Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 07 Sep 2012, at 13:39, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/7/2012 3:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again. I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and solid than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :). Bruno Dear Bruno, Matter is not primitive as it is not irreducible. My claim is that matter is, explained very crudely, patterns of invariances for some collection of inter-communicating observers (where an observer can be merely a photon detector that records its states). OK, except that we have no photon at the start. This is not contradictory to your explanation of it as persistent relational entity, but my definition is very explicit about the requirements that give rise to the persistent relations. I believe that these might be second order relations between computational streams. and can be defined in terms of bisimulation relations between streams. You might try to relate this with the UDA consequences. I question the very idea of atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers since numbers cannot be considered consistently as just entities that correspond to 0, 1, 2, 3, ... We have to consider all possible denotations of the signified. I think this is deeply flawed. Notion of denotations and set of denotations, are more complex that the notion of numbers. See http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html#signified for an explanation. Additionally, there are not just a single type of number as there is a dependence on the model of arithmetic that one is using. Outside arithmetic. This use the intuitive notion of numbers, even second order arithmetic. This is explained, through comp, as construct of numbers. For example Robinson Arithmetic and Peano Arithmetic do not define the same numbers. Of course they do. RA has more model than PA, but we use the theory with the intended model in mind, relying on our intuition of numbers, not on any theory. No one ever interpret a number in the sense of a non standard numbers. That would make comp quite fuzzy. Nobody would say yes to a doctor if he believe that he is a non standard machine/ number. You can't code them in any finite (in the standard sense!) ways. So we have multiple signified and multiple signifiers and cannot assume a single mapping scheme between them. I suppose that a canonical map exists in terms of the Tennebaum theorem, but I need to discuss this more with you to resolve my understanding of this question. You do at the absic level what I suspect you to do in many post. Escaping forward in the complexity. But to get the technical results all you need is assessing your intuition of finite, and things like the sequence 0, s(0), s(s(0)), etc. Then if you agree with the definition of addition and multiplication, everything will be OK. If not you would be like a neuroscientist trying to define a neuron by the activity of a brain thinking about a neuron, and you will get a complexity catastrophe. This remark is very important. Your critics here apply to all papers you cite. We have to agree on simple things at the start, independently of the fact that we can't define them by simpler notion. For the numbers, or programs, finite strings, hereditarily finite objects, the miracle is that we do share the standard notion of it, unlike for any other notions like set, real number, etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 07 Sep 2012, at 17:11, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/7/2012 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Sep 2012, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to? The computational locality used in the local universal system. Dear Bruno, Could you elaborate a bit more on this remark? How do you define a local universal system? What is local for you? All universal system are local. Here I meant a universal system that I can handle in my neighborhood, like my brain or my laptop. Local means that action exerts influence on their most probable universal neighborhood. In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and write down numbers that they get from each other and perform arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in? What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it could, why should it do such a thing? Because it concerns a machine looking at herself and its probable environment. As I think of it, a machine cannot literally look at herself; it can only look at an image of herself and that image could be subject to errors. This allows me to relate an image that a machine might have of itself with the image the machine might have of another machine and thus I found the concept of bisimulation. Additionally, we can define cases where the image and the machine itself are identical in every possible way and thus are one and the same thing (via principle of identity of indiscernibles). It seems to me that most of our disagreements flow from your assumption that the image of a machine and the machine are strictly isomorphic, while I assume such only in certain special cases. To get physics, you can (and should) restrict yourself to ideally correct machine. Then the logic shows that it is unavoidable that the machine get non justifiable truth. I agree. But what is Truth? Arithmetical truth. You can define it in second order logic, or in set theory, but of course this does not really define it. You can represent it by the set of Gödel number of the true arithmetical sentences. It is a highly complex set not even nameable or describable by the machine. I see truth to be a parameter of the degree of matching between an object and its image. It is not confined to some single spectrum for all things. Different types of objects require different kinds of spectra for their truth valuations and thus are not always commensurable. In everyday life, but we reason in a theory. You can see that informally with thought experiment, like in UDA, or formally in the logics of self-reference. I have problems with the technical aspects of the UDA in almost every step. Then you have to make that precise. My problem is that I do not have your set of definitions and intuitions in my mind as I read your material. UDA is simpler to 14 years old, than graduates. UDA is rather easy, and I think that is what people misses. It is simple. Of course the MGA (step 8) is a bit harder, but you can have all the gist of it by UDA1-7, already. Some people, like Jason today, can even pass the step 8, by just rejecting the notion of virtual or arithmetical zombie. Step 8 just address the Ptere Jones (and sometimes Brent) critics that we need a real computer for having a real consciousness, but this introduce non Turing emulability in the mind (by step 8). I see holes and blind spots and tacit assumptions everywhere, Without specific remarks, I can't help. but this holds true of the material of most people that I read and so I an not upset with you for this appearance. It could be the beam in my eye that i see as a mote in your eye... Thus I ask you many many questions, to lern to see what you see the way that you see it. SO far I cannot understand how it is that you do not see the necessity of physical implementation of computations. They are necessary only locally, and this is provided in arithmetic. Then step 8 explains why reifying matter cannot relate consciousness to it, making primitive matter epinomenal. I am studying the work of C.S. Peirce and others int eh area of semiotics to learn if it might help me explain the problem that I see. Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/8/2012 4:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Sep 2012, at 13:39, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/7/2012 3:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again. I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and solid than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :). Bruno Dear Bruno, Matter is not primitive as it is not irreducible. My claim is that matter is, explained very crudely, patterns of invariances for some collection of inter-communicating observers (where an observer can be merely a photon detector that records its states). OK, except that we have no photon at the start. This is not contradictory to your explanation of it as persistent relational entity, but my definition is very explicit about the requirements that give rise to the persistent relations. I believe that these might be second order relations between computational streams. and can be defined in terms of bisimulation relations between streams. You might try to relate this with the UDA consequences. I question the very idea of atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers since numbers cannot be considered consistently as just entities that correspond to 0, 1, 2, 3, ... We have to consider all possible denotations of the signified. I think this is deeply flawed. Notion of denotations and set of denotations, are more complex that the notion of numbers. See http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html#signified for an explanation. Additionally, there are not just a single type of number as there is a dependence on the model of arithmetic that one is using. Outside arithmetic. This use the intuitive notion of numbers, even second order arithmetic. This is explained, through comp, as construct of numbers. For example Robinson Arithmetic and Peano Arithmetic do not define the same numbers. Of course they do. RA has more model than PA, but we use the theory with the intended model in mind, relying on our intuition of numbers, not on any theory. No one ever interpret a number in the sense of a non standard numbers. That would make comp quite fuzzy. Nobody would say yes to a doctor if he believe that he is a non standard machine/number. You can't code them in any finite (in the standard sense!) ways. So we have multiple signified and multiple signifiers and cannot assume a single mapping scheme between them. I suppose that a canonical map exists in terms of the Tennebaum theorem, but I need to discuss this more with you to resolve my understanding of this question. You do at the absic level what I suspect you to do in many post. Escaping forward in the complexity. But to get the technical results all you need is assessing your intuition of finite, and things like the sequence 0, s(0), s(s(0)), etc. Then if you agree with the definition of addition and multiplication, everything will be OK. If not you would be like a neuroscientist trying to define a neuron by the activity of a brain thinking about a neuron, and you will get a complexity catastrophe. This remark is very important. Your critics here apply to all papers you cite. We have to agree on simple things at the start, independently of the fact that we can't define them by simpler notion. For the numbers, or programs, finite strings, hereditarily finite objects, the miracle is that we do share the standard notion of it, unlike for any other notions like set, real number, etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ Dear Bruno, I wish I could motivate you to study a bit about Semiotics and how it approaches the relation between a representation and its referent. You seem to think them as identical for numbers. We seem to just talk past each other. -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 08 Sep 2012, at 12:45, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/8/2012 4:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Sep 2012, at 13:39, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/7/2012 3:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again. I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and solid than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :). Bruno Dear Bruno, Matter is not primitive as it is not irreducible. My claim is that matter is, explained very crudely, patterns of invariances for some collection of inter-communicating observers (where an observer can be merely a photon detector that records its states). OK, except that we have no photon at the start. This is not contradictory to your explanation of it as persistent relational entity, but my definition is very explicit about the requirements that give rise to the persistent relations. I believe that these might be second order relations between computational streams. and can be defined in terms of bisimulation relations between streams. You might try to relate this with the UDA consequences. I question the very idea of atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers since numbers cannot be considered consistently as just entities that correspond to 0, 1, 2, 3, ... We have to consider all possible denotations of the signified. I think this is deeply flawed. Notion of denotations and set of denotations, are more complex that the notion of numbers. See http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html#signified for an explanation. Additionally, there are not just a single type of number as there is a dependence on the model of arithmetic that one is using. Outside arithmetic. This use the intuitive notion of numbers, even second order arithmetic. This is explained, through comp, as construct of numbers. For example Robinson Arithmetic and Peano Arithmetic do not define the same numbers. Of course they do. RA has more model than PA, but we use the theory with the intended model in mind, relying on our intuition of numbers, not on any theory. No one ever interpret a number in the sense of a non standard numbers. That would make comp quite fuzzy. Nobody would say yes to a doctor if he believe that he is a non standard machine/number. You can't code them in any finite (in the standard sense!) ways. So we have multiple signified and multiple signifiers and cannot assume a single mapping scheme between them. I suppose that a canonical map exists in terms of the Tennebaum theorem, but I need to discuss this more with you to resolve my understanding of this question. You do at the absic level what I suspect you to do in many post. Escaping forward in the complexity. But to get the technical results all you need is assessing your intuition of finite, and things like the sequence 0, s(0), s(s(0)), etc. Then if you agree with the definition of addition and multiplication, everything will be OK. If not you would be like a neuroscientist trying to define a neuron by the activity of a brain thinking about a neuron, and you will get a complexity catastrophe. This remark is very important. Your critics here apply to all papers you cite. We have to agree on simple things at the start, independently of the fact that we can't define them by simpler notion. For the numbers, or programs, finite strings, hereditarily finite objects, the miracle is that we do share the standard notion of it, unlike for any other notions like set, real number, etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ Dear Bruno, I wish I could motivate you to study a bit about Semiotics and how it approaches the relation between a representation and its referent. You seem to think them as identical for numbers. ? I do not. I don't see why you think so. A number is not his representation, nor more than a brain is a person. What I did here is just to accept the notion of natural numbers as a technical base, as we can agree on simple statements on them, and that is all we need. In the development, I use model theory instead of semiotics as it is more clear for me, and more known by scientists. We seem to just talk past each other. It is normal because you do philosophy, and I do not. No problem if you keep that in mind. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 06 Sep 2012, at 20:44, meekerdb wrote: On 9/6/2012 11:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, Even if it is not *in* spacetime, my consciousness seems to depend on some particular localized matter in spacetime. Seeming can be wrong. Only the content of consciousness depends on the particular matter localized in space-time. but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. An atemporal consciousness sounds like a contradiction in terms. I agree. I don't use that in the reasoning. It is a recent suggestion, corroborated by the salvia reports and experiences. I was used to agree with Brouwer that consciousness and subjective time are not separable, like the 1p logic examplifies (S4Grz is both a temporal logic, and the machine's 1p logic), but I am open to change my mind on this. We can hallucinate being conscious in a completely atemporal mode. I would not have believed this without living it, as it seems indeed to be a contradiction from the usual mundane state of consciousness. But it makes sense in arithmetic, or for the consciousness of the universal non Löbian machine. Apparently, subjective time might be a result of self-consciousness, and not just consciousness. This makes consciousness a bit more primitive than I thought indeed. If we rely on our intuitive introspection to know what consciousness is (as you often say) we can't then just throw away that insight and say consciousness is something else. Yes. That is why such an insight requires altered state of consciousness. I agree it is weird, but it makes sense if we agree to declare non Löbian machine already conscious. I have no certainty at all in this matter. The experiences have just added one more doubt, on the link between subjective time and consciousness. I would have thought that by losing Löbianity, you loose consciousness, but it seems that is not the case. We need more data and reports to better figure out what happens. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 06 Sep 2012, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. That is step 6. I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow from 1. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations. So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness? Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA). If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to? The computational locality used in the local universal system. In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and write down numbers that they get from each other and perform arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in? What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it could, why should it do such a thing? Because it concerns a machine looking at herself and its probable environment. Then the logic shows that it is unavoidable that the machine get non justifiable truth. You can see that informally with thought experiment, like in UDA, or formally in the logics of self- reference. Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original. Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely. You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption. Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum. and presume consciousness to explain consciousness. Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain (from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our hypothesis and reason, and propose tests. Why not just recognize it
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 07 Sep 2012, at 04:20, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/6/2012 1:44 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: snip What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources. Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them. No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair. Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. What do you mean by real computations? Do you mean physical computations? Why would they lack resources? Bruno Dear Bruno, I am talking about physical systems that have the capacity of carrying out in their dynamics the functions that implement the abstract computations that you are considering. The very thing that you claim is unnecessary. But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again. I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and solid than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :). Bruno -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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 . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/7/2012 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Sep 2012, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. *Step one* talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. That is step 6. I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow from 1. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations. So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness? Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA). If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to? The computational locality used in the local universal system. Dear Bruno, Could you elaborate a bit more on this remark? How do you define a local universal system? What is local for you? In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and write down numbers that they get from each other and perform arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in? What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it could, why should it do such a thing? Because it concerns a machine looking at herself and its probable environment. As I think of it, a machine cannot literally look at herself; it can only look at an image of herself and that image could be subject to errors. This allows me to relate an image that a machine might have of itself with the image the machine might have of another machine and thus I found the concept of bisimulation. Additionally, we can define cases where the image and the machine itself are identical in every possible way and thus are one and the same thing (via principle of identity of indiscernibles). It seems to me that most of our disagreements flow from your assumption that the image of a machine and the machine are strictly isomorphic, while I assume such only in certain special cases. Then the logic shows that it is
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/7/2012 2:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Sep 2012, at 20:44, meekerdb wrote: On 9/6/2012 11:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, Even if it is not *in* spacetime, my consciousness seems to depend on some particular localized matter in spacetime. Seeming can be wrong. Only the content of consciousness depends on the particular matter localized in space-time. Dear Bruno, Only the content of consciousness depends on the particular matter localized in space-time. AMAZING! Could you consider that this statement is exactly what I have been trying to get you to discuss with me all this time? -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:49:37 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 10:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:25:02 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations. But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or ligand concentration. No, I only say that a thought can be generated from the top down, and that event is manifested in the brain as whatever changes in transmembrane potentials, ligand concentrations or ion channel status are appropriate. I can notice that I am breathing, or I can take a deep breath. Either way, there are similar neural pathways and mechanisms involved. Without knowing about free will, we could never tell the difference between the neurology of the voluntary act and the involuntary or semi-voluntary act. They would all appear not to contradict what chemists would predict, because their predictions don't specify when or where spontaneous brain activity will occur. We've talked about this before and it just isn't consistent with any scientific evidence. Your existence isn't consistent with any scientific evidence either. Science looks at objects. Consciousness is a subject. As long as science defines itself in that way, it is not possible for it to explain consciousness in any meaningful way. You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't. Your theory is like the denial of evolution because those genetic variations might have been spontaneous (intentional) instead of random. But the point is that there is no need to hypothesize non-random, non-caused events in the brain. The randomness of thermodynamics, quantum radioactive decay, and external influences are plenty to account for the unpredictability you call spontaneous. There is no need hypothesize any extra 'magic'. Intention is not magic and doesn't need hypothetical permission to exist. If your words are random ricochets of quantum radioactive decay or thermodynamic anomalies, then they are meaningless noise. You can't account for them because any accounting you can produce with your fingertips is only the random twitchings of your nervous system. Your view that denies the very reality of intention that you employ to state your denial. The fact that you deny that it does shows me that you are only capable of framing the question in the one way that it can never be answered. Your view is to say, I choose to deny my ability to choose. Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/4Pk6M4ggOMsJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:52:11 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 10:44 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:32:21 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why? No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. That's where the hypothetical breaks down. The BPB would not have a body to control or a world to interact with. Could it have dream? Maybe - but it would need a simulated world to interact with in order to have human-like consciousness. So you have a Quintillion Person Brain+World instead. That just makes the absurdity even more apparent. Now you have an invisible world conjured into the ethers out of nothing but synchronized incantations. Maybe those virtual people could form a Trillion Virtual Person Brain + WalMart and go shopping in the meta-ethers? Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/KVS3KQ-OzqMJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't. That's the large scale effect of neural activity, but the neural activity itself is deterministic. Putting it crudely, every component in the brain moves because it is jostled by another component. This movement may coincide with mental activity that is apparently out-of-the-blue. For example, the brain states may progress S1, S2, S3 at times T1, T2, T3 and corresponding with mental states M1, M2 and M3. M2 may appear as a sudden idea with no apparent antecedent, but that does *not* mean that S1, S2 or S3 arise without antecedent. S1 leads to S2 and S2 leads to S3 in a deterministic way, entirely explainable in terms of chemical reactions. If it were otherwise then scientists would observe miracles at the microscopic level, and nothing like this has ever been observed. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. This being is literally made out of nothing at all except the fact of these computations taking place somewhere...but where? You say not in the consciousness of the brains of the people, so where? In the lead of the pencils on paper? In the signals of the telephone calls? Why is this new being local to this process? How is it attached to the computation-ness? If neurons can give rise to thinking beings then why can't billions of people? What essential quality do the neurons have that people lack? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
Hi Stathis Papaioannou All mental activity is out of the blue, meaning inextended, outside of spacetime. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/6/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Stathis Papaioannou Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-06, 03:06:20 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't. That's the large scale effect of neural activity, but the neural activity itself is deterministic. Putting it crudely, every component in the brain moves because it is jostled by another component. This movement may coincide with mental activity that is apparently out-of-the-blue. For example, the brain states may progress S1, S2, S3 at times T1, T2, T3 and corresponding with mental states M1, M2 and M3. M2 may appear as a sudden idea with no apparent antecedent, but that does *not* mean that S1, S2 or S3 arise without antecedent. S1 leads to S2 and S2 leads to S3 in a deterministic way, entirely explainable in terms of chemical reactions. If it were otherwise then scientists would observe miracles at the microscopic level, and nothing like this has ever been observed. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
Hi Craig Weinberg I don't think you can separate a man's brain from his mind or vice versa, since the mind is the brain's monad and monads cannot be created or destroyed. At least according to Leibniz. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/6/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 21:12:22 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:13:05 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same. Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/VtFe7kfeGMQJ. 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
I must have missed something. What does the thinking of men have to do with evolution ? The evolution of plantlife ,at least, occurred before men were here. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/6/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-06, 02:18:06 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:49:37 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 10:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:25:02 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com wrote: But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations. But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or ligand concentration. No, I only say that a thought can be generated from the top down, and that event is manifested in the brain as whatever changes in transmembrane potentials, ligand concentrations or ion channel status are appropriate. I can notice that I am breathing, or I can take a deep breath. Either way, there are similar neural pathways and mechanisms involved. Without knowing about free will, we could never tell the difference between the neurology of the voluntary act and the involuntary or semi-voluntary act. They would all appear not to contradict what chemists would predict, because their predictions don't specify when or where spontaneous brain activity will occur. We've talked about this before and it just isn't consistent with any scientific evidence. Your existence isn't consistent with any scientific evidence either. Science looks at objects. Consciousness is a subject. As long as science defines itself in that way, it is not possible for it to explain consciousness in any meaningful way. You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't. Your theory is like the denial of evolution because those genetic variations might have been spontaneous (intentional) instead of random. But the point is that there is no need to hypothesize non-random, non-caused events in the brain. The randomness of thermodynamics, quantum radioactive decay, and external influences are plenty to account for the unpredictability you call spontaneous. There is no need hypothesize any extra 'magic'. Intention is not magic and doesn't need hypothetical permission to exist. If your words are random ricochets of quantum radioactive decay or thermodynamic anomalies, then they are meaningless noise. You can't account for them because any accounting you can produce with your fingertips is only the random twitchings of your nervous system. Your view that denies the very reality of intention that you employ to state your denial. The fact that you deny that it does shows me that you are only capable of framing the question in the one way that it can never be answered. Your view is to say, I choose to deny my ability to choose. Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/4Pk6M4ggOMsJ. 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
Hi Stathis Papaioannou IMHO Intelligence, as I see it, is the ability to make choices autonomously (one's own choices). One could, if so desired, lie about something. Or create something nonscientific (a watercolor) Robot choices made by software or hardware are not autonomous because somebody outside constructed them. Only living entities seem to have that mental freedom, freedom to make choices independently of hardware/software. Or at least mostly independent. So robots can be neither alive nor have any intelligence. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/6/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Stathis Papaioannou Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 21:21:03 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:13:05 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same. But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: I must have missed something. What does the thinking of men have to do with evolution ? The evolution of plantlife ,at least, occurred before men were here. The question is whether philosophical zombies are possible or not. If they are possible, then why are we not zombies? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 11:18 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Intention is not magic and doesn't need hypothetical permission to exist. If your words are random ricochets of quantum radioactive decay or thermodynamic anomalies, then they are meaningless noise. You can't account for them because any accounting you can produce with your fingertips is only the random twitchings of your nervous system. Your view that denies the very reality of intention that you employ to state your denial. The fact that you deny that it does shows me that you are only capable of framing the question in the one way that it can never be answered. Your view is to say, I choose to deny my ability to choose. No, that is a misconception. Simply because there is some randomness at a molecular level doesn't make the whole process noise. Or looked at another way the structure of you brain amplifies and shapes the noise and combines it with perception to produce your actions in a way that we recognize as constituting your consistent character. Brent -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness. If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model. Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago. He's been fatally changed. Never, I am not the impermanent image on the world stage. I am the fire that casts the images. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. It doesn't assume that. A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer. Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution. Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this: Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some Dark Energy. I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from? They are computations. They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources. The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource. Sure, but the explanation of the idea requires matter to be communicated. A slight oversight perhaps. But there is matter, in the comp theory. That is all what UDA explains, and what the Z and X logics axiomatizes. Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running. There's not difference as computations. You are correct but only in the absence of considerations of inputs and outputs and their concurrency. Abstract theory leaves out the obvious, but when it pretends to toss out the obvious, that is going to far. Matter is not obvious. What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources. Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them. No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair. Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. What do you mean by real computations? Do you mean physical computations? Why would they lack resources? Bruno What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines! You're confused. Maybe. I can handle being wrong. I learn from mistakes. Brent -- -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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 . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. That is step 6. I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow from 1. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations. So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness? Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA). Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original. Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely. You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption. Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum. and presume consciousness to explain consciousness. Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain (from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our hypothesis and reason, and propose tests. Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or matter at all? Comp is used to formulate the problem in math. Then we can see the general shape of the solution, which is a reduction of physics into arithmetic, with the advantage that we get a clear explanation of the difference of qualia and quanta. And we can test the quanta. If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos, not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities. I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Why? A program or
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 18:12, Roger Clough wrote: I don't think that life or mind or intelligence can be teleported. Especially since nobody knows what they are. I also don't believe that you can download the contents of somebody's brain. This is just restating that you don't believe in comp. OK, develop your theory, and predict something testable, and we will better understand what you mean. If not it looks just like a form of racism based on magic. Bruno Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/5/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 11:04:53 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:14, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. That's a good argument for saying that the level of substitution is not that low. But the reasoning would still go through, and we would lead to a unique computable universe. That is the only way to make a digital physics consistent (as I forget to say sometimes). Then you get a more complex other mind problem, and something like David Nyman- Hoyle beam would be needed, and would need to be separate from the physical reality, making the big physical whole incomplete, etc. yes this bothers me too. Needless to say, I tend to believe that if comp is true, the level is much higher. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. ? I would say that the contrary is true. It is because natural numbers exists, and seems to obeys laws like addition and multiplication that true propositions can be made on them. 2 exists, and only 1 and 2 divides 2, so 2 is prime, and thus prime numbers exists. 2 itself exists just because Ex(x = s(s(0))) is true. Indeed take x = s(s(0)), and the proposition follows from s(s(0)) = s(s(0)). Bruno Brent In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/6/2012 11:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, Even if it is not *in* spacetime, my consciousness seems to depend on some particular localized matter in spacetime. but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. An atemporal consciousness sounds like a contradiction in terms. If we rely on our intuitive introspection to know what consciousness is (as you often say) we can't then just throw away that insight and say consciousness is something else. Brent I would say (no need of this in UDA). -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 21:36, meekerdb wrote: On 9/5/2012 8:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, I don't think I understand that remark. Doesn't arithmetic *assume* combinators, i.e. + and * ? Combinators are defined by K is a combinator S is a combinator if x and y are combinator, then (x, y) are combinators. So they are K, S, (K K), (S S), (K S), (S K), (K (K K)), ((K K) K), etc. The left parenthesis are often not written, for reason of readability. The axioms are Kxy = x Sxyz = xz(yz). This is Turing universal, and you can define numbers, + and * in that system. See the lovely book by Smullyan To mock a mocking bird for more, or my little course on them on this list. Likewise, you can define them, and emulate them, using only 0, s(0), ... and the laws: x+0 = x x+s(y) = s(x+y) x*0=0 x*s(y)=(x*y)+x Which is also Turing universal. Bruno Brent and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can know it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space. -- 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 . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 22:24, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 11:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote: For certain choices of this or that, the ultimate reality is actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely unknowable to the denizens of that computation. Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* bottom is the result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/ measure on all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical commodities. Dear Bruno, I am trying hard to be sure that I understand your ideas here. Could you specify the cardinality of all universal machines? Aleph_0 How many of them possibly exist? Aleph_0, like the primes. Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can know it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space. So is there or is there not something that corresponds to resources (such as memory) for the Universal machines in your thought? Yes, Stephen, most digital beings have memories, and things like that. All universal machine defines their own way to memorize, and interact. And none, a priori, use any physical resource, only when they are implemented in a special universal one which we bet support us too, but that is a relative situation. Please ask if not clear, or read some good book on computer science. All the (mathematical) machine have memories or equivalent. Keep in mind that they can all emulate each other. So arithmetic (above) can emulate a UNIVAC with transistors and tube, like it can emulate a quantum topological modular functor à-la Kitaev-Friedman. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/6/2012 1:44 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: snip What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources. Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them. No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair. Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. What do you mean by real computations? Do you mean physical computations? Why would they lack resources? Bruno Dear Bruno, I am talking about physical systems that have the capacity of carrying out in their dynamics the functions that implement the abstract computations that you are considering. The very thing that you claim is unnecessary. -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness. If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model. Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago. He's been fatally changed. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. It doesn't assume that. A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer. Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution. Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this: Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some Dark Energy. I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from? They are computations. They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources. The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource. Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running. There's not difference as computations. What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources. Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them. What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines! You're confused. Brent -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:59:55 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote: On 9/4/2012 9:48 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. Hi Craig, Excellent post! Thanks Stephen! *Step one* talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. Yep, the assumption is that the function that gives rise to Sense is exactly representable as countable and recursively enumerable functions. The trick is finding the machine configuration that matches each of these. That's where the engineers come in and the theorists go out the door. That seems to be the hypocrisy of comp - it assumes that function is enough, that all-but-computation is epiphenomena, but then wants to bring it back home to the material universe to claim the prize. It makes me think of the self-help guru who preaches that money doesn't make you happy in a best-selling book. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? The person rides the computation, it is not located any particular place. But all this is predicated on the condition that consciousness is, at its more rubimentary level, nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. THe real question that we need to ask is: Might there be a point where we no longer are dealing with countable and recursively enumerable functions? What about countable and recursively enumerable functions that are coding for other countable and recursively enumerable functions? Are those still computable? So far the answer seems to be: Yes, they are. But what about the truth of the statements that those countable and recursively enumerable functions encode? Are they countable and recursively enumerable functions? Nope! Those are something else entirely! Right. Something about microelectronics and neurology though that blinds us to the chasm between the map and the territory. This kind of example with pencil and paper helps me see how really bizarre it is to expect a conscious experience to arise out of mechanism. I guess it's just Leibniz millhouse but really...say we have the code for the experience of the memory of the smell of pancakes. We have a trillion people furiously scribbling on notepads, talking to other scribblers on the phone, passing information, calculating stuff. We introduce this pancake code by calling 350,000 of them on the phone and issuing this code, and they all write it down, add it to the other numbers and addresses and whatnot, make thousands of phonecalls to other people who are also writing this stuff down and adding numbers with their special decoder rings, etc. So why and how does this pancake smell come into play? If we assume that this is possible that the pancake smell is actually conjured in some way for some reason we can't imagine, then doesn't it open the doorway to disembodied spirits everywhere? We wouldn't need a whole Boltzmann brain to conjure a ghost or a demon, just some Boltzmann bits and seeds. To me it only makes sense that we are our whole life, not just the brain cells or functions. The body is a public structural shadow of the private qualitative experience, which is an irreducible (but not incorruptible) gestalt. Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:06:18 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press the button faster if it heard the command faster, if that were also part of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you devise in order to prove that it was not? I think it would progress just like dementia or brain cancer as far as the subject is concerned. They would experience increasing alienation from their mind and body as more of their brain was converted to an automated processing and control system. The extent to which that would translate into behavior that doctors, family, and friends would notice depends entirely on the quality of the technology used to destroy and replace the person. The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. Craig Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/lZ4Lsi036kkJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 12:47 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 9:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Russel, In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of contingency? You cannot Choose what is Real! But you choose what is real in your theory of the world. Then you see how well your theory measures up. The Standard Model is a theory of energy and matter that has passed thousands of empirical tests to very high accuracy. Its ontology is elementary particles. It replaced a lot of other theories that had different ontologies. Hi Brent, Sure, we do chose our theories, but we don't get to chose the facts. I am just looking at what may be down the road. ;-) That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker! So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist? No. Existence is necessary possibility. It is not contingent. The specifics of observed properties, that is another story. Existence is not dependent on us; what we measure, is. -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness. If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model. Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago. He's been fatally changed. Never, I am not the impermanent image on the world stage. I am the fire that casts the images. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. It doesn't assume that. A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer. Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution. Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this: Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some Dark Energy. I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from? They are computations. They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources. The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource. Sure, but the explanation of the idea requires matter to be communicated. A slight oversight perhaps. Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running. There's not difference as computations. You are correct but only in the absence of considerations of inputs and outputs and their concurrency. Abstract theory leaves out the obvious, but when it pretends to toss out the obvious, that is going to far. What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources. Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them. No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair. What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines! You're confused. Maybe. I can handle being wrong. I learn from mistakes. Brent -- -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Something about microelectronics and neurology though that blinds us to the chasm between the map and the territory. This kind of example with pencil and paper helps me see how really bizarre it is to expect a conscious experience to arise out of mechanism. I guess it's just Leibniz millhouse but really...say we have the code for the experience of the memory of the smell of pancakes. We have a trillion people furiously scribbling on notepads, talking to other scribblers on the phone, passing information, calculating stuff. We introduce this pancake code by calling 350,000 of them on the phone and issuing this code, and they all write it down, add it to the other numbers and addresses and whatnot, make thousands of phonecalls to other people who are also writing this stuff down and adding numbers with their special decoder rings, etc. So why and how does this pancake smell come into play? Hi Craig, You are up awful late! So am I, GULP! The smell is at a different level. We can't account for things in a flat logical structure. -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: To me it only makes sense that we are our whole life, not just the brain cells or functions. The body is a public structural shadow of the private qualitative experience, which is an irreducible (but not incorruptible) gestalt. Bingo! -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: All that matters is that it can exactly carry our the necessary functions. Individual minds are just different versions of one and the same mind! To steal an idea from Deutsch, Other histories are just different universes are just different minds... The hard question is: How the hell do they get synchronized with each other? I think they are synchronization itself to begin with. The question to me is, how do they get de-synchronized, and I think it's by introducing latency on a borrowed-as-space basis. Hi Craig, I am low on brain juice but here goes. What is synchronization at one level is non-synchronization at some other. The idea is to start off thinking that what is fundamental is change, shit is constantly happening; it never sits still, really. Existence is an eternal process? -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Why? If everything is a singular totality on one level, then synchronization is the precondition of time. Time is nothing but perspective-orchestrated de-synchronization. No. Time is an order of sequentially givens. DO not assume per-orderings because those have to be accounted for by something else. Think of Rubber Ducks swimming in a long row. Did they just get to be in that order by random chance, really? -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Yeah, I don't know, any kind of universe-as-machine cosmology seems no better than a theological cosmology. What machine does the machine run on? What meta-arithmetic truths make arithmetic truths true? Maybe it is the act of us being aware of them that collectively makes them true. Jaakko Hintikka has some ideas on that: http://books.google.com/books?hl=enlr=id=K7yJLmZCbFUCoi=fndpg=PA415ots=IXTvX1iloMsig=OD5xNX3OZBcCWgiVjkVGPCX_11I#v=onepageqf=false We just need to widely expand what the we is! Poor humans think that they are it. What Hubris! -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: That's the right question to be asking! Errors are sentences that are false in some code. Exactly how does this happen if one's beliefs are predicated on Bp p(is true)? Yeah, it seems to me like we should have to be spraying cybercide all over the place to prevent supercomputers from springing up in the vacuum flux or the sewer systems of large cities. It is the I/O that makes the difference. We do actually spay cybercide when we spray for mosquitoes. What is it that bacteria and virii are, from the logical side of the duality after all? -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 2:35 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:48:09 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist? What is existence other than the capacity to be detected in some way by some thing (itself if nothing else)? Necessary Possibility, its exactly that. What would be the difference between a moon that has no possibility of being detected in any way by any thing and nothingness? Nada. Craig -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 07:26:53PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 10:09:45 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote: It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. If they do not apply to my worldview, then they compete with my worldview, so I am entitled to debunk the premises, if not the consequences of the argument. Good luck with that! Seriously, though, what you need to do is derive some consequences of the premises that contradict observations. Or show the premises to be self-contradictory. It is not enough to show that the premises contradict some other totally random premise, as not everyone is likely to agree that the other premise is self-evident. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. That's begging the question. Why are mathematical theses necessarily abstract? Surely that is the point of mathematics! My point is that if we assume abstraction is possible from the start, then physics and subjective realism become irrelevant and redundant appendages. Why? *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. What is that implication or commitment based on? Naive preference for logic over sensation? Does it need to be based on anything? In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. Why? They are counterfactuals for comp. If primitive realism is modeled on natural numbers, why does physically originated noise and entropy distort the execution of arithmetic processes but arithmetic processes do not, by themselves, counter things like signal attenuation? Good programs should heal bad wiring. Erroneous computations are still computations. Are you trying to suggest that the presence of randomness is a counterfactual for COMP perhaps? -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 12:37:22AM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Russel, In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of contingency? You cannot Choose what is Real! That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker! I don't think I ever suggested that reality was an arbitrary choice. But whilst that reality is unknown, it seems quite reasonable to suppose it is this or that, and to see whether the consequences of that assumption match up with observations. It is how science is done, after all. For certain choices of this or that, the ultimate reality is actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely unknowable to the denizens of that computation. This is a consequence of the Church thesis. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. The issue of I/O is not irrelevant. How? *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. Note quite. AR is the stipulation that primitive reality = the natural numbers. The idea has been around for a long time. We silly I assume by your comment you mean nothing buttery. If everything about the observed universe can be explained by the properties of the natural numbers, then it matters not whether the primitive reality _is_ the natural numbers (nothing but), or simply models it (has all the properties of the natural numbers, but may have other, unspecified and unobservered, properties). humans simply cannot wrap our minds around the possibility that more exists than we can count! We must be able to count what we can communicate about in the context of any one message, but this does not place an upper finite bound on the host of possible messages. Countability is not normally considered to be a finite property, unless you're an ultrafinitist. In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Sure, but this results in a consistent solipsism of a single mind. It is a prison of reflections of itself, over and over, a Ground Hog Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA where there is no possible escape. I am interested in a non-prison version of comp. I don't really buy this statement. I get the impression that the debates flowing around on this topic on this list are being conducted by people who don't know what they're talking about (whether pro or con). Or at least, I don't know what is being talked about, which is why I usually prefer to remain silent... Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. No, you just don't understand him. I'm sure that is true too. Unfortunately, he has a habit of stating something completely distant from the topic being responded to, which doesn't help that understanding. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Re: Sane2004 Step One
Hi Craig Weinberg I don't like the word existence as it carries so much baggage with it. What you describe below is physical existence. That is a property of extended entities. Inextended entities such as mind and 1p and thouights and feelings would be mentally existent. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/5/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 02:35:23 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:48:09 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist? What is existence other than the capacity to be detected in some way by some thing (itself if nothing else)? What would be the difference between a moon that has no possibility of being detected in any way by any thing and nothingness? Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/ZNIa3HI9ZkwJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. That is step 6. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations. Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original. Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely. You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption. I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc. Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is a discovery by mathematicians. Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp - p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect soon enough. Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:18:07 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press the button faster if it heard the command faster, if that were also part of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you devise in order to prove that it was not? I think it would progress just like dementia or brain cancer as far as the subject is concerned. They would experience increasing alienation from their mind and body as more of their brain was converted to an automated processing and control system. The extent to which that would translate into behavior that doctors, family, and friends would notice depends entirely on the quality of the technology used to destroy and replace the person. The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. I'm not talking about gradual brain replacement specifically but replacement of the whole person with an AI controlling a robot. We assume the machine is very technologically advanced. Progress in AI may have been slow over the past few decades but extrapolate that slow pace of change a thousand years into the future. Do you think you would still be able to distinguish the robot from the human, and if so what test would you use? The ability to test depends entirely on my familiarity with the human and how good the technology is. Can I touch them, smell them? If so, then I would be surprised if I could be fooled by an inorganic body. Has there ever been one synthetic imitation of a natural biological product that can withstand even moderate examination? If you limit the channel of my interaction with the robot however, I stand much less of a chance of being able to tell the difference. A video conference with the robot only requires that they look convincing on camera. We can't tell the difference between a live performance and a taped performance unless there is some clue in the content. That is because we aren't literally present so we are only dealing with a narrow channel of sense experience to begin with. In any case, what does being able to tell from the outside have to do with whether or not the thing feels? If it is designed by experts to fool other people into thinking that it is alive, then so what if it succeeds at fooling everyone? Something can't fool itself into thinking that it is alive. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/0RjjHKGsZ6MJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:14, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. That's a good argument for saying that the level of substitution is not that low. But the reasoning would still go through, and we would lead to a unique computable universe. That is the only way to make a digital physics consistent (as I forget to say sometimes). Then you get a more complex other mind problem, and something like David Nyman- Hoyle beam would be needed, and would need to be separate from the physical reality, making the big physical whole incomplete, etc. yes this bothers me too. Needless to say, I tend to believe that if comp is true, the level is much higher. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. ? I would say that the contrary is true. It is because natural numbers exists, and seems to obeys laws like addition and multiplication that true propositions can be made on them. 2 exists, and only 1 and 2 divides 2, so 2 is prime, and thus prime numbers exists. 2 itself exists just because Ex(x = s(s(0))) is true. Indeed take x = s(s(0)), and the proposition follows from s(s(0)) = s(s(0)). Bruno Brent In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/Pc173EEJR4IJ . 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
Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:43:35 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg I don't like the word existence as it carries so much baggage with it. What you describe below is physical existence. That is a property of extended entities. I agree, existence means different things in different contexts. Inextended entities such as mind and 1p and thouights and feelings would be mentally existent. I try to avoid that confusion by using the word 'insist' and 'insistence' instead of exist when I am talking about the private half of the cosmos. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/rvrZdJNK-JQJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:48, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:14 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. Hear Hear! And if it is computable then it is nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. But can functions generate I/O from themselves? You lost me. Functions are set of I/O. We see nice examples of entire computable universes in MMORP games that have many people addicted to them. One thing about them, we require resources to be run. Nothing happens if you don't pay the fee. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. Platonism fails because it cannot explain how many minds interact. It is a wonderful ontology theory of a single mind, but not of many differing minds. I don't see this at all. many minds comes from the fact that universal machine can interact. That the easy thing to explain, seen also by Schmidhuber and Tegmark, but as Deustch argued, this explains to much. Yet Deustch critics either assumes non comp, or is inconsistent, as comp implies the realities used by Schmidhuber and Tegmark. What the three of them ignores is that this entails also the first person indeterminacy, and this makes the idea of interaction or physics entirely and necessarily retrievable from self-reference, and this works well until now. Then we have the Solovay gift, the splitting between provable and true-but-non-provable, whose intensional variants explains completely the quanta/qualia divergence. You keep saying that interaction is not explained by comp, but this makes no sense, as a computation, even in arithmetic, is only a matter of local interactions. It is the essence of computability to reduce activity into local tiny elementary interactions. Then physical-like interaction must be recovered at the more holistic level of the machine's epistemological person views. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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
Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One
I don't think that life or mind or intelligence can be teleported. Especially since nobody knows what they are. I also don't believe that you can download the contents of somebody's brain. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/5/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 11:04:53 Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:14, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. That's a good argument for saying that the level of substitution is not that low. But the reasoning would still go through, and we would lead to a unique computable universe. That is the only way to make a digital physics consistent (as I forget to say sometimes). Then you get a more complex other mind problem, and something like David Nyman- Hoyle beam would be needed, and would need to be separate from the physical reality, making the big physical whole incomplete, etc. yes this bothers me too. Needless to say, I tend to believe that if comp is true, the level is much higher. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. ? I would say that the contrary is true. It is because natural numbers exists, and seems to obeys laws like addition and multiplication that true propositions can be made on them. 2 exists, and only 1 and 2 divides 2, so 2 is prime, and thus prime numbers exists. 2 itself exists just because Ex(x = s(s(0))) is true. Indeed take x = s(s(0)), and the proposition follows from s(s(0)) = s(s(0)). Bruno Brent In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Re: Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One
Hi Craig Weinberg Insist. Interesting idea. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/5/2012 Leibniz would say, If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function. - Receiving the following content - From: Craig Weinberg Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-05, 11:07:00 Subject: Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:43:35 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg I don't like the word existence as it carries so much baggage with it. What you describe below is physical existence. That is a property of extended entities. I agree, existence means different things in different contexts. Inextended entities such as mind and 1p and thouights and feelings would be mentally existent. I try to avoid that confusion by using the word 'insist' and 'insistence' instead of exist when I am talking about the private half of the cosmos. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/rvrZdJNK-JQJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 11:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:48, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/5/2012 12:14 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. Hear Hear! And if it is computable then it is nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. But can functions generate I/O from themselves? You lost me. Functions are set of I/O. Input/Output is interfacing, it is at least a second-order function. More on this soon. We see nice examples of entire computable universes in MMORP games that have many people addicted to them. One thing about them, we require resources to be run. Nothing happens if you don't pay the fee. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. Platonism fails because it cannot explain how many minds interact. It is a wonderful ontology theory of a single mind, but not of many differing minds. I don't see this at all. many minds comes from the fact that universal machine can interact. With what? Itself? That the easy thing to explain, seen also by Schmidhuber and Tegmark, but as Deustch argued, this explains to much. Yet Deustch critics either assumes non comp, or is inconsistent, as comp implies the realities used by Schmidhuber and Tegmark. What the three of them ignores is that this entails also the first person indeterminacy, and this makes the idea of interaction or physics entirely and necessarily retrievable from self-reference, and this works well until now. Then we have the Solovay gift, the splitting between provable and true-but-non-provable, whose intensional variants explains completely the quanta/qualia divergence. Deutsch. Tegmark and Schmidhuber do not explicitly consider the interaction question and so miss the point. They seem to just assume the equivalent to 1p indeterminacy via local individuation. You keep saying that interaction is not explained by comp, but this makes no sense, as a computation, even in arithmetic, is only a matter of local interactions. How is locality explained by COMP? Locality induces the ability to distinguish what is otherwise indistinguishable. If
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? Brent -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 8:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, I don't think I understand that remark. Doesn't arithmetic *assume* combinators, i.e. + and * ? Brent and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can know it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space. -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 11:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote: For certain choices of this or that, the ultimate reality is actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely unknowable to the denizens of that computation. Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* bottom is the result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/measure on all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical commodities. Dear Bruno, I am trying hard to be sure that I understand your ideas here. Could you specify the cardinality of all universal machines? How many of them possibly exist? Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can know it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space. So is there or is there not something that corresponds to resources (such as memory) for the Universal machines in your thought? -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: The ability to test depends entirely on my familiarity with the human and how good the technology is. Can I touch them, smell them? If so, then I would be surprised if I could be fooled by an inorganic body. Has there ever been one synthetic imitation of a natural biological product that can withstand even moderate examination? If you limit the channel of my interaction with the robot however, I stand much less of a chance of being able to tell the difference. A video conference with the robot only requires that they look convincing on camera. We can't tell the difference between a live performance and a taped performance unless there is some clue in the content. That is because we aren't literally present so we are only dealing with a narrow channel of sense experience to begin with. In any case, what does being able to tell from the outside have to do with whether or not the thing feels? If it is designed by experts to fool other people into thinking that it is alive, then so what if it succeeds at fooling everyone? Something can't fool itself into thinking that it is alive. A film is nor a good example because you can't interact with it. The point is that if it is possible to make a robot that fools everyone then this is ipso facto a philosophical zombie. It doesn't feel but it pretends to feel. A corollary of this is that a philosophical zombie could display all the behaviour of a living being. So how can you be sure that living beings other than you are not zombies? Also, what is the evolutionary utility of consciousness if the same results could have in principle been obtained without it? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 05:37:18PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote: For certain choices of this or that, the ultimate reality is actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely unknowable to the denizens of that computation. Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* bottom is the result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/measure on all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical commodities. Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can know it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space. Bruno We're in perfect agreement here, actually, just expressing it differently! -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:13:05 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same. Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/VtFe7kfeGMQJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:13:05 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same. But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 10:32 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I agree with all you say, except the implication of the last sentence: that evolution would never produce results with some inessential side effect. First, evolution has to produce things by evolving - not starting from a clean sheet. In the case of consciousness I think it quite likely that this happened. Conscious thinking is similar to talking-to-yourself because evolution happened to take advantage of auditory processing of language to internalize symbolic cogitation. Second, even though the same result might be obtained in some other way, it might be less efficient in some sense to do so. We might conceivably make a human-acting robot that cogitated using a computer separate from the one used for processing language and while I think it would be conscious, it would be conscious in a different way. The most plausible explanation is that consciousness is a necessary side-effect of the type of information processing that goes at its simplest stimulus-response-behaviour modification. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 9:21:34 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:13:05 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote: The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. How would that work? The person would always respond to questions, like, Do you feel any different? in exactly the same way. How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same. But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations. If you have one hemisphere of your brain downloaded into a computer, and then live in the computer for a while and then upload it back into your brain - if that were feasible then you would theoretically retain some of the memory of your experience. You could then judge whether you remember it as being unpleasant or different in some way, or if it was like Spock's brain and you suddenly became a large facility without it really being an issue. Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/e2o77ucwaaMJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 11:26:43 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 10:32 AM, meekerdb meek...@verizon.netjavascript: wrote: I agree with all you say, except the implication of the last sentence: that evolution would never produce results with some inessential side effect. First, evolution has to produce things by evolving - not starting from a clean sheet. In the case of consciousness I think it quite likely that this happened. Conscious thinking is similar to talking-to-yourself because evolution happened to take advantage of auditory processing of language to internalize symbolic cogitation. Second, even though the same result might be obtained in some other way, it might be less efficient in some sense to do so. We might conceivably make a human-acting robot that cogitated using a computer separate from the one used for processing language and while I think it would be conscious, it would be conscious in a different way. The most plausible explanation is that consciousness is a necessary side-effect of the type of information processing that goes at its simplest stimulus-response-behaviour modification. I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why? Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/g28MxofJyqQJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations. But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or ligand concentration. We've talked about this before and it just isn't consistent with any scientific evidence. You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why? No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:32:21 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why? No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. This being is literally made out of nothing at all except the fact of these computations taking place somewhere...but where? You say not in the consciousness of the brains of the people, so where? In the lead of the pencils on paper? In the signals of the telephone calls? Why is this new being local to this process? How is it attached to the computation-ness? Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/7rqbFgCu5SAJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 10:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:25:02 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing, but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed. That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations. But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or ligand concentration. No, I only say that a thought can be generated from the top down, and that event is manifested in the brain as whatever changes in transmembrane potentials, ligand concentrations or ion channel status are appropriate. I can notice that I am breathing, or I can take a deep breath. Either way, there are similar neural pathways and mechanisms involved. Without knowing about free will, we could never tell the difference between the neurology of the voluntary act and the involuntary or semi-voluntary act. They would all appear not to contradict what chemists would predict, because their predictions don't specify when or where spontaneous brain activity will occur. We've talked about this before and it just isn't consistent with any scientific evidence. Your existence isn't consistent with any scientific evidence either. Science looks at objects. Consciousness is a subject. As long as science defines itself in that way, it is not possible for it to explain consciousness in any meaningful way. You interpret the existence spontaneous neural activity as meaning that something magical like this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all. Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't. Your theory is like the denial of evolution because those genetic variations might have been spontaneous (intentional) instead of random. But the point is that there is no need to hypothesize non-random, non-caused events in the brain. The randomness of thermodynamics, quantum radioactive decay, and external influences are plenty to account for the unpredictability you call spontaneous. There is no need hypothesize any extra 'magic'. Brent -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 10:44 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:32:21 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why? No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. That's where the hypothetical breaks down. The BPB would not have a body to control or a world to interact with. Could it have dream? Maybe - but it would need a simulated world to interact with in order to have human-like consciousness. Brent -- 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.
Sane2004 Step One
Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. *Step one* talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original. I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/Pc173EEJR4IJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/Pc173EEJR4IJ. 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. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 10:09:45 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. Maybe. In the sense that sleight of hand implies intentional deception. More of a de facto sleight of hand. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. If they do not apply to my worldview, then they compete with my worldview, so I am entitled to debunk the premises, if not the consequences of the argument. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. That's begging the question. Why are mathematical theses necessarily abstract? My point is that if we assume abstraction is possible from the start, then physics and subjective realism become irrelevant and redundant appendages. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. What is that implication or commitment based on? Naive preference for logic over sensation? In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. Why? They are counterfactuals for comp. If primitive realism is modeled on natural numbers, why does physically originated noise and entropy distort the execution of arithmetic processes but arithmetic processes do not, by themselves, counter things like signal attenuation? Good programs should heal bad wiring. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/kN-nRb3us5MJ. 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/4/2012 9:48 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least. Hi Craig, Excellent post! *Step one* talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient. Yep, the assumption is that the function that gives rise to Sense is exactly representable as countable and recursively enumerable functions. The trick is finding the machine configuration that matches each of these. That's where the engineers come in and the theorists go out the door. Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in? The person rides the computation, it is not located any particular place. But all this is predicated on the condition that consciousness is, at its more rubimentary level, nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. THe real question that we need to ask is: Might there be a point where we no longer are dealing with countable and recursively enumerable functions? What about countable and recursively enumerable functions that are coding for other countable and recursively enumerable functions? Are those still computable? So far the answer seems to be: Yes, they are. But what about the truth of the statements that those countable and recursively enumerable functions encode? Are they countable and recursively enumerable functions? Nope! Those are something else entirely! Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original. Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. This is where my head starts spinning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO9FD7zI7k0 with Bruno's ideas I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Ummhummm, but it is! Why is that is so amazing?! Out notion of individuality is tied to the autonomously moving and detecting and feeding and reproducing machine that our minds inhabit! Why does its precise constitution matter? All that matters is that it can exactly carry our the necessary functions. Individual minds are just different versions of one and the same mind! To steal an idea from Deutsch, Other histories are just different universes are just different minds... The hard question is: How the hell do they get synchronized with each other? We know that the synchronization cannot exist ahead of time, simply because that is a massive contradiction! What if the synchronization is just accidental (like Bruno proposes)? Well, not sure about how that would solve the problem! Why? Because the chances of an accidental synchronization of an arbitrarily long sequence of matchings between arbitrarily many minds (each defined in terms of infinitely many computations
Re: Sane2004 Step One
On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press the button faster if it heard the command faster, if that were also part of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you devise in order to prove that it was not? Stathis Papaioannou -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/4/2012 10:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. Hi Russel, In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of contingency? You cannot Choose what is Real! That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker! *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. The issue of I/O is not irrelevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. Note quite. AR is the stipulation that primitive reality = the natural numbers. The idea has been around for a long time. We silly humans simply cannot wrap our minds around the possibility that more exists than we can count! We must be able to count what we can communicate about in the context of any one message, but this does not place an upper finite bound on the host of possible messages. In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality because it is more familiar to his correspondents. Sure, but this results in a consistent solipsism of a single mind. It is a prison of reflections of itself, over and over, a Ground Hog Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA where there is no possible escape. I am interested in a non-prison version of comp. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from? Again, these two questions seem irrelevant. No, you just don't understand him. Craig -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. It doesn't assume that. A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer. Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution. Brent This is where my head starts spinning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO9FD7zI7k0 with Bruno's ideas.. -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/4/2012 9:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Hi Russel, In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of contingency? You cannot Choose what is Real! But you choose what is real in your theory of the world. Then you see how well your theory measures up. The Standard Model is a theory of energy and matter that has passed thousands of empirical tests to very high accuracy. Its ontology is elementary particles. It replaced a lot of other theories that had different ontologies. That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker! So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist? Brent -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 12:14 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions: *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity. Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your worldview. I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable. Hear Hear! And if it is computable then it is nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. But can functions generate I/O from themselves? We see nice examples of entire computable universes in MMORP games that have many people addicted to them. One thing about them, we require resources to be run. Nothing happens if you don't pay the fee. *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation? It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two questions simply are relevant. *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural numbers. ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against. Platonism fails because it cannot explain how many minds interact. It is a wonderful ontology theory of a single mind, but not of many differing minds. Brent -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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: Sane2004 Step One
On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness. If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. It doesn't assume that. A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer. Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution. Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this: Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some Dark Energy. I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from? Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running. What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines! Could the brain be a CC that is running on a QC. It would make the many drafts model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_drafts_model work! Dennett would be so proud. (Not really!) Brent -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- 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.
