Re: up to some resource bound
On 17 Feb 2012, at 06:53, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/17/2012 12:00 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 2/16/2012 7:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 7:09 PM, acw wrote: Do you understand at all the stuff about material and idea monism that I have mentioned previously? We are exploring the implications of a very sophisticate form of Ideal Monism that I am very much interested in, as it has, among other wonderful things, an unassailable proof that material monism is WRONG. What I am trying to discuss is how this is a good thing but the ontological theory as a whole that it is embedded in has a problem that is being either a) misunderstood, b) ignored or both. To be fair, I still have trouble understanding your objections to UDA 8/MGA, and this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing the subtle distinction that you're trying to draw. Bruno postulates arithmetic or combinators, but if you want a different ontological foundation, you can formulate it and see how it fits within COMP (in case you assume it) and how that changes predictions and/or explanations. Hi ACW, My objection to UDA 8/MGA is that it assumes something that is is deeply problematic. There is a difference between Computational universality, in the sense of any given recursively enumerable algorithm is universal if it does not depend for its functional properties on a particular physical implementation of it, and the ideas that Recursively Enumerable Algorithms (REA) have properties and run completely independent of the possibility of implementation in physical hardware. My proof is mathematical but may be very poorly explained because I have a very hard time translating my thoughts into words and for this I apologize. I am hoping that you can see past the words and grok the meaning. I am identifying the invariant aspect of a REA with a fixed point in a manifold of transformations where the points that make up the manifold represent the physical systems capable of implementing the REA and then applying Brouwer's Fixed point theorem: How can Brouwer's fixed point theorem be applied computers of REAs, they don't form a manifold. Hi Brent, This is where my inability to express this idea in English puts me in a very unpleasant situation. Honestly, you might as well count as just wrong. I'll accept that. But I will bet that I'm right. :-) I just don't know how to explain my idea any better at the moment. I will predict one thing, there will be a paper published within the year that will cover this idea by someone with the right skills. I will just be happy to have come to understand it on my own. here is an example for Wiki. In the plane Every continuous function f from a closed disk to itself has at least one fixed point. Think about this: Does the fixed point continue to exist if the collection of points making up that closed disc or the continuous transformations that are the functions where to vanish? Answer: No. The same way a computation is no longer a computation in the sense of universality when there is no universe for it. The point is that unless it is possible for a physical system to implement a REA, there is no such thing as an REA. That's the crux of the disagreement. Bruno says 2 exists because it's the successor of the successor of zero. I think it exists as a concept because we invented it, along with counting (c.f. The Origin of Reason by William S. Cooper). But I'm willing to take it's existence, along with the rest of arithmetic, as an hypothesis just to see where it leads. You do realize that this gives a definition of existence that is very different from that that almost all philosophers use. That's OK, Bruno is not a philosopher although he does pretend to be one very well. :-) I guess it is just your dyslexia, but I have once said that despite I can appreciate some philosopher, I insist that it is not my job. On the contrary I try to illustrate that we can make reasoning and proofs in field usually tackled by philosophers. Many of them hate that, actually. So I doubt that I have ever pretended to be a philosopher, or please give the quote, for it might make sense in a context where I plea for the coming back of theology in the science academic department. I don't believe in philosophy, nor science, but only in scientific attitude, which are or should be domain independent. The max of that scientific attitude has existed in Occident from -500 to +500, among minorities of intellectual and mystics. Since about 1500 years half of science are allowed to be inexact which is always cool for the usual fear selling business and getting power. In that sense, I disbelieve in academical philosophy (which was dogmatically marxist at the time I made university studies, and it has not really change
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/16/2012 3:06 PM, acw wrote: On 2/16/2012 19:09, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 1:16 PM, acw wrote: The assumption in COMP is that a subst. level exists, it's the main assumption! What does that practically mean? That you can eventually implement the brain (or a partial version of it) in a (modified) TM-equivalent machine (by CTT). It does not deny the quantum reality, merely says that the brain's functionality required for consciousness is classical (and turing-emulable). Although, I suppose some versions including oracles should be possible, and a weakening of COMP into simple functionalism may also be possible. Hi ACW, I understand the UDA, as I have read every one of Bruno's English papers and participated in these discussions, at least. You do not need to keep repeating the same lines. ;-) The point is that the doctor assumption already includes the existence of the equivalent machine and from there the argument follows. If you think such a doctor can never exist, yet that there still is an equivalent turing-emulable implementation that is possible *in principle*, I just direct you at www.paul-almond.com/ManyWorldsAssistedMindUploading.htm which merely requires a random oracle to get you there (which is given to you if MWI happens to be true). Does this in principle proof include the requirements of thermodynamics or is it a speculation based on a set of assumptions that might just seem plausible if we ignore physics? I like the idea of a random Oracles, but to use them is like using sequences of lottery winnings to code words that one wants to speak. The main problem is that one has no control at all over which numbers will pop up, so one has to substitute a scheme to select numbers after they have rolled into the basket. This entire idea can be rephrased in terms of how radio signals are embedded in noise and that a radio is a non-random Oracle. You can buy or build various RNGs which utilize quantum effects (or even use freely available ones), see: http://qrbg.irb.hr/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ http://qrng.physik.hu-berlin.de/ Many others exist. If MWI is true, some of these devices will generate true random outputs, that is, because in a world, the state is 0 and in another is 1, and so on for each next state. In the case of the thought experiment, you write a simple program that utilizes such a QRNG to generate a program (or a more advanced program that limits it to some specific types, for example a neural network map or a physics simulation or whatever) then run it. Hi ACW, Let us build a bit more on this thread because it is getting closer to the idea in my head that I have yet to find the exact words for (that is assuming that it can indeed be expressed in English! Some ideas require math...). If MWI is true, some of these devices will generate truly random outputs... These kind of devices are what I was intending when I wrote of Markov process in a previous response to Bruno. I Also mentioned some stuff about Boltzmann brains. Do you recall those ideas? OK, keep that in mind. In MWI, /*_all possible programs up to some resource bound you specified (as our hardware is resource bound) will run in some world_*/. That's the basic idea. If you think a digital subst. exist, *in principle* a sheaf of continuations will exist somewhere in some world after running this program. It's a rather ad-hoc and not very pretty solution, but if one admits a digital subst., then such an experiment would succeed (although the measure of such continuations may be low). I don't see anything contradicting thermodynamics here. I have highlighted in bold and underlines that part of what you wrote that I am trying to focus attention on. It is there that the problem that I see in UDA is. This is the problem that Maudlin's argument is leading us down the wrong path. I tried to get some attention on this last year (?) in a discussion of Maudlin's paper, but my thoughts never connected. http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A-A-comment-on-Maudlin%27s-paper-%E2%80%9CComputation-and-Consciousness%E2%80%9D-p30789143.html If such a substitution is not possible even in principle, then you consider UDA's first assumption as false and thus also COMP/CTM being false (neuroscience does suggest that it's not, but we don't know that, and probably never will 100%, unless we're willing to someday say yes to such a computationalist doctor and find out for ourselves). All of this substitution stuff is predicated upon the possibility that the brain can be emulated by a Universal Turing Machine. It would be helpful if we first established that a Turing Machine is capable of what we are assuming it do be able to do. I am pretty well convinced that it cannot based on all that I have studied of QM and its implications. For example, one has to consider the implications of the Kochen-Specker http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kochen-specker/ and Gleason
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/16/2012 23:08, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 3:06 PM, acw wrote: On 2/16/2012 19:09, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 1:16 PM, acw wrote: The assumption in COMP is that a subst. level exists, it's the main assumption! What does that practically mean? That you can eventually implement the brain (or a partial version of it) in a (modified) TM-equivalent machine (by CTT). It does not deny the quantum reality, merely says that the brain's functionality required for consciousness is classical (and turing-emulable). Although, I suppose some versions including oracles should be possible, and a weakening of COMP into simple functionalism may also be possible. Hi ACW, I understand the UDA, as I have read every one of Bruno's English papers and participated in these discussions, at least. You do not need to keep repeating the same lines. ;-) The point is that the doctor assumption already includes the existence of the equivalent machine and from there the argument follows. If you think such a doctor can never exist, yet that there still is an equivalent turing-emulable implementation that is possible *in principle*, I just direct you at www.paul-almond.com/ManyWorldsAssistedMindUploading.htm which merely requires a random oracle to get you there (which is given to you if MWI happens to be true). Does this in principle proof include the requirements of thermodynamics or is it a speculation based on a set of assumptions that might just seem plausible if we ignore physics? I like the idea of a random Oracles, but to use them is like using sequences of lottery winnings to code words that one wants to speak. The main problem is that one has no control at all over which numbers will pop up, so one has to substitute a scheme to select numbers after they have rolled into the basket. This entire idea can be rephrased in terms of how radio signals are embedded in noise and that a radio is a non-random Oracle. You can buy or build various RNGs which utilize quantum effects (or even use freely available ones), see: http://qrbg.irb.hr/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ http://qrng.physik.hu-berlin.de/ Many others exist. If MWI is true, some of these devices will generate true random outputs, that is, because in a world, the state is 0 and in another is 1, and so on for each next state. In the case of the thought experiment, you write a simple program that utilizes such a QRNG to generate a program (or a more advanced program that limits it to some specific types, for example a neural network map or a physics simulation or whatever) then run it. Hi ACW, Let us build a bit more on this thread because it is getting closer to the idea in my head that I have yet to find the exact words for (that is assuming that it can indeed be expressed in English! Some ideas require math...). If MWI is true, some of these devices will generate truly random outputs... These kind of devices are what I was intending when I wrote of Markov process in a previous response to Bruno. I Also mentioned some stuff about Boltzmann brains. Do you recall those ideas? OK, keep that in mind. Partially, I'll have to re-read some parts of those threads in context. In MWI, /*_all possible programs up to some resource bound you specified (as our hardware is resource bound) will run in some world_*/. That's the basic idea. If you think a digital subst. exist, *in principle* a sheaf of continuations will exist somewhere in some world after running this program. It's a rather ad-hoc and not very pretty solution, but if one admits a digital subst., then such an experiment would succeed (although the measure of such continuations may be low). I don't see anything contradicting thermodynamics here. I have highlighted in bold and underlines that part of what you wrote that I am trying to focus attention on. It is there that the problem that I see in UDA is. This is the problem that Maudlin's argument is leading us down the wrong path. I tried to get some attention on this last year (?) in a discussion of Maudlin's paper, but my thoughts never connected. http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A-A-comment-on-Maudlin%27s-paper-%E2%80%9CComputation-and-Consciousness%E2%80%9D-p30789143.html I did include the resource bound because, it's a practical issue with our physics, but even if it is a practical issue, it's not an insurmountable one: efficient and less efficient hardware that would be capable of running a simulation of our brains is already within our reach ( I can elaborate on what constitute reasonable resource bounds and the estimated size of the information contained in our brain at a subst. level expected by neuroscience, but I have to go for today, so I'll avoid it for now, but I can elaborate on it in another day if necessary). This means that while such an experiment is considered as a thought experiment, it's physically realizable in our world, and it doesn't even require future sci-fi tech. I'll re-read that thread as time
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/16/2012 7:09 PM, acw wrote: Do you understand at all the stuff about material and idea monism that I have mentioned previously? We are exploring the implications of a very sophisticate form of Ideal Monism that I am very much interested in, as it has, among other wonderful things, an unassailable proof that material monism is WRONG. What I am trying to discuss is how this is a good thing but the ontological theory as a whole that it is embedded in has a problem that is being either a) misunderstood, b) ignored or both. To be fair, I still have trouble understanding your objections to UDA 8/MGA, and this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing the subtle distinction that you're trying to draw. Bruno postulates arithmetic or combinators, but if you want a different ontological foundation, you can formulate it and see how it fits within COMP (in case you assume it) and how that changes predictions and/or explanations. Hi ACW, My objection to UDA 8/MGA is that it assumes something that is is deeply problematic. There is a difference between Computational universality, in the sense of any given recursively enumerable algorithm is universal if it does not depend for its functional properties on a particular physical implementation of it, and the ideas that Recursively Enumerable Algorithms (REA) have properties and run completely independent of the possibility of implementation in physical hardware. My proof is mathematical but may be very poorly explained because I have a very hard time translating my thoughts into words and for this I apologize. I am hoping that you can see past the words and grok the meaning. I am identifying the invariant aspect of a REA with a fixed point in a manifold of transformations where the points that make up the manifold represent the physical systems capable of implementing the REA and then applying Brouwer's Fixed point theorem: here is an example for Wiki. In the plane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer_fixed-point_theorem Every continuous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_function_%28topology%29 function /f/ from a closed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_set disk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_%28mathematics%29 to itself has at least one fixed point. Think about this: Does the fixed point continue to exist if the collection of points making up that closed disc or the continuous transformations that are the functions where to vanish? Answer: No. The same way a computation is no longer a computation in the sense of universality when there is no universe for it. The point is that unless it is possible for a physical system to implement a REA, there is no such thing as an REA. So all the talk of computations or whatever is taken as equivalent vanishes into meaninglessness when and if we jump to the conclusion that USA/MGA proves that the physical world is just a epiphenomenon of numbers. That is the problem. Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/16/2012 7:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 7:09 PM, acw wrote: Do you understand at all the stuff about material and idea monism that I have mentioned previously? We are exploring the implications of a very sophisticate form of Ideal Monism that I am very much interested in, as it has, among other wonderful things, an unassailable proof that material monism is WRONG. What I am trying to discuss is how this is a good thing but the ontological theory as a whole that it is embedded in has a problem that is being either a) misunderstood, b) ignored or both. To be fair, I still have trouble understanding your objections to UDA 8/MGA, and this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing the subtle distinction that you're trying to draw. Bruno postulates arithmetic or combinators, but if you want a different ontological foundation, you can formulate it and see how it fits within COMP (in case you assume it) and how that changes predictions and/or explanations. Hi ACW, My objection to UDA 8/MGA is that it assumes something that is is deeply problematic. There is a difference between Computational universality, in the sense of any given recursively enumerable algorithm is universal if it does not depend for its functional properties on a particular physical implementation of it, and the ideas that Recursively Enumerable Algorithms (REA) have properties and run completely independent of the possibility of implementation in physical hardware. My proof is mathematical but may be very poorly explained because I have a very hard time translating my thoughts into words and for this I apologize. I am hoping that you can see past the words and grok the meaning. I am identifying the invariant aspect of a REA with a fixed point in a manifold of transformations where the points that make up the manifold represent the physical systems capable of implementing the REA and then applying Brouwer's Fixed point theorem: How can Brouwer's fixed point theorem be applied computers of REAs, they don't form a manifold. here is an example for Wiki. In the plane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer_fixed-point_theorem Every continuous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_function_%28topology%29 function /f/ from a closed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_set disk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_%28mathematics%29 to itself has at least one fixed point. Think about this: Does the fixed point continue to exist if the collection of points making up that closed disc or the continuous transformations that are the functions where to vanish? Answer: No. The same way a computation is no longer a computation in the sense of universality when there is no universe for it. The point is that unless it is possible for a physical system to implement a REA, there is no such thing as an REA. That's the crux of the disagreement. Bruno says 2 exists because it's the successor of the successor of zero. I think it exists as a concept because we invented it, along with counting (c.f. The Origin of Reason by William S. Cooper). But I'm willing to take it's existence, along with the rest of arithmetic, as an hypothesis just to see where it leads. Brent So all the talk of computations or whatever is taken as equivalent vanishes into meaninglessness when and if we jump to the conclusion that USA/MGA proves that the physical world is just a epiphenomenon of numbers. That is the problem. Onward! Stephen No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2112/4814 - Release Date: 02/16/12 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/17/2012 12:00 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 2/16/2012 7:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 2/16/2012 7:09 PM, acw wrote: Do you understand at all the stuff about material and idea monism that I have mentioned previously? We are exploring the implications of a very sophisticate form of Ideal Monism that I am very much interested in, as it has, among other wonderful things, an unassailable proof that material monism is WRONG. What I am trying to discuss is how this is a good thing but the ontological theory as a whole that it is embedded in has a problem that is being either a) misunderstood, b) ignored or both. To be fair, I still have trouble understanding your objections to UDA 8/MGA, and this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, maybe I'm just incapable of seeing the subtle distinction that you're trying to draw. Bruno postulates arithmetic or combinators, but if you want a different ontological foundation, you can formulate it and see how it fits within COMP (in case you assume it) and how that changes predictions and/or explanations. Hi ACW, My objection to UDA 8/MGA is that it assumes something that is is deeply problematic. There is a difference between Computational universality, in the sense of any given recursively enumerable algorithm is universal if it does not depend for its functional properties on a particular physical implementation of it, and the ideas that Recursively Enumerable Algorithms (REA) have properties and run completely independent of the possibility of implementation in physical hardware. My proof is mathematical but may be very poorly explained because I have a very hard time translating my thoughts into words and for this I apologize. I am hoping that you can see past the words and grok the meaning. I am identifying the invariant aspect of a REA with a fixed point in a manifold of transformations where the points that make up the manifold represent the physical systems capable of implementing the REA and then applying Brouwer's Fixed point theorem: How can Brouwer's fixed point theorem be applied computers of REAs, they don't form a manifold. Hi Brent, This is where my inability to express this idea in English puts me in a very unpleasant situation. Honestly, you might as well count as just wrong. I'll accept that. But I will bet that I'm right. :-) I just don't know how to explain my idea any better at the moment. I will predict one thing, there will be a paper published within the year that will cover this idea by someone with the right skills. I will just be happy to have come to understand it on my own. here is an example for Wiki. In the plane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer_fixed-point_theorem Every continuous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_function_%28topology%29 function /f/ from a closed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_set disk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_%28mathematics%29 to itself has at least one fixed point. Think about this: Does the fixed point continue to exist if the collection of points making up that closed disc or the continuous transformations that are the functions where to vanish? Answer: No. The same way a computation is no longer a computation in the sense of universality when there is no universe for it. The point is that unless it is possible for a physical system to implement a REA, there is no such thing as an REA. That's the crux of the disagreement. Bruno says 2 exists because it's the successor of the successor of zero. I think it exists as a concept because we invented it, along with counting (c.f. The Origin of Reason by William S. Cooper). But I'm willing to take it's existence, along with the rest of arithmetic, as an hypothesis just to see where it leads. You do realize that this gives a definition of existence that is very different from that that almost all philosophers use. That's OK, Bruno is not a philosopher although he does pretend to be one very well. :-) Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/16/2012 9:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: You do realize that this gives a definition of existence that is very different from that that almost all philosophers use. That's OK, Bruno is not a philosopher although he does pretend to be one very well. :-) I don't think it's different. Bruno has remarked that existence is relative to a theory. This is the view of Quine who said that a think exists if it is an essential element of your theory. Brent Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: up to some resource bound
On 2/17/2012 1:59 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 2/16/2012 9:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: You do realize that this gives a definition of existence that is very different from that that almost all philosophers use. That's OK, Bruno is not a philosopher although he does pretend to be one very well. :-) I don't think it's different. Bruno has remarked that existence is relative to a theory. This is the view of Quine who said that a think exists if it is an essential element of your theory. Hi Brent, This idea is philosophically distasteful for it implies that existence supervenes on our consciousness or, more weakly, on our theory-craft. I think that it is exactly backwards. Consciousness supervenes on existence. Am I using the word supervene correctly here? Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
