating a Python interpreter computing some different phi. This why I have trouble with the concept to two computations being in the same state. ISTM that same state is relative to the enumerated basis functions and the functions cannot be recognized from any finite sequence of states. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. But this depends on knowing the universal number; which cannot be inferred from a finite piece of the computation. Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. Knowing the universal number or knowing the function is like the problem of knowing all the correct counterfactuals. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. I don't see this. Please explain. I think the level description would have to include not only you but your world. So I could say yes to the doctor even though I don't think the computational brain he installs in me is sufficient, by itself, to instantiate my consciousness. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-12 21:28 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/12/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. And is it not the case that there will exist a mapping to a different base such that this same evolution of the GOL is simulating a Python interpreter computing some different phi. This why I have trouble with the concept to two computations being in the same state. ISTM that same state is relative to the enumerated basis functions and the functions cannot be recognized from any finite sequence of states. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. But this depends on knowing the universal number; which cannot be inferred from a finite piece of the computation. Yet that seems to be what Quentin requires in order to say to instances of the MG compute the same function. You need the mapping and the states, that gives you the computation. That means you need the machine and the states. But if a computation compute a conscious being, then all the meaning exists for that conscious being... even if it was computed in a physical computer here on earth which doesn't output anything usable for us... the conscious being would be conscious by definition of the experiment which is that we have a computation of a conscious being running... the fact that under another intepreter you could map the internal state of that particular computer to another computation is irrelevant, it's true that if you dump the current state of that machine and you run it on a particular crafted machine that when it reads that state is in fact simulating a garden with birds, that change nothing for the computer with which when fed this states compute a conscious being. As I said, the state alone means nothing, you must have the machine... and if the machine + the state is a
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 02:01:38AM +0200, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. Just because two computations go through the same state does not mean they are the same computation. They could act differently on counterfactuals, for example. I recall having fallen into a similar trap in an earlier discussion about the MGA :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/12/2014 12:52 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-12 21:28 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/12/2014 2:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. And is it not the case that there will exist a mapping to a different base such that this same evolution of the GOL is simulating a Python interpreter computing some different phi. This why I have trouble with the concept to two computations being in the same state. ISTM that same state is relative to the enumerated basis functions and the functions cannot be recognized from any finite sequence of states. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, Yes. When the level of description is chosen correct, it can be the same from your or God (arithmetic truth) view. But it is not a constructive or intuitionist notion (like not-halting, computer science is full of such type truth). or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? No. It is for a possibly infinite number of steps. the number of steps is not relevant. It is misleading to define a computation only by a sequence of steps. It is a sequence of step + a universal machine or number bringing those computational steps. That makes a computation well defined. But this depends on knowing the universal number; which cannot be inferred from a finite piece of the computation. Yet that seems to be what Quentin
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 10:45 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 11 juil. 2014 02:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. I don't care what the computation means to you. And I don't care what you assert without support. If they go through the same states, they're the same computation. OK, they can't be conscious of anything on pain of ambiguity. What you do or not with the output if any is of no concern for that. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. In case of a conscious computation, it is it that provides the meaning. OK, was it conscious of computing a temperature or a density? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-11 8:10 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 10:45 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 11 juil. 2014 02:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. I don't care what the computation means to you. And I don't care what you assert without support. What ??? A computation compute weither you ascribe meaning to its ouput (if any)... So it's you who are asserting false thing without any support. If they go through the same states, they're the same computation. OK, they can't be conscious of anything on pain of ambiguity. What you do or not with the output if any is of no concern for that. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. In case of a conscious computation, it is it that provides the meaning. OK, was it conscious of computing a temperature or a density? Ask it !! Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-11 8:48 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 11:45 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-11 8:10 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 10:45 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 11 juil. 2014 02:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. I don't care what the computation means to you. And I don't care what you assert without support. What ??? A computation compute weither you ascribe meaning to its ouput (if any)... So it's you who are asserting false thing without any support. If they go through the same states, they're the same computation. OK, they can't be conscious of anything on pain of ambiguity. What you do or not with the output if any is of no concern for that. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. In case of a conscious computation, it is it that provides the meaning. OK, was it conscious of computing a temperature or a density? Ask it !! Per your version of CMT it must give the same answer in either case. ?? What ??? No my version of the CTM (it's not mine, it's just your version is not CTM at all, I even wonder if you actually know what a program is and how a computer works) for a conscious program it's that it is it that gives meaning to its input (weither internal or external). If it calls a subprogram in a context of computing a temperature it will certainly ascribe temperature meaning, it it calls it in a context of counting appless, it will ascribe a counting value of apples... You're totally non-sensical here. Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. Well, this would just select (without argument) a special sub- universal dovetailing among (any) universal dovetailing. The only force here is that somehow the quantum Everet wave, seen as such a phi_pr do solve the measure problem (accepting Gleason theorem does its job). But just choosing that phi_pr does not solve the mind-body problem, only the body problem in a superficial way (losing the non justifiable parts notably). Or they make that physical reality non computable (as comp needs, but they conjecture that it differs from the non (entirely) computable physics that we can extract from arithmetic (with comp). But then it is just a statement like your plane will not fly. Let us make the test, and up to now it works. I agree with Brent, and I think everybody agree, when he says that reducing does not eliminate. But we can't use that to compare consciousness/neurons to temperature/molecules-kinetic. In that later case we reduce a 3p high level to a 3p lower level. And indeed, this does not eliminate temperature. But in the case of consciousness, we have consciousness which is 1p, and neurons which are 3p. Here, the whole 3p, be it the arithmetical or physical reality fails (when taken as a complete explanation). The higher level 1p notions are not just higher 3p description, it is the intimate non justifiable (and infinite) part of a person, which wonderfully enough provably becomes a non-machine, and a non nameable entity, when we apply the definition of Theaetetus definition to the machine. Interesting! We are at the crux of the crux! I see that Gerson(*) follows Socrates, and take the Theaetetus definition ([]p p) as a description of knowledge, but the universal machine can understand that this is not true when applied on machine (ironically enough). The modal []p p can define knowledge without providing any description or code. Worst (but this is why this strategy works!), not only []p p definition does not provide a description of the knower, but it is constructively immune against all descriptions. The apparently little
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/11/2014 12:41 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. You're right. I'm confused. I'll re-read MGA and Maudlin. I think the confusion comes from them being reductio arguments. When you find the conclusion absurd then you have several choices of which premise to blame. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/11/2014 11:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 11 Jul 2014, at 09:41, David Nyman wrote: On 11 July 2014 00:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I understand the MGA it assumes physicalism and then purports to show that computation still exists with minimal or zero physical activity - it evaucates the physics and keeps the computation. For heaven's sake, Brent! This is what you originally said to Liz. What you're referring to is Maudlin's argument. It's the *opposite* of my understanding of the MGA, which seeks to show how physical action can be preserved unchanged even in cases where the original computational relations have been completely disrupted. I spent several paragraphs describing this with additional examples. You then commented this with I agree with all you wrote, which led to some further discussion based (as I thought) on this understanding. Your comment above now leaves me hopelessly confused. I would be grateful if you would review our recent discussion and clarify what you do or do not agree with in my analysis. I think that it will help to define perhaps more precisely what is a computation. I will reread the thread (many posts) when I have more time, and make only one comment. We have a computation when a universal machine compute something. We have an intensional Post-Church thesis 'which follows from the usual Post-Church-Turing thesis), which makes possible to translate universal machine compute something in term of numbers addition and multiplication + one existential quantifier. Now, when are two computations the same? If we fix a base phi_i, we might define a computations by sequences of step of the universal base computing some phi_k, that is the nth steps phi_k(j)^n of the computation by the base of the program k on the input j, with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. But now that very computation will recure infinitely often, and not always in (algorithmically) recognizable way. You can conceive it might not be obvious that the evolution of a game of life pattern (GOL is Turing-universal) is simulating a Fortran interpreter simulating a Lisp program computing the ph(j)^n above. And is it not the case that there will exist a mapping to a different base such that this same evolution of the GOL is simulating a Python interpreter computing some different phi. This why I have trouble with the concept to two computations being in the same state. ISTM that same state is relative to the enumerated basis functions and the functions cannot be recognized from any finite sequence of states. That is exactly why our computations, with and without (and in between) their environment (with and without oracles) recurre infinitely often in the sigma_1 truth (UD*). So two computations can be the same at some level of description, and yet occurs in quite different places in the UD*. Is there a canonical level of description at which they are the same, or are you just saying there exists some mapping which makes them the same over a finite number of steps? Comp says that there is a level of description of myself such that those computation *at the correct level carries my consciousness. There's where I agree with JKC. You keep fudging what comp means. The above is *not* the same as betting that the doctor can give you a physical brain prosthesis that maintains your consciousness. But Brent, and Peter Jones, adds that the computation have to be done by a real thing. This is a bit like either choosing some particular universal number pr, and called it physical reality, and add the axioms that only the phi_pr computations counts: the phi_pr (j)^n. I think Peter, like me, questions the existence of numbers as any more than elements fo language. So it is not like choosing a universal number, it's saying that some things exist and some don't. Well, this would just select (without argument) It's based on observation not axiomatic inference. a special sub-universal dovetailing among (any) universal dovetailing. The only force here is that somehow the quantum Everet wave, seen as such a phi_pr do solve the measure problem (accepting Gleason theorem does its job). But just choosing that phi_pr does not solve the mind-body problem, only the body problem in a superficial way (losing the non justifiable parts notably). Or they make that physical reality non computable (as comp needs, but they conjecture that it differs from the non (entirely) computable physics that we can extract from arithmetic (with comp). But then it is just a statement like your plane will not fly. Let us make the test, and up to now it works. Yes, I'm willing to accept your argument as an hypothesis. But it seems to me that it proves that consciousness and physics necessarily complement one another. Starting from arithmetic you must solve both the mind problem and the body problem at the same time. I don't see that you've made psychology more
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Thanks for your response, Bruno. Now, I ask the subjective question, which may not like the truth, or your truth. Does knowing this advance the human condition, in your opinion? Do you think knowing this moves our species in a better direction? This may be like me asking if knowing that Pluto is not technically a planet, reduce unemployment? The two may be unrelated, however, since this is your theology, I figured I better ask you then guess on my own. Sincerely, Mitch -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jul 10, 2014 10:31 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 09 Jul 2014, at 21:52, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. No problem. I'm always happy if I can clarify. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! The whole idea of doing science consists in trying hard to not be influenced in wishful thinking, which of course is part of many popular religion. I can understand that some philosophy search happiness, that is nice, but it might have nothing to do with the theological reality. So, how to study that theological reality, and why mathematics can help. First, please notice that I am using the term theology in his initial sense defined by Plato, and which means ultimate truth or theory of everything including the visible, like proton and galaxies, and the invisible, like numbers, consciousness, math, and who knows which possible alien, perhaps divine, entities. At the start it is better to have the less prejudices and be the most open as possible, given that the field is rather sick very often (the most fundamental science is always under the threat of abuse of power (not just theology, biology and cosmology were often perverted too). Then as theological assumption, I use the computationalist hypothesis/theory, which basically assume that the brain operation are Turing emulable, up to preserve my life and identity in case I substitute my biological brain for an artificial (and Turing emulable) device. This is not a strong hypothesis for a materialist or naturalist, as we don't know in nature any non Turing emulable phenomena. But it *is* a strong hypothesis in theology, and it implies a form of reincarnation, both in rich physical universe and in arithmetic. This leads to the mathematical comp measure problem. The solution of that problem has already been given at the propositional logic level, and the result suggests that people like Plotinus, the neoplatonists and the mystics have a discourse which is easy to interpret in arithmetic. Indeed arithmetic contains all computations, and we can interview the machine in arithmetic about their first person expectancy. In particular, the arithmetical truth plays the role of (neoplatonist) God: it has no name, is transcendent, is responsible for all beliefs and knowledge (and realities); the 'theaetetical' knower/soul or inner God, already used by Plotinus, works very well in that setting too, as it happens non nameable too (cf Ramana Maharshi and the koan who am I?), it obeys Brouwer intuitionist logic, with an addition of a temporal nuance, which structure the space of accessible conscious states. Then Plotinus' matter (inspired from Aristotle, but corrected with respect to Plato) gives the skeleton of the space on which we can handle the measure problem, at the place where both Plato and Plotinus intuited the need of a bastard calculus (their term). How could Plotinus, and the mystics intuits what took many years to mathematicians to find out? Well, the mathematicians just describes what *any* entity can prove (and not prove) about itself, and this only suggests that Plotinus, by honesty and serious research inward, get close to that ideal machine self-referential correctness, so it is hardly a coincidence. I hope this helped. Ask any precision. Keep in mind that by theology, I mean the greek science, not the religious institutionalization which have followed it and have mixed with popular religious legends and ad hoc fairy tales, in place of assumption/theory, to prevent progresses and questions instead of promoting them. Also, maybe the God of the Bible all came from Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreaming might have played a part, and is indeed a very interesting notion, and experience. The original long version of my PhD thesis contains a full chapter on lucid dream neurophysiology, including an appendice with a sample of my own lucid dream experiences. Of course, the content of the experiences are not used in the reasoning, but the reports illustrate well some psycho and theo-logical notions. Lucid dreams, and above all contralucid dreams (dreams in the narration
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 10:54 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), No that's not true. I may say yes to the doctor and the program may provide my consciousness BUT only relative to the world I live in. The fake sensors acquire meaning for me because they are faking some real sensors. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 8:06 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 10:54 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), No that's not true. I may say yes to the doctor and the program may provide my consciousness BUT only relative to the world I live in. The fake sensors acquire meaning for me No that's not true, there is no meaning at all without consciousness... the reality would be empty of consciousness, the reality would be devoid of any meaning... it's us who creates it. because they are faking some real sensors. No they give inputs to your program like the real one (assuming computationalism), it's the consciousness who is supported by the program that gives meaning to the input, nothing else, meaning is not an inherent property of something. Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 18:51, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: meaning is not an inherent property of something. That was my argument, too, however I do realise that it *could* be (perhaps), given various hints from physics that information underlies the material universe (it from bit). I don't think it's likely. I think meaning is something created by conscious beings - however it may be possible IF information is what underlies everything else. (Assuming it makes sense to say that something underlies physics, etc...) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 04:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I'm not sure about physics. I think the point of the MGA is that matter isn't primary? (As I've already mentioned, I'm not 100% au fait with the MGA.) It tries to show that by leading you to accept a scenario in which there is no physical action but which you believe is computing consciousness (of a dream). That's Maudlin's argument, in which he uses a particular toy model to show that the degree of physical action needed to implement any given computation can be *trivialised* (though not in fact entirely eliminated). However the MGA, in my understanding, exploits a different tack to reach a different conclusion. It assumes a device, the systematic relation of whose physical components is accepted as implementing a computation, which in turn is assumed to correspond to some conscious state. The argument is then that, even in the case that any or all of the original computational relations (i.e. logic gates) is disrupted, an equivalent sequence of physical states can still be made to go through. This can be by fortuitous accident (cosmic rays or suchlike) or by the deliberate superimposition of a recording of a prior iteration (for this reason the argument exploits an optical computer). So the conclusion is that the same sequence of physical states and the same end product can persist even in the case that every *systematic relation* between those states, originally accepted as 'implementing a computation', has been disrupted. Hence, here it is the notion of *computation* itself, not physical action, that has been trivialised. Essentially, the nub of the argument is: You show me a physical device that you claim produces a given effect *in virtue of its systematically implementing a computation*, and I'll show you a case in which every trace of said systematic relations can be evacuated and yet the same sequence of physical states occurs. The real point of the MGA is to make it obvious that, ex hypothesi physicalism, derived notions such as computation lack any *effective* role in the production of a given physical outcome. An example closer to home would be that the PC on which I am currently typing might have one or innumerable faults in its logic gates but those faults are in fact being fortuitously compensated by a series of accidents. In such a case I would be none the wiser because the same physical results would be produced and as far as I am concerned those results *just are* the computation. Or, even closer to home, I may unknowingly suffer disruption to certain synaptic junctions in my brain, but if these deficiencies happen fortuitously to be compensated in like manner, my consciousness would be similarly undisrupted. This latter example is actually rather plausible in that open brain experiments have shown that external stimulus of brain cells can elicit memory recall, strongly implying that fortuitous events do indeed elicit the same, or similar, conscious states as those produced by normal brain function. In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. In this light the particularity of physical structures such as my PC, for example, is that they happen to be arrangements in which certain preferred physical outcomes normally have a greater probability of occurring relatively reliably rather than fortuitously. In terms of such outcomes the notion of physical computation can only be a convenient fiction which, in the final analysis can always be shown to be *effectively* redundant. And this is indeed the conclusion of my own more general reductio of reductionism. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Jul 6, 2014 6:29 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:33, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jul 2014, at 19:46, meekerdb wrote: On 7/3/2014 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Only a pseudo-scientist would say that the science progresses have put any threat on the non literal reading of any sacred texts. Wouldn't that depend on what the non-literal reading is? I think what you mean is that there is always some non-literal reading that is not threatened by science...or by logic, or by empathy, or by anything else you care to name, because non-literal is just not what it says. Mein Kampf is also consistent with good race relations, on a non-literal reading. 'Mein Kampf' contains hate. Hate is always literal, Is that from the Marchal dictionary of the Engligh language? or you are in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or in the Christian bible: Proverbs 6:16, 19 These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. With sufficient non-literalism these become God is love. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. You can study the deep non literal meaning in a book like Aldous Huxley philosophia perennis. You can sum it by Plato might be right, or the laws of physics might have a deeper reason, perhaps even a purpose. When the meaning is deeply non-literal isn't is likely that it's your own ideas you are imposing on the book. Understanding something is always a question of reducing or representing it to what you already understand. The institutionalist religions are as far of religion than the today politics of health is from health. For basically the same reason (stealing people's money). A scientist interested in religion will always read a sacred text with the same equanimity than reading a salvia divinorum report. Equanamity is not the same thing as giving it a non-literal meaning. It consists in remaining open to all interpretations possible. Religion, like nationalities, have also social identity role, indeed very often perverted, and we (the scientists) have to keep calm and try hard to not throw the unsolved questions when abstracting from the fairy tales and legends associated with some plausible, or not, contact between humans beliefs and truth. And to be careful not to insert our hopes and wishes in place of the fairy tales. Yes. Nobody claims that it is easy. That is one reason more to encourage the reasoning and skeptical attitudes, especially in fundamental studies, like the theological one. By deciding that theology is automatically bullshit, we just perpetuate the institutional bullshit, a bit like making drug forbidden, we create and and make bigger the illicit drug markets which control and target the kids. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7 July 2014 20:13, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: So no, there's no heresy involved in such an idea unless, IMHO, it is a blind for eliminativism. Why? Is eliminativism then the heresy? I'm not even sure what 'eliminativism' means in this context. You seem to argue that reductive hierarchy in physics eliminates the explananda, but in Bruno's theory the reductive hierarchy does not? I don't think anything is necessarily eliminated by explaining it. But the unfortunate thing is that it is indeed eliminated when it is explained reductively. And so you might well say that elimination is the reductionist heresy. I'd be grateful, by the way, if you could be more explicit about your reasons for disagreement than merely stating that you don't think I'm right. When I'm wrong (which is doubtless all too frequently) it would be helpful to know in what particulars. Anyway, what I originally had in mind was limited to the tacit elimination of the first-person that occurs in the exhaustive reduction of 'consciousness' to physical action. But actually, in the course of this discussion, It's borne in on me, with greater force than before, that it isn't only the first-person that is eliminated in the course of reductive explanation, but the entire third-person hierarchy above the basement level. No explanandum of the hierarchy can be other than a proxy for its basement-level reduction, in essentially the same sense that society is a proxy for persons and their relations. So there must be something wrong in the state of reductionism, at least in this bare form. And if Bruno's theory were indeed similarly susceptible to bare reduction, the same criticism would apply. Reductive explanation is like some flesh-eating microbe - it eats away the structure as it reduces it, until nothing but the bare explanatory bones remain. That indeed is its power. But, in this bare form it can't stand alone as a theory of everything, because manifestly everything does not appear in the form of a bare reduction. So we need an explanatory vaccine against the microbe of reduction. I've already said why I believe that Bruno's theory does indeed provide such a vaccine, essentially by (partly) formalising the relation between the One and the Many. The One, which I guess is represented here by Arithmetical Truth, has many modes. These modes can be distinguished (in part) by reference to detailed character of what appears in the many points-of-view that are consequential on the self-referential capabilities of universal computation. The fact that the latter requires us to assume arithmetic, or something with equivalent combinatorial power, as a minimal ontology, does not mean that the explanatory strategy then proceeds by reference to any simple hierarchy of numbers. Of course it is crucial to the success of this explanatory strategy that a 'physics' emerge as statistically dominant in these views (indeed, precisely that subset of the computational 'everything' that is capable of instantiating the manifest phenomena) and *that physics* will indeed appear as hierarchically reducible. But such a physics of appearance will in addition be inextricably bound to modes of self-referential truth that resist such reduction (the 'internal views'). None of this means that comp per se is true of course, but I suspect this whole comp contra reduction thing is worthy of a thread by itself. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 00:46, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 06:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 09 Jul 2014, at 04:59, LizR wrote: On 9 July 2014 14:03, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote: So suppose we have a conscious computer frozen in state S1. We start it running and let it interact with its environment via, say, a body in the form of a Mars Rover. We record all the inputs it receives from its sensors, incoming signals from anywhere else, etc. After say 10 minutes we stop the recording and we turn to another computer, on Earth, with no body, also in state S1, and now we play back the inputs we recorded from teh first one. Why would the second computer not behave exactly like the first one, believing that it's interacting with the surface of Mars? And if it does, why would it be any less conscious than the first one? I'd say that if it instantiates conscious, thoughts then they take their meaning from Mars, even though it's second hand. So you are happy that the replay is conscious, and has the same experiences and state of consciousness as the original? If so then we may as well drop this stuff about meaning, which only seemed to be there to distinguish the really real first time around consciousness from the not really real second time around consciousness. I hope you see that the MGA is a reductio ad absurdum, and that you are OK with the fact that a record of a computation is not a computation, at least assuming comp, as nothing compute in a record of a computation. OK? Yes, I think so. But Brent's point seemed to be questioning something slightly different. He was (or appeared to be) saying that even allowing the computation to progress with the same inputs wouldn't result in consciousness because the computation wouldn't be getting the same meaning from its environment. Or something like that. The implication was that meaning is some metaphysical or supernatural extra, which is what I was arguing against. I was arguing that if you assume materialism + consciousness supervening on computation, then having the same computing machine starting in the same state and having the same inputs would give the same conscious experience. This wasn't necessarily an argument for or against comp, because we didn't seem to have got far enough to discuss that. Comp *is* the assumption that the same (at some level) computing machine starting having the same inputs would give the same conscious experience. Let us not confuse comp and its consequence, at least not when discussing if such consequences are indeed consequence. I knew Brent was discussing this, and its mention of the MGA is a bit misleading, as you somehow illustrate. That is why we just abandon the physical supervenience. Consciousness has nothing to do with the physical activity of the brain or the computer. Consciousness has everything to do with the immaterial person, and all of its realization in arithmetic. Eventually a brain is just a way for that consciousness to manifest itself relatively to some 1p-plural stable universal neighbor. OK, well I said that (more or less) in response to a comment of Brent's and got back a rather facetious reply about 787s being maifestations of a quantum field - which LOOKED like Brent was just saying well that's ridiculous! although after a lot of back and forth, he claims he was saying that comp explains too much. Unfortunately the (allegedly) very bad phrasing of the original comment led to a whole discussion as above which seems to have led nowhere, as far as I can see, except to Brent claiming his comment meant something completely different from what it appeared to mean (again). Brent seems to be not as clear as usual. His motivation is not clear, as he even defended once a form of instrumentalism in science, which would only mean that he is not interested in the consciousness problem, or fundamental questioning. Comp is not proposed as a solution, but as a problem, whose solution shapes can be derived quickly, but the details give a whole field of research, which warns us for an infinity of surprises. We are just at the beginning. Unfortunately many scientists (not all!) consider such field (mind, consciousness) just a taboo forbidden to inquiry. I think comp covers this when Bruno says that you may have to simulate more than just the person's physical form, but perhaps their surroundings too. But in any case depends on is irrelevant if consciousness is Turing emulable, as far as I know a state of a Turing Machine doesn't care how it got into that state, it's simply in it. OK. Asking for the presence of the environment is like asking for a lower level, and does not change anything when confronted to UD* or the arithmetical reality. It only makes the high level used by many neuro-philosophers less
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 01:51, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 1:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. We're talking about *computationalism*, so in this settings, your brain would be replaced with a program running on a (turing) machine... *the only thing* the program can interact with are the inputs... they can come from a real or not real environment, the program cannot tell the difference, there is no little dwarf to tell the program if the input is from a real environment out there or a recording of a real environment out there or a virtual environment. The program interact with *inputs* and nothing else. I think that Brent was in the Peter Jones mode. He seems to defend (here) that the program interact with inputs and nothing else, OK, but that for a consciousness to exist, those inputs have to be real, or more real than virtual or arithmetical input. Neither the MGA, nor *any* reasoning can't reply to that. What the MGA can do is in showing how much that type of move is ad hoc, and that it creates a mystery to prevent an explanation of a mystery, and a math problem to look at, and the experimental arrangement to test the explanation. Bruno Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 03:22, meekerdb wrote: On 7/9/2014 5:15 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 11:44, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. By doing everything your natural brain did, in fact. That is to say, if the input is the same and the starting state is the same, it will experience the same consciousness your natural brain would have experienced. As already pointed out, it's possible the duplication may have to include your environment - e.g. in the teleporter experiment it may be necessary to cut and paste the interior of the teleporter, which for the sake of argument could be a sealed box like Shcrodinger's cat's. (Or it could be a sphere with a radius the size of your age in light years.) That doesn't make any difference to the argument, however. But I think ultimately it does. If you have do include the environment in the computation (and Bruno has said maybe you do, it's just a matter of level) then I think it makes a metaphysical difference. Going back to my example of the simulated aircraft; if we simulate the aircraft in CFD then the meaning the variables (lift, drag,...) come from our physical world. But if we simulate a whole world, including the aircraft, so those variables have their meaning relative to the simulated world, then there is really no sense in saying it's a simulation. In other words if you simulate *all* the physics, then you haven't gotten rid of the physical world, you've just created a separate world with it's own physics. But if you can simulate the whole physical reality, then it a simulation among many variants in arithmetic, and physics will be reduced, by UDA, to a statistic on a non computable set of computations, and a priori this imposes some non Turing emulable aspects in physics. They might be *only* the non computable (indeed) quantum indeterminacy, and in this case the quantum indetermlinacy would the universal Turing machine FPI. That's the kind of thing we can test (and crasily enough we get already the quantization making such test already successful, but an infinity of others tests are awaiting us. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 03:48, meekerdb wrote: On 7/9/2014 6:38 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 13:22, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But I think ultimately it does. If you have do include the environment in the computation (and Bruno has said maybe you do, it's just a matter of level) then I think it makes a metaphysical difference. Going back to my example of the simulated aircraft; if we simulate the aircraft in CFD then the meaning the variables (lift, drag,...) come from our physical world. But if we simulate a whole world, including the aircraft, so those variables have their meaning relative to the simulatedworld, then there is really no sense in saying it's a simulation. In other words if you simulate *all* the physics, then you haven't gotten rid of the physical world, you've just created a separate world with it's own physics. Only if you think the Mathematical Universe hypothesis is correct. Otherwise you've only created a model of a separate world. However, you're being too obscure, again. I have no idea what your argument is supposed to prove, or what these simulations have to do with comp, or what this metaphysical difference actually means. Please state your case as clearly as possible, so I don't waste more time arguing about something you didn't mean to say. It proves that Bruno's MGA doesn't dispense with physics. When instantiating consciousness it's necessary to either allow the consciousness to act within our physical world or to provide another computed world within which it can act. In either case the physics is necessary to the consciousness - to avoid the problem of the rock that computes everything. I don't think Bruon actually claims to get rid of physics anyway, it just sounds that way sometimes when he's being short, but then it's taken as a refutation of materialism. I take it as an argument for monism; physics is necessary for consciousness (it's just not necessary that physics be fundamental, whatever that means). OK. It is more that physics would necessarily not be fundamental. We don't get rid of physics at all, we install it comfortably on infinities of arithmetical relations, instead on extraoplations from observations. In fine, we remain empiric: nature will refute you or the machine's classical theory she found inward. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 04:08, LizR wrote: Computation might be able to exist in Numberland, or so I'm told. And as you can understand by yourself if you look closer to the subject. Computation notion and computability have been discovered by mathematician, working in the foundation of math problem, at a time many paradoxes/contradictions were found in the proposed rich, unifying, math theories. Computability theory, known also as recursion Theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, itself a branch of math. It happens that many classes of physical phenomena are Turing- complete, and so we can emulate computation in the physical reality, and indeed, the mechanist assumes that nature did that with DNA, brain, etc. That provides concrete local implementation of that mathematical (immaterial) being, a bit like two apples on the table implement or realize, or instantiate the immaterial idea-like number 2. I agree with another point you make. A rock does not compute all computations, and actually none of them, except trivial one. A rock does not even simulate itself, in the comp 3p sense of simulating. Careful, a quasi-crystal might already be able to be Turing-complete! Also, a lot of condensed matter can be Turing-complete, and even quantum-Turing-complete. (That defines the same class of computations, but the quantum-complete are quicker for a range of tasks). Actually, I don't find excessively plausible that our physical universe would be robust enough to compute a universal dovetailer (even if infinite), unless many other forces are discovered (which is not exclude given the mysterious dark matter and invisible energy. So, I don't know. But we don't need this to proceed on consciousness and matter and their relation. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 05:17, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 15:01, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Heres' a question. What would be bigger, genuine AI, or the discovery of another technological civilization in the galaxy??? I vote for the discovery of the missing Dr Who episodes! LOL. Apart from that - how advanced are these aliens? How far away? How are they discovered? Spudboy, I think that the universal Turing machine (and even more the Löbian one, which knows that she is universal) are genuine AI enough for me. And yes, I consider that discovery as a creative bomb, the major discovery of all time. (I have already been considered as crackpot for claiming that they will get multiplied and used by quasi-everybody (but that's was a long time ago, when a computer far less powerful than an actual smartphone was weighting tuns and needed hundred of experts to be handled)). The universal numbers grows super-exponentially on this planet, since the apparition of life, but the explicit (conscious) discovery of the universal machine *is* a singularity in that process, announcing infinities of universal echoes, like the quantum universal machine is the first example, etc. Of course humans did not find them alone, nature seems to work by adding universal layers on universal layers too, at least in biology. Discovering an alien civilization would be cute, but not as much astonishing and fundamental. That would be a geographical event, comparable of discovering a neighbor in a neighborhood. Mathematically, it is the closure of the partial computable functions for diagonalization which is the reason of that infinite astonishment I have. Gödel saw the miracle, as for the first time, he explains, with Church thesis, we get a mathematical definition of a quasi- epistemological notion, close for that diagonalization procedure. Yet, Gödel did not see the grandeur of the impact of this. Despite his interest in (rational) theology, he missed the computer science, AI, and ... classical machine's theology. It is normal, discoverer are blinded by the fact they have the nose right on the discovery. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 Jul 2014, at 07:52, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That just show that with the right mapping of the internal of a rock you could associate it with any computations. That kind of make the point of Mga by invalidating the physical supervenience thesis... Interesting. I will think about this. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? It's strange that all the program that run on any physical machine are made of abstraction, you never program using electron... you program at the basic level with boolean logic, that you can relate to physical phenomenon, but never the other way around. Quentin is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. But the MGA has never been claimed to show that computation exists without physical instantiation. The consequence it presses on us is rather that it is absurd to accept a series of physical accidents or a recording as continuing to implement a computation. Yet that would be the conclusion forced on us by the conjunction of physicalism and computationalism. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; hence, if the system in question continues, after the postulated disruptions, to support some conscious state it can't be in virtue of its ever having implemented a computation. This leads to its own nest of puzzles. 2) CTM is salvageable but not in the case that physical activity is the true 'basement level'. We must hope to elucidate some more deeply concealed basement where, in some formalisable sense, number relations are sufficient and computation itself is the key organisational principle. This entails what Bruno calls the reversal of physics and machine psychology. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? That's my point, we need the physical (a world) to impute meaning to the computational process so that it is a computation. Brent It's strange that all the program that run on any physical machine are made of abstraction, you never program using electron... you program at the basic level with boolean logic, that you can relate to physical phenomenon, but never the other way around. Quentin is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 12:49 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. But the MGA has never been claimed to show that computation exists without physical instantiation. The consequence it presses on us is rather that it is absurd to accept a series of physical accidents or a recording as continuing to implement a computation. Yet that would be the conclusion forced on us by the conjunction of physicalism and computationalism. But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. I suspect that this is related to Bruno's use of Thaetetus definition of knowledge which doesn't require any causal relation between belief in a true proposition and the fact that makes it true. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? hence, if the system in question continues, after the postulated disruptions, to support some conscious state it can't be in virtue of its ever having implemented a computation. This leads to its own nest of puzzles. 2) CTM is salvageable but not in the case that physical activity is the true 'basement level'. Why not? Why isn't the option that CTM is true but the C must be a sequence of states instantiated in the context of a physical world - where the physics need not be fundamental (but could be). We must hope to elucidate some more deeply concealed basement where, in some formalisable sense, number relations are sufficient and computation itself is the key organisational principle. This entails what Bruno calls the reversal of physics and machine psychology. That's possible, but I don't see it as the only possibility. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? That's my point, we need the physical (a world) to impute meaning to the computational process No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), that couldn't work the other way around... meaning is related to us, there is no meaning without consciousness, it seems to me nonsense to argue otherwise, but please add arguments to that instead of asserting it. Meaning is a consciousness construct. Quentin so that it is a computation. Brent It's strange that all the program that run on any physical machine are made of abstraction, you never program using electron... you program at the basic level with boolean logic, that you can relate to physical phenomenon, but never the other way around. Quentin is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 22:21 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:49 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. But the MGA has never been claimed to show that computation exists without physical instantiation. The consequence it presses on us is rather that it is absurd to accept a series of physical accidents or a recording as continuing to implement a computation. Yet that would be the conclusion forced on us by the conjunction of physicalism and computationalism. But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. I suspect that this is related to Bruno's use of Thaetetus definition of knowledge which doesn't require any causal relation between belief in a true proposition and the fact that makes it true. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? That consciousness can be supported by a digital computation ie: it can be run on a turing machine... that consciousness can be supported by a program... yes doctor is broader than computationalism alone, you could say yes to a brain replacement without computationalism true, for example, that brain replacement keep an unknown non computational feature of your original brain, you would say yes, yet computationalism would be false (as the brain and the replacement would need this extra special non computational feature). Quentin hence, if the system in question continues, after the postulated disruptions, to support some conscious state it can't be in virtue of its ever having implemented a computation. This leads to its own nest of puzzles. 2) CTM is salvageable but not in the case that physical activity is the true 'basement level'. Why not? Why isn't the option that CTM is true but the C must be a sequence of states instantiated in the context of a physical world - where the physics need not be fundamental (but could be). We must hope to elucidate some more deeply concealed basement where, in some formalisable sense, number relations are sufficient and computation itself is the key organisational principle. This entails what Bruno calls the reversal of physics and machine psychology. That's possible, but I don't see it as the only possibility. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? That's my point, we need the physical (a world) to impute meaning to the computational process No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that couldn't work the other way around... meaning is related to us, there is no meaning without consciousness, it seems to me nonsense to argue otherwise, but please add arguments to that instead of asserting it. Meaning is a consciousness construct. That's just an assertion. Can you define consciousness without assuming meaning, consciousness that it not consciousness *of* something? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 1:24 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 22:21 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:49 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. But the MGA has never been claimed to show that computation exists without physical instantiation. The consequence it presses on us is rather that it is absurd to accept a series of physical accidents or a recording as continuing to implement a computation. Yet that would be the conclusion forced on us by the conjunction of physicalism and computationalism. But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. I suspect that this is related to Bruno's use of Thaetetus definition of knowledge which doesn't require any causal relation between belief in a true proposition and the fact that makes it true. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? That consciousness can be supported by a digital computation ie: it can be run on a turing machine... that consciousness can be supported by a program... yes doctor is broader than computationalism alone, you could say yes to a brain replacement without computationalism true, for example, that brain replacement keep an unknown non computational feature of your original brain, you would say yes, yet computationalism would be false (as the brain and the replacement would need this extra special non computational feature). But what if the feature was the relation to the external world (whether it's physical or a simulation)? You would still say yes to the doctor (because that relation would be preserved) and CTM would still be true. But consciousness would not be instantiated by computation simpliciter. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
ni Le 10 juil. 2014 22:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:24 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 22:21 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:49 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation is contradicted by the intuition that a computation must be about something. With conflicting absurdities I'm left unconvinced. But the MGA has never been claimed to show that computation exists without physical instantiation. The consequence it presses on us is rather that it is absurd to accept a series of physical accidents or a recording as continuing to implement a computation. Yet that would be the conclusion forced on us by the conjunction of physicalism and computationalism. But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. I suspect that this is related to Bruno's use of Thaetetus definition of knowledge which doesn't require any causal relation between belief in a true proposition and the fact that makes it true. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? That consciousness can be supported by a digital computation ie: it can be run on a turing machine... that consciousness can be supported by a program... yes doctor is broader than computationalism alone, you could say yes to a brain replacement without computationalism true, for example, that brain replacement keep an unknown non computational feature of your original brain, you would say yes, yet computationalism would be false (as the brain and the replacement would need this extra special non computational feature). But what if the feature was the relation to the external world (whether it's physical or a simulation)? You would still say yes to the doctor (because that relation would be preserved) and CTM would still be true. No it wouldn't... it would not be in virtue of the computation alone. But consciousness would not be instantiated by computation simpliciter. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 20:39 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 4:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already assumes a correct operation - but what makes an operation correct?...it's relation to you and the rest of the world. A computation, a sequence of states simpliciter, could be a computation of anything or of nothing. So the intuition that the computation still exists without the physical instantiation But that's how we know a given physical instantiation is said to compute this or that, it's because it has a one/one mapping to the abstract computation... the computation is what relates the input to the output... if we cannot relate a physical instantiation to the abstract algorithm, in what way could we say it computes anything ? That's my point, we need the physical (a world) to impute meaning to the computational process No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. that couldn't work the other way around... meaning is related to us, there is no meaning without consciousness, it seems to me nonsense to argue otherwise, but please add arguments to that instead of asserting it. Meaning is a consciousness construct. That's just an assertion. Can you define consciousness without assuming meaning, consciousness that it not consciousness *of* something? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 2:06 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: But what if the feature was the relation to the external world (whether it's physical or a simulation)? You would still say yes to the doctor (because that relation would be preserved) and CTM would still be true. No it wouldn't... it would not be in virtue of the computation alone. Well then we just disagree on the semantics. I don't think computation alone means anything, it just a sequence of states like letters in a novel. It is only consciousness, i.e. is about something, in the context of a world where it forms models, decisions, inferences, actions, etc. I'd still call it CTM, because it implies that I can create a mind by suitable computations in the context of this world. But if you want to confine CTM to just sequences of states of a Turing machine with no context that's OK. I just think it leaves the paradox of the conscious rock. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 21:21, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. It might save you some typing if you read the whole post before you comment on a part of it. I dealt with this point a couple of sentences later. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Yes, just so; now read on. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. Yeah, right indeed. The system as described continues to relate physically, in the relevant ways, with the rest of the physical world. If I may quote my next sentence As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So what precisely is your remaining objection? So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? No, I mean the assumption that a physical system can be conscious simply in virtue of its implementing a computation. Since in the gedanken experiment we have succeeded in evacuating any trace of computation from the system, whilst preserving its net physical action, if it remains conscious, it can't be in virtue of its ever having implemented a computation. If on the contrary we conclude that it loses consciousness, we then have the mystery of how this can be the case given that the sequence of physical states remains the same. Either way the conjunction is shown to be incompatible and it would be unsafe on this understanding to say yes to the computationalist doctor. 2) CTM is salvageable but not in the case that physical activity is the true 'basement level'. Why not? Why isn't the option that CTM is true but the C must be a sequence of states instantiated in the context of a physical world - where the physics need not be fundamental (but could be). ? If you still want to claim this either you haven't yet quite grasped all the implications of the MGA, or the physical world to which you now refer can't be the one that has featured in the argument to this point. We've already shown that we can evacuate all traces of computation from *that* world whilst preserving its sequences of physical states complete with all relevant relations to an external physical environment. Hence to hang on to the C we must look to computational relations to be primary, rather than secondary, in our explanatory strategy. This in turn implies that any physical world below computation would have to be consigned to some explanatory sub-basement; IOW a world of ur-physics that existed merely in order to implement computational relations. It is the latter that must do all the work in our explanatory basement. Hence, to appropriate an image of Bruno's, the putative ur-physical sub-basement would merely be there to stable a sort of supernumerary invisible horse whose sole purpose is to pull the numbers around. Sure, we could posit its existence, but it couldn't otherwise feature in our explanations. This entails what Bruno calls the reversal of physics and machine psychology. That's possible, but I don't see it as the only possibility. Granted, I guess. But would you care to suggest some viable alternatives? David On 7/10/2014 12:49 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 19:39, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In short, under physicalism, a 'computation' *just is* a particular sequence of physical states. Indeed what else could it be? The states, so to speak, come first and hence the notion that those states 'implement a computation' is always an a posteriori attribution that neither need, nor can, bring anything further to the party. I agree with all you wrote. But as Bruno says it's a reductio. Given that it's absurd, the question is what makes it absurd. I think it's the assumption that the sequence of physical states constitutes a computation *independent* of any reference to a world. When you talk about your PC and accidental compensation for a physical fault, the concept of 'compensation' already
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 10 juil. 2014 23:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. if they are different computations they don't go through the same states... QED What you said is simply false. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Emil L. Post 1936 Finite Combinatory Processes. Formulation 1. - from the concluding paragraph: The writer expects the present formulation to turn out to be logically equivalent to recursiveness in the sense of the Gödel-Church development. Its purpose, however, is not only to present a system of a certain logical potency but also, in its restricted field, of psychological fidelity. In the latter sense wider and wider formulations are contemplated. On the other hand, our aim will be to show that all such are logically reducible to formulation 1. We offer this conclusion at the present moment as a *working hypothesis*. And to our mind such is Church's identification of effective calculability with recursiveness.8 Out of this hypothesis, and because of its apparent contradiction to all mathematical development starting with Cantor's proof of the non-enumerability of the points of a line, independently flows a Gödel-Church development. The success of the above program would, for us, change this hypothesis not so much to a definition or to an axiom but to *natural law*. Only so, it seems to the writer, can Gödel's theorem concerning incompleteness of symbolic logics of a certain general type and Church's results on the recursive unsolvability of certain problems be transformed into conclusions concerning all symbolic logics and all methods of solvability. Footnote: 8 Cf. Church, lock. cit, pp. 346, 356-358. Actually the work already done by Church and others carries this identification considerably beyond the working hypothesis stage. *But to mask this identification under a definition hides the fact* that a fundamental discovery in the limitiations of mathematicizing power of Homo Sapiens has been made *and blinds us to the need of its continual verification*. Effective calculability; Post seems to insist with the incredibly clear and simple Formulation1, is merely intuitive notion. I know Church wasn't too happy with this. Continual verification, ok. PGC On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 11:46 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 23:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. if they are different computations they don't go through the same states... QED What you said is simply false. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 2:41 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 10 July 2014 21:21, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But I think it becomes absurd only because the scenario ignores the fact that it is the physical instantiation that provides a reference to the world which then gives the computation meaning. It is the implicit isolation into physical system which is going through a computation that gives the impression that it is just the sequence of states that instantiates the computation. It might save you some typing if you read the whole post before you comment on a part of it. I dealt with this point a couple of sentences later. Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation, then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes are what *constitute* a computation. OK, if by physicalism you include that the computation goes on in the physical context of a world. Yes, just so; now read on. Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the *physical* world. Right. Yeah, right indeed. The system as described continues to relate physically, in the relevant ways, with the rest of the physical world. If I may quote my next sentence As long as the relevant sequence of physical states is unchanged there can be no reason to complain that this requirement can't be met. So what precisely is your remaining objection? That this has not achieved the puted reversal of psychology and physics. The physics (of the external world) is still necessary (but not necessarily fundamental). So after all this we are faced with not one, but two, options. 1) CTM is false and physicalism is true but incompatible with computationalism; What do you mean by computationalism? Just saying yes to the doctor? No, I mean the assumption that a physical system can be conscious simply in virtue of its implementing a computation. Since in the gedanken experiment we have succeeded in evacuating any trace of computation from the system, whilst preserving its net physical action, if it remains conscious, it can't be in virtue of its ever having implemented a computation. You mean *this* gedanken experiment: ///Under physicalism, if it goes on walking and quacking like a computation,// // then it *continues to be* a computation; the physical states and outcomes// // are what *constitute* a computation.// // Furthermore, we need not suppose any such system as the one in question to// // be isolated from the rest of the world and hence devoid of reference. The// // 'relation with the rest of the world', under physicalism, is fully satisfied// // by the *physical* relation of the system in question with the rest of the// // *physical* world./ ISTM you've introduced a difference. The physical system is not conscious simply in virtue of its implementing a computation; its consciousness also depends on that implementations relation to the external world. In the first sentence you say that the computation is constituted by a sequence of physical states (implicitly, by this alone). But in the third sentence you say it also still has the same physical relation to the world, which is something beyond simply a succession of states. If on the contrary we conclude that it loses consciousness, we then have the mystery of how this can be the case given that the sequence of physical states remains the same. Given that the sequence of physical states is the same *and* they have the same relation to the world. Either way the conjunction is shown to be incompatible and it would be unsafe on this understanding to say yes to the computationalist doctor. But it's not. Even if the consciousness of the computation depends on its relation to the world, it's still safe to say yes to the doctor because he's going to leave the rest of the world in place. 2) CTM is salvageable but not in the case that physical activity is the true 'basement level'. Why not? Why isn't the option that CTM is true but the C must be a sequence of states instantiated in the context of a physical world - where the physics need not be fundamental (but could be). ? If you still want to claim this either you haven't yet quite grasped all the implications of the MGA, or the physical world to which you now refer can't be the one that has featured in the argument to this point. We've already shown that we can evacuate all traces of computation from *that* world whilst preserving its sequences of physical states complete with all relevant relations to an external physical environment. Hence to hang on to the C we must look to computational relations to be primary, rather than secondary, in our explanatory strategy. I don't see that this follows. It seems
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 2:46 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 23:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. if they are different computations they don't go through the same states... QED What you said is simply false. It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 11 juil. 2014 01:55, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:46 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 23:40, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 2:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 10 juil. 2014 22:46, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 1:21 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 21:56 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/10/2014 12:19 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: No we need computation to relate a physical instantiation to it (that's how we can say two != computers compute the same thing, it's because they relate to the same computation), But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. that's not possible... if they compute different thing the state machine is different. Only when it's printing the headers of the columns of the numbers. if they are different computations they don't go through the same states... QED What you said is simply false. It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. Brent or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 2:15 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. And I'm the external world providing the references is less ambiguous? PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/10/2014 5:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 2:15 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. And I'm the external world providing the references is less ambiguous? PGC It can be disambiguated by the action I take on it, what I tell other people, what they do. Which is why I think the question of what is being computed can only be answered with reference to a big context environment, essentially a whole world. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 3:03 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/10/2014 5:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 2:15 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. And I'm the external world providing the references is less ambiguous? PGC It can be disambiguated by the action I take on it, what I tell other people, what they do. Which is why I think the question of what is being computed can only be answered with reference to a big context environment, essentially a whole world. Yes, but I'd say both of you are right. For example, I follow you on But that's not true. I have a differential equation integrator in my computer and it could be going through exactly the same states in two different instances; one computing heat transfer in a disc brake and other computing diffusion of pollutant in a pond. So there is not a one-one mapping either way. The ambiguity ISTM is that linguistic plausibility of a finite actions, communication between people, what they do/what they refer to/what outputs they read at some step, is blended with logical possibility of infinite computation in arithmetic. It vanishes when we don't blend. PGC Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Le 11 juil. 2014 02:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/10/2014 5:01 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: It's my example and ex hypothesi they do go through the same states, they're just *about* different things. Either both are the same computation and goes through the same state computing the same thing But same thing is ambiguous. They may both compute 2.76 but in one case I know it means degrees Kelvin and in the other it's parts-per-million. I don't care what the computation means to you. If they go through the same states, they're the same computation. What you do or not with the output if any is of no concern for that. In which case I'm the external world providing the referents. In case of a conscious computation, it is it that provides the meaning. Brent or they're not and don't go through the same state. An infinity of computations goes through the same state on partial run, up until step n. All the stopping computation stopping at the same step are one and the same. So no even if you can imagine a cake made of grzeaeftthfey that doesn't make it possible. Two distinct computations don't go through the same state, at least one state is different. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-09 2:36 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 4:26 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 9 juil. 2014 01:09, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/8/2014 3:26 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: Le 8 juil. 2014 22:56, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net a écrit : On 7/8/2014 12:57 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-08 21:23 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:56 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-08 20:47 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 10:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2014, at 21:13, meekerdb wrote: On 7/7/2014 8:14 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 6 July 2014 04:18, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Yes, but it's a theory of epistemology after the physical fact. It assumes without further justification what it wishes to prove, No, it defines a certain kind of belief, just as Bruno identifies belief with provable in some axiomatic system (which you must admit is not a standard meaning of belief) one can identify belief with certain actions in context. I don't know what you mean by after the physical fact. If it's a physical theory of belief then of course it's explained in terms of physical facts. You seem to reject this as though it's obviously wrong. Not wrong, just not the whole story. My argument has been that any mechanism of belief that is hierarchically reducible to a finite set of (assumptive) primitives cannot thereafter rely on the (supposedly) independent effectiveness of derivative notions such as computation as the basis of its mechanism of knowledge. That sentence seems to just assume what it purports to argue. Why idependent; why not dependent? What exactly does it mean to rely on in an explanation? I think it only means that the explanan is understandable. Your argument would appear to apply to every reductive explanation in the hierarchy - but the hierarchy only exists in virtue of the explanations. This is essentially the same conclusion as MGA or Maudlin and amounts to an insistence on what is most powerful in reductive explanation (i.e. the redundancy of intermediate levels of effectiveness) . But, as I've argued elsewhere, the MGA and Olympia arguments don't prove what they are generally taken to prove. Reduction must always be applied to an isolated system, which MGA attempts to sneak in by assuming a dream state. But even dreams obtain their meaning from outside referents. But you don't ask the doctor to copy the outside referents, and that is enough to make the MGA doing its job. My not asking is enough?? I think you mean that if he did copy the outside referents then the argument would go through. So for MGA to go through, he does not have to... because MGA is the following. Assumptions: 1- You have a digital conscious program 2- You can record the input of that program (and of course you can, because of assumption 1) 3- You effectively record the input of the program for a certain period of time (with the correct timing) where it is conscious in our world/reality 4- you *replay* that input It is clear by 4 that at that stage you do not need any external world beside the recorded input. By assumption 1, if the program is conscious, it is still conscious while having the recorded input as input. But would it still be consciousness if there were no world that provided referents for the program? It's the relation to an external world that allows digits and numbers to be *about* something; No the relations are to the machine running the program, any universal machine does the job. That makes no sense to me. It would mean that when I'm running a simulation of an aircraft that the variables that mean latitude and longitude get that meaning from the Intel CPU. The meaning is relative to the interpreter, so relative to the program itself. What you're saying is that if you run a simulation of a flying aircraft it has no meaning if you don't look at it... would you go as far as to say nothing was computed/simulated if you don't look at it? No, not necessarily me. But it needs to interact with the world. No a program interacts with its inputs and that's all. The computation might be in the aircraft's navigation computer in which case it might deflect control surfaces to keep the aircraft on course - so it's meaning would be clear from the action. My consciousness is no different than the computer's, my brain instantiates meaning by reference to my relation with the world. also with Mga by hypothesis the computation support a conscious moment Isn't it supposed to be a proof, No it's assumption number 1! not an hypothesis, that shows no physical action is necessary to instantiate
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 09 Jul 2014, at 01:15, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2014 10:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Jul 2014, at 07:27, meekerdb wrote: Yes, that's an interesting aspect of Bruno's theory. He identifies provable with believes. But the the same kind of thing can be done in a physical theory: believes = acts as if it were true. There's even a whole theory of Bayesian inference based on bets. It may not be right, but it's a theory of epistemology. []p models rational beliefs by any correct machine, talking about itself (in the 3p) at the correct substitution level. Isn't that a very idealized rationality in which every theorem of the axioms is known? Only in which every theorem is believable. Not known as truth per se. Nor is it is needed for as our goal (to get the observable) to distinguished between believed from believable. It works on your instantaneous state, when you discuss with the doctor who plans the teleportation. In fact it provides the logic of any machines talking in a self-referentially correct way about its own abilities, provided she is a machine and that she believes in a first order logic specification of its representation at some level. []p t is closer for bets. It already concern already a not completely bayesian theory of (quantum sort of) bet (the certainty case, still different from the knowing for sure, which basically does not exist except for consciousness). I don't have to identify provable and believe. It is that the notion of provability, thanks Gödel, share enough of the axiomatic of belief to allow an ideal case study of the correct person. It is enough to derive physics along its FPI statistics (re)definition. So it's an approximation that provable=believed; sort of like the physicists who says, Suppose the cow is a sphere... More like the sun and planet are seen as weighty points. It explains already the basic of the planets' moves. G and G* described *essential* undecidability, which continue to apply for all arithmetically sound consistent extensions. It works on you, as far as you are correct (when saying 'yes for the doctor choice of a level), in case you do believe in elementary arithmetic, which I am sure you do. It remains correct when you talk on higher order description of your body, like in term of arms instead of the gödel number code on the doctor hard disk. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 09 Jul 2014, at 03:51, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2014 6:03 PM, LizR wrote: I still can't see how the computation can know that it's got a real world to relate to, rather than a replay of the inputs recorded previously. Which as far as I know is all the MGA relies on. I can't see how a conscious digital computer programme being started in the same state as the first time around, and having the same inputs replayed to it as before, would not be just as conscious as it was the first time around. Either it's conscious as it was before, OR it wasn't conscious the first time, OR there is some weird supernatural stuff going on that somehow makes a difference. (This isn't the point at which I have problems with the MGA.) And you're irritated because I don't take a definite position. ;-) Not exactly. It's because you appear to take a definite position, speaking out loudly and forcefully in support of it - then back down when anyone points out that you've done so. Thefact that it's always the same position is a bit of a giveaway, though. It's a position which I think shows some gaps in comp. But that doesn't mean I have my own TOE. I insist that comp is not presented as a solution, but as making two times more difficult the mind-body problem. Then the math part shows how hard it would be to use that to defeat mechanism, as the machine can already show a part of the solution of the matter problem. She explains also why for the consciousness and true part, some gap are simply not 3p sharable, and some might even be not first person accessible (or at least that is not yet clear and we can formulate the questions). Comp is rampant in the human mind since he build tools, and comp get precise mathematically with the discovery of the universal numbers/ machines. It is a rather seemingly innocent hypothesis in biology and physics, but it is a strong hypothesis in theology which leads to that problematic reversal, but which offers the math to tackle it, and even test it experimentally. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 09 Jul 2014, at 04:03, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote: On 9 July 2014 12:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: the proof that mga gives is a reductio assumibg it's the physical instantiation that gives the computation reality. The conscious computation is assumed at the start given the requirement that we are in a computationalist settings... Yes, it assumes a computation can have meaning in itself without referents. Aren't the referents supplied by recording the original computation? But I'm not sure what meaning is here. Do brain cells have meaning while operating, or is it something that emerges from their operation? But that seems like a dubious assumption to me. How then do you answer the paradox of the conscious rock? Do you need to? Rocks apparently emerge from infinite computational traces in comp anyway...! (So perhaps they can support consciousness acccording to comp, or at least they can instantiate some of the infinite computations that support it?) mga is about physical instantiation. That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. This is a good point, and one I think I have got my head around now. However, it appears to imply that meaning is the supernatural extra stuff I mentioned earlier, which is supposed to differentiate an original computation from a replay. So suppose we have a conscious computer frozen in state S1. We start it running and let it interact with its environment via, say, a body in the form of a Mars Rover. We record all the inputs it receives from its sensors, incoming signals from anywhere else, etc. After say 10 minutes we stop the recording and we turn to another computer, on Earth, with no body, also in state S1, and now we play back the inputs we recorded from teh first one. Why would the second computer not behave exactly like the first one, believing that it's interacting with the surface of Mars? And if it does, why would it be any less conscious than the first one? I'd say that if it instantiates conscious, thoughts then they take their meaning from Mars, even though it's second hand. Maudlin adds extra machinery to provide counterfactual computations. This must assume interaction with some environment in order that the counterfactual events can be defined. You miss the point. maudlin extra-machinery to get the a machine which is counterfactually correct, yet the machinery will not interact and be physically inactive for the precise computation considered. maudlin shows that we can incarnate any particular computations with basically any physical activity (and indeed I showed we can diminish the physical activity up to nothing). Or looked at another way, suppose there were a different Europa rover which had different sensors and programs and actuators, but by coincidence of it's interaction with the environment it happened to have a sequence of inputs and outputs from it's cpu exactly the same as a sequence that occurred in Mars rover. So when the sequence is played back in asimulation on Earth, does the simulation experience being on Mars or on Europa? Or am I missing the point? Dunno. My point is that consciousness may be more holistic than supposed, i.e. it depends on environment and maybe even on the evolutionary history. That is close to the comp consequence, where consciousness depends on all possible environments, and on all possible computations going through classes of states (corresponding to stable enough first person experiences). An environment is always a universal machine in *your* or our (first person plural) neighborhoods. The cooperation makes rarer the individual relative aberant continuation, plausibly. To stabilize on individual histories, consciousness might require some depth (in Bennett sense of (simplifying a lot) intrinsic long runtime computations) and requires or cannot avoid, the big self- multiplication). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 09 Jul 2014, at 04:59, LizR wrote: On 9 July 2014 14:03, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote: So suppose we have a conscious computer frozen in state S1. We start it running and let it interact with its environment via, say, a body in the form of a Mars Rover. We record all the inputs it receives from its sensors, incoming signals from anywhere else, etc. After say 10 minutes we stop the recording and we turn to another computer, on Earth, with no body, also in state S1, and now we play back the inputs we recorded from teh first one. Why would the second computer not behave exactly like the first one, believing that it's interacting with the surface of Mars? And if it does, why would it be any less conscious than the first one? I'd say that if it instantiates conscious, thoughts then they take their meaning from Mars, even though it's second hand. So you are happy that the replay is conscious, and has the same experiences and state of consciousness as the original? If so then we may as well drop this stuff about meaning, which only seemed to be there to distinguish the really real first time around consciousness from the not really real second time around consciousness. I hope you see that the MGA is a reductio ad absurdum, and that you are OK with the fact that a record of a computation is not a computation, at least assuming comp, as nothing compute in a record of a computation. OK? That is why we just abandon the physical supervenience. Consciousness has nothing to do with the physical activity of the brain or the computer. Consciousness has everything to do with the immaterial person, and all of its realization in arithmetic. Eventually a brain is just a way for that consciousness to manifest itself relatively to some 1p-plural stable universal neighbor. Maudlin adds extra machinery to provide counterfactual computations. This must assume interaction with some environment in order that the counterfactual events can be defined. Yes, I didn't get that. All that unused machinery ... the MGA seems a lot tidier, at least. Or looked at another way, suppose there were a different Europa rover which had differentsensors and programs and actuators, but by coincidence of it's interaction with the environment it happened to have a sequence of inputs and outputs from it's cpu exactly the same as a sequence that occurred in Mars rover. So when the sequence is played back in a simulation on Earth, does the simulation experience being on Mars or on Europa? If they are the SAME inputs then it experiences whatever the Mars AND Europa rovers experienced, according to comp (or according to materialism, for that matter). At least it does assuming the two rovers have identical experiences, by which I assume you mean they started at some point in time in the same machine state (otherwise the Mars one knows its on Mars anyway, and can't have the same conscious states as the Europa one, which knows it's on Europa). So if you make their states of consciousness identical at the start time (by hypothesis, this means that they are both equivalent to Turing machines in a specific state) and they happen to have the same inputs, and the whole thing gets replayed by a Turing machine on Earth, then that machine has the same experience (which would have to be along the lines of Where am I? I don't know, but it looks like a bunch of rocks... Or whatever it happens to look like. The MGA assumes you start the system in some specified state and replay the inputs. I can't see any wiggle room for this to be a different conscious experience no matter how many times you do it. Comp says it's literally the same states of consciousness. My point is that consciousness may be more holistic than supposed, i.e. it depends on environment and maybe even on the evolutionary history. I think comp covers this when Bruno says that you may have to simulate more than just the person's physical form, but perhaps their surroundings too. But in any case depends on is irrelevant if consciousness is Turing emulable, as far as I know a state of a Turing Machine doesn't care how it got into that state, it's simply in it. OK. Asking for the presence of the environment is like asking for a lower level, and does not change anything when confronted to UD* or the arithmetical reality. It only makes the high level used by many neuro- philosophers less plausible, and makes step 1-6 harder, without reason, as the step 7 works for all level, with all sort of Turing emulable *generalized* brains, including oracles. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group,
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! Also, maybe the God of the Bible all came from Lucid Dreaming. One US academic psychologist claimed as much with the writings of Ezekiel. Lucid dreams are where you become aware one is dreaming, but feel like normal life, sensorially. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Jul 6, 2014 6:29 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:33, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jul 2014, at 19:46, meekerdb wrote: On 7/3/2014 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Only a pseudo-scientist would say that the science progresses have put any threat on the non literal reading of any sacred texts. Wouldn't that depend on what the non-literal reading is? I think what you mean is that there is always some non-literal reading that is not threatened by science...or by logic, or by empathy, or by anything else you care to name, because non-literal is just not what it says. Mein Kampf is also consistent with good race relations, on a non-literal reading. 'Mein Kampf' contains hate. Hate is always literal, Is that from the Marchal dictionary of the Engligh language? or you are in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or in the Christian bible: Proverbs 6:16, 19 These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. With sufficient non-literalism these become God is love. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. You can study the deep non literal meaning in a book like Aldous Huxley philosophia perennis. You can sum it by Plato might be right, or the laws of physics might have a deeper reason, perhaps even a purpose. When the meaning is deeply non-literal isn't is likely that it's your own ideas you are imposing on the book. Understanding something is always a question of reducing or representing it to what you already understand. The institutionalist religions are as far of religion than the today politics of health is from health. For basically the same reason (stealing people's money). A scientist interested in religion will always read a sacred text with the same equanimity than reading a salvia divinorum report. Equanamity is not the same thing as giving it a non-literal meaning. It consists in remaining open to all interpretations possible. Religion, like nationalities, have also social identity role, indeed very often perverted, and we (the scientists) have to keep calm and try hard to not throw the unsolved questions when abstracting from the fairy tales and legends associated with some plausible, or not, contact between humans beliefs and truth. And to be careful not to insert our hopes and wishes in place of the fairy tales. Yes. Nobody claims that it is easy. That is one reason more to encourage the reasoning and skeptical attitudes, especially in fundamental studies, like the theological one. By deciding that theology is automatically bullshit, we just perpetuate the institutional bullshit, a bit like making drug forbidden, we create and and make bigger the illicit drug markets which control and target the kids. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Lucid dreaming has been used by Kurt Leland to observe the afterlife and communicate with its inhabitants. http://www.kurtleland.com/ On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 3:52 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! Also, maybe the God of the Bible all came from Lucid Dreaming. One US academic psychologist claimed as much with the writings of Ezekiel. Lucid dreams are where you become aware one is dreaming, but feel like normal life, sensorially. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Jul 6, 2014 6:29 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:33, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jul 2014, at 19:46, meekerdb wrote: On 7/3/2014 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Only a pseudo-scientist would say that the science progresses have put any threat on the non literal reading of any sacred texts. Wouldn't that depend on what the non-literal reading is? I think what you mean is that there is always some non-literal reading that is not threatened by science...or by logic, or by empathy, or by anything else you care to name, because non-literal is just not what it says. Mein Kampf is also consistent with good race relations, on a non-literal reading. 'Mein Kampf' contains hate. Hate is always literal, Is that from the Marchal dictionary of the Engligh language? or you are in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or in the Christian bible: Proverbs 6:16, 19 These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. With sufficient non-literalism these become God is love. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. You can study the deep non literal meaning in a book like Aldous Huxley philosophia perennis. You can sum it by Plato might be right, or the laws of physics might have a deeper reason, perhaps even a purpose. When the meaning is deeply non-literal isn't is likely that it's your own ideas you are imposing on the book. Understanding something is always a question of reducing or representing it to what you already understand. The institutionalist religions are as far of religion than the today politics of health is from health. For basically the same reason (stealing people's money). A scientist interested in religion will always read a sacred text with the same equanimity than reading a salvia divinorum report. Equanamity is not the same thing as giving it a non-literal meaning. It consists in remaining open to all interpretations possible. Religion, like nationalities, have also social identity role, indeed very often perverted, and we (the scientists) have to keep calm and try hard to not throw the unsolved questions when abstracting from the fairy tales and legends associated with some plausible, or not, contact between humans beliefs and truth. And to be careful not to insert our hopes and wishes in place of the fairy tales. Yes. Nobody claims that it is easy. That is one reason more to encourage the reasoning and skeptical attitudes, especially in fundamental studies, like the theological one. By deciding that theology is automatically bullshit, we just perpetuate the institutional bullshit, a bit like making drug forbidden, we create and and make bigger the illicit drug markets which control and target the kids. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
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Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
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Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 06:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 09 Jul 2014, at 04:59, LizR wrote: On 9 July 2014 14:03, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/8/2014 6:14 PM, LizR wrote: So suppose we have a conscious computer frozen in state S1. We start it running and let it interact with its environment via, say, a body in the form of a Mars Rover. We record all the inputs it receives from its sensors, incoming signals from anywhere else, etc. After say 10 minutes we stop the recording and we turn to another computer, on Earth, with no body, also in state S1, and now we play back the inputs we recorded from teh first one. Why would the second computer not behave exactly like the first one, believing that it's interacting with the surface of Mars? And if it does, why would it be any less conscious than the first one? I'd say that if it instantiates conscious, thoughts then they take their meaning from Mars, even though it's second hand. So you are happy that the replay is conscious, and has the same experiences and state of consciousness as the original? If so then we may as well drop this stuff about meaning, which only seemed to be there to distinguish the really real first time around consciousness from the not really real second time around consciousness. I hope you see that the MGA is a reductio ad absurdum, and that you are OK with the fact that a record of a computation is not a computation, at least assuming comp, as nothing compute in a record of a computation. OK? Yes, I think so. But Brent's point seemed to be questioning something slightly different. He was (or appeared to be) saying that even allowing the computation to progress with the same inputs wouldn't result in consciousness because the computation wouldn't be getting the same meaning from its environment. Or something like that. The implication was that meaning is some metaphysical or supernatural extra, which is what I was arguing against. I was arguing that if you assume materialism + consciousness supervening on computation, then having the same computing machine starting in the same state and having the same inputs would give the same conscious experience. This wasn't necessarily an argument for or against comp, because we didn't seem to have got far enough to discuss that. That is why we just abandon the physical supervenience. Consciousness has nothing to do with the physical activity of the brain or the computer. Consciousness has everything to do with the immaterial person, and all of its realization in arithmetic. Eventually a brain is just a way for that consciousness to manifest itself relatively to some 1p-plural stable universal neighbor. OK, well I said that (more or less) in response to a comment of Brent's and got back a rather facetious reply about 787s being maifestations of a quantum field - which LOOKED like Brent was just saying well that's ridiculous! although after a lot of back and forth, he claims he was saying that comp explains too much. Unfortunately the (allegedly) very bad phrasing of the original comment led to a whole discussion as above which seems to have led nowhere, as far as I can see, except to Brent claiming his comment meant something completely different from what it appeared to mean (again). I think comp covers this when Bruno says that you may have to simulate more than just the person's physical form, but perhaps their surroundings too. But in any case depends on is irrelevant if consciousness is Turing emulable, as far as I know a state of a Turing Machine doesn't care how it got into that state, it's simply in it. OK. Asking for the presence of the environment is like asking for a lower level, and does not change anything when confronted to UD* or the arithmetical reality. It only makes the high level used by many neuro-philosophers less plausible, and makes step 1-6 harder, without reason, as the step 7 works for all level, with all sort of Turing emulable *generalized* brains, including oracles. Yes, I see that. It is certainly easier to discuss if you just restrict it to a guy in a teleporter, rather than saying well, you may have to cut and paste the visible universe. So I was trying to point out that you had covered this and vague talk about consciousness being more holistic had already been covered, and was just missed out for convenience. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
I wish I could just do normal dreaming lucidly enough to remember what I dreamt, but I almost always forget. I think my short term memory is VERY short term, dammit. What were we talking about again? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
I have a cousin who claims to do this sort of thing. I try to avoid being cornered by him at parties (and I try to ignore the fact that his supernatural powers let him know I'm trying to avoid him...) On 10 July 2014 09:13, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: Lucid dreaming has been used by Kurt Leland to observe the afterlife and communicate with its inhabitants. http://www.kurtleland.com/ On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 3:52 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! Also, maybe the God of the Bible all came from Lucid Dreaming. One US academic psychologist claimed as much with the writings of Ezekiel. Lucid dreams are where you become aware one is dreaming, but feel like normal life, sensorially. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Jul 6, 2014 6:29 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:33, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jul 2014, at 19:46, meekerdb wrote: On 7/3/2014 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Only a pseudo-scientist would say that the science progresses have put any threat on the non literal reading of any sacred texts. Wouldn't that depend on what the non-literal reading is? I think what you mean is that there is always some non-literal reading that is not threatened by science...or by logic, or by empathy, or by anything else you care to name, because non-literal is just not what it says. Mein Kampf is also consistent with good race relations, on a non-literal reading. 'Mein Kampf' contains hate. Hate is always literal, Is that from the Marchal dictionary of the Engligh language? or you are in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or in the Christian bible: Proverbs 6:16, 19 These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. With sufficient non-literalism these become God is love. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. You can study the deep non literal meaning in a book like Aldous Huxley philosophia perennis. You can sum it by Plato might be right, or the laws of physics might have a deeper reason, perhaps even a purpose. When the meaning is deeply non-literal isn't is likely that it's your own ideas you are imposing on the book. Understanding something is always a question of reducing or representing it to what you already understand. The institutionalist religions are as far of religion than the today politics of health is from health. For basically the same reason (stealing people's money). A scientist interested in religion will always read a sacred text with the same equanimity than reading a salvia divinorum report. Equanamity is not the same thing as giving it a non-literal meaning. It consists in remaining open to all interpretations possible. Religion, like nationalities, have also social identity role, indeed very often perverted, and we (the scientists) have to keep calm and try hard to not throw the unsolved questions when abstracting from the fairy tales and legends associated with some plausible, or not, contact between humans beliefs and truth. And to be careful not to insert our hopes and wishes in place of the fairy tales. Yes. Nobody claims that it is easy. That is one reason more to encourage the reasoning and skeptical attitudes, especially in fundamental studies, like the theological one. By deciding that theology is automatically bullshit, we just perpetuate the institutional bullshit, a bit like making drug forbidden, we create and and make bigger the illicit drug markets which control and target the kids. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 1:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. We're talking about *computationalism*, so in this settings, your brain would be replaced with a program running on a (turing) machine... *the only thing* the program can interact with are the inputs... they can come from a real or not real environment, the program cannot tell the difference, there is no little dwarf to tell the program if the input is from a real environment out there or a recording of a real environment out there or a virtual environment. The program interact with *inputs* and nothing else. Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
2014-07-10 1:51 GMT+02:00 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com: 2014-07-10 1:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. We're talking about *computationalism*, so in this settings, your brain would be replaced with a program running on a (turing) machine... *the only thing* the program can interact with are the inputs... they can come from a real or not real environment, the program cannot tell the difference, there is no little dwarf to tell the program if the input is from a real environment out there or a recording of a real environment out there or a virtual environment. The program interact with *inputs* and nothing else. That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), it is *in every cases* wherever the inputs came from... and the meaning of these inputs are relative to the consciousness supported by the computation and nothing else. Quentin Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 11:44, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. By doing everything your natural brain did, in fact. That is to say, if the input is the same and the starting state is the same, it will experience the same consciousness your natural brain would have experienced. As already pointed out, it's possible the duplication may have to include your environment - e.g. in the teleporter experiment it may be necessary to cut and paste the interior of the teleporter, which for the sake of argument could be a sealed box like Shcrodinger's cat's. (Or it could be a sphere with a radius the size of your age in light years.) That doesn't make any difference to the argument, however. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 4:51 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 1:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. We're talking about *computationalism*, so in this settings, your brain would be replaced with a program running on a (turing) machine... *the only thing* the program can interact with are the inputs... they can come from a real or not real environment, the program cannot tell the difference, there is no little dwarf to tell the program if the input is from a real environment out there or a recording of a real environment out there or a virtual environment. Then how do you know when a program is about something? How do you answer the paradox of the rock that computes everything? So much of this argumentation about consciousness depends on intuition and reductios, but you need to keep your sensitivity to what is absurd working all the time - not just when you want to reject and argument. Brent The program interact with *inputs* and nothing else. Quentin Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 4:59 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-10 1:51 GMT+02:00 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com mailto:allco...@gmail.com: 2014-07-10 1:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/9/2014 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014-07-09 20:35 GMT+02:00 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net: On 7/8/2014 11:13 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to impute meaning to the MG. No it relies on its assumption (ie: that a computation can support a conscious moment). That seems to be the implicit assumption. It is not implicit but explicit *it is assumption number 1* !! But that's assuming more than saying yes to the doctor. ? Saying yes to the doctor *under computationalism* means that a computation can support consciousness, if not you're crazy to say yes to replace your brain by a digital replacement. It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. We're talking about *computationalism*, so in this settings, your brain would be replaced with a program running on a (turing) machine... *the only thing* the program can interact with are the inputs... they can come from a real or not real environment, the program cannot tell the difference, there is no little dwarf to tell the program if the input is from a real environment out there or a recording of a real environment out there or a virtual environment. The program interact with *inputs* and nothing else. That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), it is *in every cases* wherever the inputs came from... and the meaning of these inputs are relative to the consciousness supported by the computation and nothing else. No, the meaning is relative to world of perception and action. It's seems absurdly circular to say the meaning of computation is relative to the computation itself. Even fake sensors have to be faking something. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 5:15 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 11:44, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It's saying yes, an artificial brain can maintain my consciousness *by interacting with my environment in the same way my natural brain did*. By doing everything your natural brain did, in fact. That is to say, if the input is the same and the starting state is the same, it will experience the same consciousness your natural brain would have experienced. As already pointed out, it's possible the duplication may have to include your environment - e.g. in the teleporter experiment it may be necessary to cut and paste the interior of the teleporter, which for the sake of argument could be a sealed box like Shcrodinger's cat's. (Or it could be a sphere with a radius the size of your age in light years.) That doesn't make any difference to the argument, however. But I think ultimately it does. If you have do include the environment in the computation (and Bruno has said maybe you do, it's just a matter of level) then I think it makes a metaphysical difference. Going back to my example of the simulated aircraft; if we simulate the aircraft in CFD then the meaning the variables (lift, drag,...) come from our physical world. But if we simulate a whole world, including the aircraft, so those variables have their meaning relative to the simulated world, then there is really no sense in saying it's a simulation. In other words if you simulate *all* the physics, then you haven't gotten rid of the physical world, you've just created a separate world with it's own physics. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 13:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), it is *in every cases* wherever the inputs came from... and the meaning of these inputs are relative to the consciousness supported by the computation and nothing else. No, the meaning is relative to world of perception and action. It's seems absurdly circular to say the meaning of computation is relative to the computation itself. Even fake sensors have to be faking something. I think it's fair to say that the meaning of the inputs are hypotheses about the world outside the consciousness. Obviously they could all be faked in the sense of the apparent world being a virtual reality, for example, or the inputs being wrongly interpreted (e.g. seeing a mirage) - but whatever their origin, meaning is what the consciousness extracts from the inputs by comparing them to an internal model it has constructed about how the outside world works. The internal model has been (mainly) built by making educated guesses about previous inputs, plus it is partly hard wired - some of the guesses about how the world works, for an evolved organism, are the results of the experiences of its ancestors. This could give the creature an instinctive fear of heights, or of swooping birds, or the dark, and an instinctive liking for certain foods, attraction to mates, etc. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 13:22, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But I think ultimately it does. If you have do include the environment in the computation (and Bruno has said maybe you do, it's just a matter of level) then I think it makes a metaphysical difference. Going back to my example of the simulated aircraft; if we simulate the aircraft in CFD then the meaning the variables (lift, drag,...) come from our physical world. But if we simulate a whole world, including the aircraft, so those variables have their meaning relative to the simulated world, then there is really no sense in saying it's a simulation. In other words if you simulate *all* the physics, then you haven't gotten rid of the physical world, you've just created a separate world with it's own physics. Only if you think the Mathematical Universe hypothesis is correct. Otherwise you've only created a model of a separate world. However, you're being too obscure, again. I have no idea what your argument is supposed to prove, or what these simulations have to do with comp, or what this metaphysical difference actually means. Please state your case as clearly as possible, so I don't waste more time arguing about something you didn't mean to say. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 6:38 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 13:22, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But I think ultimately it does. If you have do include the environment in the computation (and Bruno has said maybe you do, it's just a matter of level) then I think it makes a metaphysical difference. Going back to my example of the simulated aircraft; if we simulate the aircraft in CFD then the meaning the variables (lift, drag,...) come from our physical world. But if we simulate a whole world, including the aircraft, so those variables have their meaning relative to the simulated world, then there is really no sense in saying it's a simulation. In other words if you simulate *all* the physics, then you haven't gotten rid of the physical world, you've just created a separate world with it's own physics. Only if you think the Mathematical Universe hypothesis is correct. Otherwise you've only created a model of a separate world. However, you're being too obscure, again. I have no idea what your argument is supposed to prove, or what these simulations have to do with comp, or what this metaphysical difference actually means. Please state your case as clearly as possible, so I don't waste more time arguing about something you didn't mean to say. It proves that Bruno's MGA doesn't dispense with physics. When instantiating consciousness it's necessary to either allow the consciousness to act within our physical world or to provide another computed world within which it can act. In either case the physics is necessary to the consciousness - to avoid the problem of the rock that computes everything. I don't think Bruon actually claims to get rid of physics anyway, it just sounds that way sometimes when he's being short, but then it's taken as a refutation of materialism. I take it as an argument for monism; physics is necessary for consciousness (it's just not necessary that physics be fundamental, whatever that means). Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 13:48, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It proves that Bruno's MGA doesn't dispense with physics. When instantiating consciousness it's necessary to either allow the consciousness to act within our physical world or to provide another computed world within which it can act. Or provide inputs which give the appearance of a world, yes. Otherwise you have a consciousness that is in sensory isolation (although it could still dream). In either case the physics is necessary to the consciousness - to avoid the problem of the rock that computes everything. The rock wouldn't compute *everything*, not being a UD with infinite time, but it might compute some things. I'm not sure why this is a problem, however. Can you explain why? I don't think Bruon actually claims to get rid of physics anyway, it just sounds that way sometimes when he's being short, but then it's taken as a refutation of materialism. I'm not sure about physics. I think the point of the MGA is that matter isn't primary? (As I've already mentioned, I'm not 100% au fait with the MGA.) I take it as an argument for monism; physics is necessary for consciousness I'm not sure what this means. Comp assumes that computation is necessary for consciousness, and in practice, for us to carry out computation requires physics to support it, of course - but that doesn't mean it's *necessary* for computation. Computation might be able to exist in Numberland, or so I'm told. (it's just not necessary that physics be fundamental, whatever that means). It means it doesn't emerge from anything else. But if physics isn't primary then there's no argument anyway, because as far as I can tell comp seems quite happy with non-primary physics. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
Heres' a question. What would be bigger, genuine AI, or the discovery of another technological civilization in the galaxy??? -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jul 9, 2014 9:34 pm Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 10 July 2014 13:15, meekerdb lt;meeke...@verizon.netgt; wrote: That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), it is *in every cases* wherever the inputs came from... and the meaning of these inputs are relative to the consciousness supported by the computation and nothing else. No, the meaning is relative to world of perception and action. It'sseems absurdly circular to say the meaning of computation isrelative to the computation itself. Even fake sensors have to befaking something. I think it's fair to say that the meaning of the inputs are hypotheses about the world outside the consciousness. Obviously they could all be faked in the sense of the apparent world being a virtual reality, for example, or the inputs being wrongly interpreted (e.g. seeing a mirage) - but whatever their origin, meaning is what the consciousness extracts from the inputs by comparing them to an internal model it has constructed about how the outside world works. The internal model has been (mainly) built by making educated guesses about previous inputs, plus it is partly hard wired - some of the guesses about how the world works, for an evolved organism, are the results of the experiences of its ancestors. This could give the creature an instinctive fear of heights, or of swooping birds, or the dark, and an instinctive liking for certain foods, attraction to mates, etc. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 6:34 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 13:15, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: That means if the digital brain needed to interact with our environment, the program would be linked to sensors giving it inputs to interact with the world out there (the sensors are really only things that write in a shared memory space that the program can read)... those real sensors can be replaced by fake sensors, that write in the same shared memory space but not input from the real world but either from a simulated one, or the recording of a previous session with the real world... If the program is conscious (and it is if computationalism is true, and you said yes to the doctor), it is *in every cases* wherever the inputs came from... and the meaning of these inputs are relative to the consciousness supported by the computation and nothing else. No, the meaning is relative to world of perception and action. It's seems absurdly circular to say the meaning of computation is relative to the computation itself. Even fake sensors have to be faking something. I think it's fair to say that the meaning of the inputs are hypotheses about the world outside the consciousness. Obviously they could all be faked in the sense of the apparent world being a virtual reality, for example, or the inputs being wrongly interpreted (e.g. seeing a mirage) - but whatever their origin, meaning is what the consciousness extracts from the inputs by comparing them to an internal model it has constructed about how the outside world works. The internal model has been (mainly) built by making educated guesses about previous inputs, plus it is partly hard wired - some of the guesses about how the world works, for an evolved organism, are the results of the experiences of its ancestors. This could give the creature an instinctive fear of heights, or of swooping birds, or the dark, and an instinctive liking for certain foods, attraction to mates, etc. Yes, I think that's well put. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 15:01, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Heres' a question. What would be bigger, genuine AI, or the discovery of another technological civilization in the galaxy??? I vote for the discovery of the missing Dr Who episodes! Apart from that - how advanced are these aliens? How far away? How are they discovered? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 7/9/2014 7:08 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 13:48, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It proves that Bruno's MGA doesn't dispense with physics. When instantiating consciousness it's necessary to either allow the consciousness to act within our physical world or to provide another computed world within which it can act. Or provide inputs which give the appearance of a world, yes. Otherwise you have a consciousness that is in sensory isolation (although it could still dream). In either case the physics is necessary to the consciousness - to avoid the problem of the rock that computes everything. The rock wouldn't compute /everything/, not being a UD with infinite time, but it might compute some things. I'm not sure why this is a problem, however. Can you explain why? It's a problem because most of the argument about comp depends on intuititions and reductios: You must believe in arithmetic (every body does, it's absurd not to) therefore you believe in the existence of the UD because it's just a number and relations between numbers. But when an argument implies that I should believe in X because the contrary is absurd and then I realize that the argument also implies Y which I find absurd it makes the argument less convincing. I don't think Bruon actually claims to get rid of physics anyway, it just sounds that way sometimes when he's being short, but then it's taken as a refutation of materialism. I'm not sure about physics. I think the point of the MGA is that matter isn't primary? (As I've already mentioned, I'm not 100% au fait with the MGA.) It tries to show that by leading you to accept a scenario in which there is no physical action but which you believe is computing consciousness (of a dream). I take it as an argument for monism; physics is necessary for consciousness I'm not sure what this means. Comp assumes that computation is necessary for consciousness, and in practice, for us to carry out computation requires physics to support it, That's the point of Bruno's argument, physics is not necessary to support it - rather computation supports physics AND consciousness. of course - but that doesn't mean it's /necessary/ for computation. Computation might be able to exist in Numberland, or so I'm told. (it's just not necessary that physics be fundamental, whatever that means). It means it doesn't emerge from anything else. But what is it? I think physics is just whatever we intersubjectively agree on (aka objective). That's why physics went from inherent tendencies in substances (Aristotle) to particles (Laplace) to fields (Maxwell) to Hilbert space (Dirac) to the MUH (Tegmark). So can we agree on something being fundamental without it being physics? But if physics isn't primary then there's no argument anyway, because as far as I can tell comp seems quite happy with non-primary physics. Bruno's happy along as long as there's theology. Brent He's like a philosopher who says, I know it's possible in practice. Now I'd like to know whether it's possible in principle. --- Daniel Dennett, on Michael Behe -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: What's the answer? What's the question?
On 10 July 2014 15:35, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/9/2014 7:08 PM, LizR wrote: On 10 July 2014 13:48, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: It proves that Bruno's MGA doesn't dispense with physics. When instantiating consciousness it's necessary to either allow the consciousness to act within our physical world or to provide another computed world within which it can act. Or provide inputs which give the appearance of a world, yes. Otherwise you have a consciousness that is in sensory isolation (although it could still dream). In either case the physics is necessary to the consciousness - to avoid the problem of the rock that computes everything. The rock wouldn't compute *everything*, not being a UD with infinite time, but it might compute some things. I'm not sure why this is a problem, however. Can you explain why? It's a problem because most of the argument about comp depends on intuititions and reductios: You must believe in arithmetic (every body does, it's absurd not to) therefore you believe in the existence of the UD because it's just a number and relations between numbers. But when an argument implies that I should believe in X because the contrary is absurd and then I realize that the argument also implies Y which I find absurd it makes the argument less convincing. That seems fair enough. However I'm still not sure why a rock can compute everything, or why that is a consequence of comp (but I assume not a consequence of normal physics, or there wouldn't be any point in mentioning it) ? I don't think Bruon actually claims to get rid of physics anyway, it just sounds that way sometimes when he's being short, but then it's taken as a refutation of materialism. I'm not sure about physics. I think the point of the MGA is that matter isn't primary? (As I've already mentioned, I'm not 100% au fait with the MGA.) It tries to show that by leading you to accept a scenario in which there is no physical action but which you believe is computing consciousness (of a dream). So the dream is consciousness, by hypothesis a computation, which is given the same inputs that it received on a previous run - am I right so far? But why is there no physical action if the inputs are replicated? Surely something has to do the playback? I take it as an argument for monism; physics is necessary for consciousness I'm not sure what this means. Comp assumes that computation is necessary for consciousness, and in practice, for us to carry out computation requires physics to support it, That's the point of Bruno's argument, physics is not necessary to support it - rather computation supports physics AND consciousness. Unfortunately I still don't quite get how you've proved that the MGA doesn't dispense with physics. (That may be due to me being rather vague on the MGA of course.) of course - but that doesn't mean it's *necessary* for computation. Computation might be able to exist in Numberland, or so I'm told. (it's just not necessary that physics be fundamental, whatever that means). It means it doesn't emerge from anything else. But what is it? I think physics is just whatever we intersubjectively agree on (aka objective). I don't think physics (or anything else) can be any more than what we agree on, can it? The thing that makes physics different from other intersubjective agreements is that it's about stuff that kicks back, which (more or less) forces us - or at least physicists - to agree on a large range of things, whether they want to or not, and confines disagreement to the Nth decimal point and the murky waters of what it all actually means. That's why physics went from inherent tendencies in substances (Aristotle) to particles (Laplace) to fields (Maxwell) to Hilbert space (Dirac) to the MUH (Tegmark). That's scientific progress for you. (I'm reliably informed it goes boink!) We find out stuff, guess a reason for it, check that our reason works to the limits of accuracy of our experiments, repeat. It would be a miracle if we'd hit on the right explanation the first time around. I don't see any particular problem with this (or even a fieldlike or Hilbert spacey problem) ... do you? So can we agree on something being fundamental without it being physics? Well, as mentioned already *ad nauseum*, maths (or simple arithmetic) seems like a good candidate. Everyone can agree that 17 is prime. But if physics isn't primary then there's no argument anyway, because as far as I can tell comp seems quite happy with non-primary physics. Bruno's happy along as long as there's theology. Sorry but THAT looks suspiciously like another facetious comment which carefully avoids the point that was being made. Since the point was one that kicked away the props from everything you'd said previously, I can see why you'd want to do that, but - bad Brent. Must do better. -- You received this message because you are
