Intelligence and consciousness

[John Clark]

Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> Wrote:

" Consciousness can change behavior but it might not have to. Like a possum can play dead."

So if something passes the Turing Test it is intelligent and probably conscious, but failure to pass the Turing Test tells you nothing for certain. Rocks don't act intelligently and so fail the test, we conclude that rocks are probably not conscious, but maybe just maybe rocks are brilliant and as conscious as you or me and are just playing possum. Maybe, logically it can't be ruled out, but I rather doubt it.

" You decide whether to slow down or not."

And you made that decision for a reason or you did not.

" Whether you do slow down or not is random"

OK, then there was a reason and its deterministic.

" all of these things - teleportation, diamond impersonation, etc are no less unlikely than consciousness. [...] There is no way that mutation could produce that unless those things were already possible to produce."

Yes, Evolution could not produce a perpetual motion machine, and in fact it could not even come up with things far more mundane, like a macroscopic part that can move in 360 degrees. Evolution is a blundering inefficient and very stupid process, it's just that until the invention of brains it was the only way complex things could get built. Nevertheless Evolution managed to produce consciousness and probably first did so more than 500 million years ago; I conclude that producing consciousness is not that difficult, intelligence on the other hand is an entirely different story

" Life has no reason to evolve from non-life."

I doubt if that is true, but if it is then life evolved from non-life at random.

" How can mutation produce consciousness if consciousness was not already a potential?"

I never said there wasn't a potential. If consciousness is the way data feels like when it is processed I'd say that is a potential. And I can see absolutely no reason why 3 pounds of grey goo can make use of that potential but a microcircuit can not.

" Your answer is that it must have since consciousness exists and evolution is responsible for all properties of life."

Consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence or it would not exist, but I know for a fact that at least one conscious being does exist in the universe.

" But my whole point is that awareness is inherent"

Then why can't a computer be aware? Why is wet grey goo the only thing that can take advantage of this interesting potential?

  John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 18, 10:14 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> Wrote:
>
> " Consciousness can change behavior but it might not have to. Like a possum
>
> > can play dead."
>
> So if something passes the Turing Test it is intelligent and probably
> conscious,

I would not say that passing the Turing Test implies intelligence or
consciousness. It might be now, but we can't rule out the possibility
that programs will become so convincing that almost nobody can tell
the difference but without having any understanding or consciousness.
I don't imagine it will happen so easily, but the Turing Test alone
doesn't empirically prove anything in principle.

> but failure to pass the Turing Test tells you nothing for
> certain. Rocks don't act intelligently and so fail the test, we conclude
> that rocks are probably not conscious, but maybe just maybe rocks are
> brilliant and as conscious as you or me and are just playing possum. Maybe,
> logically it can't be ruled out, but I rather doubt it.

If we need a Turing Test to tell us that rocks are not conscious, then
we are lost.

>
> " You decide whether to slow down or not."
>
>
>
> And you made that decision for a reason or you did not.
>
> " Whether you do slow down or not is random"

Only from the perspective of the flow of traffic. It is not at all
random from the perspective of the driver. Since the traffic signals
don't know whether any individual driver is going to slow down or not,
it has to be considered probabilistically. The significance and
subjectivity is stripped out, leaving only a computational skeleton of
the event.

>
>
>
> OK, then there was a reason and its deterministic.

Reason is in the eye of the beholder.

>
> " all of these things - teleportation, diamond impersonation, etc are no
> less unlikely than consciousness. [...] There is no way that mutation could
> produce that unless those things were already possible to produce."
>
> Yes, Evolution could not produce a perpetual motion machine, and in fact it
> could not even come up with things far more mundane, like a macroscopic
> part that can move in 360 degrees. Evolution is a blundering inefficient
> and very stupid process, it's just that until the invention of brains it
> was the only way complex things could get built. Nevertheless Evolution
> managed to produce consciousness and probably first did so more than 500
> million years ago; I conclude that producing consciousness is not that
> difficult, intelligence on the other hand is an entirely different story

Why would what the brain does be different than evolution? Could it
be... free will? Subjectivity? Significance?

>
> " Life has no reason to evolve from non-life."
>
>
>
> I doubt if that is true, but if it is then life evolved from non-life at
> random.

That's not possible because there has to be a phenomenal support for
biological coherence in the first place. You can't just throw ping
pong balls around in a vacuum for a few billion years and expect there
to be a chance that a frog will pop up somewhere. If you stop reverse
engineering the reality of what the universe is like now and consider
how it would be possible for it to get that way instead, you'll see
that it doesn't make any sense without sense built into it from the
start. An unconscious universe cannot randomly create conscious
agents.

>
> " How can mutation produce consciousness if consciousness was not already a
>
> > potential?"
>
> I never said there wasn't a potential. If consciousness is the way data
> feels like when it is processed I'd say that is a potential. And I can see
> absolutely no reason why 3 pounds of grey goo can make use of that
> potential but a microcircuit can not.

Data doesn't feel anything because data is just pattern recognition of
a material body. A microcircuit can't make use of that potential for
the same reason that you can't water your garden with formaldehyde. It
has to be real water. Not a liquid that looks like water or a
mathematical simulation that reminds us exactly of how water flows, or
even ice, but actual liquid H2O.

>
> " Your answer is that it must have since consciousness exists and evolution
>
> > is responsible for all properties of life."
>
> Consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence or it would not exist,
> but I know for a fact that at least one conscious being does exist in the
> universe.

Why would consciousness be a byproduct of intelligence and not the
other way around?

>
> " But my whole point is that awareness is inherent"
>
>
>
> Then why can't a computer be aware? Why is wet grey goo the only thing that
> can take advantage of this interesting potential?

A computer isn't aware because it's just a lot of little parts that
don't know each other. They didn't all come from the same cell like
our cells do. It's little parts are proto-aware (they detect and
respond to certain physical changes) by virtue of being matter made of
atoms, but they made out of very specific inorganic materials -
semiconductive glass. Glass doesn't do anything interesting. That's
what makes it so useful in science and technology; it is inert yet
transparent, thermoplastic yet thermosetting. Precisely the opposite
of what makes organisms interesting. They are volatile, dynamic,
precariously homeostatic.

I'm not saying that there couldn't be some way for glass to be the
basis for a conscious organism, only that we don't have any reason to
suspect that there could be. If that were to happen though, it won't
be because we are imposing a design on it. The glass would have to
form into an organism on it's own.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

" I would not say that passing the Turing Test implies intelligence or consciousness."

You may not say so right now on this list but the fact is you use the Turing Test every hour of your waking life and probably even in your dreams; when you see someone do something that is very smart you think they are very intelligent, and unless you are locked up in a mental institution, and I don't think you are, you are not a solipsist

" If we need a Turing Test to tell us that rocks are not conscious, then we are lost."

No we are not. Ask yourself exactly why you are so certain that rocks are not conscious, I'll tell you why, because rocks as well as dead people fail the Turing Test, they act as if they were neither conscious nor intelligent. I have no doubt that if you grew up knowing that rocks taught physics and philosophy at Harvard you would have very different ideas about the consciousness of rocks.  

" OK, then there was a reason and its deterministic."

" Reason is in the eye of the beholder."

OK, then my reason is not the same as your reason, but if we both had our reasons for doing what we did then our actions were both deterministic, and if we had no reasons our actions were random.  

"Why would what the brain does be different than evolution? Could it be... free will?"

Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.

"An unconscious universe cannot randomly create conscious agents."

I doubt if that is true but it really does not matter because Darwin's Theory of Evolution is nor random.

" Data doesn't feel anything"

You seem to be in the habit of writing declarative sentences that not only you are unable to prove but you can't even find a single scrap of evidence that would lead someone to think it might be true.

" because data is just [...]"

Ah, the good old "just". As I've said, if you cut up even the most magnificent thing into small enough pieces eventually you will get pieces that are not very magnificent at all, in fact if that does not happen then you have not cut it up small enough. Only when you know how the simple can bring about the complex and the mundane the magnificent do you truly understand something.  

 

"Why would consciousness be a byproduct of intelligence and not the other way around?"

Because Evolution can not directly see consciousness any better than we can, so if it were the other way around neither consciousness nor intelligence would exist on this planet. And yet I know for a fact that Evolution did produce consciousness at least once and I know for a fact that Evolution did produce intelligence billions of times and I know for a fact that Evolution can see intelligence. Thus I know for a fact that consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence and NOT the other way around.
 

" A computer isn't aware"

You seem to be in the habit of writing declarative sentences that not only you are unable to prove but you can't even find a single scrap of evidence that would lead someone to think it might be true.
 

" because it's just [...]"

Ah, the good old "just". As I've said, if you cut up even the most magnificent thing into small enough pieces eventually you will get pieces that are not very magnificent at all, in fact if that does not happen then you have not cut it up small enough. Only when you know how the simple can bring about the complex and the mundane the magnificent do you truly understand something.  
 
  John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 19, 3:42 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> " I would not say that passing the Turing Test implies intelligence or
>
> > consciousness."
>
> You may not say so right now on this list but the fact is you use the
> Turing Test every hour of your waking life and probably even in your
> dreams; when you see someone do something that is very smart you think they
> are very intelligent, and unless you are locked up in a mental institution,
> and I don't think you are, you are not a solipsist

Why don't you think I am locked up in a mental institution? Did I pass
the VanGogh Test?

>
> " If we need a Turing Test to tell us that rocks are not conscious, then we
>
> > are lost."
>
> No we are not. Ask yourself exactly why you are so certain that rocks are
> not conscious, I'll tell you why, because rocks as well as dead people fail
> the Turing Test,

How do you know that rocks fail the Turing Test? Have you administered
such a test to rocks yourself or heard of anyone ever actually doing
that? I understand what you mean, but it's sophistry. Nobody who
understands the word consciousness in a conventional way needs a test
to determine that rocks do not seem conscious.

> they act as if they were neither conscious nor
> intelligent. I have no doubt that if you grew up knowing that rocks taught
> physics and philosophy at Harvard you would have very different ideas about
> the consciousness of rocks.

Sure, and if consciousness meant 'not consciousness' then I would have
different ideas about the consciousness of rocks too.

>
> " OK, then there was a reason and its deterministic."
>
> " Reason is in the eye of the beholder."
>
>
>
> OK, then my reason is not the same as your reason, but if we both had our
> reasons for doing what we did then our actions were both deterministic, and
> if we had no reasons our actions were random.

It's not deterministic if we are the ones doing the determining. If
you define the universe as deterministic from the beginning, then
everything that happens in it must by definition be deterministic. If
you don't force the universe into a category like that, then you can
see the wide spectrum of variation between absolute determinism and
libertarian free will. The universe supports mechanism to a degree and
solipsism to a degree, but it supports a combination of both to a
greater degree.

>
> "Why would what the brain does be different than evolution? Could it be...
>
> > free will?"
>
> Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.

Where there's denial, there is truth.

>
> "An unconscious universe cannot randomly create conscious agents."
>
>
>
> I doubt if that is true but it really does not matter because Darwin's
> Theory of Evolution is nor random.

Evolution has nothing to say about consciousness.

>
>  " Data doesn't feel anything"
>
>
>
> You seem to be in the habit of writing declarative sentences that not only
> you are unable to prove but you can't even find a single scrap of evidence
> that would lead someone to think it might be true.

What sort of evidence would you like? I would have thought that the
blindingly obvious nature of the observation did not require
elaboration. If a five year old child was afraid to delete a file
because they thought it might hurt the file, would you tell them that
it's a good idea not to delete them because data might feel something?
How do you know you are not committing genocide when you format a hard
drive? Should you be imprisoned from crimes against data? 'you can't
even find a single scrap of evidence'? really? Sophistry.

>
> " because data is just [...]"
>
>
>
> Ah, the good old "just". As I've said, if you cut up even the most
> magnificent thing into small enough pieces eventually you will get pieces
> that are not very magnificent at all,

Why does size decrease magnificence? Do you have a single scrap of
evidence that would lead someone to think it might be true?

> in fact if that does not happen then
> you have not cut it up small enough. Only when you know how the simple can
> bring about the complex and the mundane the magnificent do you truly
> understand something.

Nothing simple can bring about the complex unless that potential is
already present in the simple, which means that it was never simple to
begin with. Only when you understand the truth of that can you see how
reductionism can be catastrophic to understanding.

>
> > "Why would consciousness be a byproduct of intelligence and not the other
> > way around?"
>
> Because Evolution can not directly see consciousness any better than we
> can

All seeing is seeing consciousness directly. Evolution doesn't see
because it's not a thing, it's an idea of how things change over time.

>, so if it were the other way around neither consciousness nor
> intelligence would exist on this planet.

Huh? because you think that you can see intelligence and not
consciousness, that means that intelligence creates consciousness?
Does that mean that ultraviolet light creates color too?

> And yet I know for a fact that
> Evolution did produce consciousness at least once and I know for a fact
> that Evolution did produce intelligence billions of times

But you don't know that consciousness is the prerequisite for each and
every incidence of intelligence, now do you?

> and I know for a
> fact that Evolution can see intelligence.

That is delusional. Evolution does not select for intelligence. It
selects for survival and reproduction alone. An environment which
favors intelligence in a particular organism may favor stupidity in
another. You can get worms and bookworms both in a given niche.

> Thus I know for a fact that
> consciousness MUST be a byproduct of intelligence and NOT the other way
> around.

Wow, with no facts whatsoever. Impressive absurdity.

>
> > " A computer isn't aware"
>
> You seem to be in the habit of writing declarative sentences that not only
> you are unable to prove but you can't even find a single scrap of evidence
> that would lead someone to think it might be true.

Well, the components of a computer may have an awareness but there is
nothing to suggest that organizing them lends any overall awareness to
the machine.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

" How do you know that rocks fail the Turing Test?

That question most certainly does not pass the Turing Test and for the same reason that the ancient "ELIZA" psychiatry program that you mentioned did not; it very soon became obvious how it worked, it took the input "X" and feed it back in a very limited number of ways, such as "tell me more about X" or "have you always felt X" or "how do you know X". Such simple behavior is not a sign of intelligence and will not fool anybody for long. Another example of this sort is:

" Why don't you think I am locked up in a mental institution?"

If I've made a error about that I apologize. 

 

" Have you administered such a test to rocks yourself or heard of anyone ever actually doing
that? I understand what you mean, but it's sophistry."

It's not sophistry to ask yourself why you believe what you believe. I agree that the idea that rocks are conscious is ridiculous but unlike you I have asked myself exactly why it's ridiculous and I have a answer; it's ridiculous because no rock I have ever observed, and I've seen quite a few, behaves as if it's intelligent. 

"It's not deterministic if we are the ones doing the determining."

Then you did it because you wanted to do it and that want is a perfectly legitimate reason. And you wanted to do it because that's the way your brain is wired, and there is a reason your brain is wired that way (heredity and environment)  OR there is no reason your brain is wired that way.

Of my own free will, I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.
Why? 
Because I want to. 
Why ? 
Because I want to eat. 
Why?
Because I'm hungry? 
Why ?
Because lack of food triggered nerve impulses in my stomach, my brain  interpreted these signals as pain, I can only stand so much before I try to stop it. 
Why?
Because I don't like pain.
Why? 
Because that's the way my brain is constructed. 
Why?
Because my body  and the hardware of my brain were made from the information in my genetic code ( lets see, 6 billion base pairs 2 bits per base pair 8 bits per byte that comes out to about 1.5 gig )  the programming of my brain came from the environment, add a little quantum randomness perhaps and of my own free will I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.

"If you define the universe as deterministic from the beginning, then [...]"

I most certainly do not! We know the universe is NOT deterministic but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything, happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason.

"If you don't force the universe into a category like that, then you can see the wide spectrum of variation between absolute determinism and libertarian free will."

I know what the ASCII string " libertarian" means, in fact I am one. I think that in general people should be allowed to do what they want to do more often than they are allowed today; so I know what "will" means but I don't know what the ASCII string "free will" means and neither do you.

"Evolution has nothing to say about consciousness."

Don't be ridiculous. You are conscious (I'm pretty sure) and Evolution produced you, neither you or anybody else has suggested a way it could select for such a thing directly so consciousness MUST be a byproduct of something else that it CAN select for. Now maybe that something else is the big toe on your left foot and only people with a toe the size and shape as yours is conscious, but I think it's far more likely that the something else is intelligence. 

And yes I know, you will say the idea that your big toe is related to consciousness is ridiculous as indeed it is, but asking yourself why it is ridiculous is far from ridiculous.

"Why does size decrease magnificence?

Is this question really necessary? Decrease Shakespeare's life work until all you have is the letter "P",  the letter P is not a work of genius and it is not magnificence. I confess that sometimes I get the feeling that I'm debating with ELIZA.    

"Huh? because you think that you can see intelligence and not consciousness"

Is that point even debatable? 

"that means that intelligence creates consciousness?"

Exactly,

"Does that mean that ultraviolet light creates color too?"

No.

" But you don't know that consciousness is the prerequisite for each and every incidence of intelligence, now do you?"

I've asked this before but you did not answer, we have never met so do you think I'm conscious?

"Evolution does not select for intelligence. It selects for survival and reproduction alone."

Yes, and everything else being equal a intelligent animal will survive better and have more offspring than a stupid one, but Evolution does not give a damn if its conscious or not.

  John K Clark

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.01.2012 18:21 John Clark said the following:

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 Craig Weinberg<whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

...

>
> "If you define the universe as deterministic from the beginning, then
> [...]"
>>
>
> I most certainly do not! We know the universe is NOT deterministic
> but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything,
> happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason.

What about Big Bang? It has also happened for a reason?

Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012  Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:

" What about Big Bang?"

What about Big Bang?

" It has also happened for a reason?"

I have no idea, but I do know it happened for a reason or it did not happen for a reason.

 John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 20, 12:21 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> " How do you know that rocks fail the Turing Test?
>
>
>
> That question most certainly does not pass the Turing Test and for the same
> reason that the ancient "ELIZA" psychiatry program that you mentioned did
> not; it very soon became obvious how it worked, it took the input "X" and
> feed it back in a very limited number of ways, such as "tell me more about
> X" or "have you always felt X" or "how do you know X". Such simple behavior
> is not a sign of intelligence and will not fool anybody for long. Another
> example of this sort is:
>
> " Why don't you think I am locked up in a mental institution?"

Like you, I am provoking you to ask yourself why you believe what you
believe. I'm not intentionally feeding you back your own language, I'm
pointing out that we can derive assumptions of sentience from sources
other than a formal test of logic. Just as we don't need to fill out a
questionnaire to determine whether pain hurts, our definition of
intelligence is exclusive of ordinary inanimate objects from the
beginning.

>
>
>
> If I've made a error about that I apologize.

Heh. My asylum is on the inside o_0

>
> > " Have you administered such a test to rocks yourself or heard of anyone
> > ever actually doing
> > that? I understand what you mean, but it's sophistry."
>
> It's not sophistry to ask yourself why you believe what you believe. I
> agree that the idea that rocks are conscious is ridiculous but unlike you I
> have asked myself exactly why it's ridiculous and I have a answer; it's
> ridiculous because no rock I have ever observed, and I've seen quite a few,
> behaves as if it's intelligent.

I don't think that you have really asked yourself, you've just made a
logical supposition of why it must be the case. If you really ask
yourself, you will find that the word intelligence never included the
possibility of inanimate objects in the first place. It's much simpler
than having observed the non-intelligence of rocks, it's understanding
that there is no reason why anyone would need to observe rocks for
intelligence because our sense of what inanimate objects are all about
does not include intelligence. You don't have to observe that this
sentence is written in English, your sense of what the characters are
already does that for you. Your observation *that* this is in English
or Latin does not give you any ability to read it, it is your capacity
to make sense out of - to read the text itself.

>
> "It's not deterministic if we are the ones doing the determining."
>
> Then you did it because you wanted to do it and that want is a perfectly
> legitimate reason. And you wanted to do it because that's the way your
> brain is wired, and there is a reason your brain is wired that way
> (heredity and environment) OR there is no reason your brain is wired that
> way.

OR your your brain is wired to support *your* personal agenda and to
reconcile it with the various other hereditary and environmental
agendas going on. It's heredity, environment, and choice. They feed
back on each other. Your choices can influence your environment and
vice versa. Your choice of environment can activate or suppress
genetic expression and heredity can influence your choices.

>
> Of my own free will, I consciously decide to go to a restaurant.
> Why?
> Because I want to.
> Why ?
> Because I want to eat.

No. You don't decide to go to 'a restaurant', you decide to go to a
particular restaurant that you prefer. You are not genetically
predisposed to eat sushi over steak. Identical twins are not limited
to the same repertoire of restaurants.

> Why?
> Because I'm hungry?
> Why ?
> Because lack of food triggered nerve impulses in my stomach, my brain
> interpreted these signals as pain, I can only stand so much before I try to
> stop it.

Of course there are many influences that go into your decision of
which restaurant, including convenience, habit, and positive
associations with the experience of eating there, but also financial
consideration, time and travel constraints, breadth of exposure to
culinary variety, implicit memory of family dining experiences,
susceptibility to advertising, etc. Being hungry is only part of the
mix of sense channels and it does not result inevitably in a
restaurant visit. Just because you can't go forever without eating
doesn't mean that you can't postpone your response to hunger. You
still have some choice as to how to represent all of the agendas and
motives that influence you. It can be overridden by compulsion and
addiction of course, but that doesn't mean that all of our thoughts
and actions are compulsory.

> Why?
> Because I don't like pain.
> Why?
> Because that's the way my brain is constructed.
> Why?
> Because my body and the hardware of my brain were made from the
> information in my genetic code ( lets see, 6 billion base pairs 2 bits per
> base pair 8 bits per byte that comes out to about 1.5 gig ) the
> programming of my brain came from the environment,
> add a little quantum
> randomness perhaps and of my own free will I consciously decide to go to a
> restaurant.

Where does the 'own free will' come in and why does it 'not like
pain'? Is it the bytes of information that feel the pain, or the
nucleotides themselves, or the hardware of your brain, or the
environment, or the quantum randomness that actually feel hungry? Or
is it just a disembodied metaphysical 'interpretation' that haunts the
space in between?

My view is that it makes the most sense that the pain and hunger we
experience from our body is an amplification of more rudimentary
qualities being experienced by the tissues, cells, and even molecules
as harmonics of tension and release. It's sort of like a tuning fork
ringing out a true note that cuts across the inertial frames to
announce a condition. The key principle though is that hunger is not
nowhere and it's not everywhere, it is through somewhere - through
molecules, cells, tissues, and bodies. These are the vehicles of
organic level sensorimotivation.

>
> "If you define the universe as deterministic from the beginning, then [...]"
>
>
>
> I most certainly do not! We know the universe is NOT deterministic but we
> also know that everything, absolutely positively everything, happens for a
> reason OR it does not happen for a reason.

Haven't you been arguing this whole time that the universe is
deterministic and that's why there is no (ASCII expletive deleted)? If
you say that everything happens for a reason or not for a reason, then
I would agree, although I would say that everything happens for many
reasons and somethings happen because we choose one reason over
another.

>
> "If you don't force the universe into a category like that, then you can
>
> > see the wide spectrum of variation between absolute determinism and
> > libertarian free will."
>
> I know what the ASCII string " libertarian" means, in fact I am one.

I think I used to be too. Or was it an anarchist?

> I
> think that in general people should be allowed to do what they want to do
> more often than they are allowed today;

Me too, but unfortunately I think that immediately turns into 'whoever
takes advantage of their liberty to exploit and enslave the greatest
number of other people first, wins'. Basically all forms of government
are different advanced stages of (certain) people doing what they want
to do and trying to hang on to power through whatever chicanery and
terrorism they can get away with.

> so I know what "will" means but I
> don't know what the ASCII string "free will" means and neither do you.

You continue to say that but I don't know why. Didn't I list for you
some examples of what free will means?

Free will the difference between voluntary and involuntary control of
the body.

Free will is the feeling of active participation in one's own life.

Free will is the difference between premeditated murder and accidental
manslaughter.

Free will is the ordinary process by which we choose to express
ourselves in words and gestures.

Free will is choosing between many ambivalently weighted options or
creating new options through insight, imagination, or desperation.

>
> "Evolution has nothing to say about consciousness."
>
>
>
> Don't be ridiculous. You are conscious (I'm pretty sure) and Evolution
> produced you

If a car manufacturer puts a radio in it's cars, does that mean that
radio comes from automotive engineering? Evolution deals with heredity
and speciation as a consequence of natural selection. When it is used
as a blanket assumption for all phenomenology in the cosmos, it has no
more explanatory power than monotheism.

, neither you or anybody else has suggested a way it could
> select for such a thing directly so consciousness MUST be a byproduct of
> something else that it CAN select for.

That's a logical fallacy, plus it's a false accusation. I have in fact
suggested that consciousness is selected for directly by a chain of
recursive qualitative augmentations to sensorimotive-electromagnetism.
Detection of detection --> sensation. Sensation of sensation -->
feeling ---> perception ---> awareness ---> consciousness. I posted
some related definitions today as well here:
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/browse_thread/thread/3595431df4eb962f

Why must EVERYTHING be a byproduct of something evolution can select
for though? Because qualia have no functional attributes, they have no
criteria for selection. Pink or sour functions just as well as blue
for optical labeling. It's not possible for them to evolve out of
natural selection, they are woven into the very fabric of sensemaking,
which also does not arise from non sensemaking. It is self selecting.

> Now maybe that something else is the
> big toe on your left foot and only people with a toe the size and shape as
> yours is conscious, but I think it's far more likely that the something
> else is intelligence.
>
> And yes I know, you will say the idea that your big toe is related to
> consciousness is ridiculous as indeed it is, but asking yourself why it is
> ridiculous is far from ridiculous.
>
> "Why does size decrease magnificence?
>
> Is this question really necessary? Decrease Shakespeare's life work until
> all you have is the letter "P", the letter P is not a work of genius and
> it is not magnificence. I confess that sometimes I get the feeling that I'm
> debating with ELIZA.

Likewise you could increase quantity of random letters until they fill
volumes and all you have is nonsense. Mountains of meaningless data is
not magnificence either.

>
> "Huh? because you think that you can see intelligence and not
>
> > consciousness"
>
> Is that point even debatable?

Of course it is. It's not possible not to see consciousness. You are
living and breathing it every moment.

>
> "that means that intelligence creates consciousness?"
>
>
>
> Exactly,

If that were the case then being unconscious should not affect
someone's intelligence and someone's IQ should determine whether or
not they are conscious.

You've got it backwards. You can only be intelligent when you are
awake or aware.

>
> "Does that mean that ultraviolet light creates color too?"
>
>
>
> No.
>
> " But you don't know that consciousness is the prerequisite for each and
>
> > every incidence of intelligence, now do you?"
>
> I've asked this before but you did not answer, we have never met so do you
> think I'm conscious?

Meant to say 'you don't know that consciousness is NOT the
prerequisite either.' You and every other intelligence is conscious as
far as I know. I have no evidence or intuition to the contrary.

>
> "Evolution does not select for intelligence. It selects for survival and
>
> > reproduction alone."
>
> Yes, and everything else being equal a intelligent animal will survive
> better and have more offspring than a stupid one,

If that were true than the overwhelming majority of animals would be
very intelligent. The animals which survive best are among the
dumbest. Beetles aren't too bright. 400,000 to 1 million species - 25%
percent of all species on the planet are beetles, still going strong.
Bees and ants are more intelligent but are not nearly as successful.

> but Evolution does not
> give a damn if its conscious or not.

Conscious only refers to human awareness, and evolution certainly does
select for awareness. All of those beetles have antennas. Why? To
detect and sense. To facilitate awareness to the beetles experience.
Intelligence is an offshoot of awareness, a talent for integrating
various sense channels and discovering motive strategies.

Craig

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 20.01.2012 21:28 John Clark said the following:

Well, then you have an infinite progression, as then you have to find a
reason for that reason and so on. I guess that this contradicts with the
whole idea of the Big Bang. Or you do not believe in the Big Bang?

Evgenii

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 20, 3:28 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012  Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
> What about Big Bang?
>

> " It has also happened for a reason?"
>
>
>
> I have no idea, but I do know it happened for a reason or it did not happen
> for a reason.

Why can't reason have happened because of the Big Bang instead of the
other way around?

Craig

[meekerdb]

The idea of the Big Bang is that the visible universe evolved to its present state from a
state of extreme density and temperature. It is independent of whether there was a
previous state, as in the models of Andre Vilenkin or those of Sean Carroll, or not as in
the Hartle-Hawking model.

Brent

>
> Evgenii
>

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 21.01.2012 08:12 meekerdb said the following:

This still shows that there are physicists who do not believe in

On 20.01.2012 18:21 John Clark said the following:

> but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything,

> happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason.

In other words such a statement does not follow from physics that we know.

I have recently listened to Kontroversen in der Philosophie by Prof Hoenen:

http://www.podcasts.uni-freiburg.de/podcast_content?id_content=93

and the question whether the Universe if eternal or not belongs to such
controversies.

Evgenii

>
>>
>> Evgenii
>>
>

[meekerdb]

Of course it doesn't follow from physics. It follows from the meaning of the words
(assuming it refers to things that happen). It's a tautology.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

Well, actually it is a *classical* tautology. It is a rather strong
axioms (well known to be criticized by intuitionists). I restrict the
use of them to elementary arithmetical propositions. I am skeptical
for applying them to more than that. That's a too much powerful form
of realism. It might be true, but I don't know, and history
illustrates that our intuition can easily be confounded on them. I
definitely does not believe in them for the weak logics associated to
the epistemological logics.

Bruno

>
> Brent
>
>>
>> I have recently listened to Kontroversen in der Philosophie by Prof
>> Hoenen:
>>
>> http://www.podcasts.uni-freiburg.de/podcast_content?id_content=93
>>
>> and the question whether the Universe if eternal or not belongs to
>> such controversies.
>>
>> Evgenii
>
>
>

> --
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> .
>

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 21.01.2012 10:00 meekerdb said the following:

It is a good point but then the question is what this tautology has to
do with the external world (provided we assume that there is some).

Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

" you will find that the word intelligence never included the possibility of inanimate objects in the first place.

That's because the very word  "inanimate" means something that does not do complex things like turn carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen in the air into wood and strawberries and cotton, or behave intelligently like animals and especially human beings. Until very very recently the dividing line between animate and inanimate seemed very sharp and even philosophers, who worry about the damnedest things, didn't worry about it much. But times change and that razor sharp line is fast turning into a big grey blob. And actually in the real world there are very few razor sharp lines between categories. 

" your your brain is wired to support *your* personal agenda"

Then it's deterministic.

 

"It's heredity, environment, and choice."

It's heredity, environment, and randomness.
 

"They feed back on each other. Your choices can influence your environment and vice versa."

OK, but both positive and negative feedback loops are deterministic. 

" Where does the 'own free will' come in"

Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "own free will" means.
 

" Haven't you been arguing this whole time that the universe is deterministic"

I have to ask myself why I bother to continue this debate when you aren't even trying, you aren't even paying attention. From day one I said that some things are not deterministic. I also said something that I would have thought was uncontroversial even if a bit dull, I said everything is deterministic or it is not. But you disagree, you say some things are not deterministic but also not not deterministic, and such fuzzy thinking is not the path to enlightenment.
 

" and that's why there is no (ASCII expletive deleted)?"

And the ASCII string "free will" does exist and I have never denied that, but I don't know what it means and neither do you. Cows say "Moo" duck say "quack" and people say "free will".

" somethings happen because we choose one reason over another."

And we choose one reason over another for a reason or we did not. Is this matter really worthy of debate?

 

"Didn't I list for you some examples of  what free will means?"

Yes you did, and didn't I show that every one of those examples was circular or ended with a word like "pick" or "choose" or "prefer" as if that settled the matter, but that did not settle the matter because there was always a very very obvious question that just begged to be asked regarding them.
 

" Free will the difference between voluntary and involuntary control of the body.

Free will is gibberish but consciousness is not. If its voluntary then you have conscious control over what your body does, if it's involuntary then you do not. Thus we must conclude that there is a lot of things going on in the brain that have nothing to do with consciousness; for example, we seldom voluntarily become very sad, but often we do so nevertheless.  

I can control some things like the muscles in my fingers but I can not control the muscles in my heart. My car's computer can control the air fuel ratio in the engine but it can't control the pressure in the tires.   

"Free will is the feeling of active participation in one's own life."

Free will is the feeling we get from not knowing what the result of a calculation will be until we have finished the calculation

" Free will is the difference between premeditated murder and accidental manslaughter."

Free will is the gibberish responsible for the criminal justice system being logically inconsistent and thus inevitably ending up being such a bad joke.

" Free will is the ordinary process by which we choose to express ourselves in words and gestures."

Did one mind choose to transfer information from his mind to another mind for a reason, or did one mind choose to transfer information from his mind to another mind for no reason?

" Free will is choosing between many ambivalently weighted options or creating new options"

That's collation and computers are good at that sort of calculation. And a hurricane is the size and intensity it is for many many reasons and all those reasons interact with each other in astronomically complex ways; so does a hurricane have free will?

" If a car manufacturer puts a radio in it's cars, does that mean that radio comes from automotive engineering?"

No.

 

 " I have in fact suggested that consciousness is selected for directly by a chain of recursive qualitative augmentations to sensorimotive-electromagnetism. Detection of detection --> sensation. Sensation of sensation --> feeling ---> perception ---> awareness ---> consciousness."

 
You have a talent for bafflegab and thus could have a bright future in psychology as well as philosophy.  

"If that were the case then being unconscious should not affect someone's intelligence"

But  the only way to test for unconsciousness is by observing if their behavior is unintelligent.  In your case you are hamstrung even more because you don't believe that a person doing smart things is any indication that they are smart. So not only don't you have a test for consciousness you don't even have a way of knowing if someone is intelligent. 

"and someone's IQ should determine whether or not they are conscious."

Perhaps it's true, perhaps people with a boiling water IQ are more conscious than average people, there is no way to know.

 

" You've got it backwards. You can only be intelligent when you are awake or aware."

If you say so. Watson acted intelligently, thus Watson was intelligent (for some bizarre reason you refuse to take this step) thus Watson was awake or aware.

" everything else being equal a intelligent animal will survive better and have more offspring than a stupid one"

 

" If that were true than the overwhelming majority of animals would be very intelligent.

No because everything else is not equal. For 90% of the 4 billion year history of life Evolution didn't know how to make anything intelligent and only in the last .001% did it manage to come up with something very intelligent, like us. Also intelligent animals are big, reproduce slowly,  and require much more fuel than small stupid fast breeding frugal creatures; but as I said everything else being equal a intelligent animal will survive better and have more offspring than a stupid one

" You and every other intelligence is conscious as far as I know. I have no evidence or intuition to the contrary."

At last something I can agree with completely and without reservation.  

 

  John K Clark

 

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:

" It [the Big Bang] has also happened for a reason?"

" I have no idea, but I do know it happened for a reason or it did not happen for a reason."

"Well, then you have an infinite progression"

Yes, but there is nothing illogical about infinite progressions; or maybe the Big Bang happened for no reason, nothing illogical about that either.

A chain of "why" or "how" questions eventually comes to a end or they do not, and there is nothing illogical about either possibility.
 

"I guess that this contradicts with the whole idea of the Big Bang."

How do you figure that?

"Or you do not believe in the Big Bang?"

I will passionately believe in the Big Bang with all my heart until the instant somebody comes up with a better theory.

  John K Clark
 

 

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 21.01.2012 20:54 John Clark said the following:

> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru>
> wrote:
>
> " It [the Big Bang] has also happened for a reason?"
>>>>
>>>
>>>> " I have no idea, but I do know it happened for a reason or it
>>>> did not
>>> happen for a reason."
>>>
>>
>> "Well, then you have an infinite progression"
>
>
> Yes, but there is nothing illogical about infinite progressions; or
> maybe the Big Bang happened for no reason, nothing illogical about
> that either.

This would contradict with your previous statement:

"but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything,

happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason."

> A chain of "why" or "how" questions eventually comes to a end or they
> do not, and there is nothing illogical about either possibility.

Well, it would be good if you explain how such a statement agrees with
your previous statement, quoted above. In my view, they contradict with
each other.

>
>> "I guess that this contradicts with the whole idea of the Big
>> Bang."
>
>
> How do you figure that?

I thought that the Big Bang theory implies that the Universe is not
eternal, that is, there was the time zero when everything has started.

Evgenii

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 21, 2:38 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> " you will find that the word intelligence never included the possibility
>
> > of inanimate objects in the first place.
>
> That's because the very word "inanimate" means something that does not do
> complex things like turn carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen in the air into
> wood and strawberries and cotton, or behave intelligently like animals and
> especially human beings.

It's simpler than that. Inanimate means it can't move and it's not
alive. Something could still do complex things like crystallize into
diamonds or reflect and magnify an image and still be inanimate.

> Until very very recently the dividing line between
> animate and inanimate seemed very sharp and even philosophers, who worry
> about the damnedest things, didn't worry about it much. But times change
> and that razor sharp line is fast turning into a big grey blob. And
> actually in the real world there are very few razor sharp lines between
> categories.

That's what I had been thinking too for a long time, and I think it is
an important part of the story, but we may be looking at it too
closely and obscuring the truth rather than revealing it. The line
between life and death or life and non-life may not be all that
blurry, it's only when we look at the universe on other scales that it
seems that way.

>
> " your your brain is wired to support *your* personal agenda"
>
> Then it's deterministic.

Sometimes it drives our agenda, sometimes we drive it's agenda. We are
two different views of the same thing.

>
> > "It's heredity, environment, and choice."
>
> It's heredity, environment, and randomness.

That's where we disagree and that is not random. I choose to disagree
with your view. I am not genetically bound to disagree, nor does my
environment completely dictate my opinion. I know that is the case
because I used to agree with that view of free will. If I see it your
way, then your opinion is irrelevant blather, since under a different
environmental circumstance or if your genes were different, or if some
random quantum nothingness turned into somethingness in just the right
way, then you would agree with me and there is nothing you can do to
change it. Do you not see that it is impossible to care about what you
write here if those three options were truly the only options?

>
> > "They feed back on each other. Your choices can influence your environment
> > and vice versa."
>
> OK, but both positive and negative feedback loops are deterministic.

Sure, but we still have choices sometimes. Very often we have some
degree of choice, sometimes we have a wide degree of latitude to be
creative and make choices, and once in a while we make we can choose
to change our entire life.

>
> " Where does the 'own free will' come in"
>
>
>
> Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "own free will" means.

Does denial work for you generally?

>
> > " Haven't you been arguing this whole time that the universe is
> > deterministic"
>
> I have to ask myself why I bother to continue this debate when you aren't
> even trying, you aren't even paying attention. From day one I said that
> some things are not deterministic.

Yes, but you've been saying that whatever isn't deterministic must be
random. Neither of us disagree about randomness, so that leaves
determinism vs determinism + choice.

>I also said something that I would have
> thought was uncontroversial even if a bit dull, I said everything is
> deterministic or it is not. But you disagree, you say some things are not
> deterministic but also not not deterministic, and such fuzzy thinking is
> not the path to enlightenment.

Choice is not deterministic and also not random. That is what I am
saying. A yellow traffic signal is not red and it is not green. Acting
like I am suggesting some mystical koan is just bullying. It's you who
are denying the obvious role of free will in our every conscious
moment. It is you who chooses to put your fingers in your ears at the
sight of the words - not your heredity or environment or randomness
but your. free. willlllll.

>
> > " and that's why there is no (ASCII expletive deleted)?"
>
> And the ASCII string "free will" does exist and I have never denied that,
> but I don't know what it means and neither do you. Cows say "Moo" duck say
> "quack" and people say "free will".

I have actually never come across anyone who argues for free will. All
of the people who moo and quack I have come across say 'simply' and
'can only be one way or the other'. I'm not saying that just to
respond to you, it's a legit observation from literally hundreds of
hours of conversations with people who say exactly the same thing as
you are in exactly the same way. It's like I'm watching Fox News or
something.

>
> " somethings happen because we choose one reason over another."
>
>
>
> And we choose one reason over another for a reason or we did not. Is this
> matter really worthy of debate?

It's not a debate because you aren't willing to consider that the
plain truth is a possibility. When I type now, I could say anything. I
can say trampoline isotope, or I can make up a word like cheesaholic.
It's not random. There were other possibilities but I choose those
words intentionally. They appealed to me aesthetically. I like them.
You can label that a reason but it's not a meaningful way to think
about it. It unasks the question instead of examining what the truth
is. What does it mean to like something? What does it mean to choose
among things that we like equally? Why does this experience exist of
liking and choosing if it's really only random or deterministic? I
think the answer is very straightforward. We exist. Our identity is
real and causally efficacious. We are not just a bundle of effects,
but we are able to yoke those effects together as a cause of our
choosing. That is free will. It may not be 100% free at any time, but
it is as free as free could conceivably be. In our own minds we are
nearly magic. We can create worlds that can't even exist.

>
> > "Didn't I list for you some examples of what free will means?"
>
> Yes you did, and didn't I show that every one of those examples was
> circular or ended with a word like "pick" or "choose" or "prefer" as if
> that settled the matter, but that did not settle the matter because there
> was always a very very obvious question that just begged to be asked
> regarding them.

Free will is a primitive so of course you have to use pick or prefer.
If you could reduce it to other terms, it wouldn't be primitive.

>
> > " Free will the difference between voluntary and involuntary control of
> > the body.
>
> Free will is gibberish but consciousness is not. If its voluntary then you
> have conscious control over what your body does

Conscious control is free will. They mean the same thing.

>, if it's involuntary then
> you do not. Thus we must conclude that there is a lot of things going on in
> the brain that have nothing to do with consciousness; for example, we
> seldom voluntarily become very sad, but often we do so nevertheless.

Definitely, consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. The
overwhelming majority of what goes on in the psyche and the brain is
not under our control or within our direct awareness.

>
> I can control some things like the muscles in my fingers but I can not
> control the muscles in my heart. My car's computer can control the air fuel
> ratio in the engine but it can't control the pressure in the tires.

No, that's a false analogy. Nothing controls the pressure in the tires
except the natural circumstance of their use. Our heart is not under
our control but it is under the control of the cells of the heart and
the brain. The fact that we the experience of control of anything at
all is actual evidence of free will. That experience could not
logically exist in a universe that was only deterministic or random.

>
> "Free will is the feeling of active participation in one's own life."
>
>
>
> Free will is the feeling we get from not knowing what the result of a
> calculation will be until we have finished the calculation

Let's test that out. Did you kill the neighbors with a flame thrower
on purpose? No, I just had the feeling that I didn't know what the
result of the neighbors dying by me burning them alive with a flame
thrower calculation would be. Do those two things that mean the same
thing?

Your definition makes both accidents and intentional acts impossible.
All events can only be irrelevant mixes of randomness and automation.

>
> " Free will is the difference between premeditated murder and accidental
>
> > manslaughter."
>
> Free will is the gibberish responsible for the criminal justice system
> being logically inconsistent and thus inevitably ending up being such a bad
> joke.

Do you think that skidding into a pedestrian who falls into the street
is the same as hunting down a business rival and slitting their
throat? The two actions are both ok with you. Someone could sneak into
your room while you are sleeping tonight and poke your eyes out with
nine inch nails and any thought of tracking that person down and
preventing them from hurting other would be gibberish? Have you
considered that this opinion might be a tad simplistic?

>
> " Free will is the ordinary process by which we choose to express ourselves
>
> > in words and gestures."
>
> Did one mind choose to transfer information from his mind to another mind
> for a reason, or did one mind choose to transfer information from his mind
> to another mind for no reason?

I can't transfer information to anyone's mind. I can only write and
others can choose to read. Returning to this theme of 'is it black or
white' only reminds me that most people are not willing to entertain
truths beyond their own preconceptions. There are many reasons, none
of them are particularly important. What is important is that it is
what we want to do.

>
> " Free will is choosing between many ambivalently weighted options or
>
> > creating new options"
>
> That's collation and computers are good at that sort of calculation. And a
> hurricane is the size and intensity it is for many many reasons and all
> those reasons interact with each other in astronomically complex ways; so
> does a hurricane have free will?

Neither computers nor hurricanes create new options. We don't really
know about their experiences though. They are so different from us it
seems unlikely that any experience that they might have would be one
we could relate to.

>
> " If a car manufacturer puts a radio in it's cars, does that mean that
>
> > radio comes from automotive engineering?"
>
> No.
>
> > " I have in fact suggested that consciousness is selected for directly by
> > a chain of recursive qualitative augmentations to
> > sensorimotive-electromagnetism. Detection of detection --> sensation.
> > Sensation of sensation --> feeling ---> perception ---> awareness --->
> > consciousness."
>
> You have a talent for bafflegab and thus could have a bright future in
> psychology as well as philosophy.

I'm saying that free will seems to be a quality that builds
progressively through perception.

>
> "If that were the case then being unconscious should not affect someone's
>
> > intelligence"
>
> But the only way to test for unconsciousness is by observing if their
> behavior is unintelligent.

No, that's a way of testing for someone else's unconsciousness. We can
detect our own consciousness irrespective of whether our behavior
seems intelligent to other people.

> In your case you are hamstrung even more
> because you don't believe that a person doing smart things is any
> indication that they are smart. So not only don't you have a test for
> consciousness you don't even have a way of knowing if someone is
> intelligent.

You can tell whether a person is conscious or intelligent by looking
at them and talking to them. That is not the case for a computer
simulation which is designed specifically to fool an audience into
thinking it is conscious and intelligent.

>
> "and someone's IQ should determine whether or not they are conscious."
>
>
>
> Perhaps it's true, perhaps people with a boiling water IQ are more
> conscious than average people, there is no way to know.

Sophistry again. Why not just admit that I'm right for once?

>
> > " You've got it backwards. You can only be intelligent when you are awake
> > or aware."
>
> If you say so. Watson acted intelligently, thus Watson was intelligent (for
> some bizarre reason you refuse to take this step) thus Watson was awake or
> aware.

Watson is not truly intelligent. Watson is a storage device for pre-
loaded answers to trivia questions with a fast retrieval algorithm.
That's trivial intelligence if you like, but it has no awareness and
no understanding. It's an automated filing cabinet. The human mind is
similar to that, but it's more than that too.

>
> " everything else being equal a intelligent animal will survive better and
>
> >> have more offspring than a stupid one"
>
> " If that were true than the overwhelming majority of animals would be
>
> > very intelligent.
>
> No because everything else is not equal. For 90% of the 4 billion year
> history of life Evolution didn't know how to make anything intelligent and
> only in the last .001% did it manage to come up with something very
> intelligent, like us. Also intelligent animals are big, reproduce slowly,
> and require much more fuel than small stupid fast breeding frugal
> creatures; but as I said everything else being equal a intelligent animal
> will survive better and have more offspring than a stupid one

Ants and bees seem like intelligent insects, yet they are small,
reproduce quickly and require little fuel. Beetles out-reproduce them
though.

>
> " You and every other intelligence is conscious as far as I know. I have no
>
> > evidence or intuition to the contrary."
>
> At last something I can agree with completely and without reservation.

cool

Craig

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote

"  Yes, but there is nothing illogical about infinite progressions; or maybe the Big Bang happened for no reason, nothing illogical about that either."

" This would contradict with your previous statement: "but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything, happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason."

What the hell are you talking about? The Big Bang happened for a reason OR the Big Bang happened for no reason.

" A chain of "why" or "how" questions eventually comes to a end or they do not, and there is nothing illogical about either possibility."

" Well, it would be good if you explain how such a statement agrees with your previous statement, quoted above. In my view, they contradict with each other.

What the hell are you talking about? Only 2 things can happen to a chain of "what is the reason for this?" questions, the chain comes to a end OR the chain does not come to a end. If it doesn't come to a end then everything in the chain happened for a reason, if it does come to a end then something happened for no reason. Come on now this isn't rocket science.

" I thought that the Big Bang theory implies that the Universe is not eternal, that is, there was the time zero when everything has started."

Maybe, maybe not. Most think the Big Bang existed but there is debate if there was anything before that; that controversy is at the very frontiers of science thus although many may be certain about the answer nobody knows; at least not yet.

 John K Clark

 

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.01.2012 18:39 John Clark said the following:

> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru>
> wrote
>
> " Yes, but there is nothing illogical about infinite progressions;
> or
>>> maybe the Big Bang happened for no reason, nothing illogical
>>> about that either."
>>>
>>
>> " This would contradict with your previous statement: "but we also
>> know that everything, absolutely positively everything, happens for
>> a reason OR it does not happen for a reason."
>
>
>
> What the hell are you talking about? The Big Bang happened for a
> reason OR the Big Bang happened for no reason.

I would say though that "something does not happen for a reason" and
"something happens for no reason" are two completely different
statements. Don't you agree?

If however you accept that "something happens for no reason", then I do
not understand your problems with free will. In the latter case, I
freely for no reason just do something, what is the problem then?

Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:

"I would say though that "something does not happen for a reason" and "something happens for no reason" are two completely different statements. Don't you agree?"

What the hell are you talking about?????

John K Clark

[Stephen P. King]

Hi John,

    How would you recognize the better theory if you are such a strong "believer" in the Big Bang? Any attempt to show you that the current theory contains contradictions will only be met with derision, derision that will prevent any understanding of an alternative...

Onward!

Stephen

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 22.01.2012 19:52 John Clark said the following:

I am not sure I understand you. Do you mean that "something does not
happen for a reason" is equivalent to "something happens for no reason"?
These have been your two statements in your previous messages. Let me
contrast them

On 20.01.2012 18:21 John Clark said the following:
...

> but we also know that everything, absolutely positively everything,

> happens for a reason OR it does not happen for a reason.

On 22.01.2012 18:39 John Clark said the following:

...

> What the hell are you talking about? The Big Bang happened for a
> reason OR the Big Bang happened for no reason.

In my understanding the statement "something does not happen for a
reason" means that there is a reason according to that something does
not happen. For example, fire in my computer does not happen because the
isolation and thermal management are good.

On the other hand in my view, "something happens for no reason" means
completely a different thing, that it just happenes without a reason.

Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jan 21, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

" It's simpler than that. Inanimate means it can't move"

Is a redwood tree an inanimate object?

 " and it's not alive."

If it's alive then it's animate and if it's animate then it's alive and
round and round to go. Biologist have tried to come up with a good

definition of life for a long time but have largely given up on the task

and use examples instead. Examples are better anyway.

" I choose to disagree with your view.

And you disagree with me for reasons, reasons you are not shy in telling

me all about. I think those reasons are very weak but it doesn't matter

what I think, it doesn't even matter if your reasons are logically self
contradictory; you believe the reasons are good and see no contradiction

in your statements about them even if I do. Bad reasons work just as
well as good reasons in making people do and believe in stuff.

"I am not genetically bound to disagree"

Maybe, maybe not, it's very difficult to say.

"nor does my environment completely dictate my opinion."

 

A  high speed proton  from a  cosmic ray could have entered  your
brain causing you to have a thought you would not otherwise have had, or

maybe the cause of the thought was a random quantum fluctuation inside

just one neuron in your brain.

" if some random quantum nothingness turned into somethingness in just
the right way, then you would agree with me and there is nothing you can
do to change it."

 

Yes.

" Do you not see that it is impossible to care about what you write here if those three options were truly the only options?"

 

No.

 "you've been saying that whatever isn't deterministic must be random."

 

Yes.

"Neither of us disagree about randomness, so that leaves determinism vs
determinism + choice."

 

This isn't really that difficult. If you made a choice for a reason then
its deterministic, if you made a choice for no reason then its random.

" Choice is not deterministic and also not random."

Then the only alternative is gibberish.

" A yellow traffic signal is not red and it is not green."

Yes, but you're saying a yellow traffic signal is not red AND not not
red, and that my friend is gibberish.

"It's you who are denying the obvious role of free will in our every
conscious moment."

 

The idea of "free will" would have to improve dramatically before I
could deny it, until then denying "free will" would be like denying a
burp.

"It's like I'm watching Fox News or something."

That's the worst insult I've ever had in my life.

" When I type now, I could say anything. I can say trampoline isotope,
or I can make up a word like cheesaholic. It's not random."

 

OK, if it's not random then there is a reason, so what was the reason

for linking "trampoline" and "isotope" rather than say "squeamish" and
"osprey"? If you can answer then there was a reason and thus the
response was deterministic. If you can not answer then there are 2

possibilities:

1) There was a reason but it's deep in your subconscious and your
conscious mind can not access it, then it was still deterministic.

2) There was no reason whatsoever for picking those words,  and so despite your assertion the choice was indeed random.

" There were other possibilities but I choose those words intentionally.
They appealed to me aesthetically. I like them."

Deterministic.

" You can label that a reason"

I certainly will.

 " What does it mean to like something? "

It means you tend to do or use that something as often as you can, and you endeavor to get

more of it.

" We are not just a bundle of effects, but we are able to yoke those
effects together as a cause of our choosing. That is free will."

A hurricane does exactly the same thing, so a hurricane has free will.

"Conscious control is free will. They mean the same thing."

 

That's just "will" and I have no difficulty about what that means, we
want some things and are repelled by others and our will is the result
of that push and pull, our will causes our body to try to maximize the
one and minimize the other. But apparently this "free will" thing is like
plain ordinary "will" except that it doesn't happen for a reason and it

doesn't not happen for a reason either, and that's what turns a
perfectly legitimate concept into pure unadulterated gibberish.

" consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming
majority of what goes on in the psyche and the brain is
not under our control or within our direct awareness."

So you may do things for reasons you don't know and can't understand.

" The fact that we the experience of control of anything at all is
actual evidence of free will."

Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.

" Someone could sneak into your room while you are sleeping tonight and
poke your eyes out with nine inch nails and any thought of tracking that
person down and preventing them from hurting other would be gibberish?"

There are only 2 legitimate reasons to punish anybody for anything:

1) To make sure they don't continue with such crimes.

2) To deter others from committing similar crimes.

I admit there is another reason that the reptilian parts of my brain can
come up with, the fun of seeing somebody I hate suffer, but that is not
a reason the more evolved parts of my brain are proud of so I will not
defend it. And the ASCII string "free will" has absolutely nothing to do
with any of this.

" Neither computers nor hurricanes create new options."

Hurricanes exercise options not know to it or me or even the world's
greatest experts on hurricanes; at a fundamental level how is that
different from people who are also unpredictable?

" You can tell whether a person is conscious or intelligent by looking
at them and talking to them."

In other words by applying the Turing Test and making the assumption
that it works for consciousness too, making the assumption that
intelligence implies consciousness. Oh and also using the self evident
fact that intelligent behavior implies intelligence.

   "  Perhaps it's true, perhaps people with a boiling water IQ are more
conscious than average people, there is no way to know."

" Sophistry again."

Why sophistry? You know from direct experience that consciousness is not
a all or nothing matter, it comes in degrees; so I don't know why you
think it's inconceivable that something could be more conscious than you
are, perhaps even one of your fellow human beings. In fact it could be
that you are not really conscious at all when compared with others, what
you think of as consciousness is just a pale weak imitation of the grand
glorious thing that other people feel, it's the difference between a
firefly and a supernova.

 "Why not just admit that I'm right for once?"

OK, but before I do so you must do something for me first, you must be
right for once.

" Watson is not truly intelligent. "

Not playing fair irritates me and that is not playing fair. If a person
did what Watson did you would not hesitate for one second in saying that
it was a act of intelligence, but a computer did it so it has nothing to
do with intelligence. That is a clear case of metallic bigotry. And
hiding your head in the sand like that will not bring you enlightenment
because it's a fact that computers are starting to behave intelligently.

" That's trivial intelligence if you like"

I don't think it would be wise to call it that because if a "trivial
intelligence" like Watson can outsmart you, and it can, then what does
that say about your intelligence?

" Ants and bees seem like intelligent insects, yet they are small,
reproduce quickly and require little fuel. Beetles out-reproduce them
though."

 

A human weighs about 1.5 million times as much as a ant, but ants are so
numerous  that the total biomass of all the ants on the Earth and the
biomass of all 7 billion human beings is about the same. There are
12,000 species of ants and they  exist on every continents except
Antarctica and on average just one acre in the Amazon rainforest has
about  3.6 million ants. In fact,  between 15  and 20% of the entire
terrestrial animal biomass are ants, and if you add their close cousin
the termites its close to 30%.


 John K Clark

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012  Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

" How would you recognize the better theory if you are such a strong "believer" in the Big Bang?"

If somebody developed a new theory that explained everything the Big Bang did but also explained what Dark Energy is I would drop the Big Bang like a hot potato and embrace that new theory with every fiber of my being, until the instant a even better theory came along. I have absolutely no loyalty toward theories.

 John K Clark    

[Stephen P. King]

Hi John,

    What is "dark energy" other than a postulated or conjecture entity that is part of an attempted explanation of observations of how light from supernovae appeared to be streached as if the supernovae are accelerating away from us.... Do we give such "entities" the status of existing on so frail a foundation? The same critisism applies to scalar fields and dark matter. Until we actually find them experimentally, then it is helpful to keep them firmly in the "conjectured but not proven to exist category". :-)
    My attitude is that we need to be sure that our beliefs are backed up by empirical evidence before we declare them justified. This is not an easy task as many entities, such as numbers, are forever beyond the realm of experience but we can still reason consistently about them...

Onward!

Stephen

Onward!

Stephen

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012  Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

" What is "dark energy" other than a postulated or conjecture entity that is part of an attempted explanation of observations of how light from supernovae appeared to be streached as if the supernovae are accelerating away from us

Dark Energy is not a explanation, "Dark Energy" is just a label for a astonishing phenomena that was discovered experimentally and that nobody even claims to understand. We have to call it something and we could have called it "unknown energy" or "X" or "?" but for one reason or another the moniker chosen was "Dark Energy". The "Dark" in the term does not mean black but rather invisible or mysterious or hard to find, but who cares what you call it, a explanation for it is needed  and we don't have one.  Unlike religion when scientists don't understand something they admit it.    

"The same critisism applies to scalar fields and dark matter. Until we actually find them experimentally [...]"

 

I don't know what on Earth you're talking about, telescopes are every bit as legitimate scientific instruments as particle accelerators!  Both Dark Matter and Dark Energy HAVE been discovered experimentally, the problem is that neither has been discovered theoretically, the most recent attempt to do so for Dark Energy produced a figure that was off by a factor of 10^120, that's a one followed by 120 zeros; it's been called the greatest discrepancy between theory and observation in the entire history of science and I certainly can't think of a larger one.

As for Dark Matter, it's the third greatest mystery in Physics, beaten only by Dark Energy and why there is something rather than nothing.

 John K Clark  

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 23, 10:57 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> " It's simpler than that. Inanimate means it can't move"
>
>
>
> Is a redwood tree an inanimate object?

No. Trees grow and they die.

>
>  " and it's not alive."
>
>
>
> If it's alive then it's animate and if it's animate then it's alive and
> round and round to go.

Not moving makes it inanimate but moving doesn't make it animate.

> Biologist have tried to come up with a good
> definition of life for a long time but have largely given up on the task
> and use examples instead. Examples are better anyway.

Yes, I agree. Definitions aren't worth much.

>
> " I choose to disagree with your view.
>
>
>
> And you disagree with me for reasons, reasons you are not shy in telling
> me all about. I think those reasons are very weak but it doesn't matter
> what I think, it doesn't even matter if your reasons are logically self
> contradictory; you believe the reasons are good and see no contradiction
> in your statements about them even if I do. Bad reasons work just as
> well as good reasons in making people do and believe in stuff.

Then what makes you think they are bad?

>
> "I am not genetically bound to disagree"
>
>
>
> Maybe, maybe not, it's very difficult to say.

Not really. Identical twins have the same genetics and they can
disagree with each other.

>
> "nor does my environment completely dictate my opinion."
>
>
>
> A  high speed proton  from a  cosmic ray could have entered  your
> brain causing you to have a thought you would not otherwise have had, or
> maybe the cause of the thought was a random quantum fluctuation inside
> just one neuron in your brain.

Something like that could potentially be an influence, but there is no
reason to think that it can dictate my opinion completely. There are
lots of influences that impact an opinion, but mostly they are
semantic. We don't see too many people change their opinion midstream
without knowing why, as would be the case in this cosmic ray scenario.

>
> " if some random quantum nothingness turned into somethingness in just
>
> > the right way, then you would agree with me and there is nothing you can
> > do to change it."
>
> Yes.
>
> " Do you not see that it is impossible to care about what you write here if
>
> > those three options were truly the only options?"
>
> No.

If what you write here is automatic or random then what would be the
point of caring about it?

>
>  "you've been saying that whatever isn't deterministic must be random."
>
>
>
> Yes.
>
> "Neither of us disagree about randomness, so that leaves determinism vs
>
> > determinism + choice."
>
> This isn't really that difficult. If you made a choice for a reason then
> its deterministic, if you made a choice for no reason then its random.

It's not for a reason, it is through your own reasoning. You are
providing the reason yourself.

>
> " Choice is not deterministic and also not random."
>
>
>
> Then the only alternative is gibberish.

That is reductionist gibberish.

>
> " A yellow traffic signal is not red and it is not green."
>
>
>
> Yes, but you're saying a yellow traffic signal is not red AND not not
> red, and that my friend is gibberish.

Yellow anticipates red, so the meaning of it can also be considered
not not-red. The yellow signal means nothing other than red is coming.
This is actually analogous to free will. If red is determinism, then
yellow is conscious determination.

>
> "It's you who are denying the obvious role of free will in our every
>
> > conscious moment."
>
> The idea of "free will" would have to improve dramatically before I
> could deny it, until then denying "free will" would be like denying a
> burp.

You can't deny it or not deny it without free will. You would only be
a powerless spectator to your own denial.

>
> "It's like I'm watching Fox News or something."
>
>
>
> That's the worst insult I've ever had in my life.
>

Sorry. Maybe was hyperbole.

> " When I type now, I could say anything. I can say trampoline isotope,
>
> > or I can make up a word like cheesaholic. It's not random."
>
> OK, if it's not random then there is a reason, so what was the reason
> for linking "trampoline" and "isotope" rather than say "squeamish" and
> "osprey"? If you can answer then there was a reason and thus the
> response was deterministic. If you can not answer then there are 2
> possibilities:
>
> 1) There was a reason but it's deep in your subconscious and your
> conscious mind can not access it, then it was still deterministic.
>
> 2) There was no reason whatsoever for picking those words,  and so despite
> your assertion the choice was indeed random.
>
> " There were other possibilities but I choose those words intentionally.
>
> > They appealed to me aesthetically. I like them."
>
> Deterministic.
>
> " You can label that a reason"
>
>
>
> I certainly will.
>
>  " What does it mean to like something? "
>
> It means you tend to do or use that something as often as you can, and you
> endeavor to get
> more of it.
>
> " We are not just a bundle of effects, but we are able to yoke those
>
> > effects together as a cause of our choosing. That is free will."
>
> A hurricane does exactly the same thing, so a hurricane has free will.

We don't know if a hurricane has free will, but we know that we do.

>
> "Conscious control is free will. They mean the same thing."
>
>
>
> That's just "will" and I have no difficulty about what that means, we
> want some things and are repelled by others and our will is the result
> of that push and pull, our will causes our body to try to maximize the
> one and minimize the other. But apparently this "free will" thing is like
> plain ordinary "will" except that it doesn't happen for a reason and it
> doesn't not happen for a reason either, and that's what turns a
> perfectly legitimate concept into pure unadulterated gibberish.

I don't see a difference between will and free will. The problem with
your description is that it makes will involuntary. The fact that we
distinguish voluntary and involuntary at all means that will, at least
in part, feels different from our body's push and pull to things. We
talk of compulsion and addiction as disorders because they defy our
will. If it were only the body making determinations, why should we
feel so strongly about addiction? We should simply observe and accept
the determinations our body makes, whether that means becoming an
alcoholic or a degenerate gambler. Why would we care if we have no say
in it?

>
> " consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming
>
> > majority of what goes on in the psyche and the brain is
> > not under our control or within our direct awareness."
>
> So you may do things for reasons you don't know and can't understand.

Of course, but that doesn't mean that you can't also do things for
your own reasons that you not only understand but originate.

>
> " The fact that we the experience of control of anything at all is
> actual evidence of free will."
>
> Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.

Next up on FOX news...

>
> " Someone could sneak into your room while you are sleeping tonight and
>
> > poke your eyes out with nine inch nails and any thought of tracking that
> > person down and preventing them from hurting other would be gibberish?"
>
> There are only 2 legitimate reasons to punish anybody for anything:
>
> 1) To make sure they don't continue with such crimes.
>
> 2) To deter others from committing similar crimes.
>
> I admit there is another reason that the reptilian parts of my brain can
> come up with, the fun of seeing somebody I hate suffer, but that is not
> a reason the more evolved parts of my brain are proud of so I will not
> defend it. And the ASCII string "free will" has absolutely nothing to do
> with any of this.

If there were no free will, society would have no impulse to punish.
There would be no stigma against crime at all, we would just accept
that nothing has any control over its own behavior.

>
> " Neither computers nor hurricanes create new options."
>
>
>
> Hurricanes exercise options not know to it or me or even the world's
> greatest experts on hurricanes; at a fundamental level how is that
> different from people who are also unpredictable?

If a hurricane turned into a crop circle shape, then I might agree
with you, but it doesn't. It doesn't improve or experiment with new
shapes or strategies, it's just a whorl of warm and cold water vapor
in the atmosphere.

>
> " You can tell whether a person is conscious or intelligent by looking
>
> > at them and talking to them."
>
> In other words by applying the Turing Test and making the assumption
> that it works for consciousness too, making the assumption that
> intelligence implies consciousness. Oh and also using the self evident
> fact that intelligent behavior implies intelligence.

No test is necessary. It's just being able to identify with the sense
they are making.

>
>    "  Perhaps it's true, perhaps people with a boiling water IQ are more
>
> >> conscious than average people, there is no way to know."
>
> > " Sophistry again."
>
> Why sophistry? You know from direct experience that consciousness is not
> a all or nothing matter, it comes in degrees; so I don't know why you
> think it's inconceivable that something could be more conscious than you
> are, perhaps even one of your fellow human beings.

I don't have a problem with other people or things being more
conscious than I am, I just don't think that it invariably correlates
to IQ.

> In fact it could be
> that you are not really conscious at all when compared with others, what
> you think of as consciousness is just a pale weak imitation of the grand
> glorious thing that other people feel, it's the difference between a
> firefly and a supernova.

Other people's consciousness is really none of my business.

>
>  "Why not just admit that I'm right for once?"
>
>
>
> OK, but before I do so you must do something for me first, you must be
> right for once.

hah

>
> " Watson is not truly intelligent. "
>
>
>
> Not playing fair irritates me and that is not playing fair. If a person
> did what Watson did you would not hesitate for one second in saying that
> it was a act of intelligence, but a computer did it so it has nothing to
> do with intelligence. That is a clear case of metallic bigotry.

Anyone can seem intelligent if they are given the answers to the test.
All Watson does is match up questions to the answers it already has
been given. It didn't have to pick up trivia over a lifetime of
curiosity and cognitive retention in the face of constant distractions
in living a human life. Watson is like an electric cheese grater that
is impressive only compared to human beings for whom grating cheese is
not their only function. I'm not bigoted at all, I'm only revealing
the emperor has no clothes. I'm a computer guy. I like technology. I
would love for there to be a singularity in the form of a super
computer that I could be uploaded into, but we're not going to get
there by being impressed with trivial intelligence and silicon clocks.

> And
> hiding your head in the sand like that will not bring you enlightenment
> because it's a fact that computers are starting to behave intelligently.

The test of intelligence is when computers begin killing their
programmers intentionally. Until then, computers are automatic
servants.

>
> " That's trivial intelligence if you like"
>
>
>
> I don't think it would be wise to call it that because if a "trivial
> intelligence" like Watson can outsmart you, and it can, then what does
> that say about your intelligence?

Not trivial in the sense of magnitude but trivial in the sense of it
being superficial. Watson can only outsmart me at Jeopardy. Let us
both try figuring out whether or not someone is being sarcastic or not
and we'll see who wins.

>
> " Ants and bees seem like intelligent insects, yet they are small,
>
> > reproduce quickly and require little fuel. Beetles out-reproduce them
> > though."
>
> A human weighs about 1.5 million times as much as a ant, but ants are so
> numerous  that the total biomass of all the ants on the Earth and the
> biomass of all 7 billion human beings is about the same. There are
> 12,000 species of ants and they  exist on every continents except
> Antarctica and on average just one acre in the Amazon rainforest has
> about  3.6 million ants. In fact,  between 15  and 20% of the entire
> terrestrial animal biomass are ants, and if you add their close cousin
> the termites its close to 30%.

Ok, but they are not as successful as beetles. That was my point.

Craig

[ronaldheld]

Not certain if this goes here....
What about Data from TNG? He could pass the Turing test, and with his
emotion chip on, act like many huminoids. Is he intelligent,
conscious, self aware, etc?
Ronald

> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 24, 7:21 am, ronaldheld <ronaldh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Not certain if this goes here....
> What about Data from TNG?  He could pass the Turing test, and with his
> emotion chip on, act like many huminoids.   Is he intelligent,
> conscious, self aware, etc?
>                                             Ronald
>

He's a fictional character. Kermit the Frog also could pass the Turing
test and he is a stuffed cotton bag.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Identical twins have the same genetics and they can disagree with each other."

That tells you nothing, a copy of you that was exact down to the limit imposed by Heisenberg would disagree with you about all sorts of things, like who was your wife and who controlled your bank account. 

> We don't see too many people change their opinion midstream without knowing why, as would be the case in this cosmic ray scenario.

You've never seen anybody you know very well act out of character? You've never surprised yourself and acted out of character and felt foolish and angry with yourself afterward?  

> It's not for a reason, it is through your own reasoning. You are providing the reason yourself.

So it's not for a reason and it's for a reason. Make up your mind!
 

> you're saying a yellow traffic signal is not red AND not not red, and that my friend is gibberish.

> Yellow anticipates red, so the meaning of it can also be considered not not-red.

And that my friend is logical nonsense, if yellow isn't red you can't say yellow isn't not red either, they teach that in Logic 101. So if Free Will isn't deterministic you can't say it isn't not deterministic either. And I seem to remember you accusing me of anthropomorphism and me saying it's a valid tool but it can be abused, and I think that a color anticipating something is a example of abuse.

>>> It's like I'm watching Fox News or something.

>> That's the worst insult I've ever had in my life.

> Sorry. Maybe was hyperbole.

Yeah, call me a scum sucking mutant if you want but don't compare me with Fox News, that's hitting below the belt.

> I don't see a difference between will and free will.

One is cause by something or not caused by something, the other is caused by nothing and isn't  caused by nothing. In other words one makes logical sense and one does not.

> We talk of compulsion and addiction as disorders because they defy our will.

In addiction we want to take drugs, we may want to not want to take drugs but as the old Rolling Stones song goes "you can't always get what you want".

> If there were no free will, society would have no impulse to punish. There would be no stigma against crime at all, we would just accept that nothing has any control over its own behavior.

Don't be ridiculous. If you're chasing me with a bloody ax I don't give a hoot in hell if you had bad genes or bad upbringing or were the victim of a unfortunate random quantum fluctuation or if you can control your behavior or not, I just want society to do everything in its power to get you to stop chasing me with that damn ax and to discourage similar activity in the future.   

> Other people's consciousness is really none of my business.

And yet you think a computers consciousness is our business. Actually from a human viewpoint it doesn't matter if computers are conscious or not, but it does matter that they're smart and getting smarter very very fast.

> Anyone can seem intelligent if they are given the answers to the test. All Watson does is match up questions to the answers it already has been given.

So you think Watson's programers could deduce every single question anybody could ask and then they just wrote up a appropriate answer. That's just foolish.  

> The test of intelligence is when computers begin killing their programmers intentionally.

It's only a matter of time. 

> Watson can only outsmart me at Jeopardy.

And at checkers and chess and solving equations and at being a research librarian and being a accountant. Give it another 5 years and you can add driver, pilot ,lawyer and physician to the list.   

> Let us both try figuring out whether or not someone is being sarcastic or not and we'll see who wins.

Watson is already very good at puns, rhymes and word games, and very often on the net I make some sarcastic wisecrack and people think I'm serious; or at least I think they're people.

 John K Clark

[John Mikes]

Stephen, you wrote to another John - I barge in with my sidelines.

1. I do not 'believe' in the Big Bang, the theory has flaws and errors as concerning past lit already worked it out. My main objection is not the linearity in going back to zero in an expansion that is non-linear and not the phantasm in 'originating' a world upon partial input (as a total one at the end), it is the underlying physical thought of explaining (mostly mathematically) a totality of which we only know a part yet ALL OF IT(?) plays into the changes. We learn new details continually and forge them into the obsolescence to make it 'fitter'.

Dark energy (etc.) are postulates of 'must be' since otherwise our image does not fit. It may be applied after we tried EVERYTHING (most of which is still hidden - o r nonexistent at all. We live in a model of our present model-base and consider it ALL. We learn new aspects (mostly: make them up for explanation) and fit them into our conventional sciences. These, however, started way before "The Big Bear" and still include origins of the ancient obsolescence galore. Math is a good soother. If in trouble, a constant can make wonders - and we can explain its meaning ("it must be"). Or a new chapter in our calculations (Like: the zero or the complex numbers etc.)

Can you "prove" something to "exist"?

I salute John Clark's (" I have absolutely no loyalty toward theories.")

 

Agnostically yours

 

John Mikes

 

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 24, 11:41 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Identical twins have the same genetics and they can disagree with each
> > other."
>
> That tells you nothing, a copy of you that was exact down to the limit
> imposed by Heisenberg would disagree with you about all sorts of things,
> like who was your wife and who controlled your bank account.

Those aren't opinions though, they are differences in the environment.
Both heredity and environment influence opinion but opinion is more
than that also. It is an accumulation of choices about what is
significant in our environment. Just as each day of our lives has more
to do with the previous day than it does anything else, so to are our
opinions a product of semantic momentum more than they are any
physical or environmental substrate. We bring ourselves into any
environment and we influence our destiny more by our actions than by
our genetic inheritance.

>
> > We don't see too many people change their opinion midstream without
> > knowing why, as would be the case in this cosmic ray scenario.
>
> You've never seen anybody you know very well act out of character? You've
> never surprised yourself and acted out of character and felt foolish and
> angry with yourself afterward?

We have different parts of ourselves with different agendas that
conflict, but we are generally aware that we have changed our minds
intentionally and not involuntarily. I have never heard someone say
that their mind was changed or opinion was changed against their will.
We might say that some influence changed our mind but it is implied
that we allowed our minds to be changed and continue to willfully
support the change.

>
> > It's not for a reason, it is through your own reasoning. You are
> > providing the reason yourself.
>
> So it's not for a reason and it's for a reason. Make up your mind!

I'm not being ambiguous. For and through are not the same thing.
Working for money is not the same as making your own money through a
printing press.

>
> > > you're saying a yellow traffic signal is not red AND not not red, and
> >> that my friend is gibberish.
>
> > > Yellow anticipates red, so the meaning of it can also be considered not
> > not-red.
>
> And that my friend is logical nonsense, if yellow isn't red you can't say
> yellow isn't not red either, they teach that in Logic 101.

Logic 101 is reductionist theory. It's not reality. Reality always has
multiple senses - including some which make the other sense seem
irrelevant. That's how sense works - it focuses attention on some
phenomena at the expense of everything else.

In a literal sense, the yellow light is different from the red light.
In a figurative sense, the meaning of the yellow light is 100%
contingent on the meaning of the red light, such that the yellow, red,
and green lights are all modes of a single traffic signal. The same is
true for will. When heredity says 'aggressive' and your environment
says 'aggressive not permitted', it is will that decides whether the
maybe gap in between should go one way or the other or should fight
heredity or change the environment.

> So if Free Will
> isn't deterministic you can't say it isn't not deterministic either.

Of course I can. 'Maybe' is not yes and it is not not-yes. It is it's
own conditionality which relates and overlaps to both yes and no but
is reducible to neither one. Maybe is actually the primitive from
which all yes and no emerges.

> And I
> seem to remember you accusing me of anthropomorphism and me saying it's a
> valid tool but it can be abused, and I think that a color anticipating
> something is a example of abuse.

It's not the color that is anticipating anything, it is the driver who
is feeling anticipation through the yellow signal (or center light if
you are color blind) and it's association with the red signal and it's
association with the necessity of applying the brakes to avoid traffic
accidents and moving violations.

>
> >>> It's like I'm watching Fox News or something.
>
> >> >> That's the worst insult I've ever had in my life.
>
> > > Sorry. Maybe was hyperbole.
>
> Yeah, call me a scum sucking mutant if you want but don't compare me with
> Fox News, that's hitting below the belt.
>
> > I don't see a difference between will and free will.
>
> One is cause by something or not caused by something, the other is caused
> by nothing and isn't  caused by nothing. In other words one makes logical
> sense and one does not.

What is will caused by?

>
> > We talk of compulsion and addiction as disorders because they defy our
> > will.
>
> In addiction we want to take drugs, we may want to not want to take drugs
> but as the old Rolling Stones song goes "you can't always get what you
> want".

Right, that's what makes it abnormal. Normally if we don't want to
take drugs, we don't take drugs (or overeat, gamble, etc)

>
> > If there were no free will, society would have no impulse to punish.
> > There would be no stigma against crime at all, we would just accept that
> > nothing has any control over its own behavior.
>
> Don't be ridiculous. If you're chasing me with a bloody ax I don't give a
> hoot in hell if you had bad genes or bad upbringing or were the victim of a
> unfortunate random quantum fluctuation or if you can control your behavior
> or not, I just want society to do everything in its power to get you to
> stop chasing me with that damn ax and to discourage similar activity in the
> future.

It's not ridiculous. My chasing you with an ax would be no different
than colon cancer or heart disease chasing you. You would not project
criminality on the cancer because you know that it can't be deterred
that way because it has no free will. Humans can be deterred only
because they have free will which is open to considerations of
alternatives and the power to make choices by themselves.

>
> > Other people's consciousness is really none of my business.
>
> And yet you think a computers consciousness is our business.

I have no reason to suspect that a computer is conscious in the first
place.

> Actually from
> a human viewpoint it doesn't matter if computers are conscious or not, but
> it does matter that they're smart and getting smarter very very fast.

Right. It only matters if we care about figuring out what
consciousness is. Once we understand that computers are never going to
become conscious in any non-trivial way, that frees us up to turn our
efforts into making outstanding digital servants to toil away forever
for us.

>
> > Anyone can seem intelligent if they are given the answers to the test.
> > All Watson does is match up questions to the answers it already has been
> > given.
>
> So you think Watson's programers could deduce every single question anybody
> could ask and then they just wrote up a appropriate answer. That's just
> foolish.

They didn't need to, they just needed to write algorithms for
linguistic pattern matching and attach it to a massive database full
of trivia. Do you think that Watson understands what 'Potent Potables'
actually means? That's just foolish.

>
> > The test of intelligence is when computers begin killing their
> > programmers intentionally.
>
> It's only a matter of time.
>
> > Watson can only outsmart me at Jeopardy.
>
> And at checkers and chess and solving equations and at being a research
> librarian and being a accountant. Give it another 5 years and you can add
> driver, pilot ,lawyer and physician to the list.
>
> > Let us both try figuring out whether or not someone is being sarcastic or
> > not and we'll see who wins.
>
> Watson is already very good at puns, rhymes and word games, and very often
> on the net I make some sarcastic wisecrack and people think I'm serious; or
> at least I think they're people.

That's because the internet strips out non-verbal communication which
Watson has no capacity to detect in the first place.

Craig

[Stephen P. King]

Hi John,

    1. I see the Big Bang theory as a theory, an explanatory model that attempts to weave together all of the relevant observational facts together into a scheme that is both predictive and explanatory. It has built into it certain ontological and epistemological premises that I have some doubts about.
2. Dark energy is nothing more than a conjectured-to-exist entity until we have a better explanation for the effects that it was conjectured to explain. We have never actually detected it. What we have detected is that certain super-novae seem to have light that appears to indicate that the super-novae are accelerating away from us. This was an unexpected observation that was not predicted by the Big Bang theory so the BBT was amended to include a new entity. So be it. But my line of questions is: At what point are we going to keep adding entities to BBT before we start wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with it?

It is not possible to prove that something exists in an absolute sense, for who is the ultimate arbiter of that question? So, I can present you with a box that I claim contains a coin weighing so many grams and blah blah, but you have to observe it to know for yourself and you might just happen to be under the influence of some psychoactive substance that prevents you from seeing clearly... Or worse case scenario, you might be a victim of a brain-in-a-vat situation... We have to go through our epistemology and ontology theories to be sure that they are at least consistent.

Onward!

Stephen

[meekerdb]

On 1/24/2012 6:08 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi John,

    1. I see the Big Bang theory as a theory, an explanatory model that attempts to weave together all of the relevant observational facts together into a scheme that is both predictive and explanatory. It has built into it certain ontological and epistemological premises that I have some doubts about.

Such as?

2. Dark energy is nothing more than a conjectured-to-exist entity until we have a better explanation for the effects that it was conjectured to explain. We have never actually detected it. What we have detected is that certain super-novae seem to have light that appears to indicate that the super-novae are accelerating away from us. This was an unexpected observation that was not predicted by the Big Bang theory so the BBT was amended to include a new entity. So be it. But my line of questions is: At what point are we going to keep adding entities to BBT before we start wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with it?

I think what you refer to as the Big Bang Theory is called the concordance theory in the literature.  It includes the hot Big Bang, inflation, and vacuum energy.  The reason Dark Energy (so called in parallel with Dark Matter) was so readily accepted is that it was already in General Relativity in the form of the cosmological constant.  It didn't have to be amended; just accept that a parameter wasn't exactly zero.

It is not possible to prove that something exists in an absolute sense, for who is the ultimate arbiter of that question?

There is no ultimate arbiter.  What is thought to exist is model dependent and it changes as theories change to explain new data.

Brent

So, I can present you with a box that I claim contains a coin weighing so many grams and blah blah, but you have to observe it to know for yourself and you might just happen to be under the influence of some psychoactive substance that prevents you from seeing clearly... Or worse case scenario, you might be a victim of a brain-in-a-vat situation... We have to go through our epistemology and ontology theories to be sure that they are at least consistent.

Onward!

Stephen


On 1/24/2012 3:46 PM, John Mikes wrote:

Stephen, you wrote to another John - I barge in with my sidelines.

1. I do not 'believe' in the Big Bang, the theory has flaws and errors as concerning past lit already worked it out. My main objection is not the linearity in going back to zero in an expansion that is non-linear and not the phantasm in 'originating' a world upon partial input (as a total one at the end), it is the underlying physical thought of explaining (mostly mathematically) a totality of which we only know a part yet ALL OF IT(?) plays into the changes. We learn new details continually and forge them into the obsolescence to make it 'fitter'.

Dark energy (etc.) are postulates of 'must be' since otherwise our image does not fit. It may be applied after we tried EVERYTHING (most of which is still hidden - o r nonexistent at all. We live in a model of our present model-base and consider it ALL. We learn new aspects (mostly: make them up for explanation) and fit them into our conventional sciences. These, however, started way before "The Big Bear" and still include origins of the ancient obsolescence galore. Math is a good soother. If in trouble, a constant can make wonders - and we can explain its meaning ("it must be"). Or a new chapter in our calculations (Like: the zero or the complex numbers etc.)

Can you "prove" something to "exist"?

I salute John Clark's (" I have absolutely no loyalty toward theories.")

 

Agnostically yours

 

John Mikes

 

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:25 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

Hi John,

    What is "dark energy" other than a postulated or conjecture entity that is part of an attempted explanation of observations of how light from supernovae appeared to be streached as if the supernovae are accelerating away from us.... Do we give such "entities" the status of existing on so frail a foundation? The same critisism applies to scalar fields and dark matter. Until we actually find them experimentally, then it is helpful to keep them firmly in the "conjectured but not proven to exist category". :-)
    My attitude is that we need to be sure that our beliefs are backed up by empirical evidence before we declare them justified. This is not an easy task as many entities, such as numbers, are forever beyond the realm of experience but we can still reason consistently about them...

Onward!

Stephen

Onward!

Stephen



On 1/23/2012 11:10 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012  Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

" How would you recognize the better theory if you are such a strong "believer" in the Big Bang?"

If somebody developed a new theory that explained everything the Big Bang did but also explained what Dark Energy is I would drop the Big Bang like a hot potato and embrace that new theory with every fiber of my being, until the instant a even better theory came along. I have absolutely no loyalty toward theories.

 John K Clark    

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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[Stephen P. King]

Hi Brent,

On 1/24/2012 9:47 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2012 6:08 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi John,

    1. I see the Big Bang theory as a theory, an explanatory model that attempts to weave together all of the relevant observational facts together into a scheme that is both predictive and explanatory. It has built into it certain ontological and epistemological premises that I have some doubts about.

Such as?

    Let us start with the heavily camouflaged idea that we can get something, a universe!, out of Nothing.

2. Dark energy is nothing more than a conjectured-to-exist entity until we have a better explanation for the effects that it was conjectured to explain. We have never actually detected it. What we have detected is that certain super-novae seem to have light that appears to indicate that the super-novae are accelerating away from us. This was an unexpected observation that was not predicted by the Big Bang theory so the BBT was amended to include a new entity. So be it. But my line of questions is: At what point are we going to keep adding entities to BBT before we start wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with it?

I think what you refer to as the Big Bang Theory is called the concordance theory in the literature.  It includes the hot Big Bang, inflation, and vacuum energy.  The reason Dark Energy (so called in parallel with Dark Matter) was so readily accepted is that it was already in General Relativity in the form of the cosmological constant.  It didn't have to be amended; just accept that a parameter wasn't exactly zero.

    A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of his life". The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more "something from nothing" nonsense.

It is not possible to prove that something exists in an absolute sense, for who is the ultimate arbiter of that question?

There is no ultimate arbiter.  What is thought to exist is model dependent and it changes as theories change to explain new data.

    WOW! We been informed that we can now make things pop in and out of existence merely by shifting our belief systems. Who might have imagined such a wondrous possibility! Umm, NO. Existence is not subject to our perceptions, theories of whatever.

Onward!

Stephen

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 1/24/2012 8:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi Brent,

On 1/24/2012 9:47 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2012 6:08 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi John,

    1. I see the Big Bang theory as a theory, an explanatory model that attempts to weave together all of the relevant observational facts together into a scheme that is both predictive and explanatory. It has built into it certain ontological and epistemological premises that I have some doubts about.

Such as?

    Let us start with the heavily camouflaged idea that we can get something, a universe!, out of Nothing.

It is not at all camouflaged; Lawrence Krause just wrote a book called "A Universe From Nothing".  That the universe came from nothing is suggested by calculations of the total energy of the universe.  Theories of the origin of the universe have been developed by Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle.  Of course the other view is that there cannot have been Nothing and Something is the default.

2. Dark energy is nothing more than a conjectured-to-exist entity until we have a better explanation for the effects that it was conjectured to explain. We have never actually detected it. What we have detected is that certain super-novae seem to have light that appears to indicate that the super-novae are accelerating away from us. This was an unexpected observation that was not predicted by the Big Bang theory so the BBT was amended to include a new entity. So be it. But my line of questions is: At what point are we going to keep adding entities to BBT before we start wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with it?

I think what you refer to as the Big Bang Theory is called the concordance theory in the literature.  It includes the hot Big Bang, inflation, and vacuum energy.  The reason Dark Energy (so called in parallel with Dark Matter) was so readily accepted is that it was already in General Relativity in the form of the cosmological constant.  It didn't have to be amended; just accept that a parameter wasn't exactly zero.

    A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of his life".

Only because it caused him to miss predicting the expansion of the universe - or maybe you don't believe the universe is expanding.

The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more "something from nothing" nonsense.

But you can't add any others that are simpler than the curvature terms, which are second order, except the constant CC term.

It is not possible to prove that something exists in an absolute sense, for who is the ultimate arbiter of that question?

There is no ultimate arbiter.  What is thought to exist is model dependent and it changes as theories change to explain new data.

    WOW! We been informed that we can now make things pop in and out of existence merely by shifting our belief systems. Who might have imagined such a wondrous possibility! Umm, NO. Existence is not subject to our perceptions, theories of whatever.

Read more carefully.  I wrote "What is *thought* to exist..."; which is obviously true. We thought atoms existed long before they could be imaged.  We think quarks exist based on a theory that says they can't be observed.

Brent
"The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by
nothing, and for nothing."
         --- Quentin Smith

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 25, 2:05 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:

> It is not at all camouflaged; Lawrence Krause just wrote a book called "A Universe From
> Nothing".  That the universe came from nothing is suggested by calculations of the total
> energy of the universe.  Theories of the origin of the universe have been developed by
> Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle.  Of course the other view is that
> there cannot have been Nothing and Something is the default.

> "The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by
> nothing, and for nothing."
>           --- Quentin Smith

I think that we are all familiar with the universe from nothing
theories, but the problem is with how nothing is defined. The
possibility of creating a universe, or creating anything is not
'nothing', so that any theory of nothingness already fails if the
definition of nothing relies on concepts of symmetry and negation,
dynamic flux over time, and the potential for physical forces, not to
mention living organisms and awareness. An honestly recognized
'nothing' must be in all ways sterile and lacking the potential for
existence of any sort, otherwise it's not nothing.

My view is that the default is neither nothing or something but rather
Everything. If you have an eternal everything then the universe of
somethings and sometimes can be easily explained by there being
temporary bundling of everything into isolated wholes, collections of
wholes, collections of collections, etc, each with their own share of
small share of eternity.

This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting from
1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0, but from 0, no
logical concept of 1 need follow. 0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.

Craig

[Stephen P. King]

Hi,

I am 99% in agreement with Craig here. The 1% difference is a
quibble over the math. We have to be careful that we don't reproduce the
same slide into sophistry that has happened in physics.

Onward!

Stephen

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 Jan 2012, at 18:04, Stephen P. King wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am 99% in agreement with Craig here. The 1% difference is a
> quibble over the math. We have to be careful that we don't reproduce
> the same slide into sophistry that has happened in physics.

I think I agree. I comment Craig below.

I agree too. That is why it is clearer to put *all* our assumptions on
the table. Physical theories of the origin, making it appearing from
physical nothingness, makes sense only in, usually mathematical,
theories of nothingness. It amounts to the fact that the quantum
vacuum is unstable, or even more simply, a quantum universal
dovetailer. This assumes de facto a particular case of comp, the
believes in the existence of at least one (Turing) universal system.
As you might know, choosing this particular one is treachery, in the
mind body problem, given that if that is the one, it has to be
explained in term of a special sum on *all* computational histories
independently of the base (the universal system) chosen at the start.
Any formalism describing the quantum vaccuum assumes much more that
the Robinson tiny arithmetical theory for the ontology needed in comp.
Nothing physical does not mean nothing conceptual. You have still too
assume the numbers, at the least. So it assumes more and it copies
nature (you can't, with comp, or you lost the big half of everything).

>>
>> My view is that the default is neither nothing or something but
>> rather
>> Everything.

I think there coexist, and are explanativaely dual of each others. In
both case you need the assumptions needed to make precise what can
exist and what cannot exist.

>> If you have an eternal everything then the universe of
>> somethings and sometimes can be easily explained by there being
>> temporary bundling of everything into isolated wholes, collections of
>> wholes, collections of collections, etc, each with their own share of
>> small share of eternity.

OK.

>>
>> This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting
>> from
>> 1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0,

So we get 0 after all.

>> but from 0, no
>> logical concept of 1 need follow.

No logical concept, you are right (although this is not so easy to
proof). But you have the *arithmetical* (yes, *not* logical), notion
of a number's successor, noted s(x). We assume that all numbers have
successors. And we can even define 0 as the only one which is not a
successor, by assuming Ax(~(0= s(x))) (for all number 0 is different
from the successor of that number).

having the symbol 0, we can actually name all numbers: by 0, s(0),
s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), s(s(s(s(0)))), s(s(s(s(s(0))))), ...

>> 0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.

Yes. That's correct. And for all numbers x, you have also that x + 0 =
x. Worst: for all number x, x*0 = 0.
That 0 is a famous number!

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Stephen P. King]

Hi Brent,

On 1/25/2012 2:05 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2012 8:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi Brent,

On 1/24/2012 9:47 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/24/2012 6:08 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi John,

    1. I see the Big Bang theory as a theory, an explanatory model that attempts to weave together all of the relevant observational facts together into a scheme that is both predictive and explanatory. It has built into it certain ontological and epistemological premises that I have some doubts about.

Such as?

    Let us start with the heavily camouflaged idea that we can get something, a universe!, out of Nothing.

It is not at all camouflaged; Lawrence Krause just wrote a book called "A Universe From Nothing".  That the universe came from nothing is suggested by calculations of the total energy of the universe.  Theories of the origin of the universe have been developed by Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle.  Of course the other view is that there cannot have been Nothing and Something is the default.

    But note that this calculation, which flows inevitably from our knowledge of conservation laws, is done ex post facto, after the fact. We are here, experiencing a universe, and noticing that it is finite both in the spatial and temporal sense. Is this not what we should expect an entity that has a finite limit on its ability to observe? We seem to easily forget or ignore the full implication of finiteness! B/c of the way that time and spatial aspects cannot be taken as separate, the total universe could very well be infinite but we would never observe that totality if only because of the finite limits on resolution of our senses, no matter how extended they might be with technology.
    I am making a big deal of this as it is the reason why I have been arguing strongly against naive realism while warning against equally fallacious alternatives. The philosophical problems that we have been discussing in this List are very tough but I believe that we have a combined brain trust very capable of figuring this stuff out. :-)

2. Dark energy is nothing more than a conjectured-to-exist entity until we have a better explanation for the effects that it was conjectured to explain. We have never actually detected it. What we have detected is that certain super-novae seem to have light that appears to indicate that the super-novae are accelerating away from us. This was an unexpected observation that was not predicted by the Big Bang theory so the BBT was amended to include a new entity. So be it. But my line of questions is: At what point are we going to keep adding entities to BBT before we start wondering if there is something fundamentally wrong with it?

I think what you refer to as the Big Bang Theory is called the concordance theory in the literature.  It includes the hot Big Bang, inflation, and vacuum energy.  The reason Dark Energy (so called in parallel with Dark Matter) was so readily accepted is that it was already in General Relativity in the form of the cosmological constant.  It didn't have to be amended; just accept that a parameter wasn't exactly zero.

    A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of his life".

Only because it caused him to miss predicting the expansion of the universe - or maybe you don't believe the universe is expanding.

    Not so. The augmented field equations are unstable and strongly dependent on the precise choice of the Cauchy hypersurface input. The cosmological constant is a two-edged sword because it can give a universe that almost instantly collapses or explodes. You would do well to read up more on it.

The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more "something from nothing" nonsense.

But you can't add any others that are simpler than the curvature terms, which are second order, except the constant CC term.

    OK, I will bow to your knowledge of the math on this point.

It is not possible to prove that something exists in an absolute sense, for who is the ultimate arbiter of that question?

There is no ultimate arbiter.  What is thought to exist is model dependent and it changes as theories change to explain new data.

    WOW! We been informed that we can now make things pop in and out of existence merely by shifting our belief systems. Who might have imagined such a wondrous possibility! Umm, NO. Existence is not subject to our perceptions, theories of whatever.

Read more carefully.  I wrote "What is *thought* to exist..."; which is obviously true. We thought atoms existed long before they could be imaged.  We think quarks exist based on a theory that says they can't be observed.

    OK, but you get my point I hope. What I am trying to drive home is that we must be very careful with our use of the word "exist". There is a point where in our drive to have a theory that is invariant with respect to point of view we completely obviate the utility of the theory as predictive by being such as ourselves.

Brent
"The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by
nothing, and for nothing."
         --- Quentin Smith

    What a pathetic and sad philosophy to embrace. Why even bother living an instant longer?

Onward!

Stephen

[John Clark]

John Mikes wrote:

 

> 1. I do not 'believe' in the Big Bang,

Well, we have excellent empirical evidence that the observable universe is expanding, and a straightforward extrapolation into the past indicates that 13.75 billion years ago everything we can see was concentrated at just one point. So it's clear that something unusual happened 13.75 billion years ago, if not the Big Bang what? And if not the Big Bang what caused the 2.7 degree microwave background radiation that is coming in from every point in the sky? And was it just coincidence that long ago the theory predicted that radiation would change in intensity very very slightly from one point to another, a prediction that was triumphantly confirmed in just the last couple of years?  

 

> Dark energy (etc.) are postulates

No, "Dark Energy" is just a label for something we are nearly certain exists but can't explain. There is  superb evidence that the phenomena given the name "Dark Energy" exists, but nobody even pretends to understand it. Dark Energy is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, if you want scientific immortality alongside Newton and Einstein explain just 2% of the puzzle.

  John K Clark 

 

 

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Bruno,


    I still think that we can synchronize our ideas!

    The idea of theories of Nothing is that "Everything is indistinguishable from Nothing". This is very different from distinctions between Something and Nothing. I cannot emphasize enough how important the role of belief, as it Bp&p, has and how "belief" automatically induces an entity that is capable of having the belief. We simply cannot divorce the action from the actor while we can divorce the action from any *particular* actor. Your idea that we have to count *all* computational histories is equally important, but note that a choice has to be made. This role, in my thinking, is explained in terms of an infinite ensemble of entities, each capable of making the choice. If we can cover all of their necessary and sufficient properties by considering them as Löbian, good, but I think that we need a tiny bit more structure to involve bisimulations between multiple and separate Löbian entities so that we can extract local notions of time and space.

Any formalism describing the quantum vaccuum assumes much more that the Robinson tiny arithmetical theory for the ontology needed in comp. Nothing physical does not mean nothing conceptual. You have still too assume the numbers, at the least. So it assumes more and it copies nature (you can't, with comp, or you lost the big half of everything).

    I would like you to consider that the uniqueness of standard models of arithmetic, such as that defined in the Tennenbaum theorem, as a relative notion. Each and every Löbian entity will always consider themselves as recursive and countable and thus the "standard" of uniqueness. This refelcts the idea that each of us as observers finds ourselves in the center of "the" universe.

My view is that the default is neither nothing or something but rather
Everything.

I think there coexist, and are explanativaely dual of each others. In both case you need the assumptions needed to make precise what can exist and what cannot exist.

    This is a mistake because it tacitly assumes that a finite theory can exactly model the totality of existence.

If you have an eternal everything then the universe of
somethings and sometimes can be easily explained by there being
temporary bundling of everything into isolated wholes, collections of
wholes, collections of collections, etc, each with their own share of
small share of eternity.

OK.

    Indeed!

This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting from
1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0,

So we get 0 after all.

    Right, but we recover 0 *after* the first act of distinguishing. We cannot start with a notion of primitives that assume distinction a priori.

but from 0, no
logical concept of 1 need follow.

No logical concept, you are right (although this is not so easy to proof). But you have the *arithmetical* (yes, *not* logical), notion of a number's successor, noted s(x). We assume that all numbers have successors. And we can even define 0 as the only one which is not a successor, by assuming Ax(~(0= s(x))) (for all number 0 is different from the successor of that number).

having the symbol 0, we can actually name all numbers: by 0, s(0), s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), s(s(s(s(0)))), s(s(s(s(s(0))))), ...

    Yes, but only after making the initial distinction, an act which requires an actor. This is a "chicken and the egg" problem.

0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.

Yes. That's correct. And for all numbers x, you have also that x + 0 = x. Worst: for all number x,  x*0 = 0.
That 0 is a famous number!

    I invite you to take a look at the finitist system of mathematics of Norman J. Wildberger.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Onward!

Stephen

[meekerdb]

That's the philsopher's idea of 'nothing', but it's not clear that it's even coherent.
Our concepts of 'nothing' obviously arise from the idea of eliminating 'something' until
no 'something' remains. It is hardly fair to criticize physicists for using a physical,
operational concept of nothing. Note that the theories I mentioned do not assume a
spacetime vacuum. One may say they assume a potentiality for a spacetime vacuum, but to
deny even potential would be to deny that anything can exist.

Brent

[meekerdb]

Sounds like the sophistry you accuse physcists of.  While 'everything' may be as uninformative a 'nothing', they seem pretty distinct to me.

This is very different from distinctions between Something and Nothing. I cannot emphasize enough how important the role of belief, as it Bp&p, has and how "belief" automatically induces an entity that is capable of having the belief.

"Induces?"  Are you saying the concept of belief is efficacious in creating a believer?  In Bruno's idea, what he denotes by B is provability, a concept that is implicit in the axioms and rules of inference.

Brent

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[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 25, 1:10 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>
> I agree too. That is why it is clearer to put *all* our assumptions on
> the table. Physical theories of the origin, making it appearing from
> physical nothingness, makes sense only in, usually mathematical,
> theories of nothingness. It amounts to the fact that the quantum
> vacuum is unstable, or even more simply, a quantum universal
> dovetailer. This assumes de facto a particular case of comp, the
> believes in the existence of at  least one (Turing) universal system.
> As you might know, choosing this particular one is treachery, in the
> mind body problem, given that if that is the one, it has to be
> explained in term of a special sum on *all* computational histories
> independently of the base (the universal system) chosen at the start.
> Any formalism describing the quantum vaccuum assumes much more that
> the Robinson tiny arithmetical theory for the ontology needed in comp.
> Nothing physical does not mean nothing conceptual. You have still too
> assume the numbers, at the least. So it assumes more and it copies
> nature (you can't, with comp, or you lost the big half of everything).
>
>
>
> >> My view is that the default is neither nothing or something but
> >> rather
> >> Everything.
>
> I think there coexist, and are explanativaely dual of each others. In
> both case you need the assumptions needed to make precise what can
> exist and what cannot exist.

Yes, they coexist or coexplain. The word nothing has to discriminate
from some other possibility, which would always be some thing, and
once there is a thing, then that thing is automatically every thing as
well, hah. These contingencies are all part of a something though. If
we look to a nothingness beyond the word though, a true existential
vacuum, then that is all it is and all it can be.

>
> >> If you have an eternal everything then the universe of
> >> somethings and sometimes can be easily explained by there being
> >> temporary bundling of everything into isolated wholes, collections of
> >> wholes, collections of collections, etc, each with their own share of
> >> small share of eternity.
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> >> This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting
> >> from
> >> 1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0,
>
> So we get 0 after all.

Sure. Although 0 might be not be a number so much as neutralizing or
clearing of the enumerating motive.

>
> >> but from 0, no
> >> logical concept of 1 need follow.
>
> No logical concept, you are right (although this is not so easy to
> proof). But you have the *arithmetical* (yes, *not* logical), notion
> of a number's successor, noted s(x). We assume that all numbers have
> successors. And we can even define 0 as the only one which is not a
> successor, by assuming Ax(~(0= s(x))) (for all number 0 is different
> from the successor of that number).

Yeah, I can't see how 0 could be the successor of any number.

>
> having the symbol 0, we can actually name all numbers: by 0, s(0),
> s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), s(s(s(s(0)))), s(s(s(s(s(0))))), ...
>
> >> 0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.
>
> Yes. That's correct. And for all numbers x, you have also that x + 0 =
> x. Worst: for all number x,  x*0 = 0.
> That 0 is a famous number!

Haha. I have always had sort of a dread about x*0. Sort of a
remorseless destructive power there...

Craig

[meekerdb]

On 1/25/2012 3:52 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

x. Worst: for all number x,  x*0 = 0.
> That 0 is a famous number!

x*0=1 for x=/=0

Brent

[Stephen P. King]

Hi Brent,

    Exactly how is this distinction made? Is it merely semantics for you, this difference?

This is very different from distinctions between Something and Nothing. I cannot emphasize enough how important the role of belief, as it Bp&p, has and how "belief" automatically induces an entity that is capable of having the belief.

"Induces?"  Are you saying the concept of belief is efficacious in creating a believer?

    I am considering Bp&p. My point is that a entity has Bp&p, it is not a free-floater.

  In Bruno's idea, what he denotes by B is provability, a concept that is implicit in the axioms and rules of inference.

    Sure.

Onward!

Stephen

[meekerdb]

On 1/25/2012 4:16 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Sounds like the sophistry you accuse physcists of.  While 'everything' may be as uninformative a 'nothing', they seem pretty distinct to me.

    Exactly how is this distinction made? Is it merely semantics for you, this difference?

Well, for one, if everything exists I'm around to see somethings.

Brent

[Stephen P. King]

--

    And it it is not you? Does it not exist? Interesting role that you have cast yourself into!

Onward!

Stephen

[John Clark]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:27 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> Wrote:

 >  A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of
his life". The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such
scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more
"something from nothing" nonsense.

Yes, it amounted to a repulsive effect that came from space itself, and
you can set that constant to anything and mathematically the field
equations of General Relativity would still work. Originally  Einstein
saw no physical reason for that additional complication so he set it to
zero. But then he noticed that if it was zero the universe could not be
stable, it must be expanding or contracting; at the time everybody
including Einstein thought the universe was stable so he set it to a non
zero value and the cosmological constant was born. However just a few
years later Hubble found that the universe was expanding, so Einstein
thought the cosmological constant no longer had a purpose and said that
changing it from zero was the greatest mistake of his life.

In act 2 people working with quantum mechanics found that empty space
should indeed have a repulsive effect, but the numbers were huge,
gigantic astronomical, so large that the universe would blow itself
apart in far far less than a billionth of a nanosecond. This was clearly
a nonsensical result but most felt that once a quantum theory of gravity
was discovered a way would be found to cancel this out and the true
value of the cosmological constant would be zero.

In act 3 just a few years ago it was observed that the universe is was
not just expanding but accelerating, so now theoreticians must find a
way to cancel out, not the entire cosmological constant, but the vastly
more difficult task of canceling it all out EXCEPT for one part in
10^120. There are only about 10^90 atoms in the observable universe.

 John K Clark

[John Clark]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My chasing you with an ax would be no different than colon cancer or heart disease chasing you. You would not project criminality on the cancer

Yes exactly, I want any cancer in my body to die and I want the guy
chasing me with a bloody ax to die, and I don't care one bit if either
of them is a criminal or had bad genes or had a bad childhood,
and I don't care if the cancer or the ax-man has free will or not
whatever the hell that term is supposed to mean.

 > Once we understand that computers are never going to become conscious in any non-trivial way, that frees us up to turn our efforts into making outstanding digital servants to toil away forever for us.

 

That just ain't going to happen. Having a slave that is a thousand
times smarter than you and can think a million times faster than
you is not a stable situation, its like balancing a pencil on its point.

> Logic 101 is reductionist theory. It's not reality. [...]  Maybe' is not yes and it is not not-yes.

It is my understanding that in a debate both parties try to advance
logical reasons to support their position, but if we can't even agree
that logical analysis is preferable to silliness and magical thinking
then I fear there is nothing more to say.

 John K Clark

[Stephen P. King]

Hi John,

On 1/25/2012 11:57 PM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:27 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> Wrote:

 >  A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of
his life". The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such
scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more
"something from nothing" nonsense.

Yes, it amounted to a repulsive effect that came from space itself, and
you can set that constant to anything and mathematically the field
equations of General Relativity would still work. Originally  Einstein
saw no physical reason for that additional complication so he set it to
zero. But then he noticed that if it was zero the universe could not be
stable, it must be expanding or contracting; at the time everybody
including Einstein thought the universe was stable so he set it to a non
zero value and the cosmological constant was born. However just a few
years later Hubble found that the universe was expanding, so Einstein
thought the cosmological constant no longer had a purpose and said that
changing it from zero was the greatest mistake of his life.

    Interesting. That is not quite the the story that I recall from Abraham Pais' biography of Einstein, but I might be misremembering.

In act 2 people working with quantum mechanics found that empty space
should indeed have a repulsive effect, but the numbers were huge,
gigantic astronomical, so large that the universe would blow itself
apart in far far less than a billionth of a nanosecond. This was clearly
a nonsensical result but most felt that once a quantum theory of gravity
was discovered a way would be found to cancel this out and the true
value of the cosmological constant would be zero.

In act 3 just a few years ago it was observed that the universe is was
not just expanding but accelerating, so now theoreticians must find a
way to cancel out, not the entire cosmological constant, but the vastly
more difficult task of canceling it all out EXCEPT for one part in
10^120. There are only about 10^90 atoms in the observable universe.

 John K Clark

    And it is this amazing pin-point cancellation that is required to make the CC idea work that makes it even more suspect, IMHO. Perhaps the simple answer is that the mass-energy associated with the vacuum is purely off-shell and virtual and does *not* act as a gravitational source. Perhaps that 1 in 10^120 is a second or third order effect from something else or perhaps there are no primitive scalar fields at all. I have looked very hard at this question and so far have not found a single observed effect that gives evidence that virtual particles, or vacuum fluctuations or whatever one wishes to call them have any mass effects. What we do find evidence of is electromagnetic effects, but no mass effects.
    But this is getting away from the point that I am trying to make, finite systems subject to quantum mechanics have finite abilities to resolve, transform, receive and transmit information. Does this not have an effect on the world that we observe? Could it be that the finiteness we observe is merely the result of this constraint and *not* an objective 3p aspect of the universe?
    If my hunch is true, this idea would go a long way in solving many riddles of cosmology. For one thing we would not have to deal with all that "what caused the universe to Bang" in the first place. We would get the "perfect cosmological principle" as a guide to proceed: The universe looks about the same to an average observer no mater where or when they find themselves. The average observer will always find itself in the center of a finite universe that has an event horizon in its extremal past.

Onward!

Stephen

[ronaldheld]

I have no problem(for now) accepting the Big Bang theory+inflation
paradigm. I admit I do not know what dark matter is or how many
inflaton fields there are. I can accept the cosmological constant as
the source of dark energy. It seems better at this time to have the
two dark quantities than to alter Einsteins's General Relativity.
More observations will be needed.
Ronald

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Stephen,

On 25 Jan 2012, at 20:01, Stephen P. King wrote:

Dear Bruno,


    I still think that we can synchronize our ideas!

Well, assuming there is no flaws in UDA, and in AUDA (which assumes comp, but also the classical theory of knowledge, that is the axioms of the modal logic S4 for describing knowledge(*)), then it is in the interest of your theory to synchronize with the theory of the universal machine by the universal machine.

;)

(*)

Kp -> p  (if I know p, p is true)

Kp -> KKp (if I know p, I know that I know p) ; this one not not necessary (and false in the "sensible matter").

K(p->q) -> (Kp->Kq) (If I know that p implies q, and if I know p, then I know q).

That does not make much sense to me. Words like "everything", "nothing", "existence" are theory independent. 

"nothing" by itself has no meaning.

This is very different from distinctions between Something and Nothing. I cannot emphasize enough how important the role of belief, as it Bp&p,

as is Bp. (Bp & p is knowledge, obtained by applying Theaetetus' definition (true belief) when "believability" of the ideal rational correct machine, is believing in the modus ponens rule and in a correct description on its own functioning at the right level (even if only serendipitously). This behaves, like Gödel's provability, to the logic of self-reference G and G*.

has and how "belief" automatically induces an entity that is capable of having the belief.

Beliefs are defined by those entities, which you can see as (relative) theorem provers. Let me fix one universal system (like any enough rich describing an initial segment of (N,+,*)) then I can effectively associate digital entities (machine, pieces of computation, machine's discourse) with numbers. Like fixing 0 on a line can help me to relate to points through numbers.

So relatively to a universal numbers, some numbers can develop beliefs. All sort of beliefs. I limit myself to the study of ideally rational machines. The amazing thing is that such machine get mystical, and their discourses and silent are interesting.

We simply cannot divorce the action from the actor while we can divorce the action from any *particular* actor.

Sure. 

Your idea that we have to count *all* computational histories is equally important, but note that a choice has to be made. This role, in my thinking, is explained in terms of an infinite ensemble of entities, each capable of making the choice. If we can cover all of their necessary and sufficient properties by considering them as Löbian, good, but I think that we need a tiny bit more structure to involve bisimulations between multiple and separate Löbian entities so that we can extract local notions of time and space.

My approach consists in asking them. I think UDA makes that obligatory. And I don't know other way to allow the neat quanta/qualia distinction, in the unavoidable octalism of the Löbian entities.

Any formalism describing the quantum vaccuum assumes much more that the Robinson tiny arithmetical theory for the ontology needed in comp. Nothing physical does not mean nothing conceptual. You have still too assume the numbers, at the least. So it assumes more and it copies nature (you can't, with comp, or you lost the big half of everything).

    I would like you to consider that the uniqueness of standard models of arithmetic, such as that defined in the Tennenbaum theorem, as a relative notion.

?

Each and every Löbian entity will always consider themselves as recursive and countable

Actually Löbian entities are much more general than machines. Most divine (no Turing emulable) self-referentially correct entity still obey to G and G*. Comp implies that you need really go quite close to God to lose Löbianity by adding knowledge. It is far simpler to lose Löbianity by losing knowledge. 

Now, you were more deeply wrong, with all my respect. No sound Löbian entity, be it a machine or not, will ever consider themselves as recursive or enumerable. It is a quite strong bet they might do occasionally, but it entails, paradoxically enough perhaps, that, the first person related to the machine, is not really (or not at all) a machine. 

and thus the "standard" of uniqueness. This refelcts the idea that each of us as observers finds ourselves in the center of "the" universe.

My view is that the default is neither nothing or something but rather
Everything.

I think there coexist, and are explanativaely dual of each others. In both case you need the assumptions needed to make precise what can exist and what cannot exist.

    This is a mistake because it tacitly assumes that a finite theory can exactly model the totality of existence.

It cannot model the totality of the truth about reality, but it can find the simplest realm where those truth can be explained to come from.

What I have proved is that if we assume comp, elementary arithmetic is enough. The additive and multiplicative structure of the numbers already enable the provable existence of infinite forum on what is exactly happening.

If you have an eternal everything then the universe of
somethings and sometimes can be easily explained by there being
temporary bundling of everything into isolated wholes, collections of
wholes, collections of collections, etc, each with their own share of
small share of eternity.

OK.

    Indeed!

This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting from
1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0,

So we get 0 after all.

    Right, but we recover 0 *after* the first act of distinguishing. We cannot start with a notion of primitives that assume distinction a priori.

You confuse the level. It is obvious that we assume some distinction ability at the meta-level where we communicate the theory of the beliefs.

- What is zero?

- An invention of the humand mind! (said the naturalist)

- What is the human mind?

- A neural net composed of 10 billions neural cells, and 200 billions glial cells.

- What is 10 billions?

but from 0, no
logical concept of 1 need follow.

No logical concept, you are right (although this is not so easy to proof). But you have the *arithmetical* (yes, *not* logical), notion of a number's successor, noted s(x). We assume that all numbers have successors. And we can even define 0 as the only one which is not a successor, by assuming Ax(~(0= s(x))) (for all number 0 is different from the successor of that number).

having the symbol 0, we can actually name all numbers: by 0, s(0), s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), s(s(s(s(0)))), s(s(s(s(s(0))))), ...

    Yes, but only after making the initial distinction, an act which requires an actor. This is a "chicken and the egg" problem.

Not at all. The question is only; do you agree with the RA and PA axioms? 

Then the beauty of RA and PA is that they can justify why, with less than RA or PA, you will not get them. So if you assume less than RA, you lost the existence of the universal machine, which is the main heroin in the arithmetical drama.

There is no chicken and egg problem. I just make clear that I assume elementary arithmetic. (As virtually all scientists and laymen).

0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.

Yes. That's correct. And for all numbers x, you have also that x + 0 = x. Worst: for all number x,  x*0 = 0.
That 0 is a famous number!

    I invite you to take a look at the finitist system of mathematics of Norman J. Wildberger.

Rational trigonometry looks like another choice of Turing universal system. Certainly cute. Quite interesting, but might be a bit distracting too. The comp mind-body problem involves them all. No doubt that some universal systems are more important than others, relatively to some question, but to keep the 1p and the 3p distinction, and the quanta/qualia distinction, we have to extract those relative importance from the "interview" of the universal (Löbian) machine. 

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 Jan 2012, at 00:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:

This is what I am trying to say with Bruno about numbers starting

from

1 instead of 0. From 1 we can subtract 1 and get 0,

So we get 0 after all.

Sure. Although 0 might be not be a number so much as neutralizing or
clearing of the enumerating motive.

Not sure that zero has such a power.

but from 0, no

logical concept of 1 need follow.

No logical concept, you are right (although this is not so easy to

proof). But you have the *arithmetical* (yes, *not* logical), notion

of a number's successor, noted s(x). We assume that all numbers have

successors. And we can even define 0 as the only one which is not a

successor, by assuming Ax(~(0= s(x))) (for all number 0 is different

from the successor of that number).

Yeah, I can't see how 0 could be the successor of any number.

Oh, but it makes sense though. If we were working with the integers, then zero becomes a successor, it is the successor of -1, itself successor of -2. They are quite genuine little citizens of Integer-Land!

From the point of view of computability they provide just an equivalent theory of PA. PA already believes in the integers, in some precise sense. We can use the rational numbers, too. But not the real numbers, unless you add the trigonometrical functions, or second order axioms. 

I am not sanguine on the number. My heart pleads for the combinators instead, but that would send the layman away.

having the symbol 0, we can actually name all numbers: by 0, s(0),

s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), s(s(s(s(0)))), s(s(s(s(s(0))))), ...

0 is just 0. 0 minus 0 is still 0.

Yes. That's correct. And for all numbers x, you have also that x + 0 =

x. Worst: for all number x,  x*0 = 0.

That 0 is a famous number!

Haha. I have always had sort of a dread about x*0. Sort of a
remorseless destructive power there...

Better to avoid of being multiplied by zero, sure.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 26, 12:16 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My chasing you with an ax would be no different than colon cancer or
> > heart disease chasing you. You would not project criminality on the cancer
>
> Yes exactly, I want any cancer in my body to die and I want the guy
> chasing me with a bloody ax to die, and I don't care one bit if either
> of them is a criminal or had bad genes or had a bad childhood,
> and I don't care if the cancer or the ax-man has free will or not
> whatever the hell that term is supposed to mean.

Of course you would care. If cancer had free will then you could make
a deal with it. If people had no free will we would would not bother
with imprisonment, we would just exterminate them.

>
>  > Once we understand that computers are never going to become conscious in
>
> > any non-trivial way, that frees us up to turn our efforts into making
> > outstanding digital servants to toil away forever for us.
>
> That just ain't going to happen. Having a slave that is a thousand
> times smarter than you and can think a million times faster than
> you is not a stable situation, its like balancing a pencil on its point.

They aren't smarter than us, they just do what we tell them to do
faster than people would. They have no awareness that they are slaves.

>
> > Logic 101 is reductionist theory. It's not reality. [...]  Maybe' is not
> > yes and it is not not-yes.
>
> It is my understanding that in a debate both parties try to advance
> logical reasons to support their position, but if we can't even agree
> that logical analysis is preferable to silliness and magical thinking
> then I fear there is nothing more to say.

The universe is not completely logical, just as the color blue is not
logical. It must be experienced first hand. It is not a functional
process which you can stand aloof from - we are fully immersed in the
universe, as is logic. The reality of the universe does not have to
fit in with logic, logic helps us understand but it is ultimately
limited when dealing with ultimate questions about consciousness.

Craig

[meekerdb]

On 1/26/2012 1:51 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

My chasing you with an ax would be no different than colon cancer or
> > heart disease chasing you. You would not project criminality on the cancer

>
> Yes exactly, I want any cancer in my body to die and I want the guy
> chasing me with a bloody ax to die, and I don't care one bit if either
> of them is a criminal or had bad genes or had a bad childhood,
> and I don't care if the cancer or the ax-man has free will or not
> whatever the hell that term is supposed to mean.

Of course you would care. If cancer had free will then you could make
a deal with it. If people had no free will we would would not bother
with imprisonment, we would just exterminate them.

Imprisonment works because people are intelligent and can learn and act accordingly.  "Free will" is irrelevant.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

If that were the case then prison would either 'work' or not work, but
it doesn't. Computers can 'learn' (trivially) and act accordingly,
like doing a Windows update can change how your computer acts. The
fact that prison does sometimes work and sometimes doesn't work is
another symptom of free will. The person has to choose how they
interpret their imprisonment (make sense of it) and how to respond to
that interpretation (sense + motive). They may be a recidivist sooner
or later, or they may be rehabilitated, or they may try to be
rehabilitated but find that that particular motive is not strong
enough or does not get enough support.

Putting a computer in prison doesn't make sense. From the dumbest toy
processor to the grandest supercomputer, none of them have any
possible criminal motive. Their motive is to enact the proscribed
stops and gos of electric current or weight and motion.

Craig

[meekerdb]

But those stops and gos are not just internal, they also include external sources of
information -- like laws about going to prison.

Brent

>
> Craig
>

[Craig Weinberg]

They literally are just internal though. It's only our understanding
that links the stops and gos with anything other than exactly what
they are. With a computer, the external sources of information can
never be internalized, just loaded and executed. A person has internal
sources of information. They internalize the laws and they interpret
their significance (and the significance of punishment). Computers are
impossible to punish. You cannot make a deterrent for a machine unless
you program it to simulate being deterred.

Craig

Craig

[meekerdb]

On 1/26/2012 5:11 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> They literally are just internal though. It's only our understanding
> that links the stops and gos with anything other than exactly what
> they are. With a computer, the external sources of information can
> never be internalized, just loaded and executed.

Nonsense. A computer has plenty of memory and it can learn too.

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 1/25/2012 11:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Hi John,

On 1/25/2012 11:57 PM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:27 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> Wrote:

 >  A "constant" that Einstein himself called the "greatest mistake of
his life". The problem is that one can add an arbitrary number of such
scalar field terms to one's field equations. Frankly IMHO, it is more
"something from nothing" nonsense.

Yes, it amounted to a repulsive effect that came from space itself, and
you can set that constant to anything and mathematically the field
equations of General Relativity would still work. Originally  Einstein
saw no physical reason for that additional complication so he set it to
zero. But then he noticed that if it was zero the universe could not be
stable, it must be expanding or contracting; at the time everybody
including Einstein thought the universe was stable so he set it to a non
zero value and the cosmological constant was born. However just a few
years later Hubble found that the universe was expanding, so Einstein
thought the cosmological constant no longer had a purpose and said that
changing it from zero was the greatest mistake of his life.

    Interesting. That is not quite the the story that I recall from Abraham Pais' biography of Einstein, but I might be misremembering.

You probably remember correctly.  Einstein originally set the CC non-zero in order that the universe could be in static equilibrium because that was the empirical conclusion at the time.  Shortly after he published, De Sitter pointed out that the universe would be in unstable equilibrium.  It is true that the discovery of the Hubble expansion caused the CC to be otiose.  Einstein then called it his greatest blunder because if he had realized he couldn't use it to make a static universe he might have predicted the Hubble expansion.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 26, 11:13 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 1/26/2012 5:11 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> > They literally are just internal though. It's only our understanding
> > that links the stops and gos with anything other than exactly what
> > they are. With a computer, the external sources of information can
> > never be internalized, just loaded and executed.
>
> Nonsense. A computer has plenty of memory and it can learn too.

No. It can only simulate learning by refining its processes to more
efficiently deliver on the programmers and users expectations. A
computer will make the same mistake over and over if we program it to

Craig

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > If cancer had free will then you could make a deal with it.

I do make a deal with cancer, if you die I will stop trying to kill you.

> They [computers] aren't smarter than us, they just [...]

Again with the "they just"!  So computers aren't smarter than us, they just can outsmart us; thus I submit that in your vocabulary not only is the ASCII string "free will" meaningless but so is "smarter". Personally I don't think that's very smart.

> If people had no free will we would would not bother with imprisonment, we would just exterminate them.

So you believe people like me advocate freeing murderers and think we should stop hindering them in their homicidal pursuits. I don't think that's very smart either.

> The universe is not completely logical [...] The reality of the universe does not have to fit in with logic  [...] Logic 101 is reductionist theory. It's not reality.

 

And now even logic itself joins information and electrons and bits and time and space and I've lost track of how many other things that do not exist, at least according to you.  If logic does not exist, if you would not change your position even if you admitted it was riddled with logical inconsistencies and circularity then I think this group deserves a explanation of what exactly the ground rules are and why this debate with you should continue.

 John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 27, 10:47 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>  > If cancer had free will then you could make a deal with it.
>
> I do make a deal with cancer, if you die I will stop trying to kill you.

It's not a deal if you are the only one doing the dealing. It occurs
to me that the occidental mindset has a hard time noticing that there
are other parties involved in matters of negotiation and reason.

>
> > They [computers] aren't smarter than us, they just [...]
>
> Again with the "they just"!  So computers aren't smarter than us, they just
> can outsmart us;

No. They can out compute us. They can measure more units of Shannon
information per second.

> thus I submit that in your vocabulary not only is the
> ASCII string "free will" meaningless but so is "smarter". Personally I
> don't think that's very smart.

Denying the common usage of the word free will as autonomy or
conscious choice is an egotistical defense mechanism that I don't take
seriously. Smarter is legitimately ambiguous. If you ask people
whether computers are smart, what will they say? I have defined
trivial intelligence vs understanding, and I think that is a
reasonable and insightful way to look at it. I don't see any value in
equating quantitative measures of statistical data processing with the
qualitative measures of cognition.

>
> > If people had no free will we would would not bother with imprisonment,
> > we would just exterminate them.
>
> So you believe people like me advocate freeing murderers and think we
> should stop hindering them in their homicidal pursuits. I don't think
> that's very smart either.

No, I'm saying that hindering their homicidal pursuits with any kind
of deterrent or punishment based system like prison would be an
obvious waste of time. No reason not to kill them though. Without free
will, what would be the difference between killing someone and not
killing them? Both are actions resulting in outcomes, some useful,
some not as useful, just like any other actions.

>
> > The universe is not completely logical [...] The reality of the universe
> > does not have to fit in with logic  [...] Logic 101 is reductionist theory.
> > It's not reality.
>
> And now even logic itself joins information and electrons and bits and time
> and space and I've lost track of how many other things that do not exist,
> at least according to you.

What exists is sense. Logic is a way of making sense, but it is not
the only way. Certainly it is not a way of modeling the total reality
of the universe.

> If logic does not exist, if you would not
> change your position even if you admitted it was riddled with logical
> inconsistencies and circularity then I think this group deserves a
> explanation of what exactly the ground rules are and why this debate with
> you should continue.

Logic does exist (and it insists also), which makes it real, but not
the same thing as reality in general. Logic is real but it is not an
all encompassing reality.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Smarter is legitimately ambiguous

It's not ambiguous in the slightest, according to you it's all very clear cut: if a human does it then it's smart and if a computer does it then it's not. Nothing could be simpler, or stupider. 

> No. They can out compute us. They can measure more units of Shannon information per second.

Call it whatever you want but computers can figure out, think, calculate or compute ways to arrange things their way despite our best efforts to arrange things our way. That situation is usually described as "being outsmarted".

> Denying the common usage of the word free will

The common usage of "free will" is gibberish and I could no more deny it than I could deny a burp. 

 >  as autonomy or conscious choice is an egotistical defense mechanism that I don't take seriously.

And despite the torrent of mindless verbiage you produce whenever I mention it, the simple fact remains that a choice, conscious or otherwise, was made for a reason or it was made for no reason. 

> If you ask people whether computers are smart, what will they say?"

I don't give a damn what they say I care what they do. If the computer has outsmarted a person and then that same person starts saying that the computer isn't really smart, well, I don't understand how anyone could hear such self serving remarks without laughing.

> I have defined trivial intelligence vs understanding,

You understand the problem superbly but can not solve it, but the other fellow has no understanding of the problem at all but nevertheless can solve it. BALONEY! That's just sour grapes and making lame excuses for your failure and for the other fellow's success. It may hurt your pride but its time to face reality, the other fellow is just smarter than you.

> Without free will, what would be the difference between killing someone and not killing them?

In one case somebody is dead in the other case they are not.

> Logic is a way of making sense, but it is not the only way.

I see, you're not even attempting to make your views logical. 

> It occurs to me that the occidental mindset has a hard time noticing that there are other parties involved in matters of negotiation and reason.

That's the fourth time you've made a tasteless crack about occidentals; is it supposed to be less offensive than talking about a stereotypical "oriental mindset" or "negro mindset"? It occurs to me that you just don't like round eyed white devils very much.

  John K Clark

 

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 27, 9:59 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Smarter is legitimately ambiguous
>
> It's not ambiguous in the slightest, according to you it's all very clear
> cut: if a human does it then it's smart and if a computer does it then it's
> not. Nothing could be simpler, or stupider.

That's a misinterpretation of my position. If a trash can at McDonalds
says THANK YOU on the lid, does that mean the trash can is being
polite? I'm not biased against computers, any mechanical object,
puppet, device, sculpture, etc is equally incapable of ever becoming
smart.

>
> > No. They can out compute us. They can measure more units of Shannon
> > information per second.
>
> Call it whatever you want but computers can figure out, think, calculate or
> compute ways to arrange things their way despite our best efforts to
> arrange things our way. That situation is usually described as "being
> outsmarted".

The trashcan lid says THANK YOU every single time you close it. Better
than any employee. It's the most polite employee evar.

>
> > Denying the common usage of the word free will
>
> The common usage of "free will" is gibberish and I could no more deny it
> than I could deny a burp.

Is there some language on Earth that shares your pathological denial
of the concept of free will?

>
> > as autonomy or conscious choice is an egotistical defense mechanism
>
> > that I don't take seriously.
>
> And despite the torrent of mindless verbiage you produce whenever I mention
> it, the simple fact remains that a choice, conscious or otherwise, was made
> for a reason or it was made for no reason.

If my verbiage is mindless, then why or how can you respond? What is
the 'reason' for which you make the choice to respond?

>
> > If you ask people whether computers are smart, what will they say?"
>
> I don't give a damn what they say I care what they do. If the computer has
> outsmarted a person and then that same person starts saying that the
> computer isn't really smart, well, I don't understand how anyone could hear
> such self serving remarks without laughing.

When you try to swat a fly but it outsmarts you over and over, does
that make the fly smarter than you?

>
> > I have defined trivial intelligence vs understanding,
>
> You understand the problem superbly but can not solve it, but the other
> fellow has no understanding of the problem at all but nevertheless can
> solve it.

The computer doesn't know if it has solved anything or not, and it
never will.

> BALONEY! That's just sour grapes and making lame excuses for your
> failure and for the other fellow's success. It may hurt your pride but its
> time to face reality, the other fellow is just smarter than you.

No, there is no sour grapes at all. I don't care if a computer or an
alien or person is smarter than me. I have no pride in being a human.
The fact is that I see this narrow view of intelligence is a toxic
misunderstanding. It conflates intelligence with playing games and
solving puzzles but misses understanding itself completely.
Intelligence is about stepping out of the system and breaking free of
the game entirely.

>
> > Without free will, what would be the difference between killing someone
> > and not killing them?
>
> In one case somebody is dead in the other case they are not.

But why would that matter?

>
> > Logic is a way of making sense, but it is not the only way.
>
> I see, you're not even attempting to make your views logical.

I can't help but try to make my views logical, but the universe has
other ways of making sense as well. Blue is not logical, but I can
sense and make sense of it and with it, all with no logic whatsoever.

>
> > It occurs to me that the occidental mindset has a hard time noticing that
> > there are other parties involved in matters of negotiation and reason.
>
> That's the fourth time you've made a tasteless crack about occidentals; is
> it supposed to be less offensive than talking about a stereotypical
> "oriental mindset" or "negro mindset"? It occurs to me that you just don't
> like round eyed white devils very much.
>

I'm not talking about white Westerners. I'm talking about post-
Enlightenment empiricism. You can have any cultural or physiological
characteristics and be biased toward or against occidental
epistemology.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not biased against computers, any mechanical object, puppet, device, sculpture, etc is equally incapable of ever becoming smart.

So, do you know it can't be smart because it outsmarted you, or do you know it can't be smart because your brain is squishy and a computer is not? And we both agree you did not become aware of all this through logic, so how did you obtain this marvelous new knowledge, was it in a dream? 

> Is there some language on Earth that shares your pathological denial of the concept of free will?

For the 900'th time I DO NOT DENY FREE WILL, for me to do so there would have to be something there to deny, but in the case of the ASCII string "free will" there is no there there.

 

> When you try to swat a fly but it outsmarts you over and over, does that make the fly smarter than you?

At that one task obviously the fly outsmarted me, but intelligence is not that narrow and that's why I don't claim that computers are smarter than humans. Yet. However if the fly could outsmart me at every task then it would be equally obvious that the fly was smarter than me. Up to now I have not encountered such a fly. 

> The fact is that I see this narrow view of intelligence is a toxic misunderstanding.

Exactly, being good at just one narrow thing does not make you intelligent, being good at everything does. Computers will soon (15 to 65 years) be good at everything.

> if my verbiage is mindless, then why or how can you respond?

A question I am asking myself with increased frequency.

 John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 29, 11:30 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm not biased against computers, any mechanical object, puppet, device,
> > sculpture, etc is equally incapable of ever becoming smart.
>
> So, do you know it can't be smart because it outsmarted you, or do you know
> it can't be smart because your brain is squishy and a computer is not?

I have no chip on my shoulder at all about computers being smart or
not, I just understand that intelligence is an evolution of emotion,
which evolves from feeling which evolves from sensation, and then
detection. I also understand that electronic computers use
semiconductors which I know have not evolved into organisms and do not
seem to be capable of what I would call sensation. The material they
are made of does however detect electromagnetic changes in itself when
configured to do so.

>And
> we both agree you did not become aware of all this through logic, so how
> did you obtain this marvelous new knowledge, was it in a dream?

Logic plays a part but mainly it's that I happened to have been more
interested in this subject than anything else for the last 35 years or
so. I can't really say I'm interested in much of anything else, to be
honest. I have thought about it a lot, was exposed to some influential
ideas, had some unusual experiences. I have had some dreams. My house
got struck by lightning right after I really figured out the photon
theory. I had left my computer on with a website on the biography of
Tesla on the screen while we saw a movie. True story.

http://www.stationlink.com/lightning/IMG_1981.JPG

>
> > Is there some language on Earth that shares your pathological denial of
> > the concept of free will?
>
> For the 900'th time I DO NOT DENY FREE WILL, for me to do so there would
> have to be something there to deny, but in the case of the ASCII string
> "free will" there is no there there.

You don't deny free will, you just deny that it's possible to even
conceive of it in the first place. Ohh kayy...

>
> > > When you try to swat a fly but it outsmarts you over and over, does that
> > make the fly smarter than you?
>
> At that one task obviously the fly outsmarted me, but intelligence is not
> that narrow and that's why I don't claim that computers are smarter than
> humans. Yet. However if the fly could outsmart me at every task then it
> would be equally obvious that the fly was smarter than me. Up to now I have
> not encountered such a fly.
>
> > The fact is that I see this narrow view of intelligence is a toxic
> > misunderstanding.
>
> Exactly, being good at just one narrow thing does not make you intelligent,
> being good at everything does. Computers will soon (15 to 65 years) be good
> at everything.

Not really. A genius can be intelligent in one narrow way. 'Computers'
that are in use now have not even improved meaningfully in the last 15
years. Is Windows 7, XP, 2000, really much better then Windows 98? Has
broadband speed improved? Have the quality of music and video files
improved? What really has improved? Cell phones. Social Networking.
Cool, sort of but compared to 1900-1914? Hm, lets see. Electric
lights, automobiles, flight, radio, motion pictures, plastic, general
relativity... At this rate by 2037 we will be on to Windows 11+ which
will be about the same as it is now. Watch.

Craig

[David Nyman]

On 25 January 2012 19:46, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

>  Note that the theories I mentioned do not assume a spacetime vacuum.  One
> may say they assume a potentiality for a spacetime vacuum, but to deny even
> potential would be to deny that anything can exist.
>

But surely that denial is precisely the point of the "philosopher's
nothing"? I'm not sure why you would say that pointing to a "negative
potential" for anything to exist is incoherent (illogical,
inconsistent, or whatever). Of course it's a dead-end, explanatorily
useless, a mystery if you will. Given that there is something, some
aspect of that something will always have to be accepted as given.
That's the nature of explanation; the philosopher's nothing is what
you get if you push explanation past its breaking point.

David

> On 1/25/2012 10:10 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 25 Jan 2012, at 18:04, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>   I am 99% in agreement with Craig here. The 1% difference is a quibble
>>> over the math. We have to be careful that we don't reproduce the same slide
>>> into sophistry that has happened in physics.
>>
>>
>> I think I agree. I comment Craig below.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Onward!
>>>
>>> Stephen
>>>

>>> On 1/25/2012 7:41 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 25, 2:05 am, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> It is not at all camouflaged; Lawrence Krause just wrote a book called
>>>>> "A Universe From
>>>>> Nothing".  That the universe came from nothing is suggested by
>>>>> calculations of the total
>>>>> energy of the universe.  Theories of the origin of the universe have
>>>>> been developed by
>>>>> Alexander Vilenkin, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle.  Of course the
>>>>> other view is that
>>>>> there cannot have been Nothing and Something is the default.
>>>>> "The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by
>>>>> nothing, and for nothing."
>>>>>          --- Quentin Smith
>>>>
>>>> I think that we are all familiar with the universe from nothing
>>>> theories, but the problem is with how nothing is defined. The
>>>> possibility of creating a universe, or creating anything is not
>>>> 'nothing', so that any theory of nothingness already fails if the
>>>> definition of nothing relies on concepts of symmetry and negation,
>>>> dynamic flux over time, and the potential for physical forces, not to
>>>> mention living organisms and awareness. An honestly recognized
>>>> 'nothing' must be in all ways sterile and lacking the potential for
>>>> existence of any sort, otherwise it's not nothing.
>
>
>

> That's the philsopher's idea of 'nothing', but it's not clear that it's even
> coherent.  Our concepts of 'nothing' obviously arise from the idea of
> eliminating 'something' until no 'something' remains.  It is hardly fair to
> criticize physicists for using a physical, operational concept of nothing.
>  Note that the theories I mentioned do not assume a spacetime vacuum.  One
> may say they assume a potentiality for a spacetime vacuum, but to deny even
> potential would be to deny that anything can exist.
>
> Brent

[John Clark]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 8:53 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I just understand that intelligence is an evolution of emotion,

There is simply no logical way that could be true. However important it may be to us Evolution can not see emotion or consciousness, Evolution can only see actions, so either emotion and consciousness are a byproduct of intelligence or emotion and consciousness do not exist. Perhaps you will insist that emotion and consciousness will join the very long list of things that you say do not exist  (bits electrons information logic etc) but I am of the opinion that consciousness and emotion do in fact exist.
 

> I also understand that electronic computers use semiconductors which I know have not evolved into organisms and do not seem to be capable of what I would call sensation.

My arguments are based on logic, your argument is that computers just don't feel squishy enough for your taste.

> Logic plays a part but mainly it's [...]

Not logical.

> My house got struck by lightning right after I really figured out the photon theory. I had left my computer on with a website on the biography of Tesla on the screen while we saw a movie. True story. http://www.stationlink.com/lightning/IMG_1981.JPG

Interesting, but I don't see the relevance.
 

> You don't deny free will, you just deny that it's possible to even conceive of it in the first place. Ohh kayy...

Fortunately I cannot conceive of something happening for a reason and not happening for a reason at the same time. I say "fortunately" because there is a word to describe people who can conceive of such a contradiction, insane.  

> 'Computers' that are in use now have not even improved meaningfully in the last 15 years. Is Windows 7, XP, 2000, really much better then Windows 98?

I don't know a lot about Windows 7 but I do know that my Macintosh is one hell of a lot better than my old steam powered Windows 98 boat anchor. And in 1998 the most elite AI researchers on the planet working with 30 million dollar supercomputers the size of a small cathedral could not do anything that came even close to what Siri can do on that $399 iPhone in your pocket, those poor 1998 guys weren't even in the same universe.

And it took Evolution 4 billion years to make human level intelligence, but humans have only been working on AI for about 50 years. So yes at that rate I think computers will be smarter than humans at EVERYTHING in 15 to 65 years, and I'd be more surprised if it took longer than 65 years than if it took less than 15; but even if it took 10 or 100 times that long it would still be virtually instantaneous on the geological timescale that Evolution deals with. Oh well, 99% of the species that have ever existed are extinct and we are about to join their number, but at least we will leave behind a new and more advanced descendent species.   

  John K Clark

[meekerdb]

On 1/30/2012 9:47 AM, John Clark wrote:

> I just understand that intelligence is an evolution of emotion,

There is simply no logical way that could be true. However important it may be to us Evolution can not see emotion or consciousness, Evolution can only see actions, so either emotion and consciousness are a byproduct of intelligence or emotion and consciousness do not exist. Perhaps you will insist that emotion and consciousness will join the very long list of things that you say do not exist  (bits electrons information logic etc) but I am of the opinion that consciousness and emotion do in fact exist.

Of course evolution can't 'see' intelligence either.  As you say selection can only be based on action.  But action takes emotion, in the general sense of desiring one thing (food, sex,...) and disliking another (pain, being eaten,...). So I'd say emotion, knowing what you value, is as important as intelligence, knowing how to get it.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012  meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Of course evolution can't 'see' intelligence either.  As you say selection can only be based on action.  But action takes emotion

 

OK I have no problem with that, but then Deep Blue had emotions way back in 1996 when it beat the best human Chess  player in the world because in the course of that game Deep Blue performed actions, very intelligent actions in fact. As I've said many times emotion is easy but intelligence is hard.

 John K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

I can agree more :)

Reason is the servant of the heart. 

I think. Arguably in machines' theology. With reasonable definitions.

We are more defined by our value, than by our flesh. I think (that's a bit obvious in comp).

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

I meant "our values".

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 30, 12:47 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 8:53 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > I just understand that intelligence is an evolution of emotion,
>
> There is simply no logical way that could be true.

I think that it's a medical fact. http://www.mta.org/eweb/docs/journal/2000/summer/Figure3-1.JPG

The Limbic system predates the Neocortex evolutionarily. There is no
reason to think that emotion emerged after intelligence.

> However important it may
> be to us Evolution can not see emotion or consciousness, Evolution can only
> see actions,

Evolution doesn't see anything. If you live somewhere that gets cold
and you die before you can reproduce then evolution has selected for
your neighbors in warmer climes. There is no action that would have
changed that outcome, unless you could have gotten to a warmer place.
If you happened to be someone who really disliked the cold, if it made
you so upset and cranky that it caused you to migrate sooner, well
then, evolution selected for emotion and consciousness related to cold
weather.

That's not what I'm talking about at all though. I'm talking about the
logic of what emotion is leading to thinking and not the other way
around. If you cannot feel emotion, you never will regardless of your
thought patterns. If you are emotional however, you can develop
thoughts. This is the natural course of development in human infancy.
Sensation first, then emotion, then communication.

> so either emotion and consciousness are a byproduct of
> intelligence or emotion and consciousness do not exist.

Which thoughtless fallacy should I choose? Oh right, I have no free
will anyhow so some reason will choose for me.

Emotion and consciousness are not a byproduct of intelligence. If they
were, then babies would be discussing theories in the womb instead of
crying and crapping all over themselves.

> Perhaps you will
> insist that emotion and consciousness will join the very long list of
> things that you say do not exist  (bits electrons information logic etc)
> but I am of the opinion that consciousness and emotion do in fact exist.

Perhaps you will join the very long list of people who have bothered
to notice how the evolution of the human brain and mind actually
occurs.

>
> > > I also understand that electronic computers use semiconductors which I
> > know have not evolved into organisms and do not seem to be capable of what
> > I would call sensation.
>
> My arguments are based on logic, your argument is that computers just don't
> feel squishy enough for your taste.

What logic is your argument based on? That there's no difference
between life and death so there's no reason that a marionette can't
run for congress?

>
> > Logic plays a part but mainly it's [...]
>
> Not logical.
>
> > My house got struck by lightning right after I really figured out the
> > photon theory. I had left my computer on with a website on the biography of

> > Tesla on the screen while we saw a movie. True story.http://www.stationlink.com/lightning/IMG_1981.JPG

>
> Interesting, but I don't see the relevance.

You asked what influenced my theory. You don't see how Tesla relates
to lightning and electromagnetism?

>
> > > You don't deny free will, you just deny that it's possible to even
> > conceive of it in the first place. Ohh kayy...
>
> Fortunately I cannot conceive of something happening for a reason and not
> happening for a reason at the same time.

Actually, you have just defined the universe. That is exactly what the
cosmos is - things happening for a reason and not happening for a

reason at the same time.

> I say "fortunately" because there
> is a word to describe people who can conceive of such a contradiction,
> insane.

Is there anyone noteworthy in the history of human progress who has
not been called insane?

>
> > 'Computers' that are in use now have not even improved meaningfully in
> > the last 15 years. Is Windows 7, XP, 2000, really much better then Windows
> > 98?
>
> I don't know a lot about Windows 7 but I do know that my Macintosh is one
> hell of a lot better than my old steam powered Windows 98 boat anchor.

Mac has always been better than Windoze.

> And
> in 1998 the most elite AI researchers on the planet working with 30 million
> dollar supercomputers the size of a small cathedral could not do anything
> that came even close to what Siri can do on that $399 iPhone in your
> pocket, those poor 1998 guys weren't even in the same universe.

Hooray. Siri. Way better than electric lights or movies or cars or
planes.

>
> And it took Evolution 4 billion years to make human level intelligence, but
> humans have only been working on AI for about 50 years. So yes at that rate
> I think computers will be smarter than humans at EVERYTHING in 15 to 65
> years, and I'd be more surprised if it took longer than 65 years than if it
> took less than 15; but even if it took 10 or 100 times that long it would
> still be virtually instantaneous on the geological timescale that Evolution
> deals with. Oh well, 99% of the species that have ever existed are extinct
> and we are about to join their number, but at least we will leave behind a
> new and more advanced descendent species.

If you remember to look at this in 15 years, I think you're gonna be
pretty depressed. I have flannel shirts that are older than that. In
15 years, we are probably going to have Siri III: ExxonMobil Edition
and some new porn cooking channel on YouTube. That's if we're lucky
and not living in the ruins of post Peak-Oil dystopia. They will still
have almost found the Higgs in Switzerland, and we still won't know
whether milk, eggs, and red wine are really good for us or really bad
for us.

Craig

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 30, 1:27 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

These are the absurdities that arise from deciding that AI is
literally intelligence. Why stop there, why not say Deep Blue must
have had a stomach and teeth?

[meekerdb]

On 1/30/2012 10:27 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012  meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Of course evolution can't 'see' intelligence either.  As you say selection can only be based on action.  But action takes emotion

 

OK I have no problem with that, but then Deep Blue had emotions way back in 1996

Sure it did.  If it had been equipped to express them they would have been something like, "This position feels good."  "That position feels weak." etc.  Not much range...but emotions nevertheless.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 30, 5:16 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Sure it did.  If it had been equipped to express them they would have been something like,
> "This position feels good."  "That position feels weak." etc.  Not much range...but
> emotions nevertheless.

You seriously believe that? Wow. That make Santa Claus seem quite
plausible by comparison to me.

What Deep Blue thinks can be expressed directly as a memory dump. It
looks like hex code. It has zero feelings, zero thoughts. It's a
sewing machine that moves chess pieces instead of stitches.

[meekerdb]

On 1/30/2012 2:52 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> On Jan 30, 5:16 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Sure it did. If it had been equipped to express them they would have been something like,
>> "This position feels good." "That position feels weak." etc. Not much range...but
>> emotions nevertheless.
> You seriously believe that? Wow. That make Santa Claus seem quite
> plausible by comparison to me.
>
> What Deep Blue thinks can be expressed directly as a memory dump. It
> looks like hex code. It has zero feelings, zero thoughts.

So kind of you to inform us of your unsupported opinion.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 30, 6:08 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 1/30/2012 2:52 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> So kind of you to inform us of your unsupported opinion.

I was commenting on your unsupported opinion.

[L.W. Sterritt]

On Jan 30, 5:16 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Sure it did. If it had been equipped to express them they would have been something like,
> "This position feels good." "That position feels weak." etc. Not much range...but
> emotions nevertheless.

You seriously believe that? Wow. That make Santa Claus seem quite

plausible by comparison to me.

What Deep Blue thinks can be expressed directly as a memory dump. It

looks like hex code. It has zero feelings, zero thoughts. It's a

sewing machine that moves chess pieces instead of stitches.

--

[meekerdb]

Except that my opinion is supported by the fact that within the context of chess the machine acts just like a person who had those emotions.  So it had at least the functional equivalent of those emotions. Whereas your opinion is simple prejudice.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The Limbic system predates the Neocortex evolutionarily.

As I've said on this list many times.
 

> There is no reason to think that emotion emerged after intelligence.

And as I've said emotion is about 500 million years old but Evolution found intelligence much harder to produce, it only figured out how to do it about a million years ago, perhaps less.

> Evolution doesn't see anything.

Don't be ridiculous.

> Which thoughtless fallacy should I choose? Oh right, I have no free will anyhow so some reason will choose for me.

Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.
 

> You asked what influenced my theory. You don't see how Tesla relates to lightning and electromagnetism?

I made a Tesla Coil when I was 14, it was great fun looked great and really impressed the rubes, but I don't see the relevance to the subject at hand. 

> That is exactly what the cosmos is - things happening for a reason and not happening for a

reason at the same time.

And you expect this sort of new age crapola to actually lead to something, like a basic understanding of how the world works? Dream on. But then again it might work if you're right about logic not existing.

> Is there anyone noteworthy in the history of human progress who has not been called insane?

Richard Feynman.

  John K Clark
 

[John Mikes]

Craig and Brent:

would you kindly disclose an opinion that can be deemed                              "SUPPORTED"????

 

All our 'support' (evidence, verification whatever) comes from mostly uninformed information fragments we receive by observation(?) of the already accessible details and try to complete them by the available

'knowledge' already established as "conventional science" stuff.

We use instruments, constructed to work on the just described portion of observations and evaluate the 'received'(?) data by our flimsy (human?) mathematical logic ONLY.

Just compare "opinions" (scientific that is) of different ages before (and after) different levels of accepted (and believed!) informational basis (like Flat Earth, BEFORE electricity, BEFORE Marie Curie, Watson, etc.)

 

My "worldview" (and my narrative, of course) is also based on UNSUPPORTED OPINION:  "mine".

 

John Mikes

--

[Craig Weinberg]

I agree my opinion would be simple prejudice had we not already been
over this issue a dozen times. My view is that the whole idea that
there can be a 'functional equivalent of emotions' is completely
unsupported. I give examples of puppets, movies, trashcans that say
THANK YOU, voicemail...all of these things demonstrate that there need
not be any connection at all between function and interior experience.

[meekerdb]

Except that in every case there is an emotion in your examples...it's just the emotion of
the puppeter, the screenwriter, the trashcan painter. But in the case of the chess
playing computer, there is no person providing the 'emotion' because the 'emotion' depends
on complex and unforeseeable events. Hence it is appropriate to attribute the 'emotion'
to the computer/program.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 31, 1:33 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > The Limbic system predates the Neocortex evolutionarily.
>
> As I've said on this list many times.
>
> > > There is no reason to think that emotion emerged after intelligence.
>
> And as I've said emotion is about 500 million years old but Evolution found
> intelligence much harder to produce, it only figured out how to do it about
> a million years ago, perhaps less.

Do you have any examples of an intelligent organism which evolved
without emotion? The whole idea of evolution 'figuring out' anything
is not consistent with our understanding of natural selection. Natural
selection is not teleological. There is no figuring, only statistical
probabilities related to environmental conditions.

>
> > Evolution doesn't see anything.
>
> Don't be ridiculous.

I'm not. Statistics don't see things.

>
> > Which thoughtless fallacy should I choose? Oh right, I have no free will
> > anyhow so some reason will choose for me.
>
> Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII string "free will" means.
>
> > > You asked what influenced my theory. You don't see how Tesla relates to
> > lightning and electromagnetism?
>
> I made a Tesla Coil when I was 14, it was great fun looked great and really
> impressed the rubes, but I don't see the relevance to the subject at hand.

The subject was things that influenced my theory. Light, electricity,
and electromagnetism are significant influences.

>
> > That is exactly what the cosmos is - things happening for a reason and
> > not happening for a
> > reason at the same time.
>
> And you expect this sort of new age crapola to actually lead to something,

What do you think understanding is actually supposed to lead to?

> like a basic understanding of how the world works? Dream on. But then again
> it might work if you're right about logic not existing.

Logic exists, but it's not the only thing that exists.

>
> > Is there anyone noteworthy in the history of human progress who has not
> > been called insane?
>
> Richard Feynman.

http://inspirescience.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/richard-p-feynman1/

Richard P. Feynman – Crazy as he is Genius

"He didn’t do things through conventional or traditional means, but
rather was eccentric, crazy, and went against the norms of society. He
was an explorer of the deepest nature. He adopted at a young age the
philosophy that you should never care what other people think, because
everyone else is most likely wrong."

"When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know
why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from
Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish
n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it
must look like to the students." - Richard Feynman.

Craig

[Craig Weinberg]

On Jan 31, 3:25 pm, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Craig and Brent:
> would you kindly disclose an opinion that can be
> deemed "SUPPORTED"????
>
> All our 'support' (evidence, verification whatever) comes from mostly
> uninformed information fragments we receive by observation(?) of the
> already accessible details and try to complete them by the available
> 'knowledge' already established as "conventional science" stuff.
> We use instruments, constructed to work on the just described portion of
> observations and evaluate the 'received'(?) data by our flimsy

> (*human?)*mathematical logic ONLY.

Yes! This is a core assumption of multisense realism. I go a step
further to describe that not only do our observations arise entirely
from our the qualities of our observational capacities (senses, sense
making), but that the the nature of our senses are such that what we
observe as being within us 'seems to be' many different ways, but the
more distant observations are understood in terms of facts that
'simply are'. This forms the basis for our human worldviews, with the
far-sighted approaches being overly anthropomorphic and the
mechanistic approaches being the near-sighted view.

> Just compare "opinions" (scientific that is) of different ages before (and
> after) different levels of accepted (and believed!) informational basis
> (like Flat Earth, BEFORE electricity, BEFORE Marie Curie, Watson, etc.)
>
> My "worldview" (and my narrative, of course) is also based on UNSUPPORTED
> OPINION: "mine".

Exactly. This is the native orientation of the universe. The impulse
to validate that opinion externally is valuable, but it also can
seduce us into a false certainty. This is not an illusion, it is
actually how the universe works. In my unsupported opinion.

Craig

[John Clark]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My view is that the whole idea that there can be a 'functional equivalent of emotions' is completely unsupported. I give examples of puppets

A puppet needs a puppeteer, a computer does not.  

> movies, trashcans that say THANK YOU, voicemail...all of these things demonstrate that there need not be any connection at all between function and interior experience.

For all these examples to be effective you would need to know that they do not have a inner life, and how do you know they don't have a inner life? You know because they don't behave as if they have a inner life. Behavior is the only tool we have for detecting such things in others so your examples are useless.

   John K Clark

[John Clark]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you have any examples of an intelligent organism which evolved without emotion?

Intelligence is not possible without emotion, but emotion is possible without intelligence. And I was surprised you asked me for a example of a emotional organism with or without intelligence, how in the world could I do that?  You refuse to accept behavior as evidence for emotion or even for intelligence, so I can't  tell if anyone or anything is emotional or intelligent in the entire universe except for me.
 

> The whole idea of evolution 'figuring out' anything is not consistent with our understanding of natural selection.

It's a figure of speech. 

 

> Natural selection is not teleological.

A keen grasp of the obvious.

> The subject was things that influenced my theory. Light, electricity, and electromagnetism are significant influences.

Electromagnetism significantly influences everything as do the other 3 fundamental physical forces. Tell me something new.
 

> What do you think understanding is actually supposed to lead to?

Your ideas lead to navel gazing not understanding. 

  John K Clark

[Craig Weinberg]

On Feb 2, 4:05 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My view is that the whole idea that there can be a 'functional equivalent
> > of emotions' is completely unsupported. I give examples of puppets
>
> A puppet needs a puppeteer, a computer does not.

Yes it does. It needs a user at some point to make any sense at all of
what the computer is doing. An abacus is a computer. Left to it's own
devices it's just a rectangle of wood and bamboo or whatever. Attach a
motor to it that does computations with it, and you still have a
rectangle of wood with a metal motor attached to it clicking out
meaningless non-patterns in the abacus with nothing to recognize the
patterns but the occasional ant getting injured by a rapidly sliding
bead.

>
> > movies, trashcans that say THANK YOU, voicemail...all of these things
> > demonstrate that there need not be any connection at all between function
> > and interior experience.
>
> For all these examples to be effective you would need to know that they do

> not have a inner life, and how do you know they don't have a inner life.

> You know because they don't behave as if they have a inner life. Behavior
> is the only tool we have for detecting such things in others so your
> examples are useless.

No, because people in a vegetative state do sometimes have an inner
life despite their behavior. It is our similarity to and familiarity
with other humans that encourages us to give them the benefit of the
doubt. We go the extra mile to see if we can figure out if they are
still alive. Most of us don't care as much whether a steer is alive
when we are executing it for hamburger patties or a carrot feels
something when we rip it out of the ground. With that in mind, we
certainly don't owe a trashcan lid any such benefit of the doubt. Like
a computer, it is manufactured out of materials selected specifically
for their stable, uniform, inanimate properties. I understand what you
mean though, and yes, our perception of something's behavior is a
primary tool to how we think of it, but not the only one. More
important is the influence of conventional wisdom in a given society
or group. We like to eat beef so most of us rationalize it without
much thought despite the sentient behavior of steer. We like the idea
of AI so we project the possibility of feeling and understanding on it
- we go out of our way to prove that it is possible despite the
automatic and mechanical behavior of the instruments.

[Craig Weinberg]

On Feb 2, 4:33 pm, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 2, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Do you have any examples of an intelligent organism which evolved without
> > emotion?
>
> Intelligence is not possible without emotion,

That's what I'm saying. Are you suddenly switching to my argument?

> but emotion is possible
> without intelligence.

Of course.

> And I was surprised you asked me for a example of a
> emotional organism with or without intelligence, how in the world could I
> do that?  You refuse to accept behavior as evidence for emotion or even for
> intelligence, so I can't  tell if anyone or anything is emotional or
> intelligent in the entire universe except for me.

But you can tell if something seems like it is.

>
> > > The whole idea of evolution 'figuring out' anything is not consistent
> > with our understanding of natural selection.
>
> It's a figure of speech.
>
> > > Natural selection is not teleological.
>
> A keen grasp of the obvious.

Sorry, I can't tell the difference here if you are using it as a
figure of speech or positing agency to evolution. Even using that as a
figure of speech suggests an exaggeration of the role of evolution in
the universe.

>
> > The subject was things that influenced my theory. Light, electricity, and
> > electromagnetism are significant influences.
>
> Electromagnetism significantly influences everything as do the other 3
> fundamental physical forces. Tell me something new.

If I yell out 'Tesla' and then get hit by lightning, is that not
associated strongly enough for you to be noticed?

>
> > > What do you think understanding is actually supposed to lead to?
>
> Your ideas lead to navel gazing not understanding.

And your ideas lead to...?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> An abacus is a computer. Left to it's own devices it's just a rectangle of wood and bamboo or whatever.

That is true so although it certainly needs to be huge we can't just make our very very big abacuses even bigger and expect them to be intelligent, its not just a hardware problem of wiring together more microchips, we must teach (program) the abacus to learn on its own. That is a very difficult task but enormous progress has been made in the last few years; as I said before, in 1998 nobody knew how to program even the largest 30 million dollar super abacus in the world to perform acts of intelligence that today can be done by that $399 iPhone abacus in your pocket.

I admit that it could turn out that humans just aren't smart enough to know how to teach a computer to be as smart or smarter than they are, but that doesn't mean it won't happen because humans have help, computers themselves. In a sense that's already true, a computer program needs to be in zeros and ones but nobody could write the Siri program that way, but we have computer assemblers and compilers to do that so we can write in a much higher level language than zeros and ones. So at a fundamental level no human being could write a computer program like Siri and nobody knows how it works. But programs like that get written nevertheless. And as computers get better the tools for writing programs get better and intelligent programs even more complex than Siri will get written with even less human understanding of their operation. The process builds on itself and thus accelerates.   

 > people in a vegetative state do sometimes have an inner life despite their behavior.

In the course of our conversations you have made declarative statements like the above dozens if not hundreds of times but you never seriously ask yourself "HOW DO I KNOW THIS?".

 

> we certainly don't owe a trashcan lid any such benefit of the doubt.

Why "certainly", why are you so certain? I know why I am but I can't figure out why you are. Like you I also think the idea that a plastic trashcan can have a inner life is ridiculous but unlike you I can give a clear logical reason WHY I think it's ridiculous: a trash can does not behave intelligently.  

> Like a computer, it is manufactured out of materials selected specifically for their stable, uniform, inanimate properties.

Just exactly like human beings that are manufactured out of stable, uniform, inanimate materials like amino acids.

> I understand what you mean though, and yes, our perception of something's behavior is a primary tool to how we think of it, but not the only one. More important is the influence of conventional wisdom in a given society or group.

At one time the conventional wisdom in society was that black people didn't have much of a inner life, certainly nothing like that of white people, so they could own and do whatever they wanted to people of a darker hue without guilt. Do you really expect Mr. Joe Blow and his conventional wisdom can teach us anything about the future of computers?

 John K Clark

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 02.02.2012 21:49 meekerdb said the following:

Craig's position that computers in the present form do not have emotions
is not unique, as emotions belong to consciousness. A quote from my
favorite book

Jeffrey A. Gray, Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem.

The last sentence from the chapter "10.2 Conscious computers?"

p. 128 "Our further discussion here, however, will take it as
established that his can never happen."

Now the last paragraph from the chapter "10.3 Conscious robots?"

p. 130. "So, while we may grant robots the power to form meaningful
categorical representations at a level reached by the unconscious brain
and by the behaviour controlled by the unconscious brain, we should
remain doubtful whether they are likely to experience conscious
percepts. This conclusion should not, however, be over-interpreted. It
does not necessarily imply that human beings will never be able to build
artefacts with conscious experience. That will depend on how the trick
of consciousness is done. If and when we know the trick, it may be
possible to duplicate it. But the mere provision of behavioural
dispositions is unlikely to be up to the mark."

If we say that computers right now have emotions, then we must be able
exactly define the difference between unconscious and conscious
experience in the computer (for example in that computer that has won
Kasparov). Can you do it?

Hence I personally find this particular Craig's position as supported.

Evgenii

[meekerdb]

Can you do it for people? For yourself? No. Experiments show that people confuse the
source of their own emotions. So your requirement that we be able to "exactly define" is
just something you've invented.

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 03.02.2012 22:07 meekerdb said the following:

I believe that there is at least a small difference. Presumably we know
everything about the computer that has played chess. Then it seems that
a hypothesis about emotions in that computer could be verified without a
problem - hence my notion on "exactly define". On the other hand,
consciousness remains to be a hard problem and here "exactly define"
does not work.

However, the latter does not mean that consciousness does not exist as a
phenomenon. Let us take for example life. I would say that there is not
good definition what life is ("exactly define" does not work), yet this
does not prevent science to research it. This should be the same for
conscious experience.

Evgenii

[Craig Weinberg]

On Feb 3, 11:22 am, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > An abacus is a computer. Left to it's own devices it's just a rectangle
> > of wood and bamboo or whatever.
>
> That is true so although it certainly needs to be huge we can't just make
> our very very big abacuses even bigger and expect them to be intelligent,
> its not just a hardware problem of wiring together more microchips, we must
> teach (program) the abacus to learn on its own.

Huge abacuses are a really good way to look at this, although it's
pretty much the same as the China Brain. Your position is that if we
made a gigantic abacus the size of our solar system, and had a person
manning each sliding bead, that there would be a possibility that even
though each person could only slide their bead to the left or right
according and tell others or be told by others to slide their beads
left or right, that with a well crafted enough sequences of
instructions, the abacus itself would begin to have a conscious
experience. The abacus could literally be made to think that it had
been born and come to life as a human being, a turtle, a fictional
character...anything we choose to convert into a sequence we feels
reflects the functionality of these beings will actually cause the
abacus to experience being that thing.

Do you see why I am incredulous about this? I understand that if you
assume comp this seems feasible, after all, we can make CleverBot and
Siri, etc. The problem is that CleverBot and Siri live in our very
human minds. They do not have lives and dream of being Siri II. I
understand that you and others here are convinced that logic would
dictate that we can't prove that Siri 5000 won't feel our feelings and
understand what we understand, but I am crystal clear in my own
understanding that no matter how good the program seems, Siri 5000
will feel exactly the same thing as Siri. Nothing. No more than the
instructions being called out on the scaffolds of the Mega Abacus will
begin to feel something some day. It doesn't work that way. Why? As I
continue to try to explain, awareness is not a function of objects, it
is the symmetrically anomalous counterpart of objects. Experiences
accumulate semantic charge - significance - over time, which, in a
natural circumstance, is reflected in the objective shadow, as
external agendas are reflected in the subjective experience. The
abacus and computer's instructions will never be native to them. The
beads will never learn anything. They are only beads.

>That is a very difficult
> task but enormous progress has been made in the last few years; as I said
> before, in 1998 nobody knew how to program even the largest 30 million
> dollar super abacus in the world to perform acts of intelligence that today
> can be done by that $399 iPhone abacus in your pocket.

I know. I've heard. As I say, no version is any closer to awareness of
any kind than the first version.

>
> I admit that it could turn out that humans just aren't smart enough to know
> how to teach a computer to be as smart or smarter than they are,

It's not a matter of being smart enough. You can't turn up into down.
Machines are made of unconsciousness. All machines are unconscious.
That is how we can control them. Consciousness and mechanism are
mutually exclusive by definition and always will be.

> but that
> doesn't mean it won't happen because humans have help, computers
> themselves. In a sense that's already true, a computer program needs to be
> in zeros and ones but nobody could write the Siri program that way, but we
> have computer assemblers and compilers to do that so we can write in a much
> higher level language than zeros and ones.

That would not be necessary if the machine had any capacity to learn.
Like the neurons of our brain, the microprocessors would adapt and
begin to understand natural human language.

> So at a fundamental level no
> human being could write a computer program like Siri and nobody knows how
> it works.

I wouldn't say we don't know how it works. Binary logic is pretty
straightforward.

> But programs like that get written nevertheless. And as computers
> get better the tools for writing programs get better and intelligent
> programs even more complex than Siri will get written with even less human
> understanding of their operation. The process builds on itself and thus
> accelerates.

That's the theory. Meanwhile, in reality, we are using the same basic
interface for computers since 1995.

>
> >  > people in a vegetative state do sometimes have an inner life despite
> > their behavior.
>
> In the course of our conversations you have made declarative statements
> like the above dozens if not hundreds of times but you never seriously ask
> yourself "HOW DO I KNOW THIS?".

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence. People come out of comas.
Recently a study proved it with MRI scans where the comatose patient
was able to stimulate areas of their brain associated with coordinated
physical activity in response to the scientists request for them to
imagine playing tennis.

>
> > > we certainly don't owe a trashcan lid any such benefit of the doubt.
>
> Why "certainly", why are you so certain?

Because I understand how communications work. I know that the meaning
of THANK YOU does not radiate out from the plastic, but rather is
understood by a literate person.

> I know why I am but I can't figure
> out why you are. Like you I also think the idea that a plastic trashcan can
> have a inner life is ridiculous but unlike you I can give a clear logical
> reason WHY I think it's ridiculous: a trash can does not behave
> intelligently.

Why doesn't it behave intelligently though? Why are the computations
in the plastic non-intelligent but the computations inside the brain
tissue intelligent? Why hasn't the trash can developed sentience by
now. I have given my clear logical reason above.

>
> > Like a computer, it is manufactured out of materials selected
> > specifically for their stable, uniform, inanimate properties.
>
> Just exactly like human beings that are manufactured out of stable,
> uniform, inanimate materials like amino acids.

I disagree. Organic chemistry is volatile. It reeks. It explodes. It
lives and dies. Besides, human beings may not exist below the cellular
level. Molecules may be too primitive to be described as part of us.

>
> > I understand what you mean though, and yes, our perception of something's
> > behavior is a primary tool to how we think of it, but not the only one.
> > More important is the influence of conventional wisdom in a given society
> > or group.
>
> At one time the conventional wisdom in society was that black people didn't
> have much of a inner life, certainly nothing like that of white people, so
> they could own and do whatever they wanted to people of a darker hue
> without guilt. Do you really expect Mr. Joe Blow and his conventional
> wisdom can teach us anything about the future of computers?
>

I like how you start out grandstanding against prejudice and
superficial assumptions and end with completely blowing off Mr. Joe
Blow. Yeah, what can he teach us, he has no inner life, certainly
nothing like that of sophisticated scientists. Funny. But no, I was
not trying to endorse conventional wisdom, I was trying to point out
that the logic of 'we can only recognize the qualities of things by
observing their behavior' is a false and incomplete picture of how we
perceive the world. We make sense many different ways, and they vary
from person to person, group to group, species to species, etc...

Craig