Re: [Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis

[Bruno Marchal]

gt;>>> interesting contributions into a paper with the title
>>>>   Is 
>>>> information physical?
>>>>and publish it in his esteemed Journal.
>>>>
>>>>Sincerely,
>>>>Mark Burgin
>>>> 
>>>> On 5/11/2018 3:20 AM, Karl Javorszky wrote:
>>>>> Dear Arturo,  
>>>>>  
>>>>>  
>>>>> There were some reports in clinical psychology, about 30 years ago, that 
>>>>> relate to the question whether a machine can pretend to be a therapist. 
>>>>> That was the time as computers could newly be used in an interactive 
>>>>> fashion, and the Rogers techniques were a current discovery.
>>>>> (Rogers developed a dialogue method where one does not address the 
>>>>> contents of what the patient says, but rather the emotional aspects of 
>>>>> the message, assumed to be at work in the patient.)
>>>>>  
>>>>> They then said, that in some cases it was indistinguishable, whether a 
>>>>> human or a machine provides the answer to a patient's elucidations. 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Progress since then has surely made possible to create machines that are 
>>>>> indistinguishable in interaction to humans. Indeed, what is called 
>>>>> "expert systems ", are widely used in many fields. If the interaction is 
>>>>> rational,  that is: formally equivalent to a logical discussion modi 
>>>>> Wittgenstein, the difference in: "who arrived at this answer, machinery 
>>>>> or a human", becomes irrelevant. 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Artistry, intuition, creativity are presently seen as not possible to 
>>>>> translate into Wittgenstein sentences. Maybe the inner instincts are not 
>>>>> yet well understood. But!: there are some who are busily undermining the 
>>>>> current fundamentals of rational thinking. So there is hope that we shall 
>>>>> live to experience the ultimate disillusionment,  namely that humans are 
>>>>> a combinatorial tautology. 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Accordingly, may I respectfully express opposing views to what you state: 
>>>>> that machines and humans are of incompatible builds. There are hints that 
>>>>> as far as rational capabilities go, the same principles apply. There is a 
>>>>> rest, you say, which is not of this kind. The counter argument says that 
>>>>> irrational processes do not take place in organisms, therefore what you 
>>>>> refer to belongs to the main process, maybe like waste belongs to the 
>>>>> organism's principle. This view draws a picture of a functional biotope, 
>>>>> in which the waste of one kind of organism is raw material for a 
>>>>> different kind. 
>>>>>  
>>>>> Karl 
>>>>>  
>>>>> < <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it>tozziart...@libero.it 
>>>>> <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it>> schrieb am Do., 10. Mai 2018 15:24:
>>>>>> Dear Bruno, 
>>>>>> You state: 
>>>>>> "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science,
>>>>>> THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. 
>>>>>> “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
>>>>>> ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level 
>>>>>> of description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel 
>>>>>> any change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating 
>>>>>> the brain/body at that level of description".
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The problem of your account is the following:
>>>>>> You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS".
>>>>>> Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically 
>>>>>> tested and it is not empirically testable.  You are starting with a sort 
>>>>>> of postulate: I, and other people, do not agree with it.  The current 
>>>>>> neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can be replaced 
>>>>>> by) a digital machine.
>>>>>> In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly does not 
>>>>>> exist in

Re: [Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis

[Bruno Marchal]

mplicitly mechanism, because 
non-mechanism would require infinite amount of information in the brain or 
body, which would make the cellular organism unable to use redundancy and 
approximation to learn the tasks needed to survive. Most of science is 
mechanistic. Quantum mechanics is a priori computable, except for ad hoc non 
computable solution of the SWE, like Ae^iHt with H invoking a non computable 
real numbers. If we are machine, we would not even recognise such a wave.


> The results in common with the scientific knowledge are just coincidental, I 
> believe. 
> 
This can be said for all confirmation of any theory in science.




> On the other side, Robert Grosseteste talks about the big bang in 1228, based 
> on simple logical accounts, and Eraclitus talks about the vacuum.  Just 
> coincidences.  
> 

In science we can never know-for-sure if a theory is true or false. We can only 
judge them plausible or not plausible. We might know them in the Theaetetus’ 
sense: i.e., we can believe/assume them, and they might be true.
Even in pure arithmetic, it is simpler and better to always consider the axioms 
as question, in need of confirmations. Now, it could be debated that arithmetic 
is the theory closest to “certainty”, but I do avoid that debate, as I am not a 
philosopher. I offer a result: IF mechanism is true, then physicalism is false. 
Or if you prefer the equivalent If physicalism is true, then Mechanism is 
false. Then I show how to test this, and explains that the retrospective facts 
(quantum mechanics) fits with Mechanism and not with Materialism. 

I don’t let people know my opinion on that issue, as that would indeed be 
confusing. I only and rarely express myself, and only when people have grasped 
the results. Nor do I claim my proof is 100% valid, but I cry since more than 
40 years for people helping me to find the error. Eventually, they stated to 
suggest I defend this as a thesis, as that would be the simplest way to get a 
refutation or correction. But the jury did not find any mistake, so I got a PhD 
title instead. How frustrating. Maybe there is just no error, after all.

I think that people who fear mechanism, confuse automata and universal machine. 
The first are controllable and predictable in principle. The second are not 
controllable, nor predictable, intrinsically. In fact a universal machine can 
defeat all mechanist metaphor made to explain her. Its first person, or soul, 
knows that she is not a machine from its/her private first person view. Only 
“god” (the arithmetical truth is enough her) knows better.

Best,

Bruno



> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
> 
> lunedì, 21 maggio 2018, 00:16PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
> 
> Dear Arturo,
> 
> This is already my second post of this week, so you might answer to my two 
> posts, and I will comment your possible answer (if necessary) next week. 
> Thank you.
> 
> 
>> On 20 May 2018, at 19:30, tozziart...@libero.it 
>> <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Bruno, 
>> You talk about "some non mechanical super-entities (which exist also in the 
>> arithmetical reality)".
>> This way of reasoning throws us into the realm of the philosophy of 
>> mathematics, in which you clearly pursue a neo-platonism in the traces of 
>> Tegmark, Godel, Husserl, Tiles, against Carnap, Hilbert, Stuart Mill, 
>> Poincare', Brouwer, Lakoff & Nunez, Dehaene, Maddy, Field, Lakatos, 
>> Benacerraf.  
>> 
>> 
> 
> Well, actually it is Tegmark which follows my lead, as he sent me his first 
> draft of the “mathematical universe”, and took my suggestion into account 
> when adding computationalism, but he missed the 1P/3p distinction, so my 
> older studies remains more consistent. Actually, he cite my papers in the 
> draft, but I guess was not able to maintain it for publication. Many told me 
> that there is some resistance, not to my ideas, but personal or political (I 
> don’t know as I have never met such opponents).
> But I have been influenced by Benacerraf and also Judson Webb, etc. (and of 
> course Gödel, Hilbert, etc.).
> 
> Yet my approach is different. I start from the computationalist hypothesis, 
> and everything I say is derived from it, first informally (the universal 
> dovetailer argument) and formally (in the more mathematical part).
> 
> 
>> Your idea is interesting and intriguing,  related as it is to the philosophy 
>> of mathematics. 
>> 
> It can be related to philosophy of mathematics, but that is a work which 
> remains to be done. 
> 
>> However, your idea has nothing to do with the concepts of scientific method 
>> and of testable hypothesis. 
>> 
> That is not correct. I prove that if Mec

Re: [Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Arturo,

This is already my second post of this week, so you might answer to my two 
posts, and I will comment your possible answer (if necessary) next week. Thank 
you.


> On 20 May 2018, at 19:30, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:
> 
> Dear Bruno, 
> You talk about "some non mechanical super-entities (which exist also in the 
> arithmetical reality)".
> This way of reasoning throws us into the realm of the philosophy of 
> mathematics, in which you clearly pursue a neo-platonism in the traces of 
> Tegmark, Godel, Husserl, Tiles, against Carnap, Hilbert, Stuart Mill, 
> Poincare', Brouwer, Lakoff & Nunez, Dehaene, Maddy, Field, Lakatos, 
> Benacerraf.  
> 
> 

Well, actually it is Tegmark which follows my lead, as he sent me his first 
draft of the “mathematical universe”, and took my suggestion into account when 
adding computationalism, but he missed the 1P/3p distinction, so my older 
studies remains more consistent. Actually, he cite my papers in the draft, but 
I guess was not able to maintain it for publication. Many told me that there is 
some resistance, not to my ideas, but personal or political (I don’t know as I 
have never met such opponents).
But I have been influenced by Benacerraf and also Judson Webb, etc. (and of 
course Gödel, Hilbert, etc.).

Yet my approach is different. I start from the computationalist hypothesis, and 
everything I say is derived from it, first informally (the universal dovetailer 
argument) and formally (in the more mathematical part).


> Your idea is interesting and intriguing,  related as it is to the philosophy 
> of mathematics. 
> 
It can be related to philosophy of mathematics, but that is a work which 
remains to be done. 

> However, your idea has nothing to do with the concepts of scientific method 
> and of testable hypothesis. 
> 
That is not correct. I prove that if Mechanism is true, the physical reality is 
“in the head of the universal Turing machine”. 
That makes Mechanism testable, by comparing the physics which is in the head of 
the machine with the physics that we infer from observation. When I was young I 
concluded that Mechanism is refuted, but I was naive and ignorant of quantum 
mechanics, which eventually confirmed all the weirdness that I got from 
mechanism, like indeterminacy, non locality, non cloning, the possibility of 
many “parallel” computations/worlds and the possibility to extract a material 
sort of information (confirmed by the notion of quantum information). A lot of 
works remains to be done, but until now, mechanism is confirmed by nature, when 
physicalism + mechanism is refuted by nature. Physicalism + non mechanism is 
still an option, though, but is it really plausible? I don’t know. As a 
scientist, I do not defend any options. I just show mechanism testable and 
confirmed up to now.




> You are talking about philosophy, not about science.  
> 
> 

The complete contrary. I avoid doing philosophy. That is especially important 
when tacking some philosophical questions (at least classify as such by 
Aristotelians) and show them testable experimentally. 


> I feel myself closer to the scientific method than to the logic underlying 
> the philosophy, therefore I prefer to spend my time in reading scientific 
> papers.  
> 

Then study well my papers, because there is no statements which are not 
testable. The whole goal of my work was to show that metaphysics and theology, 
in the frame of some hypothesis, become amenable to the scientific method.I 
literally predicted quantum mechanics from pure arithmetic + mechanism a long 
time ago. Then my thesis shows that all universal machine finds this when 
looking inward (in the sense of Gödel’s self-reference).


> Possibly innovative, always deeply grounded in an experimental context.  
> 
> 

I am with you on this. It is the whole point of my research. Too show that 
thanks to Gödel’s and Turing’s discovery, and some works, we can test today if 
Aristotle Primary Matter hypothesis is confirmed by Nature. But the results is 
that Plato is confirmed, and Aristotle is debunked. We can say that we have 
looked closely at Nature, and that it confirms the immaterialism of Mechanism. 
Nature exists phenomenologically, as we recover its logic and laws from 
arithmetic when we assume computationalism. But assuming some primary matter 
re-introduce the mind-body problem. As there has never been any evidence for 
primary matter found yet, better to not add it.

Bruno




> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
> 
> domenica, 20 maggio 2018, 07:06PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
> 
> Hi Dai Griffith, Hi Colleagues,
> 
> 
>> On 17 May 2018, at 13:44, Dai Griffiths > <mailto:dai.griffith...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> What is a 'thing'? 
>> 
> 
> I assume 

Re: [Fis] Everett & quantum wave collapse

[Bruno Marchal]

n, we get again a realist, deterministic and local theory, which is 
consistent with special relativity.

The collapse postulate, on the contrary, introduce 3p indeterminacy (hardly 
imaginable), non-locality (Einstein’s spooky FTL (faster than light) action at 
a distance, and an unintelligible cut between the observed and the observer.

Then, with computationalism, there are no world at all. There are simply all 
computations, which already exists as a consequences of elementary addition and 
multiplication.

That is why I have begun to find Computationalism plausible, as it predicted 
1p-indeterminism, 1p-non-locality, and the non cloning of matter, and all this 
from arithmetic, or from any Turing universal machinery.

This shows that there are much more evidence and conceptual simplicity in 
Everett QM than in Copenhagen QM. The collapse appears to be a quite 
extra-ordinary process for which there are no evidence at all, given that the 
wave equation explains entirely why it looks like if there was a collapse, but 
without any collapse.

When poll are done at congress in cosmology or quantum computing, about half of 
the physicists endorse the non collapse theory, as it is covariant, and has no 
“measurement problem”. 

Bruno



> 
> 
>> Il 17 maggio 2018 alle 11.25 Bruno Marchal  ha scritto: 
>> 
>> Dear Arturo,
>> 
>> 
>>> On 14 May 2018, at 12:25, tozziart...@libero.it 
>>> <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Daer Bruno, 
>>> 
>>> first of all, sorry for the previous private communication, but for a 
>>> mistake, I did not add the FIS list in the CC. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Concerning your Faith, i.e., arithmetic,
>>> 
>> I agree it is faith, but it is less faith than any scientists. Especially 
>> that we need only a tiny part of the arithmetical truth. 
>> 
>> Did you have heard about someone taking back his/her children from primary 
>> school when they are taught the laws of addition and multiplication, by 
>> claiming they have not that faith?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> this appraoch... simply does not work for the description of physical and 
>>> biological issues. 
>>> 
>> The approach just study the necessary logical consequence of assuming our 
>> bodies to be digitalisable.  I predicted all the quantum weirdness from this 
>> 45 years ago. But then it took me 30 years to get precise mathematical 
>> predictions, which until now fits with the fact, when physicalism needs a 
>> brain-mind identity thesis which has been shown inconsistent. 
>> I am not sure why you say that Mechanism cannot work for physical and 
>> biological issues. You might confuse the computable (like automata), and the 
>> semi-computable (like the universal Turing machine).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> It is just in our mind.  See: 
>>> 
>>> http://vixra.org/abs/1804.0132 <http://vixra.org/abs/1804.0132>
>>> 
>> 
>> What do you mean by “real world”?
>> I agree Euclid geometry is in our head. The whole physical reality is indeed 
>> shown to be “in the head” of *any* universal machine or universal number, 
>> etc.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm not confusing digital physics with Mechanism, and I read, of course, 
>>> the work of Everett (the original mathematical one), and it is exactly like 
>>> Mechanism: an untestable, fashinating analogy.  He wants, without any 
>>> possibility of proof, to extend the realm of quantum dynamics to the whole 
>>> macroscopic world. 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> For a logician; Everett is the Herbrand model of the Schroedinger equation, 
>> that is QM without the unintelligible “collapse” of the wave. Put simply: 
>> the “many-world” is just literal quantum mechanics without collapse.
>> Everett did not propose a new speculative theory: he just showed that we 
>> don’t need the collapse axiom, as QM + mechanism recovers it 
>> phenomenologically. Then my work shows this can work only if we recover also 
>> the wave itself from arithmetic (or Turing equivalent).
>> 
>> It is the collapse which is bad and unclear, and not needed, untestable, 
>> assumption. 
>> 
>> 
>>> When you state that:
>>> 
>>>> "the reality becomes the universal mind (the mind of the universal Turing 
>>>> machine) and the physical is the border of the universal mind viewed from 
>>>> inside that universal mind".
>>> you are saying something that, reductionistic or not (I do not understand 
>>> your emphasis on this rather trascu

Re: [Fis] Is information physical? A logical analysis

[Bruno Marchal]

>> That was the time as computers could newly be used in an interactive 
>>> fashion, and the Rogers techniques were a current discovery.
>>> (Rogers developed a dialogue method where one does not address the contents 
>>> of what the patient says, but rather the emotional aspects of the message, 
>>> assumed to be at work in the patient.)
>>> 
>>> They then said, that in some cases it was indistinguishable, whether a 
>>> human or a machine provides the answer to a patient's elucidations. 
>>> 
>>> Progress since then has surely made possible to create machines that are 
>>> indistinguishable in interaction to humans. Indeed, what is called "expert 
>>> systems ", are widely used in many fields. If the interaction is rational,  
>>> that is: formally equivalent to a logical discussion modi Wittgenstein, the 
>>> difference in: "who arrived at this answer, machinery or a human", becomes 
>>> irrelevant. 
>>> 
>>> Artistry, intuition, creativity are presently seen as not possible to 
>>> translate into Wittgenstein sentences. Maybe the inner instincts are not 
>>> yet well understood. But!: there are some who are busily undermining the 
>>> current fundamentals of rational thinking. So there is hope that we shall 
>>> live to experience the ultimate disillusionment,  namely that humans are a 
>>> combinatorial tautology. 
>>> 
>>> Accordingly, may I respectfully express opposing views to what you state: 
>>> that machines and humans are of incompatible builds. There are hints that 
>>> as far as rational capabilities go, the same principles apply. There is a 
>>> rest, you say, which is not of this kind. The counter argument says that 
>>> irrational processes do not take place in organisms, therefore what you 
>>> refer to belongs to the main process, maybe like waste belongs to the 
>>> organism's principle. This view draws a picture of a functional biotope, in 
>>> which the waste of one kind of organism is raw material for a different 
>>> kind. 
>>> 
>>> Karl 
>>> 
>>> mailto:tozziart...@libero.it>> schrieb am Do., 10. 
>>> Mai 2018 15:24:
>>> Dear Bruno, 
>>> You state: 
>>> "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science,
>>> THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. 
>>> “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
>>> ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of 
>>> description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any 
>>> change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the 
>>> brain/body at that level of description".
>>> 
>>> The problem of your account is the following:
>>> You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS".
>>> Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically tested 
>>> and it is not empirically testable.  You are starting with a sort of 
>>> postulate: I, and other people, do not agree with it.  The current 
>>> neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can be replaced by) 
>>> a digital machine.
>>> In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly does not exist 
>>> in our real world.  Here your entire building falls down.  
>>> --
>>> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
>>> 
>>> giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
>>> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
>>> 
>>> (This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I resend it, 
>>> with minor changes). Problems due to different accounts. It was my first 
>>> comment to Mark Burgin new thread “Is information physical?”.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological orders, as my new 
>>> computer classifies them in some mysterious way!
>>> This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if any, at the 
>>> end of the week.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark >>> <mailto:mbur...@math.ucla.edu>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>> 
>>>> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
>>>> 
>>>>   Is information physical?
>>> 
>&

Re: [Fis] [FIS] Is information physical?

[Bruno Marchal]

> 

The logicians are the one who discovered the universal machine (computer), 
before it was build. You are using one just now. You seem to ignore Gödel’s 
contribution, which in my opinion is, when we assume mechanism (the older 
metaphysical/theological assumption)  the most important result ever discovered 
by the humans.


> Sorry again! 
> 
> 

You don’t need to be sorry, but my feeling is that you are not aware of the 
result that I got. It is science, which means that it is not a question of 
agreeing or disagreeing, but of understanding or refuting.
Maybe you could study the following papers (if interested):

Marchal B. The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body problem. Prog 
Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40

Marchal B. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in 
Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.

B. Marchal. The Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations. In 4th International 
System Administration and Network Engineering Conference, SANE 2004, Amsterdam, 
2004.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 
(sane04)

Plotinus PDF paper link:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf
(Reference: Marchal, B, 2007, B. Marchal. A Purely Arithmetical, yet 
Empirically Falsifiable, Interpretation of Plotinus’ Theory of Matter. In Barry 
Cooper S. Löwe B., Kent T. F. and Sorbi A., editors, Computation and Logic in 
the Real World, Third Conference on Computability in Europe June 18-23, pages 
263–273. Universita degli studi di Sienna, Dipartimento di Roberto Magari, 
2007).

The math part requires some background in mathematical logic including 
provability logics, like:

G. Boolos. 1979, The Unprovability of Consistency, an Essay in Modal Logic, 
Cambridge University Press.

G. Boolos. The Logic of Provability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 
1993.


Best,

Bruno

PS That is my second message. Possible comment next week.


>   
> 
> 
> 
>> -- Messaggio originale -- 
>> Da: Bruno Marchal  
>> A: FIS Webinar  
>> Data: 14 maggio 2018 alle 11.48 
>> Oggetto: Re: [Fis] [FIS] Is information physical? 
>> 
>> Dear Arturo, Dear Colleagues, 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 11 May 2018, at 18:36, tozziart...@libero.it 
>>> <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear Bruno, 
>>> I'm sorry, but I cannot agree.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> I take a disagreement as a courtesy to pursue a conversation, which would be 
>> boring without them.
>> 
>> But, what I say has been proved, peer reviewed by many, so it is perhaps 
>> more a matter of understanding than of agreeing.
>> 
>> Or you are just telling me that you disbelieve in Mechanism. I prefer to 
>> remain agnostic.
>> 
>> Mechanism is my working hypothesis. The idea is to take it seriously until 
>> we find a contradiction (internal or with the observation). It is a common 
>> by default type of hypothesis, held by many people, notably most 
>> materialist. But here I can prove that (even weak) materialism (the belief 
>> in ontological primary substances/matter) is inconsistent with (even weak) 
>> mechanism. See my papers for this, it is not entirely obvious. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> "eve­ntually I found a co­nceptually isomorphic explanation in 
>>> ari­thmetic."  Isomorphy is a dangerous claim: the underliying mechanisms 
>>> in biology could be something other than isomorphism (i.e., an Ehresmann 
>>> connection in a hyperbolic manifold, as it occurs in gauge theories).
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Nothing in the observation point on either primary matter, nor on non 
>> mechanism. I am not sure why you think that Ehresmann connection or gauge 
>> theories are non mechanist. Actually Mechanism entails that the physical 
>> phenomenology cannot be mechanistic. You might confuse Mechanism in the 
>> cognitive science with digital physics. 
>> 
>> Digital physics (the idea that the physical reality is Turing emulable) does 
>> not make any sense. It entails mechanism, but mechanism entails the falsity 
>> of digital physics (see my paper or ask question: that is not obvious). So, 
>> with or without Mechanism, Digital Physics makes no sense.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Futhermore, you simply change the name of the primum movens, the first 
>>> principium: instead of calling it physics, you call it arithmetic.  This is 
>>> as fideistic as the Carnap's physicalist claims.  
>>> 
>> ?
>> 
>> Physics assumes Arithmetic.
>> 
>> Arithmetic do not assume physics.
>> 
>> I can fo

Re: [Fis] [FIS] Is information physical?

[Bruno Marchal]

 predicted the many-worlds from mechanism and 
arithmetic much before I knew about quantum physics, but it took me 30 years of 
works to derive precisely the quantum logical formalism. Needless to say, many 
open problems remains, but if we count the experimental evidences, they all add 
yup to mechanism, and none add up to (even weak) materialism. With Mechanism, 
Mark Burgin is right: information is not physical, but so is matter and the 
whole object of physics. Abstractly; the reality becomes the universal mind 
(the mind of the universal Turing machine) and the physical is the border of 
the universal mind viewed from inside that universal mind. Again, I do not 
defend that claim. I show it testable only.

Best regards,


Bruno


> 
> 
> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
> 
> venerdì, 11 maggio 2018, 06:03PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
> 
> Dear Arturo,
> 
> 
>> On 10 May 2018, at 15:23, tozziart...@libero.it 
>> <mailto:tozziart...@libero.it> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Bruno, 
>> You state: 
>> "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science,
>> THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. 
>> “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
>> ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of 
>> description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any 
>> change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the 
>> brain/body at that level of description".
>> 
>> The problem of your account is the following:
>> You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS”.
>> 
> Yes, indeed. It is my working hypothesis. The idea came when asking myself 
> how an amoeba can build an amoeba. Then I discovered the solution provided by 
> molecular genetics, and eventually I found a conceptually isomorphic 
> explanation in arithmetic. Note that by making explicit the use of the level 
> of description, my hypothesis is much weaker than most form of 
> computationalism you can see in the literature. My reasoning would remain 
> valid even if my body is the entire universe, described by quantum string 
> theory with 10^(10^100) exact decimals.
> 
>> Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically tested 
>> and it is not empirically testable.  
>> 
> I start from an hypothesis and show, on the contrary that it is testable. I 
> predicted well before I knew anything on quantum mechanics that Mechanism 
> entails that if we look at nature below our substitution level, we should 
> find the trace of infinitely many computations, and only later did I discover 
> that quantum mechanics, without the wave collapse, entails something very 
> similar. But Mechanism leads also to a complete formalism for both quanta and 
> qualia, and here too, the theory/hypothesis match with facts. As it predicts 
> a richer formalism, some crucial tests remain to be done. 
> 
> 
> 
>> You are starting with a sort of postulate: I, and other people, do not agree 
>> with it. 
>> 
> I prefer to not say my opinion. I am not defending Mechanism. I show it 
> testable. My goal consists in showing that we can do metaphysics with the 
> scientific method, where we never claim that something is true, just that the 
> evidences makes it plausible.
> 
> The negation of the digital mechanist theory is usually considered as more 
> “extra-ordinary”, as it implies either actual infinities, or some sort of 
> magic. If you think that a brain is not Turing emulable, you might be the one 
> to whom people can ask: what is your evidence? You might need to refer to 
> something non computable in Nature and not recoverable through the first 
> person indeterminacy. Note that mechanism entails that physics is NOT 
> emulable by a Turing machine, and that consciousness is NOT emulable by a 
> machine), so you need special sort of infinities. In fact, 
> non-computationalism can only benefit from the study of computationalism, as 
> it shows what is need for a theory to be a non-computationalist theory of 
> mind. 
> 
> 
> 
>> The current neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can be 
>> replaced by) a digital machine.
>> 
> At which level?
> 
> Except for the famous but controversial “reduction of the wave packet” we 
> still don’t have find in Nature a non computable process. That might exist, 
> as we can “mathematically” find non computable solution to the Schroedinger 
> equation, but those are not of the type we observe anywhere.
> 
> 
> 
>> In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly d

Re: [Fis] [FIS] Is information physical?

[Bruno Marchal]

urvived with some brain prosthesis. The moral question will eventually be this 
one: “do you accept that your son or daughter marry someone having got an 
artificial hippocampus prosthesis? 

Bruno


> --
> Inviato da Libero Mail per Android
> 
> giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be 
> <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
> 
> (This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I resend it, with 
> minor changes). Problems due to different accounts. It was my first comment 
> to Mark Burgin new thread “Is information physical?”.
> 
> 
> Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues,
> 
> 
> Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological orders, as my new 
> computer classifies them in some mysterious way!
> This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if any, at the end 
> of the week.
> 
> 
>> On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark > <mailto:mbur...@math.ucla.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> 
>> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
>> 
>>   Is information physical?
>> 
> 
> That is an important topic indeed, very close to what I am working on. 
> 
> My result here is that 
> 
> IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, 
> 
> THEN  “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. 
> “physical” becomes a mathematical notion.
> 
> The proof is constructive. It shows exactly how to derive physics from 
> Arithmetic (the reality, not the theory. I use “reality” instead of “model" 
> (logician’s term, because physicists use “model" for “theory").
> 
> Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of 
> description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any 
> change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the 
> brain/body at that level of description.
> 
> Not only information is not physical, but matter, time, space, and all 
> physical objects become part of the universal machine phenomenology. Physics 
> is reduced to arithmetic, or, equivalently, to any Turing-complete machinery. 
> Amazingly Arithmetic (even the tiny semi-computable part of arithmetic) is 
> Turing complete (Turing Universal).
> 
> The basic idea is that:
> 
> 1) no universal machine can distinguish if she is executed by an arithmetical 
> reality or by a physical reality. And,
> 
> 2) all universal machines are executed in arithmetic, and they are 
> necessarily undetermined on the set of of all its continuations emulated in 
> arithmetic. 
> 
> That reduces physics to a statistics on all computations relative to my 
> actual state, and see from some first person points of view (something I can 
> describe more precisely in some future post perhaps).
> 
> Put in that way, the proof is not constructive, as, if we are machine, we 
> cannot know which machine we are. But Gödel’s incompleteness can be used to 
> recover this constructively for a simpler machine than us, like Peano 
> arithmetic. This way of proceeding enforces the distinction between first and 
> third person views (and six others!).
> 
> I have derived already many feature of quantum mechanics from this (including 
> the possibility of quantum computer) a long time ago.  I was about sure this 
> would refute Mechanism, until I learned about quantum mechanics, which 
> verifies all the most startling predictions of Indexical Mechanism, unless we 
> add the controversial wave collapse reduction principle.
> 
> The curious “many-worlds” becomes the obvious (in arithmetic) many 
> computations (up to some equivalence quotient). The weird indeterminacy 
> becomes the simpler amoeba like duplication. The non-cloning of matter 
> becomes obvious: as any piece of matter is the result of the first person 
> indeterminacy (the first person view of the amoeba undergoing a duplication, 
> …) on infinitely many computations. This entails also that neither matter 
> appearance nor consciousness are Turing emulable per se, as the whole 
> arithmetical reality—which is a highly non computable notion as we know since 
> Gödel—plays a key role. Note this makes Digital Physics leaning to 
> inconsistency, as it implies indexical computationalism which implies the 
> negation of Digital Physics (unless my “body” is the entire physical 
> universe, which I rather doubt).
> 
>> My opinion is presented below:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
>>
>>The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong 
>> belief of many people, especially, scientists that there is 

Re: [Fis] [FIS] Is information physical?

[Bruno Marchal]

(This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I resend it, with 
minor changes). Problems due to different accounts. It was my first comment to 
Mark Burgin new thread “Is information physical?”.


Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues,


Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological orders, as my new 
computer classifies them in some mysterious way!
This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if any, at the end 
of the week.


> On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark  > wrote:
> 
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion
> 
>   Is information physical?
> 

That is an important topic indeed, very close to what I am working on. 

My result here is that 

IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, 

THEN  “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. 
“physical” becomes a mathematical notion.

The proof is constructive. It shows exactly how to derive physics from 
Arithmetic (the reality, not the theory. I use “reality” instead of “model" 
(logician’s term, because physicists use “model" for “theory").

Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of 
description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any 
change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the 
brain/body at that level of description.

Not only information is not physical, but matter, time, space, and all physical 
objects become part of the universal machine phenomenology. Physics is reduced 
to arithmetic, or, equivalently, to any Turing-complete machinery. Amazingly 
Arithmetic (even the tiny semi-computable part of arithmetic) is Turing 
complete (Turing Universal).

The basic idea is that:

1) no universal machine can distinguish if she is executed by an arithmetical 
reality or by a physical reality. And,

2) all universal machines are executed in arithmetic, and they are necessarily 
undetermined on the set of of all its continuations emulated in arithmetic. 

That reduces physics to a statistics on all computations relative to my actual 
state, and see from some first person points of view (something I can describe 
more precisely in some future post perhaps).

Put in that way, the proof is not constructive, as, if we are machine, we 
cannot know which machine we are. But Gödel’s incompleteness can be used to 
recover this constructively for a simpler machine than us, like Peano 
arithmetic. This way of proceeding enforces the distinction between first and 
third person views (and six others!).

I have derived already many feature of quantum mechanics from this (including 
the possibility of quantum computer) a long time ago.  I was about sure this 
would refute Mechanism, until I learned about quantum mechanics, which verifies 
all the most startling predictions of Indexical Mechanism, unless we add the 
controversial wave collapse reduction principle.

The curious “many-worlds” becomes the obvious (in arithmetic) many computations 
(up to some equivalence quotient). The weird indeterminacy becomes the simpler 
amoeba like duplication. The non-cloning of matter becomes obvious: as any 
piece of matter is the result of the first person indeterminacy (the first 
person view of the amoeba undergoing a duplication, …) on infinitely many 
computations. This entails also that neither matter appearance nor 
consciousness are Turing emulable per se, as the whole arithmetical 
reality—which is a highly non computable notion as we know since Gödel—plays a 
key role. Note this makes Digital Physics leaning to inconsistency, as it 
implies indexical computationalism which implies the negation of Digital 
Physics (unless my “body” is the entire physical universe, which I rather 
doubt).

> My opinion is presented below:
> 
> 
> 
>Why some people erroneously think that information is physical
>
>The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong belief 
> of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical reality, 
> which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter something 
> that they call information.
>When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information 
> because with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, 
> i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking that information 
> is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is 
> information because with the e-mail they receive information. The e-mail 
> comes to the computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are 
> physical. As a result, people start thinking even more that information is 
> physical.
>However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects 
> are only carriers or containers of information.
>To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to say 
> that this bo

Re: [Fis] The Concept of Two

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 25 Apr 2018, at 19:51, Alex Hankey  wrote:
> 
> Extract from Louis Kauffman: 
> 
> Two is a concept and it is outside of formal systems and outside of the 
> physical
> except in that we who have that concept are linked with formalism and linked 
> with the apparent physical 
> 
> WHAT SAY YOU BRUNO?

I am glad Lou says this. I totally agree (even without computationalism). 

2 exists independently of the physical, and indeed the physical illusion comes 
from 2 & Co. But our human bodies evolved from that physical, and so, we are 
discovering 2 through the physical and the formalism. But those are explained 
with 2 & Co at the fundamental level (necessarily so if we assume mechanism).

Best,

Bruno

PS last message of this week.

> 
> Alex 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
> Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
> SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
> Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India  
> Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 
> Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789
> 
> 
> 2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences, Mathematics 
> and Phenomenological Philosophy 
> 
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Re: [Fis] Is information physical? OR Does the information exist without the carrier?

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Lou, Colleagues,


> On 25 Apr 2018, at 16:55, Louis H Kauffman  wrote:
> 
> Dear Krassimir and Mark,
> Let us not forget the intermediate question:
> How is information independent of the choice of carrier?
> This is the fruitful question in my opinion, and it avoids the problem of 
> assigning existence to that which is relational.
> 
> The same problem exists for numbers and other mathematical entities. Does the 
> number 2 exist without any couples?
> The mathematical answer is to construct a standard couple (e.g. { { }, {{}} } 
> in set theory or two marks || in formalism) and say that 
> a collection has cardinality two if it can be placed in 1-1 correspondence 
> with the standard couple. In this way of speaking we do not have to 
> assign an existence to two as a noun. The Russelian alternative  — to take 
> two to be the collection of all couples — is a fascinating intellectual move, 
> but
> I prefer to avoid it by not having to speak of the existence of two in such a 
> way. Two is a concept and it is outside of formal systems and outside of the 
> physical
> except in that we who have that concept are linked with formalism and linked 
> with the apparent physical.
> 
> And let us not forget the other question.
> What is "the physical”?
> What we take to be physical arises as a relation between our sensing (and 
> generalized sensing) and our ability to form concepts.
> To imagine that the “physical” exists independent of that relation is an 
> extra assumption that is not necessary for scientific work, however
> attractive or repelling it may seem.


Indeed, the existence of a physical ontology is an hypothesis in metaphysics, 
and not in physics. It was brought mainly by Aristotle and even more by its 
followers. 

What can be shown, is that if we assume Digital Mechanism in the cognitive 
science, then the physical cannot be ontological, and physics has to be reduced 
to the psychology, or better the theology of the digital machine. My 
contribution shows this testable, and the physical observations, up to now,  
favour the non existence of primary matter (as amazing and counter-intuive this 
could seem).

What many people seem to miss is that the notion of universal machine and the 
notion of computations (Turing, Post, Church, Kleene) are purely arithmetical 
notion. Anyone who is able to believe that (3^3) + (4^3) + (5^3) = (6^3) is 
necessarily either true or false even without verifying which it is, should be 
able to understand that all computations exists independently of the existence 
of anything physical, and then a reasoning can show that it is easier to 
explain the illusion of an otological matter to complex number relation, than 
to explain the numbers in term of complex relation between primary matter. In 
fact it is impossible, and the notion of primary matter adds unnecessary 
insuperable difficulties in the “mind-body” problem.

Now, Landauer, and others, have given some evidence that some notion of 
information is physical (like quantum information). That does not contradict 
the idea that information is not physical. The illusion of physical appearances 
is real, obeys laws, and physics is eventually reduced into an internal 
statistics on all computations in arithmetic, and that can explain some special 
form of physical information (and indeed the quantum one is already explained 
in some testable way).

The origin of information comes from the fact that aTuring machine cannot 
distinguish the physical reality from the arithmetical reality (which emulates 
all computations) except by observation. The machines are distributed in 
infinitely many exemplars in arithmetic, and that defines a sort of indexical 
differentiating consciousness flux, leading to (collective) sharable deep 
dreams which we call the physical.

Now, all this is long to explain, and I’m afraid this can look too much 
provocative, if I do not add the proofs and much more explanations. People can 
consult my papers, but needs to study a bit of mathematical logic.

Physicalism/materialism is a long lasting habit of thought, and, as I have 
experienced my whole life, some materialist defend the dogma with more 
integrism and violence than some (pseudo)-religious radicals in history. 

Once we assume mechanism, all we need to assume to get both mind and matter is 
*any* universal machine or machinery, and then the usual platonic 
epistemological definitions can be used (but they can also be motivated through 
some thought experience). 
For the universal machinery, I use (very) elementary arithmetic, because 
everyone is familiar with them, and can accept that “17 is prime” is true 
independently of them, which would not be the case with ((K K) K) = K in 
combinators theory (generally not known). But we can derive arithmetic, and the 
physical dreams from just very small theories, like

((K x) y) = x
(((S x) y) z) = ((x z) (y z))

(Axioms of the SK-combinators: that is Turing Universal!)

Or, very elemen

Re: [Fis] Welcome to Knowledge Market and the FIS Sci-coins

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Mark,


> On 28 Mar 2018, at 23:10, Burgin, Mark  wrote:
> 
> Dear Arturo,
> Set theory is a particular case of named set theory. If set theory solves 
> some problem, then named set theory solves the same problem. Use logic and 
> some knowledge and you'll see truth.


That seems quite interesting, and perhaps close to the computationalist theory 
if the named set are the recursively enumerable sets, which are more “nameable 
set” though. Could you elaborate a little bit? Or give a reference?  Apology if 
you have already given one, but I am bit overwhelmed by my mailing box.

Best regards,

Bruno



> 
> Sincerely,
> Mark
> 
> On 3/21/2018 11:48 PM, tozziart...@libero.it  
> wrote:
>> Dear Mark, 
>> 
>> the named set theory does not solve the Russell paradox.
>> 
>> Therefore  it would be better to use, in such approaches, the best theory 
>> available, i.e., the Fraenkel-Zermelo sets. 
>> 
>> In turn, the latter displays some limits: for example, the need of a set 
>> with infinite elements. 
>> 
>> Therefore, set theory is not able to tackle information problems.
>> 
>> You have to go back to other mathematical approaches. 
>> 
>>   
>> 
>>> Il 21 marzo 2018 alle 23.42 "Burgin, Mark"  
>>>  ha scritto: 
>>> 
>>> Dear Krassimir and other FISers, 
>>> 
>>> After reading the interesting contribution of Krassimir, I would like to 
>>> share with you some of my impressions and ideas. 
>>> 
>>> I like very much the term INFOS suggested by Krassimir. It’s possible to 
>>> suggest that Krassimir assumed the following definition. 
>>> An INFOS is a system functioning (behavior) of which is regulated by 
>>> information. 
>>> This definition implies that each INFOS has an information processor. 
>>> Then it is possible to distinguish different categories and types of INFOS. 
>>> For instance: 
>>>  INFOS only with acceptors/receptors 
>>>  INFOS only with effectors 
>>>  INFOS with both acceptors/receptors and effectors 
>>> Then it is possible to develop an interesting theory of INFOS. 
>>> 
>>> At the same time, the difference between reality and consciousness needs 
>>> improvement because what many people mean using the word reality is 
>>> actually only one of the variety of realities, namely, the physical or 
>>> material reality, while consciousness is a part of the mental reality. It 
>>> is possible to find more information about different realities and their 
>>> interaction in the book (Burgin, Structural Reality, 2012). Please, don’t 
>>> confuse Structural Reality with virtual reality.  
>>> 
>>> One more issue from the interesting contribution of Krassimir, which allows 
>>> further development, is the structure of a model. Namely, the relation (s, 
>>> e, r) between a model s of an entity r forms not simply a triple but a 
>>> fundamental triad, which is also called a named set. 
>>> 
>>> Why this is important? The reason to conceive the structure (s, e, r) as a 
>>> fundamental triad or a named set is that there is an advanced mathematical 
>>> theory of named sets, the most comprehensive exposition of which is in the 
>>> book (Burgin, Theory of Named Sets, 2011), and it is possible to use this 
>>> mathematical theory for studying and using models. For instance, the 
>>> structure from Figure 1 in Krassimir’s letter is a morphism of named sets. 
>>> Named set theory describes many properties of such morphism and categories 
>>> built of named sets and their morphism. The structures from Figure 2 in 
>>> Krassimir’s letter are chains of named sets, which are also studied in 
>>> named set theory. 
>>> 
>>> To conclude it is necessary to understand that if we want to apply 
>>> mathematics in some area it is necessary to use adequate areas of 
>>> mathematics. As Roger Bacon wrote, All science requires mathematics, but 
>>> mathematics provides different devices that are suited to different input. 
>>> In this respect, when you give good quality grains to a mathematical mill, 
>>> it outputs good quality flour, while if you put the same grains into a 
>>> mathematical petrol engine, it outputs trash. 
>>> 
>>> The theory of named sets might be very useful for information studies 
>>> because named sets and their chains allow adequate reflection of 
>>> information and information processes. 
>>>   
>>> Sincerely, 
>>> Mark 
>>> 
>>> On 3/11/2018 3:34 PM, Krassimir Markov wrote: 
  
 Dear Colleagues,
  
 This letter contains more than one theme, so it is structured as follow:
 - next step in “mental model” explanation;
 - about “Knowledge market”, FIS letters’ sequences and FIS Sci-coins.
  
 1. The next step in “mental model” explanation:
  
 Let remember shortly my letter from 05.03.2018.
  
 To avoid misunderstandings with concepts Subject, agent, animal, human, 
 society, humanity, living creatures, etc., in [1] we use the abstract 
 concept “INFOS” to denote eve

Re: [Fis] Music : Noise = Meaning : Data

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Stan,


> On 20 Mar 2018, at 20:22, Stanley N Salthe  wrote:
> 
> Bruno -- In this context I like to point out the constraints on our abilities 
> of perception.  First, we are physical.

That is a strong metaphysical assumption. See my paper for showing this is not 
compatible with the Digital Mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive science, 
which is my working hypothesis. 

Perception is a relative indexical relation between a (digital) machine 
(number, combinators, pattern of game of life, whatever) and other plausible, 
from its perspective, universal or not entities (infinitely many below the 
substitution level, making both matter and consciousness not Turing emulable 
(in the Mechanist perspective).

There are evidences for a physical reality, but I am not sure there are 
evidence for a primary physical reality. The use of math in physics is well 
explained if the physical appears to be a mathematical reality seen from 
internal creature represented, relatively incarnated or implemented in that 
mathematical reality.

I can prove, if you agree with very elementary arithmetic, the existence of the 
computations and the machine running them. I cannot prove the existence of a 
physical universe, but if Mechanism is true, the physical universe appearance 
can and must be explained by a statistics on all computations (seen in a first 
person way). That makes mechanism testable and indeed, thanks to Quantum 
Mechanics (without collapse) it fits very well up to now.





> Thus:
> 
> {physical {material {biological {animal {mammal {primate {human {socialized 
> {with accumulated personal history }


Ok, but you will need “magical” (non Turing emulable, nor Recoverable) ability 
in your matter to select some computation. 

You invoke the God “Matter", but if it plays a role, I am no more sure I can 
say yes to …the doctor and survive qua computation.

Mechanism and Materialism, which are often used together, can be shown 
incompatible (it is basically my PhD thesis, and it is summed up in most of my 
papers).

So it is more like

{arithmetical{dream-like{biological{conscious{physical{{animal {mammal {primate 
{human {socialized {with accumulated personal history }



> 
> Hence, actuality is for us non-existent.

? 
Is not actuality existent *for us*, phenomenologically, and non-existent 
Ontologically, I guess you mean.  I am not sure I understand well.


> We live in a constructed reality.

The whole physicalness is indeed the arithmetic seen from the internal 
arithmetical beings, but the person attached to them are not arithmetical not 
even analytical (not even third person describable in any way).

I am aware that what I say contradicts 1500 years of (Aristotelian) theology, 
but then it was enforced by 1500 years of argument per authority, sometimes 
violent.

Best, 

Bruno





> 
> STAN
> 
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 12:23 PM, Bruno Marchal  <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:
> Hi Dai, Hi Carl, Hi colleagues,
> 
> > On 19 Mar 2018, at 16:22, Dai Griffiths  > <mailto:dai.griffith...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > On 15/03/18 10:11, Karl Javorszky wrote:
> >
> > >To me, it does not appear necessary to make a distinction between 
> > >“reality” and “data”
> >
> > That's a defensible position, but it does constrain 'reality' to 'that 
> > which we can perceive'. Which would rule out the reality of things that we 
> > cannot perceive, e.g. explanatory mechanisms, or the insides of black holes.
> 
> If not the whole of mathematics.
> 
> To be provocative, I would me more like thinking that the data are an 
> observer tiny distorted part of reality, especially that we can never 
> distinguishes possibly genuine data with hallucinations and dreams.
> 
> In the computationalist theory, a data is the input to some machine/number 
> program, the execution is the arithmetical semantic of some universal number 
> getting the machine and the data has its input.
> 
> Now a data can be anything, and can be interpreted, and handled, quite 
> differently, if at all, by different universal, or not, programs. I identify 
> the person by its set of beliefs, and the first person by its subset of true 
> beliefs. Incompleteness makes this working well.
> 
> 
> >
> > > just like there is no necessity for musicians to distinguish between the 
> > > note printed on the partiture,
> > > and the acoustic sound, or for Chess champions to distinguish between the 
> > > description of the position
> > > in the protocol of the game and the actual pieces one can hold in his 
> > > hands.
> >
> > I do not think that these are the same case.
> 
> I think that equating reality and data would lead to solipsism (which is 
>

Re: [Fis] Music : Noise = Meaning : Data

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Dai, Hi Carl, Hi colleagues, 

> On 19 Mar 2018, at 16:22, Dai Griffiths  wrote:
> 
> On 15/03/18 10:11, Karl Javorszky wrote:
> 
> >To me, it does not appear necessary to make a distinction between “reality” 
> >and “data”
> 
> That's a defensible position, but it does constrain 'reality' to 'that which 
> we can perceive'. Which would rule out the reality of things that we cannot 
> perceive, e.g. explanatory mechanisms, or the insides of black holes.

If not the whole of mathematics.

To be provocative, I would me more like thinking that the data are an observer 
tiny distorted part of reality, especially that we can never distinguishes 
possibly genuine data with hallucinations and dreams.

In the computationalist theory, a data is the input to some machine/number 
program, the execution is the arithmetical semantic of some universal number 
getting the machine and the data has its input. 

Now a data can be anything, and can be interpreted, and handled, quite 
differently, if at all, by different universal, or not, programs. I identify 
the person by its set of beliefs, and the first person by its subset of true 
beliefs. Incompleteness makes this working well.


> 
> > just like there is no necessity for musicians to distinguish between the 
> > note printed on the partiture,
> > and the acoustic sound, or for Chess champions to distinguish between the 
> > description of the position
> > in the protocol of the game and the actual pieces one can hold in his hands.
> 
> I do not think that these are the same case.

I think that equating reality and data would lead to solipsism (which is 
phenomenologically correct but ontologically incorrect).

Also, is there a reality?

And what could it be?

We can’t answer, but we can do hypothesis/theory, and with mechanism the 
physical reality becomes a phenomenological mode of self-reference of the 
universal (in the sense of Post, Church, Kleene, Turing, …) machine/number.

The biological evolution explains the biological origin of the humans, but to 
avoid the behaviourist error of avoiding consciousness, eventually, we get a 
“physical evolution”, where the physical laws somehow percolate from the dreams 
of all universal numbers. The key is that from the universal machines' first 
person perspectives it is “executed” by infinitely many universal numbers below 
their computationalist substitution level. A fact that I saw a long time before 
this is confirmed by Everett quantum mechanics (which is the old one minus the 
collapse of the wave packet postulate).

Data are indexicals, defined relatively to the universal machine/number which 
interpret it, correctly, or incorrectly, relatively to its most probable 
computations (among an infinity of them).

With mechanism the big picture is very simple, arithmetic and its enumerable, 
but non mechanically enumerable set of universal numbers. But the first person 
phenomenology is “uncertain” on non enumerable computations, making them 
“living” on the border of the uncomputable.

Related to this is that the original doubt of the greek 
theologians/metaphysicians was between "is reality what we see” or is reality 
something else from which what we see is the shadow, the border, the symptom, 
...


> 
> The description of the configuration of a chess game is lossless. I could 
> note down the distribution of the pieces, take them off the board, mix them 
> up and put them back again, and the game would not be changed for the 
> players. The physical chess set and the physical context are also largely 
> irrelevant. Players could leave one room, have a relaxed coffee or aquavit, 
> go back into another room with a duplicate of the game with different pieces 
> on another board, and continue with little disturbance.
> 
> But sheet music is not a lossless representation of a performance. From the 
> starting point of the sheet music, the performer has to decide on volumes, 
> intonation and timing, and in some cases also ornament and variations. These 
> issues arouse deep passions and ferocious debate! Nor would we be happy to 
> buy a recording of a symphony in which different orchestras played different 
> movements in different concert halls (although it might be interesting to 
> hear).


I might agree with Karl, but as expressing a first person phenomenology. With 
mechanism that keeps enumerability, but loss “recursive enumerability. Even the 
simple Gödel-Löbian self-observing universal system/number/machine is 
confronted to the uncomputable main part of the (arithmetical) Truth by just 
this introspection. The senses comes from the multi-relations in between 
different universal machine.

Best Regards,

Bruno





> 
> Dai
> ___
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Re: [Fis] Is Dataism the end of classical hypothesis-driven research and the beginning of data-correlation-driven research?

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Alex,


> On 13 Mar 2018, at 08:38, Alex Hankey  wrote:
> 
> Dear Mark and Alberto, 
> 
> Let me propose a radical new input. 
> The Human intuition is far more 
> powerful than anything anyone 
> has previously imagined, except 
> those who use it regularly. 


I agree on this, and nowhere is this more made transparent than in the case of 
the digital machine. Indeed, by its very non standard mathematics of 
self-reference, we recover a knower attached to any digital universal machine 
in a canonical way, and, as I explain in many of my paper, that knower already 
know that it cannot identify itself with any machine, nor even anything 
describable in pure third person sense. The computations does not make 
consciousness into existence, as this one is related to a conjunction of 
provability and truth (which is highly not computable, not definable, etc.). 
The computations are only the channels through which consciousness can 
differentiate.


> 
> It can be strengthen by particular 
> mental practices, well described 
> in the literature of Yoga. 

I guess this is true. Some medicinal plant can also help in that respect.


> 
> Digital Computing machines are 
> not capable of this,

I have no clue why you say this, except that you might confuse the 19th century 
automaton, which is total computable, and totally controllable, with the 
(Löbian) “universal machine”’, which already know she has a soul, and already 
stop to confuse it with its body. Such machine can defeat all complete or 
normative theory about it. 



> and although 
> number crunching is a way for 
> Technology to assist, it is no substitute 
> for the highest levels of the human mind. 

The whole point of machine’s self-reference is that the “number crunching is 
only what happens at the low level description, but once the machine refers to 
itself, there is no real “number crunching” in play, and in the mode of first 
person description, the machine can refute all “number crunching” description 
of itself.

The Mechanist theory is the less reductionist theory of all. Indeed it saves 
the machine itself, and the numbers, or any terms of any Turing-complete 
theory, from any complete reductionist account.

On what the universal machine are capable and not capable, we have only the 
ability of using the transfinite numbers to gave us a glimpse of our ignorance. 

I agree with many of your intuition, but I think that you are seriously wrong 
by discarding digital machine to support a person having similar intuition. On 
the contrary, we get a precise theory of machine intuition, related to 
Brouwer’s own mystical theory of the creative subject. In fact we get a formal 
theory (S4Grz) meta-formalising the unformalisable, by the machine, intuition 
of the machine. The key of this possibility relies in understanding that we 
cannot know that Mechanism is true, nor which machine we are, nor which 
computations are most probably supporting us, but we can do the reasoning 
constructively for precise simpler (than us) small, but already Löbian, machine 
(like Peano arithmetic to name the most famous one).

Bruno

PS In another post, you seem to be skeptical on quantum computing. But there is 
a notion of topological quantum information, where the quit can be made very 
stable, and where the quantum computation are fault tolerant enough to sustain 
the quantum exploitation.Typically we need to squeeze charged particles in 
extreme electro-magnetic field, and this is not for tomorrow, but the math let 
me believe this will be practical some day. Now, in arithmetic we have the 
emulation of all computations, including the quantum one, and we have to see 
which one os “winning” the "physical appearance game”.




> 
> Alex 
> 
> 
> On 13 March 2018 at 01:10, Mark Johnson  > wrote:
> Dear Alberto,
> 
> Thank you for this topic – it cuts to the heart of why we think the
> study of information really matters, and most importantly, brings to
> the fore the thorny issue of technology.
> 
> It has become commonplace to say that our digital computers have
> changed the world profoundly. Yet at a deep level it has left us very
> confused and disorientated, and we struggle to articulate exactly how
> the world has been transformed. Norbert Wiener once remarked in the
> wake of cybernetics, “We have changed the world. Now we have to change
> ourselves to survive in it”. Things haven’t got any easier in the
> intervening decades; quite the reverse.
> 
> The principal manifestation of the effects of technology is confusion
> and ambiguity. In this context, it seems that the main human challenge
> to which the topic of information has the greatest bearing is not
> “information” per se, but decision. That, in a large part, depends of
> hypothesis and the judgement of the human intellect.
> 
> The reaction to confusion and ambiguity is that some people and most
> institutions acquire misplaced confidence in making decisions about
> 

Re: [Fis] Meta-observer?

[Bruno Marchal]

Plamen, Loet, Pedro,


> On 2 Mar 2018, at 10:36, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov  
> wrote:
> 
> I know him: his name is God, the meta-observer + meta-actor at the same time.
> Correct, Bruno?

God has no name that can be invoked … in the antic greek scientific approach of 
theology. So it is only a subject of inquiry and never an answer. The God of 
plato was arguably the notion of truth, with the understanding that it 
transcend us, or is “beyond” us, or bigger than us. But then who are “us”? 
The use of “God” was as a form of pointer to the question of what is real, with 
the doubt about the natural criterion: what we see is what is real, that 
Aristotle will yet come back on, and which please our sense and intuition.

Now, if we start from some theological assumption like Mechanism (the believe 
that we can survive some digital transformation), then, the constraints of 
digitalness are enough big and counterintuitive to be able to refute Aristotle 
theology (where God is the physical reality) and to force the rationalist to 
envisage a coming back of the God of the Pythagoreans: the Numbers, or the 
arithmetical reality.

Indeed, it is a proven fact that the elementary arithmetic reality emulates 
(executes, run, …, in the precise mathematical sense of Church, Turing, Kleene, 
…) *all* computations, and it is a fact that a universal machine cannot 
distinguish by introspection if it is run by an arithmetical relation or any 
Turing universal machinery. It is also a fact that such computations are 
implemented in arithmetic in a highly distributed way, and that observation 
provides information coming from a self-localization in an infinite 
distribution, and highly structured, complex net of computations. The structure 
is imposed by the mathematics of computability versus provability versus 
knowability versus observability, all modes of the universal machine ability to 
refers to itself.

So when Pedro asks “The impending agenda is on something general universal as 
an object, and yet concrete particular enough in process. The richness resides 
within the concreteness down to the bottom.”, I would suggest the concept of 
universal machine, or universal word, number, digital program, etc. It is 
something very general, and admitting many very particular instances, yet all 
mimicking each other in arithmetic. But this leads to the reversal between 
physics and number’s psychology/theology. We are distributed in infinitely many 
computations, making any attempt to predict anything into a statistics on all 
computations, again structured by the universal machine ability to refer to 
itself. That makes mechanism testable, and indeed, this leads to quantum logic 
for the logic of the observable of (any) universal machine/number. Yet, that 
means that there is no physical bottom, or that the physical bottom is not 
really a bottom, but a statistical sum on infinities of computations, something 
rather confirmed by quantum mechanics or quantum filed theory.

And that put even constraints on what “God” can be. Unlike a common idea about 
God, there will be a trade-off between science and potence. Quasi-omniscience 
leads to quasi-impotence, and the price of potence (ability to act on the 
reality) leads to loss of science: it looks we cannot have both at once. The 
finite creature, being participating to the building of the realities, can act 
by lacking knowledge, and can awaken in the infinite by loosing acting powers.

If Mechanism is true, from inside, the arithmetical truth is made equivalent 
(yet in a necessarily non provable way) with the semi-computable universality, 
and god is the universal subject associated with the universal machine. It is a 
not a creator, more like a terrible child, and rarely if ever satisfied despite 
the range of its distribution.

The “correct” machine avoids the contradictory blasphemy by adding an 
interrogation mark for the propositions corresponding to their true but 
unjustifiable, and the logic of Gödel-Löb-Solovay, accessible to the machine 
itself provided a very small amount of inductive abilities,  provides the way 
to handle them with the needed caution.

On the propositions which are semi-computable truth and proof meets and join: p 
<-> []p, but only at the truth level: G* proves []p -> p, but G does not even 
for p restricted at sigma_1 (semi-computable). Note that G, for p restricted to 
sigma_1 proves p -> []p, which is what makes the machines Löbian. It directly 
implies a form of self-referential awareness ([]p is itself sigma_1 so this 
implies []p -> [][]p).

A nice recreative introduction to the key tool here, the modal G, is given by 
Smullyan’s book “Forever Undecided”. It makes it look like a fairy tale, 
because the K4 reasoner needs to visit a very special Knight-Knaves Island, but 
that is the case for all self-referential relatively finite entities by Gödel 
Diagonal Lemma (or by Kleene’s second recursion theorem).

With the number there are two sort of

Re: [Fis] A Paradox

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 5 Mar 2018, at 07:48, Alex Hankey  wrote:
> 
> Current Information Science, particularly that purveyed by Fis, 
> is far too poverty stricken to tackle this problem Xueshan. 
> 
> Metaphor is a rich purveyor of meaning utlised by human consciousness, 
> even in the earliest epics written by mankind, like the Valmiki Ramayana, 
> simply because human awareness adopts 'forms' as its mode of information 
> content, and not digits. 

I agree with this.




> 
> The way that forms are encoded in experience is now well understood. 

OK. But using the digital mechanist hypothesis, it is amenable to mathematical 
precision, and so we can progress, and benefits of tuns of results in 
theoretical computer science and mathematical logic.





> A proof has even been given that 'ideas' and not 'digits' are the primary 
> content of human awareness. 

Absolutely! Indeed the proof has been given in arithmetic that any universal 
machine “enough rich" see this or get that conclusion.
The rich universal machine can prove its own incompleteness, and its soul 
(identified with the knower(*)) can correctly prove that she is not 
identifiable to any digit nor actually anything third person describable. The 
first person knower is unformalisable, no digits nor any form. Yet, its 
propositional logic is meta-formalisable by the modal logic S4Grz (as explained 
elsewhere).

If you add on the top of this the computationalist hypothesis, in the 
philosophy of mind, or fundamental cognitive science, then it becomes 
testable/refutable as physics should be retrieved by some variants of S4Grz.

The "enough rich”universal machine says already very interesting propositions 
about itself, in different modes, with respect to the inexhaustible and 
undefinable truth. They can already defeat the theories trying to reduce them 
to their form, not to talk about digits. But some can bet on the digits or 
trust the numerical doctors. Eventually the question is “are you ok your sun 
marry a woman who got a digital brain transplant?”.

Some people confuse computable and arithmetic. The computable is only a very 
tiny part of arithmetic, and the semi-computable, where the universal machine 
lives is really in between the computable and the non-computable. Most of the 
theoretical concerns have been about the degrees of unsolvability of the 
arithmetical problems.

Before Gödel, we thought we could secure the use of the infinite with precise 
use of the finite, but after Gödel we know we need already the infinite to 
partially control and understand the finite realm.

Best regards,

Bruno Marchal

(*) Following Theatetus, as incompleteness saves it from Socrates critics.



> 
> 
> 
> Alex Hankey 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 4 March 2018 at 06:47, Xueshan Yan  <mailto:y...@pku.edu.cn>> wrote:
> Dear Dai, Søren, Karl, Sung, Syed, Stan, Terry, and Loet,
> 
> I am sorry to reply you late, but I have thoroughly read every post about the 
> paradox and they have brought me many inspirations, thank you. Now I offer my 
> responses as follows:
> 
> Dai, metaphor research is an ancient topic in linguistics, which reveals the 
> relationship between tenor and vehicle, ground and figure, target and source 
> based on rhetoric. But where is our information? It looks like Syed given the 
> answer: "Information is the container of meaning." If I understand it right, 
> we may have this conclusion from it: Information is the carrier of meaning. 
> Since we all acknowledge that sign is the carrier of information, the task of 
> our Information Science will immediately become something like an 
> intermediator between Semiotics (study of sign) and Semantics (study of 
> meaning), this is what we absolutely want not to see. For a long time, we 
> have been hoping that the goal of Information Science is so basic that it can 
> explain all information phenomenon in the information age, it just like what 
> Sung expects, which was consisted of axioms, or theorems or principles, so it 
> can end all the debates on information, meaning, data, etc., but according to 
> this view, it is very difficult to complete the missions. Syed, my statement 
> is "A grammatically correct sentence CONTAINS information rather than the 
> sentence itself IS information."
> 
> Søren believes that the solution to this paradox is to establish a new 
> discipline which level is more higher than the level of Information Science 
> as well as Linguistics, such as his Cybersemiotics. I have no right to review 
> your opinion, because I haven't seen your book Cybersemiotics, I don't know 
> its content, same as I don't know what the content of Biosemiotics is, but my 
> view is that Peirce's Semiotics can't dissolve this paradox.
> 
> Karl t

Re: [Fis] The shadows are real !!!

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John,


> On 26 Feb 2018, at 04:37, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> Inclined to agree with Joseph.

OK. Nice.


> I would like to point out that there are different meanings for "real', and 
> one has to be clear about ones metaphysics to make the idea (somewhat) clear.

Yes. That is a key point. Then if we want to adopt the scientific attitude in 
metaphysics/theology, we better be neutral at the start.

The god/non-god debate has hidden the original question raised (more or less 
explicitly) by Plato about what is ultimately real, and the doubt was about the 
primariness of the physical. The choice, for xeusippes was between physicalism 
(the ultimate reality is the physical or material universe) and mathematicalism 
or theologicalism, where the dispute is somehow between the numbers (the finite 
things) and the ideas (usually infinite).

Now, it can be shown that with the digital mechanist hypothesis (the invariance 
of consciousness for a digital functional substitution made at *some* level) is 
logically or at least epistemologically incompatible with materialism (in the 
weak sense of the ontological commitment in primary material substance, or 
dubbed as such (technically we can introduce more nuances here. Tegmark suggest 
a Mathematicalism which is still largely physicalist).

With digital mechanism, consciousness get contagiated to all computations 
supporting us so that we are first person indeterminate on an infinity of 
computations below our substitution level. (Like in Feynman-Everett formulation 
of QM). Physics get redefined by the observable by the universal machine, which 
in this case can be translated in arithmetical terms. 






> Peirce, for example, would call Plato's shadows (which aren't really shadows 
> at all, real, but not existent.


Here, the universal machines, when we listen to them (which today requires 
mainly studying Gödel’s proof and Kleene’s technic, or searching for the 
relevant papers as the literature is very rich, too much rich somehow) suggests 
a very simple Pythagorean ontology (only the natural numbers exists), and the 
only laws are the laws of succession, addition and multiplication. That already 
entails the 3p existence of all prime numbers, but also of all computations. So 
the existence becomes the existence is the semantic of the first order theory 
of arithmetic (ExP(x)).

Then, the incompleteness makes Gödel’s arithmetical provability predicate into 
a (strange) believability predicate. The self-referentially correct universal 
machine quickly becomes modest and does not prove for all proposition that 
provable(p) -> p. []p->p is not a law in the provability logic.

But there is much more. This makes possible to “meta”define knowledge in the 
manner of Theaetetus (true belief), by []p & p. By a theorem of Traski, we 
cannot define the arithmetical truth in the arithmetical language, but for each 
proposition we can mimic its truth by its assertability (as we talk about 
simple machine which we can trust). But this associates the machine (played in 
arithmetic)  by the beweisbar predicate of Gödel to a semantic, and it obeys a 
very different logic from the logic of “[]” (provability/believability).It 
provides a notion of first person and a logic of evolving states of knowledge, 
close to intuitionist logic, and having topological semantics. Then 
incompleteness push further the nuances, by making the weaker nuance []p & <>t, 
where we attach only the consistency of the machine, instead of the truth. This 
is what we need to have a notion of certainty when doing an experience, and 
this, on the semi-computable p, provides the quantisation justifying a nest of 
quantum logics lurking there. 

I don’t claim any truth. If mechanism is correct, the physical reality is in 
the head of the universal Turing machine. That makes the theory easily 
refutable empirically, by comparing the physics in the head of the universal 
digital machine, with the physics we observe.

Up to now it fits, as we recover a quantisation at the place needed.

Consciousness of a person p supported by a machine m can be defined quasi 
axiomatically by what the machine m can assert as true, unprovable, 
undefinable, but also undoubtable. And invariant in the relative digital 
substitution for some level.

I think that the universal (Turing) machine might be maximally intelligent and 
conscious.  We can only make it more stupid (albeit more competent in some 
tasks). It will still take some time before they become as stupid as the 
humans, though.



> The sort of shadows that we normal experience are both real and existent on 
> Peirce's account.


OK.

With Mechanism, we get the “ontological” existence, or the basic objects that 
we assume, and I took the numbers 0, 1, 2, … because everyone is familiar, but 
any terms of a Turing universal machinery would do. Theology and Physics are 
machine independent, as it depends on *all* computations, and that is mimicked 
by all universal ma

Re: [Fis] The shadows are real !!!

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear John, Dear colleagues,

> On 25 Feb 2018, at 20:51, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> Daer Krassimir, List
> 
> I basically support what you are saying. I understand the mathematics you 
> presented, I am good at mathematics and studied logic with some of the best. 
> However, and this is a big however, giving a mathematical or logical proof by 
> itself, in its formalism, does not show anything at all. One has to be able 
> to connect teh mathematics to experience in a comprehensible way. This was 
> partly the topic of my dissertation, and I take a basically Peircean 
> approach, though there are others that are pretty strong as well.
> 
> I fgenerally skip over the mathematics and look for the empirical 
> connections. If I find them, then generally all becomes clear. Without this, 
> the formalism is nothing more than formalism. It does not help to give formal 
> names to things and assume that this identifies things, Often trying to 
> follow up approaches kine this is a profound waste of time. I try to, and 
> often am able to, express my ideas in a nonformal way. Some mathematically 
> oriented colleagues see this as automatically defective, since they think 
> that formal representation is all that really rigorously explains things. 
> This sort of thinking (in Logical Positivism) eventually led to its own 
> destruction as people started to ask the meaning of theoretical terms and 
> their relation to observations. It is a defunct and self destructive 
> metaphysics. Irt leads nowhere -- my PhD thesis was about this problem. It 
> hurts me to see people making the same mistake, especially when it leads them 
> to bizarre conclusions that are compatible with the formalism (actually, it 
> is provable that almost anything is compatible with a specific formalism, up 
> to numerosity).


Since Gödel, in mathematics we have to distinguish between truth and proof, and 
even when we restrict ourself to arithmetic, we know that the truth escape 
*all* formalism. Logical positivism is dead since long for logicians and 
mathematicians.

Then, when we assume mechanism (the brain is a digitalizable natural 
machinery), and as elementary arithmetic emulates all Turing universal 
machinery and all computations (we assume the Church-Turing thesis, and a small 
amount of passive understanding of Gödel’s method or proofs), it becomes an 
open problem in (scientific) metaphysics if there could be a physical primary 
universe.

The evidence we get so far is that there are none. Mechanism and materialism 
can be shown incompatible logically. Mechanism forces a reduction of the 
physical appearance to computer science, which embeds itself in number theory. 
Mechanism becomes empirically testable: extract physics from arithmetic, and 
compare to the observation. This has been done, and the result sustain 
mechanism, and not materialism.

So, we in that frame, we have to come back to Plato, where the shadow on the 
wall, mentioned by Krassimir,  is given by the empirical reality, which appears 
to be the logical border of the mind of the universal machine. To get this, it 
is imperative to well understand that the notion of computation and of 
universal machine have been discovered in pure mathematics (and quickly after 
even in elementary arithmetic).

The God/non-God debate hides since long the original debate among the antic 
greeks, which was about the existence or inexistence of a primary physical 
universe. Is physics or mathematics the fundamental science/realm? Now with 
Mechanism, we do have a testable explanation of consciousness. It is testable 
because physics *is* reduced to the statistics on the first person view that we 
can associate to the machine.

How to define such first person notions? Gödel’s incompleteness shows that 
proof and truth are different, but also that the machine will makes a 
difference between all the modal variants of provability, and this leads to 
eight different logic of self-reference. Most of them were foreseen by the 
Neoplatonist inquirers.

p (truth)
[]p (provability, Gödel’s beweisbar)
[]p & p (theatetus’ notion of knower, the first person: that notion is not 
definable in the language of the machine: it is non nameable self)
[]p & <>t. (Observability, measure one on the computable consistent extension) 
——> this gives a quantum logic
[]p & <>t & p. (Perception, sensibility)

Those are 8, not fives, because not only incompleteness does makes those 
vertical distinction, but it separates three of those modes in two, along the 
separation of truth and what the machine can prove Abi-out itself. We get six 
quantum logics, making us able to distinguish the sharable quanta and the 
private non sharable qualia which actually extends the quanta. So even the 
quanta are not “objective” but belongs to the “shadow” which hides the deeper 
and simpler reality of the numbers (or of anything Turing equivalent).

So, yes, the shadow are real, and include the whole of physics. But the sha

Re: [Fis] there is no need to number every word

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Alex,


> On 16 Feb 2018, at 06:18, Alex Hankey  wrote:
> 
> But Bruno, to harp on an old point, 
> "mathematicians (and their “dreams”)" 
> implies the world of 'ideas’,

Yes. You can identify the ideas with the program, and thus with the numbers 
once you fix some base (any Turing universal system) to provide the universal 
enumeration of all programs.



> and 
> as I have said, those are not in 
> the world of 'arithmetic’,

They are. The notion of program, execution of programs, … are all purely 
arithmetical notion at the start. Gödel did not saw this because in 1931 he 
missed the thesis of Church-Turing (but got it in 1936 after reading Turing’s 
paper). 



> in the sense 
> that they are not described by 
> digital information, 
> but by catastrophes.  


What are you basic assumptions in metaphysics?
Is it the notion of catastrophe of René Thom? That does not exist in 
arithmetic, but that do exist in the phenomenology of the numbers (trivially). 
To make it non trivial, and keep Mechanism, we would need to prove that the 
histories where such catastrophe plays a role have a measure near one. That is 
possible, but premature in the study of the physics apparent for the numbers.

Of course, you can also reject Mechanism, but then you need a theory of mind 
for some non mechanical entities, which you need to assume, and that seems to 
me premature, and doubly so given that Mechanism explains a very startling 
aspect of nature (the quantum aspect);

Bruno


>  
> 
> On 15 February 2018 at 15:14, Bruno Marchal  <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:
> 
> > On 13 Feb 2018, at 04:46, mihir chakraborty  > <mailto:mihi...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Friends,
> >
> > i did not enter the site --- but was not such numbering already done
> > by great Goedel ? The so called Goedel numbering ?
> 
> Yes, good point. And that made possible the arithmetization of 
> metamathematics, which is a sort of embedding of the mathematician in 
> arithmetic, a bit like Everett Quantum Mechanics (like the Newtonian physics 
> by default) embeds the physicists in the physical reality (but if we claim 
> that the wave packet reduction is physical and not psychological, this is no 
> more true, and the early QM was rather dualist).
> 
> If we postulate Mechanism, the embedding of the mathematicians (and his 
> “dreams”) in the arithmetical realm eventually makes physics into a branch of 
> the (classical and general) information science (including computer science). 
> The universal numbers are responsible for associating a variety of meanings 
> to finite pieces of codes.
> 
> The whole work of Gödel is very important, and I think that it changes 
> everything. Ultimately, it makes physics into a derivable science, indeed 
> derivable from "machine psychology or theology” itself derivable 
> constructively from elementary arithmetic. You can search may many papers on 
> this. Physics becomes a first person statistics on some first person 
> experiences. That makes Mechanism into a testable hypothesis, and Quantum 
> Mechanics confirms it, up to now.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > mihir
> >
> > On 2/11/18, Krassimir Markov mailto:mar...@foibg.com>> 
> > wrote:
> >> Dear Karl and FIS colleagues,
> >> Yes, the Number Theory is very important basis!
> >> But, I think, there is no need to number every word.
> >> Because ... All words are already numbered
> >> We have published large monograph named
> >> “Natural Language Addressing”
> >> where we outlined this idea and presented the mathematical model and
> >> computer implementation for very large volumes of data (BigData).
> >> One can read it at http://foibg.com/ibs_isc/ibs-33/ibs-33.htm 
> >> <http://foibg.com/ibs_isc/ibs-33/ibs-33.htm>.
> >> The idea is very simple – every letter has its own code and in the computer
> >> we enter not letters but their codes.
> >> This way every word is a number in any positional numbering system.
> >> It really works!!!
> >> Friendly greetings
> >> Krassimir
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From: Karl Javorszky
> >> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 8:36 PM
> >> To: Stanley N Salthe
> >> Cc: fis
> >> Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
> >> the cateogry theory
> >>
> >> Using the logical language to understand Nature
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The discussion in this group refocuses on the meaning of the terms 
> >> “symbol”,
&g

Re: [Fis] there is no need to number every word

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 13 Feb 2018, at 04:46, mihir chakraborty  wrote:
> 
> Dear Friends,
> 
> i did not enter the site --- but was not such numbering already done
> by great Goedel ? The so called Goedel numbering ?

Yes, good point. And that made possible the arithmetization of metamathematics, 
which is a sort of embedding of the mathematician in arithmetic, a bit like 
Everett Quantum Mechanics (like the Newtonian physics by default) embeds the 
physicists in the physical reality (but if we claim that the wave packet 
reduction is physical and not psychological, this is no more true, and the 
early QM was rather dualist).

If we postulate Mechanism, the embedding of the mathematicians (and his 
“dreams”) in the arithmetical realm eventually makes physics into a branch of 
the (classical and general) information science (including computer science). 
The universal numbers are responsible for associating a variety of meanings to 
finite pieces of codes. 

The whole work of Gödel is very important, and I think that it changes 
everything. Ultimately, it makes physics into a derivable science, indeed 
derivable from "machine psychology or theology” itself derivable constructively 
from elementary arithmetic. You can search may many papers on this. Physics 
becomes a first person statistics on some first person experiences. That makes 
Mechanism into a testable hypothesis, and Quantum Mechanics confirms it, up to 
now.

Bruno




> 
> mihir
> 
> On 2/11/18, Krassimir Markov  wrote:
>> Dear Karl and FIS colleagues,
>> Yes, the Number Theory is very important basis!
>> But, I think, there is no need to number every word.
>> Because ... All words are already numbered
>> We have published large monograph named
>> “Natural Language Addressing”
>> where we outlined this idea and presented the mathematical model and
>> computer implementation for very large volumes of data (BigData).
>> One can read it at http://foibg.com/ibs_isc/ibs-33/ibs-33.htm.
>> The idea is very simple – every letter has its own code and in the computer
>> we enter not letters but their codes.
>> This way every word is a number in any positional numbering system.
>> It really works!!!
>> Friendly greetings
>> Krassimir
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: Karl Javorszky
>> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 8:36 PM
>> To: Stanley N Salthe
>> Cc: fis
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
>> the cateogry theory
>> 
>> Using the logical language to understand Nature
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The discussion in this group refocuses on the meaning of the terms “symbol”,
>> “signal”, “marker” and so forth. This is a very welcome development, because
>> understanding the tools one uses is usually helpful when creating great
>> works.
>> 
>> There is sufficient professional literature on epistemology, logical
>> languages and the development of philosophy into specific sub-philosophies.
>> The following is just an unofficial opinion, maybe it helps.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Wittgenstein has created a separate branch within philosophy by
>> investigating the structure and the realm of true sentences. For this, he
>> has been mocked and ridiculed by his colleagues. Adorno, e.g. said that
>> Wittgenstein had misunderstood the job of a philosopher: to chisel away on
>> the border that separates that what can be explained and that what is
>> opaque; not to elaborate about how one can express truths that are anyway
>> self-evident and cannot be otherwise.
>> 
>> The Wittgenstein set of logical sentences are the rational explanation of
>> the world. That, which we can communicate about, we only can communicate
>> about, because both the words and what they mean are self-referencing. It is
>> true that nothing ever new, hair-raising or surprising can come out of a
>> logical discussion modi Wittgenstein, because every participant can only
>> point out truths that are factually true, and these have always been true.
>> There is no opportunity for discovery in rational thinking, only for an
>> unveiling of that what could have been previously known: like an
>> archaeologist can not be surprised about a finding, he can only be surprised
>> about himself, how he had been able to ignore the possibility of the finding
>> so long.
>> 
>> As the Wittgenstein collection uses only such concepts that are
>> well-defined, these concepts can be easily enumerated. In effect, his
>> results show, that if one uses well-formulated, clearly defined logical
>> words, the collection of all explanations is the solution of a combinatorial
>> problem. This is also the reason why he says that his philosophy is just a
>> tool of sharpening the brain, and contains nothing whatsoever noteworthy in
>> a semantic fashion.
>> 
>> One may summarise that the pariah state among philosophers that Wittgenstein
>> suffered on this his insight, is owed to the conclusion that real philosophy
>> has either nothing to do with the grammar of true logical sentences or
>> otherwise it is degenerati

Re: [Fis] Code Biology

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Pedro, dear colleagues,

Thank you for this announcement. 

I make a comment below based on the abstract of the conference:



> On 11 Jan 2018, at 13:28, Pedro C. Marijuan  wrote:
> 
> 
>  Dear FISers, this Conference in Code Biology may be of interest to some 
> parties. It will be in beautiful Granada (Spain), next June. Although the 
> deadline for abstract submission is too close, there would be a longer term 
> if requested to the organizers. 
> I hpe to see you there. Best--Pedro
> --
> 
> 
> Fifth International Conference in Code Biology
> 
> 
>  
>  
> Call for Papers 
>   
> The International Conferences in Code Biology aim at bringing together 
> scholars and researchers who are interested in the study of all codes of 
> life, from the genetic code to the codes of culture.  
>  
> The Fifth International Conference in Code Biology will take place in Granada 
> (Spain) from 5 to 9 June 2018. The Conference will host individual talks, 
> poster sessions, a roundtable discussion and the Annual General Assembly of 
> the Code Biology Society.
>  
> People who wish to deliver individual talks are invited to email an Abstract 
> of between 200-500 words to  granada-abstra...@codebiology.org 
> 
> Abstracts should be sent as one-page files written in a format such as  .doc 
> or  .rtf  (no PDF please). 
>  
> The deadline for Abstract submission is  15 January 2018.
> Earlier submission is highly recommended.
>  
> More details are available in the Conference homepage 
> http://www.codebiology.org/conferences/Granada2018/ 
> 
>  
> 


This seems *quite* interesting, not so much far from number biology (and 
psychology, and theology).

But … from: http://www.codebiology.org/conferences/Granada2018/ 


<<
Fifth International Conference in Code Biology
Granada (Spain), 5-9 June 2018

Code Biology is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of 
science. The genetic code and the codes of culture have been known for a long 
time and represent the starting point, the historical foundation, of Code 
Biology. What is really new in this field is the study of all codes that came 
after the genetic code and before the codes of culture. Some of these new codes 
have already been discovered, and it is likely that many more will come to 
light in the future. The existence of many organic codes in Nature is not only 
a major experimental fact. It is one of those facts that have extraordinary 
theoretical implications. 
The first is that most great events of macroevolution were associated with the 
appearance of new organic codes, and this gives us a new description and a new 
understanding of the history of life.
The second theoretical implication comes from the fact that codes involve 
meaning and we need therefore to introduce in biology, again with the standard 
methods of science, not only the concept of information but also the concept of 
meaning. 
The third theoretical implication comes from the fact that the organic codes 
have been highly conserved in evolution, which means that they are the great 
invariants of life, the entities that must be perpetuated while everything else 
is changing. Code Biology, in short, is bringing to light new mechanisms that 
have operated in the history of life and new fundamental concepts in 
theoretical biology.

The International Society of Code Biology (ISCB) has been founded in 2012 with 
the aim of promoting the study of all codes of life. Applications for 
membership are welcome from scholars and researchers of all disciplines, 
including biology, biophysics, biochemistry, neurosciences, psychology, 
anthropology, ecology, information theory, systems theory, linguistics, 
semiotics and philosophy.

>>

It is incredible for me that the disciplines of Logic, Mathematical Logic and 
Theoretical Computer Science, which have so many results concerning coding and 
its possible semantics (operational semantic, denotation semantics, 
connotational semantics, …) are not mentioned.

Mathematical logic is, I think, the oldest science having introduced and 
exploit the distinction between a sentence or a theory (code, number) and its 
interpretation/meaning, usually represented by some infinite subset of some 
infinite set, including many variations possible. And this without mentioning 
that a computer, (a physical or mathematical universal digital machine) 
provides a simple direct operational semantics for the coding, at the base of 
its own functioning. 

Computer science, which is born from philosophical or foundational problem in 
mathematics, where indeed Naive Set Platonism leads quickly to contradiction 
and paradoxes (cf Russell paradox) has found a universal number/machine 
associating meaning (to coding with

Re: [Fis] Season Greetings / Merry Christmas

[Bruno Marchal]

On 24 Dec 2017, at 04:55, MARCIN Schroeder wrote:


Dear Pedro and Colleagues,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Marcin


Thanks Marcin.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to you, and to all of you!

Best,

Bruno





Marcin J. Schroeder, Ph.D.
Professor & Dean of Academic Affairs
Akita International University
Akita, Japan
m...@aiu.ac.jp
Editor-in-Chief
Philosophies (MDPI-Basel-Switzerland)
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies



From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" 
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2017 05:58:21
To: "'fis'" 
Subject: [Fis] Season Greetings / Merry Christmas


Dear FIS Colleagues,

Herewith the customary Christmas scene at El Pilar Basilica of  
Zaragoza.
It is a really beautiful place that you should visit... I promise  
not to be a bad amphitryon ;)


As for the next sessions, we will have the traditional New Year  
Lecture, and then another two sessions on data-driven science and on  
combinatorial logics in biological information.


Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

All the best--Pedro



--
-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-
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Re: [Fis] Math, math, math!

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Koichiro,



On 19 Nov 2017 at 10:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Time might be an indexical, like with Mechanism in cognitive  
science, or

like in General Relativity.

Dear Bruno,

  It would be nice to share with you some agreement, no matter how  
minute
it may be. That said, with regard to the issue of time, I could  
follow your
point of the indexical nature of time so long as the standard  
tradition of

doing sciences is respected.



Of course. I think that in science there is simply no room for  
disagreeing. The worst conflict is only a discovery that we work in  
different theory. We can always agree on our disagreement, and they  
should only be assessing different theories.


My assumption is (very) elementary arithmetic and "Mechanism" in its  
digital/computationalist form, i.e. the belief that we can survive  
with an artificial digital body/brain. (In some precise sense, I want  
to be short here). My goal was only to show that some of its  
consequences are testable.


I am not entirely sure why you raise that issue, and please, ask if  
you need any precision on my contribution.
My main point is a constructive (testable) proof that mechanism and  
materialism are incompatible, and that this can be tested. In a sense,  
contemporary physics confirms mechanism over materialism/physicalism,  
up to now at least.


I am not sure it can help in the context of an applicable theory of  
information, except by making clear the reason why, for any universal  
machine looking inward (in the Gödelian sense) information must have  
justifiable third person aspect, *and* non justifiable or even non  
expressible first person aspect. It is an "easy" consequences of  
Gödel's theorem, and Tarski-like theorems, for those who are familiar  
with them.







At the same time, one can also raise the
question of "What time is it or what time do you have?" quite easily  
in
everyday life. This everyday-life time (that is common time,  
demeaned by

Isaac Newton) is more than simply being indexical. It could also be
retro-causative in that if the reading of your wrist watch happens  
to differ
from mine, I may ask myself to correct the preceding setting of  
timekeeping

of mine or decide to negotiate with you what to do so as to remove the
discrepancy. That is a new action towards modifying and updating the  
causes
to the clock movements set previously. Its empirical demonstration  
is seen
in various biological clocks. GPS time, that is vital to us these  
days, has
nothing to do with biology. Of course, unless the retrocausal  
adjustments

fail, time to be read out of the finished record by us could safely be
indexical. In this case, indexical time is an abstraction from
retro-causative time rather than the other way around.

  Once the retro-causative aspect of time receives due attention, the
implication of what is called communication in time may  
significantly be
differentiated depending upon the extent to which time would differ  
from

being merely indexical.


Absolutely.

This is even close to why a theory can evolve, and get different  
roles. For example, if the "machine theology" is refuted (which is  
quite plausible, as the physics is constructively determined with  
mechanism), the "machine theology" will still give a tool to measure  
our degrees of non-mechanism, and to compare different theologies, as  
well. Today the degree of non mechanism is zero, but this is only  
because we have been to compare only tiny fragment of the "machine's  
quantum logics" and nature's one. That is close of measuring a degree  
of "non-indexicalness" of time and space.


All the best,

Bruno

PS this is my second (last) post of the week.







  Koichiro Matsuno



-----Original Message-
From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bruno  
Marchal

Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2017 10:50 PM
To: Foundation of Information Science 
Subject: Re: [Fis] Math, math, math!

Dear Koichiro,


On 15 Nov 2017, at 01:02, Koichiro Matsuno wrote:


On 14 Nov 2017 at 6:21 AM, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:

I provide what is required by truly scientific reviewers, i.e.,
testable mathematical predictions.

[KM] Any mathematical proposition, once confirmed, can stand alone.
There is
no doubt about mathematical reality in the eternal present accessible
in the present tense.


I am glad to hear that. Not all mathematicians would agree, but all  
would

agree that this statement is true for what Brouwer called once "the
separable part of mathematics", which is very first order elementary
arithmetic without induction.

With induction, we have problem with the "ultra-intuitionist", who  
tend to
disbelieve in the everywhere definiteness of the exponential  
function. Those
are very rare, but some are very good mathematiciian and are  
followed rather
closely (like when Nelson claimed to have a pro

Re: [Fis] R: Re: some notes - on the nature of science and communication

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Gordana,


On 19 Nov 2017, at 00:28, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic wrote:



Dear All,
In the discussion about the nature of science and the role of  
quantitative and qualitative methods I would like to add the  
following statement:

Logic is the science of rational thinking or reasoning.
http://www.math-inst.hu/~nemeti/whatislogic.html
Logic is not a quantitative science.


I can't agree more. I would say that most of mathematics is not on  
quantitative things, like topology is concerned with global invariant.  
Some modal logic are meta-theories of things which are not  
formalizable, or even not definable. Modal logics was invented for  
complex metaphysical/theological issue (and is "redeemed", as Boolos  
said, by the incompleteness phenomenon, also an hardly purely  
quantitative result).


The logic has the sub-branch "model theory", which studies the  
semantics of theories, and which are usually not purely syntactical  
matter, not quantitative at all, I would say.


But now, I agree that even in "non quantitative field" the theories  
should be testable. That is possible for the theories which are able  
to connect their qualitative results to quantitative results.


Mathematical logic is the same as Metamathematics, and is basically  
the mathematical study of the (classical, intuitionist, ...)  
mathematicians.


Mathematicians are typically not quantitative things, ... even when  
the computationalist and his digital surgeon saves his body and soul  
on some hard disk, temporarily.





This connects to ancient Greek science that sprung out of philosophy  
of nature (even Newton was still natural philosopher) which relied  
more on reason than on observation/experience. And where they indeed  
made quantitative predictions like Eratosthenes who calculated the  
circumference of the Earth, the central part of his prediction was  
based on logical reasoning.


The main works of Aristotle were the Prior Analytics (Logic), the  
Physics, the Animal History, the Rhetorics, the Poetics, the  
Metaphysics, the Ethics, and the Politics. Today we consider Logic,  
Physics and Biology to be sciences, while Rhetorics, Poetics,  
Metaphysics, Ethics and Politics are not. How compulsory is it for  
something to be “science” in order to be a respectable form of  
knowledge?
Perhaps it is useful at some point in the development of human  
knowledge to have a holistic view bridging across sciences and other  
fields? Rational, logical view.


Then I would suggest, even just as a toy, the theology of the  
universal universal machine. Incompleteness makes Gödel beweisbar  
arithmetical predicate into a form of rational justifiability, not  
"knowledge", as Gödel saw in 1933. Indeed the non provable consistency  
~Bf  is the same as Bf -> f, so Bp -> p is not provable in general, as  
it should be for being an operator of knowledge, but that is exactly  
why we get, for the ideally sound machine, the equivalence between all  
Theaetetus' variant of probability (they all "see" the same reality),  
but obeying quite different logic:



p  (true, the ONE)
Bp (Justifiable, the INTELLECT)
Bp & p (Knowable, the SOUL)
Bp & ~Bf (Observable, the INTELLIGIBLE MATTER)
Bp & ~Bf & p (Sensible, the SENSIBLE MATTER)

Note that by Tarski theorem, the machine cannot provide any  
arithmetical representation of their first person self (the knower).  
They would need a predicate Vp (Verity of p), and the diagonal lemma  
soild lead to an epimenidian  proposition k asserting k <-> ~Vk. So Bp  
& p is not translatable into a Bp & Vp, and indeed that can be shown  
necessary. The universal machine has a soul and she knows that this  
soul is not a machine/number!





Science itself is not everywhere quantitative in its various layers  
and branches. There are theoretical non-observables in quantum  
mechanics and other physical theories and they play important role  
in their construction and operation.


I agree.




Regarding the other discussion point, the necessity to differentiate  
between "the difference that makes the difference" for a machine and  
for a living organism I would say that the difference exists but is  
becoming less and less clear-cut the more machines become cognitive  
and intelligent. It is not difficult to imagine a limit case where  
intelligent machine talks to other intelligent machine. Would that  
be then mixing Shannon with (bio)semiotics?


It would lead to interesting arithmetical interpretation of  
biosemiotics.


Then the human themselves, in the long run, will get more and more  
prosthetical parts. Some humans benefits already from electronical  
implants, and some teams work hard on an artificial rat hypo-campus.


The question is not "is Mechanism true?", but the more ethico- 
qualitative question "do you accept your daughter or your son marry  
someone who already got a digital brain transplant"; etc.






The notion of communication might be constructed in a useful way to  
cover diff

Re: [Fis] Math, math, math!

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Koichiro,


On 15 Nov 2017, at 01:02, Koichiro Matsuno wrote:


On 14 Nov 2017 at 6:21 AM, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:

I provide what is required by truly scientific reviewers, i.e.,  
testable

mathematical predictions.

[KM] Any mathematical proposition, once confirmed, can stand alone.  
There is
no doubt about mathematical reality in the eternal present  
accessible in the

present tense.


I am glad to hear that. Not all mathematicians would agree, but all  
would agree that this statement is true for what Brouwer called once  
"the separable part of mathematics", which is very first order  
elementary arithmetic without induction.


With induction, we have problem with the "ultra-intuitionist", who  
tend to disbelieve in the everywhere definiteness of the exponential  
function. Those are very rare, but some are very good mathematiciian  
and are followed rather closely (like when Nelson claimed to have a  
proof of the inconsistency of Peano Arithmetic, this has been  
thoroughly investigated until an error was shown, as Nelson admitted:  
but he seems to still believe that PA is inconsistent).





Also, our folks interested in historical sciences including
biology and communication at large often refer to something not in the
present via the present tense. In any case, we are historical beings.


I am not sure of this. "we" the humans are certainly "historical  
beings", but as de Chardin put it, we might be spiritual being living  
the human experiences, among others. Time might be an indexical, like  
with Mechanism in cognitive science, or like in General Relativity.





That
must look quite uneasy to mathematicians.


Most mathematicians just don't do neither physics, nor psychology,  
still less theology or metaphysics. They hide their motivation, and  
they often forget the motivations of those who brought the tools and  
results they like to develop. Very few logicians seem to be aware that  
the rise of mathematical logic started from a dispute between  
unitarian and trinitarian, and the will to make (non-confessional)  
theology more rigorously (Benjamin Peirce (the father of Charles.S.  
Peirce), de Morgan, Boole, even Lewis Carroll ...).





One loophole for making it
tolerable to the mathematicians might be to admit that the  
mathematical
notion of a trajectory of observable parameters does survive in the  
finished
record but the future trajectories may remain unfathomable at the  
present.
Despite that, historical sciences can raise the question of what  
could be
persistent and durable that may be accessible in the present tense,  
though

somewhat in a more abstract manner compared to the record of concrete
particulars.


Some people argue that a truth like 2+2=4 is eternal, and true  
everywhere. But this does not make sense, as the temporal and locality  
attribute pertain on physical object. At best we might say that 2+2=4  
is out of time and place. Such truth is out of the category of things  
to which time and place/position does not applied. It makes no sense  
to ask "since when 2 is even?", except poetically or in some  
colloquial manner.


Now, this does not mean that in the context of *some* metaphysical  
theory/assumption, some possible links between the physical reality  
and the mathematical (or arithmetical) reality cannot be derived. I  
have shown, in particular, that if a brain is Turing emulable, then we  
have to explain the physical appearances, including time and space, as  
emerging in the form of stable first person plural discourse from a  
statistic on all computations (which are realized in all  
interpretations of tiny fragment of Arithmetic, when we assume/accept  
the Church-Turing thesis). That is testable, and it works up to now,  
as we recover an intuitionist subject for the "soul/knower", and a  
quantum logic for the "observable/predictable".


Best Regards,

Bruno






  Koichiro Matsuno



-Original Message-
From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of
tozziart...@libero.it
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 6:21 AM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: [Fis] Math, math, math!

Dear FISers,

My so called pseudoscience has been published in not dispisable  
journals,

for a simple reason: I provide what is required by truly scientific
reviewers, i.e., testable mathematical predictions.


Sent from Libero Mobile

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Re: [Fis] I do not understand some strange claims

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Arturo, dear FISers,


On 08 Nov 2017, at 22:11, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:


Dear FISers,

science talks about observables, i.e., quantifiable parameters.


I can't agree more. Science measure numbers, and infer relations among  
them. But we know also that untestable ideas can be powerful tool.  
Most progress in mathematics and physics have relied on the axiom of  
infinity in mathematics, or belief in a physical reality. So let us be  
precise that indirect testing should be allowed.







Therefore, describing the word "information" in terms of  
philosophers' statements, hypothetical useless triads coming from  
nowhere, the ridicolous Rupert Sheldrake's account, mind  
communication,


I can understand up to here.



qualitative subjective issues of the mind, inconclusive  
phenomelogical accounts with an hint of useless husserlian claims,  
and such kind of amenities is simply: NOT scientific.


Hmm... I disagree. This is NOT scientific. A reasoning which takes  
into account the "qualitative issues of the mind" (which is rather  
normal when we discuss information in some larger sense than Shannon  
one) MIGHT (and SHOULD) have observable quantitative consequences. You  
talk like if that was impossible, without providing an argument, which  
would be refuted by my contribution. Even point in "theology" becomes  
testable, when the definitions and reasonings are made clear and  
precise enough (which is the case when we use the suitable hypothesis  
to do just that.


Here it seems to me that you throw out the baby with the water bath.  
You seem to ask for direct testability, which is close to metaphysical  
positivism (which has been logically refuted).





It could be interesting, if you are a magician or a follower of  
Ermetes Trismegistus, but, if you are (or you think to be) a   
scientist, this is simply not science.



It is science if it leads to a simpler theory fitting with the  
quantitative facts, or a more complex theory, being alone to fit some  
known quantitative facts.
But of course, such theories should not deny known and admitted  
psychological realities;   if not "information" itself stops to make  
any larger sense than the  one in the theory of Shannon or of Feynman- 
Deutsch-Landauer-Zurek. In that case we might suspect the widespread  
confusion between physics, and metaphysical physicalism, which is not  
scientific.


When working on "information", a theory fitting with the quantitative  
facts, but not with "common" qualitative facts should be considered  
unscientific, because it denies undoubtable and important aspect of  
information and reality. It hides data.




Such claims are dangerous, because they are the kind of claims that  
lead to NO-VAX movements, religious stuff in theoretical physics,  
Heideggerian metapyhsics.  Very interesting, but NOT science.



You might go a bit far on this. If you deny the use of the scientific  
method on the religious terrain, you condemn that domain to remain in  
the realm of the superstition. Also, some people talk like if the  
existence of primary matter was a scientific fact: this too is  
unscientific. If we want related information and reality, I doubt we  
can progress if we don't try to make clear the metaphysical  
assumptions. When clear enough, as my work illustrated, they become  
quantitatively testable. It is just an historical accident that  
theology has been separated from science, and we know that the goal  
was to prevent research and use only violence and argument per- 
authority. There is no reason to pursue that way. We must just ask  
politely people to indicate how their ideas can be tested, directly or  
indirectly, in case it is not clear.


Best Regards,

Bruno






That's all: 'nuff said.

Arturo Tozzi

AA Professor Physics, University North Texas

Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy

Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba

http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/


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Re: [Fis] About 10 Principles

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Krassimir,


On 31 Oct 2017, at 15:07, Krassimir Markov wrote:


Dear FIS Colleagues,

Many years ago, in 2011, I had written a special remark about  
scientific
and non-scientific approaches to try to understand the world around.  
The

letter of Logan Streondj returns this theme as actual today.

The interrelations between scientific and non-scientific creating and
perceiving the data and models as well the proper attitude to the  
world

cultural heritage is one of the main problems to be investigated. The
world common data bases make possible to exchange data of any kind.  
Some
data could not be proved easy, some are assumed as "clear". What is  
the

proper attitude to the ocean of the data we create and perceive? In
addition, now we have a new phenomenon – artificially created data.


The Modern Societies

Every group of Infoses, people in particular, forms a society if  
there is
an agreement for communication interactions. An important element of  
this

agreement is the availability of a common data base.
We should not picture the data base like a number of drives with a  
certain
data recorded, although it is the way it has been since the  
beginning – it
was recorded on clay plates, papyrus, paper, etc. The ability for  
digital

storage of the data lays the beginnings of the genesis of the “modern
societies”. It is obvious that, there are as many societies as many
different data bases exist, and a single Infos could belong to more  
than

one society.


OK.




The difference between the beliefs and the science
---
Every belief is a totality of models, which are assumed and followed.
Where is the difference between the belief and the science, which is  
also

a combination of models to be followed?
The answer is in the way we perceive these models and the attitude  
to them.

There are two approaches – a hard and an easy one.
The easy one is wonderfully described by the motto of the medieval
theologian Anselm of Canterbury, lately canonized as St. Anselm
(1033-1109): "Credo, ut intelligam!" (I believe in order to understand
[St.Anselm]). One has to believe in the model, to understand and  
follow
it. This is the religious approach – every subjective notion can  
turn into
a commonly accepted model or dogma, as long as there is someone to  
believe

in it and follow it implicitly.
The “difficult” approach is described with the phrase "Intelligo, ut
credam !" (I understand in order to believe), used by the German  
reformer
Thomas Muentzer (~1490-1525) [Muentzer]. You have to understand the  
model

and only after then to trust it if possible. This is the scientific
approach – every science builds models – hypothesizes, which are
repeatedly tested before assumed to be true. The scientific approach
includes a permanent revaluation and improvement of the existing  
models

according to the permanently changing environment.
In every society, building and exchanging of models are basic  
activities.
Whether they are perceived with the “easy” or the “difficult”  
approach is

a question only of the circumstances, executors and users.
Keeping in mind the limited abilities of the human brain, we can  
presume
that the “easy” approach would probably dominate. Just a small part  
of the
humanity would be able to build and understand the “difficult”  
scientific

models. The users will not have the strength to test the models for
themselves so the only option left would be to “believe in order to
understand”.
The role and the importance of particular beliefs in a certain  
society are

determined by the influence of the people ready to doubt the religious
models, on the others who easily and “blindly” follow the dogmas. Let
remark that in the scientific world the “easy approach” is everyday
practice. We all believe that the scientific works represent proved  
facts

(maybe by authors). However, who knows? We trust in authorities.

Sometimes we have to doubt!

That is why the background to modern science is in the wisdom of St.
Augustin (354-430):  "Intelligo ut credam, credo ut intelligam!" [St.
Agustin], i.e. it is in the harmony and dialectical unity of the
scientific and beliefs’ approaches [K.Markov, 2008].


Very nice, although in my approach, I identify "science" and belief,  
in a first axiomatic approximation. later, new axioms can be added to  
introduce the nuances, when needed (and such nuances does exist, and  
eventually are imposed by the working hypothesis (mechanism).






Materialism or Idealism
---
Very important theme, raised from letter of Logan Streondj, is about
Idealism and Materialism.
Let note that both are religious approaches but not scientific.


I agree. But if we decide to do metaphysics or theology with the  
scientific method, we can put the metaphysics in the hypothesis, and  
search for criteria of verification.






The first,
Idealism, is based on belief about existence of Go

Re: [Fis] What is ³Agent²?

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Gordana,




On 20 Oct 2017, at 11:02, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic wrote:



Dear Terry, Bob, Loet

Thank you for sharing those important thoughts about possible  
choices for the definition of agency.


I would like to add one more perspective that I find in Pedro’s  
article which makes a distinction between matter-energy aspects and  
informational aspects of the same physical reality. I believe that  
on the fundamental level of information physics we have a good ND  
simplest example how those two entangled aspects can be formally  
framed.
As far as I can tell, Terrys definition covers chemical and  
biological agency.
Do we want to include apart from fundamental physics also full  
cognitive and social agency which are very much dominated by  
informational aspects (symbols and language)?

Obviously there is no information without physical implementation,



Hmm... I am not sure. Elementary arithmetic determines all semi- 
computable relative information state (with Oracles). So, with the  
numbers, once you accept the addition laws and the multiplication  
laws, information "grows" from inside, and consciousness differentiates.
When the information get deeper and deeper, in Bennett sense of debth,  
dreams can stabilize and physical reality are "correctly" inferred,  
and eventually derived from arithmetic.


That might not make your point below invalid.

It is yet an important metaphysical point. The incompleteness theorem  
entails the existence of a sort of canonical information flux, or  
consciousness differentiation internal to elementary arithmetic, or  
elementary combinators, or to any universal machinery (universal in  
the mathematical Church-Turing-Post-Kleene sense).


We can decide to consider the arithmetical beings being zombies, but  
this would entails a very special definition of matter to make it  
differ from the testable "arithmetical distribution".


We can't have weak mechanism and weak materialism, and the evidences  
might side on a mathematical (somehow theological or psychological)  
origin of the physical reality.


Incompleteness entails that all (platonist, classical reasoner  
machine) are confronted with many different, and conflicting, views  
about itself. Indeed it enforces the Theaetetus' distinctions, between  
true, provable, knowable, observable, sensible:


p,
[]p,
[]p&p,
[]p&~[]f,
[]p&~[]f&p

With p sigma_1 arithmetical (equivalently: partial computable) this  
gives a proposition account of a theology, testable as it explains how  
the physical laws emerges from some "dream percolation" in arithmetic.


The physical is very important, but like in Plato, it could be, and  
seemed to be, the border of another non physical, more mathematical,  
plausibly arithmetical, reality.




but when we think about epistemology and the ways we know the world,  
for us and other biological agents there is no physical interaction  
without informational aspects.

Can we somehow think in terms those two faces of agency?
Without matter/energy nothing will happen, nothing can act in the  
world but that which happens and anyone registers it, has  
informational side to it.


Without matter/energy nothing physical will happen. But if we assume a  
very weak form of digital mechanism, arithmetic justfies limiting  
dreams, with rich indexical, relative amount of information, from  
"inside arithmetic". And what we take as the physical might be what  
emerges from a first person statistics on those dreams.


The logic of which is testable, and up to now, it matches the data  
(thanks to QM without coilapse of the wave).


It is just premature to conclude that information (in the 1p and 3p  
sense) needs the physical. The physical might be an invariant in a  
notion of normal sharable number dream. (A dream can be defined by a  
computation containing the emulation of a Löbian machine (they know  
they are universal) with respect to different or not universal numbers.


In arithmetic, the universal numbers infers that below their  
substitution level, if it exists, they are confronted to a statistics  
on infinity of universal numbers, and above, locally, only with a  
finite (but huge) number of universal machine/number.


I am aware I ask a huge spiritual or theological effort, coming back  
to Plotinus, and Parmenides, and Plato, if not Pythagoras.


But in epistemology, computable can be defined in very elementary  
theories and languages. The deep reason is the closure of the partial  
computable functions for cantor diagonalization (Gödel's called that a  
Miracle), and its price: the non computability of most predicate on  
most machines behaviors (like halting), and the loss of control and  
the art of letting go the things which go without saying.


The universal (Löbian) machine can already defeat all normative or  
reductionist theory about their first person. They know that their  
soul is not a machine!





For human agency (given that matter/energy side is functi

Re: [Fis] Simple question: What we really see in the mirror?

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Lou, dear Gordanna,

On 22 Oct 2017, at 05:56, Louis H Kauffman wrote:


Dear Krassimir,
Thank you!!
Yours is the most creative resolution of the Barber Paradox that I  
have encountered.

Perhaps we can apply it also to the Russell Paradox.
I do not know. Let us think about it.
Another paradox that is resolved in the human realm is the card that  
reads



“No one holding this card can verify the truth of this statement  
inscribed upon it.”



For a human holding the card can say “Suppose I were not holding the  
card. Then indeed the statement can be seen to be true
since if my friend Max were holding the card, then the statement  
would lead Max into a contradiction if he were to attempt to verify  
it.
Thus I have verified the statement on the card by imagining that I  
do not hold the card."


I submit that this solution (modal logical as it is) is a close  
relative of your mirror solution to the Barber.
For in your mirror solution the Barber must understand that he does  
not shave himself, but that he shaves his mirror image.
Similarly the card holder must imagine that he does not hold the  
card but that another holds the card.



That is a very nice way to solve the paradox indeed, forcing us to  
make a little out-of-body experience!


I would say that

"This statement is false"

is a "genuine paradox". And the machine's solution is that "false" is  
not definable as predicate (tarski solution).


"this statement is unbelievable" go out of the paradox, not quite  
unlikely this Krassimir's solution, but it makes the statement true  
and definitely not believable except by going out of the body again,  
which machines can do, by the constructive diagonal involved.


Best regards,

Bruno






Very best regards,
Lou Kauffman


On Oct 21, 2017, at 12:35 PM, Krassimir Markov   
wrote:


Dear FIS Colleagues,

It is time for my second post this week.

First of all I am glad to participate in such very interesting  
discussion!


Thank you for the nice posts.

More than 25 years ago, working on the new theory, I had to solve the
problem with concept of entity which has information activity.  
There were
many candidates for such concept: “robot”, “agent”, “intelligent  
agent”,
“interpreter”, “subject”, “information subject”, “intelligent  
subject”,
etc. Every such concept had its own history and many domains of  
meanings

which caused many misunderstandings.
In the same time, if one had a single meaning then it couldn’t be  
applied
to all entities with information activity. For instance, concept  
“robot”

is not good to be used for a human.

Because of this, we had proposed a new word: “INFOS”, which had no  
meaning
in advance and may be defined freely without misunderstandings. I  
shall

use it in my further posts.

I do not want to define it now. Step by step its meaning will arise  
from
what I shall write. In many discussions till now, I had seen that  
this

approach is the best way to introduce a new concept.

***

I want specially to thank Bruno for his post from 18.10.2017 about
“Self-reference”!

For me, it is very important it to be analyzed. I shall do this on  
the

basis of an example.

Not all kinds of self-reference concern information activity and  
Infos.

But, if at least one case exists, then we have to analyze it.

Such case, for instance, is the Barber paradox: A barber (who is a  
man)
shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does he  
shave

himself?

This paradox exists only in “3D” mathematical world based on triad
(x, y, f)
or, in other writings: (x, f, y), y=f(x), etc.
(there are several nice publications of Mark Burgin about triads !).

I.e. paradox exists only if we ignore the fact that the Barber is a  
human.


The paradox could not exist in the “4D” world of informatics where  
we have

quadruple (x, y, f, I) or, in other words, for Infos “I”, “y” is
information about “x” because of evidence “f”.

What is happen when the Barber shaves someone?

At the first place, it is a direct collecting, by eyes, the data  
about the

place where the razor has to be put to shave.

Have you ever seen a Blind barber?

NO! OK, this is a fundamental condition.

Not only Barber, but every human COULD NOT DIRECTLY COLLECT DATA  
about

his/her face, head, or back.

In another case, for instance, we have to have eye on the end of  
the nose

which has to be as long as the elephant trunk!

This means: the barber cannot shave himself because he could not  
see where

to put the razor!

But every man can shave his beard! How he can do it?
Of course, everyone will say, by using a mirror!

But this is NOT DIRECT REFLECTION (data collecting).
It is TRANSITIVE SELF-REFLECTION via mirror!

Who does the barber shave: himself or the man in the mirror?

Of course, the second!!! Barber puts the razor on his own beard and  
this

way he shaves the 

Re: [Fis] Simple question: What we really see in the mirror?

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Krassimir and FIS Colleagues,





It is time for my second post this week.

First of all I am glad to participate in such very interesting  
discussion!


Thank you for the nice posts.

More than 25 years ago, working on the new theory, I had to solve the
problem with concept of entity which has information activity. There  
were
many candidates for such concept: “robot”, “agent”, “intelligent  
agent”,
“interpreter”, “subject”, “information subject”, “intelligent  
subject”,
etc. Every such concept had its own history and many domains of  
meanings

which caused many misunderstandings.
In the same time, if one had a single meaning then it couldn’t be  
applied
to all entities with information activity. For instance, concept  
“robot”

is not good to be used for a human.

Because of this, we had proposed a new word: “INFOS”, which had no  
meaning
in advance and may be defined freely without misunderstandings. I  
shall

use it in my further posts.

I do not want to define it now. Step by step its meaning will arise  
from

what I shall write. In many discussions till now, I had seen that this
approach is the best way to introduce a new concept.

***

I want specially to thank Bruno for his post from 18.10.2017 about
“Self-reference”!


Thank you.





For me, it is very important it to be analyzed. I shall do this on the
basis of an example.

Not all kinds of self-reference concern information activity and  
Infos.

But, if at least one case exists, then we have to analyze it.

Such case, for instance, is the Barber paradox: A barber (who is a  
man)
shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does he  
shave

himself?

This paradox exists only in “3D” mathematical world based on triad
(x, y, f)
or, in other writings: (x, f, y), y=f(x), etc.
(there are several nice publications of Mark Burgin about triads !).

I.e. paradox exists only if we ignore the fact that the Barber is a  
human.


The paradox could not exist in the “4D” world of informatics where  
we have

quadruple (x, y, f, I) or, in other words, for Infos “I”, “y” is
information about “x” because of evidence “f”.

What is happen when the Barber shaves someone?

At the first place, it is a direct collecting, by eyes, the data  
about the

place where the razor has to be put to shave.

Have you ever seen a Blind barber?

NO! OK, this is a fundamental condition.

Not only Barber, but every human COULD NOT DIRECTLY COLLECT DATA about
his/her face, head, or back.

In another case, for instance, we have to have eye on the end of the  
nose

which has to be as long as the elephant trunk!

This means: the barber cannot shave himself because he could not see  
where

to put the razor!

But every man can shave his beard! How he can do it?
Of course, everyone will say, by using a mirror!

But this is NOT DIRECT REFLECTION (data collecting).
It is TRANSITIVE SELF-REFLECTION via mirror!

Who does the barber shave: himself or the man in the mirror?

Of course, the second!!! Barber puts the razor on his own beard and  
this

way he shaves the man in the mirror.

The Barber paradox does not exist if we take in account that the  
barber is

a human (a kind of Infos) and needs data.

So, the answer of the question “Does he shave himself?“ is NO!, he
doesn’t, he shaves the man in the mirror who do not shave himself  
because

the razor is in the hand of barber and no paradox exists.

Simple question: What we really see in the mirror?



Hmm... Let say a village exists where the barber shaves all and only  
men who does not shave themselves (nor beard in that village!).


Then we have the logical paradox. If he does not shave himself he has  
to shave himself, by definition, and if he shaves himself, he shaves  
someone shaving himself, which he can't do.


The solution of the paradox is simple: there is no such village. (we  
cannot solve so easily the paradox of the set of all set which do not  
belong to themselves, though).


The idea of adding a "time parameter" is good though, and that is what  
make the notion of enumeration of all partal computable functions  
possible, but with the price that the one everywhere defined will be  
sparsed in an non computable way, leading to incompleteness and  
intrinsic ignorance.


Yet, if we cannot build a machine comprehending its own semantics, we  
can build a machine referring to any of its parts, including the whole  
part of itself, by the use of the second recursion theorem of Kleene,  
or Gödel self-reference.
The basic idea is elementary: you apply a duplicator to its self  
description (in some universal machinery). If D'x' = 'x'x'', D'D'  
gives 'D'D'' (with a reasonable notion of quoting). Similarly if D'x'  
gives T('x'x''), D'D' gives T applied to itself T('D'D'').  With the  
term "human", you might have added a piece of non 3p communicable  
insight, in which case you were referring, I guess, partially at  
least, to the non nameable first person transported by that 3p self.  
(in 

Re: [Fis] What is “Agent”?

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Jose, dear Loet, dear Krassimir, dear Alex, dear Pedro, dear All,

I sum up answers to Loet, and many others in this answer to Jose, to  
avoid too much posts, but also I am in a very busy period.


On 16 Oct 2017, at 01:34, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:


Dear Krassimir, dear all,

I have noticed that some descriptions of information make use of  
anthropocentric metaphors and that might be misguiding (for  
instance, subjective and objective information (Sung)). Agent is a  
concept that retains some sort of action-theoretic background but at  
the same time assumes the existence of nonhuman agents. Agency would  
be then a causal relation wherein the agent "causes" some sort of  
effects.


I don`t feel confortable with this concept. I prefer the the concept  
of observer. But this one is problematic too, for the same reason:  
it is supposed that a human is there watching, feeling, measuring,  
etc.


I think we have to get rid of these humanistic assumptions in order  
to gain insight into the issues we want to explore.


Definitely I don`t think I have the answer, but following D.  
Hofstadter, H. von Foerster, N. Luhmann and others we could think of  
a agent/observer as a self-referential loop. Most of information  
processing devices consist of a design of some sort of feedback  
loop.  I don`t know if we could translate this idea to all the kinds  
of systems we all deal with. But it would be worth finding out.




Hofstadter is a rare physicist who is not wrong on Gödel's theorem,  
technically, and with respect to the digital mechanist thesis.
Logicians, including myself, have exploited this a lot in the  
fundamental studies. See my paper "Amoeba, Planaria, and Dreaming  
Machine". But see also the work of Myhill, John Case, Emil Post  
refered in.
Note also the very good book by Judson Webb illustrating how the  
discovery of "incompleteness" is a lucky event for mechanist philosophy.
In fact incompleteness saves machine from reductionist theories, as it  
makes all theories of them essentially undecidable ("essentially"  
means incomplete *and* incomplete-able).


In fact, I was about deciding to study biology when I discovered that  
Gödel exploited the same kind of self-reference, in arithmetic (!)   
that I discovered in the books of molecular biology.


Today, we got the ultimate theory of self-reference through two  
fundamental theorems by Solovay:
1) The provable part of self-reference is axiomatized soundly and  
completely by the modal logic G, and
2)  the true (provable and non provable) part is axiomatized  
soundly and completely by the modal logic G*. G is properly included  
in G*, by incompleteness. For example, Gödel's second incompleteness  
theorem, with "~" for "not", and [] for the modal box representing  
Gödel's arithmetical provability predicate, and "f" representing the  
sentence "0 = 1":


   ~[]f -> ~[](~[]f) (if I am consistent (~[]f) then I will  
never prove that I am consistent),


is a theorem of G. But consistency itself is not, and is (only) a  
theorem of G*.


The machine which is as powerful as Peano Arithmetical in arithmetic,  
and all its  sound effective (recursively enumerable) extensions obeys  
to G and G*. Their beweisbar (provable) predicate is sigma_1 complete,  
which is an arithmetical equivalent with Turing universal.


This offers eventually a complete "Neopythagorean or Neoplatonist  
theology" to all arithmetically sound machine.


As Gödel said in his 1933 short notice: "provable" does not obey to a  
logic of knowledge. It cannot prove its own soundness, in fact it  
cannot prove all []p -> p. Indeed consistency ~[]f is equivalent with  
[]f -> f.


That invites to take back the oldest theory of knowledge from  
Theaetetus; to know is to believe and be true: to know p is (to  
believe p , and it is the case that p). This works: the logic of  
"beweisbar ('p') & p" to obey to a logic of knowledge. In fact we get  
the 8 nuances:


p(true)
[]p   (provable, rationally justifiable, third person self-reference)  
split on G/G*
[]p & p  (knowable, first person self-reference, not justifiable as  
such, not nameable, "soul", and does not split on G/G*)
[]p & ~[]f  (bet-table, predictible, observable, repeatable, quanta,  
observer, split on G/G*)

[]p & ~[]f & p (sensible, feel-able, qualia, feeler, split on G/G*)

with p restricted on the semi-computable (sigma_1) predicate, this  
provides arithmetical interpretations of intuitionist logic and  
quantum (and mixed) logics, at the place some thought experiences show  
where it should be.


G* proves, at that sigma_1 (partial computable, semi-decidable,  
machine) level all the equivalence betwen the nuance above. It can be  
shwon axiomatized by G + p -> []p.


G1* proves p <-> []p <-> ([]p & p) <-> ([]p & ~[]f) <-> ([]p & ~[]f &  
p).


But G1 does not prove them, and indeed, they obey to those different  
logics mentionned above. This means that there is one "sim

Re: [Fis] Fw: PRINCIPLES OF IS. The Pre-Science of Information

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Joseph, Pedro and FISers,


On 02 Oct 2017, at 10:45, Joseph Brenner wrote:


Dear Pedro, Dear FISers,

In the 2 weeks I have been away, an excellent discussion has self- 
organized as Pedro noted. Any preliminary comments and criticisms of  
Pedro’s 10 Principles I could make now can refer to this. I would  
have said first that Pedro is to be thanked for this construction.  
Preparing a list of principles involves defining not only the  
content but also the number, order and relation between the entries.  
Zou, Stan and Ted in particular have recognized the existence of the  
list as such and the work involved.


My own view is that we are all currently involved in reworking the  
Foundations of Information Science. These Foundations are not  
themselves science, but they look forward to the increased  
understanding of Information Science as Terry suggests. I propose  
the term “Pre-Science” for this process activity, a pun on the word  
‘prescience’ whose normal definition is foreknowledge or foresight.  
The people who tend to make mistakes in this effort will be those  
who claim that any simple concept or set of concepts can do the job  
itself, supported by claims to authorities such as Peirce. Sets of  
principles, on the other hand, are tools more difficult to use but  
they permit directed consideration of several perspectives at the  
same time.


Principles are the basis for an interpretation of what is in the  
physical and biological processes that are the proper subjects for  
non-computational Information Science, without – yet – providing any  
explanations. Now this is a lot more philosophical that may have  
been expected when the discussion started. However, today, unlike  
when Pedro and his colleagues started out, we have the Philosophy of  
Information of Luciano Floridi and Wu Kun to work with, as well as  
my logic. I am surprised that no-one has yet referred to Floridi or  
Wu.


Going back over the postings to-date, I have noted a few which seem  
constitutive of a ‘Pre-Science’ of Information: Emmanuel’s  
‘duality’, Stan’s hierarchies; Michel Godron’s and John Torday’s  
bridges to biology, Pedro’s reworking of communication, etc. I will  
resist comments that the concepts of Pre-Science are to be thrown  
out as part of non-science or ‘just’ philosophy. As Koichiro clearly  
said on 20.09, information can, and in my view is already, bringing  
in something new empirically to questions of space and time.  In the  
Pre-Science of Information, ideally, it should be possible to retain  
mechanism and materialism or realism; computationalism and non- or  
natural computationalism;



It is hardly possible to retain digital mechanism (computationalism)  
and materialism at the ontological level. But we keep them at the  
phenomenological level, and this makes it more solid, somehow, and yet  
quasi-vaccinated against reductionism.


That might not concern you, except by being neutral on mechanism.  
Mechanism is not much a question of truth than of right. The eventual  
question will be "do you accept that your daughter or son marries  
someone who get an accident but survived with an artificial digital  
brain.


People must keep distinct the idea that we are this or that machine,  
(the metaphor use) with the idea that we have a description level at  
which a universal machine can emulate us. I have shown that Mechanism  
makes the physical reality, and consciousness, essentially non  
computable things, and that all machines eventually can understand why  
it has to be like that IF they are correct (or consistent) machines.


If we are machine, we cannot know which machine we are, and the  
physical becomes a sort of statistics on machine's "dreams" ("dreams"  
are computations seen from inside, defined using recursion theoretical  
method (alas rarely known).




information as a physical reality and a non-physicalappearance.


Why not "information as mental reality" and a physical appearance? (We  
might come back on this, but I don't think there are any evidence for  
a primitive physical reality, even without computatiionalism. Indeed  
my woprk consists ins showing how the obsevre this and get evidence  
for primitive matter or matter evolving from "machine's dream").


So I don't know. I agree with Pedro that we should clarify our  
relation with respect to Plato and Aristotle, or just be clear on what  
we are willing to assume at the start. What follows are just some  
remarks around this.


Information has third person aspects, like with Shannon theorem, and  
first person, subjective, aspects, like meaning. Here mathematical  
logic has a lot to say. I know better the semantic of Tarski and  
Kripke than the semiotic of Peirce, but it seems to me that some  
relation could be made, and could be related with the intensional/ 
extensional semantics of computer programs and formal  belief systems.  
In this context category theory might be helpful to build bridges.

Re: [Fis] A PRAGMATIC LANGUAGE FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Arturo,


On 24 Sep 2017, at 21:35, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:


Dear FISers,



This text is brief is an effort to provide a viable solution for a  
double concern:


a)   1) the proliferation of models, theories and interpretations  
that suggest pseudoscientific explanations (e.g., lacking the even  
theoretical possibility of empiric testability) for not-observable  
quantities, such as “God”, the “quantum brain”, “phenomenalistic”  
accounts of experience, “holistic” accounts of “Nirvana-like”  
psychological states, “observer-based information”, “string  
theories”, “quantum loop gravity” theories, and so on.


b)2) the attitude of scientists to generalize their results  
beyond their own experimental observations.  For example, it is easy  
to read, in the CONCLUSIONS of good papers, claims such as: “we  
demonstrated that some Primates acquired the vision of the red; this  
occurred because this novel ability gave them the evolutionary  
benefit to detect red soft fruits in the green bushes’ background”.




In order to avoid the inconsistencies that undermine the (otherwise  
good) legitimacy of scientific claims and to make them as accurate  
as possible, here we provide a few suggestions concerning the very  
structure of scientific propositions.


Our formulation of the required language for scientific propositions  
wants to be as simple as possible and, at the same time, to  
encompass syntactic, semantic and pragmatic concerns.  We take into  
account the claims of several Authors and sources who tackled the  
difficult issue to cope with the structure of scientific language:  
Galileo, Mach, Frege, Brower, Carnap, Popper, Quine, Godel, Zermelo  
and Fraenkel, Brigdman, Feyerabend, Kellogg and Bourland, Kripke,  
Gadamer, McGinn, Badiou.




We suggest, so as to describe facts and observables of our physical  
and social environment, to make use of phrases written or spoken  
according to the following rules (provided in sparse order):




1)1)   Never use the verb “to be”, including all its  
conjugations, contractions and archaic forms.  Indeed, the misuse of  
this verb might give rise to a “deity mode of speech” that allows  
people “to transform their opinions magically into god-like  
pronouncements on the nature of things” (Kellogg and Bourland,  
1990-91)




I think I understand. But it is hard in practice to avoid existential  
words. I would say: be clear of what is assumed, and what is derived,  
and if the derivation is ontological or phenomenological. "to be" has  
many meanings, and the effort must be to reason validly with each of  
the possible meaning. (cf Frege, Carnap, Quine, Godel, Zermelo and  
Fraenkel).







2)2)   Clearly define the universe of discourse in which your  
proposition is located.




Yes, that is important. But some domain, like metaphysics or theology  
will have multidisciplinar facets. 1) above still applies.




3)3)  Define your concepts not in abstract terms, but in terms  
either of observables, or, if observables are not properly  
definable, in a language as closest to observable quantities as  
possible.


I agree. But that should be only on "observable in principle". How we  
could kill the next good theory, which not only predict better, but  
linked the many observable better.


Here, if doing metaphysics, it is important to distinguish,  
observable, believable, knowable, justifiable and ... true.




4)4)   Do not compare and mix sets and subsets in the same  
context (e.g., cat and feline).


And don't confuse A included in B, with B included in A, like the  
paper justifying prohibition of "drugs" do systematically.



5)5)   Do not use the first order logic (based on universals  
described in the very premises of the propositions), rather describe  
just the relationships between the observables you are coping with.


Why? First order logic is the best tool to avoid metaphysical baggage.  
But it is OK to use set theory or second order logic. It will really  
depends on the goal.


6)6)   Use (at least qualitative) terms that indicate the  
probability of an event.




Or laws that such probabilities have to conform with. Some theories  
can predict higher order relation between measurable numbers.



7)7)   Describe events or things that are (at least in  
principle) testable.




OK. That's imporant too.



Otherwise, state clearly that yours is just a speculation.



In the case of "my theory", it is a subtheory of all theories in  
physics, and of most of math. So it is obviously the less speculative  
theory, except for one strong axiom, two actually (Church thesis, and  
the existence of a digital substitution level). Some would argued that  
the theory of evolution would not make sense without assuming some  
mechanist subtitution level, to get notably the redundancy and the  
error tolerance).


In metaphysics, when aboarded with the scientific attitude, we must be  
aware that Aristotl

Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH

[Bruno Marchal]

On 18 Sep 2017, at 18:25, Terrence W. DEACON wrote:

All of these claims and counter-claims are null hypotheses -  
hypothetical axioms yet to be tested, both for logical coherence and  
empirical usefulness. Place your bets. Mine are on contrary  
assumptions: i.e. non-Turing computability, fundamental  
incompleteness,


Turing universal computability entails fundamental incompleteness.



and a deep entanglement between information (including reference and  
functional value) and its necessary physical substrates.


So you are coherent. Mechanism is not compatible with materialism. If  
you have fundamental substrates, you have to assume non mechanism. My  
main result is


NOT Mechanism OR NOT materialism.   (materialism in the weak sense of  
assuming primitive physical elements).


You keep materialism, I keep mechanism. We are just working in  
different theory.



Of course for this to be science all need to eventually yield  
testable hypotheses.


The hypotheses are general and can never been tested, but we can test  
the consequences, and improve our abandon the theory.




This level of controversy over basic issues indicates to me that the  
science of information is still at an early stage and could be  
potentially held back by the hubris of certainty.



I have not claimed any truth, if this was not clear. I just say that  
Mechanism and Physicalism are incompatible, and that if we keep  
mechanism, the appearances of matter have to be derived in some way  
from the universal machine introspection.  The physical propositional  
logic has been derived in that way, and up to now, it fits with the  
quantum facts.


You can read the following papers:

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

Marchal B. The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body  
problem. Prog Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40
Marchal B. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in  
Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.


I just keep mechanism, but take very seriously the mind-body problem.

Bruno Marchal





— Terry

On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 2:07 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

Dear Jose,

On 15 Sep 2017, at 16:37, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:


Dear Arturo,

Math is indeed a language that CAN describe scientific issues, but  
it is not the only one. And its ability to cuantify scientific  
issues do not necesarily make it superior.
Math and natural language face the same formal and logical  
problems: they cannot make staments about themselves without  
falling into contradictions or paradoxes (as can be inferred from  
Gödel).




You seem to be too much quick on this. On the contrary, I would say,  
Gödel showed that when we translate the paradoxes of self-reference  
in arithmetic, we get fundamental limitation theorems, not  
contradictions. In fact Gödel has led, with the work of Löb and  
Solovay, to a complete axiomatization of the logic of machine self- 
reference (complete at the propositional level), and that logic re- 
introduce the nuances discovered by Plato and exploited by the  
Neopythagoreans and the Neoplatonicians theologians. Those  
"theologies" are "theories of everything": they contain physics, and  
so are testable, and the physics of the machine can be shown to be  
necessary quantum-like already.


Bruno


And your statement is certainly self-contradictory: if it is true  
then it is contradicted by the form of its performance (semantics).


Best regards,

El sep 15, 2017 10:17 AM, "tozziart...@libero.it" > escribió:

Dear FISers,
I'm sorry for bothering you,
but I start not to agree from the very first principles.

The only language able to describe and quantify scientific issues  
is mathematics.
Without math, you do not have observables, and information is  
observable.
Therefore, information IS energy or matter, and can be examined  
through entropies (such as., e.g., the Bekenstein-Hawking one).


And, please, colleagues, do not start to write that information is  
subjective and it depends on the observer's mind. This issue has  
been already tackled by the math of physics: science already  
predicts that information can be "subjective", in the MATHEMATICAL  
frameworks of both relativity and quantum dynamics' Copenhagen  
interpretation.
Therefore, the subjectivity of information is clearly framed in a  
TOTALLY physical context of matter and energy.


Sorry for my polemic ideas, but, if you continue to define  
information on the basis of qualitative (and not quantitative)  
science, information becomes metaphysics, or sociology, or  
psychology (i.e., branches with doubtful possibility of achieving  
knowledge, due to their current lack of math).



Arturo Tozzi

AA Professor Physics, University North Texas

Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy

Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba

http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/



Messaggio origi

Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Jose,

On 15 Sep 2017, at 16:37, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero wrote:


Dear Arturo,

Math is indeed a language that CAN describe scientific issues, but  
it is not the only one. And its ability to cuantify scientific  
issues do not necesarily make it superior.
Math and natural language face the same formal and logical problems:  
they cannot make staments about themselves without falling into  
contradictions or paradoxes (as can be inferred from Gödel).


You seem to be too much quick on this. On the contrary, I would say,  
Gödel showed that when we translate the paradoxes of self-reference in  
arithmetic, we get fundamental limitation theorems, not  
contradictions. In fact Gödel has led, with the work of Löb and  
Solovay, to a complete axiomatization of the logic of machine self- 
reference (complete at the propositional level), and that logic re- 
introduce the nuances discovered by Plato and exploited by the  
Neopythagoreans and the Neoplatonicians theologians. Those  
"theologies" are "theories of everything": they contain physics, and  
so are testable, and the physics of the machine can be shown to be  
necessary quantum-like already.


Bruno


And your statement is certainly self-contradictory: if it is true  
then it is contradicted by the form of its performance (semantics).


Best regards,

El sep 15, 2017 10:17 AM, "tozziart...@libero.it" > escribió:

Dear FISers,
I'm sorry for bothering you,
but I start not to agree from the very first principles.

The only language able to describe and quantify scientific issues is  
mathematics.
Without math, you do not have observables, and information is  
observable.
Therefore, information IS energy or matter, and can be examined  
through entropies (such as., e.g., the Bekenstein-Hawking one).


And, please, colleagues, do not start to write that information is  
subjective and it depends on the observer's mind. This issue has  
been already tackled by the math of physics: science already  
predicts that information can be "subjective", in the MATHEMATICAL  
frameworks of both relativity and quantum dynamics' Copenhagen  
interpretation.
Therefore, the subjectivity of information is clearly framed in a  
TOTALLY physical context of matter and energy.


Sorry for my polemic ideas, but, if you continue to define  
information on the basis of qualitative (and not quantitative)  
science, information becomes metaphysics, or sociology, or  
psychology (i.e., branches with doubtful possibility of achieving  
knowledge, due to their current lack of math).



Arturo Tozzi

AA Professor Physics, University North Texas

Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy

Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba

http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/



Messaggio originale
Da: "Pedro C. Marijuan" 
Data: 15/09/2017 14.13
A: "fis"
Ogg: [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS

Dear FIS Colleagues,

As promised herewith the "10 principles of information science". A  
couple of previous comments may be in order.
First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I was  
motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset,  
"The idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of deductive  
theory" (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative information  
science seems to be very different from other sciences, rather  
multifarious in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from  
scale to scale. What could be the specific role of principles  
herein? Rather than opening homogeneous realms for conceptual  
development, these information principles would appear as a sort of  
"portals" that connect with essential topics of other disciplines in  
the different organization layers, but at the same time they should  
try to be consistent with each other and provide a coherent vision  
of the information world.
And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I was too  
optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case, for having a  
first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of philosophers would  
be very interesting. In order to warm up the discussion, may I ask  
John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael Capurro to send some initial  
comments / criticisms? Later on, if the commentators idea flies,  
Koichiro Matsuno and Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very valuable  
voices to put a perspectival end to this info principles  
discussion(both attended the Madrid bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen states and  
the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get ahead at his  
own, with the only customary limitation of two messages per week.


Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro

10 PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE

1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.

2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,  
or flows.


3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be   
processed (either computationally or non-computationally).


4. Information

Re: [Fis] INFORMATION: JUST A MATTER OF MATH

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Arturo,

On 15 Sep 2017, at 15:16, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:


Dear FISers,
I'm sorry for bothering you,
but I start not to agree from the very first principles.

The only language able to describe and quantify scientific issues is  
mathematics.
Without math, you do not have observables, and information is  
observable.


That is debatable, but follows usually from my working hypothesis  
(brains are Turing emulable), so OK.






Therefore, information IS energy or matter,


But that seems contradict what you just said.


and can be examined through entropies (such as., e.g., the  
Bekenstein-Hawking one).


And, please, colleagues, do not start to write that information is  
subjective and it depends on the observer's mind. This issue has  
been already tackled by the math of physics: science already  
predicts that information can be "subjective", in the MATHEMATICAL  
frameworks of both relativity and quantum dynamics' Copenhagen  
interpretation.
Therefore, the subjectivity of information is clearly framed in a  
TOTALLY physical context of matter and energy.


Sorry for my polemic ideas, but, if you continue to define  
information on the basis of qualitative (and not quantitative)  
science, information becomes metaphysics, or sociology, or  
psychology (i.e., branches with doubtful possibility of achieving  
knowledge, due to their current lack of math).


I disagree. The work of Gödel and seq. entails that all universal  
machine have a very precise mathematical "theology", which includes  
the whole of physics (without geography and history of course). That  
makes Digital Mechanism, alias computationalism, testable, and indeed,  
thanks to Quantum Mechanics without wave collapse, being confirmed up  
to now. The price, or the gift, is that physics is no more the  
fundamental science, and we get an explanation were the appearance of  
the physical reality comes from, and why it is persistent. All this is  
made possible and necessary, with mechanism, by the incompleteness  
result which makes the machine introducing distinctions where  
"God" (truth) can show why they are necessary "illusions".
With mechanism, psychology and theology are branch of mathematics,  
even of arithmetic, like computer science. Note that the origin of the  
notion of computation is purely mathematical (and indeed a computation  
is an arithmetical object, that we can implement in a physical  
reality). The physical reality is itself reduced into a statistics of  
first person points of view distributed in arithmetic.


Bruno






Arturo Tozzi

AA Professor Physics, University North Texas

Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy

Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba

http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/



Messaggio originale
Da: "Pedro C. Marijuan" 
Data: 15/09/2017 14.13
A: "fis"
Ogg: [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS

Dear FIS Colleagues,

As promised herewith the "10 principles of information science". A  
couple of previous comments may be in order.
First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I was  
motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset,  
"The idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of deductive  
theory" (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative information  
science seems to be very different from other sciences, rather  
multifarious in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from  
scale to scale. What could be the specific role of principles  
herein? Rather than opening homogeneous realms for conceptual  
development, these information principles would appear as a sort of  
"portals" that connect with essential topics of other disciplines in  
the different organization layers, but at the same time they should  
try to be consistent with each other and provide a coherent vision  
of the information world.
And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I was too  
optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case, for having a  
first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of philosophers  
wouldbe very interesting. In order to warm up the discussion,  
may I ask John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael Capurro to send  
some initial comments / criticisms? Later on, if the commentators  
idea flies, Koichiro Matsuno and Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very  
valuable voices to put a perspectival end to this info principles  
discussion (both attended the Madrid bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen states and  
the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get ahead at his  
own, with the only customary limitation of two messages per week.


Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro

10 PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE

1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.

2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,  
or flows.


3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be   
processed (either computationally or non-computationally).

Re: [Fis] Can the can drink beer ? - No way!

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Mar 2017, at 16:30, Bob Logan wrote:

Hello Krassimir - I agree with the sentiments you expressed - they  
seem to parallel my thoughts.


I am often  puzzled by the use of the term ‘information’ in the way  
it is often used by physicists re the info of material objects . The  
way the term information is used in physics such as Wheelers its  
from bits does not conform to my understanding of information as a  
noun describing the process of informing.


Wheeler used "information" in the sense of Shannon. It is a  
quantitative measure of something, a degree of of surprise, where a  
subject can be informed of one bit of information by letting it able  
to distinguish two things, like 0 and 1. It is a sort of "atom" of  
digital information, and it has today a sort of cousin in quantum  
mechanics. It occurs also in arithmetic, because classical universal  
machine, nor the quantum one, can know which universal machine emulate  
them.



How can abiotic matter be informed as it cannot make any  choices  
and hence cannot be informed.


Why? It can imprint the difference which makes the difference. Choice  
are relative to our ability to predict ourself, which we can't. "We"  
are not that abiotic matter, but abiotic matter can support  
determinatically "our" choices. But "our" is fuzzify by belonging to  
infinitely many histories. Consciousness, the first person experience  
is a selector.




Living organisms make choices and use information to make those  
choices for all living creatures from bacteria to humans including  
physicists :-).


And very plausibly mathematicians too :)

And the numbers too, and all objects in any Turing universal system.


The only information involved in the uses by physicists describing  
our universe of the word information is that associated with  
physicists becoming informed of what is happening in the universe  
they observe.


Becoming informed in what happens in their brain, and assuming there  
is some most probable universal computation or neighborhood. But  
assuming mechanism, below our substitution level, there is an infinity  
of universal computations "in competition".




I am happy that they want to discuss this info but I believe there  
is a need to distinguish between info (biotic) and info (abiotic) as  
used in physics.


Is that not the difference between un code i and the function phi_i  
that it describes for some universal machine u?



The use of a single word information for both categories is  
confusing, at least it is for me.


It is a problem in the interdisciplinary fields. The solution consists  
in making clear which notion we use, and be careful in not mixing the  
different meaning of the terms. They can sometimes be related. In  
computer science: information is used in Shannon sense most of time,  
and information with meaning is handled by mathematical semantic,  
where a reality (alas called "model" by logicians) is "modeled" by  
mathematical structures, like groups, fields, (N, +, *), Hilbert  
space, but in AI it can be the plausible neighborhood of a robot.




This ambiguity reminds me of Shannon's use of the term entropy to  
define his notion of information having taken the advice of Von  
Neumann.  A story is told that Shannon did not know what to call his  
measure and von Neumann advised him to call it entropy because  
nobody knows what it means and that it would therefore give Shannon  
an advantage in any debate (Campbell, Jeremy 1982, p. 32   
Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life. New York:  
Simon and Schuster. ).  Shannon defined information in such a way  
that he admitted was not necessarily about meaning. Information  
without meaning has no meaning for me.




I agree with you, sometimes "information" is used ambiguously. But I  
think we can solve that issue in making clear which sense we use in  
this or that context.


Information without meaning has some meaning for Shannon, though, and  
for me too. In my approach, it plays some role, as you get one bit of  
Shannon information in a self-duplicating experience, but I use al lot  
information-with-meaning too. "meaning " refers to some reality we, or  
the machine/number in consideration, bet on. We can define it for  
simpler machine than us, but can't for machine like us, of or  
equivalent complexity. Computer science (mathematical logic) seems to  
explain why the meaning of "meaning" might be necessary deluding,  
preventing the machine from some reductionist theories.


Note that the term machine is ambiguous. Sometimes it refers to the  
body, sometimes to the behavior, sometimes to the possible subjecst  
which that machine-body makes it possible for him/her to manifest  
itself relatively to the possible universal machines emulating  
them.The can can't drink the bee

Re: [Fis] Unpleasant answer ? From Bruno Marchal

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Jerry, List,


On 17 Mar 2017, at 22:29, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:



List, Bruno:

(My response to theMarch 13 message are interwoven in a red font.)

 While I appreciate the flow of concepts emerging from Bruno’s  
“poetry”, its guidance appears to exclude chemistry and biology.


We have something like:

Number(with + and *) => Number's dreams statistics => Physics =>  
human biology



Thus, Bruno’s  associations are not so clear to me.

This provides evidence you have a sane mind :)

So, I will be a “spoil sport” and look toward a more “life- 
friendly” flow of both symbols and numbers with only a tad of  
poetry.


On Mar 3, 2017, at 11:51 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

The tensions between the computational natures of discrete and the  
“continuous” numbers haunts  any attempt to make mathematical  
sense out of scientific hypotheses. I am uncertain as to the logical  
implication of the “computationalist’s hypothesis" in this  
context.



If you are aware of the notion of first person indeterminacy, it is  
not so difficult to understand how the appearance of the continuum  
can be explained to be unavoidable in the digital-mechanist frame.  
The physical reality will emerge from a statistics on infinities of  
computations (including many with Oracles). Amazingly, in the  
digitalist frame, it is the digital which remains hard to understand  
a priori, but the mathematics of self-reference gives important clue.


In my view, this is philosophy not related to the logic of the  
physics of the atomic numbers.

Each atomic number has an identity.
That identity infers both mass and electricity and the corresponding  
set of predicates that respect the attributes of the individual form  
of matter.
The computational logic of the chemical sciences is based on the  
coherence of the relations that couple these physical attributes  
into the metrology of chemical sciences.
The success of chemical computations on the atomic numbers is based  
on compositions of atomic numbers (generating functions) and the  
metrology of the emergence molecules, cells, organisms, human  
individuals.


Bruno: How do you relate your methods of calculations to your  
identity?  Can you construct a clear narrative that states the  
necessary premisses? propositions? consequences?  Causal pathways?


The premise is a weak form of Cartesian Mechanism. It is the  
assumption that I could accept a brain or body digital transplant.  
Precisely, it is the assumption that my consciousness is invariant for  
a functional digital susbtitution made at some level. That hypothesis  
is much weaker that the neurophilosophers hypothesis, because I put no  
bound on the substitution level: it can be the enire observable  
universe at the level of quarks and gluons. That hypothesis is used in  
evolution theory, and many think that Nature has already bet on  
computationalism in developing the genetic code. But I am not claiming  
that hypothesis to be true, only that it entails logically that the  
physical reality is an appearance in the relative state of the numbers  
engaged in (Turing) universal relations.


In fact, I do not assume that there is a primary physical universe,  
and I show that if we take the digital mechanist assumption, we  
*can't* assume it.








Is the reference grounded in Curry’s combinatorial logic or  
otherwise?


It does not. The reasoning is independent of any basic universal  
theory chosen.


Both chemistry and biology are based on the chemical table of  
elements and the combinatorial compositions.


I thought so too but I changed my mind when  I discovered Gödel's  
proof of its incompleteness theorem, where I realized that there is an  
abstract (or more concrete according to the philosophical position we  
can have) biology independent of its physical implementation. That is  
what decides me to study mathematics instead of biology and chemistry.


I explain this with some details in my old paper "Amoeba, Planaria and  
Dreaming Machines" (in Bourgine Paul, Varela F.J. (eds),  Artificial  
Life, Toward the Practice of Autonomous Systems, ECAI 91, MIT press,  
pp. 429-440),


or in my more recent papers:

The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body problem. Prog  
Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40


The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in Biophysics  
and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.







Provably so if we assume mechanism. Contrarily to a widely spread  
opinion: mechanism is not compatible with even quite weak form of  
materialism, or physicalism.


The connotations of the term “mechanism” varies widely from  
discipline to discipline.
The sense of “mechanism” in chemistry infers an electrical path  
among the discrete paths of  illations that “glue” the parts into  
a whole.  By sublation, this same sense is used in molecular biology  
and the biomedical sciences.



Bruno, could you expand on y

Re: [Fis] WHY WE ARE HERE? ...AN UNPLEASANT ANSWER?!

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Pedro and Colleague,


On 27 Feb 2017, at 17:39, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:


Dear Arturo and colleagues,

Very interesting piece, indeed. It has strongly reminded me Teilhard  
de Chardin's views on the Omega Point of cosmic maximal complexity-- 
although this was for him not a pessimistic outcome but a brilliant  
and up-beating prospect for all humankind. His eclectic views were  
bitterly rejected by most of the scientific and religious  
establishment of his time (no wonder that particularly by  
evolutionary biologists); but the arrival of Internet, as well as  
today's multi-level selection approaches, and the works of some  
quantum information scientists (Tipler, Deutsch) have vindicated his  
brave, Quixotic figure. Late Popes of the Catholic Church (Benedict  
XVI) have also vindicated his whole intellectual legacy.


My favorite de Chardin's proposition is, from memory:

 "We are not human beings having spiritual experiences, we are  
spiritual beings having human experiences.



That is close to the theology of the neopytagorean Moderatus of Gades,  
and close to the neoplatonist Plotinus, Porphyry, ... And they are  
formally close to the "theology" of the universal numbers. (and even  
intuitively so assuming the computationalist hypothesis in cognitive  
science, through sequence of thought experiences).



It reminds me also of Shrî Aurobindo, when he said:


"What, you ask, was the beginning of it all?

And it is this ...
Existence that multiplied itself
For sheer delight of being
And plunged into numberless trillions of forms
So that it might
Find
Itself
Innumerably"


Tipler and Deutsch defend Everett "many-worlds", but computationalism  
per se shows that very elementary arithmetic determines a web of  
dreams, from which the physical reality is a sort of limiting  
projection. Everett quantum mechanics (the usual minus the wave packet  
reduction) confirms somehow the internal (canonical) web of dreams  
interpretation of arithmetic.







I have some minor problems with the present essay, but substituting  
some of the excessively teleological "purposive" terms about life  
(perhaps all of them?), and using instead a more austere description  
of organizational facts who knows! If life contains a unitary  
principle, I think it is more subtle, and cannot be expressed in  
unilateral physical terms



Provably so if we assume mechanism. Contrarily to a widely spread  
opinion: mechanism is not compatible with even quite weak form of  
materialism, or physicalism.




such as maximum entropy production, symmetry restoration, free  
energy maximization, etc. Well, symmetry and information have more  
clout and hidden complexity, so I express not a rejection but some  
uneasiness regarding too direct "orthogenetic" views on biological  
and social evolution.


My further suggestion --could it be a good idea that you change  
Monod's style "unpleasantness" (Oh, we the accidental discover that  
we are alone in the cosmos!) and point towards some of Teilhard's  
and Vernadsky's noosphere and the Omega Point? You would have  
several curious items to choose...


More opinions??



God created the natural numbers, and saw that it was good.

Then she said: add yourself, and saw that is was good.

Then she said: multiply yourself. And then ... she said: oops, ... and  
lose control.


Like the complexity of the prime numbers distribution already  
illustrates, the logicians know that classical logic + addition of  
integers + multiplication of integers leads to the Church-Turing  
Universality of the reality under concern, "generating *all* universal  
numbers, and they know that the universal machines, or universal  
numbers put a lot of mess in Plato Heaven. The price of universality  
is loss of controllability, and the appearances of realms defying all  
complete theories.


The physical reality is the border of the arithmetical reality "seen  
from inside (by the universal numbers)". The breaking of symmetries  
are in the universal mind, like the symmetries themselves. The  
universal mind is the mind common to all universal numbers.  
("universal" always taken in the Church-Turing-Kleene-Post-Markov  
sense).


The "god" of the machine (the relatively locally finite being) seems  
to be like a universal baby playing hide and seek with itself.


I doubt we are alone in the probable apparent Cosmos that we can  
observe, but we are not alone in Arithmetic, provably so if you assume  
Digital Mechanism (a thesis equivalent with the belief that  
consciousness is invariant for some recursive permutations).


Best wishes to you, and all,

Bruno





Best wishes to all--Pedro

El 24/02/2017 a las 16:24, tozziart...@libero.it escribió:

Dear FISers,

hi!

A possible novel discussion (if you like it, of course!):



A SYMMETRY-BASED ACCOUNT OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION
After the Big Bang, a gradual increase in thermodynamic entropy is  
occurring in our Universe (Ellwanger, 2012).  Becaus

Re: [Fis] A curious tale and QBism

[Bruno Marchal]

Hello Hans,

On 02 Feb 2017, at 16:32, Hans von Baeyer wrote:


Thank you Pedro for mentioning my new book.

Actually, there is a connection between my book and the curious  
tale.  QBists look at the future as a web of interlaced personal,  
numerical probability estimates, with no certainties anchored in  
REAL mechanisms.  The probability that CERN will blow up the world  
is small enough to be negligible for most people, but not for all.   
The thing QBists reject as in principle unattainable is ABSOLUTE  
certainty, which many lay people and some physicists (Einstein was  
among them) continue to long for.




I am not absolutely certain about this. (grin).

Nor am I sure that Einstein defended absolute certainty (an  
epistemological notion). He defended determinism (a metaphysical or  
theological notion), which is neutral on what human or other creature  
can know, believe, know-for-sure or predict, 


If we discard, like Feynman, the reduction of the wave postulate in  
quantum mechanics, we come back to a purely deterministic physics, but  
this does not enforce *any* certainty for any human, at least  
concerning physical prediction.


I tend to think that in the tiny "constructive" part of arithmetic  
(known as sigma_1 arithmetic: it allows only existential quantifiers),  
we can have something akin to certainty. It is hard to doubt that 3+4  
= 7, for example, or that it exists some number n such that n + 4 = 7.


Bruno






Hans Christian von Baeyer

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Re: [Fis] A Curious Story

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Otto,


On 11 Jan 2017, at 12:05, Otto E. Rossler wrote:


Dear Plamen:

I love your response.
But: it misses my point: The fact that I have provided a proof since  
9 years' time (often published) as to why the experiment represents  
a sizeable risk. Everyone in physics is invited to invalidate my  
proof.
I am not against taking unknown risks in science. I am only opposed  
to acting against known risks.


But as convincing as this may be, it is still not my main point. My  
main and real point is: CERN refuses to update its official safety  
report LSAG for exactly as long.


But there is an even more disturbing point. IF an organization  
openly refuses to contradict evidence of committing a crime (even  
the biggest of history), it is very very strange in my own eyes at  
least that no one in the world, from the media to the profession,  
from Europe to Africa to America to Asia, is even able to spot this  
fact as deserving to be alleviated or at least publicly discussed.


Can anyone in this illustrious round offer an excuse or explanation  
for this historically unique phenomenon?



Is it really unique? I'm afraid it might be a rather common attitude.  
As a different example, we know, since a very long time that the  
prohibition of drugs does not work at all: it augments the consumption  
of drugs, in the worst unqualified conditions, and benefits immensely,  
and *only*  to the international crime and terrorism.
Concerning hemp all the papers showing that there is a serious danger  
have been shown, since long, containing elementary errors in logic and  
statistics, or having delirious protocols, but prohibition continues,  
and the number of people suffering directly from it has grown and is  
quite huge. All the literature is available, but nothing changes.
I could say much more on this, as I have studied the human-lies  
phenomenon and the drugs fields is a nest of human lies, but it is now  
a bit of topic (but not quite unrelated to information and  
communication, through the notion of (purposeful)  
misinformation,miscommunication and propaganda).


I think that the prospect of blowing up the planet is just a non- 
concern for some lobbies, and that with fake religion we just accepted  
fake science, and that there is no more free markets nor free-thinking  
because all powers are concentrated into the hands of few bandits,  
dispersed in rotten clubs, rotten politicians working for petrol or  
pharma interests, etc.


I am alas very well placed to know that a part of the academical world  
is itself hostage of those bandits.


So I am not so much astonished that nobody will give attention to  
anything going against the special interest of a small community of  
very influent people, influent by force and not by reason.


It is not so much astonishing, as we have not yet transformed,  
accomplished the Enlightened Period. All sciences have come back to  
Academy, except the most fundamental one (theology), with the result  
that it stays in the hand of the charlatans. We are just still in the  
Middle-Age, and the only difference is that it is a nuclear Middle- 
Age, which is indeed a bit frightening. We are just not rational (yet?).


Having said this, I would also be happy to understand how some small  
black hole could not evaporate.  The math still eludes me.


Of course, I am not an expert in particle physics, and I cannot  
pretend to even been convinced, through pure personal insight , why  
black holes exist and should evaporate "in reality", as opposed to  
simplification where the math is feasible, but where my intuition is  
not solid enough to see if the math can be applied. But I am with you,  
Otto, when asking why nobody tries seriously to answer your question,  
as it is indeed a rather important one, locally.


Best,

Bruno


(Understanding is sometimes more important than surviving -- right?  
Forgive me the pun.)


Can you kindly distribute this response of mine?

I am very grateful for the discussion,
take care, everyone,
Otto



From: Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov 
To: Louis H Kauffman 
Cc: fis 
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] A Curious Story

Dear Louis, Pedro and FISers,

I have been knowing Otto for about a litle less than 10 years now.
What I have learned from him is that he has a very subtle sense of  
humor and wisdom.
What I conclude about this issue with CERN's LHC is that he wishes  
nothing more/less than an a priori theoretical proof that the black  
hole experiments will not lead to a collaps of the Earth.
He would be more than happy if somebody provides this proof and his  
concerns about our future appear ungrounded, so that the experiments  
can continue without any fear about the possible end of humanity.  
But as he said, nobody has done this until now. Nobody has taken  
these concerns seriously. The key question for us is why do we allow  
such experiments without having such a proof? Why do we play with  
fire in our ow

Re: [Fis] Brenner and Lupasco logic

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Dec 2016, at 15:50, tozziart...@libero.it wrote:


Dear Joseph,

Hi!

I quote your 2010 manuscript (by the way, compliments! yours is a  
noteworthy paper! Furthermore, you were also able to make the  
unreadable Lupasco very clear!) that the FISers can find here:


http://apcz.pl/czasopisma/index.php/LLP/article/viewFile/LLP.2010.009/967



"The key postulate, as formulated by Lupasco, is that every real  
phenomenon, element or event e is always associated with an anti- 
phenomenon, anti-element or anti-event non-e, such that the  
actualization of e entails the potentialization of non-e and vice  
versa, alternatively, without either ever disappearing completely.  
The logic is a logic of an included middle, consisting of axioms and  
rules of inference for determining the state of the three dynamic  
elements involved in a phenomenon (“dynamic” in the physical  
sense, related to real rather than to formal change, e.g. of  
conclusions).


4.2. Axioms

The three fundamental axioms of classical logic, in one version, are  
the following:


1. The axiom of identity: A is (or =) A.

2. The axiom of non-contradiction: A is not (or 6=) non-A.

3. The axiom of the excluded middle: there exists no third term  
‘T’ (‘T’ from third) that is at the same time A and non-A.




That is the principle of non-contradiction. That is:  non (A and non A).



The axiom of the excluded middle is: A or non-A.

In classical logic they are equivalent, but when you throw out the  
axiom of the excluded middle, then they are no more equivalent, and  
all logics (intutionistic, quantum) keep up the principle of non  
contradiction. Intuitionist logic abandon the axiom of the excluded  
middle, but most quantum logics keeps the axiom of the excluded  
middle. They weakened p -> (q -> p) instead (eenough to lose the  
distributivity axioms.


When a machine introspect itself, it discovers five ways to see "truth":

p
justify p
know p   ((justify p) and p)
observe p ((justify p) and (consistent p))
feel p   ((justify p) and (consistent p) and p)

which can be shown to define arithmetical interpretation of many non  
classical logics. We get quanta as particular qualia, as should be  
expected from some thought experiences. In that case p is restricted  
to the sigma_1 arithmetical proposition (which emulates the  
computations).


I feel you assume a physical reality, but with computationalism, the  
only way to solve the mind-body problem consists in deriving the  
statistical appearance of the physical by the true (not necessarily  
provable by the machine in question) ((justify p) and (consistent p)  
and p), but with p sigma_1 (= shape is "it exists x such that P(x)",  
they obey "p -> justify p") we get already a quantum logic for the  
knower ([]p & p).


It is the Gödel-Löb incompleteness theorems which prevents those  
logics to collapse. Incompleteness introduces all the Parmenidian  
nuances of "the one".


I am not sure to follow what you explain next. I don't and can't  
assume a (primary) physical reality, as digital mechanism is my  
hypothesis in cognitive science, and space-time dynamics is obtained  
by a statistics on first person view related to some sheaf of  
computations. Arithmetic contains a differentiating universal  
consciousness flux (assuming mechanism).


Bruno

PS second, and thus last message for this week.



Based on his “antagonistic” worldview, according to Basarab  
Nicolescu (see Nicolescu 1996),


Lupasco “rewrote” the three major axioms of classical logic as  
follows:


1. (Physical) Non-Identity: There is no A at a given time that is  
identical to A at another time.


2. Conditional Contradiction: A and non-A both exist at the same  
time, but only in the sense that when A is actual, non-A is  
potential, reciprocally and alternatively, but never to the limit of  
100%.


3. Included Middle: An included or additional third element or T- 
state (‘T’ for ‘tiers inclus’, included third).




The evolution of real processes is therefore asymptotically toward a  
non-contradiction of identity or diversity, or toward contradiction.  
The mid-point of semi-actualization and semi-potentialization of  
both is a point of maximum contradiction, a “T-state” resolving  
the contradiction (or “counter-action”) at a higher level of  
reality or complexity.


Lupasco deserves the historical credit for having shown that a logic  
of the included middle is a valid multivalent logic, with the  
indicated terms. At a single level of reality, the second and third  
axioms are essentially equivalent. In Nicolescu’s extension of the  
logic, the T-state emerges from the point of maximum contradiction  
at which A and non-A are equally


actualized and potentialized, but at a higher level of reality or  
complexity, at which the contradiction is resolved. His paradigm  
example is the unification in the quanton (T) of the apparently  
contradictory elements of particle (A) and wave (non-A). In contrast  

Re: [Fis] Fw: Is quantum information the basis of spacetime? Some New Theories

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Nov 2016, at 09:59, Joseph Brenner wrote:


Dear All,

It is fascinating to watch the evolution of ideas about information  
as a function of some new theories which beg for critique:


1. Andrei gives a correct explanation of the origin of Irreducible  
Quantum Randomness. In my opinion, however, it is not necessary to  
assume that randomness at the quantum level has the properties of  
APPARENT randomness at the cognitive level, that is, apparent free  
will.



I completely agree with this. Free will actually needs determinacy,  
indeed self-determinacy.






Any cognitive equivalent of non-locality is a cognitive projection.


The appearance of basic physical indeterminacy has to be, and actually  
is, explainable in terms of arithmetical self-reference.


The physical is emergent from the first person interference of  
infinities of computations going through our states.







2. Karl returns to a Platonic world of numbers which are causally  
effective. I think the appropriate term for this approach is pre- 
scientific.



I would side on Karl about this. We teach in secondary school (12 to  
16 years old) the intended number theoretical content of the following  
first order arithmetical formula since a long time:


0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y

x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)

and I have never heard any parent taking their kids out of the school  
when their kids are taught that the arithmetical proposition are  
either true or false. We do have an intuition about 0, 1, 2, ..., and  
believe the induction axioms applies on the iterated constructions.


Then not well known fact is that if we assume computationalism, in the  
non constructive sense of accepting a brain transplant for *some*  
level of description, we have to extract physics (but not our relative  
geography) from number self-references.


It is the belief in some primary physical universe which is pre- 
scientific, in that setting. To invoke a physical universe to select a  
computation among the infinitely many one which exist cannot work. All  
computations participate, and indeed statistically interfere, and the  
"winners" are those who multiplied in the continuum. This needs an  
understanding of the seven first steps of the Universal Dovetailer  
Argument/Paradox.






3. Alex sees the same form of causal effectiveness in Fisher  
information, as interpreted by Frieden. A critique exists of  
Frieden's inventions which seems correct to me. The new concepts  
(e.g. "bound information") and gaps in Frieden's theory are exactly  
those which can be filled with the real dynamic properties of energy/ 
information. The discussion of these is far from exhausted.


As an inhabitant of space-time, I am glad that it does not seem to  
require any of the entities of theories 2. and 3. as its BASIS. If  
it did, I might not exist.


You exist, but might not be what you thought you are. In the Digital  
Mechanist theory you are a universal person indexically lost in a  
present interval distributed in a labyrinth of "dreams". It has the  
strong evidence the dreams cohere enough to say hello to itself and  
share experiences.


Technically the correct theology of the ideally correct universal  
number is quite close to Moderatus of Gades and Plotinus. Those are  
platonist theories in the sense they don't take matter as primary. But  
intuitively it is close to Sri Aurobindo following quote:



Computationalism makes big chapter of machine/number theology once we  
take seriously Church thesis and the level-variable choice of  
functional substitution in brain operation.


I am not saying that Digital Mechanism is true, nor that I like it or  
anything. Just that Digital Mechanism entails a non Digital physics  
and a non digital science of the persons, but the physical,  
sensible, ... realities are in the head of the universal numbers. That  
does not prevent them to obey laws, and indeed they do, and compared  
to observation, thanks to quantum mechanics, it fits very well.


The universal machine already know it has a soul, and that its soul is  
not a machine, nor is its body. This is a theorem in computer science,  
once accepting classical definitions already suggested by antic  
greeks. I can provide all the references.


Best,

Bruno





Best wishes,

Joseph

- Original Message - From: "Andrei Khrennikov" >

To: "'FIS Webinar'" 
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2016 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Is quantum information the basis of spacetime?


   Dear all,
I make the last remark about "physical information". The main  
problem of quantum physics is to justify so called
IRREDUCIBLE QUANTUM RANDOMNESS (IQR). It was invented  by von  
Neumann. Quantum randomness, in contrast to classical,
cannot be reduced to variations in an ensemble. One single electron  
is irreducibly random.


The operational Copenhagen interpretation cannot "explain" the  
o

Re: [Fis] Is quantum information the basis of spacetime?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Nov 2016, at 10:48, Andrei Khrennikov wrote:


Dear all,
I make the last remark about "physical information". The main  
problem of quantum physics is to justify so called
IRREDUCIBLE QUANTUM RANDOMNESS (IQR). It was invented  by von  
Neumann. Quantum randomness, in contrast to classical,
cannot be reduced to variations in an ensemble. One single electron  
is irreducibly random.


The operational Copenhagen interpretation cannot "explain" the  
origin of  IQR, since it does not even try to explain anything,
"Shut up and calculate!" (R. Feynman to his students). Nevertheless,  
many  top experts in QM want some kind of "explanation". The  
informational approach to QM is one
of such attempts. Roughly speaking, one tries to get IQR from  
fundamental  notion of "physical information" as the basic blocks of  
Nature.


This is very important activity, since nowadays IQR has huge  
technological value, the quantum random generators are justified  
through IQR. And this is billion Euro

project.

Finally, to check experimentally the presence of IQR, we have to  
appeal to violation  of Bell's inequality. And here (!!!) to proceed  
we  have to accept the existence of
FREE WILL. Thus finally the cognitive elements appears, but in  very  
surprisingly

setting



Bell's inequality shows only indeterminacy and non-locality in the  
Mono-world QM theory. I have shown that local and deterministic  
Mechanism (simple Descartes Mechanist hypothesis in cognitive science)  
implies the *appearance* of non-locality and indeterminacy, and this  
before I knew anything about QM. QM without collapse (non-copenhague  
theory) confirms Descartes' Mechanism (in cognitive science, not in  
physics).
The indeterminacy and non-locality are an appearance emerging from our  
abstraction with respect to the many computations, which can be proved  
to exist from the universally accepted assumption of elementary  
arithmetic.


You are logically valid in QM + the assumption of a unique reality,  
which needs the assumption that brain are not Turing emulable. But  
that seems to me quite speculative and almost like an ad hoc  
assumption to avoid the computationalist solution of the mind-body  
problem. Better to continue the testing and abandon Mechanism only  
when we find good evidences against it, I think.


Bruno







Yours, andrei

Andrei Khrennikov, Professor of Applied Mathematics,
Int. Center Math Modeling: Physics, Engineering, Economics, and  
Cognitive Sc.

Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
My RECENT BOOKS:
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/p1036
http://www.springer.com/in/book/9789401798181
http://www.panstanford.com/books/9789814411738.html
http://www.cambridge.org/cr/academic/subjects/physics/econophysics-and-financial-physics/quantum-social-science
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783642051005


From: Fis [fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] on behalf of John Collier [colli...@ukzn.ac.za 
]

Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 9:19 PM
To: l...@leydesdorff.net; 'Alex Hankey'; 'FIS Webinar'
Subject: Re: [Fis] Is quantum information the basis of spacetime?

More on Quantum information and emergent spacetime, this time by  
Erik P. Verlinde:
Emergent Gravity and the Dark Universe


There is a less formal review at
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-gravity-dark.html

I consider the idea very speculative, as I have seen no work on  
information within a spacetime boundary except for this sort of work.


Of course, meaning need not apply. I doubt that it is bounded by  
language, but it at least has to be representational. Perhaps more  
is also required. I am reluctant to talk of meaning when discussing  
the semiotics of biological chemicals, for example, but could not  
find a better word. A made up word like Deacon’s “entention” might  
work best, but it still would not apply to the physics cases, even  
though the information in the boundaries in all cases but the  
internal information one can tell you about the spacetime structure  
within the boundary. That seems to me that it is like smoke to fire:  
smoke doesn’t mean fire, despite the connection.


John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Fis [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Loet  
Leydesdorff

Sent: Saturday, 12 November 2016 9:29 PM
To: 'Alex Hankey' ; 'FIS Webinar' >

Subject: Re: [Fis] Is quantum information the basis of spacetime?

Dear Alex and colleagues,

Thank you for the reference; but my argument was about “meaning”.  
“Meaning” can only be considered as constructed in language. Other  
uses of the word are metaphorical. For example, the citation to  
Maturana.


Information, in my opinion, can be defined content-free (a la  
Shannon, etc.) and then be provided with meaning in (scholarly)  
discourses. I consider physics as one among o

Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 32, Issue 13

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Malcolm Dean and colleagues,


On 12 Nov 2016, at 22:11, Malcolm Dean wrote:

To an animal about to be attacked and eaten, the meaning of an  
approaching predator is quite clear.


Obviously, meaning is produced by, within, and among Observers, and  
not by language.


Meaning may be produced *through* language, not *in* language, as a  
medium of interaction (aka communication).


I wish scientific specialists had more awareness of the effects of  
their specialization.


I wish people knew a bit more about mathematical logic, which is  
partially the study of the semantics (aka meaning) of formal  
expression. Meaning refer to a notion of reality, "modeled" by models  
(a bad term as physicists used "model" for what logicians call a  
theory). A model is a mathematical structure making a sentence  
(proposition) true or false, and this, in my opinion applies to  
meaning in the natural language, where usually some notion of reality  
is involved:  the proposition "there is two beers in the fridge" is  
judged meaningful because we believe in a reality with fridge  
containing, or not, beers.


The term "information", like the term "infinite" admits many technical  
(and incompatible) definitions, and also some intuitive every day  
meaning. In the case of information, many people are unclear if they  
talk about something third person describable, like with Shannon, or  
quantum information, or if they talk about the first person  
interpretation of the information, which requires a subject (at least  
a universal machine or number) and a reality (supposed to support the  
subject and what he is talking about). Despite logicians work on  
rather simple systems, most results on models and meaning are  
negative. No machine can build a complete unequivocal study of its own  
semantics. It has to be elusive, and that elusiveness plays an  
important role in the unavoidable evolution of machines and collective  
of machines.


Bruno Marchal






Malcolm Dean


Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2016 20:29:21 +0100
From: "Loet Leydesdorff" 
To: "'Alex Hankey'" , "'FIS Webinar'"

Subject: Re: [Fis] Is quantum information the basis of spacetime?

Dear Alex and colleagues,

Thank you for the reference; but my argument was about meaning.  
Meaning can only be considered as constructed in language. Other  
uses of the word are metaphorical. For example, the citation to  
Maturana.


Information, in my opinion, can be defined content-free (a la  
Shannon, etc.) and then be provided with meaning in (scholarly)  
discourses. I consider physics as one among other scholarly  
discourses. Specific about physics is perhaps the universalistic  
character of the knowledge claims. For example: "Frieden's points  
apply to quantum physics as well as classical physics." So what?  
This seems to me a debate within physics without much relevance for  
non-physicists (e.g., economists or linguists).


Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
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Re: [Fis] Scientific communication (from Mark)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Oct 2016, at 16:16, Dai Griffiths wrote:

To trying to answer this question, I find myself asking "Do patterns  
exist without an observer?".


Would 2+2=4 be true without the big bang occurring?

Of course this depend on the fundamental theory chosen. With a  
physicalist theory, it is arguable that a pattern does not exist  
without an observer, but this raise the question of what is an  
observer. If it is itself a pattern, where does the first observer  
come from, etc.
With Mechanism, which has been shown epistemologically inconsistent  
with physicalism, we can accept that the truth or falsity of  
arithmetical relations is independent of the existence of an observer,  
and then we can easily defined an observer in term of arithmetical  
relations. This, nevertheless, will multiply it an infinity of times  
and leads to many-worlds, which are somehow confirmed by the  
observation if we agree that there is no wave-collapse (Everett).


To sum up, with Mechanism, some pattern exist independently of the  
observer, but most will make sense only relative to some observer,  
i.e. some universal number.





A number of familiar problems then re-emerge, which blur my ability  
to distinguish between foreground and background.


That is why a strong, yet natural, hypothesis can help, like (Digital)  
Mechanism. In that case it is a fractal similar to the Mandelbrot set  
(to simplify and shorten things).
Then incompleteness refutes Socrates critics of Theaetetus' definition  
of the knower (the logic of []p & p does differ from the logic of []p,  
even in the case of p <-> []p, as we get with the basic elementary  
arithmetic sentences (sigma_1-sentences).
This might explain why some blurring is unavoidable, and why all  
universal number, from its first person point of view, can't  
distinguish the foreground and the background. Such distinction is  
intrinsically complex and universal machine related.


Bruno




Dai

On 13/10/16 11:32, Karl Javorszky wrote:

Do patterns contain information?


--
-

Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
Professor of Education
School of Education and Psychology
The University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton, BL3 5AB

Office: T3 02
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/IEC

SKYPE: daigriffiths
UK Mobile +44 (0)749151559
Spanish Mobile: + 34 687955912
Work: + 44 (0)7826917705
(Please don't leave voicemail)
email:
  d.e.griffi...@bolton.ac.uk
  dai.griffith...@gmail.com

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Re: [Fis] Scientific communication (from Mark)

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Mark, dear Pedro, dear colleagues,


On 10 Oct 2016, at 19:50, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ wrote:

On 10 Oct 2016, at 19:50, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ wrote:



De: Mark Johnson [johnsonm...@gmail.com],



Dear Dai, Rafael, Loet and all,

Thank you for your comments - the theological connection interests me
because it potentially presents a paradigm of a more vulnerable
and open dialogue.

Loet, clearly the redundancy is apophatic, although one has to be
cautious in saying this: the domain of the apophatic is bigger than
the domain of Shannon redundancy. At some point in the future we may
do better in developing measurement techniques for 'surprise' in
communication (I wonder if Lou Kauffman's Recursive Distinguishing is
a way forwards...). Shannon's formulae have served us well because
we've constrained our digital world around them. "Surprise", from a
phenomenological perspective, is a much more slippery thing than the
measure of probability. There are, as Keynes and others identified,
fundamental ontological assumptions about induction which do not
appear to be sound in probabilistic thinking. These questions are not
separable from questions about the nature of empirical reasoning
itself (Keynes used Hume as his reference point), and by extension,
about the communication between scientists. I still don't know what
information is; I've simply found it more helpful and constructive to
think about constraint, and Shannon redundancy presents itself as a
fairly simple thing to play with.

Back to scientific communication, I've been looking at David Bohm
whose thoughts on dialogue are closely related to his thinking about
physics, and to my own concern for constraint. He writes:

"when one comes to do something (and not merely to talk about it or
think about it), one tends to believe that one already is listening to
the other person in a proper way. It seems then that the main trouble
is that the other person is the one who is prejudiced and not
listening. After all, it is easy for each one of us to see that other
people are 'blocked' about certain questions, so that without being
aware of it, they are avoiding the confrontation of contradictions in
certain ideas that may be extremely dear to them. The very nature of
such a 'block' is, however, that it is a kind of insensitivity of
"anaesthesia" about one's own contradictions." (Bohm, "On Dialogue",
p.4)

The blocks are complex, but "published work" and "reputation" are
important factors in establishing them. I was at a conference last
week where a highly established figure castigated a young PhD student
who was giving an excellent but challenging presentation: "have you
read ANY of my books?!". The student dealt with the attack elegantly;
everyone else thought it revealed rather more about the constraints of
ego of the questioner (confirming a few suspicions they might have had
beforehand!)

Our practices of "Not communicating" in science are, I think,
well-demonstrated by considering this encounter between Richard
Dawkins, Rowan Williams and Anthony Kenny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bow4nnh1Wv0

I think it's worth pointing out the constraints (or "blocks") of their
respective
positions, which (particularly in Dawkins case) are very clearly on
display. My reading of this is that they attempt to communicate by
coordinating terminology/explanations/etc. All the time they are aware
of the fact that they have fundamentally different constraints: there
is no overlap of constraint, and really no communication. The medium
of the discussion is part
of the problem: it structures itself around the 'topics' for debate,
and then it becomes a matter of not making oneself vulnerable within
that frame (this is what Bohm advocated avoiding). Yet for
communication (or dialogue) to take place between
these people, mutual vulnerability (I suggest) would have to be the
starting point. The discussion is also framed by the history and
reputation established through the each participant's published work.

One of the reasons why I mentioned the theological work (and why I
think this is important) is that it is much harder to talk about
theology without making oneself vulnerable - or at least, an
invulnerable theology comes across as dogmatism... of the kind that in
this instance, is most clearly exemplified by Dawkins!

What's missing is usually our vulnerability.



We have separated theology from science since about 1500 years.

This makes theology, the science, vulnerable, as reason is no more  
allowed in, and that leaves the place for emotion and wishful  
thinking, which are quickly exploited by manipulators, usually to  
steal our money, or control us in some ways.


This makes also science partially into a pseudo-theology, or pseudo- 
religion, or pseudo-science, making people believing that somehow  
science *is* truth, when actually science is just modesty and doubt,  
avoiding any pretension of truth, but p

Re: [Fis] _ Towards a 3φ integrative medicine

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Plamen, Hi colleagues,

I would feel guilty not adding two grains of salt here, but I am aware  
that a thorough understanding of what I say require some familiarity  
with theoretical computer science and mathematical logic, at least for  
the first remark.


About phenomenology, the incompleteness theorem and those extending  
it, assures us that ideally arithmetically sound machines have a very  
rich set of phenomelogies, once accept the classical theory of  
knowledge (True belief). Indeed incompleteness prevents the third  
person representation to ever account of the machine's knowledge, and  
here the math leads to a tour de force: a (meta)-axiomatization of a  
subject not amenable to any third person description, neither formal  
or informal. That theory is given by the modal logic S4Grz. Better, I  
presented an argument that if Descartes Mechanism is correct (a  
digital version of it, based on Church-Thesis), then physics has to be  
phenomenological, and this is confirmed to in the sense that the  
observable extracted from arithmetic get a quantum logic with an  
alternate histories interpretation which mirrors already what Nature  
suggests to us.
So I would say that we do have a rich phenomenology for the universal  
numbers. It is there in arithmetic, but asks for some investment in  
the study of computer science and its relation with mathematical logic.


About cancer. What strikes me as extremally odd is that most people  
seems to continue to ignore the discovery made in the US, and well  
hidden since, that injecting THC in tumoral brain mice reduces, and  
sometimes eliminates the brain tumor. This has been rediscovered since  
by a Spanish laboratory 20 years later, on different animals or  
tissues, but cannabis remains in schedule one or equivalent in many  
state and countries, so, despite the many wittnessing it works on  
humans, the subject remains taboo. In fact, Mechoulam, in Jerusalem,  
discovered both the THC in cannabis, and later, the corresponding  
agonist in the brain, and actually the whole endocannaninoïd system,  
whose main global role is the reparation and boosting of the entire  
immune system, which explains the very long time evidence of the  
medical prowess of hemp.


I agree and appreciate most holistic remarks made here on cancer and  
its therapy research. I think that the endocannabinoid system and the  
medical cannabis illustrates all this very well. But the illegality of  
a drug kills the genuinely free-markets, which is the best regulator  
of global integration of complex ideas, I think, and today's medicine  
and pharmacy are more merchandising of diseases than a will of health,  
and this is obviously a problem for integrative medicine, as it  
disintegrates the honest basic research needed at the bottom and start.


Two links with references:
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v01/n572/a11.html
http://www.cannabis-infos.com/2014/08/dossier-68-etudes-qui-demontrent.html

Best,

Bruno

On 14 May 2016, at 09:49, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov wrote:


Dear Colleagues,

My contribution will finalize the discussion on phenomenology in the  
domains of biology, mathematics, cyber/biosemiotics and physics by  
the previous speakers (Maxine, Lou, Sœren and Alex) with a  
“challenging topic” in 3φ integrative medicine. You may wish to  
skip the small font text notes following each underscored phrase  
like the one below.



Note 1: Although this term is often used as synonym for holistic  
healing (s. ref. list A), its meaning in this context with the  
prefix 3φ goes much “deeper” into the disciplines’ integration  
leaving no room for speculations by mainstream scientists. The  
concept is a linguistic choice of mine for the intended merge of the  
complexity sciences physics and physiology with phenomenology for  
application in modern medicine along the line of integral biomathics  
(s. ref. list B).



It is rooted in the last presentation of Alex Hankey, since it  
naturally provides the link from physics to physiology and medicine,  
and thus to an anthropocentric domain implying a leading part of  
phenomenological studies. To begin, I compiled a précis of Alex’  
thesis about self-organized criticality (s. ref. list C) from his  
paper “A New Approach to Biology and Medicine” -- the download  
link to it was distributed in a previous email of him -- and  
extended it with my reflections including some questions I hope you  
will resonate on.




I am curious of your opinion about how to apply the scientific  
method, and in particular mathematics and information science, to  
study illness and recovery as complex phenomena.



Alex Hankey: self-organized criticality and regulation in living  
systems



There is a continuous growth and change at the end of a phase  
transition in an organism, i.e. at its critical point, which is the  
end point of phase equilibrium.




Both endo and exo, genetics and epigenetics are important for life.



Self-organi

Re: [Fis] _ Re: _ Gödel discussion

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Alex, dear friends,


On 04 May 2016, at 02:49, Alex Hankey wrote:


Dear Friends,

I was so struck by the group's focus on Gödel's theorems that I went  
back to John R. Lucas who originated the idea that Gödel's insights  
imply that the human miind is not a machine - and therefore capable  
of genuine phenomenal experience. You may find the ideas in the  
following informative and useful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lucas_(philosopher)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minds,_Machines_and_Gödel

I noted particularly that I have used complexity (which Lucas  
mentions towards the end of MM&G) to establish that organisms are  
not machines, and out of that I identify the form of information  
which may explain various aspects of experience.



I work on this since a long time. It is my domain of investigation  
actually. Indeed, it is Gödel's proof which made me decide along time  
ago to become a mathematician instead of a biologist, when I saw that  
Gödel's technic gave a conceptually clear explanation of how something  
can self-duplicate, self-refers, self-transforms, etc.


The first to get the idea that incompleteness can be used to "prove"  
that we are not machine was Emil Post in 1922, wen he anticipated  
incompleteness. Then Emil Post was also the first to see the main  
error in that argument, and he saw what can still be derived from it  
(mainly that iF we are a machine THEN we cannot know which machine we  
are: a key that I have exploited in the derivation of physics from  
arithmetic and mechanism).


Note that Gödel's first incompleteness theorem can be rigorously  
derived in very few line (indeed just one double diagonalization) from  
the Church-Turing thesis. This has been seen by Kleene, and is  
exploited by Judson Webb in his 1980  book to illustrate that not only  
Gödel's theorem does not refute mechanism, but Gödel's theorem is an  
incredible chance for mechanism. I have written myself  a lot on this,  
and my work extends this at the extreme, as it shows that mechanism  
makes incompleteness the roots of both the appearance of qualia and  
quanta, and this in a precise and unique way, making mechanism  
empirically refutable.


I intended to give here the proof in a few line of Gödel's  
incompleteness from Church-thesis, but that might wait.


Someone (Lou?) said "Proving” that we are not machines is somewhat  
quixotic from my point of view, in that it should be obvious that we  
are not machines!"


The statement "we are machine" is ambiguous. Does "we" refers to our  
souls or to our bodies? Does it refers to our third person describable  
relative bodies or to our private unnameable and non describable first  
person view.


Here, what the Gödel-Löbian machine can already prove about themselves  
is that IF they are self-referentially correct machine, and if they  
survive a digital substitution at some level of description, they  
their soul is not a machine, once we admit to identify the soul with  
the knower, and translate the Theaetetus' definition of knowing (true  
opinion, []p & p) in arithmetical terms. If my body is a machine, then  
my soul is not (says Peano Arithmetic!).


I explain the main things in my two JPMB contributions. The key idea,  
related to Gödel, is that incompleteness separates clearly what is  
true about the machine and what is justifiable by the machine on one  
part, and on the other part, it separates clearly the justifiability  
([]p), knowability ([]p & p), "observability" ([]p & <>t), sensibility  
([]p & <>t & p) with []p for Gödel's probability predicate, and <>t =  
~[]~t = ~[]f = consistency (t = constant true, f = constant false). I  
predicted that []p & p, []p & <>p and []p & <>t & p should give a  
quantum logic (when p is "computably accessible, or Sigma_1), which I  
manage to prove after 30 years of research. The whole things leads to  
a many dream interpretations of arithmetic, from which a derivation of  
quantum mechanics should be possible (and is partially done).


All this has been made possible by Gödel's theorem and its many  
generalizations in many directions: Löb's theorem, Kleene's theorems  
and mainly Solovay's completeness theorem for some modal logics, which  
capture everything in the undecidability field in two modal logics (G  
and G*). I will just refer everyone interested to my papers.


The main point relevant here is that incompleteness saves machine from  
all reductionism. It shows that a machine (or any effective theory)  
like Peano Arithmetic (say) is already quite clever. PA can already  
refute all reductionist theories about its soul, and indeed can  
already derive physics from Mechanism + Arithmetic.


Unfortunately, this uses mathematical logic, which is not well know by  
non-logicians. Mathematical logic contains important sub-branches,  
like computation theory, computability, theory, proof theory, and  
model theory. Model theory is the study of meanings and semantics of  
fo

Re: [Fis] Gödel discussion

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Albert,


On 07 May 2016, at 06:57, Albert A Johnstone wrote:


Greetings everyone,
I’d like to say a few words about Smullyan’s thought experiment and  
its relevance to Gödel’s Theorem in the hope of putting an end to  
discussion of a topic somewhat tangential to the main one. Before  
doing so, I am forwarding an email from Lou Kauffman which gives a  
very clear account of Smullyan’s reasoning.


 Original Message 
Subject: Re: [Fis] _ FIS discussion
Date: 2016-05-04 12:30
From: Louis H Kauffman 
To: Maxine Sheets-Johnstone 

Dear Maxine,
I am writing privately to you since I have used up my quota of forum  
comments for this week.

I am going to discuss a Smullyan puzzle in detail with you.
I call this the Smullyan Machine.

THE SMULLYAN MACHINE
The machine has a button on the top and when you press that button,  
it prints a string of symbols using the following three letter  
alphabet.

{ P, ~ ,R}
Thus the machine might print P~~~NRRP.
I shall designate an unknown string of symbols by X or Y.
Strings that begin with P, ~P, PR or ~PR are INTERPRETED (given  
meaning) as follows:


Meaningful Strings
(When I say “X can be printed by the Machine” I mean that when you  
press the button the machine will print exactly X and nothing else.)


Actually Smullyan meant "printable" or "printed soon or later by a  
machine which is programmed to print all what she can print (it can be  
shown easily that this is always possible by a dovetailing technic).


The point will be that if the machine is correct, then the set of what  
is printable will be included properly in the set of what is true.






PX:  X can be printed by the Machine.
~PX: X cannot be printed by the Machine.
PRX: XX can be printed by the Machine.
~PRX: XX can not be printed by the Machine.

Thus it is possible that the machine might print
~PPR
This has meaning and it states that the machine cannot bring PR all  
by itself when the button is pressed.


AXIOM OF THE MACHINE
The Smullyan Machine always tells the truth when it prints a  
meaningful string.


THEOREM. There is a meaningful string that is true but not printable  
by the Smullyan Machine.


PROOF. Let S = ~PR~PR. This string is meaningful since it starts  
with ~PR.
Note that S = ~PRX where X = ~PR. Thus by the definition (above) of  
the meaning of S,  “XX is not printable by the Machine.”
We note however that XX = ~PR~PR = S. Thus S has the meaning that “S  
is not printable by the Machine.”
Since the Machine always tells the truth, it would be in a  
contradiction if it printed S. Therefore the Machine cannot print S.
But this is exactly the meaning of S, and so S is true. S is a true  
but not printable string. The completes the proof.

—

Now I have an assignment for you.
Please criticize the Smullyan Machine from your phenomenological  
point of view.
If you wish you could include my description of the Machine and make  
a statement about it on FIS.
My point and Smullyan’s point in his Oxford University Press Book on  
Godel’s Theorem, is that the Machine is an accurate depiction of the  
Godel argument, with
Printabilty replacing Provablity. The way that self-reference works  
here, and the way the semantics and syntax are controlled is very  
much like the way these things happen in the
full Godel theorem. The Machine provides a microcosm for the  
discussion of Godel and self-reference.

Yours truly,
Lou Kauffman
P.S. “This sentence has thirty-three letters.”
is a fully meaningful and true English sentence.
Self-referential sentence can have meaning and reference.


Johnstone again:

	In response to the above assessment, let us first distinguish  
syntactic self-reference which is reference to the words or sentence  
that one is using, from semantic self-reference, which is reference  
to the MEANING of the words or sentences one is using. There is  
nothing wrong with syntactic self-reference but semantic self- 
reference invariably generates vacuity and sometimes paradox.


Now Smullyan’s sentence ‘~PR~PR’ is often interpreted (as by Lou,  
Bruno, and by myself earlier) as making a syntactically self- 
referential statement that says that the sentence expressing that  
statement is not printable. On the supposition that such is the  
case, the statement it makes must also be semantically self- 
referential for the following reason. In Smullyan’s scenario, the  
printing machine prints only true statements. As a result, a  
sentence is printable if and only if the statement it makes is true.


It follows only that all the sentences printed by the machine will be  
true. It does not entail that the machine will print all true  
sentences. It is "only if", not "if and only if" when you say "As a  
result, a sentence is printable if and only if the statement it makes  
is true.".





Consequently, the two predicates ‘is not printable’

Re: [Fis] FIS Discussion (No Vol #)

[Bruno Marchal]

ns. John  
Stewart, for one, has argued that Gödel's Theorem undermines an  
Objectivist epistemology and supports transduction, the view that  
subject and object exist only in their relationship to each other.   
Michael Dummett deems the theorem to show "that no formal system can  
ever succeed in embodying all the principles of proof that we should  
intuitively accept."  Likewise, Roger Penrose takes it to show that  
in mathematical thinking "the role of consciousness is non- 
algorithmic," and that "human understanding and insight cannot be  
reduced to any set of computational rules."
	As concluded above, Gödel's Theorem is made possible by a failure  
to either exclude or accommodate sentences that express pseudo- 
statements on their intended interpretation. Such a situation  
provides no obvious support for the claim that mathematics has no  
firm foundation, and hence none for Antifoundationalism or for  
Antirealism. Nor does it reveal some deep feature of mathematical  
thinking, a feature that eludes capture in a formal system. Such a  
feature may well exist, but evidence for it must be sought  
elsewhere. Finally. it cannot reasonably be claimed to reveal some  
remarkable capacity of the human mind: self-reference. The latter  
simply generates nonsense. A capacity to lapse into nonsense,  
however proficiently exercised, is hardly a very awe-inspiring human  
trait.



I don't think this is serious. Take, with Smullyan the simple alphabet  
with ~,  (, ), P, N as only symbols.


An expression X is any non empty sequence build on that alphabet, like  
((PNN(~~


Assume some machine can print some expressions.

Define a sentence to be an expression with the following shape, with X  
being any expression (as just defined here):


P(X)
PN(X)
~P(X)
~PN(X)

Now I give a semantic. First I define, with Smullyan,  the norm of the  
expression X to be X(X). So the norm of PP~ is PP~(PP~).


For all expression X, I will say that:

P(X) is true if the machine prints someday, soon or later, the  
expression X.


~P(X) is true if the machine never print X,

PN(X) is true if the machine prints the norm of X, soon or later.

~PN(X) is true if the machine never print the norm of X.

Smullyan asks us to assume that the machine is correct: it will never  
print a sentence which is not true. It means that if the machine  
prints PX some day, it will print X some (other or not) day.


Now, as a puzzle, Smullyan asks us to find a true sentence that the  
machine will never prove.


May be you can try to find it for your own amusement, but I give the  
solution below:






A solution is ~PN(~PN). Indeed by the semantic, ~PN(~PN) is true only  
if the norm of ~PN is not printable, but by the definition of the  
norm, the norm of ~PN *is* ~PN(~PN). So ~PN(~PN) gives a simple  
sentence, true, and not printable by any correct machine printing  
expression in that language. The sentence affirms correctly its own  
non printability.


If your argument above was correct, it should apply to this one too,  
which is far more simple. What Gödel did consists in showing that a  
similar argument can be made once we postulate predicate logic and  
elementary typed set theory (his theory "Principia Mathematica").  
Later people proved that this type of self-reference already occur for  
very weak theory (like Robinson Arithmetic, Peano Arithmetic) and all  
their consistent extensions. Hilbert and Bernays proved Gödel's idea  
that Peano Arithmetica (or his PM) can prove its own incompleteness  
theorem (and that is what I exploit).


It seems to me that Louis Kauffman address also very nicey this issue  
too notably in his JPMB contribution.
Self-reference is not problematic, and problems occur only when people  
confuse intensional variants of provability, or truth and provability.  
Note also that Gödel managed to avoid the use of semantic or truth,  
like I just did. His proof can be made simpler by using them. Today,  
thanks to Tarski, the notion of truth is no more problematic in logic,  
and in the elementary part of mathematics.


Bruno Marchal
ULB-IRIDIA
Brussels-Belgium

PS Note that this is my second post of this week. If you reply, I will  
reply next week.







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Re: [Fis] FIS Discussion (No Vol #)

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Alex,

On 02 May 2016, at 08:30, Alex Hankey wrote:

RE Bruno Marchal: It is easier to explain the illusion of matter to  
something conscious than to explain the illusion of consciousness to  
something material.


ME: At the Consciousness Conference I found it extraordinary that at  
least one plenary presentation was centered round treating the wave  
function as a real entity in the (strongly) objective sense.


I was under the impression that Bernard D'Espagnat's work for which  
he received the Templeton Prize had definitively shown that nothing  
is 'objectively real' in the strongly objective sense. The definite  
existence of quantum correlations destroys all that.


Is that not self-defeating? How could the quantum correlations  
existence be definite if nothing is objective?
With Digital Mechanism we need to accept that the existence of the  
universal machine and the computations is as real/true as the facts of  
elementary arithmetic, on which everyone agree(*). Then we can explain  
why machines develop a belief in a physical reality, and why that  
beliefs can last and can be sharable among many individuals, like with  
the quanta, and why some part of those beliefs are not sharable, yet  
undoubtable, like the qualia.


(*) I like to define Arithmetical Realism by the action of not  
withdrawing your kids from school when they learn the table of  
addition and multiplication. It is mainly the belief that 2+2=5 is not  
correct.




Once this is accepted, the enquirer is faced with the question of  
what to accept as fundamental. I have always considered  
'information' in the sense of the process or flow that connects the  
observed to the observer as a satisfactory alternative. The process  
of information flow creates the observer-observed relationship and  
(the illusion of??) their separation.


I can be OK with this. In arithmetic, it is more like a consciousness  
flow, and actually a differentiating consciousness flow, from which  
the laws of physics evolve.






Sequences of information production made possible by lack of  
equilibrium, both mechanical and thermodynamic, create pictures of  
particle tracks at the microscopic level, and pictures of objects at  
the macroscopic level.


This already seem to presuppose a physical reality. As I am interested  
in understanding what that could be and where it comes from, I prefer  
to not assume it. I gave an argument why such an assumption is not  
quite compatible with the digital mechanist assumption (not in  
physics, but in cognitive science).





Everything is made consistent by the existence of quantum  
correlations in mathematical ways use by Everett in the book on the  
Many Worlds interpretation by Bryce De Witt (note that I use the  
mathematics, but do not concur with the interpretation).


Everett did not talk about a new interpretation. He just gave a new  
Quantum Mechanics formulation, which is basically the old one  
(Copenhagen) but without the assumption of a wave collapse. I tend to  
agree with David Deutsch on this: the "many-world" is just literal  
quantum mechanics, where we apply the wave or matrix equation to the  
observed and the observer as well.






In my approach, the universe continuously makes choices, and selects  
among its own futures. I had a lengthy conversation with Henry Stapp  
two days ago at the conference after his talk, and checked that he  
still approves of this approach.



The only problem with Everett theory, is that he used digital  
mechanism, and what I did show, is that this should force him to  
extend the embedding of the physicist in the wave to the embedding of  
the mathematician in arithmetic (a dormant notion, alas). The ultimate  
equation of physics might be only arithmetic (or anything Turing  
equivalent). All the rest becomes internal phenomenologies, at least  
assuming digital mechanism.
This makes also digital mechanism testable, by comparing the physical  
phenomenology with the actual observation. Up to now, it fits:  the  
quantum weirdness of the universal wave (the multiverse) seem to match  
well  the digital mechanist arithmetical weirdness of arithmetic  
(intuitively and formally).
The only trouble is that such a top down approach leads to complex  
unsolved problem in mathematics, which is normal, given the depth and  
complexity of the subject. I am not a defender of digital mechanism, I  
use it only because the philosophical and theological questions  
becomes mathematical problem. I search the key only under the lamp of  
mathematics.


Best,

Bruno




P.S. Thanks to all for making this such a rich and interesting  
discussion.


--
Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India
Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195
Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789
___

Re: [Fis] _ FIS discusion

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Maxine,


On 30 Apr 2016, at 19:37, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone wrote:


To FIS colleagues,

First, an open-to-all response to Lou Kaufmann:

Thank you for your lengthy tutorial—some time back--but I wonder and  
am
genuinely puzzled given the “phenomenology-life sciences theme” why  
none
of the articles that I referenced were read and a response generated  
at least
in part on the basis of that reading in conjunction with your own  
work.


Is there some reason why they were not taken up, especially perhaps  
the article
identified as being a critique of Godels’s incompleteness theorem  
from a

phenomenological perspective?


What do you mean by "critique of Gödel's incompleteness theorem" from  
a phenomenological perspective?


Gödel's theorem and Gödel's proof are not contreversial. The proof is  
even constructive and valid in intuitionist mathematics.


Then, as I show in my JPMB contribution, Gödel's theorem implies that  
machines which are looking at themselves (in a precise technical  
sense) develop a series of distinct phenomenologies (arguably  
corresponding to justifiable, knowable, observable, sensible).


 Indeed just accepting very traditional analysis of knowledge, like  
the one presented by Theaetetus (but used inmplicitly in Tchouang-Ze,  
Lie-ze, or by Nagasena in the question to King Milinda, etc.) that is  
the idea of defining knowledge by true belief, makes all machine  
discovering by introspection an unnameable knower, as Gödel's theorem  
shows that provable and provable-an-true, although justifying exactly  
the same propositions, impose a very different logic on them.


Matter itself is recovered as a phenomenology (observable), reducing  
physics to universal machine's phenomenologies, by using provable-and- 
consistent (and/or true), restricted to the computable proposition  
(the so called Sigma_1 propositions).


So I agree that there is a relation between Gödel's theorem and  
(machine's or machine+oracle's) phenomenology.


And I might agree with your phenomenological critics, in the sense  
that even the machine-knower, by its unameability, is immune to  
Gödel's theorem, and disbelieve correctly in Mechanist Philosophy. The  
soul of the machine is not a machine from its own point of view: that  
is a theorem in theoretical computer science, once accept to define  
the first person soul as the knower associated to the machine. So the  
universal machine already refute the thesis that her soul is a  
machine, and indeed, the mathematics shows it to be PI_1 complete in  
the oracle of arithematical truth (this means very highy non- 
computable). Like in Wonderland, something (arithmetic truth) seen  
from inside is bigger than that something (arithmetic truth).






I would think that you and perhaps FIS persons
generally would feel particularly inquisitive about that article.


I lost the mail with the reference. I would be please if you could  
link it to me again. Thanks.


It should, or not corroborate the fact that the machine's soul is  
immune to Gödel's theorem (with the big price of losing somehow its  
Turing Universality, and it is complete only on its won mental state/ 
reality.  (This does not, of course contradict Gödel's theorem, if  
only because that fact is a consequence of Gödel's theorem).






I would think
too that people in FIS would be particularly inquisitive about the  
reference to
Biological Cybernetics. Viewpoints that differ from one’s own are by  
some thought
a waste of time, but for my part, I think they rightly broaden a  
discussion, which
is not to say that entrenched or deeply held views are not solidly  
based, much less
wrong, but that they have the possibility of being amplified through  
a consideration

of the same topic from a different perspective.

For example: Language did not arise deus ex machina, and it  
certainly did not arise
in the form of graphs or writing, but in the form of sounding.   
Awareness of oneself

as a sound-maker is basic to what we identify as a ‘verbal language’.


Abstract thought needs rhythm, and blind mathematician have no  
problem, although deaf one have. So I sort of agree with you. But  
rhythm, also, can be independent of sound. I am of the opinion that  
thought preceded for long "verbal language", more like sign and  
symbolic signs association and reassociation, with varied degrees of  
symbolicalness, at different levels. A similar diversity of levels  
already occurs at the molecular genetical levels. There are cross  
relations, it can be knotty.






Moreover this
awareness and the verbal language itself are both foundationally a  
matter of both
movment and hearing. A recognition of this fact of life would seem  
to me to be of
interest, even primordial interest, to anyone concerned with ‘SELF- 
REFERENCE', its

essential nature and substantive origins.


Number can refer to themselves relative to universal numbers. Self- 
reference is a standard topic in mathematical logic. S

Re: [Fis] _ Re: _ Discussion

[Bruno Marchal]

of  
our worlds as anything but incredibly decorated entities
appearing after a long history of indicative shift. What is their  
original nature? It is empty. Emptiness is form and form is  
emptiness. The form we take to exist arises from framing nothing.


Now, I caution you in replying to please read carefully what I have  
written here.

I will not reply directly to the discussion for another week or so.


What you say here is coherent with the idea that the meaning might be  
given when we attach the representation with the referent, like with  
the definition of knowledge given by Plato in the Theaetetus. But this  
would lead us far and is perhaps premature.


P.S. The indicative shift is precisely the formalism in back of the  
workings of Goedel’s Theorem. (See “Categorical Pairs and the  
Indicative Shift”, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.2048.pdf)



That diagonal construction is also the base of recursion theory, and a  
large part of theoretical computer science, and, as my paper explains,  
it the base of my whole work. It is indeed the royal entry to the  
biology and psychology of the machine (and of a large class of non- 
machine as well). What I do add is the first person indeterminacy,  
which eventually makes the physical (and even the theological)  
science(s) into a branch of machine or arithmetic phenomenology. A  
machine cannot known which computations support her among the  
infinitely many computations (executed in the tiny part of the  
arithmetical reality mentioned above). So if she looks below its  
substitution level, she must observe the trace of many parallel  
computations: this seems to explain both qualitatively and  
quantitatively most of the quantum "weirdness", without needing an  
abandon of determinism and locality. It leads to a sort of many dreams  
internal interpretation of arithmetic.


Best,
Bruno Marchal





On Apr 11, 2016, at 11:41 PM, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone > wrote:


To all colleagues,

I hope I may voice a number of concerns that have arisen in the  
course
of the ongoing discussions that are ostensibly about phenomenology  
and

the life sciences.

The concerns begin with a non-recognition of what is surely the  
ground
floor of real-life, real-time realities, namely, animation, not in  
the
sense of being alive or in opposition to the inanimate, but in the  
sense

of motion, movement, kinetics. As Aristotle cogently remarked,
“Nature is a principle of motion and change. . . . We must  
therefore see

that we understand what motion is; for if it were unknown, nature too
would be unknown” (Physics 200b12-14).

Through and through--from animate organisms to an ever-changing  
world--
movement is foundational to understandings of subject and world,  
and of

subject/world relationships, and this whether subject and world are
examined phenomenologically or scientifically. In short, movement  
is at
the core of information and meaning, at the core of mind and  
consciousness,
at the core of both gestural and verbal language, at the core of  
nervous
system and organic functionings, at the core of molecular  
transformations,
at the core of ellipses, electrons, gravity, waves, particles, and  
so on,
and further, at the core of time, the concept, measurement, and  
meaning of

time.

I enumerate below specifics with respect to what is essentially the
foundational dynamic reality. The summary concerns are followed by
references that document each concern. If further specifics are  
wanted or

if specific articles are wanted, kindly contact m...@uoregon.edu

(1). Instincts and/or feelings motivate animate organisms to move.
Without such instincts or feelings there would be no disposition
to move. An ‘animate organism’ would in truth be akin to a statue,
a statue Condillac described two and a half centuries ago as having
first this sense given to it, then that sense given to it, but that,
lacking movement, is powerless to gain knowledge of the world. Such
a movement deficient creature would furthermore lack the biological
capacity of responsivity, a near universal characteristic of life.
The startle reflex is a premier example. Can what is evolutionarily
given be “illogical”? Clearly, feelings are not “illogical,” but move
through animate bodies, moving them to move. Without feelings of
curiosity, for example, or awe, or wonder, there would be no  
exploration

of the natural world, no investigations, hence no “information.”
Furthermore, without feelings of movement—initially, from an  
evolutionary
perspective, no proprioception, and later, no kinesthesia--there  
would be
no near and far, no weak and strong, no straight and curved, and so  
on,
hence, no determinations of Nature. In short, there would be no  
information

and no meaning. (See Note #1: The Primacy of Movement)

(2). An excellent lead-in to scientific understandings of movement  
and

its inherent dynamics lies in the extensive research and writings of
J. A. Scott Kelso, Pierre de Fer

Re: [Fis] _ Interlude: emotional shock

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Karl,


On 31 Mar 2016, at 17:30, Karl Javorszky wrote:



In the present Interlude after the session chaired by Lou on  
Symmetry and before the coming one, allow me to enlarge on something  
Bruno raised.


Bruno wrote:


Then this confirms the "computationalist theory of everything",  
which is given by any formalism, like Robinson Arithmetic (the rest  
is given by the internal machine's phenomenology, like the one  
deducible from incompleteness). Indeed, in that theory, the stable  
(predictible) observable have to be given by a statistics on all  
computation going through our actual state. This (retro-)predicts  
that the physical obeys to some quantum logic, and it can be derived  
from some intensional nuance on the Gödel self-referential  
provability predicate (like beweisbar('p') & consistent('t')).


In quantum mechanics without collapse of the wave during  
observation, the axiom 3 is phenomenological, and with  
computationalism in the cognitive science (the assumption that there  
is a level of description of the brain such that my consciousness  
would proceed through any such emulation of my brain or body at that  
level or below) the whole "physical" is phenomenological.
Physics becomes a statistics on our consistent sharable first person  
(plural) experiences. With "our" referring to us = the universal  
numbers knowing that they are universal (Peano Arithmetic, Zermelo  
Fraenkel Set Theory, viewed as machine, are such numbers).


An actuality is a possibility seen from inside, somehow, in this  
context or theory (QM without collapse, or Computationalism).


Personally, it seems that quantum mechanics, when we agree on the  
internal phenomenological of actuality in the possibilities,  
confirms the most startling, perhaps shocking, consequence of  
computationalism (digital mechanism). Note that it does not make the  
physical itself computable a priori.


Of these thoughts, let us focus on the following:
“…. when we agree on the internal phenomenological of actuality in  
the possibilities, confirms the most startling, perhaps shocking,  
consequence of computationalism (digital mechanism). …”


Now how does “shocking” enter a discourse on quantum concepts and  
the idea that there is knowledge and wisdom in them there natural  
numbers?




Obviously, and let us thank Bruno for having pointed it out, there  
is an element of reticence, unwillingness, resistance and  
protracted, unpleasant surprise in the thought that Life, and the  
world in general may be much more mechanistic and trivial than  
thought before.




The person pre-shock believes in something, the person post-shock  
knows that he has been robbed a dream. It is like a child has to  
realise that Santa Claus is not a real person, and that little  
babies do come about the way they come about.


Many ideas have to be laid to rest during the process of  
familiarising oneself to the idea that the glue that holds the world  
together – and within it, our ideas about the world – is best  
described by the well-known form of a+b=c as known from good old  
elementary school.




Discussing what forms and appearances the order can produce which  
rules Nature, and within Nature, us and our thoughts, is  
unfortunately equivalent to discussing, what kinds of order we can  
look into and discover within a+b=c,  as this old, well-chewed bone  
is the backbone of rational concepts.




The disillusionment will be individually instrumented for each of  
us, as Tolstoy had said about the unhappiness of families, each in  
their own way. The resulting – remaining – denotation, after having  
lost its connotations, will be made up of the simple grey, standard,  
industrial units of abstraction, order as a running fight among, and  
a compromise between b-a, a-2b, a+b, 2b-3a, and the like.




Please accept my apologies for the shock the insight may cause that  
we are indeed just an experiment in combinatorics, and probably the  
elves, fairies, trolls and unicorns do not exist neither.





Thanks for this comment Karl. The biggest shock I was alluding, and  
which I get myself before I realized that it was confirmed by quantum  
mechanics (without collapse) is that not only nature or the material  
world does not exist per se, at least not ontologically, but only  
phenomenologically (through a notion of sharable first person  
experience) but in the fact that the usual mind-brain or consciousness- 
matter identity link is broken, and that "my" particular current  
experience is related to an infinity of relative brains- 
representations existing in arithmetic. Bryce DeWitt explains how  
shocking it was for him when he realized that at each instant he is  
multiplied/differentiated by 10^100+ copies, and with only the  
mechanist assumption that multiplication/differentiation is up into  
the infinite (aleph_zero or aleph_one).


That can also be used to show that the physical reality cannot be  
entirely computational, a

Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic (was Re: The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information-Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Koichiro, dear John and Colleagues,

I bump this older post, as it is related to my recent post to Lou.

On 27 Nov 2015, at 02:06, Koichiro Matsuno wrote:


At 4:28 AM 11/27/2015, John C. wrote:

A paper by my former graduate advisor, Jeff Bub, who was a student  
of David Bohm’s.

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/17/11/7374

The Measurement Problem from the Perspective of an Information- 
Theoretic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics


   Yes, Bub’s insistence on the absolute randomness would remain  
invincible as far as third-person probabilities are taken for  
granted from the outset in comprehending what messages would QM  
convey to us. On the other hand, once one may happen to feel at ease  
with the first-person probabilities (see, for instance,  James  
Hartle’s “Living in a superposition” http://arXiv.org/abs/ 
1511.01550 ), the first-person probability of the occurrence of such  
an agent assuming the first-person status would come to approach  
unity even within the framework of the decoherent-histories  
interpretation of QM.


I think I agree (modulo some possible ambiguity perhaps).

If we take seriously that we might not be more than relative universal  
machine ourself, this extends in the "decoherent-histories" internal  
(made by the universal numbers) interpretation of Arithmetic.
I discovered the first person arithmetical probabilities before  
knowing anything about quantum mechanics. It is still possible that  
the arithmetical possibilities does not interfere like they should,  
but that is shown to be testable.


Personally, I don't think that a third person indeterminacy makes  
"interesting sense". Like Einstein, I tend to think that God does not  
play dice, and that there is no spooky action at a distance (but that  
too has not yet been derived completely from computationalism, to be  
sure).


This is my second post of the week.

Best,

Bruno






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Re: [Fis] SYMMETRY & _ On BioLogic

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Lou and Colleagues,


On 25 Mar 2016, at 19:51, Louis H Kauffman wrote:


Dear Karl,

Thank you for this very considered letter.
I would like to ask you about your entry

"6.  Quantum information. By keeping an exact accounting about  
which predictions are being fulfilled to which degree we see a self- 
organisation evolve on competing interpretations of a+b=c. Using the  
property of an element to belong to a cycle with cardinality n, we  
can use the negated form of not-belonging to different other cycles  
to transmit information. Information is a statement about something  
that is not the case. We can show the impossibility of a spatial  
arrangement of arguments of a sentence to cause impossibilities of  
coexistence of commutative arguments of the same sentence. “


My question: How is your comment about quantum information related  
to the orthodox minimal model for quantum information that we  
usually use?
I will detail this model in the next paragraph. I do understand that  
your paragraph refers to the complementarity aspects of quantum  
information. The description below is a concise formulation of the  
entire quantum model.
What is lacking for physics is the addition of the structure of  
observables and the relationship of the temporal evolution of the  
unitary transformation with the Hamiltonian (i.e. with formulations  
of physical energy).
Lifted in this way from the particular physics, this description is  
minimal take on quantum theory that can be used in discussing its  
properties.


Quantum Theory in a Nutshell
1. A state of a quantum system is a vector |psi> of unit length in a  
complex vector space H. H is a Hilbert space, but it can be finite  
dimensional.
Convectors are denoted by  is a complex  
number and  is a positive real number.
2. A quantum process is a unitary transformation U: H ——> H. Unitary  
means that the U* = U^{-1} where U* denotes the conjugate transpose  
of U.
3. An observation projects the state to a subspace. The simplest and  
most useful form of this is to
assume that H has an orthonormal basis { |e_1> ,|e_2>,…} that  
consists in all possible results of observations.
Then observing |psi> results in |e_n> for some n with probability | 
|^2.
Note that the Sum_{n} ||^2 = 1 since |psi> is a vector of  
unit length.


This description shows that quantum theory is a dynamic sort of  
probability theory. The state vector |psi> is a superposition of all  
the possibilities for observation, with complex number coefficients.


It seems to me that what is truly remarkable in quantum mechanics  
(without collapse) is that the superposition are *not* superposition  
of possibilities, but of actualities. If those where not actualities,  
we would not been able to exploit the interference between parallel  
computations like we can do with a quantum computer (but which is also  
already illustrated in the two slits experiments).


Then this confirms the "computationalist theory of everything", which  
is given by any formalism, like Robinson Arithmetic (the rest is given  
by the internal machine's phenomenology, like the one deducible from  
incompleteness). Indeed, in that theory, the stable (predictible)  
observable have to be given by a statistics on all computation going  
through our actual state. This (retro-)predicts that the physical  
obeys to some quantum logic, and it can be derived from some  
intensional nuance on the Gödel self-referential provability predicate  
(like beweisbar('p') & consistent('t')).


In quantum mechanics without collapse of the wave during observation,  
the axiom 3 is phenomenological, and with computationalism in the  
cognitive science (the assumption that there is a level of description  
of the brain such that my consciousness would proceed through any such  
emulation of my brain or body at that level or below) the whole  
"physical" is phenomenological.
Physics becomes a statistics on our consistent sharable first person  
(plural) experiences. With "our" referring to us = the universal  
numbers knowing that they are universal (Peano Arithmetic, Zermelo  
Fraenkel Set Theory, viewed as machine, are such numbers).


An actuality is a possibility seen from inside, somehow, in this  
context or theory (QM without collapse, or Computationalism).


Personally, it seems that quantum mechanics, when we agree on the  
internal phenomenological of actuality in the possibilities, confirms  
the most startling, perhaps shocking, consequence of computationalism  
(digital mechanism). Note that it does not make the physical itself  
computable a priori.



Via the absolute squares of these coefficients |psi. can be regarded  
as a probability distribution for the outcomes that correspond to  
each basis direction. Since the coefficients are complex numbers and  
the quantum processes preserve the total probability, one has room  
for complexity of interaction, phase, superposition, cancellation  
and so on.


OK.

Best,

Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Loet,


On 22 Feb 2016, at 20:36, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:


All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions.


I agree. Nevertheless, we should, and can, minimize the miracle.

Why would one need a worldview?


We need some theory, and around the mind-body problem or the first  
person/third person views relation problem (my subject) at some point  
we must be aware of the difference of conception between Aristotle and  
Plato. Roughly speaking:


Aristotle: reality is what we see, observe, measure, etc.
Plato: what we see might be only a symptom of a simpler reality (like  
numbers for example).


The digital mechanist hypothesis in cognitive science seems to favor a  
lot Plato, if not Pythagorus.




The whole assumption of an order as a Given (in a Revelation) is  
religious.


What would it mean to do (fundamental) research if we do not postulate  
some reality?


The beauty is that once we assume mechanism, we are led to a very  
minimal ontologic assumption/ precisely the following theory will do:  
(classical or intuitinist logic +


0 ≠ s(x)
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = s(y))
x+0 = x
x+s(y) = s(x+y)
x*0=0
x*s(y)=(x*y)+x

where s(x) denotes the intended x + 1. I put the induction axioms  
already in the epistemology.





Order is always constructed (by us) and can/needs to be explained.



OK, but then we need a theory of "us", and many are OK with the  
mechanist theory, especially since we can use some theorem in logic to  
show that universal machine defeat all reductionist theory: they  
already know that they have a soul which is not a machine, with the  
soul defined by the conjunction of truth and representation.







No “harmonia praestabilita”, but ex post. No endpoint omega. No  
cosmology, but chaology.


To have chaos, you need to assume the axioms given above (or Turing  
equivalent one).






With due respect for those of you who wish to hold on to religion or  
nature as a given; however, vaguely defined.


The religion of the ideally correct machine is platonist: god is a  
nickname for the ultimate truth that we search, and in that theory,  
god is not omniscient, not omnipotent, cannot be invoked in reasoning,  
explanation and any terrestrial affairs, ...
Machine can have personal revelation, but cannot prove or communicate  
them rationally. But they can prove that: they can prove that if God  
exist, then it has no name, is simple, etc.
In fact the nuances brought by incompleteness make that machine  
theology quasi identical with the discourse of Moderatus of Gades, (a  
neopythagorean of the first century), Plotinus (neoplatonist, third  
century).


Machines are born "theological": they quickly intuit (produce as true  
without proving) that truth extends properly reason, when looking  
inward in the Gödel manner. There is an annulus of "surrationalism"  
between rationalism and irrationalism. It plays a key role in the  
explanation of consciousness, qualia, pain, etc, which can also be  
personally revealed, but not in a provable way.


Then such theology contains physics, and so can be tested by comparing  
with nature. Up to now, it fits rather well. If Mechanism is false,  
this approach gives experimental tools to measure our degree of non- 
mechanism.
Note that as a scientist, I don't use or mention any public  
revelation, which in my opinion, are only pseudo-religious political  
methods to control people (basically no relation with the antic  
theology of Plato which was banished by such authorities).


Best,

Bruno




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Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Malcolm,


On 21 Feb 2016, at 22:51, Malcolm Dean wrote:


All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions.



I agree. Nevertheless, we should, and can, minimize the miracle.

With the digital mechanist assumption, the miracle can be limited to  
the axioms of elementary arithmetic (or combinatory algebra or any  
Turing Universal System) + at the meta-level, the assumption that  
consciousness is an invariant for some digital functional substitution.


So the "origin" can be taken as being elementary arithmetic (or Turing- 
equivalent).


God created "only" the natural numbers together with the laws of  
addition and multiplication. This, then, can be explained as being  
something that we cannot derive from anything else (except some Turing- 
equivalent theory), which confirms somehow your idea that at least one  
miracle is needed, but this illustrates that it can be kept quite  
minimal.


Eventually, this makes Mechanism testable, as it gives no choice for  
the physical laws(*), and until now, thanks to quantum-mechanics- 
without-collapse, it looks like nature confirms quite well the digital  
mechanist hypothesis. This fits very well with the information based  
approaches, notably your own work, even if the starting motivation and  
the intended applications can be different.


Best,

Bruno

(*) I am not pretending this is obvious, but that is explained in my  
papers, notably the recent one in the issues of the Progress in  
Biophysics and Molecular Biology under discussion.





Malcolm

On Feb 21, 2016 3:00 AM,  wrote:
>-
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 07:37:09 +0100
> From: "Loet Leydesdorff" 
> To: "'Pedro C. Marijuan'" , "'fis'"
> 
> Subject: Re: [Fis] _ Re:  Maxine?s presentation
> Message-ID: <001801d16c72$4a89c730$df9d5590$@leydesdorff.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear Maxine and colleagues,
>
> It seems to me that the assumption of an origin takes a heavy load  
on this theory. We know that order can emerge from chaos. Any order  
will also disappear in the longer run.

>
> Why would one wish to make such assumptions? Meta-physical?
>
> Best,
> Loet


Malcolm

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Re: [Fis] Fw: Information Conservation in black holes

[Bruno Marchal]

 beliefs, and paraconsistent  
system, I agree. But for "theology" and the origin of the appearance  
of physical realities, this is not necessary. Our goal are different  
here.







4. B I accept the correction that computers work according to data,  
etc. and only interpret like algorithms.


For a universal machine, one of the data is interpreted as an  
algorithm, and the other data is conceived as a number. The universal  
machine extract information and made it into some kind of activity.






5. A. A mechanistic view predicts empirical structures for universal  
machine ‘experiences’ = operations.



Not really. The operation are third person notion, but the experiences  
are first person notion. They can be defined by linking the self- 
representation with truth. As truth cannot be defined in the language  
of the machine, she will be unable to even give a name to its knowing  
part. The first person distinguish herself from any third person  
description, and can actually refute them all, in some sense. The soul  
of the machine is NOT a machine.






“If we are not machines, this provides the tool to measure the  
degree of (local) non-computationalism. In that case I would bet we  
are in a (physical, in the computationalist sense described above)  
simulation.”


B. SINCE we are not machines, I am not sure that local non- 
computability can be measured this way but it is a fair question.  
However, SINCE we are not machines, I do not see the need for  
calling our existence a simulation!


How do you know that we are not machine?
We have not yet discovered one natural process which is not Turing- 
emulable, except the not quite intelligible collapse of the wave packet.


Anyway, I do not claim mechanism is true, only that it is incompatible  
with physicalism, materialism, and that it suggest an arithmetical  
interpretation of Plato, which is testable, as it predicts physics,  
and its logical structure, and indeed up to now, it is verified by  
quantum logic and physics.


For not being a machine, we need actual infinities, or spooky action  
at a distance, but it is not yet clear this can change the logic of  
self-reference, which predicts some appearances of such phenomena.






We thus have available two sets of tools, one for reality and one  
for mathematical reality.


Assuming there is anything more than arithmetic. I am agnostic. It is  
part of what I am studying.




The key would seem to me to make sure they are used in their proper  
respective informational domains.


Except for your "since we are not machine", I am not sure the logical  
approach is incoherent with the informational approach, unless the  
information is reified through physical concept, like energy. This can  
be done for practical purpose, but if mechanism is correct, that  
"energy" appearance has to be justified from intensional (modal)  
statistics on self-reference.


The arithmetical reality is a block-mindscape, with an internal  
unboundably complex reality including, when linked with the notion of  
(arithmetical) truth with qualitative aspect, some non justifiable,  
but still discoverable, by the machine.


Machine is not use in a metaphorical sense. It is used in the sense  
that we can concretely survive through a physical computer prosthesis,  
so that consciousness is invariant for digital physical substitution  
at some level of self-description. Then we can prove that we cannot  
know that level, nor know which machine we are, and that we are  
distributed in the arithmetical reality. If the machine dreams does  
not cohere enough to get the full quantum mechanics, that should be  
testable.


I still don't know if memories filter consciousness or enhance it. The  
relation seems complex and non linear. Here the informational  
approach, when properly related to the self-referential logical  
approach, might add some light on that important problem.


Best,

Bruno


- Original Message -
From: Bruno Marchal
To: Joseph Brenner
Cc: fis
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: Information Conservation in black holes

Dear Joseph,


On 30 Jan 2016, at 19:31, Joseph Brenner wrote:


Dear John,

Sorry you have been ill.

I agree fully with your statement: All of these explanations, and  
even stating the problem, require information notions, not just  
energy as in classical physics.


What I object to are statements or implications that information,  
whether in boundaries or not, is ontologically prior to and/or  
independent of energy.


I beg to differ on this. I consider Shannon information as given  
freely by the numeration of natural numbers in base two or higher,  
or sequence of them.


The interesting things is not information/number, but the  
interpretation of such information, and this can be defined at first  
by what the universal machines do when given such information/number.




This is how the positions of pe

Re: [Fis] Fw: Five Momenta. Five Itineraries

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Loet,

Sorry for bumping this old post, but I cannot resist (I tried!) to add  
my grain of salt.



On 21 Oct 2015, at 08:37, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

Self-reference is a key principle in art and humor and it may also  
be a key component of the structured coherence in science Pedro and  
we are seeking.


Dear Joseph:

Do not count me in to the “we”, please. In my opinion, these “unity  
of science” principles are outdated. At issue is to specify how the  
sciences and specialties are different; in which respects and why?  
Obviously, the boundaries are fuzzy, since what may seem far  
distanced from one perspective can be nearby from another (e.g. in  
terms of the metrics used for the measurement such as in the case of  
biometrics and econometrics).


These distinctions are not to be identified into a single “self” of  
the self-reference, but to be dissolved (differentiated) in  
discourse. They are carried by the communication in science &  
technology studies or more broadly (since including the science/ 
society interface) in the information sciences. The “self” is not  
transcendental to these discourses, but reflexive insofar as one has  
the communicative competencies to listen and – if so wished -- to  
participate.


The distinctions (such as the ones between your five schemes) may be  
useful heuristics. The puzzles have then to be specified.



I think that I might agree with Pedro and Joseph. The unity of science  
should be preserved, despite this is hard to do when specialities lost  
themselves in gigantic territories.
This eventually made the search of unity in science into a "new'  
science, or perhaps, if we assume the conceptually strong hypothesis  
of Mechanism (Descartes/Turing) into the oldest of all sciences:  
theology.


In that case we can define a straitforward notion of self: the  
representation of the body of the machine in its brain. Descartes  
sought fort his without finding it, and Hanz Driesch, with embryology  
in mind, pretended this could not exist, due to the apparent infinite  
looping most naïve attempts seem to lead to. But von Neuman, and more  
conceptually Stephen Kleene solved that problem. John Case solved the  
more complex embryological problem. The basic idea is contained in the  
Dx =>T(xx) trick: DD will give (=>) T(DD), that is the transformation  
T on itself.


And I agree that there is nothing transcendental in that notion of self.

But that notion is third person descriptible, which is not the case  
for the first person "I", which is the one who know, notably when it  
has some headache, plain or some pleasure.


To get this one, Theatetus suggested to attach the "believer" ([]p)  
with "truth" (p), and we know today that such notion of truth, and  
thus of knowledge ([]p & p) is transcendental.


It is transcendental in two sense: truth (even just the arithmetical  
truth) is not exhaustible.

- It escape *all* semi-effective (proof-checkable) theories.
- it is not nameable or definable by the machine (as Gödel and Tarski  
saw).


But that transcendental aspect, which is forced by logic, is available  
by the machine. So a universal machine can know that she is universal,  
and that makes her know that there is an unavoidable gap between its  
beliefs and truth, and that it can be used to explain why  
consciousness and knowledge seem so hard/impossible to define. In fact  
the theology of the machine introduces many nuance about that self:  
which correspond at different fields of research (p, the truth, []p,  
provability/believability, []p & p (knowledge, epistemology), []p &  
<>p (observability, as explained earlier or in my papers), and []p &  
<>t & p (sensibility, qualia).


The unity here is given by a belief in Truth, the original main God of  
Plato/Parmenides/Plotinus. It is the truth we can search, and perhaps  
knows aspects on it, but never as such: doubt must remain for reason  
of self-consistency.
With Mechanism, we can limit Truth to first order arithmetical truth,  
and all other notion (second order truth, analysis) can be put in the  
epistemology of the machine. Infinities only makes proof shorter.


So, the unity of science is not a problem, if we come back to modesty  
in theology. The main formula from which all this can be derived is  
sometimes called the formula of modesty: []([]p -> p) -> []p (Löb  
formula), which is both akin to the view of the scientific attitude as  
essentially the doubting view (from Descartes to Popper) and to the  
religious attitude of staying humble in front of the Unknown. In that  
setting, the original sin is when we separate theology from science,  
and that is what threat the unity of science.


I like to say that only bad faith fear reason, and only bad reasons  
fear faith. Faith is always faith in some form of unity or unification  
of knowledge.


Best,

Bruno

PS I don't find the five scheme you mentioned. It would be nice to see  
if they are related to the five platon

Re: [Fis] Fw: Information Conservation in black holes

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Joseph,


On 30 Jan 2016, at 19:31, Joseph Brenner wrote:


Dear John,

Sorry you have been ill.

I agree fully with your statement: All of these explanations, and  
even stating the problem, require information notions, not just  
energy as in classical physics.


What I object to are statements or implications that information,  
whether in boundaries or not, is ontologically prior to and/or  
independent of energy.


I beg to differ on this. I consider Shannon information as given  
freely by the numeration of natural numbers in base two or higher, or  
sequence of them.


The interesting things is not information/number, but the  
interpretation of such information, and this can be defined at first  
by what the universal machines do when given such information/number.




This is how the positions of people like Lloyd and Tegmark come out,  
giving 'computation' an agential, anthropomorphically flavored role  
at the ground of the universe.


Lloyd and Tegmark seem not really aware of the importance of the  
discovery of the universal machine, by Emil Post, Alan Turing, Alonzo  
Church, and some others. That is mainly a discovery in arithmetic, as  
a very weak segment of arithmetic is already Turing universal, and so  
emulate all Turing universal system.


This is not anthropomorphically flavored, it is Turing-machine, or  
universal number-morphically flavored. A concept definable in  
elementary arithmetic. That concept generalizes both human, bacteria,  
and the physical computer.


It is also a theorem of arithmetic, accessible to the universal  
machine themselves, and once they "believe" in enough induction axiom,  
they get the cognitive ability to deduce their own limitation, and to  
begin to measure the gap between provable and true. A gap which  
entails many modal nuances in the ways the machine can refer to  
itself, and what she can prove and expect, and hope or fear with  
respect to some universal goal (like "help yourself").





The establishment by Wu Kun and others of information as a  
categoryimplies separation only in classical logic and category  
theory, which are just as limiting as the classical physics John  
refers to.



Classical logic is the simplest logic, and so the more polite to use  
to describe the other logics.
None of the internal logics of the universal machine is classical  
logic. It oscillates between intuitionist logic and quantum logic,  
with some intuitionist quantum logic and quantum intuitionist logic.









A basic problem is the inability of people to keep in mind the  
operation of two aspects of phenomena, cooperative and antagonistic,  
at the same time.


I can agree with this. My favorite exemple is that intelligence is  
needed to develop competence, but competence has a negative feedback  
on intelligence.







Computers work according to algorithms.


Not really. They work according to data, number, information, that  
they interpret at some level like an algorithm, or like data.






The ground of the universe, in my view, is in the tension, not the  
separation, between being and non-being, and no algorithm can handle  
that (now who is being anthropomorphic?!)



Tegmark and Lloyd miss that elementary arithmetic is Turing complete.  
So we don't know really if there is a physical universe.


We know only that there is an infinitely complex reality of all  
computations, in arithmetic. Complex, as most relations between form  
and function are not algorithmically decidable.


Yet, the self-reference ability of the universal machine suggests to  
define the physical reality by what makes some number dream stable and  
sharable, and apparently it is not much more than self-referential  
correctness and consistency.
The (full) arithmetical reality, the one which contains all prime  
numbers and "can decide" the Riemann hypothesis, is also full of  
relative number experience/dream, some stable and sharable. In a  
testable way, at least for precise version like classical  
computationalism.


Mechanism predicts the multi-verse apparent empiric structure by a  
more general multi-experiences structure. But it is not human  
experience, it is the universal machine experience.
If we are not machine, this provides the tool to measure the degree of  
(local) non-computationalism. In that case I would bet we are in a  
(physical, in the computationalist sense described above) simulation.


Best,

Bruno





Cheers,

Joseph






- Original Message -
From: John Collier
To: fis
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2016 4:58 PM
Subject: [Fis] Information Conservation in black holes

List,

Sorry I haven’t been able to respond to the interesting remarks on  
my last post, but it took a while to digest them, and my current  
health concerns take up a lot of my time, so I haven’t had time to  
come up with responses that are properly thought out.


In the meantime, here is an interesting Nature news report about  
Hawking’s (and Strominger’s)

Re: [Fis] information as physical entity

[Bruno Marchal]

On 30 Jun 2015, at 05:36, Andrei Khrennikov wrote:


 Dear all,
May be some addition to my previous post: information physics and in  
particular recent information approach to QM
are based on the interpretation of information as primary physical  
entity, similar to energy. Quantum systems carry information and can  
exchange
it, experimenters can guess about information exchange between  
quantum systems and the measurement devices.
Roughly  speaking,  this is the beginning and the end of the  
information story: one does not need further theorizing about

the "meaning" of information.



Hi Andrei,

Are you sure that:  not needing to theorize on information and its  
meaning, is not a defect of that approach?


Anyway, I can explain in all details why IF the brain is Turing  
Emulable, THEN it is the physical which emerges from the meaning of  
the information, where the meaning is defined basically by what  
universal numbers makes with information (notably "dreaming").


In fact, if we take seriously the idea that biology does not exploit  
non Turing emulable processes, the mind-body problem is reducible to  
the derivation of physics from machine or number's dream coherence  
conditions.


There are two advantages:
- 1)The "theory of everything" becomes very simple, elementary  
arithmetic is enough, or just the equation Kxy = x, and Sxyz = xz(yz)  
on the combinators.
- 2) Incompleteness provides the tools to distinguish proof, truth,  
knowledge, beliefs, sensations, and notably the difference and  
relations between qualia and quanta. In fact, we get the  
quantization(s) explaining why the "reality" looks quantum.


The key notion is the first person indeterminacy. That is the rather  
simple (but apparently not for everyone) idea that IF "our bodies are  
machines", then it is duplicable, and we have no algorithm to predict  
the particular subjective experience when we accept such personal  
duplication. Physics can then be recovered by the global FPI on the  
computable number relations.


Best regards to all,

Bruno Marchal





yours, andrei

Andrei Khrennikov, Professor of Applied Mathematics,
International Center for Mathematical Modeling
in Physics, Engineering, Economics, and Cognitive Science
Linnaeus University, Växjö-Kalmar, Sweden

From: Fis [fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] on behalf of Terrence W.  
DEACON [dea...@berkeley.edu]

Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 10:48 PM
To: Joseph Brenner
Cc: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fw: It-from-Bit and information interpretation of  
QM


On Bateson's "difference that makes a difference."

We should not expect such a quip to be a sufficient explanation of  
information in all its complexity. It is merely a useful mnemonic  
(coined also by MacKay as a "distinction that makes a difference")  
that captures both Shannon's logic and Bateson's cybernetic  
implications. But this is not all. If one wants to try to force this  
phrase to carry more of the weight of completely characterizing  
information it should be further interpreted. Notice that it is also  
an appropriate quip to describe the concept of physical work— a  
gradient (or difference of potential) that is reduced in a  
constrained way so that it generates an increase in a gradient or  
difference in potntial or pushes a system further from equilibrium.


This double applicability is not merely a terminological  
coincidence, though I don't think that Gregory realized this, since  
he used this quip to argue for an energy/information dichotomy. I  
have instead argued (most recently in my January FIS essay) that  
both the referential and normative properties of information are  
intimately entangled with the concept of physical work.


Also, in English parlance the phrase to "make a difference" is an  
idiom that means "to matter" or to be significant or of value. I  
believe that this double entendre was intended in order to implicate  
the normative and goal directed aspects of information. Explicating  
either the aboutness or the normative consequence in terms of "bits"  
therefore inevitably results in reductionistic oversimplication.  
Bits are a relevant measure of intrinsic logical properties of the  
communication medium, but of minimal value in assessing the  
extrinsic relational properties that are implicated in the larger  
concept of information. I think that measuring work (though in ways  
that are more complex than mere physical work) can lead to a more  
useful incorporation of the referential and normative properties  
that are implied by "information."


Another problem is introduced by the use of the concept of "meaning"  
in these discussions. The term ambiguously connotes both reference  
and significance, and while it is applicable to symbolic and  
linguistic information, it only m

Re: [Fis] FIS newcomer

[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 Jun 2015, at 07:13, Emanuel Diamant wrote:


My dear FIS-friends,

I apologize for not withstanding the pace of our discussion – you  
are already busy with the problem of “meaning” (Steven) and I am  
still preparing to answer Howard’s letter about linguistic biology…


Dear Howard,

Thank you for your suggestion to “add yet one more approach to the  
list: linguistic biology”. Unfortunately, I cannot accept it –  
because it is redundant and tautological.


My definition of information is Information is a linguistic  
description of structures observable in a given data set. (I  
apologize for non-providing any arguments for justifying this  
statement. Interested people have to go to my old papers in arXiv,  
Research Gate or on my web site http://www.vidia-mant.info ).


For the reasons provided just above (and elsewhere), any use of the  
term “Cognitive” implies the use of the term  
“information” (information processing) and, thus, already contains  
linguistic descriptions of data structures in a given data set (in a  
given object). Therefore, strengthening Cognitive biology with  
Linguistic biology is simply a tautology.


I also cannot accept the allusion to the Guenther Witzany’s work (as  
an attempt to justify the backup of Linguistic biology). Meanwhile,  
Witzany himself illuminate the issue in his response to Jerry  
Chandler (20.06.2015). I myself was enlightened about the subject by  
a 2004 paper of Eshel Ben-Jacob (et al) “Bacterial linguistic  
communication and social intelligence”, Trends in Microbiology, vol.  
12, no. 8, pp. 366-372, August 2004. I have cited it in my 2009  
paper “Some considerations on how the human brain must be arranged  
in order to make its replication in a thinking machine possible”,  
(.arXiv:1002.0184 [pdf]). I do not want to spend much more time on  
this issue and to draw our discussion farther in this direction.


Finally, I do not agree either with your statement that “each  
approach uses a helpful metaphor”. Brain as a computer metaphor  
(dominating in the past century) has exhausted its life cycle,  
“Computational” approach today is a harmful and a dangerous relict.  
It would be wise not to galvanize it again.



People should not confuse the computationalist thesis in cognitive  
science, and the use of this or that type of machine as a metaphor to  
understand the brain functioning.


In fact those two things oppose themselves. It can be shown that IF we  
are machine, then we cannot know for sure which machine we are, nor  
which computations support us. Information arise from our statistical  
distribution in the infinitely many computations (already present in a  
tiny segment of arithmetic). The math shows that he quantum  
appearances are justified from that computationalist hypothesis.


In fact computationalism appears to be a vaccine against all  
reductionistic metaphors. The ideally correct machine, like Peano  
Arithmetic or Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, already know that their  
soul is not a machine, when translating Theaetetus definition of the  
soul (the knower) with Gödel technic (as I did).


To believe in the negation of computationalism means to believe in  
some magic or in some special actual infinities playing some rôle in  
the brain.


Many people still believe that mechanism and materialism are  
compatible, but there are not.
Choose your favorite poison, but it seems to me that the evidences we  
have support much more mechanism than materialism.


Bruno







I apologize for the delayed response.

Best regards,
Emanuel.


From: howlbl...@aol.com [mailto:howlbl...@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2015 3:52 AM
To: emanl@gmail.com; jerry_lr_chand...@me.com; pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es; witz...@sbg.at
Subject: Re: [Fis] FIS newcomer

re: cognitive biology vs computational biology.

may i suggest that you add yet one more approach to the list:  
linguistic biology.  per the work of Guenther Witzany.  also  
reflected in my book The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates.


each approach uses a helpful metaphor.  no one approach sees the  
elephant in its entirety. so please let us use all three.


with oomph--howard

--
Howard Bloom
Howardbloom.net
Author of: The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the  
Forces of History ("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post),
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the  
21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New Yorker),
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("A  
tremendously enjoyable book." James Fallows, National Correspondent,  
The Atlantic),
The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates("Bloom's argument will  
rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich),
How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“Wow! Whew! Wild!  
Wonderful!” Timothy Leary), and
The Mohammed Code (“A terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on  
Islam.” David Swindle, PJ Media).
Former Core Faculty Memb

Re: [Fis] We have different “fen clubs” depending of sympathy to one or other definition of information

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Krassimir,

I apologize because I have just realized that I have miss-replied in  
my last posting, and send them only to the writer of the post, and not  
to the list. Same for some comment I made to John Collier.


I intent to send a mail where I sum up my position on the information  
debate. I will read some of your text you are linking too, also.


Meanwhile I will answer only your question about theology: is it a  
science. I think that science does not really exist, but that the  
human scientific attitude can exist whatever the domain is, be it  
gardening, gastronomy, philosophy or theology. That attitude consists  
in accepting that we never know the truth, but that we can try to make  
theory precise enough to solve problems and to test consequences.


I have discovered that ideally correct machine have a rich theology,  
that they can discover by "looking inward", and that it contains  
physics, making it testable: just compare machine's theological  
physics with the empiric science. Until now it fits, and many  
"weirdness" of nature (like the "many-world") becomes simple theorem,  
but also admit different interpretation (it is more machine dreams  
than "world"). I will come back on this.


The main concept used in my work is the concept of Turing Universal  
Machine: she is the one feeding on information, and doing the  
interpretation of it. That might add some light on the present debate  
on information. I am aware that this sort of theology is closer to the  
greek neoplatonists theology (where God is mainly Truth, by  
definition) than to Aristotelian naturalism (with primary  
materiality), which might explain some resistance that I have often  
encountered. But science is not wishful thinking, like we do in the  
religion since it has been separated from science.


Best,

Bruno






On 15 Jun 2015, at 22:59, Krassimir Markov wrote:


Dear Pedro and FIS Colleagues,

This discussion was not planed. It started without any a priory  
explanation and because of this become more emotional.


I see, we have different “fen clubs” depending of  sympathy to one  
or other definition of information.

This is nice. Variety is important for development of science.

What is not good is that we stay only on the stage of definition of  
information. It is not needed if no theory is built on it.

The theory has to be experimented and proved.
Finally, such theory has to explain all information appearances and  
processes around us – I say around us but not all imaginable ones!


How much theories we have till now?
FIS is just place to present Theories!
Unfortunately, Masters stay silent and not teach us to use their  
theories.


Below I attach my answers to Stan and Bruno which was sent last week.

Friendly regards
Krassimir




Dear Stan,
I have no more attempts for FIS List for this week and will send  
this my answer to FIS tomorrow.

But it is pleasure for me to answer to you now.

Yes, I do not agree with the Wheeler concept that information was  
the basis upon which everything else was founded – this is the  
concept of God and it could not be proved, only to believe.
Yes, information doesn't appear in the universe until life makes it  
appearance. More, the information does not appear independently from  
live creatures, it is their internal state(s).
No, information does not appear in the universe until it is  
manipulated by modern human society as a commodity, it appeared  
together with live.
Without reflections of external and internal structures and  
processes, as well as without memory, processing of reflection, and,  
at the end, reacting – without all of this the live is impossible.
What is done by modern society is to start understanding (but still  
not finished) what is the information.


Friendly regards
Krassimir


Dear Bruno,
Thank you for the remarks. Now I will answer only to you due to  
limit of posts in FIS List – tomorrow I’ll resend it for the list.


I agree with you partially.
Deep analysis and explanation of this problem is published in:
http://www.foibg.com/ijitk/ijitk-vol02/ijitk02-4-p06.pdf
I hope, in this publication you will find answer of your remarks as  
well as basis for further discussion.


I think that it is crucial to keep the harmony and dialectical unity  
of the scientific and non-scientific approaches,
following the wisdom of St. Augustine: "Intelligo ut credam, credo  
ut intelligam!".


Finally, please answer: Is the Theology a science or not? What kind  
of experiments one may provide to proof the Theology statements?


Friendly regards
Krassimir
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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] FIS 2015, Workshop on Combinatorics of Genetics, Fundamentals

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Oct 2014, at 13:44, Karl Javorszky wrote:


Workshop on the Combinatorics of Genetics, Fundamentals


In order to prepare for a fruitful, satisfying and rewarding  
workshop in Vienna, let me offer to potential participants the  
following main innovations in the field of formal logic and  
arithmetic:




1)  Consolidating contradictions:

The idea of contradicting logical statements is traditionally alien  
to the system of thoughts that is mathematics. Therefore, no  
methodology has evolved of appeasing, soothing, compromise-building  
among equally valid logical statements that contradict each other.  
In this regard, mathematical logic is far less advanced than  
diplomacy, psychology, commercial claims regulation or military  
science, in which fields the existence of conflicts is a given. The  
workshop centers around the methodology of fulfilling contradicting  
logical requirements that co- exist.




I am not entirely convinced. I think that para-consistent logic are  
interesting for natural language semantics, but I think that in the  
fundamentals, the consistency of inconsistency, guarantied by Gödel's  
second incompleteness theorem is enough. It explains also why a  
machine cannot know which computations supported it, and this explains  
where the information comes from (it comes from our relative  
distribution in a tiny part of the arithmetical reality). This reduces  
also the mind-body problem to a problem of justifying the origin of  
the beliefs in physical laws from elementary arithmetic, and partial  
solutions have been obtained (you can consult my consult my URL below  
for some references). In particular we can explain why the world looks  
boolean above our computationalist substitution level, and why it  
looks quantum logical below.


Best regards,

Bruno





2)  Concept of Order

We show that the pointed opposition between readings of a set once  
as a sequenced one and once as a commutative one is similar to the  
discussion, whether a Table of the Rorschach test depicts a still- 
life under water or rather fireworks in Paris. The incompatibility  
between sequenced and commutative (contemporaneous) is provided by  
our sensory apparatus: in fact, a set is readable both as a  
sequenced collection and as a collection of commutative symbols. We  
abstract from the two sentences “Set A is in a sequential order”  
and “Set A is a commutatively ordered one” into the sentence  
“Set A is in order”.


The workshop introduces the idea and the technique of sequential  
enumeration (aka “sorting”) of elements of a set, calling the  
result “order”, and shows that different sorting orders may bring  
forth contradicting assignments of places to one and the same  
element, resp. contradicting assignments of elements to one and the  
same place.




3)  The duration of the transient state

We put forward the motion, that it is reasonable to assume that a  
set is normally in a state of permanent change – as opposed to the  
traditional view, wherein a set, once well defined, stays put and  
idle, remaining such as defined. The idea is that there are always  
alternatives to whichever order one looks into a set, therefore it  
is reasonable to assume that the set is in a state of permanent  
adjustment.


We look in great detail into the mechanics of transition between  
Order αβ and Order γδ, and show that the number of tics until the  
transition is achieved is only in the rarest of cases uniform,  
therefore partial transformations and half-baked results are the  
ordre du jour.




4)  Standard transitions and spatial structures

The rare cases where a translation from Order αβ into Order γδ  
happens in lock-step are quite well suited to serve as units of dis- 
allocation, being of uniform properties with respect to a numeric  
quality which could well be called an extent for “mass”.


These cases allow assembling two 3-dimensional spatial structures  
with well-defined axes. The twice 3 axes can even be merged into  
one, consolidated space with 3 common axes, the price of the  
consolidation being that every 1-dimensional statement has in this  
case 4 variants. The findings allow supporting Minkowski’s ideas  
and also some contemplation about 3 sub-statements consisting of 1- 
of-4 variants, as used by Nature while registering genetic  
information in a purely sequenced fashion.




5)  Size optimization and asynchronicity questions

The set is the same, whether we read it consecutively or  
transversally. The readings differ. We show that the functions of  
logical relations’ density per unit resp. unit fragment size per  
logical relation are intertwined, making a change between the  
representations of order as unit and as logical relation a matter of  
accounting artistry. (“If I want more matter, I say that I see 66  
commutative units; if I want more information, I say that I see 11  
sequences of 6 units.”)


The phlogiston (or divine will) 

Re: [Fis] Fw: [Feedforward II and Anticipation] Joseph Brenner

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Loet,


On 17 Feb 2014, at 21:32, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:


Dear Joseph,

The "energetic" terms are external referents to the communication  
(scholarly discourse). These external referents can differently be  
codified; for example, in terms of thermodynamics or various forms  
of physics (e.g., in terms of classical physics). The dynamic  
properties can only be studied from one discursive perspective.or  
another.


The ontological status that these dynamics are nevertheless  
attributed in your "logic in reality" requires an act of belief in  
an external reality that is assumed to be given (so that can enter  
into the dialectics of "logic in reality".)

"Je n'ai pas de cette hypothese-la."



Actually, if we assume that the brain (or whatever responsible for my  
consciousness) is Turing emulable, (computationalism) not only we  
don't need that hypothesis "of external reality", but we cannot use it  
to singularize the coupling consciousness/realities.


We still need to assume some reality, of course, but no more than  
anything Church-Turing universal, and I assume usually the natural  
numbers with addition and multiplication, for the ontology, and the  
same + induction axioms, for the "reasoner/observer" (already mirrored  
in the ontology).


The physical reality emerges from the number "dream" sharing, in a  
logical comparable way that species evolved through genome sharing.
The math leads to an arithmetical quantization, and an arithmetical  
quantum logic, and we can look if it emulates or not a quantum computer.


All this seem quite coherent with Loet, as far as I can judged.
LIR is interesting but already described an internal collective view,  
and I, perhaps Loet, might be more concerned with the global picture,  
where, at least with computationalism, the actualities are indexical  
views on different type of (arithmetical) truth and possibilities.



Best

Bruno





On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Joseph Brenner > wrote:

Dear Loet,

 I am still hoping that there will be more comments on both my  
original note
 and your significant emendation of it, for which many thanks. Here  
is my
 response to you now. I have, more than before, the feeling that you  
have

 agreed that LIR can add something to the sufficiency of the overall
picture.
 Three things might make this even clearer:

 1. You wrote:
 > From this perspective, the "reality" in "Logic in Reality" (LIR)  
is res
 > cogitans:  an inter-human construct about which we remain  
uncertain.


 JEB: But LIR applies also INTRA-human constructs, that is how human  
agents

 change one another, including their expectations. Thus,

2.  > The codes in the reflexive communications can be considered as  
the

 > (hypothesized!) eigenvectors of the networks of relations among
expectations (carried
 > by human minds).

 JEB: Same comment as above. The logical values of actuality and
potentiality
 of real process elements, which include communications, have the  
dimensions

 of vectors.

 3.  > However, this reality has the epistemological status of a  
hypothesis,
 > whereas you seem to reify it and identify it with  
"nature" (energy?) as a

given. From my
 > perspective, this presumes a reduction of the complexity using the
communicative codes of
> physics and biology. There is nothing against this coding, but it  
can be

> considered as one among an alphabet of possible ones.

 JEB: This is an interesting expression of our different points of  
view. You
 see my approach as reducing complexity and reifying 'this reality'  
and I
 think it is your approach that reduces and reifies it!! Perhaps we  
are both

right!!
 Logic in Reality does not deal with a /certain/ complexity, which  
can be
 associated with complicated epistemological entities or states.  
Your theory

 seems to me to abstract away qualitative, energetic highly complex
 relational/cognitive states that are outside the hypothesis.

 > The specific reduction to the perspective of a "sociology" of
expectations
 > enables us to study the dynamics among differently coded  
expectations in

other domains.

 JEB: If one includes, in the zoo of expectations, their dynamics in
 energetic terms, one does not have to see the 'zoology' of  
expectations as

a
 reduction. It is already and remains open since the dynamics is not  
only

 between the coded expectations or other cognitive features but their
 critical, non-coded dynamic properties. Application to all domains  
in which
 there are significant dynamic interactions follows naturally. The  
dynamics

 of LIR, however, is not a standard non-linear dynamics but rather an
 extension of the concept of recursion as you and Dubois use it.

 As I have remarked previously, but rephrasing it now the  
interpretation of
 reality as involving a process of coding is something that I see  
necessary

 for epistemology but not necessary for ontology. The entire Peircean
 structure can be seen as a 'coding', and this makes it a

Re: [Fis] [PEIRCE-L] Stanford seminar "On The Origin Of Experience"

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Steven,


On 12 Dec 2013, at 12:10, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote:


I make one thing I say here clear. When I say "rejection of
scripture," I really must say "rejection of the literal interpretation
of scripture."


Important nuance.




Many of these radical Unitarian's - if not all of them
at the time - still considered themselves "Christian."


When a universal machine, which believes in enough of elementary  
arithmetic, looks inward, (something we can define precisely using a  
method due to Gödel) it discovers many thing:


- the origin of third person Shannon like information. Indeed  
arithmetic multiply the computations, and a first person indeterminacy  
appears, similar to the quantum indeterminacy in Everett (non  
collapse) formulation of QM.


- the origin of the physical laws, which indeed have to emerge (if we  
assume computationalism) from the first person views that we can  
statistically associated to machine. (see the papers below).


All this divides into a communicable part and non communicable parts.  
The non communicable part divides itself into expressible part and non  
expressible part, and eventually this leads to a Platonic-Plotinian  
theological conception of reality. The ontology is given by *any*  
Turing universal system, and I have chosen elementary arithmetic. The  
laws of physics are independent of the choice of the basic ontology,  
as physics emerges from the statistical interference between all  
computations made by all universal system.


The proof is constructive, making computationalism testable,  
(computationalism together with a standard definition of knowledge  
(the modal logic S4, provided by Theaetetus' definition of knowledge  
when modeling rational belief by probability). An arithmetical quantum  
logic has been already retrieved from that machine's introspection.


It predicts also that the physical reality is not digital, that some  
observable have to be continuous, and that below our computationalist  
substitution level, classical information get quantum-like. We get the  
quantum indeterminacy, quantum non locality and quantum non cloning,  
but also trace of the linearity and symmetry of the a core physical  
"bottom".


It is hard to sum up all this here, but apparently, for Christmas,  
Elsevier has made my last paper freely available or readable online  
(apparently we can't still get the PDF):


http://elsarticle.com/18AF6PI


You can also find a paper providing a simple and direct lexicon  
between Plotinus's theology, and the logic of self-reference (and  
their intensional variant) on my front page of my URL:


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

I wrote also recently a paper "La Machine Mystique" (the mystic  
machine), published in Logic & Analyse, 2012, n° 218.


The "social", human, problem of theology, is that the theological  
science has been abandoned to authoritarian (political) power in  
Occident in 523 after C. (closure of Plato Academy).


I define the theology of machine M, by the set of (Gödel numbers of)  
the true (in the standard model of arithmetic) sentences in which M  
(or its Gödel number) appears as parameter.  This is enough to get a  
proposition decidable theology (the modal logic G* of Solovay).


Computationalism provides many ways in which arithmetical informations  
are interpreted, and some are theological.
Such theology is fundamental, in the sense that if computationalism is  
correct, the laws of physics are deducible in that theology, making  
computationalism testable.


I think also that the debate between Atheism and Christianity is a  
fake debate, defending a statu quo in theology, and hiding the deeper  
opposition between the Platonist (and mystic) conception of reality  
with the naturalist/materialist Aristotelian conception. For a  
Platonist, atheism and christianism seems to be two close variants of  
Aristotle's theology.


Best,

Bruno





Steven


On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith > wrote:

Thank you Anny. That is an interesting interpretation of my position.

As will be made clear in the book, for me a religion is simply a set
of ideas such that we cannot look upon the world without  
consideration

of them. In this sense, science is my religion.

I should make it clear that I am personally indifferent to the notion
of "God." But I understand its context, the motivation and origin for
its use. In my next lecture, however, I will speak about the view and
motivations of Benjamin Peirce, his son Charles, and the attempt by
them and other radical Unitarians to re-conceive the notion of God in
scientific terms.

But it should be clear that this attempt, led by Benjamin Peirce,  
from
influences and peer encouragements that can be traced back to  
Descarte

through Malebranche and the Unitarian logical challenge to divided
conceptions (i.e. Trinity), and articulated in his book "Ideality in
the physical sciences" is rightly paralleled with the positivist and
existen

Re: [Fis] social exchanges

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Nov 2013, at 17:03, Raquel del Moral wrote:

> Dear FIS colleagues,
>
> Thanks for the comments received (basically Pedro and Bi Lin!). I am  
> not
> much conversant today about cellular or bacterial communication (sorry
> Bruno...), as I try to discuss on person to person communication.


Oh!

What makes you sure that a bacteria is not already supporting some  
little person?

I guess you try to discuss specifically communication on *human*  
person to *human* person.
It is a very interesting subject. Very complex too. It is not my field  
of expertise.

It might benefit, or not, today or tomorrow, with or without the  
computationalist assumption, from the study of the "communication"  
between numbers, or finite entities, in arithmetic.

The field is very vast, I don't want to push anyone in that direction.  
Just that for numbers, and bacteria (and amoeba) we have some  
explanations why they dream and communicate. Bin asked about the  
necessity of conversation.  This might throw light on the humans too,  
perhaps.



>
> About the empirical data of my research, of interest for Bi Lin, we
> published a poster in AAAS Meeting 2012. I will upload that poster and
> some new data once the FIS website is refurbished. The basic data are
> not very different from a paper in Science ("Are women really more
> talkative than men?" Science 2007, vol. 317, pp:82), although we are
> looking from a wider angle, concretely the correlation with Mental
> Health. The gender differences are very intriguing!

I think computationalism can say something on this. It is related to  
the first and third person points of view.
I really don't want take your precious time. It is theoretical, and  
concerns ideally correct self-referential machines. It is computer  
sciences.

Best wishes in your projects,

Bruno



>
> For the new comers in the list, there is an archive with all the
> messages exchanged:
> https://webmail.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/
> Interested parties may look for the current discussion session, which
> started on 27/09/2013.
>
> Best,
> Raquel
>
>
> El 12/11/2013 13:31, Bruno Marchal escribió:
>> Dear Bi,
>>
>> On 12 Nov 2013, at 09:55, bilin1001 wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  Dear Raquel,
>>>
>>>  I am also a PhD student, in Information Philosophy. My Thesis deals
>>> with
>>> "Mutual Meaning Space" in social exchanges (interpersonal
>>> communication).
>>>  I am very interested in your work on the necessity of conversation:
>>> do
>>>  you have empirical data about that?
>>>
>> Sex, which can be seen as molecular conversation, is an empirical  
>> data
>> for the necessity of conversation, taken as exchange of information
>> (DNA). Bacteria do it, either directly, or through viruses (the "GSM"
>> of the bacterium).  Its main role is in the sped up of creating
>> theories (the genome), and being able to refute them as much quickly
>> (selection).
>> Is there a first person notion associated with it? Probably. Hard to
>> know.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> fis mailing list
>> fis@listas.unizar.es
>> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> -
> Raquel del Moral
> Grupo de Bioinformacion / Bioinformation Group
>
> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
> Avda. San Juan Bosco 13, 50009 Zaragoza
> Tfno. +34 976 71 44 76
> E-mail. rdelmoral.i...@aragon.es
> -
>
> ___
> fis mailing list
> fis@listas.unizar.es
> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: [Fis] from Bi lin

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Bi,

On 12 Nov 2013, at 09:55, bilin1001 wrote:

>  Dear Raquel,
>
>  I am also a PhD student, in Information Philosophy. My Thesis deals  
> with
> "Mutual Meaning Space" in social exchanges (interpersonal  
> communication).
>  I am very interested in your work on the necessity of conversation:  
> do
>  you have empirical data about that?

Sex, which can be seen as molecular conversation, is an empirical data  
for the necessity of conversation, taken as exchange of information  
(DNA). Bacteria do it, either directly, or through viruses (the "GSM"  
of the bacterium).  Its main role is in the sped up of creating  
theories (the genome), and being able to refute them as much quickly  
(selection).
Is there a first person notion associated with it? Probably. Hard to  
know.

Best wishes,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] response to Bruno

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi 王小红


That would lead to the human's lost of (Turing) universality, and  
would be an advantage for some higher level entity in which humans  
would be the equivalent of specialized cells. You can compare this  
with the amoeba lost of immortality and "freedom", when beginning to  
cooperate through multicellular organism.


Your views are very interesting to me, reminding me of Karl Popper's  
idea. He claims to insist on freedom alone, because he doubts that  
the coexistent of freedom and equality will be a fantasy. As you  
mentioned "amoeba", do they have "freedom", no, the only thing they  
own is equality, they have lost the intention of freedom, for they  
lost individuality.


An amoeba has more freedom in a pond than a white blood cell, which  
has a job to do in the multicellular organism. Don't take that  
"freedom" to much seriously, the image was a bit poetical.






Personally, I think humans should try to keep their Turing  
universality at all costs, but corporations will opposes naturally  
to this. The tension between universality at different levels is  
unavoidable.


Indeed, as far as army this kind of systems are concerned, the  
complete equality without individuality is required in order to keep  
each soldier  in step effectively when in emergent and dangerous  
situation.


In the army, OK. in the civil society, in time of peace: we should  
avoid that, and encourage people to be themselves and develop their  
differences, that means exploiting their own universality. I think.



Best,

Bruno




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Re: [Fis] reply to Loet

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi,


On 02 Nov 2013, at 17:40, Joseph Brenner wrote:


Dear Gordana and Loet,

I think that you here and Loet, with his idea of local inversion of  
the hierarchy, have an intuition of something I consider potentially  
very important. In reality, it is the processes in the "hierarchy"  
that have been moving and continue to move partly in a non-univocal  
manner, countercurrently if you like. My logic gives a framework for  
such
movement in a spiral, not circular manner by alternating  
actualization and potentialization.


Of course it is persons, and not "systems", in their complexity,  
that are communicating and not communicating and wondering whether  
to continue to communicate or not, or are sorry they communicated.  
Any attempt at a more complete understanding of communication should  
be able to take such complexification of the notion of system into  
account, in my opinion.



This thread reminds me George Bush when he said that that corporations  
are persons.


If that is taken literally, that can only be a threat for the human  
individual rights.


That would lead to the human's lost of (Turing) universality, and  
would be an advantage for some higher level entity in which humans  
would be the equivalent of specialized cells. You can compare this  
with the amoeba lost of immortality and "freedom", when beginning to  
cooperate through multicellular organism.


Personally, I think humans should try to keep their Turing  
universality at all costs, but corporations will opposes naturally to  
this. The tension between universality at different levels is  
unavoidable.
But if we abandon an atom of  human Turing universality for some ideal  
security, we will lose both.


Bruno





http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] Praxotype

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Karl,

On 15 Oct 2013, at 17:23, Karl Javorszky wrote:

> As Bob said experiences -> words. Wittgenstein said words ->  
> numbers. Pythagoras: world -> numbers. Idea: organise numbers like  
> you organise words and see the world.
> Question from Stan: experience <-> number ?.
> Answer:
> Like in Bobs analogy: water as a recognisable, recurring experience,  
> sufficiently interpersonal to be consistently named and understood  
> that this is what was meant by "water". In our case, we have to  
> communicate recognisable, recurring expriences that relate to mental  
> products that are thought. The brain experiences by the sensory  
> organs differently than by thinking. Feelings that arise on  
> thoughts, rather than on sensual experiences, can also be  
> circumscribed. This will happen in an abstract way. The audience is  
> invited to recognise a pattern of patterns.  These can be  
> communicated by ponting to a table and saying "such is the place  
> here and then", these statements being numbers. One may want to be  
> perceptive to the experience that a point in space and a load on  
> this point can be directly read out of the natural numbers. We are  
> presently learning the common, unifying experience that a table -  
> slightly more complicated than a multiplication table - delivers  
> exact data on "what is where and when". Therefrom, one will be  
> accessing a logical experience of "order". Like the physiological  
> experience "water" has got a common name, the cultural invention is  
> now to give the name "order" to a way of reading the contents of a  
> table that makes the concept explicable to all.
> This is the stage we are at now.
> As to the sufficient number of noumena - see Gordana - as compared  
> to that of words used by traditional languages: we are at learning  
> to give names to experiences, and the experiences themselves are not  
> yet universally connected to such an interpretation of numbers which  
> allows saying "this experience is commonly shared and is called",  
> e.g., 'order', or 'future' or 'space-mass-time stitch-up by standard  
> place changes'.
> There is by far enough of numbers to represent all that could have  
> ever been said. In fact one needs rather only a few of the numbers.  
> It is mostly combinatorics, and Nature makes do with 3 places and 4  
> markers to convey the message. One can simulate genetics in a crude  
> way by using twice 16 elements. Their relations are very intricate.  
> They deserve a closer look. There, one can experience that feeling  
> of order about which a rational dialogue is possible.
>
> Bruno: non-computability is true
> The physical facts must lie within the nature of the numbers. The  
> perception by the human is where the information is added: aha, this  
> relation means that such-and-such will be that way. The content is  
> in the numbers, and is not computational. It is indeed us that have  
> to understand the movement of the elements by applying to the set of  
> beliefs that are based on a+b=c the idea of an ordered assembly.  
> Both the correctness of the addition and the position under a given  
> order are included in the properties of the numbers, they need not  
> be comnputed. They need to be recognised, not computed.   Then, one  
> may talk about conflict caused by diverging ideas of order, and be  
> sure that others understand him.

I was relying on the fact that if we assume computationalism (the  
Turing emulability of the brain), our computational states are  
distributed on the infinitely many computations, existing in the  
arithmetic,  going through our state, and this makes the physics,  
below our computationalist substitution level, arising from a  
statistics on all those computations. The math confirms that we find  
something quite close to quantum mechanics. It makes also the physical  
reality into an emergent, NON entirely computable pattern. That  
approach has another key feature: it justifies the existence of non  
sharable qualia. Indeed quanta are recovered by the notion of  
sharable, first person plural, qualia. This provides also an  
arithmetical interpretation of Platonist conception of reality,  
notably Plotinus primary hypostases, and his two matters theory  
(inspired by Aristotle, but corrected for keeping Platonism). The  
physical reality is the border of something else. If we are  
digitalisable machine, physics is no more a fundamental science, and  
the laws of physics are due to an evolving structure in a logico- 
arithmetical reality, seen from "inside" (in a precise mathematical  
sense). This approach prevents also biology, psychology, and theology,  
from reductionism. The notion of persons plays a capital role, and the  
first person points view are not third person mechanical entities,  
which assess your point. You can find papers on this in my URL.

Best,

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] Praxotype

[Bruno Marchal]

On 15 Oct 2013, at 14:32, Karl Javorszky wrote:

Cointinuing Bob's discourse on language and words, the next step was  
done by Wittgenstein, who said that as tokens, words can be  
represented by numbers. This is a resurrecting of Pythagoras'  
statement, that Nature is representable by natural numbers and their  
harmonies.
It is important to keep in mind that numbers have as many  
interrelationships among each other as words - if not more. And, by  
the use of computers, we can make their harmonies among each other  
visible to the human. The inner poetry of words that is behind the  
words themselves, can be found in the relations among the natural  
numbers.

Karl


Numbers are important, but any Turing universal system will do, if we  
assume computationalism (my consciousness is invariant for a digital  
substitution of my body/brain).


People can look in my URL(*)  for papers showing that IF we assume  
computationalism (a thesis in in cognitive science), then the physical  
reality (and more than that: a whole theology actually) 1) emerge from  
arithmetical relations, and 2) cannot be the result of computations  
(so it emerges in a necessarily non computable way).


It can be seen as a return to Pythagorus, as far as the fundamental  
ontology is concerned, but physics happen to be an inside (projective,  
and statistical) view of arithmetic, and the math shows it to be non  
computable.


This shows that computationalism is incompatible with the thesis of  
digital physics (the thesis asserting that there is a primary physical  
and that it is digital).


Note that the proof is constructive, and so it shows how to derive the  
physical laws from addition and multiplication of natural numbers.  
Some familiarity with logic is needed.


Bruno

(*) see for example:   
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html







2013/10/15 Bob Logan 
Thanks John for alerting us to the terms praxotype and cognotyppe. I  
have a simpler formula which I made use of in my book the Extended  
Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind and Culture. Words  
are simply concepts and hence thinking tools. Before verbal language  
hominids communicated by mimesis, i.e. hand signals, facial  
gestures, body language and prosody (non-verbal vocalization) like  
grunts. As the complexity of hominid existence increased mimesis did  
not have the requisite variety for everyday life. Conceptualization  
was needed. Verbal language emerged in which our words were our  
first concepts. The word water, for example, was a concept that  
united all our percepts of the water we drank, washed with, cooked  
with, fell as rain, or was found in rivers, lakes or the sea. With  
language the brain which before was a percept engine bifurcated into  
the human mind capable of conceptualization and hence planning and  
large scale coordination. Verbal language allowed us to deal with  
matters not immediately available in space and time. I claim that  
the emergence of verbal language represented three simultaneous  
bifurcations: from mimetic communication to verbal langauge; from  
the brain as a percept engine to the mind capable of  
conceptualization and from hominids to fully human Homo Sapiens.


for more details visit
http://www.academia.edu/783502/The_extended_mind_understanding_language_and_thought_in_terms_of_complexity_and_chaos_theory

or

http://www.academia.edu/783504/The_extended_mind_The_emergence_of_language_the_human_mind_and_culture

cheers - Bob Logan

On 2013-10-15, at 2:54 AM, John Collier wrote:

This term might be useful in the context of the present discussion,  
especially in the contest of coordinated practice(s). Cognotype  
might also be useful. I think these might lead to a more fine- 
grained analysis of the more integrative sociotype.


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/09/27/words-are-thinking-tools-praxotype/

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Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD
Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto
http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan
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Re: [Fis] fis Digest, Vol 571, Issue 17 Role of First Principles in Information theory

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 May 2013, at 21:50, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


FISers, John, Bruno:

First, John's comment.

Obviously my comment was not "vapid" otherwise you would not have  
responded to it!  :-)  :-)  :-)


As to metaphysics (first principles):

I wrote:

Your notion of metaphysics appears to so extremely narrowly  
restricted that you can exempt your own highly metaphysical  
writings from your definition of metaphysics.  In fact, the  
traditional usage of the term "metaphysics" is not narrowly  
restricted.


Metaphysics has to do with two things, ontology and necessity


Your response amply demonstrates my point.

Let use look at the Apple dictionary definition of "metaphysics"

" the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of  
things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing,  
substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

• abstract theory or talk with no basis in reality"


Your view is that "Metaphysics has to do with two things, ontology  
and necessity" is remote from the dictionary definition.  Many  
physicists use the term "First principles" as a substitute for the  
term for "metaphysics". Clearly, Shannon understood the difference  
between 'first principles" and his theory of "communication theory".


With regard to my personal view of metaphysics, my public persona is  
that of a scientist. I have attempted  throughout my scientific life  
to separate sharply my metaphysical and spiritual values from the  
hardcore reality of the sciences.


If you wish to interpolate what my metaphysics might be, read my  
papers.

See for example:

"Introduction to the Perplex Number System," Dis. Applied Math. 2009.
"Algebraic Biology" Axiomathes, 2009
"Ordinate Logics of Living Systems" 2009 (Book Chapter, Vrobel,  
Rossler, ed.)


as well as numerous earlier publications. If you study the logic of  
these papers, you will find numerous assertions with deep  
metaphysical implications relating to
"abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause,  
identity, time, and space."



If you study these papers, you will find numerous differences with  
your personal metaphysics.


If you lack copies of these papers, send me an email and I will  
forward copies to you.


Per Pedro's request, I will not continue this discussion in this  
forum.



Bruno:

You write:
Indeed, there is nothing metaphysical about this. It is a theorem  
in applied science (the step 8 of the Universal Dovetailer Argument  
has to use a bit of Occam razor). If we are machine, the physical  
reality is a statistical appearance, resulting from information  
selection among multiple computations which can be proved to be  
emulated (not just described) in arithmetic. This can already be  
used to explain some weird aspect of nature (the quantum).


Your first sentence:

Indeed, there is nothing metaphysical about this



 suggests a metaphysics that is even narrower than John's.


No, I am just saying that I am proving propositions, once you accept  
some definition, natural in the frame of the mechanist *hypothesis*/ 
*theory*. All what I say can be verified (and has been verified).






It is a theorem in applied science (the step 8 of the Universal  
Dovetailer Argument has to use a bit of Occam razor).



This sentence (theorem of applied science?) is merely a personal  
metaphysical claim about a personal belief about a putative "formal  
logic" (e.g., theorem) of science.  I am not aware of any formal  
logic for science or biology or medicine.


Of course. I might have been clearer on this. But IF you accept some  
definition, and some postulates, if only for the sake of the argument,  
like the existence of a level of description of a body so that  
consciousness would be invariant for a digital substitution made at  
that level (a very weak form of computationalism), THEN you can prove  
relation between theorertical cognitive science, theoretical physics,  
theoretical computer science, arithmetic, mathematical logic. It is is  
in that sense that I talk about theorem in applied science. Obviously,  
we cannot prove anything about reality.











If we are machine, the physical reality is a statistical  
appearance, resulting from information selection among multiple  
computations which can be proved to be emulated (not just  
described) in arithmetic




This sentence offers yet another metaphysical view as a belief about  
the nature of man, computation, information etc.


Not at all. It is a reasonable assumption from what we know. Unless  
you believe in the collapse of the quantum wave, there is no evidences  
that biology or neurology, or even most of natural science is not  
emulable by a Turing machine.
Some people believe that the entire physical universe is Turing  
emulable, but this is easy to debunk, as comp makes physics not Turing  
emulable, and if the universe is Turing emulable, then comp is true,  
and thus wrong, and so, with or without comp, physics cannot be  
ent

Re: [Fis] Collier's Metaphysics

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 May 2013, at 08:08, John Collier wrote:

> Another vapid criticism with no argument. Give me an idea, Jerry,
> give me an idea. You obviously think I don't have it, so it would be
> rude of you to just say this sort of thing and refrain. List some
> things that are involved with metaphysics that I have missed.
>
> Otherwise I will have to assume that you cannot do this.


Indeed, there is nothing metaphysical about this. It is a theorem in  
applied science (the step 8 of the Universal Dovetailer Argument has  
to use a bit of Occam razor). If we are machine, the physical reality  
is a statistical appearance, resulting from information selection  
among multiple computations which can be proved to be emulated (not  
just described) in arithmetic. This can already be used to explain  
some weird aspect of nature (the quantum).

Some people tend to dismiss this without studying the (mind-body)  
problem. This is a quasi tradition since Aristotle, but it is not  
science.

With Mechanism, we can attribute a subject to some object, but we  
cannot attribute one object to one subject, only an infinity of  
objects.  We can already confirm that aspect when looking close to any  
piece of matter.

The self-multiplication of machines, explains the origin of  
information, from the machines (or relative numbers) points of view.  
Elementary computer science shows the very rich structure that the  
universal machine are forced to put on that information.

This makes also the mechanist or computationalist hypothesis testable  
(and already partially tested).

Bruno




>
> John
>
> At 05:27 AM 2013/05/27, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:
>
>> On May 26, 2013, at 10:46 AM, John Collier wrote:
>>
>>> I don't have much idea.
>>
>>
>> I concur.
>>
>> Jerry
>
>
> --
> Professor John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041  
> South Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>
> ___
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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] Collier's Metaphysics

[Bruno Marchal]

Jerry,

On 26 May 2013, at 16:58, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


John:

I have followed your writings for many years - perhaps more than two  
decades now.


Frankly, from the perspective of a hardcore realist, I find much of  
your written work to be highly metaphysical in nature, including the  
sentences which I cited in the post of May 17, 2013.


Your notion of metaphysics appears to so extremely narrowly  
restricted that you can exempt your own highly metaphysical writings  
from your definition of metaphysics.  In fact, the traditional usage  
of the term "metaphysics" is not narrowly restricted.


On numerous occasions, you assert your views as a MIT trained  
physicist. Yet in this immediate exchange, the responsibility for  
the assertions are attributed to others. Puzzling.


Have you every given any serious metaphysical thought to the  
scientific meaning of the phrase "it from bit"?


Perhaps the dichotomy of your perspectives is amply illustrated by  
the title of your book:


"Every Thing Must Go"

This title itself is a simple logical assertion. It expresses  
logical necessity.


If this assertion is true, what would remain?

Life?
Matter?
Mentation?
John Collier?
MIT style physics?
Mathematics?
Philosophy of science?
Metaphysics?
Nothing?

This title alone expresses a deep and profound metaphysical  
perspective.


At heart, I am a simple man, in love with nature, logic and  
mathematics. From my perspective, your voluminous metaphysical  
writings tend to be contrary to my experience of nature, logic and  
mathematics.


"It from bit"?  Really?

My question of May 17, 2013 remains open:

How would a rational realist distinguish this metaphysical  
perspective from witchcraft or magic?



Cheers



If we assume that there is a level of description such that we are  
Turing emulable, then ontologically everything can go except some term  
of a first order Turing universal theory. I use Robinson Arithmetic to  
fix the things.


Then nothing does go, as it can be shown how the appearances of the  
physical laws can be explained in that theory (with computationalism  
at the metalevel, or not). This leads to a derivation of physics from  
the additive and multiplicative theory of numbers, making the theory  
testable (comp + classical theory of knowledge). Then, thanks to  
Gödel, Löb and Solovay makes it possible to distinguish what is true  
for the subject and what the subject can justify.


It saves us form reductionism, as it shows that the universal machines  
can defeat all complete theory about them. It shows that numberland is  
already full of life, and where the information fluxes are born.  
Eventually it makes us more ignorant, as the "arithmetical truth is  
big and beyond the computable. And the computable lives there,  
surrounded by the non computable.


Information is a key notion, but, imo, not as fundamental than the  
universal machine, or the universal number, which can interpret that  
information, and react to it: not always in a predictible way, though.  
Another key is the distinction between first person and third person  
views, singular and plural. A simple notion of first person  
indeterminacy explains why the psycho-brain identity can't work, and  
suggest precise formulation of the mind-body problem.


This approach generalizes to arithmetic what Everett did for quantum  
mechanics. It shows that Church thesis rehabilates a Pythagorean form  
of Neoplatonism. It is counter-intuitive, but it explains why.


It from bit? Yes. Even already some shadows of the qubit can be  
explained from bit.


(See my URL for papers and references which explains all this in  
details, ... sometimes in French).


I might be with John on this, perhaps. If we are Turing emulable,  
everything emerges in a precise and informative way from "2+2=4".  So  
we can test if we are Turing emulable, and computationalism is made  
scientific, not philosophical.

The few tests already done fit well with the quantum reality up to now.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



Jerry



On May 23, 2013, at 2:45 AM, John Collier wrote:

Jerry, I don’t think I have a metaphysical position on information.  
I was classifying the way that active scientists use the concept  
(or concepts). I really don’t know what you are talking about. If  
you want to know the empirical basis for the uses of information I  
suggest you read the original authors I refer to.  I use the  
concept as it has been introduced by others. Some concept I don’t  
find useful, so I ignore them, but all of the use of information I  
have made over the years has been in the context of its use in  
scientific theories. So I really don’t see what your concern about  
metaphysics is. I don’t think the issue is very important, if there  
is one. We detect information, we interpret it, we process it, we  
hypothesize it and its properties in order to explain our  
observations. It doesn’t seem much different from energy that way, 

Re: [Fis] [Fwd: SV: Science, Philosophy and Information. An Alternative Relation] S.Brier

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Feb 2013, at 18:38, John Collier wrote:

> I guess I am at a loss to see them as separate
> discourses.


Me too. Actually I do not believe in something like *Science*. But I  
do believe in the human *scientific attitude*, and I have eventually  
realized that such attitude is totally domain independent.

The scientific attitude is mainly a form of modesty, of  
acknowledgement that *all* theories are hypotheses, of making the  
statements as clear as possible, with the hope of seeing them refuted,  
etc.

It is frequent that a scientist will have that attitude in his  
expertise field, but will  lack all sense of it when speaking in  
another field.

When I was young academical philosophy was marxism propaganda, in  
part, and by being labeled and categorized as literature, many  
philosophers indulge in the idolatry, and argument per authority.

All the same for my favorite subject "theology", which today is put in  
opposition to rationalism, which of course leads to the perpetuation  
of irrationalism in theology, and this since about the closure of  
Plato academy. But that opposition does not just prevent the  
scientific attitude in theology, it makes some good science, like  
physics, into bad pseudo-theology, very often.

I don't believe in Science, I believe in persons, and some persons can  
be serious or not in *any* domain.

"Science" is never an answer per se, but a tool to attempt to put some  
light on the unknown.

To oppose science, philosophy and theology leads to pseudo-theologies,  
pseudo-philosophies and pseudo-sciences.
Of course, people have fears, and the pseudo-things can exploit the  
wishful thinking related to them to do more money than the modest  
attempt to get some genuine light and some genuine progresses in the  
*search*.

In occident, I think that science has begun in -500 and ended in +500,  
when Plato Academy has been closed, and when all rationalist in the  
most fundamental questions have been either ignored, exiled, banished,  
or burned alive.

The enlightening period was only partial, as we got most of all greek  
sciences, except theology, where humans still tolerate the dogmas, the  
fairy tales and the authoritative argument, instead of modesty, doubts  
and dialogs.

Bruno



> Especially in the domain of Information.
>
> Contrary to what Stan said, I think that many of
> the major advances in science from Statistical
> Mechanics, to Relativity Theory to Quantum
> Mechanics did and continue to have a major
> philosophical component, and professional
> philosophers work with scientists directly in
> each of these fields, It used to be true in
> Computer Science, but is less so now. In
> Cognitive Science there is currently virtually
> now separation. In Biology there are many
> philosophers who work with biologists, and vice
> versa, but far too many who do not.
>
> I think that technology is much more linked to
> industry than it is to the sciences above.
>
> John
>
> At 06:03 PM 2013/02/11, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:
>> How does one measure the synergy among three discourses?
>> That is an interesting question within information theory (as part  
>> of both
>> science and philosophy).
>>
>> Best,
>> Loet
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
>> ] On
>> Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
>> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 4:29 PM
>> To: fis@listas.unizar.es
>> Subject: [Fis] [Fwd: SV: Science, Philosophy and Information. An  
>> Alternative
>> Relation] S.Brier
>>
>>  Original Message 
>> Subject:SV: [Fis] Science, Philosophy and Information. An
>> Alternative
>> Relation
>> Date:   Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:32:04 +0100
>> From:   Søren Brier 
>> To: joe.bren...@bluewin.ch , Pedro  
>> Clemente
>> Marijuan Fernandez , fis@listas.unizar.es
>> , John Collier 
>> References: <6043399.89641360255002322.javamail.webm...@bluewin.ch 
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>> I go for each of the three nominally independent disciplines are not
>> independent, but that each provides a dynamic ontological and
>> epistemological link to the other two, more or less strong or  
>> "actual"
>> depending on the extent to which one wishes to emphasize certain  
>> aspects
>> of knowledge. Science without philosophy is stupid but philosophy
>> without science is blind. I am for a synergetic interaction.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>>
>>
>>  Søren Brier
>>
>>
>>
>> Professor in the semiotics of information, cognition and  
>> commmunication
>> science,
>>
>> department of International Business Communication, Copenhagen  
>> Business
>> School,
>>
>> Dalgas Have 15, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Fra:* fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es
>> [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] *På vegne af *joe.bren...@bluewin.ch
>> *Sendt:* 7. februar 2013 17:37
>> *Til:* Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez; fis@listas.uni

Re: [Fis] Paradigmatic diversity

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Gordana, Robin, John and FIS colleagues,

On 19 Nov 2012, at 14:05, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic wrote:


Dear Joseph,

I agree with you. I am also against totalitarianism.
Computationalism is not the world, it is only a modeling framework.
It is parallel to mechanicism, but has stronger expressive power and  
it has mechanicism as its proper subset.
Computationalism can certainly not exhaust all the possibilities for  
us to relate to the world.

That much we must have learned from the history of science.

Nevertheless, computationalism (or info-computationalism) can be a  
very useful framework
in a similar way as mechanicism was up to now perfectly fine under  
certain conditions, within certain domains.
(Classical Newtonian physics is just fine in its own domain, and  
relativistic corrections come first with very high velocities
while quantum mechanical modeling becomes necessary first at very  
small scales.)
Info-Computationalism does not replace physics, even though there  
are physicists working on the project or re-phrasing of quantum  
physics

in terms of info-computation.
See Goyal and Vedral articles in 
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter
and Chiribella in 
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/unconvent_computing

We have just only started to exploit the potential of computational  
framework with computing understood as natural computing  
(information processing).


There exists more than one possible approach and more than one  
possible framework and language for us to relate to the world.
Søren uses different framework in addressing cybersemiotic aspects.  
You have logic in focus.
There is no absolute reference frame that would dictate one and only  
approach. There must be place for diversity.


Hopefully all of the views will eventually be related and understood  
in the common context of knowledge production
of humans and other intelligent (adaptive, learning, communicating)  
agents.


All the best,
Gordana


I think that we should keep distinct two things:

1) The use of machines or computations as metaphor. Some can be good  
metaphor, some can be bad. I agree with Gordana when comp refer to the  
metaphors. Such metaphors can be helpful in many fields, like biology  
but also physics.


2) The computationalist hypothesis in the philosophy of mind/cognitive  
science (hereafter denoted by "comp"). This is no more metaphorical.  
As I state it, the comp hypothesis is the hypothesis that there exists  
a level of description of the "brain" (whatever needed for  
consciousness, it can include the body and even some finite part of  
the environment). It is not metaphorical because when you accept a  
digital brain as prosthesis, you get a real thing, not a metaphor, and  
you survive (comp is correct), or you don't survive (comp is false, or  
the level has been wrongly chosen).
In this setting, it can be shown that NO sound machines at all can  
know for sure what is her level of substitution. In fact no machine  
can know which machine she is, and the choice of the substitution  
level is always somehow risky. In that sense, comp warns against  
taking the metaphor too much seriously, as usually the metaphor will  
concern some level of description, and we can never be sure if we have  
chosen the correct level.
Then the comp hypothesis has important consequences in the fundamental  
realm. It makes it possible to reduce the mind body problem to the  
problem of extracting the stable belief in in a physical reality from  
the statistical interference of the many machine dream which exist  
already in the models of elementary arithmetic. This is not well  
known, but has been verified by many people, and criticized only by  
"sunday" type of philosophy, often by people who take for granted the  
existence of a *primitive* physical universe (Aristotle theology).


Let me comment also on Feynman (in "The Character of Physical Law",  
quoted by Gordana)  :



The goal of computationalism when it comes to understanding physics  
is nicely described by Feynman:



"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand  
them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of  
logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny  
a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can  
all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an  
infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tin piece of space/ 
time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that  
ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that  
in the end machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn to be  
simple, like the checker board with all its apparent complexities."

Richard Feynman in The Character of Physical Law


Since Feynman wrote this, we can say now that we know why, if comp is  
correct, the physical reality, whatever it is, as to appear like that.  
Indeed, anything like a phy

Re: [Fis] [Fwd: The Information Flow] From Bob Ulanowiccz

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Pedro and colleagues,

On 15 Nov 2012, at 10:36, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:

>
>
>  Original Message 
> Subject:  The Information Flow
> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:35:49 -0500
> From: Robert Ulanowicz 
> To:   
> CC:   
>
>
> Dear Bruno, Gordana and friends,
>
> At the risk of over-using my FIS privileges, please allow me a few
> remarks on the interesting discussion we all have been having:
>
> I think it is important to realize that the terms ?mechanism? and
> ?computationalism? are scientific metaphors, and ones that have proved
> very useful to research and philosophy. There?s little question about
> the contributions of either.
>
> Metaphors carry with them, however, the temptation to push them beyond
> their useful boundaries. Bruno, I appreciate your efforts to
> distinguish a new conception of ?mechanism? that departs from the
> classical notion.

OK. It is a weak notion. It is implied by all others, and so its  
consequences concerns all the other form of computationalism I am  
aware of;




> But, as I have written elsewhere, if it doesn?t look
> like a mechanism, if it doesn?t act like a mechanism, if it doesn?t
> smell like a mechanism, why persist in calling it a mechanism? Might
> not a less baggage-laden term like ?constraint? serve your purpose
> just as well?

What I call "digital mechanism" or "computationalism" is the idea that  
we can survive with a computer in place of the body or brain. "brain"  
is used in a very general sense. It is anything assumed to be needed  
for your consciousness to exists. This prevents critics invoking the  
need to have some environment together with the biological brain (in  
the skull).

I also make precise the notion of level. Digital mechanisn = "there is  
a level of description of my body such that I can survive with a  
machine doing the right things at that level". From this, a non-comp  
hypothesis means that I am not able to survive any Turing emulation,  
even done at the level of the quantum fields: it implies some infinite  
complexity everywhere in what might constitute my identity.

I often sum up mechanism by "Yes doctor": it means I accept that my  
doctor put an artificial digital brain in my head. This shows how much  
this form of mechanism is not metaphorical. At the substitution level,  
the computer activity will make it possible for my conscious  
subjectivity to manifest itself, like an artificial pump can replace  
the heart.




>
> Gordana, I likewise respect your urge to drive computationalism beyond
> the rigidly algorithmic perception of the decades just past. But the
> fact of the matter remains that we still invest an enormous amount of
> energy and effort into making sure that machines and algorithms behave
> in strictly mechanical fashion. Those strictures will always haunt any
> effort to generalize the notion of computation.

I am not sure what are the motivation for generalizing the notion of  
computations, beyond the use of oracles (which change nothing in the  
reasoning I am proposing you to study).

Computability has a notion of universality which lacks in all other  
mathematical subject. And the price of it is the existence of partial  
function, undefined on some argument, leading to non stopping  
programs, and even forbidding the existence of mechanical procedure to  
predict if an arbitrary program will stop of not, and then a ladder of  
unsolvable problems concerning those mechanical activities.  
Theoretical computer science is very negative: it shows that we just  
don't know what machines, or numbers, are capable of, when obeying  
simple laws (like addition and multiplication).




>
> What we risk in trying to push these concepts beyond their envelopes
> is what John Haught calls ?metaphysical impatience? ? the attempt to
> ?seize the field? on behalf of a pet notion. That seizing the field
> would lead us astray of nature becomes evident when we ask what lies
> beyond the edges and would be adumbrated by our excess of zeal? In my
> view that is where we encounter ?a world of contingencies?. In one of
> my earlier posts to FIS which was a preamble to this current
> discussion, I expressed my worry that metaphysical impatience will
> serve to cover over the vital role of contingencies in the cosmos.
>
> In the mechanical worldview, contingencies are absolutely essential to
> the full picture and actually drive mechanical scenarios. They are
> relegated, however, to the conveniently neglected domain of the
> ?boundary statement?. In the realm of computation, we can interject a
> semblance of contingency into our algorithms, but our abilities to do
> so are quite limited.
>
> Here Stu Kauffman would have a word to say. He maintains that it is
> strictly impossible to state fully the ?adjacent possible?. It is not
> simply combinatorically intractable to do so, but outright impossible
> -- and I heartily agree.   The evolution  
> of  
> the

Re: [Fis] The Information Flow

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Robert and FIS colleagues,


On 12 Nov 2012, at 16:35, Robert Ulanowicz wrote:

> Dear Pedro,
>
> Roman & Littlefield is coming out with a volume along those lines
> entitled "Beyond Mechanism"
>   
> >
>
> As for our Chinese colleagues, I find them more open to non-mechanical
> scenarios than are anglophones.

The problem is that few people defending mechanism are aware that  
mechanism is incompatible with weak materialism (the primary existence  
of a physical universe, that is more or less the current dogma/ 
paradigm). Most proponents of Mechanism have still the 19th century  
conception of Mechanism, which is refuted by theoretical computer  
science/mathematical logic.

Mechanical entities are intrinsically related to non mechanical  
scenario. You cannot genuinely be open to mechanism without being open  
to the non-mechanical. Most predicate applying to machine are  
undecidable, non mechanical, etc. Machines, notably when they are self- 
observing, are confronted to the non mechanical, and *can* overcome it  
by relying on non mechanically generable informations.

I am not defending Mechanism, but as a logician I do invalidate  
widespread misconception on machines, and notably I try to explain  
that Digital Mechanism (computationalism) is quite the opposite of  
reductionism. I would even say that it might be used as a vaccine  
against reductionism in the exact and human science.

Mechanism, in the weak sense I am using, is quite plausible, as there  
are no evidences against it, but this does not mean that Mechanism is  
a good *explanation* of anything. On the contrary, I prefer to look at  
it as a tool, perhaps a simplifying tool, to *formulate* the problems  
(notably the mind-body problem), to explain it is not yet solved, even  
in that simplifying frame, etc. We are very ignorant of what are  
machines, and probably so, in case we assume we are ourself Turing  
emulable (with or without oracles).


> All three of my books are being
> translated into Chinese. The first one, "Growth and Development:
> Ecosystems Phenomenology" has already been published.

Congratulation !

Best,

Bruno

> Quoting PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ :
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> Yes, the foundations are trembling... as usual during quite long a
>> time. Maybe too many aspects have to be put into line in order to
>> have new, more consistent foundations for human knowledge. Until now
>> the different crisis of Mechanics, the dominant scientific culture,
>> have been "solved" at the small price of leaving conceptual
>> inconsistencies until the rug of brand new fields or subdisciplines
>> while at the same time fictive claims of unity of sceince,
>> reductionism, etc. were upheld. Good for mechanics, as probably
>> there were few competing options around --if any. Bad for the whole
>> human knowledge, as multidisciplinary "schizophrenia" has been
>> assumed as the natural state of mental health.
>>
>> My opinion is that information science should carefully examine the
>> problematic claims at the core of mechanical ways of explanation, as
>> some (many?) of them refer to the information stuff: unlimited
>> communication (even between physical elements), arbitrary partitions
>> and boundary conditions, ideal status of the acting laws of nature,
>> ominiscient observer, idealized nature of human knowledge  (no
>> "neurodynamics of knowledge"), disciplinary hierarchies versus
>> heterarchical interrelationships, logical versus social construction
>> and knowledge recombination, idealized social information, etc.etc.
>> Probably I have misconceived and wrongly expressed some of those
>> problems, but in any case it is unfortunate that there is a dense
>> feedback among them and a strong entrenchment with many others, so
>> the revision task becomes Herculean even if partially addressed.
>>
>> The big problem some of us see, and I tried to argument about that
>> in the last Beijing FIS meeting, is that without an entrance of some
>> partial aspect in the "professional science" system, none of the
>> those challenges has the slightest possibility of being developed in
>> the amateur mode/marginal science our studies are caught into.
>> Therefore a common challenge for FIS, the new ISIS society, ITHEA,
>> Symmetrion, INBIOSA, etc. is to take some piece or problem, with
>> practical implications, and enter it into the institutional system,
>> it does not matter where and by whom, and little by little expand
>> the initial stronghold with the collective support of all of us.
>> There is a terrific collection of individualities and scholars in
>> the FIS enterprise and the germane entities, so that any small
>> "oficializing" attempt should prosper quite soon.
>>
>> Let us think about that... there is hope for non-trembling
>> foundations! Provided we are institutionally clever.
>>
>> best wishes
>>
>> ---Pedro
>>
>> PS. by the way, 

Re: [Fis] The Information Flow

[Bruno Marchal]

aws of physics got a non trivial origin,  
and they have evolved themselves in a space of numbers/machine dreams.  
This is far from the current aristotelian metaphysics assumed, not  
always consciously, by many scientists and philosophers alike.

Best,

Bruno



>
> best wishes
>
> ---Pedro
>
>
>> Challenge for FIS- What are your 10 most important questions?
>>
>>
>> 1) How can we best explore the latest version of new means of
>> scanning/observing the body? What are they? how are they
>> mathematically intra-explored?
>> 2) how can we best move from emergent systems to known systems?
>> Transcending Rosen...
>> 3) is there a new relational mathematics that moves across current
>> spaces? Who is working now on this? How can we do it?
>> 4) How can people best collaborate with different mind sets ---  
>> people
>> that think differently?? Is this valuable?
>> 5) How can we make new publishing arenas that explore and support
>> transdisciplinary research?
>> 6) How can we best bridge research fields in terms of mathematics?
>> 7) How can we go beyond what we know in a quantum jump without having
>> our past research being put into question? or should we just allow
>> ourselves to change as we learn/absorb?
>> 8) How can we make sure institutions are supporting such research in
>> terms of tenure?
>> 9) What is the best publishing venue for such research?
>> 10) Who is best funding this…
>>
>>
>> b
>>
>>
>> Bill Seaman
>> Professor, Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies
>> DUKE UNIVERSITY
>> 114 b East Duke Building
>> Box 90764
>> Durham, NC 27708, USA
>> +1-919-684-2499
>> http://billseaman.com/
>> http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/AAH/faculty/william.seaman
>> http://www.dibs.duke.edu/research/profiles/98-william-seaman
>>
>>
>>
>> RadioSeaman
>> Paste into itunes (Advanced/open audio streams) for internet radio:
>> http://smw-aux.trinity.duke.edu:8000/radioseaman
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 27, 2012, at 11:34 AM, Bruno Marchal > <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Even if the Parmenidean reality is restricted to the natural  
>>> numbers,
>>> with only the laws of addition and multiplication, we can prove,
>>> assuming our brain are Turing emulable, that the view from inside as
>>> to be Heraclitean.
>>>
>>> The problem is not mechanism. The problem is the reductionist
>>> conception of mechanism. I think.
>>>
>>> The incompleteness phenomenon does not refute mechanism, like some
>>> have proposed, but it does refute the reductionist conception of
>>> mechanism.
>>>
>>> Arithmetic is full of life and dreams.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Bruno
>
>
> -- 
> -
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
> Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
> Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
> pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -
>
> ___
> fis mailing list
> fis@listas.unizar.es
> https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Re: [Fis] The Information Flow

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Oct 2012, at 22:32, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ wrote:

> Dear FISers,
>
> Is it interesting the discussion on wether those informational  
> entities contain realizations of the Aristotelian scheme of  
> causality or not?
>
> The cell, in my view, conspicuously fails --it would be too  
> artifactual an scheme. Some parts of the sensory paths of advanced  
> nervous systems seem to separate some of those causes --but only in  
> a few parts or patches of the concerned pathway. For instance, in  
> visual processing the "what" and the "how/where" seem to be  
> travelling together undifferentiated along the optic nerve and are  
> separated --more or less-- after the visual superior colliculus in  
> the midbrain before discharging onto the visual cortex. The really  
> big flow of spikes arriving each instant (many millions every few  
> milisec) are mixed and correlated with themselves and with other top- 
> down and bottom-up preexisting flows in multiple neural mappings...  
> and further, when those flows mix with the association areas under  
> the influence of languaje, then, and only then, all those logic and  
> conceptual categorizations of human thought are enacted in the  
> ephemeral synaptic networks.
>
> I am optimistic that  a new "Heraclitean" way of thinking boils down  
> in network science, neuroinformatics, systems biology,  
> bioinformation etc. Neither the "Parmenidean" eliminative fixism of  
> classical reductionists, nor the Aristotelian organicism of  
> systemicists. Say that this is a caricature. However "you cannot  
> bathe twice in the same river" not just because we all are caught  
> into the universal physical flow of photons and forces, but for the  
> "Heraclitean flux" of our own neurons and brains, for the inner  
> torrents of the aggregated information flows. The same for whatever  
> cells, societies, etc. and their physical structures for info  
> transportation.
>
> Either we produce an interesting new vision of the world, finally  
> making sense of those perennial metaphors among the different  
> (informational) realms, or information science will continue to be  
> that small portion of incoherent patches more or less close to  
> information theory or to artificial intelligence. In spite of  
> decades of bla-bla- about information revolution and information  
> society and tons of ad hoc literature, the educated thought of our  
> contemporary society continues to be deeply mechanistic!
>
> Why?


Even if the Parmenidean reality is restricted to the natural numbers,  
with only the laws of addition and multiplication, we can prove,  
assuming our brain are Turing emulable, that the view from inside as  
to be Heraclitean.

The problem is not mechanism. The problem is the reductionist  
conception of mechanism. I think.

The incompleteness phenomenon does not refute mechanism, like some  
have proposed, but it does refute the reductionist conception of  
mechanism.

Arithmetic is full of life and dreams.

Best,

Bruno






>
> ---Pedro
>
>
> >
> > -snip-
> >
> > I think it of some interest that I have
> > previously ( 2006  On
> > Aristotle’s conception of causality.
> > General Systems Bulletin 35:
> > 11.) proposed that the Aristotelian 'formal
> > cause' determines both
> > 'what happens' and 'how it happens', and that
> > the combination of
> > this with material cause ('what it happens
> > to') delivers 'where' it
> > happens.
> >
> > (For completeness sake I add that efficient
> > cause determines only
> > 'when it happens', while final cause points
> > to 'why it happens'.  It
> > would be quite exciting to find that these
> > informations were also
> > carried on separate tracts.)
> >
> >
> > It would be exciting, as that would seem to refute the
> > Aristotelean idea
> > of the four causes as four aspects of all causation. However an
> > information channel can carry some part of the information from
> > its
> > source, which would be a sort of filter or abstraction of the
> > source.
> > So, for example, a channel might be sensitive only to the "how",
> > but not
> > the "what", and vice versa. A channel is fundamentally a mapping
> > of
> > classes from a source to a sink that through instances that
> > retain the
> > mapping (see Barwsie and Seligman, Information Flow: The Logic
> > of
> > Distributed Systems). So in this case, a channel sensitive to,
> > say,
> > "what", would retain the what classifications of the source in a
> > way
> > that the sink could use, but perhaps not any other information.
> > The
> > channels themselves could still maintain all four aspects of
> > Aristotelean causation, so Aristotle need not be refuted. This
> > would
> > still be very interesting, though. I am unclear what functional
> > advantage there would be, though we certainly manage to separate
> > these
> > causes in much of our thinking (perhaps even, we can't help it).
> >
> > Cheers,
> > John
>

Re: [Fis] Good (clear) article on information and physics

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Jun 2012, at 14:57, John Collier wrote:

Hi all. In order to access the article I am pretty sure you need to  
establish an account on physics World. It is free. I did it so long  
ago I had forgotten.


Thanks John.




Bruno, I am not sure exactly what you mean by "the existence of the  
first person indeterminacy in arithmetic",



Very roughly said, it is the fact that you cannot write a program  
capable of predicting its contextual first person perspective after a  
backup followed by a duplication and implementation in two different  
contexts. It is rather trivial, but it has startling consequences,  
notably that physics cannot be the fundamental science, but that it  
emerges from arithmetic.


I explain it in the following paper:

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html


but offhand it seems to me to depedn on a sort of idealism that I do  
not accept.


It does not. It does rely on Church thesis, which relies on  
arithmetical realism, that is the idea that elementary arithmetical  
truth are NOT a creation of the mind, which  is a form of anti-idealism.





Incidentally, quantum decoherence is best seen as a sort of  
thermodynamic effect.


This is clear in Ron Garrett account. It is clear for me that in QM- 
without-wave-collapse, decoherence is indeed a thermodynamical,  
statistical, effect.




There are quantum measurements that can be reversed.


I think that all quantum measurements can be reversed, at least in  
principle. Both computationalism in cognitive science, and quantum  
mechanics (without collapse) point toward a completely reversible  
physical reality.


Best,

Bruno Marchal



Professor John Collier
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>> On 2012/06/01 at 02:45 PM, in message >, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

Hi John,

On 01 Jun 2012, at 13:02, John Collier wrote:

> http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/2012/may/31/the-quantum-game-of-life
>
> Sample excerpt:
> "Hopes that digital physics might be resurrected in some form rose  
in

> the early 1980s, when Richard Feynman proposed that the blatant gap
> between the power and information content of quantum theory and that
> of classical computers might be bridged by a new type of computer.
> His idea was born out of frustration at seeing classical computers
> take weeks to simulate quantum-physics experiments that happen  
faster

> than a blink of an eye. Intuitively, he felt that the job of
> simulating quantum systems could be done better by a computer that
> was itself a quantum system."

He was of course right on that. Actually I don't succeed in getting
the paper from the link above.

About quantum information, here is an interesting talk by Ron Garrett,
quite coherent with the (classical) computationalist theory of mind,
on quantum information, seen as information theory on the complex
numbers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc

Personally I am not (yet?) entirely sure that quantum information is
"just" classical information on the complex numbers, I think this is
partially true, and theorem like Gleason theorem makes me believe that
this is very plausible. Ron Garrett gives a pretty picture of Everett
QM (QM without collapse). His account of measurement is rather
illuminating (close to the work of Adami and Cerf).

Ron Garrett is information theoretic minded, and, with respect to
computationalism (comp), has a coherent view of physics. Of course he
does not seem aware of the necessity of such a view once we postulate
comp, and the fact that this necessitates to take all computations
(the one done below our classical comp substitution level) into
account, (not just the quantum one) and to justify the quantum
interferences from the first person perspective any self-justifying
universal number.

Comp shows that the qubit ---> bit road (decoherence) is two sided.

Technically, due to diagonalization used to make the self-reference,
you get the split between truth and justifiable, which provides a tool
to distinguish the qualia and the quanta, as different but related
mode of information, on the "inverse road" bit --> qubit.

I think Ron Garrett explains (very shortly but rightly ) the qubit ->
bit justification. Comp provides a reverse of that justification, and
this doubled by the communicable/non-communicable (G/G*) splitting:
the  bit -> quantum-bit, and the bit -> quale-bit*,  with the
explanation of the fact that the quale bit* can't be quantified nor
described (provably so in the ideal case of arithmetically self-
referentially correct machine)

Comp forces, just to remain coherent, to extend Everett's way of
embedding the observer into the physical wave,  to his embedding in
all arithmetical relations, by first person indeterminacy, with

Re: [Fis] Good (clear) article on information and physics

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John,

On 01 Jun 2012, at 13:02, John Collier wrote:

> http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/2012/may/31/the-quantum-game-of-life
>
> Sample excerpt:
> "Hopes that digital physics might be resurrected in some form rose in
> the early 1980s, when Richard Feynman proposed that the blatant gap
> between the power and information content of quantum theory and that
> of classical computers might be bridged by a new type of computer.
> His idea was born out of frustration at seeing classical computers
> take weeks to simulate quantum-physics experiments that happen faster
> than a blink of an eye. Intuitively, he felt that the job of
> simulating quantum systems could be done better by a computer that
> was itself a quantum system."

He was of course right on that. Actually I don't succeed in getting  
the paper from the link above.

About quantum information, here is an interesting talk by Ron Garrett,  
quite coherent with the (classical) computationalist theory of mind,  
on quantum information, seen as information theory on the complex  
numbers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc

Personally I am not (yet?) entirely sure that quantum information is  
"just" classical information on the complex numbers, I think this is  
partially true, and theorem like Gleason theorem makes me believe that  
this is very plausible. Ron Garrett gives a pretty picture of Everett  
QM (QM without collapse). His account of measurement is rather  
illuminating (close to the work of Adami and Cerf).

Ron Garrett is information theoretic minded, and, with respect to  
computationalism (comp), has a coherent view of physics. Of course he  
does not seem aware of the necessity of such a view once we postulate  
comp, and the fact that this necessitates to take all computations  
(the one done below our classical comp substitution level) into  
account, (not just the quantum one) and to justify the quantum  
interferences from the first person perspective any self-justifying  
universal number.

Comp shows that the qubit ---> bit road (decoherence) is two sided.

Technically, due to diagonalization used to make the self-reference,  
you get the split between truth and justifiable, which provides a tool  
to distinguish the qualia and the quanta, as different but related  
mode of information, on the "inverse road" bit --> qubit.

I think Ron Garrett explains (very shortly but rightly ) the qubit ->  
bit justification. Comp provides a reverse of that justification, and  
this doubled by the communicable/non-communicable (G/G*) splitting:  
the  bit -> quantum-bit, and the bit -> quale-bit*,  with the  
explanation of the fact that the quale bit* can't be quantified nor  
described (provably so in the ideal case of arithmetically self- 
referentially correct machine)

Comp forces, just to remain coherent, to extend Everett's way of  
embedding the observer into the physical wave,  to his embedding in  
all arithmetical relations, by first person indeterminacy, with the  
advantage of explaining a fundamental role to the (universal) person  
points of view, and hopefully so, to justify QM or refuting comp, or  
weakening it or constraining it.

To be sure computationalism is incompatible with digital physics. If  
*we* are machine (classical or quantum) then neither the fundamental  
reality, nor its physical part, can be Turing emulable, despite  
quantum machine can be Turing emulated. This is more or less a direct  
consequence of the existence of the first person indeterminacy in  
arithmetic.

Bruno Marchal

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] Stephen Wolfram discussing his ANKS in Reedit this Monday

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 May 2012, at 00:55, Hector Zenil wrote:

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 11:23 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

On 11 May 2012, at 13:10, Hector Zenil wrote:

Information that readers may find interesting:


Stephen Wolfram has written the first in a series of blogs posts  
about


NKS titled "It's Been 10 Years; What's Happened with A New Kind of

Science?": 
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/its-been-10-years-whats-happened-with-a-new-kind-of-science/


Stephen will also be hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit,  
where


he will be taking questions  about NKS and his research program on

Monday, May 14 at 3pm EST.


I think it is a good opportunity to start an interesting discussion

about several topics, including of course information and  
computation.



It looks like advertising for a type of universal system, the  
cellular

automata.


Coincidently, Wolfram wrote today
(http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/living-a-paradigm-shift-looking-back-on-reactions-to-a-new-kind-of-science/ 
):


"Looking through reviews, there are some other common themes. One is
that A New Kind of Science is a book about cellular automata—or worse,
about the idea (not in fact suggested in the book at all) that our
whole universe is a giant cellular automaton. For sure, cellular
automata are great, visually strong, examples for lots of phenomena I
discuss. But after about page 50 (out of 1280), cellular automata no
longer take center stage—and notably are not the type of system I
discuss in the book as possible models for fundamental physics."



Using cellular automata has an important role in modeling physics,  
notably diffusion processes. Using other models can hev their role,  
like quantum computation.


My critics is about the implicit use of any particular computable  
model, which, I can argue, cannot work for a logical reason. If we are  
machine, then it means that there is a level of substitution of my  
part where my consciousness remains invariant for local functional  
substitution. This entails a notion of first person indeterminacy and  
makes us distributed on infinities of computations (that is not  
entirely trivial to explain; please look at the papers in my URL), so  
that physics arise more from a sum on all computational model than a  
particular computational model. This lead to verifiable consequence of  
computationalism, already explaining most quantum weirdness. It makes  
also computationalism testable. I gave an algorithm generating the  
experimental device configuration testing the physics as we have to  
extracted it from comp, accepting the classical theory of knowledge  
(the modal logic S4).





People keep repeating what other say about others... (in this case,
that his view is all about cellular automata).


My view comes from the reading on the first edition of his book,  
sometimes ago, I admit. And then from the blog you kindly send to us,  
which does not address the quantum nature of the physical reality, nor  
consciousness, nor the (computationalist) mind body problem (my domain  
of study).





...

Digital physics implies computationalism, but if you take the 1/3  
person
points of view distinction into account, computationalism entails a  
non

digital physics. So digital physics is conceptually erroneous.

See the references in my URL for a proof of that statement. You  
need only
Church's Turing thesis, and the assumption that consciousness is  
invariant
for *some* digital transformation (which follows from  
computationalism).


This does not preclude that cellular automaton are very  
interesting, and can
have many applications, but it is not clear to make it into a new  
science.
We want to ask what about that science is, for it does not seem to  
address

the most fundamental questions.


Then perhaps you can ask him next Monday on his Reedit session
I
think he has some concerns about the place of observers in a digital
world scenario.


My point is that if "we" are digital, the world, or whatever  
responsible for the existence of our consciousness, cannot be digital.  
We must dissociate the hypothesis of a digital world and the  
hypothesis of the  locally "digitalness"  of person  
(computationalism). Digital physics implies computationalism, but  
computationalism implies the negation of digital physics.





As for computationalism, he as I do, think that the question is about
physics, the answer won't come therefore from a model of math or
computation.


But it can't come from physics, without begging the question of where  
physics come from, as Wheeler did foreseen. This is assuming  
Aristotelianism at the start, which is inconsistent with the  
assumption that "we" are locally digital. And as I said,  
computationalism in the cognitive science is incompatible with weak  
form of materialism and with physicalism in physics.


I currently explain this in detail curren

Re: [Fis] Stephen Wolfram discussing his ANKS in Reedit this Monday

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 May 2012, at 13:10, Hector Zenil wrote:


Information that readers may find interesting:

Stephen Wolfram has written the first in a series of blogs posts about
NKS titled "It's Been 10 Years; What's Happened with A New Kind of
Science?": 
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/its-been-10-years-whats-happened-with-a-new-kind-of-science/

Stephen will also be hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit, where
he will be taking questions  about NKS and his research program on
Monday, May 14 at 3pm EST.

I think it is a good opportunity to start an interesting discussion
about several topics, including of course information and computation.


It looks like advertising for a type of universal system, the cellular  
automata. They are certainly very interesting, but such system are  
harder to use to reflect about the first person / third person  
distinction, crucial in our matter.


The fundamental theories have to be machine independent, and the  
classical study of the ideally self-referentially correct machine,  
seems to me more informative for the question relating the first  
person points view to the third person points of view. It helps to  
formulate the questions, even if in toy situation.
This already suggest why our "physical" neighborhoods seem to be  
emulable in polynomial time only by a quantum computer.


Using Wolfram type of approach for fundamental studies, is a form of  
digital Aristotelianism.
It does not work. It assumes mind-body identity thesis which  
contradict computationalism. It takes for granted a conception of  
reality hardly sustainable both with the facts, and with what comp  
predicts machine's facts can possibly be.


Digital physics implies computationalism, but if you take the 1/3  
person points of view distinction into account, computationalism  
entails a non digital physics. So digital physics is conceptually  
erroneous.


See the references in my URL for a proof of that statement. You need  
only Church's Turing thesis, and the assumption that consciousness is  
invariant for *some* digital transformation (which follows from  
computationalism).


This does not preclude that cellular automaton are very interesting,  
and can have many applications, but it is not clear to make it into a  
new science. We want to ask what about that science is, for it does  
not seem to address the most fundamental questions.


Bruno Marchal






Sincerely.
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Re: [Fis] POSTS ON TERRY' S BOOK - PRESENTED BY DEACON

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 May 2012, at 11:35, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:


Dear Gordana, Hector and colleagues,

I keep thinking that the theme of "absences" is really fundamental  
for advancing the foundations of information science, but I am  
disappointed  by the way Terry has oriented the book. Both style and  
contents are inadequate for my taste. He continues to do what he did  
in previous papers, highly promising ones (as some parties discussed  
in past messages we had in the list); pointing to exciting new  
absential aspects but finally focusing in the physical ones (without  
much new enlightenment).


In my opinion the most appropriate direction to advance an absential  
calculus of sorts is the language of SYMMETRY. Several parties in  
this list have already discussed the theme (me included). Symmetry  
breaking and symmetry restoration and related formal tools are the  
way to tackle the absential dimension in the genuine informational  
entities: cells, nervous systems, societies (and the vacuum!!). To  
reiterate that the fundamental point is not about computation, but  
about self-construction. Those "absences" refer to "gaps", "  
functional voids" in the self-construction cycles/processes of those  
entities --there might be 'natural computation' associated, eg, in  
cellular signaling systems, but finally the ruling aspect is about  
self-maintenance and reproduction. We could also enlist McLuhan in  
this critical position regarding the physicalist-computationalist  
interpretations, I think.



I dare to insist that computationalism and physicalism are in complete  
opposition. If computationalism is correct then physicalism is  
provably false, and if physicalism is correct then computationalism is  
provably false.


The widespread confusion between materialism and mechanism (or  
physicalism and computationalism) arises from a reductionist view on  
the machines themselves.


-- Bruno Marchal





So, after a glance in the whole book, I am now in the detailed  
reading of Chapter 4, with mounting disappointment... "Incomplete  
Book"!! Deeper exploration needed!!


best

---Pedro



Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic escribió:


Dear Hector,

This might be a good way, Terry Deacon presenting his book:
http://fora.tv/2012/04/18/Incomplete_Nature_How_Mind_Emerged_From_Matter

What I find fascinating with this book is the whole dynamical  
framework,

from thermodynamics, to morphodynamics and teleodynamics.
See also: 
http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/info-metrics/pdf/upload/Beavers-Oct-2011-presentation.pdf

For sure, Deacon is not computationalist and his ideas of  
information and computation are pretty classical ones.
But it does not matter in this context. For a computationalist all  
three kinds of dynamics are computational processes,

and corresponding structures are informational structures.

With best wishes,
Gordana


-Original Message-
From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
] On Behalf Of Hector Zenil

Sent: den 27 april 2012 22:40
To: Pedro C. Marijuan
Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] POSTS ON TERRY' S BOOK

Could someone summarize why Terrence Deacon's book is such a presumed
breakthrough judging by the buzz it has generated among FIS
enthusiasts?

Thanks.


On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan
 wrote:


Dear colleagues,

Krassimir Markov's suggestion is excellent. Next year we could  
have a
FIS conference in his place, centered in the exploration of the  
new info
avenue drafted by Terrence Deacon's book, and started by Stuart  
Kauffman

and others. Previously my suggestion is that we have a regular
discussion session (like the many ones had in this list). A couple  
of
voluntary chairs, and an opening text would be needed. Sure Bob  
Logan

could handle this (perhaps off list) and we would have a fresh
discussion session for the coming months.

Technical Note: the current messages are not entering in the list;  
the

filter is rejecting them as there are too many addresses together.
Please, send the fis address single, and all the others separated  
or as

as Cc. Otherwise I will have to enter them one by one.

best

---Pedro
(fis list coordination)

-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-


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Re: [Fis] POSTS ON TERRY' S BOOK

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Colleagues,

On 27 Apr 2012, at 23:32, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote:


Dear Hector,

What, exactly, is your objection to it[Terrence Deacon's book]? It's  
anti-reductionism (that I would object to also) or it's claim that  
Turing computation is insufficient (to which I have no objection)?


Turing computation is provably insufficient to define the truth, and  
many other things, about ... the Turing machine's themselves. So the  
expression "Turing computation is insufficient" is ambiguous.


My very basic objection to Deacon's idea is that if we assume  
mechanism, i.e. the idea that the brain (or some generalization of it)  
is Turing emulable, then mind cannot emerge from matter, but matter  
has to emerge from the mind, itself emerging from number relations. So  
matter does not emerge from the human mind, but from all "number's  
mind".


Number's mind can be defined by what number's do, relatively to a  
universal number.
A universal numbers is basically a relative code of a computer. If  
phi_i is a fixed enumeration of the partial recursive functions, a  
number u is universal if phi_u(x,y) = phi_x(y), with (x,y) some fixed  
bijection from NxN to N (N is the set of natural numbers). Note that  
an expression like ph_i(j) = k, can be entirely stated in elementary  
(first order) arithmetic. In particular the existence of universal  
number is a theorem of arithmetic. The generality of the notion of  
"universal" needs Church's thesis (or equivalent one by Turing or Post).


So, with the digital mechanist thesis, computer science and  
information sciences appears to be more fundamental than the physical  
sciences, and this in a constructive way: you can derive physics from  
(intensional) number theory.
This makes the computationalist theory scientific, that is empirically  
refutable.


The logic of the observable propositions has already been derived,  
(accepting comp + the classical theory of knowledge) and up to now, it  
fits rather well with quantum logic, although it is still an open  
problem if we can derive the existence of quantum computing in our  
neighborhood.


I have often heard of rumors that a flaw has been found in the  
derivation, but usually, when I succeeded to get such claims  
communicated, it contains elementary error in logic and/or computer  
science (if not crackpot statement like the assertion that the mind- 
body problem is solved, which I do no more try to debunk).


The result can be shocking for fundamentalist Aristotelians,  
obviously, who believe dogmatically in Aristotle metaphysical notion  
of *primary* matter, and have developed a tradition to put the mind- 
body problem (or the first-person/third person relation problem) under  
the rug.


On the contrary,  it should please, I think, to people open to the  
idea that reality might be more informational than substantial.


I have begun some explanations here, notably from posts by Loet and  
Robin, but it is a bit hard to do this, with the two posts per week  
rule, and I suggest, if interested, to read the paper I have referred  
too, and which can be downloaded from my url (see below). You can then  
ask any question on the everything list, or on the FOAR list, where  
its is currently explained, and where I take time to debunk or correct  
arguments, and with some luck I can ameliorate the exposition, or  
correct minor flaws (see below). So if you study the papers, and have  
any question, it might be simpler to address them there.
But if there is no flaw, it is necessarily matter and physics which  
emerges from the mind, and not the contrary. Like with Everett QM, the  
theory explains very well why it *looks* different. Its main weakness  
is that it leads to complex open problem in number theory and computer  
science.


Of course, all this does not prevent Terry's book to contain very  
interesting remarks and analyses, and my critics here bears only on  
his most fundamental preconception.


Sincere respects,

- Bruno Marchal

PS:
A short but complete paper:  
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
FOAR mailing list:  http://groups.google.com/group/foar?hl=en





Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://iase.info







On Apr 27, 2012, at 1:39 PM, Hector Zenil wrote:


Could someone summarize why Terrence Deacon's book is such a presumed
breakthrough judging by the buzz it has generated among FIS
enthusiasts?

Thanks.


On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan
 wrote:

Dear colleagues,

Krassimir Markov's suggestion is excellent. Next year we could  
have a
FIS conference in his place, centered in the exploration of the  
new info
avenue drafted by Terrence Deacon's book, and started by Stuart  
Kauffman

and others. Previously my suggestion is that we have a regular
discussion

Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Apr 2012, at 11:44, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:

>> It seems to me that, if I believe I am duplicable, and understand the
> protocol, I must predict that I will experience being in both Moscow  
> and
> Washington. The process bifurcates one person, who becomes two  
> people with
> absolutely identical physique and memories immediately afterwards,  
> which
> will then begin to diverge.

OK. Then the uncertainty is bearing on the outcome of that divergence

You can predict this, in Helsinki:

(I will feel to be in W) and (I will feel to be in M)

But here you adopt a 3-view on your future 1-views.

But we assume comp, so we know that both copies will *feel* to be  
entire and complete in only one city. So from the first person point  
of view, it is

(I will feel to be in W) or (I will feel to be in M).

Assuming comp and the correct substitution level, you will never feel  
to be simultaneously in W and in M. This would entail a telepathic  
element which, given that we have chosen the right substitution level,  
would have a non computable element, and contradict comp.

We can verify this by asking the copy in W, and he will assesses to  
feel to be in W, and not in M, and having only an intellectual (3- 
view) belief of the existence of its copy in M. He cannot even know  
for sure that the copy has already been reconstituted there or not.


> Both, looking back to pre-bifurcation times,
> will say "that was me", and both will be correct.

Absolutely so. That is why we have to listen to both of them, and both  
of them agree to feel to be in only one city. One sees english  
speakers around him, the other sees russian speakers, and none of them  
can realy *know* if their doppelganger has been reconstituted. Nor  
could they know in advance that they would hear russians or americans.

The advantage of proceeding with such thought experience is that it  
avoids the need to agree on personal identity. The indeterminacy bears  
only on experience which can be noted in a diary.

Of course, the experience suggest that personal identity is an  
illusion. If you keep your identity on both copies, then we can argue  
that we are all the same amoeba, who duplicates itself a lot since a  
long time. But this remark needs not to be agreed upon to understand  
that computationalism reverses physics and the information/computer/ 
number science.

If you really believe that the you-in W and the you-in M are really  
still exactly the same person, having different experience, then I can  
argue that you and me are already exactly the same person. Why not?  
Perhaps God, playing hide-and-seek with itself :)
But here we try to predict direct accessible results of self- 
localization after a self-duplication, and without a non computable  
telepathic link, the answer of the copies are different.


> There is no "essence" to
> be randomly (or non-randomly) assigned to one location and not the  
> other.

But there are human beings, knowing in which city they feel to be.  
None will write "I feel to be in both M and W at once". Each will  
write "I feel to be in just the city X", with X being M or W  
respectively. They can only bet, intellectually, about the existence  
of the other. Indeed, the guy in W would not been able to see I have  
cheated on him, and that I did not reconstitute him in M. OK?


> The individual is now two people and therefore can be and is in both  
> cities.

Only from a third person point of view. From the point of view of each  
copies, despite both being the "same" person as the one in Helsinki,  
they both feel right now to be in only one city. And the first person  
indeterminacy bears on such feeling, not on the bodies to which we can  
attriibute consciousness, but on the content of the consciousness,  
which in this case corresponds to the result of the self-localization  
(W, M?) which they will write in their diaries. None will write in the  
diary "I feel to be in W and M".

Just replace humans by robots having some amount of inference  
inductive power. And imagine the iteration of the experience. So after  
finding themselves in some city, they buy a ticket to come back by  
plane to Helsinki, and they do the experience again and again. After  
iterating that experience 64 times, there will be 2^64 copies, and  
each of them will have, written in their respective personal diaries a  
specific sequence of "W" and "M". Such robots can have already well  
defined elementary inference inductive power to guess that their  
sequences are non algorithmically compressible. Each of them cannot  
predict the next outcome of the self-duplication. Of course, some of  
them will develop theories. For example the one having the story  
W...W, will be tempted to predict "W", but we know she will  
have many "descendants" contradicting that theory, and in this  
setting, they are deluded.

Of course "real life" will not be a sequence of self-duplication, but  
it will be a sequence of sel

Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Apr 2012, at 11:23, Robin Faichney wrote:


Hi Bruno,

This is very interesting for me, my approach to information is via the
mind-body and "hard" problems, and I'm sympathetic to
computationalism. On the other hand, I have difficulties understanding
much of what you say here. Let me focus on one point for now though.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 8:48:48 AM, Bruno wrote:


Let me sketch the reasoning shortly. If I can survive with a
digitalizable brain, then I am duplicable. For example I could, in
principle, be "read and cut" in Helsinki (say) and pasted in two
different places, like Moscow and Washington (to fix the thing).



The subject to such a duplication experiment, knowing the protocol
in advance, is unable to predict in advance where he will *feel to
be* after the duplication. We can iterate such process and prove
that at such iteration the candidate, seeing if he feels to be in W
or in M, receive a bit of information, and that his best way to
predict his experience, will be, in this case, to predict a random
experience (even algorithmic random experience): like WWMWWWMMMWM
, for example. That is the first person indeterminacy.


It seems to me that, if I believe I am duplicable, and understand the
protocol, I must predict that I will experience being in both Moscow
and Washington. The process bifurcates one person, who becomes two
people with absolutely identical physique and memories immediately
afterwards, which will then begin to diverge. Both, looking back to
pre-bifurcation times, will say "that was me", and both will be
correct. There is no "essence" to be randomly (or non-randomly)
assigned to one location and not the other. The individual is now two
people and therefore can be and is in both cities.


You are right. That is why in more lengthy explanations I introduce  
the key distinction between the first person points of view, and the  
third person points of view.
For the simple case of self-duplication the first person account can  
be defined by the content of a personal diary brought by the  
candidate: which means that it will be read and cut itself and  
reconstituted in both cities. Here the third person account is  
provided by the memory, or the content of a diary of an external  
observers, and is not going to be annihilated and reconstituted.


The indeterminacy bears on the first person experience(s). You are  
read and cut in Helsinki, and reconstituted in W and M.
You are asked to predict where you will *feel* to be after the  
duplication.


We suppose that you assume comp, and so you believe that you will  
survive such duplication. We assume also that the correct level of  
substitution has been chosen, and all the default assumptions (no  
bugs, no asteroids demolishing a reconstitution machine, etc).


So you can predict, with this relative to comp certainty, that you  
will survive, and that indeed, you will survive in both city. But comp  
prevents the existence of some telepathy between the two copies. So  
you know in advance that both of "you" (the M-you and the W-you) will  
both *feel* to be in only one city.


One will write in his diary: "Oh, I see that I am in Washington and I  
can only intellectually believe that I have a doppelganger in Moscow",  
and the other will write "Oh, I see that I am in Moscow, and I can  
only intellectually believe that I have a doppelganger in Washington".


So from both their first personal point of view, they get one bit of  
information.


The indeterminacy comes from the fact that they cannot have predicted  
in advance which one they will become, before the duplication.


If, in Helsinki the candidate predicts that he will feel to be in W,  
the guy in M will  rightly consider that he was wrong in his  
prediction made before in Helsinki, and vice versa.
As you say yourself, bot copies shares their memory-life up to the  
experience in Helsinki, and to evaluate their uncertainty, they have  
to take into account all the future copies discourses.


If this is not clear, let me copy you a slightly more elaborate  
account. It is called "step 3", because it is the step 3 of the  
Universal Dovetailer Argument, which is the main argument showing the  
reversal between physics and information/computer science following  
the comp assumption. It takes into account preview critics similar to  
what you said.
 In fact you attribute your consciousness and identity to both copies  
(it is a 3-person-view on the 1-person-view, but the indeterminacy is  
on the 1-view themselves). You can say "tomorrow, you can join me in W  
and in M". But from your personal perspective you get after the  
duplication, you will feel to be one and entire in a well defined city  
(W *or* M).


If you get this, don't read what follows. If it is still unclear, read  
what follows, and if some questions remain, I will answer them here.




== UDA step 3 == (from the FOAR mailing list) == ( 
http://groups.google.com/group/foar?hl=en.)

I assume

Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Loet, dear Pedro,
On 11 Apr 2012, at 11:28, Loet Leydesdorff wrote:


Dear Pedro,

You are right: the dimensionality of thermodynamic entropy is Joule/ 
Kelvin.
Probabilistic entropy/uncertainty/information is dimensionless and  
measured in bits.


Configurational information (a point of access to measuring meaning)  
is also measured in bits, but it is not a Shannon entropy  
(Krippendorff, 2009). It can be considered as a redundancy =  
reduction of uncertainty = a difference which makes a difference.


I agree. Redundancy is the key, in my opinion (and work). Note that if  
you enumerate the partial computable functions (from N to N to fix the  
thing), there is an important redundancy which cannot be removed in  
any computable way.


Information is then generated from the first person point of view of  
the (universal, Löbian) machine trying to bet on its most probable  
universal neighbors. (cf the first person indeterminacy(*)). Hard  
calculus because the redundancy is infinite.


I distinguish the finite information, available locally by machine,  
and which can be treated as numbers, but with extensional and  
intensional roles (cf 17 is prime versus 17 is the number address of  
the café) from what a universal number (machine) do with that number.  
This provides a clean base for the distinction between information  
capable of quantitative evaluation and meaning, although it is only  
just a tiny part of the meaning which is addressed here, of course.  
The meaning admits many quantitative aspect, but cannot be  
characterized by one measurement.


A Löbian machine or number is a universal machine or number which  
knows, in some technical sense, that he.she/it is universal. It is  
aware of its ignorance, notably about the universal neighbors.


Bruno

(*) You might look at my short article:
http://www.scitopics.com/The_first_person_computationalist_indeterminacy.html





Loet Leydesdorff
Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111
l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; 
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYJ&hl=en

From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es 
] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan

Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 10:44 AM
To: fis@listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

Dear John and colleagues,

Nice to hear that you are OK after that dangerous intoxication --our  
best wishes for your complete recovery!
About physical information I think that Landauer clarified the  
panorama, at least concerning the relationship between information  
theory and thermodynamics. According to his principle, any logically  
irreversible transformation of classical information is necessarily  
accompanied by the dissipation of at least k T ln(2) of heat per  
lost bit (about 3 x 10 exp -21 Joules at 300 K temperature), where  
obviously k is the Boltzmann constant and T the temperature.  
Recently this principle has been verified experimentally (Nature, 8  
March 2012, p. 187). By the way, in his past message Loet enters  
"Watts" in a similar expression (?). To insist, Entropy and  
Information are dimensionless and do not explicitly incorporate any  
units... About the quantum management of info theory, it is another  
matter, quite more tricky.


Beyond that immediate physicality, things get quite obscure as our  
contradictory "meaning" messages witness. The point made by Joseph  
on an overarching logic, is rather difficult to be maintained --at  
least in my small province of the biological signaling pathways. Too  
many logics are used biologically in too many different contexts or  
niches, either molecularly or neuronally... I bet that they are not  
susceptible of integration in any logical system.  Maybe Inbiosa  
parties would also disagree with me in this regard.


best wishes to all,

---Pedro

John Collier escribió:
Folks,

I have been in the hospital for almost three weeks due to bleeding  
from warfarin. I had to have three blood transfusions and an  
operation. I am only now getting my strength back. Some of my  
comments, therefore, may be dated.


"Physical" has a variety of overlapping meanings (a Wittgensteinian  
family resemblence). For example Quine takes the physical to be  
anything accessible to the senses or inferences therefrom. Ladyman,  
Ross, Collier an Spurrett take the physical to be the most  
fundamental laws of our (part of) the universe. I did not agree with  
this, among some other crucial points, so I was not a primary  
author. Information is at least physical in both of these senses.  
Quine's approach might make it entirely physical. I prefer to relate  
it to the causal, which always has physical parametres, as far as we  
know. But there are many ways of approaching this issue, and  
disentangling them will be a major advance in foundations of  
inf

Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Mar 2012, at 15:56, Stanley N Salthe wrote:


Bruno -- As an idealist, I think you have it all backward!


I am not an idealist. Just a logician and an inquirer. I show that if  
you believe in a sufficient amount of arithmetic, and in the  
assumption that your (generalized) brain(*) is Turing emulable, then  
it follows that the mind body problem is two times more difficult to  
solve: not only you need some theory of mind, but you have to derive  
the beliefs in matter from it.
I don't pretend this is obvious. The key notion is the notion of 1- 
indeterminacy, which makes machines unable to know which universal  
machine computes them among an infinity of machines.


I have no clue about the truth. I assume mechanism, that is: the  
invariance of my consciousness through the digital functional  
substitution of my parts at some description level. I  show that it  
needs some revision in ... theology (to be short).


It makes mechanism also scientifically testable, by deriving physics  
from machine't theology (the argument shows that physics is uniquely  
defined), and compare with nature.


(*) The generalized brain is the portion of the physical universe that  
you have to emulate to get the existence of your consciousness  
relatively perpetuated. It exists by the comp assumption.



I would argue that cardinal numbers are the most 'crisp' entities  
that we know, and this disqualifies them or being primeval.


It is not just the number, but their additive and multiplicative  
structure. It is Turing complete. In fact any first order logical  
specification of a Turing complete structure will do.
Consciousness and matter does not depend on the choice of the initial  
universal system in the theory. I  use numbers only because most  
people are familiar with them.





 That is, I think it makes sense to see all developments as  
beginning relatively vaguely and then becoming more definite over  
time.  So, then, it will have taken these numbers a very long period  
of evolution (passing through the 'real' stage) to have become as  
definite as they are now. Or, even if cardinal numbers became quite  
crisp at the time, say, of the origin of chemistry, that too will  
have been a long way from primeval.


I can explain why numbers are confronted to the continuum, indeed also  
the physical.

The problem is that it is a long reasoning.
I don't want to impose anything, and certainly not the "truth" of  
mechanism, just the point that mechanism and materialism are not  
compatible, and if we bet on mechanism, the mind-body problem is  
transformed into a precise, but complex, problem in machine's  
theology, itself branch of number theory and metamathematics.


I am not sure that anything I say should change your interest or that  
it would contradict most posts here. What I am saying concerns the  
fundamental matter. There, in soccer game language, I would sum by  
Aristotle 0, Plato 1. But it is not the last match, and it changes  
only the global picture.


I share many intuitions here, and with INBIOSA, even if I start from  
what might seems a bit revulsing to many: discrete integers and number- 
crunching machines, but by taking into account the 1-view/3-view  
distinction, that we can partially formalise for machine, we can  
understand that we might have just been guilty of having developed a  
reductionist conception of numbers and machines.


Arithmetic is not just full of life. Angels, goddesses, and other  
oracles are also at play :)


Bruno





On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 4:38 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

On 16 Mar 2012, at 18:43, Guy A Hoelzer wrote:


Greetings All,

While I like to think that I am not limited to reductionistic  
thinking, I find it difficult to understand any perspective on  
information that is not limited to physical manifestation. I would  
appreciate further justification for a non-physicalist perspective  
on information.  How can something exist in the absence of physical  
manifestation?


If you are realist about elementary arithmetic, that is if you agree  
that elementary arithmetical proposition like "17 is prime" are true  
independently of you, then, by arithmetic's Turing universality, you  
can show that the numbers exchange information relatively to  
universal numbers, which are playing the role of relative  
interpreters.





 I am not interested in a metaphysical perspective here, which  
might have heuristic value even if it is not 'real'.  The issue of  
'content' and 'meaning' strikes me as entirely physical, so  
mentioning those issues doesn't help me understand what non- 
physical information might be.  I would say that if information is  
physically manifested by contrasts (gradients, negentropy, …), then  
content or meaning refers to the internal dynamics of complex  
systems induced by interaction between the system and the  
physi

Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

[Bruno Marchal]

On 16 Mar 2012, at 18:43, Guy A Hoelzer wrote:


Greetings All,

While I like to think that I am not limited to reductionistic  
thinking, I find it difficult to understand any perspective on  
information that is not limited to physical manifestation. I would  
appreciate further justification for a non-physicalist perspective  
on information.  How can something exist in the absence of physical  
manifestation?


If you are realist about elementary arithmetic, that is if you agree  
that elementary arithmetical proposition like "17 is prime" are true  
independently of you, then, by arithmetic's Turing universality, you  
can show that the numbers exchange information relatively to universal  
numbers, which are playing the role of relative interpreters.





 I am not interested in a metaphysical perspective here, which might  
have heuristic value even if it is not 'real'.  The issue of  
'content' and 'meaning' strikes me as entirely physical, so  
mentioning those issues doesn't help me understand what non-physical  
information might be.  I would say that if information is physically  
manifested by contrasts (gradients, negentropy, …), then content or  
meaning refers to the internal dynamics of complex systems induced  
by interaction between the system and the physically manifested  
information.  If there is no affect on internal dynamics, then the  
system did not 'perceive' the information.  If the information  
merely causes a transient fluctuation of the internal dynamics, then  
the perceived information was not meaningful to the system.  At  
least this is a sketch of my view that I hope illustrates why the  
notions of 'content' and 'meaning' does not depart the physical  
realm for me.


I can prove that if we are machine at some description level, then the  
physical is both ontologically and epistemologically emerging from  
numbers relation. The hypothesis of mechanism can be shown logically  
incompatible with very weak form of materialism. Physics can not be  
fundamental, it emerges from mathematics, indeed from what has been  
called the sharable part of mathematics (sharable between classical  
logicians and intuitionist logicians, it is basically arithmetic or  
something recursively equivalent). We can already derive propositional  
quantum logic from classical number self-reference. Arithmetic is full  
of life at the start, and matter appears to be arithmetical truth as  
seen from "inside".


Poetically, to be short, numbers dreams, and physical realities are  
dream sharing. The quantum emerges, if mechanism is correct, from a  
statistics on all computations. This makes both matter and  
consciousness NON Turing emulable. In particular digital physics can  
be shown self-contradictory. Those (actually old) results are not well  
known but have been verified by many people. I don't think there is a  
flaw, but we never can be sure, of course.


Bruno Marchal

PS see below for a concise version of the proof:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html





Regards,

Guy

From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es 
>>

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:19:31 -0700
To: Foundations of Information Science Information Science <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>>

Subject: Re: [Fis] Physics of computing

Dear discussants,

I tend to disagree with the motto "information is physical" if taken  
too strictly. Obviously if we look "downwards" it is OK, but in the  
"upward" direction it is different. Info is not only physical then,  
and the dimension of self-construction along the realization of life  
cycle has to be entered. Then the signal, the info, has "content"  
and "meaning". Otherwise if we insist only in the physical downward  
dimension we have just conventional computing/ info processing. My  
opinion is that the notion of absence is crucial for advancing in  
the upward, but useless in the downward.
By the way, I already wrote about info and the absence theme in a  
1994 or 1995 paper in BioSystems...


best

---Pedro



walter.riof...@terra.com.pe<mailto:walter.riof...@terra.com.pe>  
escribió:


Thanks John and Kevin to update issues in information, computation,  
energy and reality.


I would like point out to other articles morefocused in how  
coherence and entanglement are used by living systems (far from  
thermal equilibrium):




Engel G.S., Calhoun T.R., Read E.L., Ahn T.K., Mancal T., Cheng  
Y.C., Blankenship R.E., Fleming G.R. (2007) Evidence for wavelike  
energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems.  
Nature, 446(7137): 782-786.




Collini E., Scholes G. (2009) Coherent intrachain energy in  
migration in a conjugated polymer at room temperature.  Science,  
vol. 323 No. 5912 pp. 369-373.




Gauger E.M., Rieper E., 

Re: [Fis] stuff and non-stuff

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Pedro and colleagues,


On 02 Mar 2012, at 14:16, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:


Dear Bruno and colleagues,

Thanks a lot for the well raised points. However, is it a good idea  
taking the info/abscence discussion to Turing machine equivalents?  
Sharing most of your arguments a serious concern for me is that the  
fundamental arena is not "computability" but "constructibility". For  
instance, it is not von Neuman's computing scheme what matters in  
this context, but von Neuman's self-constructing machine (finally  
derived toward the concept of "cellular automata").


But cellular automata are particular case of universal system. The  
theory of von Neumann can be see as an application of the usual  
diagonalization in computer science. If the duplicator D apply on x  
gives 'XX, then when applied to itself, DD, it gives 'DD.




At the risk of being too obscure, let me briefly state that when  
consider realization and constructibility versus modelling and  
computability, what we find is the relevance of "closure" and of  
"adaptability" versus "halting problem" and "algorithmicity" (formal  
describability).


That difference is important for the short term applications indeed. I  
am only a modest theologian :)



Even more, the only instance found until quite recent historical  
times of self-constructing entities was life itself. Unfortunately  
the theoretical descriptions of life are dominated by another  
"theology", the Darwinian one... and most alternative approaches are  
focused in trying to connect it with the physical realm, rather than  
advancing toward informational constructibility.


I agree. Actually I might agree too much. If Darwinian "theology" is  
based on the computationalist theory of mind, eventually we have to  
explain the whole of physics from "darwinism" and computationalism. If  
we are machine, I can explain that the physical sciences describe only  
the "border" of reality, not the fundamental reality itself like many  
physicists are thinking (well like most people tend to intuitively  
believe, for natural reasons).



Anyhow, the emergence of complex brains, societies, cultures, and  
above all the modern system of companies and markets, plus the  
Networks of our time, have multiplied the instances of self- 
constructing entities via info/communication/absences, etc., and  
thus made possible the Comparative Info Studies I was mentioning in  
last messages.


That's very interesting. I hope my remark have not be seen as a  
critics of this.





It is a personal point, but I believe that looking from the above  
angle, much of my own work during last years is devoted to such  
comparative info studies.


Information science, when information is taken in its broader sense,  
might need to be looked from all angles, I think it is both  
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary.


Best,

Bruno

PS I just got a link to a paper confirming experimentally the  
Landauer's analysis of the Maxwell Daemon. Only amnesia needs energy.  
Note that since a work by Hao Wang, logicians knows that we can do all  
computations without ever erasing information. This confirms  
"mechanism" by making mass, energy and information partial angle view  
of arithmetic from inside. Again this is interesting only from a very  
fundamental points of view. In practice and locally we do have to  
forget many information, like when deleting spam, which ask for some  
energy.






Bruno Marchal escribió:


Hi Pedro,


On 21 Feb 2012, at 18:02, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:


Dear FIS colleagues,

John's comments below on that book are quite interesting. Most  
approaches to information rely on "stuff" and "organization of  
stuff" --information is inevitably physical, as Rolf Landauer put  
long ago.
OK. But this can be shown inconsistent with the idea that our brain  
can be emulated by a Turing machine. The argument use only a notion  
of generalized brain (the portion of the universe needed to emulate  
to have the corresponding conscious experience). That sums up my  
main result.
However, "non stuff" and "organization of "non stuff" might be  
taken as central ideas too, e.g. in Deacon's approach --through  
the notion of absence. Deacon is one of the main contributors of  
that book, and author of another very recent info book that has  
already been referred in this list, by Joseph I think.


My further point, to connect with an unfinished message on info  
science teaching some weeks ago, is that genuine informational  
entities, those capable of making "distinctions" that are used for  
self-constructing in permanent communication with the medium,  
deserve a special status within the whole info science studies.
Key point. I use the notion of universal (Turing) machine for that

Re: [Fis] WG: stuff and non-stuff

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Joe, and FIS colleagues,

On 28 Feb 2012, at 19:16, joe.bren...@bluewin.ch wrote:


Dear Pedro, John and Colleagues,

The article by Terrence Deacon in the book referred to by John is  
entitled "What is Missing from Theories of Information?" and, as  
Pedro has indicated, it and Deacon's new book Incomplete Nature. How  
Mind Emerged from Matter may be major new additions to the  
foundations of information. Among other things, far from supporting  
"it from bit", Deacon provides expert arguments against this  
position, adopted indeed in a majority of the other articles in the  
Davies compendium.


Deacon's key point is that what is missing from theories is  
operation in reality of constraints, extending their role discussed  
previously by Stuart Kauffmann, Bob Logan, Bob Ulanowicz, Stan and  
John himself and focussing on what, as the consequence of  
constraints, is absent in information and other complex processes.


I hope that many colleagues will make the effort to access this  
material so that we may achieve a critical mass for its discussion  
and evaluation.


If ontologically-primitive matter is assumed, and if mind emerges from  
it, then something non turing emulable needs to be assume in the  
working of the brain+environment. I can argue in all detail. If we  
assume that there is a level of substitution of the "generalized  
brain" (the portion of the universe needed for may consciousness),  
such that we can function with our usual private subjective life  
intact, then we cannot escape the "it from bit" and physicalism is not  
defensible. Indeed physics, in that theoretical frame has to be  
retrieved from arithmetic, or from any first order logical  
specification of any universal (in Turing Church sense) system.


If computationalism is assumed we have, with "=>" being close to a  
logical implication:


Numbers => consciousness => physicalness => Human-type of Consciousness.

Such reduction does give a key role to information processing and  
computation in the 'big picture'. I am not sure something is missing  
in the theories of information, once they take into account  
(theoretical) computer science.


Best,

Bruno









Ursprüngliche Nachricht
Von: pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
Datum: 21.02.2012 18:02
An:
Betreff: [Fis] stuff and non-stuff

Dear FIS colleagues,

John's comments below on that book are quite interesting. Most  
approaches to information rely on "stuff" and "organization of  
stuff" --information is inevitably physical, as Rolf Landauer put  
long ago. However, "non stuff" and "organization of "non stuff"  
might be taken as central ideas too, e.g. in Deacon's approach -- 
through the notion of absence. Deacon is one of the main  
contributors of that book, and author of another very recent info  
book that has already been referred in this list, by Joseph I think.


My further point, to connect with an unfinished message on info  
science teaching some weeks ago, is that genuine informational  
entities, those capable of making "distinctions" that are used for  
self-constructing in permanent communication with the medium,  
deserve a special status within the whole info science studies.  
These distinctional entities are but the great players of the  
absence game... Therfor info science teaching should cover "central  
themes", "multidisciplinary recombinations", and the comparative  
study of "informational-distinctional entities."


Best wishes to all!

---Pedro
John Collier escribió:


Hi all,
I am reviewing a book edited by Paul Davies and Niels Henrik  
Gregersen titled Information and the Nature of Reality: From  
Physics to Metaphysics. There is a lot of quasireligious stuff that  
I find hard to swallow, mostly by people I have never heard of  
before, but many of the chapters are by well-known scholars who  
have been influential in physics and biology, as well as the  
history of science. The most common thread through the articles is  
that the world is not made up of "stuff" (matter), and that the  
idea has been problematic since its introduction. Instead the world  
is made of information (the "It from Bit" view). Interesting book,  
even if you don't agree with it.

John

Professor John Collier
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>> On 2012/01/23 at 07:18 PM, in message  
<4f1d967a.8070...@aragon.es>, "


--
-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-




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Re: [Fis] stuff and non-stuff

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Pedro,


On 21 Feb 2012, at 18:02, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:


Dear FIS colleagues,

John's comments below on that book are quite interesting. Most  
approaches to information rely on "stuff" and "organization of  
stuff" --information is inevitably physical, as Rolf Landauer put  
long ago.


OK. But this can be shown inconsistent with the idea that our brain  
can be emulated by a Turing machine. The argument use only a notion of  
generalized brain (the portion of the universe needed to emulate to  
have the corresponding conscious experience). That sums up my main  
result.






However, "non stuff" and "organization of "non stuff" might be taken  
as central ideas too, e.g. in Deacon's approach --through the notion  
of absence. Deacon is one of the main contributors of that book, and  
author of another very recent info book that has already been  
referred in this list, by Joseph I think.


My further point, to connect with an unfinished message on info  
science teaching some weeks ago, is that genuine informational  
entities, those capable of making "distinctions" that are used for  
self-constructing in permanent communication with the medium,  
deserve a special status within the whole info science studies.


Key point. I use the notion of universal (Turing) machine for that  
task. Or better "universal numbers". All this can be formized in a  
tiny part of arithmetic, by using the most classical notion of  
knowledge (axiomatized by the modal logic S4). The incompleteness  
phenomenon is enough to extract a difference between first and thrid  
person view from that notion of knowledge in the frame of mechanism.




These distinctional entities are but the great players of the  
absence game... Therfor info science teaching should cover "central  
themes", "multidisciplinary recombinations", and the comparative  
study of "informational-distinctional entities."


I think it is important to distinguish quantitative measurable notions  
of information, like in Shannon's theory, or like in quantum computing  
science, and qualitative semantic information which is indeed more a  
distinctional ability, which can be explained in term of the semantics  
of universal machine or program.


Nevertheless this adds a big conceptual price, which is the abandon of  
the "theology of Aristotle" (used by atheists and the mainstream  
Abrahamanic religions) and the "theology of Plato", which I realized  
is still a taboo for many. Stuff simply does not exist. But the  
physics of stuff can be explained as being how arithmetical truth can  
appear to machines/numbers from inside arithmetic, with the notion of  
"inside" captured by the classical theory of knowledge.


"God created the natural numbers, all the rest are numbers'  
dreams ..." (paraphrase of a famous statement made by Kronecker). The  
nice thing is that "mechanism + Quantum facts" provide evidence that  
we belong to a multi-users dream/video-games in arithmetic. This  
discards the solipsist trap of the mechanist idealism/immaterialism.


Best regards,

Bruno






Best wishes to all!

---Pedro
John Collier escribió:


Hi all,

I am reviewing a book edited by Paul Davies and Niels Henrik  
Gregersen titled Information and the Nature of Reality: From  
Physics to Metaphysics. There is a lot of quasireligious stuff that  
I find hard to swallow, mostly by people I have never heard of  
before, but many of the chapters are by well-known scholars who  
have been influential in physics and biology, as well as the  
history of science. The most common thread through the articles is  
that the world is not made up of "stuff" (matter), and that the  
idea has been problematic since its introduction. Instead the world  
is made of information (the "It from Bit" view). Interesting book,  
even if you don't agree with it.


John


Professor John Collier
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
email: colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>> On 2012/01/23 at 07:18 PM, in message  
<4f1d967a.8070...@aragon.es>, "


--
-
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-
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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: [Fis] [Fwd: THEORY AND SCIENCE] From QTQ

[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Jan 2012, at 17:23, Gyorgy Darvas wrote:


I disagree!
Theory is a part, an important element of science.
Practice should check, can confirm or falsify a theory, but cannot  
replace or discredit its mission.


As regards journals, my position is that they must give place to  
controversial ideas. The task of a journal is to give forum for  
discussion. A journal (i.e., its editors) and the reviewers do not  
need to share the opinions put forward in the submitted papers.  
Scientific truth can be met only if controversial ideas are  
discussed. That means, scientific truth is shaped as a result of  
discussion. The task of the reviewers is not to take over the  
responsibility from the scientific community, to decide on the  
correctness of ideas, incl. theories, expressed in the papers. (They  
can check whether the mathematical derivations are not mistaken,  
experiments are documented and reproducible, etc.) Ideas can be  
discussed if they are published for a wide circle of scientists, so  
that anyone who wants could express her/his supporting or  
controversial ideas and arguments. This is a key to the development  
of science.


Regards,
Gyuri



I agree. I identify, at some abstraction level, theories with beliefs.  
It obeys the "Popper law" that a belief is not necessarily correct,  
and should be refutable, at least in principle, by opposition to  
knowledge which, by definition, is true; despite it being refutable  
too (but then we realize it was a belief in disguise).


I don't really believe in Science. I believe in some human possible  
scientific attitude, which is mainly acknowledging ignorance and  
modesty. An awareness that beliefs, theories, are always hypothetical,  
probably even our build-in, by millions of years of evolution  
conception of 'reality'.


From the assumption that consciousness is invariant for some  
recursive information transform, it follows that reality is more  
Platonist than Aristotelian. The physical reality, like the biological  
reality, are "evolving" and "emerging" realities, reducible to  
relative number relations. Physics becomes reducible to the theology  
of number. It makes the mechanist assumption refutable, by comparing  
the physics of number with the one inferred from observation.


Mechanism reduces the mind body problem into a "belief in matter"  
problem in pure arithmetic/computer science/information science. I  
include Church thesis in the definition of mechanism. Papers  
explaining all this can be found in my url.


Information, ideas, numbers, are related notions. I think the key  
notion is that of *universality*, in the Church, Post, Turing sense,  
of machines, or relative numbers or information patterns.


Happy New Years 2012!

Bruno





At 16:48 2012.01.10.ÿ, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:



 Mensaje original 
Asunto: THEORY AND SCIENCE
Fecha: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:49:58 +0800
De: whhbs...@sina.com
Responder a: whhbs...@sina.com
Para: Pedro C. Marijuan , mjs >, Joseph Brenner  , fislist >



Dear Pedro, Dear Marcin, Dear Joseph, Dear FIS Colleagues,

Theory is important and necessary, but theory is different from  
science, theory is a growing view or hypothesis. We should remember  
Russell's paradox and the third number of Math Crisis, we should  
remember Aristotle and Galileo, and we shouldn't forget the article  
about MDMA by Jan Hendrik Schön in 2002. Let us remember history  
that go on record according to gubernatorial volition usually.  
Furthermore, lie is not science, for example Hwang's cloning  
experiments in stem-cell research.


Newton's mechanics is science, computer science is true, and  
however there is no information science. The sole criterion for  
truth or science is practice.


Of course, after the Hwang affair, Science（journal ）gets its  
wrist slapped for publishing a fraudulent stem-cell paper. Instead,  
the committee recommends that papers received by the journal should  
be divided into uncontroversial and controversial, and the latter  
gone over with a fine comb of new check. Â This is a way to arrive  
at science, too.


Best wishes

Â

QTQ





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Recent publications online:
- Mathematical description of a so far undisclosed symmetry of nature:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3189v1
- Physical consequences of a new gauge-symmetry and the concluded  
conservation law:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28q43v2112721r1/
- Spontaneous symmetry breaking in non-Euclidean systems:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k272555u06q2074w/?p=14dd4c9c5b5e4c1396b3e4855a87e9e2&pi=1
__
Gyorgy Darvas
E-mail / Skype;  S Y M M E T R I O N
Mailing address: c/o G. Darvas; 29 Eotvos St., Budapest, H-1067  
Hungary

Phone: 36 (1) 302-6965;
Monograph: Symmetry;  Course of lectu

Re: [Fis] The State of the Art - Discussion of Information Science Education

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John, Hi Fis-people


On 11 Dec 2011, at 13:49, john.holg...@ozemail.com.au wrote:


Thanks Walter,

A useful snapshot of PC (Philosophy of Computing). It reminds me  
that the origin of the word 'computing'   is com-putare = to  
consider together, suppose together, imagine together. This is  
surely what Steve Jobs was all about. To reduce computation to  
algorithmic calculation or even Turing machines is as restrictive as  
limiting information to data and documents, messages and codes.  
After thirty years of phronesis wrestling with data documents and  
computers it would be nice to know what computation and information  
mean.


It might be restrictive at the epistemological level, but not  
necessarily at the ontological level. All mathematical notions, like  
infinities, sets, provability, definability, etc. can be diagonalized  
again. They cannot have a universal representation. But computability  
and computations are immune to diagonalization. This makes it the  
concept the most explanatively closed we have ever found. I think.  
This gives a conceptual deep argument in favor of Church thesis, and  
it leads also to the notion of universal machines.


Those machines can not only compute the same class of all (partial or  
total) computable functions, but can all simulate each other,  
computing those functions in all possible different ways.
Actually, an interesting and vast class of universal machines (those  
who knows, in some technical sense, that they are universal) can  
defeat any theory concerning their own behavior (they can practice  
diagonalization), making their epistemologies beyond any normative or  
effectively complete theory. It makes computationalism (the doctrine  
that there exists a level where we are Turing emulable) a vaccine  
against reductionist conception of machine (and man).


I am Bruno Marchal, mathematician, and I met Pedro and Plamen in Paris  
some month ago. Although I am agnostic on the truth of the  
computationalist hypothesis in the cognitive science, I am interested  
to study the mind body problem in that frame. With the  
computationalist hypothesis, computer science and mathematical logic  
becomes handy tools for formulating deep questions.


In fact I have a deductive argument that computationalism and weak  
materialism (there exist an ontologically primary physical universe)  
are incompatible. I have shown that computationalism reduces (in my  
french PhD thesis in computer science) the mind body problem into a  
body appearance (to universal numbers) problem in number theory.


Physics would not be the fundamental science, and we might have to  
backtrack to Plato, or even Pythagorus' conception of reality.  
Physical reality becomes somehow the border of a universal mind (the  
possible universal machine dreams, or the effective set of all  
computations seen from inside. The "seen from inside" can be defined  
from the modal logic of self-reference, which exploits that immunity  
for diagonalization, and the fact that machines can be "aware" of that  
fact.


The following two papers sum up the main results and questions needed  
to solve to proceed:


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf

Unfortunately the longer version of those works are in french (they  
can be found from my URL below).


This might perhaps put some light on the difficult question of what is  
information. Like infinite, and like almost all in-# notions, that  
notion might not have a definitive definition, especially information  
which walked from syntactic definitions (Shannon) to semantical one  
(knowledge).





Computation is only one mode of information i.e. information AS  
cognitive process. Perhaps the only way out of our definitional  
impasse is to adopt the third option of the Capurro trilemma -  
plurivocity. If we can stop thinking linearly and start to think  
like a Dharma Wheel with all the different emergent modes of  
information arranged as spokes (having their expert spokespersons)  
each having equal validity with ignorance at the fulcrum, then we  
can move towards a viable transdisciplinary model for info which has  
hitherto evaded us. Nonlinear thinking has been the great driver of  
the computing and Internet industries.




I agree.

Best,

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




On Fri Dec 9 2:55 , walter.riof...@terra.com.pe sent:

Dear all,

It is possible find some useful ideas to build multi-inter-trans  
disciplinary approaches in last “closing statement” of Ubiquity  
Symposium: What is Computation?


What Have We Said About Computation?


If you are interested in all papers of this ACM Ubiquity Symposium:

http://ubiquity.acm.org/symposia.cfm


Sincerely,


Walter Riofrio




Walter Riofrio
Researcher; Complex Thought Institute