Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
At 08:18 PM 9/17/2005, you wrote: I wouldn't say a lower level, its more of an alternative route to the same point. I get there fairly directly from the observation that the Plenitude of all descriptions has zero information (according to all observers), so is in effect the simplest possible object. My approach starts with - I would now say - one assumption and three observations: Assumption: There is [exists] a list of all possible components of descriptions [not descriptions themselves - these are derivative of the list's existence but have a potential [a kernel in my model's lexicon] of instantations of reality [a dust in the wind physical existence.]] This list of fragments of descriptions is my primitive. It has no information [meaning or boundary potential] unless divided into pairs of descriptions. The ensemble of all such divisions also has no net information beyond its inconsistency. This inconsistency is a tag of information [meaning or boundary potential] attached to the All which is cancelled by the dual tag of incompleteness attached to the Nothing. Can a system that is both incomplete and inconsistent be said to have overall meaning? Observation 1: The list can be parsed so as to produce the definition of [is,is not] pairs. [produce descriptions two by two] Observation 2: At least one of these pairs is unavoidable [the idea that there is either nothing or something is replaced with the idea that there is both simultaneously] and so has a permanence derived from the lists existence. Observation 3: Because of the logical properties of the unavoidable pair this permanence has a dynamic and that dynamic is random because of these logical properties. I also note the duality relation that maps the Plenitude to Nothing, hence my title Theory of Nothing. I am not a mathematician but I have recently explored the idea of mathematical duality and do not contest at this time that my [Nothing;All] and your [Nothing;Plenitude] can be considered mathematically dual pairs. Constrasting this with your model, you note an inherent contradiction in the Nothing not being able to state its own completeness, hence immediately necessitating the existence of the All, My Nothing and my All are both necessitated by the list, the divisible nature of lists, and the unavoidable nature of this particular division of the list. which in turn is inconsistent. Your claim is that this leads to a dynamic between Nothing and All. My concern for some time has been: What drives the observational process? Why do we perceive a succession of events? My answer is the evolving Somethings. Most Somethings evolve because they are unlikely to be complete short of when they grow to be infinite [encompass the entire All]. [I revised my posted model to make this more explicit.] Don't get me wrong, I think your idea has the germ of a very interesting idea, Thank you. the problem is I have never really understood what your dynamic is supposed to be in a timeless world. The inconsistency of the All makes the dynamic in the All an endless change absence order. I see this as timeless. Nor have I seen anyone else on the list grok your ideas and express them in other words. This is not a criticism, but does make it hard for me to include in an integrated fashion in my book. I realize that over the years I have explored numerous dead ends and made many errors in my posts. This naturally leads to confusion in others as to what I am trying to say. I appreciate all the tolerance and comments I have received on this list. I have recently managed to compact the resulting ideas into a two page presentation. Perhaps this is now too compact, and I welcome any questions. I have resolved to include a mention of your ideas in my book, although I don't find it an easy task to express your ideas in a way that intergrates with the rest of the book. I have only reached page 63 of your book. Perhaps as I explore it further I will have comments that help. However, for now I see my All as similar to your Plenitude. However, one of my comments re your Plenitude is that it too should have the inconsistency tag which I see as making it an information bearing object. I do not see it as correct to simply invoke a dual entity [that may cancel this tag]. This is one issue that I believe is resolved by starting at a more primitive structure - in my case my list. Further as I said above I am not satisfied unless there is a positive driver for sequential observation. Do you have a write up that I can reference - ie a journal ref, arXiv, DOI or even permanent URL? I am an engineer and my publications have dealt mostly with that profession. This endeavor is an intellectual hobby. I do own a small business and might be able to place it on that web site - a dot com site - once I am satisfied with it. That could last as long as the business maintains the
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
Hi John: It would surprise me if it turns out somehow that a single description [kernel] can have two fully contradictory properties from the list such as fully square and fully round simultaneously assigned to the same object. I do not currently allow that this is in any way logical. However, I would allow that a transitioning object may have aspects of roundness and aspects of squareness simultaneously.Otherwise I am fairly liberal in what I allow is logical for objects. I do not include ideas - such as inconsistent mathematical systems - in this exclusion. Thus I would currently allow that all descriptions that do not contain fully contradictory objects but can perhaps contain self contradictory collections of ideas are in the All and thus eventually given instantations of physical reality over and over. As to the full list I suspect that to allow for inconsistent ideas such as inconsistent mathematics that some of the items on the list [properties] could themselves be self contradictory. Yours Hal Ruhl At 04:00 PM 9/19/2005, you wrote: Hal: Do you have any suppositions how 'fragments' can be part of 'this' or rather 'that' description? Is there anything in 'everything' (pardon me the pun) which 'makes' more likely for a (possible??? see below) component to belong to ensemble D vs. ensemble F? Are there attributes of the fragments (component? and how can they be found/defined? (I use 'information' in a different sense: as an 'absorbed' (acknowledged) difference - giving to the characteristic of a difference a way to (real) existence). Your 'theory' seems to round itself to more and more completion (I still call 'mine' a narrative) the only striking word lately (for me) was: possible, meaning in our view? or also exceeding the possibilities WE find so? How can we include - in our terms - impossibles into the list of the possibles? I hope this is not more nitpicking than our overall struggle with words to express the inexpressible... John Mikes
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
On Fri, Aug 26, 2005 at 04:07:15PM -0400, Hal Ruhl wrote: Hi Russell: Two comments so far [I am only at page 38]: I am of the opinion that the Everything and the Nothing carry tags [say full and empty respectfully] which distinguish them. This is left over information in what I hoped was an information free system. This is why I eventually came up with the idea that definition produces two objects. This makes the Everything and the Nothing each other's tag. I'm not of this opinion. I argue that the Everything and the Nothing are essentially the same thing considered in different ways. Nevertheless, it could be we're saying the same things using different words. The term I use is mathematical duality. I am also concerned by what makes reality [awareness?] have a flow. This is why I focus on the idea that the Nothing is incomplete and this results in a dynamic - a flow of reality [awareness]. I'm aware of your ideas, as you know. Unfortunately, I never found any really good way of squaring them with the ideas in the rest of the book. I don't believe your logical flow is at all related to my TIME postulate, for example. But I'm open to suggestions - I don't want to leave anyone out deliberately. Bottom of page 21: Do you believe that the various worlds you point to here are all running in sync or can they be async? You are referring to the different worlds in the Multiverse here. This question simply has no meaning. There is no external time, or other syncronising relationships between the worlds. Hal Ruhl -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpbtSqlS0NSN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
May I just make some comments on one particular claim in Russell's Theory of Nothing: Self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness This would be extremely important if true; but there are problems 1. Each night we go psychotic in our dreams. Rare lucid dreams aside, the reason we don't realise we are only dreaming is precisely because of our absence of self-awareness or critical self-insight. The relevant module of the brain has effectively shut down. Yet it would be misleading to call dreams non-conscious? Some dreams e.g. nightmares, can be intense and frightening while they last. 2. More seriously, the idea that self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness has profound implications for the moral status of babies, the severely mentally handicapped - and most non-human animals. Clearly, they don't have a sophisticated sense of self. Arguably they lack all self-awareness. But surely, if they have nociceptors and a central nervous system, then they do feel pain - sometimes intensely? Tellingly, perhaps, our most intense experiences - e.g. extreme agony, orgasm, blind panic, etc - are marked by an absence of self-consciousness. Conversely, some of our most sophisticated forms of self-awareness have a very subtle phenomenology indeed [e.g examples so called higher-order intentionality - I think that she hopes that he believes that I want...etc etc] Generalizing to other creatures with central nervous systems, one may be sceptical that whales, say, are very intelligent. They may or may not possess rudimentary self-awareness. But it's at least possible that they experience pain more intensely than we do - their pain centers are larger for a start. Self-awareness may be intimately linked to intelligence; but it's not clear (to me at least) that consciousness per se is linked to intelligence at all. 3. Also, I think it may be premature (re Russell's comment in ToN on Susan Greenfield) to say that the notion of levels of consciousness is devoid of meaning. Yes, there is an absolute binary distinction between consciousness and non-consciousness. But this absolute distinction doesn't entail that the idea of degrees of consciousness itself is meaningless. Thus pain can be mild, moderate or intense. One can be dimly self-aware or acutely self-aware. And there are even cases of awareness even while under surgical general anesthesia - though fortunately they are quite rare. [etc] Apologies if I've misunderstood the argument here. Dave
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
Hi Russell: At 03:02 AM 8/29/2005, you wrote: I am of the opinion that the Everything and the Nothing carry tags [say full and empty respectfully] which distinguish them. This is left over information in what I hoped was an information free system. This is why I eventually came up with the idea that definition produces two objects. This makes the Everything and the Nothing each other's tag. I'm not of this opinion. I argue that the Everything and the Nothing are essentially the same thing considered in different ways. Nevertheless, it could be we're saying the same things using different words. The term I use is mathematical duality. I have argued that the Nothing is incomplete [its mate - I call it the All - may be inconsistent due to its completeness] and the collection - Nothing + All + the definition - I call the Everything]. If the Nothing is incomplete and the All is not is this a violation of mathematical duality? Hal Ruhl
[Fwd: Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing]
David Pearce wrote: May I just make some comments on one particular claim in Russell's Theory of Nothing: Self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness This would be extremely important if true; but there are problems 1. Each night we go psychotic in our dreams. Rare lucid dreams aside, the reason we don't realise we are only dreaming is precisely because of our absence of self-awareness or critical self-insight. The relevant module of the brain has effectively shut down. Yet it would be misleading to call dreams non-conscious? Some dreams e.g. nightmares, can be intense and frightening while they last. This is a good point. I think there are different kinds of consciousness and maybe even different amounts within a kind. John McCarthy has discussed how you would make a robot conscious. His idea implies several different kinds or levels of consciousness, e.g. knowledge of one's location, knowledge of one's state of health, knowledge of plans, etc. 2. More seriously, the idea that self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness has profound implications for the moral status of babies, the severely mentally handicapped - and most non-human animals. Clearly, they don't have a sophisticated sense of self. Arguably they lack all self-awareness. But surely, if they have nociceptors and a central nervous system, then they do feel pain - sometimes intensely? As Bentham said, moral status doesn't depend on whether they can think, but whether they can suffer. Moral status is something we grant to others; it's essentially a social/political construct. I don't think it can have profound implications for physics. Tellingly, perhaps, our most intense experiences - e.g. extreme agony, orgasm, blind panic, etc - are marked by an absence of self-consciousness. I agree. I would also add that all excellent atheletic performance is sans self-consciousness. But also a lot of our most intellectual accomplishments are unconscious, e.g. the Poincare effect. Consciousness is only a small part of our thinking and a lot of it is dependent on language. Conversely, some of our most sophisticated forms of self-awareness have a very subtle phenomenology indeed [e.g examples so called higher-order intentionality - I think that she hopes that he believes that I want...etc etc] You can string together words in a sentence like this, but before it gets very long I think you can no longer entertain it as a thought. This points to the language dependence of a lot of our thought. We can all understand a simple mathematical proof. But even simple proofs we understand one step at a time, rather than as a gestalt. Generalizing to other creatures with central nervous systems, one may be sceptical that whales, say, are very intelligent. They may or may not possess rudimentary self-awareness. But it's at least possible that they experience pain more intensely than we do - their pain centers are larger for a start. Self-awareness may be intimately linked to intelligence; but it's not clear (to me at least) that consciousness /per se/ is linked to intelligence at all. Of course it depends on how you define intelligence. I think that a certain high level of flexibility in learning and planning requires consciousness. Self-awareness is probably needed when this is in a social context (c.f. Julian Jaynes) 3. Also, I think it may be premature (re Russell's comment in ToN on Susan Greenfield) to say that the notion of levels of consciousness is devoid of meaning. Yes, there is an absolute binary distinction between consciousness and non-consciousness. I'm not even sure of this. Again it will depend on what consciousness is. I think we may find that admits of degrees. But this absolute distinction doesn't entail that the idea of degrees of consciousness itself is meaningless. Thus pain can be mild, moderate or intense. One can be dimly self-aware or acutely self-aware. And one can be aware of how you compare to your ideals, of what others think of you, of what you hoped in the past, etc. And there are even cases of awareness even while under surgical general anesthesia - though fortunately they are quite rare. [etc] Apologies if I've misunderstood the argument here. Dave Brent Meeker One cannot guess the real difficulties of a problem before having solved it. --- Carl Ludwig Siegel
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
Hi Russell: At 03:02 AM 8/29/2005, you wrote: [HR] Bottom of page 21: Do you believe that the various worlds you point to here are all running in sync or can they be async? [RS] You are referring to the different worlds in the Multiverse here. This question simply has no meaning. There is no external time, or other syncronising relationships between the worlds. OK, I too believe they are async. as my model would indicate. Do you believe they all have to run [be observed?] or can some never be? Hal Ruhl
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 12:45:01PM +0100, David Pearce wrote: May I just make some comments on one particular claim in Russell's Theory of Nothing: Self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness This would be extremely important if true; but there are problems 1. Each night we go psychotic in our dreams. Rare lucid dreams aside, the reason we don't realise we are only dreaming is precisely because of our absence of self-awareness or critical self-insight. The relevant module of the brain has effectively shut down. Yet it would be misleading to call dreams non-conscious? Some dreams e.g. nightmares, can be intense and frightening while they last. Thanks for this comment, it is an important point. Indeed dreams seem to be precisely the area where the Anthropic Principle breaks down (I think). Although, something is still lingering there, as usually you seem to wake up just before being killed by that monster chasing you... I'll have to think some more about how to address what dreams mean in this context (even if the answer is I don't quite know yet). 2. More seriously, the idea that self-awareness is a necessary feature of consciousness has profound implications for the moral status of babies, the severely mentally handicapped - and most non-human animals. Clearly, they don't have a sophisticated sense of self. Arguably they lack all self-awareness. But surely, if they have nociceptors and a central nervous system, then they do feel pain - sometimes intensely? I don't think the moral question of how to treat babies and other non-human species hinges on whether they have consciousness. However, it is true that this area of moral enquiry has deep problems of its own, independent of the issue of self-awareness. Obviously, this is issue is parallel to the issue of free will and moral responsibility. Do you think I should be mounting a similar sort of lambast against the idea of connecting our moral behaviour towards other creatures to their consciousness (or lack thereof)? Tellingly, perhaps, our most intense experiences - e.g. extreme agony, orgasm, blind panic, etc - are marked by an absence of self-consciousness. I vaguely recall a New Scientist article about this recently - I'll look it up... Conversely, some of our most sophisticated forms of self-awareness have a very subtle phenomenology indeed [e.g examples so called higher-order intentionality - I think that she hopes that he believes that I want...etc etc] Generalizing to other creatures with central nervous systems, one may be sceptical that whales, say, are very intelligent. They may or may not possess rudimentary self-awareness. I suspect that Cetaceans as a group are quite possibly self-aware. We know bottlenose dolphins are. Recently, Orcas were found to have culture (a trick of vomiting up squid parts to attract birds for capture was passed on between individuals). But it's at least possible that they experience pain more intensely than we do - their pain centers are larger for a start. Self-awareness may be intimately linked to intelligence; but it's not clear (to me at least) that consciousness per se is linked to intelligence at all. Is pain linked to consciousness? Who knows? Certainly, quite simple animals experience all the physiological hallmarks of pain. But maybe they aren't conscious of the pain, because they aren't conscious at all. Does that mean we are free to inflict pain on these creatures? Who knows? Unfortunately, I don't see that the considerations of the everything list actually adds anything of substance to the debate - hence my preference to remain silent. 3. Also, I think it may be premature (re Russell's comment in ToN on Susan Greenfield) to say that the notion of levels of consciousness is devoid of meaning. Yes, there is an absolute binary distinction between consciousness and non-consciousness. But this absolute distinction doesn't entail that the idea of degrees of consciousness itself is meaningless. Thus pain can be mild, moderate or intense. Pain can be graded, I agree. One can be dimly self-aware or acutely self-aware. I've never noticed this distinction. I've always been self-aware, or not aware at all. And there are even cases of awareness even while under surgical general anesthesia - though fortunately they are quite rare. [etc] True, but then one is aware. It is apparently a very alarming experience, as anaesthetists usually add a paralysis drug to prevent dangerous movements on the operating table. Apologies if I've misunderstood the argument here. Dave I believe anaesthetists talk about levels of awareness when referring to physiological signs. One can be partially aware of one's surroundings - like the noise that you only suddenly became conscious of because something changed to cause you to pay attention. The feeling of being drugged after waking up with too little sleep is
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 10:18:22AM -0400, Hal Ruhl wrote: I have argued that the Nothing is incomplete [its mate - I call it the All - may be inconsistent due to its completeness] and the collection - Nothing + All + the definition - I call the Everything]. If the Nothing is incomplete and the All is not is this a violation of mathematical duality? Hal Ruhl Perhaps completeness - consistency under the duality operation. So a demonstration of nothing being incomplete is equivalent to a demonstration that the all is inconsistent. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpbo1QGfqlmN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 04:39:32PM -0400, Hal Ruhl wrote: OK, I too believe they are async. as my model would indicate. Do you believe they all have to run [be observed?] or can some never be? Hal Ruhl Obviously, there are worlds in the Multiverse that are not observed. These clearly have a different ontological status to the observed ones. As to whether these non-observed worlds exist or not is probably a meaningless question - one can argue the toss either way according to one's preference. It is equivalent to the old philoshophical rubric about the tree falling in the forest... Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpV1Sk5a8SZY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
I am a little confused about Russell's use of the term self-aware. I have only had a chance to read a few pages of his book but I don't particularly see it defined in there. As Russell uses the term, is our normal, day to day state of consciousness self-aware? When I am reading, or watching TV, or eating, am I self-aware? I'm not sure how literally to interpret the phrase, whether seeing my foot makes me self-aware (since my foot is part of my self) but seeing my shoe does not? That's probably not right. It would be helpful to see how Russell distinguishes (or identifies) awareness, self-awareness, and consciousness for example. Hal Finney
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
Awareness has its usual English meaning, ie being cognisant of some aspect of the environment. I think it is not an oxymoron to be unconsciously aware of something - but I'm not trying to split hairs here. I have no problem in saying that a chemotactic bacteria is aware of the source of chemicals, for instance. I do have problems with notion of conscious bacteria, however. Self-awareness is the property of being aware of one's own mind. The mirror test would seem to indicate the presence self-awareness, but a negative mirror test result does not necessarily imply absence of self-awareness (eg Gorilla example). And in your answer to your question of whether one is self-aware when watching TV etc. - I'm self-aware when doing these activities, I don't know about you though! The corner case of dreams, as pointed out by David Pearce is more interesting however. Consciousness is meant to have the usual everyday meaning too, however I do use it in a technical sense to refer to the distinguishing characteristic of the reference class in anthropic arguments. The reference class is the set of conscious beings, non-conscious beings by definition are outside the reference class. The connection between self-awareness and consciousness is established by means of the Occam catastrophe. Without self-awareness, there is no reason for the Anthropic Principle to hold (assuming an ensemble type of TOE). Without the AP, Occam's razor would imply a simple, boring existence, contrary to experience. The Occam catastrophe argument implies either that self-awareness is a necessary property of consciousness, or we are not living in an ensemble (people believing in a single concrete reality created by God may prefer the second conclusion of course). Perhaps this aspect of the logic is not clear in the book... Cheers On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 04:57:32PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote: I am a little confused about Russell's use of the term self-aware. I have only had a chance to read a few pages of his book but I don't particularly see it defined in there. As Russell uses the term, is our normal, day to day state of consciousness self-aware? When I am reading, or watching TV, or eating, am I self-aware? I'm not sure how literally to interpret the phrase, whether seeing my foot makes me self-aware (since my foot is part of my self) but seeing my shoe does not? That's probably not right. It would be helpful to see how Russell distinguishes (or identifies) awareness, self-awareness, and consciousness for example. Hal Finney -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpmHIK9D9Skk.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Book preview: Theory of Nothing
Hi Russell: Two comments so far [I am only at page 38]: I am of the opinion that the Everything and the Nothing carry tags [say full and empty respectfully] which distinguish them. This is left over information in what I hoped was an information free system. This is why I eventually came up with the idea that definition produces two objects. This makes the Everything and the Nothing each other's tag. I am also concerned by what makes reality [awareness?] have a flow. This is why I focus on the idea that the Nothing is incomplete and this results in a dynamic - a flow of reality [awareness]. Bottom of page 21: Do you believe that the various worlds you point to here are all running in sync or can they be async? Hal Ruhl
