Re: A nerw idea to play with

1999-09-15 Thread Marchal


Gilles wrote:

>I agree, but it [QM] is must be still considered as an incomplete 
>theory, such
>as Newton's gravitation. So the point is that computing Schroedinger
>equation for a brain does not obviously insure that the computation is
>actually thinking. Only the use of a computable TOE would escape this
>issue.

You are absolutely right, although my feeling (through and 
not-through comp) is that QM is essentially correct, as is
her classical part.

You are right. Only a TOE would escape the issue.
But with comp, alas, we can prove that there are no computable TOE.


>>To use the phenomenological quantum weirdness as a argument against
>>comp will not work with me because I take the QUANTUM as the most
>>convincing (a posteriori, I confess) confirmation of the DIGITAL ultimate
>>nature of reality.
>>Of course a confirmation is not a proof, and computerland would
>>be a sad country if all machines are betting comp :-)
>>
>>Bruno
>
>Sure! :-)
>I still have the impression that in the absence of a TOE, you are not
>allowed to identify any (practical or "theoretical") computation with any
>physical phenomenon, including the thought...and again even if it were
>true, the problem of the emergence of consciousness would not be easier.


But with comp there is a TOE ! I show that explicitly in my thesis.
The TOE is Arithmetical/informatical Truth.

That that is not computable follows from *Goedel* (or by typical 
diagonalisations).

To paraphrase Kronecker: 

 God creates the natural numbers,
 Everything else is dreamed by natural numbers.

What is a dream ? A ``collection" of relative computational states of a
sufficiently reflexive universal machine.

What is Physical Reality ? It is the sharable and inferable (provable 
and consistent) part of the *dreams* of all self-referentially correct
sufficiently reflexive universal machine.

What is Geographical Reality ? The same as physical reality entangled
with a bunch of probably very long (deep) *stories*.

What is consciousness ? The proposition 'I am conscious" is, among 
other propositions, a first-person perspective of an unconscious 
(instinctive) inference of a true but unprovable proposition 
concerning the concistency of a self-referentially correct 
sufficiently reflexive universal machine.
You can see it as an inference of self-concistency.
It is always an interrogative "self-concistency", but by infering it 
instinctively and continuously for a time, there is a tendency to be
 a little blase about it.

You can also interpret the ``self-consistency proposition" as a 
representation of our most immediate accessible possible *worlds*.

Bruno




RE: A nerw idea to play with

1999-09-01 Thread Gilles HENRI

A 15:29 +0100 31/08/99, Higgo James a écrit:
>It really is not difficult to replicat just those parts of the universe
>necessary to fool the inhabitants into thinking it's real.

I think it is not difficult, it is impossible!

The program just
>has to 'kick back' in the right way. It does not need to model every
>particle of every tree in every quad.
>
>But here we get back to our old stamping ground...

exactly. First your remark makes sense only if the inhabitants are real,
i.e. they are just interfaced with a fake reality (what is the case in
Matrix I believe), e.g. by cutting all nerves and calculate the I/Os. It is
different from the  case where the inhabitants themselves are simulated.
  The problem is to know if it is possible to cut the reality at some level
of description and stay completely coherent. I think not, because there are
many phenomena that arise in fact (at least) from molecular structure and
cannot be calculated without this information. This is particularly true
within our present knowledge of the world, which is perfectly consistent
with all measurements that we can make down to the particle level. I don't
see how a computer could simulate that without taking explicitely into
account this description.
For example I know that I could take any small dust grain out of my
environment and analyze it by a mass spectrometer or through X-ray
diffraction, or Mossbauer spectroscopy, and that the results I would get
should be perfectly consistent with each others.
Gilles