Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 04:44:21PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Goldblatt (see ref in my thesis) has made also a startling modal > analysis of Minkowsky space time through an old greek Diodorean > modality, which I wish to extract in the arithmetical frame imposed by > comp, but I don't even smell it (alas). > > Bruno > I do not get Minkowskian spacetime either with my approach - it is definitely an add-in, as it is with Frieden's work and Stenger's work. I suspect (dimly) that it can be related back to the observer by asking about topological effects on the network structure of universal Turing machines. Nobody has done any stuff on this, that I can make out. But if true, then at least with COMP you can get a necessary, or perhaps only likely requirement for Minkowskian space-time. 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 pgpkEnQHYj4GR.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Hi Danny, First there is a basic notion of TIME which is taken as primitive (and perhaps related to the TIME hypothesis of Russell Standish, I don't know) and which is just the (first order logic) notion of successive natural numbers. This TIME is fixed and lives atemporally in Platonia, and constitutes the core skeleton of arithmetical truth. The parameter time of the physicist is a mystery for me, and I don't get it by comp, and perhaps it is not necessary, because even physicist doubt it exist (at least the relativist physicists). It would be just a type of "other universe" like in David Deutsch's conception of time (see its FOR book). The Heraclitean Brouwerian Bergsonian sort of subjective duration time is what appear automatically with comp once the first person is defined modal-logically, and it is given by the modal logic S4Grz and S4Grz1 (see perhaps my SANE paper). I talk about this one to Stephen some time ago. I would like to say more but I have not the time (paraphrasing a recent joke by Charles on the FOR LIST:) I promise to Brian to explain what is the observer in comp, but I need to explain at least a minimal amount of modal logic, and this without technics, I will try asap, but then I can explain what is S4Grz and modal time). Grz is for Grzegorczyk, a big polish logician. Goldblatt (see ref in my thesis) has made also a startling modal analysis of Minkowsky space time through an old greek Diodorean modality, which I wish to extract in the arithmetical frame imposed by comp, but I don't even smell it (alas). Bruno Le 10-mai-05, à 16:04, danny mayes a écrit : Bruno, You've probably already addressed this recently, but given the number of posts and my work load I have not been able to read the much of the list recently. What does comp make of time? Is it merely some measure of the relationships among bitstrings in platonia? Danny Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does "the program" exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same "program", i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Bruno, You've probably already addressed this recently, but given the number of posts and my work load I have not been able to read the much of the list recently. What does comp make of time? Is it merely some measure of the relationships among bitstrings in platonia? Danny Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does "the program" exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same "program", i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Le 09-mai-05, à 19:39, Brent Meeker a écrit : In what sense does "the program" exist if not as physical tokens? Is it enough that you've thought of the concept? The same "program", i.e. bit-string, does different things on different computers. So how can the program instantiate reality independent of the compu By the magic of Church thesis, going from one computer to another is just like making a change of basis in some space. All result in Algorithmic information theory are independent of the choice of computer modulo some constant. The same for recursion theory (abstract computer or generalized computer theory) even without constant. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Le 10-mai-05, à 08:10, Hal Finney a écrit : I'm not sure how to interpret the "z" in "x represents y to z". If a computer generates string y from string x, is the computer the z? And as for Chaitin's algorithmic complexity, I am afraid that you have it backward, that it does apply to finite strings. I'm not even sure how to begin to apply it to infinite strings. It applies to both. The algorithmic complexity of an infinite string is the shortest program, if it exists, which generates the string. Modulo some constant it is a well defined notion, although non constructive. Even for finite strings. It is misleading to say the UD just generate the strings, as Brent said. It also interprets them. Russell: my last post to you was inaccurate I guess everybody see. Not only I wrote it to quickly but I read your's too quickly too, sorry. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness - A question
Le 09-mai-05, à 01:38, Russell Standish a écrit : The simplest description can be found in Max Tegamark's paper "Is an Ensemble theory the ultimate TOE?". He uses the term "frog perspective" for 1st person, and "bird perspective" for 3rd person. I agree more or less. Tegmark, like many physicists forget the "uncommunicable (subjective, private, personal) aspects of the 1-person. That's why he missed the hardness (and impossibility) of attaching the experience to one story in one (mathematical) universe. So he missed the emergence of physics from something like ALL mathematical structure (which by the way is too big and unnecessary once we postulate the comp hyp). Bruno Marchal has also written quite a bit about it in Chapter 5 of his (Lille) thesis. This is unfortunately is not as accessible as Tegmark's paper (not only is it written in French, which is not particularly a problem for me, but it is also written in the language of modal logic, which I'm only slowly gaining an appreciation of its power and utility). From what I understand of the chapter, 1st person communicable phenomena is described by a logic G, and incommunicable by G*\G. The square box operator [] represents knowledge, ie []p means one knows p. The interpretation of [] is basically that p is true, and that I can prove it. So this is essentially what we might call "mathematical" knowledge. How this relates to "physical" knowledge, which a la Popper is more "not proven false", I don't really know. 3rd person phenomena on the other hand is identified with Z, where the box operator corresponds to "proving p and not being able to prove p is false", ie basically the collection of self-consistent formal systems. Z seems remarkably similar to Max Tegmark's original proposal... Mmh.. It's a little bit the contrary G and G* will be 3 person. S4Grz will be the first person knower and at the time will be ... subjective time (like in Brouwer consciousness theory). Z1* will be the observer. No hurry. I'm rather buzy now, but of course we will come back on this ... People can read the post on this list which I refere in my url (below). I'm still rereading these chapters, and I'm sure I'll have some more questions on the subject other than "Where does Popper fit in?" Excellent question. The basic idea is that if physics is derivable from comp, well, let us derive it, and then let us compare with empirical physics. If comp implies F = Ma^2, it would be reasonnable to conclude comp is refuted! Cheers, Bruno On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 02:54:48PM -0400, Jeanne Houston wrote: I am a mere layperson who follows your discussions with great interest, so forgive me if I'm about to ask a question whose answer is apparent to all but me. I am very familiar with the "first person" and "third person" concept in everyday life and literature, but I am a little unclear about the specific meaning that it holds in these discussions; I feel like I'm missing something important that is blocking my understanding of how you are applying first and third person to your work in terms of multiverses and MWI. Could someone please direct me to some links that could help me better understand these perspectives as they apply to the discussions. Thank you. Jeanne -- *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) Mathematics 0425 253119 (") UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --- - http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
You're right in one way, but there *is* a difference between what we experience in the first person and everything else. It is *possible* to doubt everything about the external world, but it is *impossible* to doubt that you are having a first person experience/ a thought/ an observer-moment/ whatever you want to call it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From: "Brent Meeker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 22:57:22 - There are many things we can't test conclusively - in fact there is nothing we *can* test conclusively. All scientific knowledge is provisional. So I don't see why you jump from the fact that we can't conclusively test for other minds to saying that we take it on faith. I'd say that I have a lot of evidence for other minds. Brent Meeker >-Original Message- >From: Stathis Papaioannou [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 5:47 AM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com >Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness > > >Dear Stephen, > >COMP is basically a variant of the familiar "Problem of Other Minds", which >is not just philosophical esoterica but something we have to deal with in >everyday life. How do you know that all your friends and family are really >conscious in the way you are conscious, and not merely zombies who behave as >if they are conscious? There isn't any empirical test that can help you >decide the answer to this question conclusively; in the final analysis, you >assume that other people have minds as a matter of faith. This troubles me >as much as it troubles you, but alas, there is nothing we can do about it. > >--Stathis Papaioannou > >>From: "Stephen Paul King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>To: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>CC: >>Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness >>Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 10:27:45 -0400 >> >>Dear Stathis, >> >>It is exactly this seeming requirement that we accept COMP by faith and >>demand no possibility of empirical falsification that troubles me the most. >>For me, a theory must make predictions that "might be confirmed to be >>incorrect" otherwise all one has, at best, is the internal consistensy of >>the theory. In light of Goedel's theorems, the utility of such theories to >>answer questions is in doubt. >>There must be always some way for independent observers to agree upon >>the falsifiable implications of a theory. Here we are considering a theory >>of observers themselves... >> >>Stephen >> >>- Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Cc: >>Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 9:13 AM >>Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness >> >> >>snip >>>OK, I agree. AI research is an experimental science. It may or may not be >>>possible to build and program a computer so that it behaves like an >>>intelligent and self-aware entity. Even if this difficult feat is >>>eventually accomplished, there will then be the philosophical questions >>>casting doubt on whether it is *really* conscious. This is the old problem >>>of possibility of knowing whether other people really have minds like us, >>>or whether they are just zombies acting like conscious beings. Ultimately, >>>and regretfully, we can only be sure that we ourselves are conscious, and >>>we have to take the existence of other minds on faith. However, if we >>>believe that other humans are conscious because they seem to behave like >>>we do, but refuse to believe that a computer which behaves in the same way >>>(i.e. passes the Turing test) is conscious, then we are being >>>inconsistent, and it is this inconsistency which I have called biological >>>chauvinism. >>> >>>Having said that, it was not the purpose of my original post to show that >>>observer-moments are Turing emulable. Rather, it was to show that Bruno >>>Marchal's UDA can work without explicitly defining or explaining >>>consciousness. I believe Bruno himself has aknowledged that the >>>computational hypothesis (which he calls "comp") may ultimately have to be >>>taken as a matter of faith. This sort of bothers me because I spent a >>>large part of my adolescence heaping scorn on religion and other >>>faith-based belief systems, but I can't do anything about it. >>> >>>--Stathis Papaioannou >> > >_ >Sell your car for $9 on carpoint.com.au >http://www.carpoint.com.au/sellyourcar > > _ REALESTATE: biggest buy/rent/share listings http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness - A question
The simplest description can be found in Max Tegamark's paper "Is an Ensemble theory the ultimate TOE?". He uses the term "frog perspective" for 1st person, and "bird perspective" for 3rd person. Bruno Marchal has also written quite a bit about it in Chapter 5 of his (Lille) thesis. This is unfortunately is not as accessible as Tegmark's paper (not only is it written in French, which is not particularly a problem for me, but it is also written in the language of modal logic, which I'm only slowly gaining an appreciation of its power and utility). From what I understand of the chapter, 1st person communicable phenomena is described by a logic G, and incommunicable by G*\G. The square box operator [] represents knowledge, ie []p means one knows p. The interpretation of [] is basically that p is true, and that I can prove it. So this is essentially what we might call "mathematical" knowledge. How this relates to "physical" knowledge, which a la Popper is more "not proven false", I don't really know. 3rd person phenomena on the other hand is identified with Z, where the box operator corresponds to "proving p and not being able to prove p is false", ie basically the collection of self-consistent formal systems. Z seems remarkably similar to Max Tegmark's original proposal... I'm still rereading these chapters, and I'm sure I'll have some more questions on the subject other than "Where does Popper fit in?" Cheers On Sun, May 08, 2005 at 02:54:48PM -0400, Jeanne Houston wrote: > I am a mere layperson who follows your discussions with great interest, > so forgive me if I'm about to ask a question whose answer is apparent to all > but me. I am very familiar with the "first person" and "third person" > concept in everyday life and literature, but I am a little unclear about the > specific meaning that it holds in these discussions; I feel like I'm missing > something important that is blocking my understanding of how you are applying > first and third person to your work in terms of multiverses and MWI. Could > someone please direct me to some links that could help me better understand > these perspectives as they apply to the discussions. Thank you. > > Jeanne > -- *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 pgpziNHsqcwRd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness - A question
Hi Jeanne: It is much the same thing. More or less the first person is the one standing in Bruno's transporter and the third person is the one operating it. Several years ago I started a FAQ for this list but lacked the necessary time to finish. Hal Ruhl At 02:54 PM 5/8/2005, you wrote: I am a mere layperson who follows your discussions with great interest, so forgive me if I'm about to ask a question whose answer is apparent to all but me. I am very familiar with the "first person" and "third person" concept in everyday life and literature, but I am a little unclear about the specific meaning that it holds in these discussions; I feel like I'm missing something important that is blocking my understanding of how you are applying first and third person to your work in terms of multiverses and MWI. Could someone please direct me to some links that could help me better understand these perspectives as they apply to the discussions. Thank you. Jeanne - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 11:35 AM Subject: Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness Dear Norman, You make a very interesting point (the first point) and I think that we could all agree upon it as it is but I notice that you used two words that put a sizable dent in the COMP idea: "snapshot" and "precisely represented". It seems that we might all agree that we would be hard pressed to find any evidence at all in a single snapshot on an entity to lead us to believe that it somehow has or had some form of 1st person viewpoint, a "subjective" experience. Even if we were presented with many snapshots, portraits of "moments frozen in time" like so many insects in amber, we would do no better; but we have to deal with the same criticism that eventually brought Skinnerian behaviorism down: models that only access a 3rd person view and disallow for a "person" making the 3rd person view will, when examined critically, fail to offer any explanation of even an illusion of a 1st person viewpoint! And we have not even dealt with the Representable by "string-of-zeroes-and-ones" . Bitstring representability only gives us a means to asks questions like: is it possible to recreate a 3rd person view. Examples that such are possible are easy to find, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent a DVD... But again, unless we include the fact that we each, as individuals, have some 1st person view that somehow can not be known by others without also converging the 1st person viewpoints of all involved, we are missing the obvious. A "representation of X" is not necessarily 3rd person identical to X even though it might be 1st person indistinguishable! About the multiverse being infinite in space-time: You seem to be thinking of space-time as some kind of a priori existing container, like a fish bowl, wherein all universes "exists", using the word "exists" as if it denoted "being there" and not "somewhere else". This is inconsistent with accepted GR and QM in so many ways! GR does not allow us to think off space-time as some passive "fishbowl"! Space-time is something that can be changed - by changing the distributions of momentum-energy - and that the alterable metrics of space-time can change the distributions of momentum-energy - otherwise known as "matter" - stuff that makes up planets, people, amoeba, etc. QM, as interpreted by Everrett et al tells us that each eigenstate(?) of a QM system is "separate" from all others, considered as representing entirely separate distributions of matter/momentum-energy, and thus have entirely different and unmixed space-times associated. The word "parallel" as used in MWI should really be "orthogonal" since that is a more accurate description of the relationships that the Many Worlds have with each other. Now, what are we to make of these two statements taken together? I don't know yet. ;-) Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish To: everything-list@eskimo.com Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 3:14 AM Subject: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness Gentlemen, I think that we all must be "zombies who behave as if they are conscious," in the sense that a snapshot of any of us could, in principle, be precisely represented by a string of zeroes and ones. If it is true that the multiverse is infinite in space-time, is it not true that anything that can exist must exist? If so, then, in infinite space-time, there are no possible universes that do not exist. Norman Samish ~~~~~~~~~~ - Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc:
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness - A question
I am a mere layperson who follows your discussions with great interest, so forgive me if I'm about to ask a question whose answer is apparent to all but me. I am very familiar with the "first person" and "third person" concept in everyday life and literature, but I am a little unclear about the specific meaning that it holds in these discussions; I feel like I'm missing something important that is blocking my understanding of how you are applying first and third person to your work in terms of multiverses and MWI. Could someone please direct me to some links that could help me better understand these perspectives as they apply to the discussions. Thank you. Jeanne - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 11:35 AM Subject: Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness Dear Norman, You make a very interesting point (the first point) and I think that we could all agree upon it as it is but I notice that you used two words that put a sizable dent in the COMP idea: "snapshot" and "precisely represented". It seems that we might all agree that we would be hard pressed to find any evidence at all in a single snapshot on an entity to lead us to believe that it somehow has or had some form of 1st person viewpoint, a "subjective" experience. Even if we were presented with many snapshots, portraits of "moments frozen in time" like so many insects in amber, we would do no better; but we have to deal with the same criticism that eventually brought Skinnerian behaviorism down: models that only access a 3rd person view and disallow for a "person" making the 3rd person view will, when examined critically, fail to offer any explanation of even an illusion of a 1st person viewpoint! And we have not even dealt with the Representable by "string-of-zeroes-and-ones" . Bitstring representability only gives us a means to asks questions like: is it possible to recreate a 3rd person view. Examples that such are possible are easy to find, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent a DVD... But again, unless we include the fact that we each, as individuals, have some 1st person view that somehow can not be known by others without also converging the 1st person viewpoints of all involved, we are missing the obvious. A "representation of X" is not necessarily 3rd person identical to X even though it might be 1st person indistinguishable! About the multiverse being infinite in space-time: You seem to be thinking of space-time as some kind of a priori existing container, like a fish bowl, wherein all universes "exists", using the word "exists" as if it denoted "being there" and not "somewhere else". This is inconsistent with accepted GR and QM in so many ways! GR does not allow us to think off space-time as some passive "fishbowl"! Space-time is something that can be changed - by changing the distributions of momentum-energy - and that the alterable metrics of space-time can change the distributions of momentum-energy - otherwise known as "matter" - stuff that makes up planets, people, amoeba, etc. QM, as interpreted by Everrett et al tells us that each eigenstate(?) of a QM system is "separate" from all others, considered as representing entirely separate distributions of matter/momentum-energy, and thus have entirely different and unmixed space-times associated. The word "parallel" as used in MWI should really be "orthogonal" since that is a more accurate description of the relationships that the Many Worlds have with each other. Now, what are we to make of these two statements taken together? I don't know yet. ;-) Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish To: everything-list@eskimo.com Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 3:14 AM Subject: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness Gentlemen,I think that we all must be "zombies who behave as if they are conscious," in the sense that a snapshot of any of us could, in principle, be precisely represented by a string of zeroes and ones.If it is true that the multiverse is infinite in space-time, is it not true that anything that can exist must exist? If so, then, in infinite space-time, there are no possible universes that do not exist.Norman Samish~~- Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Cc: <everything-list@eski
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness
Dear Stephen,I have no doubt that your critique of my two statements is correct according to your understanding of what I said. However, I think that I was unsuccessful in conveying what I meant. Let me try again. (Effective communication is, for me at least, very difficult in this forum.)My first statement was "I think that we all must be 'zombies who behave as if they are conscious,' in the sense that a snapshot of any of us could, in principle, be precisely represented by a string of zeroes and ones." What I mean by this is that my premise is that we are in a mechanistic, if unpredictable, universe. We are no more than an ordered collection of fundamental particles, quarks. Each particle and its relationship to other particles can be precisely represented by a bitstring. Even if the particles are made of vibrating strings and involve hidden dimensions, that can also be represented by bitstrings. This string of zeroes and ones therefore contains the information necessary to exactly duplicate the original, including first-person memories. There is nothing metaphysical in a person's makeup. Do you disagree with this premise? If so, why? My second statement was "If it is true that the multiverse is infinite in space-time, is it not true that anything that can exist must exist? If so, then, in infinite space-time, there are no possible universes that do not exist." I meant "time" to include the future, so perhaps what I should have said is "there are no possible universes that WILL not exist." However, this gets me into the same implicit assumption (that you correctly objected to) of the fish-bowl multiverse with unchangeable space-time! If space-time could be changed enough, perhaps it is NOT true that "anything that can exist must exist." Would this then mean that the multiverse is NOT necessarily infinite in space-time? Thanks for your comments, Norman Samish `` - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 8:35 AMSubject: Re: Everything Physical is based on ConsciousnessDear Norman, You make a very interesting point (the first point) and I think that we could all agree upon it as it is but I notice that you used two words that put a sizable dent in the COMP idea: "snapshot" and "precisely represented". It seems that we might all agree that we would be hard pressed to find any evidence at all in a single snapshot on an entity to lead us to believe that it somehow has or had some form of 1st person viewpoint, a "subjective" experience. Even if we were presented with many snapshots, portraits of "moments frozen in time" like so many insects in amber, we would do no better; but we have to deal with the same criticism that eventually brought Skinnerian behaviorism down: models that only access a 3rd person view and disallow for a "person" making the 3rd person view will, when examined critically, fail to offer any explanation of even an illusion of a 1st person viewpoint! And we have not even dealt with the Representable by "string-of-zeroes-and-ones" . Bitstring representability only gives us a means to asks questions like: is it possible to recreate a 3rd person view. Examples that such are possible are easy to find, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent a DVD... But again, unless we include the fact that we each, as individuals, have some 1st person view that somehow can not be known by others without also converging the 1st person viewpoints of all involved, we are missing the obvious. A "representation of X" is not necessarily 3rd person identical to X even though it might be 1st person indistinguishable! About the multiverse being infinite in space-time: You seem to be thinking of space-time as some kind of a priori existing container, like a fish bowl, wherein all universes "exists", using the word "exists" as if it denoted "being there" and not "somewhere else". This is inconsistent with accepted GR and QM in so many ways! GR does not allow us to think off space-time as some passive "fishbowl"! Space-time is something that can be changed - by changing the distributions of momentum-energy - and that the alterable metrics of space-time can change the distributions of momentum-energy - otherwise known as "matter" - stuff that makes up planets, people, amoeba, etc. QM, as interpreted by Everrett et al tells us that each eigenstate(?) of a QM system is "separate" from all others, considered as representing entirely separate distributions of matter/momentum-energy, and thus have entirely different and unmixed space-times associated. The word "parallel" as used in MWI should really be "orthogonal" since that is a more accurate description of the relationships that the Many Worlds have with each other. Now, what are we to make of these two statements taken together? I don't know y
Re: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness
Dear Norman, You make a very interesting point (the first point) and I think that we could all agree upon it as it is but I notice that you used two words that put a sizable dent in the COMP idea: "snapshot" and "precisely represented". It seems that we might all agree that we would be hard pressed to find any evidence at all in a single snapshot on an entity to lead us to believe that it somehow has or had some form of 1st person viewpoint, a "subjective" experience. Even if we were presented with many snapshots, portraits of "moments frozen in time" like so many insects in amber, we would do no better; but we have to deal with the same criticism that eventually brought Skinnerian behaviorism down: models that only access a 3rd person view and disallow for a "person" making the 3rd person view will, when examined critically, fail to offer any explanation of even an illusion of a 1st person viewpoint! And we have not even dealt with the Representable by "string-of-zeroes-and-ones" . Bitstring representability only gives us a means to asks questions like: is it possible to recreate a 3rd person view. Examples that such are possible are easy to find, go to your nearest Blockbuster and rent a DVD... But again, unless we include the fact that we each, as individuals, have some 1st person view that somehow can not be known by others without also converging the 1st person viewpoints of all involved, we are missing the obvious. A "representation of X" is not necessarily 3rd person identical to X even though it might be 1st person indistinguishable! About the multiverse being infinite in space-time: You seem to be thinking of space-time as some kind of a priori existing container, like a fish bowl, wherein all universes "exists", using the word "exists" as if it denoted "being there" and not "somewhere else". This is inconsistent with accepted GR and QM in so many ways! GR does not allow us to think off space-time as some passive "fishbowl"! Space-time is something that can be changed - by changing the distributions of momentum-energy - and that the alterable metrics of space-time can change the distributions of momentum-energy - otherwise known as "matter" - stuff that makes up planets, people, amoeba, etc. QM, as interpreted by Everrett et al tells us that each eigenstate(?) of a QM system is "separate" from all others, considered as representing entirely separate distributions of matter/momentum-energy, and thus have entirely different and unmixed space-times associated. The word "parallel" as used in MWI should really be "orthogonal" since that is a more accurate description of the relationships that the Many Worlds have with each other. Now, what are we to make of these two statements taken together? I don't know yet. ;-) Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish To: everything-list@eskimo.com Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 3:14 AM Subject: Everything Physical is based on Consciousness Gentlemen,I think that we all must be "zombies who behave as if they are conscious," in the sense that a snapshot of any of us could, in principle, be precisely represented by a string of zeroes and ones.If it is true that the multiverse is infinite in space-time, is it not true that anything that can exist must exist? If so, then, in infinite space-time, there are no possible universes that do not exist.Norman Samish~~- Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Cc:Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 10:47 PMSubject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on ConsciousnessDear Stephen,COMP is basically a variant of the familiar "Problem of Other Minds", whichis not just philosophical esoterica but something we have to deal with ineveryday life. How do you know that all your friends and family are reallyconscious in the way you are conscious, and not merely zombies who behave as if they are conscious? There isn't any empirical test that can help youdecide the answer to this question conclusively; in the final analysis, youassume that other people have minds as a matter of faith. This troubles meas much as it troubles you, but alas, there is nothing we can do about it.--Stathis Papaioannou
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Stephen, COMP is basically a variant of the familiar "Problem of Other Minds", which is not just philosophical esoterica but something we have to deal with in everyday life. How do you know that all your friends and family are really conscious in the way you are conscious, and not merely zombies who behave as if they are conscious? There isn't any empirical test that can help you decide the answer to this question conclusively; in the final analysis, you assume that other people have minds as a matter of faith. This troubles me as much as it troubles you, but alas, there is nothing we can do about it. --Stathis Papaioannou From: "Stephen Paul King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 10:27:45 -0400 Dear Stathis, It is exactly this seeming requirement that we accept COMP by faith and demand no possibility of empirical falsification that troubles me the most. For me, a theory must make predictions that "might be confirmed to be incorrect" otherwise all one has, at best, is the internal consistensy of the theory. In light of Goedel's theorems, the utility of such theories to answer questions is in doubt. There must be always some way for independent observers to agree upon the falsifiable implications of a theory. Here we are considering a theory of observers themselves... Stephen - Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness snip OK, I agree. AI research is an experimental science. It may or may not be possible to build and program a computer so that it behaves like an intelligent and self-aware entity. Even if this difficult feat is eventually accomplished, there will then be the philosophical questions casting doubt on whether it is *really* conscious. This is the old problem of possibility of knowing whether other people really have minds like us, or whether they are just zombies acting like conscious beings. Ultimately, and regretfully, we can only be sure that we ourselves are conscious, and we have to take the existence of other minds on faith. However, if we believe that other humans are conscious because they seem to behave like we do, but refuse to believe that a computer which behaves in the same way (i.e. passes the Turing test) is conscious, then we are being inconsistent, and it is this inconsistency which I have called biological chauvinism. Having said that, it was not the purpose of my original post to show that observer-moments are Turing emulable. Rather, it was to show that Bruno Marchal's UDA can work without explicitly defining or explaining consciousness. I believe Bruno himself has aknowledged that the computational hypothesis (which he calls "comp") may ultimately have to be taken as a matter of faith. This sort of bothers me because I spent a large part of my adolescence heaping scorn on religion and other faith-based belief systems, but I can't do anything about it. --Stathis Papaioannou _ Sell your car for $9 on carpoint.com.au http://www.carpoint.com.au/sellyourcar
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Stathis, It is exactly this seeming requirement that we accept COMP by faith and demand no possibility of empirical falsification that troubles me the most. For me, a theory must make predictions that "might be confirmed to be incorrect" otherwise all one has, at best, is the internal consistensy of the theory. In light of Goedel's theorems, the utility of such theories to answer questions is in doubt. There must be always some way for independent observers to agree upon the falsifiable implications of a theory. Here we are considering a theory of observers themselves... Stephen - Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness snip OK, I agree. AI research is an experimental science. It may or may not be possible to build and program a computer so that it behaves like an intelligent and self-aware entity. Even if this difficult feat is eventually accomplished, there will then be the philosophical questions casting doubt on whether it is *really* conscious. This is the old problem of possibility of knowing whether other people really have minds like us, or whether they are just zombies acting like conscious beings. Ultimately, and regretfully, we can only be sure that we ourselves are conscious, and we have to take the existence of other minds on faith. However, if we believe that other humans are conscious because they seem to behave like we do, but refuse to believe that a computer which behaves in the same way (i.e. passes the Turing test) is conscious, then we are being inconsistent, and it is this inconsistency which I have called biological chauvinism. Having said that, it was not the purpose of my original post to show that observer-moments are Turing emulable. Rather, it was to show that Bruno Marchal's UDA can work without explicitly defining or explaining consciousness. I believe Bruno himself has aknowledged that the computational hypothesis (which he calls "comp") may ultimately have to be taken as a matter of faith. This sort of bothers me because I spent a large part of my adolescence heaping scorn on religion and other faith-based belief systems, but I can't do anything about it. --Stathis Papaioannou
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Stephen Paul King wrote: Could I oppose the idea that consiousness is not Turing Emulable without being a "biological chauvinist"? ;-)The main problem I have is that these two assumptions are mutually exclusive! 1) Observer-moments exist: This requires that observer-moments have an ontological status that does not depend on anything other that they consistensy; they are elevated by postulation to having the same status as mathematical tautalogies, like 1 = 1, 1+2 = 3, etc. Arguably, the existence of an observer-moment is *at least* as fundamental as the truth of a mathematical tautology. If I think or write "1+2 = 3" a little debate is implicitly generated, since this may or may not be consistent, depending on the meaning of the symbols etc. If I just *think*, from the first person perspective, there is no debate, no definitions, no question that I may be mistaken in thinking that I have thought. Cogito, ergo cogito. 2) This mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable": This requires that for ANY 1st person experience that ANY observer might have that there exist at least one string of binary numbers that, when encoded on a UTM, will generate an simulation that if feed into a full sensory Virtual Reality interface, will be indistinguishable from the 1st person content of the consiousness. Yes, OK so far. Now, you might point out that it is obvious that the binary strings are members of the mathematical tautologies and thus have a "timeless" ontological status. I would agree with that completely, but I would point out that the notion of a UTM or UD does not have the same timeless status because it requires that there be some kind of physical process and memory traces/tapes/chicken scratchings/etc. Additionally, unless we have some kind of observer, even if it is a UTM or UD itself, that can be interogated via some kind of physical interface by some other observer, it is logically impossible to claim that consciousness exists. Such would be equivalent to wondering whether of not some black box where capable of emulating a conscious experience without allowing any form of interface with the black box! The "Yes Doctor" idea requires that the consciousness that is transfered from a biological brain to silicon be capable of reporting its 1st person states otherwise our claims are reduced to mere speculations. For example see the discussion of Zombies. OK, I agree. AI research is an experimental science. It may or may not be possible to build and program a computer so that it behaves like an intelligent and self-aware entity. Even if this difficult feat is eventually accomplished, there will then be the philosophical questions casting doubt on whether it is *really* conscious. This is the old problem of possibility of knowing whether other people really have minds like us, or whether they are just zombies acting like conscious beings. Ultimately, and regretfully, we can only be sure that we ourselves are conscious, and we have to take the existence of other minds on faith. However, if we believe that other humans are conscious because they seem to behave like we do, but refuse to believe that a computer which behaves in the same way (i.e. passes the Turing test) is conscious, then we are being inconsistent, and it is this inconsistency which I have called biological chauvinism. Having said that, it was not the purpose of my original post to show that observer-moments are Turing emulable. Rather, it was to show that Bruno Marchal's UDA can work without explicitly defining or explaining consciousness. I believe Bruno himself has aknowledged that the computational hypothesis (which he calls "comp") may ultimately have to be taken as a matter of faith. This sort of bothers me because I spent a large part of my adolescence heaping scorn on religion and other faith-based belief systems, but I can't do anything about it. --Stathis Papaioannou - Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 11:20 AM Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness This is a wonderfully clear explanation of Bruno's UDA. Perhaps Bruno could confirm that it is what he intended. As for the observer - or more fundamentally, the observer-moment - I think you can get away without explicitly defining it. All you need is two assumptions: Firstly, you have to assume that observer-moments exist. I think it is pretty clear that this is the case; you know it and I know it. You may not know how to explain it, define it, or even describe it, but you definitely know that observer-moments exist if you are a conscious being. Secondly, you have to assume that this mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable". It is not nearly as obvious tha
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Lee, - Original Message - From: "Lee Corbin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:51 PM Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Stephen writes The perpetual question I have (about the epiphenomena problem that any form of Idealism has), regarding this notion of a Platonic Reality, is that IF all possible Forms of existence *exist* a priori - "from the beginning" - what necessitates any form of 1st person experience of a world that "evolves", has an irreversible arrow of time, etc? Prigogine used to declaim on this a lot. I think that the answer that many people like to give---and which has caused me no end of headaches---is that if we regard time as just a dimension like the others, then we can conceive everything as a block universe (as we have all discussed a lot here already). [SPK] I have read every I could find by Prigogine many years ago. It was his idea that lead me to wonder if Being were merely the "fixed point" of Becoming... But that is metaphysics... ;-) [LC] I'm assuming that your question isn't just rhetorical. I have to admit "they" have a strong argument. Probably Calvin in Geneva made the same argument before them. Even Vonnegut talked about our actions being frozen in amber, as it were. And Balfour has explained it rather well: our *sense* time passing is a sort of illusion, and all that really is is a set of adjacent configurations. But, alas, I am saying nothing new here: we've all reiterated these ideas. [SPK] I have no problem with the idea of block universes in principle, in fact, the idea of a "history" makes perfect sense in these terms. I had mentioned something previously about light cones and closed universes considered from the point of view of being it the Present and looking out toward the Big Bang event horizon. Each observer, in this sense has a "block universe" of their own. One thing that we can claim to be unassailable is that any kind of "observer" that we can imagine will always have some notion of an object of their observations. It seems to me that the converse is also equally unassailable. If there exists something that is observable, then there must exist some observer that has such as an object. But the problems start when we take this idea that abstract it to the point where the observer is some abstract notion of a "god-like" point of view; that somehow it is possible for an observer to exist that is the ideal voyeur that can somehow perceive all and yet not is affected by this act of observation. One thing we seem to all agree upon is that the act of observation involves some kind of creation of a persistent imprint of the act, something that can be used to communicate the result of the observation, be it a crystallization of silver in a photographic plate or the creation of a connection between neurons. Are we going to somehow abstract away this and get away with it? I do not think so! [SPK] It seems to me that Plato's Ideal is the ultimate case of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, and as such exhibits no change of any kind, per definition. What then is the origin of, at least, the illusion of change? How can Becoming derive from pure Being? [LC] :-) Yes, one of the titles of Prigogine's books was "From Being to Becoming". [SPK] Indeed! [SPK] Why is it necessary that I cannot remember the future equally well as I can remember the past, assuming that I have not experienced a blow to the head or oxygen deprivation? [LC] Of course, if we turn to the natural world for explanations, and specifically, turn to evolution, then this question amounts to "why are records made of the past and not the future?". I don't know of a very good answer. Perhaps Huw Price and others in the end say, "It's because the direction indicated by records is what we call the past---traces of influence---and the other direction, the direction where entropy increases, is what we call the future." But I would not be too surprised if a better answer somehow obtains. [SPK] I have some ideas about this but it will take a some time to explain them. One thing for sure is that this "arrow of time" snip [SPK] Just because all possible TMs *could* get some measure of runtime, since we are assuming from the beginning that there exists some form of hardware, does not mean that they can all be implemented. The most notorious case are TMs that ask the question "Do I halt?"... [LC] When you write "does not mean that they *can* all be implemented", I'm not sure what you mean by can. Perhaps you mean only what the follow-up sentence implies. Now I would say that as usual we need to distinguish between TMs considered as abstract sets of quadruples (or quintuples in some expositions), and an idealized littl
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Stan, Could I oppose the idea that consiousness is not Turing Emulable without being a "biological chauvinist"? ;-)The main problem I have is that these two assumptions are mutually exclusive! 1) Observer-moments exist: This requires that observer-moments have an ontological status that does not depend on anything other that they consistensy; they are elevated by postulation to having the same status as mathematical tautalogies, like 1 = 1, 1+2 = 3, etc. 2) This mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable": This requires that for ANY 1st person experience that ANY observer might have that there exist at least one string of binary numbers that, when encoded on a UTM, will generate an simulation that if feed into a full sensory Virtual Reality interface, will be indistinguishable from the 1st person content of the consiousness. Now, you might point out that it is obvious that the binary strings are members of the mathematical tautologies and thus have a "timeless" ontological status. I would agree with that completely, but I would point out that the notion of a UTM or UD does not have the same timeless status because it requires that there be some kind of physical process and memory traces/tapes/chicken scratchings/etc. Additionally, unless we have some kind of observer, even if it is a UTM or UD itself, that can be interogated via some kind of physical interface by some other observer, it is logically impossible to claim that consciousness exists. Such would be equivalent to wondering whether of not some black box where capable of emulating a conscious experience without allowing any form of interface with the black box! The "Yes Doctor" idea requires that the consciousness that is transfered from a biological brain to silicon be capable of reporting its 1st person states otherwise our claims are reduced to mere speculations. For example see the discussion of Zombies. Kindest regards, Stephen Stephen - Original Message - From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 11:20 AM Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness This is a wonderfully clear explanation of Bruno's UDA. Perhaps Bruno could confirm that it is what he intended. As for the observer - or more fundamentally, the observer-moment - I think you can get away without explicitly defining it. All you need is two assumptions: Firstly, you have to assume that observer-moments exist. I think it is pretty clear that this is the case; you know it and I know it. You may not know how to explain it, define it, or even describe it, but you definitely know that observer-moments exist if you are a conscious being. Secondly, you have to assume that this mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable". It is not nearly as obvious that this second assumption is true, and biological chauvinists may continue to deny it no matter what progress AI research may make. At some point, as Bruno says, you may have to take "comp" on faith; for example, say "yes doctor" to the offer of a durable new electronic brain when yours is starting to break down. It should now be clear that if both of the above assumptions are true, then the UD should generate all the observer-moments as per Bruno and Brian. The "observer" is then a derivative entity, made up of certain subsets of observer-moments. You know what an observer-moment is through direct experience, but you have nowhere been forced to explicitly define it. If you want to say that consciousness is something utterly mysterious forever, you can say this, and the UDA still holds. --Stathis Papaioannou
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Stephen Paul King writes: > I think that your characterization would be accurate if you could > somehow substitute each and every verb, such as "generate", "execute", > "compare", "detect", "create", which depend on some form of transitional > temporality with nouns that have a non-temporal connotation, after all all > of this computational structure is postulated to exist in a TIMELESS > Platonic realm where any notion of temporality and change is non-existent. That's a good point. Another way to think of it is that all bit strings exist, timelessly; and some of them implicitly specify computer programs; and some of those computer programs would create universes with observers just like us in them. You don't necessarily need the machinery of the computer to run the program, it could be that the existence of the program itself is sufficient for what we think of as reality. Then the same argument applies: each computer program is actually only a finite length; and a computer program of n bits is a prefix of 1/2^n of the bit strings; hence it is reasonable to say that such a program has a measure of 1/2^n. Then we can argue that our own universe is a relatively small program (Wolfram estimates about 2000 bits) and so it is not all that unlikely that we observe such a universe. So, in this sense, the Platonic existence of bit strings is enough to explain our experience of the world. Hal Finney
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Hal, I think that your characterization would be accurate if you could somehow substitute each and every verb, such as "generate", "execute", "compare", "detect", "create", which depend on some form of transitional temporality with nouns that have a non-temporal connotation, after all all of this computational structure is postulated to exist in a TIMELESS Platonic realm where any notion of temporality and change is non-existent. I may seem to be a bit too clever by half in this response to your post, but we must be consistent; if we postulate a timeless realm then we are eliminating any notion that depends of change. Time is, after all, the measure of change. Stephen - Original Message - From: ""Hal Finney"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 12:40 PM Subject: Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Bruno Marchal writes: The problem is that from the first person point of view, the arbitrary delays, introduced by the UD, cannot be taken into account, so that big programs cannot be evacuated so easily. This does not mean little programs, or some little programs, does not win in the limit, just that something more must be said. Sorry for not explaining more because I have a lot of work to finish (I'm still not connected at home, but in this case I'm not sure I will find the time to go home...). See you next week. As I understand the explanation, what happens is that as the UD generates programs, it inherently and unintentionally generates multiple copies of each program. The reason is that each program has only a finite size. If we think of the program as written in some kind of programming language, only a finite number of the characters will be used. Any characters beyond this ending point are never executed. This means that as the UD generates all character strings and begins to execute them, a program which is n bits long gets created any time the UD generates a string that starts with those particular n bits. Each string which has those n bits as its prefix (the bits starting at the beginning) will represent the same program. The UD can't detect this because a priori there is no way to tell how long a particular program will turn out to be. This is a corollary of the Halting Problem, there is no way to tell by inspection how long a program is. So it has no choice but to multiply create programs in this way. The result is that if we compare two programs, one n bits long and one m bits long, where m > n, we will find that the n bit one gets created proportionally more times than the m bit one. And in fact the constant of proportionality is 2^(m-n). This lets us define a "measure" for each program that tells what fraction of all programs the UD creates are that particular program. That measure is 2^(-n) for an n bit program. Therefore, each program gets created an infinite number of times by the UD, and the fraction of the whole ensemble of programs which consists of a particular n bit program is 2^(-n). Note that this does not depend on any slowdown effect for larger programs; that effect is not considered significant in this model because it is only noticeable from outside and not from within the program being executed. Rather, it depends on multiple creations of each program, and the fraction of the whole infinite ensemble that each program represents. Hal Finney
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Bruno Marchal writes: > The problem is that from the first person point of view, the arbitrary > delays, introduced by the UD, cannot be taken into account, so that > big programs cannot be evacuated so easily. This does not mean little > programs, or some little programs, does not win in the limit, just that > something more must be said. Sorry for not explaining more because I > have a lot of work to finish (I'm still not connected at home, but in this > case I'm not sure I will find the time to go home...). See you next week. As I understand the explanation, what happens is that as the UD generates programs, it inherently and unintentionally generates multiple copies of each program. The reason is that each program has only a finite size. If we think of the program as written in some kind of programming language, only a finite number of the characters will be used. Any characters beyond this ending point are never executed. This means that as the UD generates all character strings and begins to execute them, a program which is n bits long gets created any time the UD generates a string that starts with those particular n bits. Each string which has those n bits as its prefix (the bits starting at the beginning) will represent the same program. The UD can't detect this because a priori there is no way to tell how long a particular program will turn out to be. This is a corollary of the Halting Problem, there is no way to tell by inspection how long a program is. So it has no choice but to multiply create programs in this way. The result is that if we compare two programs, one n bits long and one m bits long, where m > n, we will find that the n bit one gets created proportionally more times than the m bit one. And in fact the constant of proportionality is 2^(m-n). This lets us define a "measure" for each program that tells what fraction of all programs the UD creates are that particular program. That measure is 2^(-n) for an n bit program. Therefore, each program gets created an infinite number of times by the UD, and the fraction of the whole ensemble of programs which consists of a particular n bit program is 2^(-n). Note that this does not depend on any slowdown effect for larger programs; that effect is not considered significant in this model because it is only noticeable from outside and not from within the program being executed. Rather, it depends on multiple creations of each program, and the fraction of the whole infinite ensemble that each program represents. Hal Finney
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Le 06-mai-05, à 17:20, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : This is a wonderfully clear explanation of Bruno's UDA. Perhaps Bruno could confirm that it is what he intended. Quite nice indeed, except one point. See below in Brian's message. It *is* related to something we have already discussed. As for the observer - or more fundamentally, the observer-moment - I think you can get away without explicitly defining it. All you need is two assumptions: Firstly, you have to assume that observer-moments exist. I think it is pretty clear that this is the case; you know it and I know it. You may not know how to explain it, define it, or even describe it, but you definitely know that observer-moments exist if you are a conscious being. Secondly, you have to assume that this mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable". It is not nearly as obvious that this second assumption is true, and biological chauvinists may continue to deny it no matter what progress AI research may make. At some point, as Bruno says, you may have to take "comp" on faith; for example, say "yes doctor" to the offer of a durable new electronic brain when yours is starting to break down. It should now be clear that if both of the above assumptions are true, then the UD should generate all the observer-moments as per Bruno and Brian. The "observer" is then a derivative entity, made up of certain subsets of observer-moments. You know what an observer-moment is through direct experience, but you have nowhere been forced to explicitly define it. If you want to say that consciousness is something utterly mysterious forever, you can say this, and the UDA still holds. --Stathis Papaioannou From: Brian Scurfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Stephen Paul King'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 18:04:45 +1200 In reply to Lee Corbin on the Fabric of Reality List Lee, You gave us some wonderful examples of totally ridiculous Turing Machines that are nevertheless possible (I would at this point ask somebody to take away Charles' keyboard). You have noted that these TMs are improbable; we would not expect them to be instantiated in any great measure throughout the multiverse. They are similar to Harry Potter universes in this respect. Surely, though, the fact that they are improbable is not a blow against Bruno! His argument is concerned with measure and you are playing right into that. Let me try to explain... To make this easier, let's forget about physical reality for a while. Let's consider the Universal Dovetailer (UD). For those not in the know, the UD is a TM that systematically lists and executes all possible TMs. Because there are an infinite number of TMs, the UD cannot wait until all the TMs are listed before it executes them. It also cannot allow any one TM to monopolise the runtime, lest that TM never halts. So it must execute a step of one TM, then a step of another TM and so on, and it must do this while continuing to list the TMs. The first TMs off the list will be the simple ones - those with the shortest bitstrings and these are the first to be kicked off. Complex TMs with very long specifications will not be kicked off until much later. At any point in time in which they are still running, these complex TMs will have received less runtime than any simpler TM that is still running. This is important, as we shall see. The problem is that from the first person point of view, the arbitrary delays, introduced by the UD, cannot be taken into account, so that big programs cannot be evacuated so easily. This does not mean little programs, or some little programs, does not win in the limit, just that something more must be said. Sorry for not explaining more because I have a lot of work to finish (I'm still not connected at home, but in this case I'm not sure I will find the time to go home...). See you next week. Bruno As we have discussed, some (an infinite subset) of the TMs will support observers when they are executed. The observers and their worlds unroll as computational histories. What does an observer observe? It is important to see that the computational histories of different TMs can be identical up to a point and then diverge. So different TMs can produce the same observer history up to a point. The observer moment, then, is "simultaneously" generated by many different TMs. You can't pluck one history and say you are in that history. You are part of many identical histories that are about to diverge. And you can't pluck one TM and say that that is the TM that is instantiating you. Your history is generated by many different TMs. These are very important points. And, I think, the source of much con
RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
This is a wonderfully clear explanation of Bruno's UDA. Perhaps Bruno could confirm that it is what he intended. As for the observer - or more fundamentally, the observer-moment - I think you can get away without explicitly defining it. All you need is two assumptions: Firstly, you have to assume that observer-moments exist. I think it is pretty clear that this is the case; you know it and I know it. You may not know how to explain it, define it, or even describe it, but you definitely know that observer-moments exist if you are a conscious being. Secondly, you have to assume that this mysterious consciousness thing is "Turing emulable". It is not nearly as obvious that this second assumption is true, and biological chauvinists may continue to deny it no matter what progress AI research may make. At some point, as Bruno says, you may have to take "comp" on faith; for example, say "yes doctor" to the offer of a durable new electronic brain when yours is starting to break down. It should now be clear that if both of the above assumptions are true, then the UD should generate all the observer-moments as per Bruno and Brian. The "observer" is then a derivative entity, made up of certain subsets of observer-moments. You know what an observer-moment is through direct experience, but you have nowhere been forced to explicitly define it. If you want to say that consciousness is something utterly mysterious forever, you can say this, and the UDA still holds. --Stathis Papaioannou From: Brian Scurfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Stephen Paul King'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 18:04:45 +1200 In reply to Lee Corbin on the Fabric of Reality List Lee, You gave us some wonderful examples of totally ridiculous Turing Machines that are nevertheless possible (I would at this point ask somebody to take away Charles' keyboard). You have noted that these TMs are improbable; we would not expect them to be instantiated in any great measure throughout the multiverse. They are similar to Harry Potter universes in this respect. Surely, though, the fact that they are improbable is not a blow against Bruno! His argument is concerned with measure and you are playing right into that. Let me try to explain... To make this easier, let's forget about physical reality for a while. Let's consider the Universal Dovetailer (UD). For those not in the know, the UD is a TM that systematically lists and executes all possible TMs. Because there are an infinite number of TMs, the UD cannot wait until all the TMs are listed before it executes them. It also cannot allow any one TM to monopolise the runtime, lest that TM never halts. So it must execute a step of one TM, then a step of another TM and so on, and it must do this while continuing to list the TMs. The first TMs off the list will be the simple ones - those with the shortest bitstrings and these are the first to be kicked off. Complex TMs with very long specifications will not be kicked off until much later. At any point in time in which they are still running, these complex TMs will have received less runtime than any simpler TM that is still running. This is important, as we shall see. As we have discussed, some (an infinite subset) of the TMs will support observers when they are executed. The observers and their worlds unroll as computational histories. What does an observer observe? It is important to see that the computational histories of different TMs can be identical up to a point and then diverge. So different TMs can produce the same observer history up to a point. The observer moment, then, is "simultaneously" generated by many different TMs. You can't pluck one history and say you are in that history. You are part of many identical histories that are about to diverge. And you can't pluck one TM and say that that is the TM that is instantiating you. Your history is generated by many different TMs. These are very important points. And, I think, the source of much confusion over Bruno's work. What an observer observes depends on all the computational histories their current moment is in and how the histories branch. The question also depends on what we mean by observer, but let's put that aside for now because I don't yet understand this part. Note that observer time has no relation to dovetailer time. Obviously, the computational history of a TM that consistently supports an observer can't be random. It must perform the computations necessary for an observer. Now the history might become random after the n-th step, at which point the observer no longer exists. Or the observer might morph into a completely different observer that has no memory of its former exi
RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
In reply to Lee Corbin on the Fabric of Reality List Lee, You gave us some wonderful examples of totally ridiculous Turing Machines that are nevertheless possible (I would at this point ask somebody to take away Charles' keyboard). You have noted that these TMs are improbable; we would not expect them to be instantiated in any great measure throughout the multiverse. They are similar to Harry Potter universes in this respect. Surely, though, the fact that they are improbable is not a blow against Bruno! His argument is concerned with measure and you are playing right into that. Let me try to explain... To make this easier, let's forget about physical reality for a while. Let's consider the Universal Dovetailer (UD). For those not in the know, the UD is a TM that systematically lists and executes all possible TMs. Because there are an infinite number of TMs, the UD cannot wait until all the TMs are listed before it executes them. It also cannot allow any one TM to monopolise the runtime, lest that TM never halts. So it must execute a step of one TM, then a step of another TM and so on, and it must do this while continuing to list the TMs. The first TMs off the list will be the simple ones - those with the shortest bitstrings and these are the first to be kicked off. Complex TMs with very long specifications will not be kicked off until much later. At any point in time in which they are still running, these complex TMs will have received less runtime than any simpler TM that is still running. This is important, as we shall see. As we have discussed, some (an infinite subset) of the TMs will support observers when they are executed. The observers and their worlds unroll as computational histories. What does an observer observe? It is important to see that the computational histories of different TMs can be identical up to a point and then diverge. So different TMs can produce the same observer history up to a point. The observer moment, then, is "simultaneously" generated by many different TMs. You can't pluck one history and say you are in that history. You are part of many identical histories that are about to diverge. And you can't pluck one TM and say that that is the TM that is instantiating you. Your history is generated by many different TMs. These are very important points. And, I think, the source of much confusion over Bruno's work. What an observer observes depends on all the computational histories their current moment is in and how the histories branch. The question also depends on what we mean by observer, but let's put that aside for now because I don't yet understand this part. Note that observer time has no relation to dovetailer time. Obviously, the computational history of a TM that consistently supports an observer can't be random. It must perform the computations necessary for an observer. Now the history might become random after the n-th step, at which point the observer no longer exists. Or the observer might morph into a completely different observer that has no memory of its former existence (I would argue that the observer is now a new observer). Or fluffy white bunny rabbits might appear. The TM's executing these histories first run an observer and then do something strange. Presumably this makes the TM more complex because the strangeness requires extra bits to specify. These TMs therefore get less runtime than the "unmodified" TM. OK, suppose you're in a set of identical computational histories that are unfolding on many different TMs. Some of those histories are about to go strange. For your existence as an observer to continue, they must go strange in such a way that they still support you as an observer. Given what I have said, do you think you are likely to branch into a strange world or to continue on in your normal world, whatever that may be? The measure of the computational history of the world where you continue on as normal is much larger than the measure of the computational history of the strange branch because the strange TMs receive less runtime (remember, many different TMs instantiate you). So, if you were an observer on the dovetailer, your computational history branches in such a way that some branches are much more probable than others. The world the observer observes will likely not be totally stupid. This is how you play into Bruno's hands! Writing the above has made me realize that I may have not been accurate in some of my earlier statements about Bruno's work. Apologies to Bruno. All I need now is to be convinced that we can give a satisfactory definition of an observer. Oh, and that we are most likely to observe QM. Brian Scurfield
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Bruno, I, for one, will never think that you are any kind of a crack-pot! I am truly interested in your work on Godel Lob Logic. The only disagreement that we seem to have is over whether or not Ideal monism is sufficient to give necessity of our experience of a physical world. My criticism is intended to allow you to explain your idea further. If you have a means to solve the epiphenomena problem I would be very happy because my own alternative is not even close to the elegance of your idea; if anyone might look like a crackpot, it will be me. My idea, btw, is a form of process (not substance!) dualism derived from Vaughan Pratt's work on the Concurrency problem in computer science. http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/pratt95rational.html Kindest regards, Stephen - Original Message - From: "Bruno Marchal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 10:47 AM Subject: Rép : Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness snip Brian wrote also this to Stephen: We need to be very careful that we are not elevating our internally generated abstraction of being able to "peek into the world from the outside" and yet be independent of it into a postulate. I agree. And I think what is missing in Bruno's stuff is some theory of what an observer is. That's what sets the whole thing alight. Of course I have a theory of what is an observer, and a knower, and a scientist. They are all given by variants on the Godel Lob Logic. But either I explain it in some simple ways, and I will look like a crackpot (because it *is* counter-intuitive). Or I explain the technics. And I will look like a crackpot who hides his crackpotness into jargon! Give me some time to find some intermediate pathway. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
Dear Brian, - Original Message - From: "Brian Scurfield" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:36 AM Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness Stephen wrote: The perpetual question I have (about the epiphenomena problem that any form of Idealism has), regarding this notion of a Platonic Reality, is that IF all possible Forms of existence *exist* a priori - "from the beginning" - what necessitates any form of 1st person experience of a world that "evolves", has an irreversible arrow of time, etc. It seems to me that Plato's Ideal is the ultimate case of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, and as such exhibits no change of any kind, per definition. What then is the origin of, at least, the illusion of change? How can Becoming derive from pure Being? [Brian] These, of course, are very good questions, and ones whose answers require a lot of hand-waving. In defense of Platonic Reality, I could retort that the questions can just as saliently be directed at the physical block Multiverse. As Charles frequently notes, the Block universe is inescapable unless you have an infinite number of time dimensions. [SPK] This idea about an infinite time dimensions seems inevitable if we take the bitstring idea seriously, especially when these bitstrings are such that they can be run in strictly series or parallel ways. But I would like to point out that such processes are the exception and not the rule in the "real" world. Think of the process of constructing a house, there are many different work crews specializing in one aspect of home construction or another, each trying to do their jobs. As anyone that has been in this industry would know, the hardest part of planning is in getting all of the crews scheduled so that they do not conflict or are left waiting on some other crew to start or finish. If we are going to take the computationalist claims seriously, then we must demand that they include concurrency problems in their models. ;-) BTW, I have mentioned before that there are serious problems with the "block universe" idea, one of them is this concurrency problem. While quantum mechanics, ignoring the collapse postulate, is strictly deterministic, the existence of canonical conjugacy between observable quantities, such as position and momentum, (exemplified by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) prevents us from even constructing a space-time manifold where each and every event can be one-to-one and onto mapped to others. Simply put, it is impossible to define the position and momenta quantities of particles or waves on a slice of space-time (a "Cauchy hypersurface") such that any thing resembling a classical manifold obtains; it simply is impossible. The best we can do is to break the manifold up into little pieces, attach distributions of quantities to them and then try to stitch them together. [SPK] Additionally, how do we justify the assumption that the mere a priori existence of Turing Machines does not necessitate some means to "implement" the TMs? It is one thing to claim that software can run on any suitable hardware, it is altogether something else to claim that "hardware" doesn't exist! [Brian] I share your feelings on this. Bruno's reply would, I think, go along the lines of: a TM and its computational history are just relationships among integers. Those relationships, just like any other mathematical relationships, need no hardware. When we discover a mathematical relationship and write it down, does it then become real? Possibly I am talking out of my hat here. [SPK] I hope that you are not just defining "realness" to be "only those aspect of existence that can be represented by some physical means, reversible or not". I would argue that this definition misses the mark since it is easily shown that unless two more observers can agree upon , say, a representation of a mathematical relationship, we have no way to know that the scratches in the sand are no more than random marks left by grazing birds. ;-) Reality is a 3rd person aspect, it is that which we can all agree upon. Putting it into Anthropic terms, it is that which is both consistent and necessary for our existence as observers and is capable of being faithfully communicated. I seem to have put the cart before the horse in my response to your statement above but is it intentional, I am trying to point out that any relationship has to include some means for it to have a meaning in order for us to even try to claim that that relationship is "real". My point is that to claim that numbers and relationships between then exists a priori to any means of associating "meaningfulness" to them is self-stultifying, especially claims that reduce those to whom "meanin