Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 22:25 11/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: We agree on most things except on the terms relative and absolute. How strange that we should disagree precisely on those terms! This is the proof that the meaning of these terms is relative to our mental states and that our frame of reference must be different! OK let's agree at least that our terminology should be consistent with Einstein's. For example when Einstein says that length is a relative quantity he means that two observers occupying inertial frames of reference in motion relative to each other perceive the length of an object differently. On the other hand, such observers perceive a charge as an absolute quantity because in spite of their motion, the charge of an object appears identical to both observers. A third person in yet another frame of reference would perceive the charge exactly the same as those first two obsevers. Hence length is relative and dependent on the observer's frame of reference, and charge is absolute and independent on the observer's frame of reference. In the context of relativity, first person = subjective = relative and third person = objective = absolute. I agree. I mean I see your point. It means I should better avoid the use of the term relative and absolute. Perhaps there is some duality hidden here. I cannot a priori decide to be consistent with Einstein, giving that he does not really tackle the subjectivity, but at least I see why you don't want to classify the subjective as absolute. I did it, (but will no more do that), due to the (generally accepted) incorrigibility of the knower. I should have use incorrigible instead of absolute. Now let's move on to a Q-suicide experiment that parallels Einstein's scenario: two observers occupy different frames of reference because their continuing existence is differently contingent on a particular event (such as winning a lottery ticket). They perceive this particular event differently. As length in Einstein's relativity, this event is relative to the observers: its value or occurence depends on the observers' frame of reference. On the other hand, another event such as the movement of the moon, that has no effect or an equal effect on the life of these observers, is perceived to be absolute: like charge in relativity, the value of this event is the same for both observers or for a hypothetical third person. Are you ready for some definition? (We can abandon for a while the absolute/relative opposite view giving that we agree on the 1/3 distinction and on the subjective/objective opposition, and that's what counts in the interview of the Universal Machine (and its Godelian Guardian Angel). I still wish to resolve our disagreement of the terms relative and absolute because it may indicates some roadblocks in narrowing the gap. I don't think there are roadblock; at least to see how does my theory (the platonist UTM's theory) work. Remember, you begin with an absolute formulation Yes. In your sense. (Don't hesitate to recall me I must swap the definition!). but end up with a relative one Not really. The whole things belongs to the third person discourse. Unless you mean I end up to the doctor and say yes for an artificial digital brain. and I argued that you had no justification for starting with the third person (absolute?) formulation. My goal was to (help you?) achieve the ultimate relativization. At first I thought that an ultimate relativization should be somehow absolute, but then I rememeber your relativity-theory inspired definition of absolute, ok then. And thanks for the help. You make me realize that the words relative and absolute are again words used in opposite sense by logicians and physicists. We should one day write a logic/physics dictionnary: Where logicians say: physicists say: model theory theory model absolute relative relative absolute ... However, yes I am ready for some definitions. :-) Asap. I need to make drawings with my MAC at home, and then put it in my web page with my PC in my office. More easy to say than to do ;-) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
First Person Frame of Reference
Hi Bruno As a variation of my last post, I would like to use your teleportation experiment rather than Q-suicide to illustrate the First and Third Person concept, in a manner that parallels Einstein's scenario in which two observers in different inertial frames of reference observe that the length of an object is a relative quantity. Let's consider a teleportation/duplication experiment in which 100 copies of a volunteer are sent.from Brussel to Washington and to Moscow. Let's say that A copies are send to Washington and 100-A copies are sent to Moscow where 0A100. In addition let us say that the value of A is a random process generated by the multiple throw of a dice for example, and is uniformly distributed between 0 and 100. The expected value of A for a Third Person observer would be exactly 50 since A is uniformly distributed. However, the expected value of A for a First Person who ends up in Washington is 50 and for a First Person who ends up in Moscow is 50. The actual expected value of A for the First Person going to Washington is 67 and for the one going to Moscow is 33. This can be calculated by assuming for example 100 such experiments with A uniformly distributed such that A takes on a different value for each experiment such as A = 1,2,3,4,5,...100. The value of A as seen by the First Person in Washington is a weighted sum of the value of A multiplied by the number of observers, and normalized by the total number of observers in the 100 experiments: (100x100 + 99x99 + 98x982x2 + 1x1)/ ( (100x(100+1)/2) = ((100)(100+1)(2x100+1)/6)/ ( (100x(100+1)/2) = 67 Similarly for the one in Moscow. We see here that the expected value of A is relative to the observers in Washington or Moscow and the frame of reference is defined by the contigency that A imposes on their destination Washington/Moscow. George PS. I just saw the title of Stephen's post, and I assume it implies trouble for duplication experiments in general... Anyways I am sending this post. :-)
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 11:58 09/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: snip I don't understand. To give you an objective response you force me to look up the dictionary: OK. Note that I agree with John that Vocabularies usually list the historical common sense versions of obsolete world views. But I understand the move and will make some comments, if only to point toward the perhaps obsolete views. The main one is that the definitions implicitly assumes a little bit of Aristotelian physicalism: this entails we should distinguish the relativity with respect to our mind state, and relativity to our position with respect to some universe (which I do not assume the existence). Objectivity: the ability to express or deal with facts or conditions as perceived without without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices or interpretationsthe ability to observe independetly of one's own mental state. OK. Subjectivity: [the ability to perceive a reality as] related to or determined by the mind as the subject of experience; the ability to ... identify by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes...rather than as independent of mind. Too vague. Relativity: the state of being dependent for existence on or determined in nature, value, or quality by relation to something else. Mmmmh (By which I mean I can agree and I can disagree depending on the sense of each word in the sentence). Absolut[ism]: [the quality of ] being self sufficient and independent for external references or relationships With that definition, you can say that my starting point is absolute giving that physics will be entirely determined by self-introspection (but then at latter stage that introspection will be described by a machine after a choice of third person description of the first person states). I don't think it is important. Therefore, subjectivity and objectivity are opposite, relativity and absolutism are opposite. I totally agree. A first person perception is a subjective or relative experience. A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience. Of course I would say A first person perception is a subjective experience, and then an absolute one (in the sense that it is not relativizable, if you have a headache you cannot relativize the feeling itself, although you could relativize the importance of it, ...). A third person perception is an objective experience, and then a relative one (in the sense that you will need to choose either a theory or a set of experimental devices, let us say a frame (?), without which the proof or the observation are not defined. You have moved to a meta level: how do you deal with being a scientist. The paradox is that your research as a scientists should not be restricted by your need for communicating with other scientists. It's like Einstein worrying that his communication of the relativity theory would be corrupted by his relative motion with other scientists. We can assume for the time being that our frames of reference are sufficiently close that we can pretend to talk objectively about the first person or more precisely, that our relative talk about the first person will not be corrupted by our slightly different frames of reference. I did move to a meta level indeed. About how do you deal with being a scientist. I would say by publishing, or ... perishing, I guess ... ;) When you say that my research as a scientist should not be restricted by the need for communicating with other scientist, I agree concerning the research itself, but the communication of it must take the un-communicable into account due to the nature of the subject. Then I am not sure of the link with your last sentence, but I am dispose to assume our frames of reference are sufficiently close to pretend to talk objectively ...(OK) ... about the first person still OK but only if we agree on some definition or modelization (at some point) or even some intuition about the very notion of first person. Here I think we agree with the words first/third person, and subjective/objective, but apparently we are using absolute and relative in the opposite sense. Now all theories come from and are ultimately addressed to first person. So, when I propose an axiom, like x + 0 = x, I can only hope it makes (absolute) sense. OK here we may have encountered the vocabulary problem. I would say it makes relative sense. As a proof, suppose my mental states are such that I interpret + as x. Then it would make sense to me that x+0 = 0. But then you are using the term relative in my sense !?!?. That is relative with respect to a theory (resp a model) in which the behavior of + and x are defined. I was assuming here the intended meaning of +. We cannot axiomatize addition without having some basic intuition of it. But I can only communicate such relative objective statements. This is the price of science imo. Now, could you reassure me: do you agree with proposition like x + 0 = 0, or prime(17)? I guess and hope so. As I
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno Marchal wrote: GL wrote: A first person perception is a subjective or relative experience. A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience. Of course I would say A first person perception is a subjective experience, and then an absolute one (in the sense that it is not relativizable, if you have a headache you cannot relativize the feeling itself, although you could relativize the importance of it, ...). A third person perception is an objective experience, and then a relative one (in the sense that you will need to choose either a theory or a set of experimental devices, let us say a frame (?), without which the proof or the observation are not defined. Here I think we agree with the words "first/third person", and "subjective/objective", but apparently we are using "absolute" and "relative" in the opposite sense. We agree on most things except on the terms relative and absolute. How strange that we should disagree precisely on those terms! This is the proof that the meaning of these terms is relative to our mental states and that our frame of reference must be different! OK let's agree at least that our terminology should be consistent with Einstein's. For example when Einstein says that length is a relative quantity he means that two observers occupying inertial frames of reference in motion relative to each other perceive the length of an object differently. On the other hand, such observers perceive a charge as an absolute quantity because in spite of their motion, the charge of an object appears identical to both observers. A third person in yet another frame of reference would perceive the charge exactly the same as those first two obsevers. Hence length is relative and dependent on the observer's frame of reference, and charge is absolute and independent on the observer's frame of reference. In the context of relativity, first person = subjective = relative and third person = objective = absolute. Now let's move on to a Q-suicide experiment that parallels Einstein's scenario: two observers occupy different frames of reference because their continuing existence is differently contingent on a particular event (such as winning a lottery ticket). They perceive this particular event differently. As length in Einstein's relativity, this event is relative to the observers: its value or occurence depends on the observers' frame of reference. On the other hand, another event such as the movement of the moon, that has no effect or an equal effect on the life of these observers, is perceived to be absolute: like charge in relativity, the value of this event is the same for both observers or for a hypothetical third person. Are you ready for some definition? (We can abandon for a while the "absolute"/"relative" opposite view giving that we agree on the 1/3 distinction and on the subjective/objective opposition, and that's what counts in the interview of the Universal Machine (and its Godelian "Guardian Angel"). I still wish to resolve our disagreement of the terms relative and absolute because it may indicates some roadblocks in narrowing the gap. Remember, you begin with an absolute formulation but end up with a relative one and I argued that you had no justification for starting with the third person (absolute?) formulation. My goal was to (help you?) achieve the ultimate relativization. However, yes I am ready for some definitions. :-) George
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
John M wrote: George wrote June 09, 2004 2:58 PM: ... I don't understand. To give you an objective response you force me to look up the dictionary Dangerous exercise. Vocabularies usually list the historical common sense versions of obsolete worldviews. Do ou have in your dictionary a definition for "White Elephant/Rabbit" or "Q-suicide?" "A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience." I am not meandering into sidelines like: "the 3rd p. perseption is the 1st p. perception of a 3rd person" rather ask you: how do you absorb that "3rd p. perception"? Only as a 1st p. perception of your own, otherwise you don't know about it. John, the concept of first person / third person has been debated for a long time on this list. My interpretation is that two observers have a common or objective or "third person" perspective of an event when this event affects equally their probability of continuing consciousness. In effect, these observers share the same frame of reference. This is why they can talk about an objective reality, that is the reality they believe they share in common. This is the reality that they believe a hypothetical "third person" would perceive if such a person was present. The event such as the decay of Carbon 12 may be driven by a physical law that regulates such a decay. (In our world Carbon 12 does not decay) Hence this law appears to be common to these two observers. In contrast, two observers may perceive an event differently if this event unequally affects their continuing consciousness. In this case, we may call each observer's perception a first person perspective. It is a relative perspective because it depends on the observer's frame of reference. A fascinating question is the similarity and differences of these definitions with Einstein's relativity. The flow of time which varies according to the velocity of Einstein's inertial frame of reference is linked in my definition to "continuing" consciousness. It is as if relative motion itself would "trim" some of our consciousness, allowing only our remaining consciousness to experience the change in the flow of time as described by Einstein. These considerations lead me to think that our survival or death, the trimming process, is ongoing, omnipresent, and inherently coupled with the physical laws at the most fundamental level. George Levy
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 17:50 05/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno I have read your post maybe five or six times, my hair getting grayer and grayer everytime. This subject is undoubtedly your profession and you are an expert at it but I have a lot of trouble following you. Nevertehless, I have a good feeling to my stomach that you appear to be on the right track. You seem to say that you begin with an absolute formulation but end up with a relative one, maybe the ultimate relative one. Not only that , you appear to have solved the paradox of the apparent objective reality in the context of the ultimate relative formulation. This is good. This is what I was hoping for. I think that philosophically, the ultimate relative formulation is the most satisfying one. But this is only my opinion. I cannot lead the way but I can be a critic or a friend like Salieri to Mozart :-). This is a very kind proposition I appreciate, but I hope you will find a way not letting your hair getting grayer and grayer by reading me. Probably the effort should come from my part. Let's me see if I can convince you to bridge the gap and maybe take the relative formulation as a starting point. Like Socrates, let me start with one question. How can you possibly know to begin with this particular assumption: I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable truth the provable arithmetical propositions like 1+1=2, Prime(17), or the machine number i (in some enumeration) does not stop on input number j, this + Church Thesis + the yes doctor act of faith is what I mean by comp. Perhaps we have a problem of vocabulary. I generally put objectivity and relativity on the same par. The third person view. And I consider subjectivity and absoluteness on the same par: the first person view. So, as a scientist (by which I mean someone willing to be understand as such), although I know my initial data are all subjective and incorrigible---absolute, I can only propose theories to my fellows on this planet. Now all theories come from and are ultimately addressed to first person. So, when I propose an axiom, like x + 0 = x, I can only hope it makes (absolute) sense. But I can only communicate such relative objective statements. This is the price of science imo. Now, could you reassure me: do you agree with proposition like x + 0 = 0, or prime(17)? I guess and hope so. Obviously the yes doctor proposition is more demanding, and that is why ultimately I eliminate it methodologically by interviewing a sound universal Turing machine instead of grandmother, but such an elimination is only strategical. One of my goal is to illustrate that although the first person discourse is unscientific, by its very nature, we still can, by giving genuine definitions and hypotheses build a pure third person discourse, which can be scientific (that is: modest relative and uncertain) *on* first person discourses and views. Does that make sense? Ah! About the gray hair problem, I think it is always the same problem, some lack of knowledge in the field of logic. You are not the only one (in the list and elsewhere), let us think what to do about that. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 11:44 05/06/04 -0400, John M wrote: Dear Bruno, you made my day. your explanation which I asked for ( I mean a short, concise plain language identification.) is such that I even hesitate to try to follow it. You should at least try, and *then* hesitate to continue; or better you continue until you find something which you don't understand and then ask. Or perhaps realize that I was using logic, and then ponder if you should study logic or not, to continue, or not. Aaargh that logical barrier!!! I am sure you *imagine* the difficulties. A passive understanding is just a matter of learning some definitions and making some simple exercises. I may post my formulation (of words) when I feel it good enough for a list-scrutiny. (On consciousness see some words below). Does you Mmmm mean your opposing opinion (vs a Hhhh)? I was suspecting some skepticism with respect to the notion of bit, which I accept. When you find yourself in Washington (resp. Moscow) after a duplication, you are getting one bit of information through a measurement process. Thanks for the trouble to write, I will try to extract of it whatever echoes some understanding in my little mind. Little mind? In French this is very pejorative. I guess it isn't, in English. PS. The e-mail battle against 'consciousness' was based upon the Tucson conferences where thousands of scientists from dozens of countries could not agree in defining it. My opinion was: it is a historical noumenon for some mental idiom - from ages when the then epistemic level of the cognitive inventory did not allow an intelligent formulation amd nowadays every author includes an identification that fits his theory. It is still going on. I volunteered a definition in total generalization (not sure if I still totally agree): Acknowledgement of and response to information not restricted to humans, rather generalized to 'everything' (this was before my participation in the 'everything' list) as a pan-sensitivity. The response may be activity, or just storage, unrestricted. Information I coined as 'difference' accepted. References? it was in many dozens of list-e-mails on I guess 8 diverse lists over a decade. I my have most of them in the mess on my *hard* disk. (Hard to find on it). - JM OK. We can discuss it later in some consciousness thread. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno Marchal wrote: At 17:50 05/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Let's me see if I can convince you to bridge the gap and maybe take the relative formulation as a starting point. Like Socrates, let me start with one question. How can you possibly know to begin with this particular assumption: I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable truth the provable arithmetical propositions like "1+1=2", "Prime(17)", or "the machine number i (in some enumeration) does not stop on input number j", this + Church Thesis + the "yes doctor" act of faith is what I mean by comp. Perhaps we have a problem of vocabulary. I generally put objectivity and relativity on the same par. The third person view. And I consider subjectivity and absoluteness on the same par: the first person view. I don't understand. To give you an objective response you force me to look up the dictionary: Objectivity: the ability to express or deal with facts or conditions as perceived without without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices or interpretationsthe ability to observe independetly of one's own mental state. Subjectivity: [the ability to perceive a reality as] related to or determined by the mind as the subject of experience; the ability to ... identify by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes...rather than as independent of mind. Relativity: the state of being dependent for existence on or determined in nature, value, or quality by relation to something else. Absolut[ism]: [the quality of ] being self sufficient and independent for external references or relationships Therefore, subjectivity and objectivity are opposite, relativity and absolutism are opposite. A first person perception is a subjective or relative experience. A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience. So, as a scientist (by which I mean "someone willing to be understand as such"), although I know my initial data are all subjective and incorrigible---absolute, I can only propose "theories" to my fellows on this planet. You have moved to a meta level: how do you deal with being a scientist. The paradox is that your research as a scientists should not be restricted by your need for communicating with other scientists. It's like Einstein worrying that his communication of the relativity theory would be corrupted by his relative motion with other scientists. We can assume for the time being that our frames of reference are sufficiently close that we can pretend to talk objectively about the first person or more precisely, that our relative talk about the first person will not be corrupted by our slightly different frames of reference. Now all theories come from and are ultimately addressed to first person. So, when I propose an axiom, like "x + 0 = x", I can only hope it makes (absolute) sense. OK here we may have encountered the vocabulary problem. I would say it makes relative sense. As a proof, suppose my mental states are such that I interpret + as x. Then it would make sense to me that x+0 = 0. But I can only communicate such relative objective statements. This is the price of science imo. Now, could you reassure me: do you agree with proposition like "x + 0 = 0", or prime(17)? I guess and hope so. As I said, depending on the states of my mind, I may not agree with this propostion,. I could interpret "or" as "and", and then the proposition would be false. Obviously the "yes doctor" proposition is more demanding, and that is why ultimately I eliminate it methodologically by interviewing a sound universal Turing machine instead of "grandmother", but such an elimination is only "strategical". One of my goal is to illustrate that although the first person discourse is unscientific, psychologists would not agree with that by its very nature, we still can, by giving genuine definitions and hypotheses build a pure third person discourse, which can be scientific (that is: modest relative and uncertain) *on* first person discourses and views. Does that make sense? OK the discourse must be third person, we have no choice, but the content of the discourse must be first person. Ah! About the gray hair problem, I think it is always the same problem, some lack of knowledge in the field of logic. You are not the only one (in the list and elsewhere), let us think what to do about that. hair dye? George Levy
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
George wrote June 09, 2004 2:58 PM: ... I don't understand. To give you an objective response you force me to look up the dictionary Dangerous exercise. Vocabularies usually list the historical common sense versions of obsolete worldviews. Do ou have in your dictionary a definition for "White Elephant/Rabbit" or "Q-suicide?" "A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience." I am not meandering into sidelines like: "the 3rd p. perseption is the 1st p. perception of a 3rd person" rather ask you: how do you absorb that "3rd p. perception"? Only as a 1st p. perception of your own, otherwise you don't know about it. Your descriptions of Ob/Subjectivity make themselves oxymora (is this the proper plural?) You can know anything only by your mindwork, as 'it' interprets the impact otherwise unknowable. Impact: arriving to the mind or from inside. Accordingly what you KNOW (as objective), is a subjective result. Cannot be "independent of your mental state", or as you implied in the "subjective" sentence: independent of your mind. All that refers to the 'reality' as we can get knowledgeable about it, this is why I equate the "objective reality" with "subjective virtuality." Not in the oldie dictionaries. I did not want to anticipate Bruno's (a 3rd pers.) response, I spoke for myself (in first person). John Mikes - Original Message - From: George Levy To: Everything List Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 2:58 PM Subject: Re: First Person Frame of Reference Bruno Marchal wrote: At 17:50 05/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Let's me see if I can convince you to bridge the gap and maybe take the relative formulation as a starting point. Like Socrates, let me start with one question. How can you possibly know to begin with this particular assumption: I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable truth the provable arithmetical propositions like "1+1=2", "Prime(17)", or "the machine number i (in some enumeration) does not stop on input number j", this + Church Thesis + the "yes doctor" act of faith is what I mean by comp. Perhaps we have a problem of vocabulary. I generally put objectivity and relativity on the same par. The third person view. And I consider subjectivity and absoluteness on the same par: the first person view. I don't understand. To give you an objective response you force me to look up the dictionary:Objectivity: the ability to express or deal with facts or conditions as perceived without without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices or interpretationsthe ability to observe independetly of one's own mental state.Subjectivity: [the ability to perceive a reality as] related to or determined by the mind as the subject of experience; the ability to ... identify by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes...rather than as independent of mind.Relativity: the state of being dependent for existence on or determined in nature, value, or quality by relation to something else.Absolut[ism]: [the quality of ] being self sufficient and independent for external references or relationshipsTherefore, subjectivity and objectivity are opposite, relativity and absolutism are opposite. A first person perception is a subjective or relative experience. A third person perception is an objective or absolute experience. So, as a scientist (by which I mean "someone willing to be understand as such"), although I know my initial data are all subjective and incorrigible---absolute, I can only propose "theories" to my fellows on this planet.You have moved to a meta level: how do you deal with being a scientist. The paradox is that your research as a scientists should not be restricted by your need for communicating with other scientists. It's like Einstein worrying that his communication of the relativity theory would be corrupted by his relative motion with other scientists. We can assume for the time being that our frames of reference are sufficiently close that we can pretend to talk objectively about the first person or more precisely, that our relative talk about the first person will not be corrupted by our slightly different frames of reference. Now all theories come from and are ultimately addressed to first person. So, when I propose an axiom, like "x + 0 = x", I can only hope it makes (absolute) sense. OK here we may have encountered the vocabulary problem. I would say it makes relative sense. As a proof, suppose my mental states are such that I interpret + as x. Then it would make sense to me that x+0 = 0. But I can only comm
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Hi John, Hi George, hello all, Thanks for the answers. I will comment soon, but I am giving oral exams all the days of this weeknot even the time to trash the spam ... Don't forget to look at the Transit of Venus tomorrow (8 june), if you can. Here is a link to cities from which you can see it: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/venus/city04-1.html From Brussels I hope I will be able to see it despite ... the exams ! In general we don't see such phenomena because of the clouds, but apparently it will be sunny tomorrow, here. The last the economist has a nice little paper on the transit of Venus. It's always an important poetical event! A+ Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Dear Bruno, you made my day. your explanation which I asked for ( I mean a short, concise plain language identification.) is such that I even hesitate to try to follow it. I may post my formulation (of words) when I feel it good enough for a list-scrutiny. (On consciousness see some words below). Does you Mmmm mean your opposing opinion (vs a Hhhh)? Thanks for the trouble to write, I will try to extract of it whatever echoes some understanding in my little mind. John Mikes PS. The e-mail battle against 'consciousness' was based upon the Tucson conferences where thousands of scientists from dozens of countries could not agree in defining it. My opinion was: it is a historical noumenon for some mental idiom - from ages when the then epistemic level of the cognitive inventory did not allow an intelligent formulation amd nowadays every author includes an identification that fits his theory. It is still going on. I volunteered a definition in total generalization (not sure if I still totally agree): Acknowledgement of and response to information not restricted to humans, rather generalized to 'everything' (this was before my participation in the 'everything' list) as a pan-sensitivity. The response may be activity, or just storage, unrestricted. Information I coined as 'difference' accepted. References? it was in many dozens of list-e-mails on I guess 8 diverse lists over a decade. I my have most of them in the mess on my *hard* disk. (Hard to find on it). - JM - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Everything List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 12:24 PM Subject: Re: First Person Frame of Reference At 11:04 04/06/04 -0400, John M wrote: Bruno, do we have an agreed-upon identification what to call an observer? I may heve missed it on the list, if yes. Your post below speaks about the topic, but I don't see some conclusion: is it the unformalizable first person concept, is it upon formal, or nonformal considerations? Is the essence of an 'observer' unresolved and so hard to involve it in activities for conclusions? I mean a short, concise plain language identification. OK, from the UDA and its arithmetical translation, an (atomic) physical observable yes-no proposition is just a true arithmetical sigma_1 sentence ( i. e. with the shape it exists a number n such that P(n) with F(n) decidable (= UD accessible), explicitely provable (= true in all consistent extensions) and explicitely true in at least one consistent extension. If you quantize p by []p, that is sum up on the world where you survive (comp immortality) you get the measure 1 logic. It remains open exactly which sort of quantum logic we get. The sensible observer is the same + the truth of p. Let me summarize the theaetetical variants, understanding could come later :) 1) Independently of comp (!) The scientific discourse = []p The first person discourse = []p p The observer discourse = []p p The sensible observer disc. = []p p p This gives 4 logics (G, S4Grz, Z, X), x 2, because of G/G* distinction, minus 1, because S4Grz* = S4Grz. 7 logics. 2) with comp you must add the axiom p - []p (= the modal form of the arithmetical UD accessibility, I call it 1 for sigma_1: indeed EnP(n) - []EnP(n)) That gives 8 new logics: G1, S4Grz1, Z1, X1, G1*, S4Grz1*, Z1*, X1* Minus 1, because I conjecture (S4Grz+ p-[]p)* = S4Grz+ p-[]p. In my (non-physics) verbalizing I tried lately to identify an observer with something receiving (maybe responding to) any topically relatable information (not the 'bit' of course). Mmm.. Very close to my cop-out for consciousness of a decade ago. Don't hesitate to remind links or to summarize in a post. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno I have read your post maybe five or six times, my hair getting grayer and grayer everytime. This subject is undoubtedly your profession and you are an expert at it but I have a lot of trouble following you. Nevertehless, I have a good feeling to my stomach that you appear to be on the right track. You seem to say that you begin with an absolute formulation but end up with a relative one, maybe the ultimate relative one. Not only that , you appear to have solved the paradox of the apparent objective reality in the context of the ultimate relative formulation. This is good. This is what I was hoping for. I think that philosophically, the ultimate relative formulation is the most satisfying one. But this is only my opinion. I cannot lead the way but I can be a critic or a friend like Salieri to Mozart :-). Let's me see if I can convince you to bridge the gap and maybe take the relative formulation as a starting point. Like Socrates, let me start with one question. How can you possibly know to begin with this particular assumption: I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable truth the provable arithmetical propositions like "1+1=2", "Prime(17)", or "the machine number i (in some enumeration) does not stop on input number j", this + Church Thesis + the "yes doctor" act of faith is what I mean by comp. George Levy Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi George, At 15:33 03/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno, I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post) GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable world BM wrote: And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65. So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation. 2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system," we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology "share the same frame
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Hi George, At 15:33 03/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno, I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable. (see below, for a quotation from your post) GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable world BM wrote: And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a tour de force in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the tour de force easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big set of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a new quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an introspecter (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a frame of reference (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65. So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation. 2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system, we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology share the same frame of reference One of the question that arise is how fundamental should be the concept of frame of reference or of the mechanism/logic that underlies our thinking: 1) Is it governed at the atomic level by physical laws down to resolution of Planck's constant? The notion of observer is defined here with a Planck resolution. If we share the same physical laws then we can say that we share the same frame of reference. This option avoids the inconsistencies of the human logical systems but throws out of the window the relativistic formulation. In addition this approach provides a neat justification for the equivalence of the sets describing the physical world and the mental world. 2) Is it governed at the neurological or even at the psychological level? The notion of observer here has a very coarse resolution compared to the first option. This approach keeps the relative formulation but becomes a quagmire because of its lack of formalism. How can the notion of objective reality be defined? In fact, is there such a thing as a true psychological objective reality? However, the fact that a psychological objective reality is an oxymoron (contradiction in terms) does not invalidate the definition of the observer at the psychological level. Au contraire. - Remember that my starting point is the computationalist hypothesis in the theoretical cognitive science. I take as objective truth arithmetical truth, and as third person objective communicable
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
George, I am afraid there is a point which I should still comment in your post. BM:But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? GL: The adoption of the first person as a frame of reference (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. OK, but then why are you looking for the ultimate relativization? It *is* the recent discovery that physics in some way seems to appear also with S4GRz that is the formal capture of the informal first person I talk in the last post. I thought that should be impossible, for S4Grz is related to antisymmetrical frame, and the quantum logic should be symmetrical. But someone pointed that I should have prove that impossibility by induction, and quickly I have been lead to counterexemples, and then Quantum Logics (re)appeared where I did not suspect it to appear, It makes possible your ultimated first person view. But even such singling out of the first person makes only sense here only through the acceptance of the ultimate third person arithmetical truth and then the interview of the universal machine. It is related to a choice of methodology due to my willingness of being a modest scientist, saying hopefully clear and verifiable propositions... Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno, do we have an agreed-upon identification "what" to call an observer? I may heve missed it on the list, if yes. Your post below speaks about the topic, but I don't see some conclusion: is it the unformalizable first person concept, is it upon formal, or nonformal considerations? Isthe essence of an 'observer' unresolved and so hard to involve it in activities for conclusions? I mean a short, concise plain language identification. In my (non-physics) verbalizing I tried lately to identify an observer with something receiving (maybe responding to) any topically relatable information (not the 'bit' of course). Very close to my "cop-out" for consciousness of a decade ago. Sorry for my simplistic question John Mikes - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: Everything List Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 10:22 AM Subject: Re: First Person Frame of Reference Hi George,At 15:33 03/06/04 -0700, George Levy wrote: Bruno,I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post)GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable worldBM wrote:And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65.So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation.2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system," we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology "share the same frame of reference" One of the question that arise is how fundamental should be the concept of "frame of reference" or of the mechanism/logic that underlies our thinking:1) Is it
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
GL wrote: How can the notion of "objective reality" be defined? The question (in non-physics terms) is IMO a series of oxymorons: "Objective" anything (unless we imply unknow(n)/able features) is restricted to whatever the mind has interpreted upon impact(?) it received. Eo ips'objective' is 'subjective'. "Reality" ditto, what WE accept as 'reality' - so objective reality is indeed callable some subjective virtuality. "Defined" however is pure mind-work, the epitome of subjective, virtual activity. It seems GL concentrates on the "observable world" (White Rabbits to be filtered out of theobservable world) which brings the discussion down to Earth. "Frame of reference" is IMO mindset, with all its fundaments. Seems strongly relatable with '1st person' (GL). "we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. The 'formality' (in human identification) is subject to inadequacies (like Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... ) all as identified by the human mind. I doubt whether this is the only (logical?) system applicable? in which case our 'errors' may be OK in another view. Maybe more and for us controversial ones are OKable in some other system (beyondhuman capabilities). I don't feel like discussing the dilemma (1 and 2) exposed by GL. John Mikes (What I want to add - as a joke maybe - is a 'Freudian' afterthought to the example which GV gave to the arithmetic human error: ...8x7 = 65... which points to Germanto be right: 8x7 = 6 und 5zig. He did not write 37 or 143 - Just for the fun of it. Excuse)- JM - Original Message - From: George Levy To: Everything List Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 6:33 PM Subject: First Person Frame of Reference Bruno,I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post)GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable worldBM wrote:And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong.
Re: First Person Frame of Reference
At 11:04 04/06/04 -0400, John M wrote: Bruno, do we have an agreed-upon identification what to call an observer? I may heve missed it on the list, if yes. Your post below speaks about the topic, but I don't see some conclusion: is it the unformalizable first person concept, is it upon formal, or nonformal considerations? Is the essence of an 'observer' unresolved and so hard to involve it in activities for conclusions? I mean a short, concise plain language identification. OK, from the UDA and its arithmetical translation, an (atomic) physical observable yes-no proposition is just a true arithmetical sigma_1 sentence ( i. e. with the shape it exists a number n such that P(n) with F(n) decidable (= UD accessible), explicitely provable (= true in all consistent extensions) and explicitely true in at least one consistent extension. If you quantize p by []p, that is sum up on the world where you survive (comp immortality) you get the measure 1 logic. It remains open exactly which sort of quantum logic we get. The sensible observer is the same + the truth of p. Let me summarize the theaetetical variants, understanding could come later :) 1) Independently of comp (!) The scientific discourse = []p The first person discourse = []p p The observer discourse = []p p The sensible observer disc. = []p p p This gives 4 logics (G, S4Grz, Z, X), x 2, because of G/G* distinction, minus 1, because S4Grz* = S4Grz. 7 logics. 2) with comp you must add the axiom p - []p (= the modal form of the arithmetical UD accessibility, I call it 1 for sigma_1: indeed EnP(n) - []EnP(n)) That gives 8 new logics: G1, S4Grz1, Z1, X1, G1*, S4Grz1*, Z1*, X1* Minus 1, because I conjecture (S4Grz+ p-[]p)* = S4Grz+ p-[]p. In my (non-physics) verbalizing I tried lately to identify an observer with something receiving (maybe responding to) any topically relatable information (not the 'bit' of course). Mmm.. Very close to my cop-out for consciousness of a decade ago. Don't hesitate to remind links or to summarize in a post. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
First Person Frame of Reference
Bruno, I reread your post of 5/11/2004 and it raised some questions and a possible paradox involving the idea that the "notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable." (see below, for a quotation from your post) GL wrote It may be that using the observer as starting points will force White Rabbits to be filtered out of the observable world BM wrote: And again I totally agree. It *is* what is proved in my thesis. I have done two things: 1) I have given a proof that if we are machine then physics must be redefined as a science which isolates and exploits a (first person plural) measure on the set of all computational histories. The proof is rigorous, I would say definitive (unless some systematic error of course), although provably unformalizable (so that only 1 person can grasp it). 2) I provide a mathematical confirmation of comp by showing that (thanks to Godel, Lob, Solovay ...) we can literally interview a universal machine, acting like a scientist ---by which I mean we will have only a third person discourse with her. BUT we can interview her about the possible 1-person discourse. That is a "tour de force" in the sense that the notion of first person is absolutely not formalizable (and so we cannot define it in any third person way). But by using in a special way ideas from Plato's Theaetetus + Aristotle-Kripke modal logic + Godel's incompleteness discovery make the "tour de force" easily tractable. Here I can only be technical or poetical, and because being technical seems yet premature I will sum up by saying that with comp, the plenitude is just the incredibly big "set" of universal machine's ignorance, and physics is the common sharable border of that ignorance, and it has been confirmed because that sharable border has been shown to obey to quantum laws. I get recently new result: one confirm that with comp the first person can hardly know or even just believe in comp; the other (related to an error in my thesis I talked about in some previous post) is the apparition of a "new" quantum logic (I did not command it!) and even (I must verify) an infinity of quantum logics between the singular first person and the totally sharable classical discourses. This could go along with your old theory that there could be a continuum of person-point-of-view between the 1 and 3 person, and that would confirms that you are rather gifted as an "introspecter" (do you remember? I thought you were silly). But then it looks you don't like any more the 3-person discourse, why? The adoption of the first person as a "frame of reference" (my terminology) implies the ultimate relativization. In other words, the logical system governing the mental processes of the observer becomes part of the "frame of reference However, we all know that human beings do not think according to formal systems. Human systems are full of inconsistencies, errors, etc... and very often their beliefs about the world is just wrong. Very often they even make arithmetic errors such as 8x7 = 65. So if we assume a relative formulation, here is the dilemma: 1) if we adopt a formal system such as the one(s) your have talked about we assign an absolute quality to the observer which violates our premise of relative formulation. 2) If we adopt a non-formal human logical system," we are left with an extremely complicated task of reconciling the observations obtained by several observers who in my terminology "share the same frame of reference" One of the question that arise is how fundamental should be the concept of "frame of reference" or of the mechanism/logic that underlies our thinking: 1) Is it governed at the atomic level by physical laws down to resolution of Planck's constant? The notion of observer is defined here with a Planck resolution. If we share the same physical laws then we can say that we share the same frame of reference. This option avoids the inconsistencies of the "human logical systems" but throws out of the window the relativistic formulation. In addition this approach provides a neat justification for the equivalence of the sets describing the physical world and the mental world. 2) Is it governed at the neurological or even at the psychological level? The notion of observer here has a very coarse resolution compared to the first option. This approach keeps the relative formulation but becomes a quagmire because of its lack of formalism. How can the notion of "objective reality" be defined? In fact, is there such a thing as a true psychological objective reality? However, the fact that a "psychological objective reality" is an oxymoron (contradiction in terms) does not invalidate the definition of the observer at the psychological level. Au contraire. George Levy
