Another TOE short paper
ronaldheld
Andrew Soltau
I suspect we all may.
Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be, "... it is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most fundamental aspect of physics."
Given that conciousness seems all too clearly to be centrally involved in quantum mechanics, and since it is also the primary mechanism whereby the world is observed, and thus science made possible, I am in full agreement.
The nature of consciousness has been a mystery ever since there have been people, and remains so even in our high tech scientific age. However, there is a very specific attribute which can be readily deduced. Consciousness is to the quantum state the way a projector is to the frames of the projected movie. It is therefore by definition a system process, a process 'outside' of the moments, just as the projector is outside' and operates contextually to, the frames of the movie. Given that there is nothing outside of the universe, by definition, such a phenomenon can only be an emergent property of the unitary universe / multiverse system. We know for certain that it is of this nature.
The frame of a movie is of one, primitive, logical type, while the movie itself, the sequence of frames, is of a different second logical type. Iteration, the action of the movie projector, is of yet another, third, different logical type. It is common to all movies. In the same way, the quantum state, the change of the quantum state - the collapse dynamics - and the iterative function, consciousness, are each of different logical type. This is fully described in Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics.
As Wong states "The universe might be in some sense a Great Mind". The implications are so extraordinary that the scientific mind baulks. The experiencer 'in' each conscious observer is an emergent property of the totality. No wonder that the intuition of some mighty being is part of our folklore!
Andrew
1Z
On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I suspect we all may.
>
> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be, "... it
> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most fundamental
> aspect of physics."
> Given that conciousness seems all too clearly to be centrally involved
> in quantum mechanics,
Andrew Soltau
Andrew
Bruno Marchal
On 04 Mar 2011, at 17:31, 1Z wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I suspect we all may.
>>
>> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be,
>> "... it
>> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
>> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most
>> fundamental
>> aspect of physics."
>
> How does he know consciousness is fundamental?
Consciousness has been put under the rug by physicists since about
1500 years.
It has come back through the doubtful idea of the collapse of the wave
packet. It is a way to avoid the literal many-worlds aspect of the
linear quantum evolution. This has been debunked by many since. See
the work of Abner Shimony, for example.
I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the
idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".
Of course Everett has given a comp phenomenological account of the
collapse with the linear equation, so that if consciousness collapse
physically "the wave, you need a non-comp theory of consciousness.
Then comp by itself is a theory of consciousness, and does provide a
transparent (I mean testable) link with consciousness, not by
identifying the mystery of consciousness with a non linear and non
mechanical phenomenon (the collapse) but by providing an explanation
of the quantum and the linear from the computationalist hypothesis.
>
>> Given that conciousness seems all too clearly to be centrally
>> involved
>> in quantum mechanics,
>
> That isn't clear at all
It is. In the collapse theory, it has to be the collapser (the other
theories are too vague, or refuted).
And without collapse, consciousness play the role in providing the
meaning of the first person indeterminacy, actually of the notion of
first person, from which the (hopefully quantum) many realities are
statistically derivable.
Comp makes physics a fundamental modality of consciousness, and in the
AUDA, you need only to accept the idea that consciousness is related
with an inference of self-consistency (or of the existence of self-
consistent extension). Physics is then given literally by the weighted
relative self-consistent extensions. This is a testable consequence of
comp.
Bruno
Brent Meeker
Not much to it. Just speculative musing.
Brent
Brent Meeker
I suspect we all may.
Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be, "... it is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most fundamental aspect of physics."
Given that conciousness seems all too clearly to be centrally involved in quantum mechanics, and since it is also the primary mechanism whereby the world is observed, and thus science made possible, I am in full agreement.
The nature of consciousness has been a mystery ever since there have been people, and remains so even in our high tech scientific age. However, there is a very specific attribute which can be readily deduced. Consciousness is to the quantum state the way a projector is to the frames of the projected movie. It is therefore by definition a system process, a process 'outside' of the moments, just as the projector is outside' and operates contextually to, the frames of the movie. Given that there is nothing outside of the universe, by definition, such a phenomenon can only be an emergent property of the unitary universe / multiverse system. We know for certain that it is of this nature.
The frame of a movie is of one, primitive, logical type, while the movie itself, the sequence of frames, is of a different second logical type. Iteration, the action of the movie projector, is of yet another, third, different logical type.
Brent
It is common to all movies. In the same way, the quantum state, the change of the quantum state - the collapse dynamics - and the iterative function, consciousness, are each of different logical type. This is fully described in Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics.
As Wong states "The universe might be in some sense a Great Mind". The implications are so extraordinary that the scientific mind baulks. The experiencer 'in' each conscious observer is an emergent property of the totality. No wonder that the intuition of some mighty being is part of our folklore!
Andrew
On 04/03/11 12:08, ronaldheld wrote:http://vixra.org/pdf/1103.0005v1.pdf. Bruno may be interested in this one. Ronald
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Brent Meeker
Brent
Andrew Soltau
> idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".
symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you can't get much
simpler than that.
Andrew Soltau
Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people
- that's why we can shared records of experiments and agree on them.
I'm not sure what you mean by "account for" collapse.
At least one interpretation of QM, advocated by Peres, Fuchs, and Omnes for example, is that the "collapse" is purely epistemological. All that changes is our knowledge or model of the state and QM merely predicts probabilities for this change.
Andrew Soltau
The new metaphor perfectly reflects one aspect of the situation. The experiential state, meaning the contents of the sensorium, is in all likelihood updated in exactly such a way. At the same time, however, the change in quantum state effective for the observer changes with the addtion of each new observation, thus a new 'frame', with a new linear dynaimcs, applies.
Bruno Marchal
Can you elaborate. What are their assumption? What do you mean by
"perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything". Almost
all words here needs a clear context to make sense. Which everything?
Chalmers told me that first person indeterminacy does not exist, and
not much more, and Bitbol never reply to me when I sent him my PhD.
They seems to act like pseudo-religious philosopher to me. I still
don't know if it is ideological or politics.
But it is better to discuss only ideas than refer to people, I think.
You can explain ideas of other people as far as you use them, and then
provide the reference. So, what was you point? I might agree with them.
BTW, you did not answer my last point on the comp reversal, at the UDA
step seven.
I appreciate your point on the logical types. Now, to base them on a
physics, taken a priori, will prevent the solution of the
computationalist mind body problem. Elementary arithmetic, and any
universal system, defines automatically many logical types (like the
arithmetical modalities of self-references and their variants) and the
UDA shows that you have to reduce the physical modalities to
modalities of self-reference, relativize to the UD or the sigma_1 truth.
Bruno
Andrew Soltau
On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 Mar 2011, at 20:10, Andrew Soltau wrote:
I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".If we take Chalmers and Bitbol seriously, consciousness is a perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you can't get much simpler than that.
Can you elaborate. What are their assumption? What do you mean by "perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything". Almost all words here needs a clear context to make sense. Which everything?
Chalmers states
I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental ... we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. (1995, p. 216)
Clearly it is a universal property of the system
in which we find ourselves, physical or arithmetical.
Bitbol concludes his section One mind, many points
of view with
Mind is by itself point-of-view-less, just as
it is placeless and timeless. The aporia is the following:
Mind is not within the world since, even if it can identify
itself to any available point of view, it is not identical to
this point of view. Nor does Mind stand outside the world,
since it has no point of view of its own, independent from the
points of view the world can offer. Wittgenstein would say
that Mind is the limit of the world.
and continues
More formally, Mind can be considered as an empty space in the triadic relation: "point of view of ( ) on a 'real universe'". This scheme provides another way of seeing why Mind retains its necessity, even though the "real universe" gathers all that falls under the categories of knowledge: Mind plays a key role in the very constitutive relations of this knowledge. Its closest philosophical equivalents are Husserl's and Sartre's Transcendental ego; or, even better, Wittenstein's subject which "(...) does not belong to the world: rather it is a limit of the world" (Tractatus 5.632).
It is the same Mind, phenomenal conciousness, in all places and at all times.In Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics I show that it is necessarily an emergent property of the unitary totality, Russell's 'Everything', which fits this concept precisely. It is also necessarily, from the perspective of any specific framework, perfectly symmetrical.
Other points answered in separate posts to try and keep things simple enough for me.
Andrew
Andrew Soltau
>
> not much more, and Bitbol never reply to me when I sent him my PhD.
person indeterminacy, though I have gone over your paper The first
person computationalist indeterminacy many times. Your opening paragraph
states "The notion of first person, or subjective, computationalist
indeterminacy is a notion which makes possible to explain how, in a
context of purely third person (objective) determinacy, experiments can
be designed exhibiting, from the points of view of the subjects
involved, a necessary lack of apparent determinate outcome", but for all
known experiments and experiential reporting, there is always a
determinate outcome. I imagine I am simply misunderstanding the
language. Do you mean simply the apparent lack of determincy of Wigner's
friend's experience of the experiment in Wigner's point of view? My
confusion comes from the fact that from Wigner's friend's point of view,
the point of view of the subject involved, the outcome is always
determinate.
I was trying to establish the exact meaning of the phrase first person
indeterminacy in an earlier conversation. I stated
By 'first person indeterminacy' in 1 below, I am reading this as the
indeterminacy regarding the actual location and thus physical context /
instantiation of this observer.
but your answer simply stated that I was making 'treachery to invoke the
physical', and gave me no answer on the meaning of the phrase I was
trying to clarify!
>
> They seems to act like pseudo-religious philosopher to me. I still
> don't know if it is ideological or politics.
Are you referring to Chalmers, Bitbol or both?
Andrew Soltau
> physics, taken a priori, will prevent the solution of the
> computationalist mind body problem. Elementary arithmetic, and any
> universal system, defines automatically many logical types (like the
> arithmetical modalities of self-references and their variants) and the
> UDA shows that you have to reduce the physical modalities to
> modalities of self-reference, relativize to the UD or the sigma_1 truth.
The logical types I am referring to embrace any and all computations and
computational types. The constructs, algorithms, structures or elements
of any computation are of the first logical type. The sequence of steps
of a computation is of a second, different, logical type. Iteration, the
carrying out of the sequence of steps of a computation of a third,
different again, logical type. These considerations are not based on a
physics, rather the analysis of the way any system, including a physical
system, evolves in time due to change, is based on these logical types.
Andrew
1Z
On Mar 4, 5:46 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The measurement problem is the question of why, or even if, collapse
> occurs. Certainly no coherent concept of how and why collapse occurs has
> been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance. It
> appears, as Davies and others explain, the appearance of collapse is
> purely subjective,
such things as objective collapse theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_collapse_theory
> as Everett demonstrates.
MWI isn't usually presented as a subjective theory. Penrose
argues that it makes surreptitious assumptions about how
observers' minds work, but that is part of an argument against
it.
> In this case, consciousness
> is necessarily central, as it is consciousness, and only consciousness,
> which encounters this appearance of collapse and change.
too. However, that does not make consciousness *ontologically*
fundamental.
> We know there
> is an effective collapse, or the appearance of collapse, because we
> experience this subjectively. On the other hand, nothing in the physical
> world, including the physical body and the physical brain, can account
> for this.
> Whatever consciousness is, it appears to be the phenomenon at
> the centre of this process. In consciousness, change is encountered, the
> appearance of collapse, and, it increasingly appears, no where else. My
> paper Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics
1Z
On Mar 4, 5:49 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 04 Mar 2011, at 17:31, 1Z wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I suspect we all may.
>
> >> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be,
> >> "... it
> >> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
> >> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most
> >> fundamental
> >> aspect of physics."
>
> > How does he know consciousness is fundamental?
>
> Consciousness has been put under the rug by physicists since about
> 1500 years.
cannot be accused of neglecting something unless it can be
shown to be something they should prima facie be dealing with.
Physics is the science of the fundamental. If consciousness
is another high level phenomenon, like shopping centres,
it is no business of the physicist. If you think cosnc. is
fundamental, you are making an extraordinary claim and the
burden of proof is on you.
> It has come back through the doubtful idea of the collapse of the wave
> packet. It is a way to avoid the literal many-worlds aspect of the
> linear quantum evolution. This has been debunked by many since. See
> the work of Abner Shimony, for example.
> I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the
> idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".
> Of course Everett has given a comp phenomenological account of the
> collapse with the linear equation, so that if consciousness collapse
> physically "the wave, you need a non-comp theory of consciousness.
> Then comp by itself is a theory of consciousness, and does provide a
> transparent (I mean testable) link with consciousness, not by
> identifying the mystery of consciousness with a non linear and non
> mechanical phenomenon (the collapse) but by providing an explanation
> of the quantum and the linear from the computationalist hypothesis.
>
>
>
> >> Given that conciousness seems all too clearly to be centrally
> >> involved
> >> in quantum mechanics,
>
> > That isn't clear at all
>
> It is. In the collapse theory, it has to be the collapser (the other
> theories are too vague, or refuted).
refuted,
and "spiritual interpretations", like von Neumann's are the vagues of
the lot
1Z
On Mar 4, 7:10 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people - that's why we can
> shared records of experiments and agree on them. I'm not sure what you
> mean by "account for" collapse. At least one interpretation of QM,
> advocated by Peres, Fuchs, and Omnes for example, is that the "collapse"
> is purely epistemological. All that changes is our knowledge or model
> of the state and QM merely predicts probabilities for this change.
"consciousness causes
collapse" theories.
1Z
1Z
On Mar 4, 8:12 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/03/11 19:10, Brent Meeker wrote:> Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people
>
> We don't have any evidence for that,
>indeed, if we take either the
> concept of Wigner's friend or Rovelli's RQM seriously,
intended as a reductio ad absurdum of it.
And RQM doesn't remotely have that implication.
>this is not the
> case.> - that's why we can shared records of experiments and agree on them.
>
> Or, we can deduce those phenomena simply from the coherence of our
> personal systems.> I'm not sure what you mean by "account for" collapse.
>
> I mean that if there is a unitary linear dynamics, with no collapse, as
> in Everett, no physical collapse, then there is the appearance of
> collapse only 'in consciousness'.
he doesn't need consciousness.
1Z
On Mar 6, 1:14 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Bruno
>
> On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> > On 04 Mar 2011, at 20:10, Andrew Soltau wrote:
>
> >>> I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on
> >>> the idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".
> >> If we take Chalmers and Bitbol seriously, consciousness is a
> >> perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you
> >> can't get much simpler than that.
>
> > Can you elaborate. What are their assumption? What do you mean by
> > "perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything". Almost
> > all words here needs a clear context to make sense. Which everything?
>
> I skipped over the details because I was don't want to be repeating
> paragraphs of stuff each time I make a point. Not sure about the
> protocol. Anyway.
>
> Chalmers states
>
> I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as
> fundamental ... we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature
> of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. (1995, p. 216)
> Clearly it is a universal property of the system in which we find
> ourselves, physical or arithmetical.
Bruno Marchal
Hi Bruno
On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:I skipped over the details because I was don't want to be repeating paragraphs of stuff each time I make a point. Not sure about the protocol. Anyway.
On 04 Mar 2011, at 20:10, Andrew Soltau wrote:I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".If we take Chalmers and Bitbol seriously, consciousness is a perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you can't get much simpler than that.
Can you elaborate. What are their assumption? What do you mean by "perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything". Almost all words here needs a clear context to make sense. Which everything?
Chalmers statesI suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental ... we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. (1995, p. 216)
Clearly it is a universal property of the system in which we find ourselves, physical or arithmetical.
Bitbol concludes his section One mind, many points of view with
Mind is by itself point-of-view-less, just as it is placeless and timeless. The aporia is the following: Mind is not within the world since, even if it can identify itself to any available point of view, it is not identical to this point of view. Nor does Mind stand outside the world, since it has no point of view of its own, independent from the points of view the world can offer. Wittgenstein would say that Mind is the limit of the world.
and continues
More formally, Mind can be considered as an empty space in the triadic relation: "point of view of ( ) on a 'real universe'". This scheme provides another way of seeing why Mind retains its necessity, even though the "real universe" gathers all that falls under the categories of knowledge: Mind plays a key role in the very constitutive relations of this knowledge. Its closest philosophical equivalents are Husserl's and Sartre's Transcendental ego; or, even better, Wittenstein's subject which "(...) does not belong to the world: rather it is a limit of the world" (Tractatus 5.632).
It is the same Mind, phenomenal conciousness, in all places and at all times.
In Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics I show that it is necessarily an emergent property of the unitary totality, Russell's 'Everything', which fits this concept precisely.
It is also necessarily, from the perspective of any specific framework, perfectly symmetrical.
Other points answered in separate posts to try and keep things simple enough for me.
Bruno Marchal
On 06 Mar 2011, at 14:16, Andrew Soltau wrote:
> On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Chalmers told me that first person indeterminacy does not exist,
>> and not much more, and Bitbol never reply to me when I sent him my
>> PhD.
> I am still not sure if I correctly understand your concept of first
> person indeterminacy, though I have gone over your paper The first
> person computationalist indeterminacy many times. Your opening
> paragraph states "The notion of first person, or subjective,
> computationalist indeterminacy is a notion which makes possible to
> explain how, in a context of purely third person (objective)
> determinacy, experiments can be designed exhibiting, from the points
> of view of the subjects involved, a necessary lack of apparent
> determinate outcome", but for all known experiments and experiential
> reporting, there is always a determinate outcome.
?
If you prepare an electron in the state (up + down), and decide to
look at it with a {up, down} measuring apparatus, you will experience
the personal outcome as non determinate. You can say with Everett that
the outcome of the whole process describing you+electron is
determinate: it is you-electron-up + you-electron-down, but with or
without collapse, the outcome you are experiencing is not determinate.
That is the quantum indeterminacy.
With comp, it is simpler. It is the fact that if you are a machine,
then I can scan you, annihilate you and reconstitute you in two
different place (W and M, say). If I ask you what will happen, you can
still say that the outcome is determinate, when seen in the third
person view (I will be both in W and in M), but if you are asked what
will be your personal experience (what you will put in your memory or
diary), you might understand that such a personal outcome cannot be
determined. You cannot say "I will be certainly in W", because you
can understand the one who will be in M will have to say "I was
wrong", and comp makes his opinion valuable. You cannot say "I will be
in W and in M", because you know that you will not write "Oh, I see I
am in both cities at once", etc...
Basically, Everett makes the quantum indeterminacy a sort of
particular case of comp indeterminacy, except that I agree with
Deutsch that the quantum indterminacy does not involve physical
splitting. Only consciousness differentiates. Eventually that is what
happens with comp too.
> I imagine I am simply misunderstanding the language. Do you mean
> simply the apparent lack of determincy of Wigner's friend's
> experience of the experiment in Wigner's point of view? My confusion
> comes from the fact that from Wigner's friend's point of view, the
> point of view of the subject involved, the outcome is always
> determinate.
>
> I was trying to establish the exact meaning of the phrase first
> person indeterminacy in an earlier conversation. I stated
>
> By 'first person indeterminacy' in 1 below, I am reading this as the
> indeterminacy regarding the actual location and thus physical
> context / instantiation of this observer.
It concerns the future of personal experience, in the experiments of
comp (or quantum) self-duplication.
You can also consider the iteration of self-duplication. If you
iterate 64 times, there will be 2^64 versions of you. First person
indeterminacy is the fact that most of the 2^64 versions of you will
agree that they were unable to predict in advance what was the next
outcome at each iteration. Most will consider that their histories
(like:
"WMMMWWMWMMMMWWWMMWMMWWWWWM ..." (length 64)
are random, even Chaitin-incompressible.
Does this help?
>
> but your answer simply stated that I was making 'treachery to invoke
> the physical', and gave me no answer on the meaning of the phrase I
> was trying to clarify!
You can use the physical for illustrating a point, but you cannot use
the *primary physical* as a starting assumption, unless you make a
reductio ad absurdum.
If you have a trouble with the first person indeterminacy notion, it
is normal you have a trouble with the reversal, which is a
consequence of it.
Bruno
Brent Meeker
>> It is. In the collapse theory, it has to be the collapser (the other
>> > theories are too vague, or refuted).
>>
> Not at all. Objective collapse theories such as GRW have not been
> refuted,
> and "spiritual interpretations", like von Neumann's are the vagues of
> the lot
>
>
The most conservative interpretation of QM, closest to Bohr, is that the
equations of QM are merely description of what we know about particular
systems. The equations make stochastic predictions. When we do the
experiment, one result of those predicted is realized with the
appropriate frequency of occurence. The only "collapse" is
actualization of one of the possibilities in our description.
Decoherence theory is a way of modeling when we can expect the
actualization to be complete. This has a technical difficulty since the
unitary evolution implies that decoherence is never complete but only
approached asymptotically. However, recent theories of holographic
information imply that only finite information can be contained within
an event horizon. This would in turn imply there must be a smallest
non-zero probability and decoherence actually drives cross-terms in the
density matrix to zero. The problem of basis and einselection still
remains.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
On 06 Mar 2011, at 14:24, Andrew Soltau wrote:
> On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> I appreciate your point on the logical types. Now, to base them on
>> a physics, taken a priori, will prevent the solution of the
>> computationalist mind body problem. Elementary arithmetic, and any
>> universal system, defines automatically many logical types (like
>> the arithmetical modalities of self-references and their variants)
>> and the UDA shows that you have to reduce the physical modalities
>> to modalities of self-reference, relativize to the UD or the
>> sigma_1 truth.
>
> The logical types I am referring to embrace any and all computations
> and computational types. The constructs, algorithms, structures or
> elements of any computation are of the first logical type. The
> sequence of steps of a computation is of a second, different,
> logical type. Iteration, the carrying out of the sequence of steps
> of a computation of a third, different again, logical type.
OK.
All those logical types can be seen as non computable set of numbers.
I can prove this, but it is long. You might search on Rice theorem in
recursion theory (common name for a part of theoretical computer
science).
> These considerations are not based on a physics, rather the analysis
> of the way any system, including a physical system,
But what is a *physical* system? This is no more clear when you
associate consciousness to number relations or computations.
> evolves in time due to change, is based on these logical types.
Which time? Which sort of changes?
With comp, types are formula, or set of formulas, written in first
order logic. This can even been better exploited with the version of
comp using the combinators or lambda terms as elementary objects, but
I use numbers because people are more familiar to them.
You might search on Curry-Howard isomorphism to see some of those
exploitations. But it is an exploding subject, like quantum
computation, so you need to search a lot to find readable
introduction. There are still no good books on this.
Best,
Bruno
Brent Meeker
Right. Epistemological "collapse" is nothing but a change in
information that causes us to change our description.
Brent
John Mikes
On 3/6/2011 7:16 AM, 1Z wrote:
It is. In the collapse theory, it has to be the collapser (the otherNot at all. Objective collapse theories such as GRW have not been
> theories are too vague, or refuted).
refuted,
The most conservative interpretation of QM, closest to Bohr, is that the equations of QM are merely description of what we know about particular systems.and "spiritual interpretations", like von Neumann's are the vagues of
the lot
The equations make stochastic predictions. When we do the experiment, one result of those predicted is realized with the appropriate frequency of occurence. The only "collapse" is actualization of one of the possibilities in our description. Decoherence theory is a way of modeling when we can expect the actualization to be complete. This has a technical difficulty since the unitary evolution implies that decoherence is never complete but only approached asymptotically.
However, recent theories of holographic information imply that only finite information can be contained within an event horizon. This would in turn imply there must be a smallest non-zero probability and decoherence actually drives cross-terms in the density matrix to zero. The problem of basis and einselection still remains.
Brent
John M
Stephen Paul King
**
Is the "causes" word even necessary? Would it not be accurate to say
that a change in information = a change in our description, unless you are
assuming some sort of pluralistic 1st person view, i.e. from the point of
view of many (a fixed set of observers): 'collapse' is nothing but a change
in the information common to all that "causes' (or necessitates!) a change
in the description of each individual to remain a viable member of the
'many'?
Onward!
Stephen
John Mikes
Bruno Marchal
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Stephen Paul King <step...@charter.net> wrote:" Is the "causes" word even necessary? Would it not be accurate to say that a change in information = a change in our description, unless you are assuming some sort of pluralistic 1st person view, i.e. from the point of view of many (a fixed set of observers): 'collapse' is nothing but a change in the information common to all that "causes' (or necessitates!) a change in the description of each individual to remain a viable member of the 'many'?Onward!Stephen"Thanks, Stephen, for standing up against the verb 'causes'. In our limited views of the totality (the unlimited complexity of the wholeness) we can only search for factors contributing to changes we experience WITHIN the model of our knowledge. If we find such, we are tempted to call it THE cause - while many more (from the unknown) may also play in.
Information is also a tricky term, maybe: knowledge of relations we (lately?) acquired in our topical model of yesterday's knowledge, but definitely also WITHIN our knowable model.(Please forgive me for using "yesterday's": nobody can think in terms of all the ongoing news of today).
Bruno Marchal
On 06 Mar 2011, at 16:16, 1Z wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 4, 5:49 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 04 Mar 2011, at 17:31, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I suspect we all may.
>>
>>>> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be,
>>>> "... it
>>>> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
>>>> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most
>>>> fundamental
>>>> aspect of physics."
>>
>>> How does he know consciousness is fundamental?
>>
>> Consciousness has been put under the rug by physicists since about
>> 1500 years.
>
> Really? Have daffodils and shopping centres likewise? Physicists
> cannot be accused of neglecting something unless it can be
> shown to be something they should prima facie be dealing with.
They do use it all the time. They have just use the primary matter (as
simplifying assumption), and the identity thesis (as simplig-fying
assumption), so that they can correlated observation with predictive
theories. This leads to problem with respect to the new physics
(quantum physics), and with respect to the computationalist
hypothesis. But the Platonist were aware of this (mainly by the dream
argument), and kept us vigilant of not reifying matter.
> Physics is the science of the fundamental.
Then I am a physicist.
> If consciousness
> is another high level phenomenon, like shopping centres,
> it is no business of the physicist.
"IF" consciousness emerges ...
That might be a big "IF".
> If you think cosnc. is
> fundamental, you are making an extraordinary claim and the
> burden of proof is on you.
I am not making any claim about the fact that consciousness is
fundamental or not. I just try to understand that phenomenon, among
other phenomenon. And I show that if we suppose that consciousness can
be related to some computation, then matter is not fundamental. Matter
"emerges" as a modality of self-reference (the material hypostases).
And the point is that it makes comp + the classical theory of
knowledge testable.
I refer you to Shimony for a refutation that consciousness can
collapse the Q wave.
And GRW proposes a new theory, which they admit themselves to be ad
hoc, and makes no sense in QM+relativity. I am not sure at all it
works even for non relativistic QM. It would reduce Quantum
computation to classical probabilistic computation, in particular.
That might still be possible (forgetting relativity). I can imagine
that it could lead to the collapse of many comp complexity classes,
including P and NP.
Bruno
Digital Physics
and weird in the sense that suddenly crocodiles fly by, then why can we predict rather
reliably that none of those weird histories will happen?
Bruno Marchal
1Z
On Mar 7, 9:30 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 06 Mar 2011, at 16:16, 1Z wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 4, 5:49 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> >> On 04 Mar 2011, at 17:31, 1Z wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> I suspect we all may.
>
> >>>> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be,
> >>>> "... it
> >>>> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
> >>>> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most
> >>>> fundamental
> >>>> aspect of physics."
>
> >>> How does he know consciousness is fundamental?
>
> >> Consciousness has been put under the rug by physicists since about
> >> 1500 years.
>
> > Really? Have daffodils and shopping centres likewise? Physicists
> > cannot be accused of neglecting something unless it can be
> > shown to be something they should prima facie be dealing with.
>
> They do use it all the time. They have just use the primary matter (as
> simplifying assumption), and the identity thesis (as simplig-fying
> assumption), so that they can correlated observation with predictive
> theories.
consc. in the first place. Surely it is prima facie psychology.
>This leads to problem with respect to the new physics
> (quantum physics),
to do with consc.
> and with respect to the computationalist
> hypothesis. But the Platonist were aware of this (mainly by the dream
> argument), and kept us vigilant of not reifying matter.
>
> > Physics is the science of the fundamental.
>
> Then I am a physicist.
> > If consciousness
> > is another high level phenomenon, like shopping centres,
> > it is no business of the physicist.
>
> "IF" consciousness emerges ...
> That might be a big "IF".
if before accusing physicists of
neglecting comp.
> > If you think cosnc. is
> > fundamental, you are making an extraordinary claim and the
> > burden of proof is on you.
>
> I am not making any claim about the fact that consciousness is
> fundamental or not
to deal with it is to imply that it should be dealing with it,
which is to imply that it is fundamental
Digital Physics
You write "white rabbits (flying crocodiles) are not random structures. They are aberrant
consistent extensions, a bit like in our nocturnal dreams." I agree that white rabbits have programs much shorter than those of random structures. But you also claim that "most will consider their histories ... Chaitin-incompressible". This means long programs and no predictability at all, contradicting daily experience. Then you say "but computer science and mathematical logic shows that it is not easy either to prove that comp and first person indeterminacy implies [flying rabbits]". I don't understand - it has been shown it's not easy to prove that? How has it been shown it's not easy to prove that? And you say: "There is no reason for making all relative histories equally likely." But then what's the alternative?
Bruno Marchal
There is no human observation without consciousness. We can use
physical equation to predict where a planet can be, not where a planet
can be seen, but we usually link the two. The greeks were aware that
link necessitate a theory which unify knowledge and escape the dream
problem. Aristotle was aware of that too, but its followers took his
primary matter for granted, and this had made easier the separation of
theology from the science, with the result of making physics a
theology which ignores itself.
>
>> This leads to problem with respect to the new physics
>> (quantum physics),
>
> So you say. Many think QM problems have nothing
> to do with consc.
QM has just dingle out the more general problem of the existence of
consciousness in a physical world. I am not saying that consciousness
is related per se with the quantum. On the contrary, as you know, I
defend Everett, and Everett use the less magical theory of
consciousness: comp (or weakening).
Consciousness plays a role in physics because we have to link being
and seeing. All physical theories uses an implicit theory of
consciousness (the identity thesis, or what is is what I see).
>
>> and with respect to the computationalist
>> hypothesis. But the Platonist were aware of this (mainly by the dream
>> argument), and kept us vigilant of not reifying matter.
>>
>>> Physics is the science of the fundamental.
>>
>> Then I am a physicist.
>
> Physics is the empirical sciencce of the fundamental.
Then I am even more a physicist. Indeed I show that the comp theory of
consciousness (computationalism) is empirically falsifiable (accepting
the greek classical theory of knowledge).
>
>>> If consciousness
>>> is another high level phenomenon, like shopping centres,
>>> it is no business of the physicist.
>>
>> "IF" consciousness emerges ...
>> That might be a big "IF".
>
> You need to show that it *is* a big
> if before accusing physicists of
> neglecting comp.
They do not neglect comp. They use it implicitly ever since Aristotle,
and explicitly since Everett. They neglect the consciousness, or the
mind-body problem.
>
>>> If you think cosnc. is
>>> fundamental, you are making an extraordinary claim and the
>>> burden of proof is on you.
>>
>> I am not making any claim about the fact that consciousness is
>> fundamental or not
>
> Implicitly you are. To say that physics has failed
> to deal with it is to imply that it should be dealing with it,
> which is to imply that it is fundamental
It was fundamental for the greek. Science is born from an
understanding that the physical reality might hide something, notably
mathematical truth (Xeuxippes), or just 'truth', the original "god" of
the Platonists. But you can do physics without working on the mind-
body problem. But fundamental physics is more demanding. To solve the
mind-body problem in a monist theory, you have to sacrify, at the
ontological level, either mind or matter (provably so assuming comp).
I agree so much with you here. I was pointing on the Shimony works
which shows exactly that.
With comp, consciousness acts notably by filtering actualized
possibility. That is what the first indeterminacy shows. Then the math
shows that if you approximate consciousness by believe in a reality,
consciousness acquire a role of self-speeding up ability.
Bruno
1Z
On Mar 7, 2:52 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> > You haven;t explained why they should be dealing with
> > consc. in the first place. Surely it is prima facie psychology.
>
> There is no human observation without consciousness.
but it is not the job of physics to study sense organs
> > Implicitly you are. To say that physics has failed
> > to deal with it is to imply that it should be dealing with it,
> > which is to imply that it is fundamental
>
> It was fundamental for the greek. Science is born from an
> understanding that the physical reality might hide something, notably
> mathematical truth (Xeuxippes), or just 'truth', the original "god" of
> the Platonists. But you can do physics without working on the mind-
> body problem. But fundamental physics is more demanding. To solve the
> mind-body problem in a monist theory, you have to sacrify, at the
> ontological level, either mind or matter (provably so assuming comp).
Bruno Marchal
On 07 Mar 2011, at 15:26, Digital Physics wrote:
>
> You write "white rabbits (flying crocodiles) are not random
> structures. They are aberrant
> consistent extensions, a bit like in our nocturnal dreams." I agree
> that white rabbits have programs much shorter than those of random
> structures.
It depends. Very short programs can generate all random structures.
White rabbits have intrinsically very deep (in Bennett's sense)
programs. They are relatively costly. But technically this is not
enough for eliminating them from the first person appearance, unless
we use the self-referential logics.
> But you also claim that "most will consider their histories ...
> Chaitin-incompressible".
In the case of you being duplicated in W and M iteratively. Not in
case of you in the UD's work.
> This means long programs and no predictability at all, contradicting
> daily experience.
Not at all. If you agree with Everett, and send a beam of particles
prepared in the state (up + down) on a "{up, down}-mirror", you see
the splitting of the beam. If you label the left and right electrons
by W and M, you can bet the strings will be incompressible, and this
is a quantum analog of iterated self-duplication. This gives an hint
for the vanishing of the WR: computable histories about the
substitution level, and randomness below. That justifies in part the
quantum appearance from the digitalness of the mind (not of matter).
> Then you say "but computer science and mathematical logic shows that
> it is not easy either to prove that comp and first person
> indeterminacy implies [flying rabbits]". I don't understand - it has
> been shown it's not easy to prove that? How has it been shown it's
> not easy to prove that?
That is actually rather obvious, if you know just a bit of computer
science. To get all the computational histories, you need Church
thesis and the enumeration of all partial computable function. By the
padding theorem, this is a highly redundant and fractal (and complex)
structure, and by the theorem of Rice, the set of codes corresponding
to any non trivial functions is not recursive (making our substitution
level) unknowable. So it is rather highly complex to derive the
possibility of white rabbits from that. In this list we discuss
alternate manner to approach that measure problem.
> And you say: "There is no reason for making all relative histories
> equally likely." But then what's the alternative?
To study the math of the universal dovetailing, and of what machine
can say about themselves and about they consistent extension
relatively to it.
Accepting the comp theory, together with the classical theory of
knowledge, although we don't have the measure, we can extract the
logic obeyed by the particular case of the "measure one". I have
succeeded in showing that it obeys already a quantum-like logic. This
needs a bit of advanced computer science/mathematical logic. See my
paper for details and references.
I have to say that I am a bit astonished that some people seems to
have difficulties to grasp that once we assume comp, theoretical
computer science becomes *the* key tool to progress on the fundamental
question. The beam example above suggests empirically that we are
physically duplicated in the iterative way. But obviously we are not
just duplicated iteratively, we are also obeying computational laws,
and arithmetical laws, etc. If that was not the case, comp would imply
white noise and would fall immediately in Russell's Occam catastrophe.
But, thanks to God, universal numbers does not put only mess in
Platonia, they generate also a lot of order.
-- Bruno Marchal
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>
Bruno Marchal
On 07 Mar 2011, at 16:12, 1Z wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 7, 2:52 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
>>> You haven;t explained why they should be dealing with
>>> consc. in the first place. Surely it is prima facie psychology.
>>
>> There is no human observation without consciousness.
>
> There can be no observations without sense organs,
> but it is not the job of physics to study sense organs
Sense organs are usually conceived, both in MEC and in MAT, as
measuring apparatus. When physics embraces monistic views and embed
the physicist *in* in the world they are studying, they do study sense
organ, even if they can simplify them in a lot of ways. The carbon
nature of those sense organs might be not fundamental.
Anyway, since Everett, we are back to normal, the physicist and his
consciousness (through the comp theory of consciousness) is back in
the picture. Now comp asks for extending that picture to the whole
sigma_1 truth.
>
>
>>> Implicitly you are. To say that physics has failed
>>> to deal with it is to imply that it should be dealing with it,
>>> which is to imply that it is fundamental
>>
>> It was fundamental for the greek. Science is born from an
>> understanding that the physical reality might hide something, notably
>> mathematical truth (Xeuxippes), or just 'truth', the original "god"
>> of
>> the Platonists. But you can do physics without working on the mind-
>> body problem. But fundamental physics is more demanding. To solve the
>> mind-body problem in a monist theory, you have to sacrify, at the
>> ontological level, either mind or matter (provably so assuming comp).
>
> Reduction is not elimination
Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
reduction, but it does entail ontological reduction.
That explains why a lot of honest materialist are keen to try to
eliminate consciousness, like the Churchland, even Dennett.
Now, as I said often, even before comp, uda, auda, it is easier to
explain the illusion of matter to a consciousness than an illusion of
consciousness to matter; if only because the notion of illusionary
consciousness is a non sense at the start.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
On 07 Mar 2011, at 16:41, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 07 Mar 2011, at 16:12, 1Z wrote:
>>
>> Reduction is not elimination
>
> Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
> reduction, but it does entail ontological reduction.
Please read:
Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
*elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*.
---
I think I wrote "about" instead of "above" in my preceding mail to
'digital physics'.
---
And I apologize for my random use of the "s", and my fuzzy use of the
past tense for some verbs.
I am very sorry. Don't hesitate to ask precision when you find my
english ambiguous.
Bruno
>
> That explains why a lot of honest materialist are keen to try to
> eliminate consciousness, like the Churchland, even Dennett.
> Now, as I said often, even before comp, uda, auda, it is easier to
> explain the illusion of matter to a consciousness than an illusion
> of consciousness to matter; if only because the notion of
> illusionary consciousness is a non sense at the start.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Everything List" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to everything-
>> li...@googlegroups.com.
Digital Physics
> > I agree that white rabbits have programs much shorter than those of random structures.
> It depends. Very short programs can generate all random structures.
You mean the short program that computes the entire set! But this is irrelevant here: to predict a concrete individual history, we must consider the probability of the program that computes this concrete individual history, and nothing else. The description of the entire set is much shorter than the description of most of its individual elements. But it is useless as it has no predictive power. Schmidhuber has a lots of papers on this:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html
> White rabbits have intrinsically very deep (in Bennett's sense) programs.
No, because many programs making white rabbits for video games are both short and fast, that is, those rabbits are not deep in Bennett's sense.
> > But you also claim that "most will consider their histories ...
> > Chaitin-incompressible".
>
> In the case of you being duplicated in W and M iteratively. Not in
> case of you in the UD's work.
This seems very unclear. What's the difference?
> > This means long programs and no predictability at all, contradicting
> > daily experience.
>
> Not at all. If you agree with Everett, and send a beam of particles
> prepared in the state (up + down) on a "{up, down}-mirror", you see
> the splitting of the beam. If you label the left and right electrons
> by W and M, you can bet the strings will be incompressible,
sure, this still makes sense
> and this is a quantum analog of iterated self-duplication. This gives an hint
> for the vanishing of the WR: computable histories about the
> substitution level, and randomness below. That justifies in part the
> quantum appearance from the digitalness of the mind (not of matter).
Well, to me this sounds a bit like jargon used to hide the lack of substance. Or can you explain this clearly? Excuse me for skipping the remainder of this message.
Bruno Marchal
I agree that white rabbits have programs much shorter than those of random structures.It depends. Very short programs can generate all random structures.
You mean the short program that computes the entire set! But this is irrelevant here: to predict a concrete individual history, we must consider the probability of the program that computes this concrete individual history, and nothing else. The description of the entire set is much shorter than the description of most of its individual elements. But it is useless as it has no predictive power. Schmidhuber has a lots of papers on this:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html
White rabbits have intrinsically very deep (in Bennett's sense) programs.
No, because many programs making white rabbits for video games are both short and fast, that is, those rabbits are not deep in Bennett's sense.
But you also claim that "most will consider their histories ...Chaitin-incompressible".In the case of you being duplicated in W and M iteratively. Not incase of you in the UD's work.
This seems very unclear. What's the difference?
This means long programs and no predictability at all, contradictingdaily experience.Not at all. If you agree with Everett, and send a beam of particlesprepared in the state (up + down) on a "{up, down}-mirror", you seethe splitting of the beam. If you label the left and right electronsby W and M, you can bet the strings will be incompressible,
sure, this still makes senseand this is a quantum analog of iterated self-duplication. This gives an hintfor the vanishing of the WR: computable histories about thesubstitution level, and randomness below. That justifies in part thequantum appearance from the digitalness of the mind (not of matter).
Well, to me this sounds a bit like jargon used to hide the lack of substance.
Or can you explain this clearly? Excuse me for skipping the remainder of this message.
David Nyman
>>> Reduction is not elimination
>>
<snip>
>
> Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
> *elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*.
Bruno, this is what I was trying to say some time ago to Peter. Why
"ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
*elimination*" is of course precisely the question that mustn't be
dodged or begged, which is what I'm convinced Peter is doing by
insisting dogmatically that "reduction is not elimination". The point
is that a primitive-materialist micro-physical theory is implicitly
(if not explicitly) committed to the claim that everything that exists
is *just* some arrangement of ultimate material constituents. That's
literally *all there is*, ex hypothesi. Despite the fact (and, a
fortiori, *because* of the fact) that this is not what any of us, as
observers, actually finds to be the case, we can nonetheless choose to
deny or ignore this "inconvenient truth". But if we do not so choose,
we can perhaps see that here we have the materialist Hard Problem in
perhaps its purest form: why should there be anything at all except an
ensemble of quarks? (or whatever this month's "ultimate constituent of
everything" is supposed to be). And why should any subset of an
ensemble of quarks be localised as "here" or "now"?
Adding "computation" to the materialist mix can't help, because
computation is also just an arrangement of quarks, or whatever, and
talking about emergence, or logical levels etc, can achieve nothing
because after any amount of this logical gyrating *it's still all just
quarks*. Of course, funnily enough, we manage nonetheless to talk
about all these additional things, but then to claim that this talk
can be materially "identical" to the quarks "under some description"
is just to play circular and futile games with words. Plugging the
conclusion into the premise can of course explain nothing, and simply
begs the critical question in the most egregious way.
The crucial difference in your theory, Bruno, to the extent that I've
understood it, is that it is explicitly both analytic AND integrative.
That is, it postulates specific arithmetical-computational "ultimate
components" and their relations, AND it further specifies the local
emergence of conscious first-person viewpoints, and their layers of
composite contents, through an additional subtle filtering and
synthesis of the relational ensemble. Hence, through a kind of
duality of part and whole, it is able to avoid the monistic deathtrap,
and consequently isn't forced to deny, or sweep under the rug, the
categorical orthogonality of mind and body. In such a schema, the
entire domain of the "secondary qualities", including matter, time and
space themselves, is localised and personalised at the intersection of
these analytic and synthetic principles.
David
>>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
1Z
On Mar 7, 8:48 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >>> Reduction is not elimination
>
> <snip>
>
> > Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
> > *elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*.
>
> Bruno, this is what I was trying to say some time ago to Peter. Why
> "ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
> *elimination*" is of course precisely the question that mustn't be
> dodged or begged, which is what I'm convinced Peter is doing by
> insisting dogmatically that "reduction is not elimination".
not equivalent positions, for instance.
> The point
> is that a primitive-materialist micro-physical theory is implicitly
> (if not explicitly) committed to the claim that everything that exists
> is *just* some arrangement of ultimate material constituents.
of micro physical goings-on, whereas their eliminativist
opponents say mind "Is" nothing at all.
> That's
> literally *all there is*, ex hypothesi. Despite the fact (and, a
> fortiori, *because* of the fact) that this is not what any of us, as
> observers, actually finds to be the case,
be judged empirically inadequate: in no case does that
make them the same
David Nyman
> It's rather well known that reductivism and eliminativism are
> not equivalent positions, for instance.
<snip>
> And reductive identity theorists say mind "is" a bunch
> of micro physical goings-on, whereas their eliminativist
> opponents say mind "Is" nothing at all.
Yes, indeed they do, as I am very well aware, but I've said why I
think that neither of these "well known" positions can adequately
address the mind-body issues, which is what we are discussing. My
claim is that they are using circular reasoning, assuming the
conclusion in the premise, or are simply ignoring the very tools they
employ to construct their case. What specifically do you find to be
the error in this analysis?
> Either or neither or both of reductivism and eliminativism can
> be judged empirically inadequate: in no case does that
> make them the same
I have explained why I think any real distinction between the two in a
materialist schema is fundamentally question-begging with respect to
the mind-body problem, essentially in the terms Bruno articulated so
succinctly. You haven't pointed out what is wrong with my argument,
merely that others disagree with it. It would be more helpful if you
would say simply what you find to be wrong or unclear in what I have
said.
David
Digital Physics
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: first person indeterminacy vs predictability
Andrew Soltau
Hi Andrew,
On 06 Mar 2011, at 14:14, Andrew Soltau wrote:
Hi Bruno
On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:I skipped over the details because I was don't want to be repeating paragraphs of stuff each time I make a point. Not sure about the protocol. Anyway.
On 04 Mar 2011, at 20:10, Andrew Soltau wrote:
I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".If we take Chalmers and Bitbol seriously, consciousness is a perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you can't get much simpler than that.
Can you elaborate. What are their assumption? What do you mean by "perfectly symmetrical emergent property of the Everything". Almost all words here needs a clear context to make sense. Which everything?
Chalmers states
I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental ... we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. (1995, p. 216)
Clearly it is a universal property of the system in which we find ourselves, physical or arithmetical.
I understand Chalmers (materialist) stance,
but don't see the relation with your own saying. I don't see the same words, like "symmetrical" and "universal". Also, be careful with the possible confusion for the reader. "Universal" can mean Truing universal (a math concept), or "pertaining to the whole physical universe, like when saying "the universal law of gravitation", for example.
I simply mean that just as a universe is in some sense a matter and energy phenomenon, and a spacetime phenomenon, it is at root also a conciousness phenomenon.
Bitbol concludes his section One mind, many points of view with
Mind is by itself point-of-view-less, just as it is placeless and timeless. The aporia is the following: Mind is not within the world since, even if it can identify itself to any available point of view, it is not identical to this point of view. Nor does Mind stand outside the world, since it has no point of view of its own, independent from the points of view the world can offer. Wittgenstein would say that Mind is the limit of the world.
I agree, and often say similar things, but of course it is a bit vague out of the context. ventuall I think Bitbol use "world" in the usual sense of "physical world", assumed to be primary.
Also I thought that Wittgenstein said that the World is the border of the subject (the limit if the mind, not of the world).
and continues
More formally, Mind can be considered as an empty space in the triadic relation: "point of view of ( ) on a 'real universe'". This scheme provides another way of seeing why Mind retains its necessity, even though the "real universe" gathers all that falls under the categories of knowledge: Mind plays a key role in the very constitutive relations of this knowledge. Its closest philosophical equivalents are Husserl's and Sartre's Transcendental ego; or, even better, Wittenstein's subject which "(...) does not belong to the world: rather it is a limit of the world" (Tractatus 5.632).
Hmm... I thought Wittgenstein said that the world is the limit of the subject. I have no problem with Husserl's or Sartre transcendental ego. The 8 hypostases, can be seen in that way.
It is the same Mind, phenomenal conciousness, in all places and at all times.
I like that idea, but it is an open problem (in the comp frame).
In Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics I show that it is necessarily an emergent property of the unitary totality, Russell's 'Everything', which fits this concept precisely.
What is the role of Quantum Mechanics. What is Russell's everything? Is it Russell Standish's notion of 'nothing', or Bertrand Russell's notion of everything in math? You might elaborate a little bit.
In Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics I draw attention to the conclusion of a number of leading thinkers that the universe is static, even in QM. Relativity gives us a static block universe, QM gives us - in the quantum concept of time - a static array of static block universes. Then, by analogy to a movie film, I draw attention to Everett's appearance of collapse, which corresponds precisely to a sequece of frame of reference, just as the movie is a sequcne of two dimensional frames. Iteration of block universe moments, Everett's appearance of collapse, gives rise to exactly the subjective experience of a changing, apparently constnatly determinate, reatliy, which we experience. Finally the punch line. The iterator of block universe moments can only be an emergent property of the unitary system as a whole. Nothing else is in the correct logical relation to the block universe moments. Only the system as a whole is to the block universe moments the way the projector is to the frames of the movie.
It is also necessarily, from the perspective of any specific framework, perfectly symmetrical.
?
Other points answered in separate posts to try and keep things simple enough for me.
I will take a look. You might try to not make exploding the mail box of the readers of the list. Lot of mails can discourage people, given that many people have already a large numbers of mails, IMO (but that's just a suggestive metacomment that you don't need to mind too much).
Do you suggest taking some or all of our dialogue off list?
If anyone else has a comment to the effect that our dialogue is not of great interest to the list I will be sure to do so.
Andrew Soltau
>
> On 06 Mar 2011, at 14:16, Andrew Soltau wrote:
>
>> On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> Chalmers told me that first person indeterminacy does not exist, and
>>> not much more, and Bitbol never reply to me when I sent him my PhD.
>> I am still not sure if I correctly understand your concept of first
>> person indeterminacy, though I have gone over your paper The first
>> person computationalist indeterminacy many times. Your opening
>> paragraph states "The notion of first person, or subjective,
>> computationalist indeterminacy is a notion which makes possible to
>> explain how, in a context of purely third person (objective)
>> determinacy, experiments can be designed exhibiting, from the points
>> of view of the subjects involved, a necessary lack of apparent
>> determinate outcome", but for all known experiments and experiential
>> reporting, there is always a determinate outcome.
>
> ?
(objective) determinacy, experiments can be designed exhibiting, from
the points of view of the subjects involved, a necessary lack of
apparent determinate outcome"
Why are we examining " a lack of apparent determinate outcome" when, for
all known experiments and experiential reporting, there is always a
determinate outcome?
>
> If you prepare an electron in the state (up + down), and decide to
> look at it with a {up, down} measuring apparatus, you will experience
> the personal outcome as non determinate.
This is what I don't understand. When I look at it with a {up, down}
measuring apparatus, I must necessarily experience a specific
determinate outcome, reported by the {up, down} measuring apparatus. The
whole puzzle of the measurement problem is that I always experience a
specific determinate outcome, reported by the {up, down} measuring
apparatus, despite the fact that objectively both results must obtain.
> You can say with Everett that the outcome of the whole process
> describing you+electron is determinate: it is you-electron-up +
> you-electron-down, but with or without collapse, the outcome you are
> experiencing is not determinate. That is the quantum indeterminacy.
There is only quantum indeterminacy in the absence of collapse. I can
only make sense of your statement "but with or without collapse, the
outcome you are experiencing is not determinate." if you mean "you" to
be the ensemble of all possible mes. Following Everett, for the physical
observer the outcome is not determinate, but the whole point is that the
*experience* is determinate. Hence the measurement problem.
>
> With comp, it is simpler. It is the fact that if you are a machine,
> then I can scan you, annihilate you and reconstitute you in two
> different place (W and M, say). If I ask you what will happen, you can
> still say that the outcome is determinate, when seen in the third
> person view (I will be both in W and in M), but if you are asked what
> will be your personal experience (what you will put in your memory or
> diary), you might understand that such a personal outcome cannot be
> determined. You cannot say "I will be certainly in W", because you
> can understand the one who will be in M will have to say "I was
> wrong", and comp makes his opinion valuable. You cannot say "I will be
> in W and in M", because you know that you will not write "Oh, I see I
> am in both cities at once", etc...
OK
>
> Basically, Everett makes the quantum indeterminacy a sort of
> particular case of comp indeterminacy, except that I agree with
> Deutsch that the quantum indterminacy does not involve physical
> splitting. Only consciousness differentiates. Eventually that is what
> happens with comp too.
>
OK
>
>> I imagine I am simply misunderstanding the language. Do you mean
>> simply the apparent lack of determincy of Wigner's friend's
>> experience of the experiment in Wigner's point of view? My confusion
>> comes from the fact that from Wigner's friend's point of view, the
>> point of view of the subject involved, the outcome is always
>> determinate.
>>
>> I was trying to establish the exact meaning of the phrase first
>> person indeterminacy in an earlier conversation. I stated
>>
>> By 'first person indeterminacy' in 1 below, I am reading this as the
>> indeterminacy regarding the actual location and thus physical context
>> / instantiation of this observer.
>
> It concerns the future of personal experience, in the experiments of
> comp (or quantum) self-duplication.
>
> You can also consider the iteration of self-duplication. If you
> iterate 64 times, there will be 2^64 versions of you. First person
> indeterminacy is the fact that most of the 2^64 versions of you will
> agree that they were unable to predict in advance what was the next
> outcome at each iteration. Most will consider that their histories (like:
> "WMMMWWMWMMMMWWWMMWMMWWWWWM ..." (length 64)
> are random, even Chaitin-incompressible.
>
> Does this help?
So, 'first person indeterminacy' simply means that I don't know what
observation I will make next?
>
>>
>> but your answer simply stated that I was making 'treachery to invoke
>> the physical', and gave me no answer on the meaning of the phrase I
>> was trying to clarify!
>
> You can use the physical for illustrating a point, but you cannot use
> the *primary physical* as a starting assumption, unless you make a
> reductio ad absurdum.
>
> If you have a trouble with the first person indeterminacy notion, it
> is normal you have a trouble with the reversal, which is a
> consequence of it.
I guess I'm not there yet, as I don't see a connection between not
knowing what observation I will make next and the reversal you refer to.
I look forward to understanding both!
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
Andrew Soltau
>
> On 06 Mar 2011, at 14:24, Andrew Soltau wrote:
>
>> On 05/03/11 14:46, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> I appreciate your point on the logical types. Now, to base them on a
>>> physics, taken a priori, will prevent the solution of the
>>> computationalist mind body problem. Elementary arithmetic, and any
>>> universal system, defines automatically many logical types (like the
>>> arithmetical modalities of self-references and their variants) and
>>> the UDA shows that you have to reduce the physical modalities to
>>> modalities of self-reference, relativize to the UD or the sigma_1
>>> truth.
>>
>> The logical types I am referring to embrace any and all computations
>> and computational types. The constructs, algorithms, structures or
>> elements of any computation are of the first logical type. The
>> sequence of steps of a computation is of a second, different, logical
>> type. Iteration, the carrying out of the sequence of steps of a
>> computation of a third, different again, logical type.
>
> OK.
>
> All those logical types can be seen as non computable set of numbers.
> I can prove this, but it is long. You might search on Rice theorem in
> recursion theory (common name for a part of theoretical computer
> science).
I do not understand how iteration per se, the activity, the process,
that which results in numbers being computed, can be a "non computable
set of numbers". It is inherently meta to numbers of any kind.
Computation is an operation which applies to numbers. It is not a number
or a set of numbers.
>
>
>> These considerations are not based on a physics, rather the analysis
>> of the way any system, including a physical system,
>
> But what is a *physical* system? This is no more clear when you
> associate consciousness to number relations or computations.
>
regardless, in this point
>> evolves in time due to change, is based on these logical types.
>
> Which time? Which sort of changes?
The time evolution observers encounter in reality. The changes we
experience happening all the time. The renewal of the experiential view
of reality in the bodymind system of the observer. Any and all changes!
>
> With comp, types are formula, or set of formulas, written in first
> order logic. This can even been better exploited with the version of
> comp using the combinators or lambda terms as elementary objects, but
> I use numbers because people are more familiar to them.
> You might search on Curry-Howard isomorphism to see some of those
> exploitations. But it is an exploding subject, like quantum
> computation, so you need to search a lot to find readable
> introduction. There are still no good books on this.
The logical types I am referring to are not sets of formulae. Sets of
formulae are of a specific logical type.
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
Andrew Soltau
>
> On Mar 4, 5:46 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The measurement problem is the question of why, or even if, collapse
>> occurs. Certainly no coherent concept of how and why collapse occurs has
>> been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance. It
>> appears, as Davies and others explain, the appearance of collapse is
>> purely subjective,
> It doesn't "appear" in an univocal way, since there are
> such things as objective collapse theories
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_collapse_theory
>
OK, perhaps I stand corrected. But I am sure that no objective collapse
theory has been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance.
>> as Everett demonstrates.
> MWI isn't usually presented as a subjective theory. Penrose
> argues that it makes surreptitious assumptions about how
> observers' minds work, but that is part of an argument against
> it.
>
I would differentiate between Everett and MWI. MWI means to me many
worlds in some way separate. Everett is without question, in my view,
saying that there is one physical environment, and that it is only
subjectively that there are different, determinate views of that
environment.
>> In this case, consciousness
>> is necessarily central, as it is consciousness, and only consciousness,
>> which encounters this appearance of collapse and change.
> It is only consciousness that consciously encounters everything else
> too. However, that does not make consciousness *ontologically*
> fundamental.
>
It does if the physical system is static. If there is no change,
objectively, only subjectively, this points to consciousness -
phenomenal consciousness - being ontologically fundamental.
>> We know there
>> is an effective collapse, or the appearance of collapse, because we
>> experience this subjectively. On the other hand, nothing in the physical
>> world, including the physical body and the physical brain, can account
>> for this.
> Whoah! What he have is a profusion of theores, with no clear winner
What I mean is that if the physical domain is indeed static, as Davies,
Barbour, Deutsch and others explain, then nothing physical can account
for the appearance of change we encounter as observers. Coupled with the
inability to find any physiology corresponding to phenomenal
consciousness, and Chalmers finding that there can be no such
explanation, I infer this consciousness to be ontologically fundamental
- an emergent property of the unitary system as a whole.
>> Whatever consciousness is, it appears to be the phenomenon at
>> the centre of this process. In consciousness, change is encountered, the
>> appearance of collapse, and, it increasingly appears, no where else. My
>> paper Logical Types in Quantum Mechanics
>> <http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00005554/> explains this in detail.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> On 04/03/11 16:31, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mar 4, 2:20 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I suspect we all may.
>>>> Wong states that, important as a grand unified theory might be, "... it
>>>> is lacking in one important fundamental aspect, viz., the role of
>>>> consciousness [which] could in fact be considered the most fundamental
>>>> aspect of physics."
>>> How does he know consciousness is fundamental?
Andrew Soltau
>
> On Mar 4, 7:10 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I remind you that we are in the everything list which is based on the
>>> idea that "everything" is simpler than "something".
>> If we take Chalmers and Bitbol seriously, consciousness is a perfectly
>> symmetrical emergent property of the Everything, and you can't get much
>> simpler than that.
>
I think of it as the common definition that it is a property of a system
not present in any part or aspect of a system.
On my view, phenomenal consciousness is a property of the unitary system
the way transport is a property of a working vehicle. It's what it does!
Andrew Soltau
>
> On Mar 4, 8:12 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 04/03/11 19:10, Brent Meeker wrote:> Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people
>>
>> We don't have any evidence for that,
> Of course we do
>
That was a rather blanket statement. But if we can doubt the existence
of everything but our minds, then we don't have any evidence for it!
But I think it is perfectly tenable to say that we cannot prove that the
instruments which appear to us to be collapsed are in fact not
collapsed, that there is only the appearance of collapse subjectively.
How could one possibly disprove that?
>> indeed, if we take either the
>> concept of Wigner's friend or Rovelli's RQM seriously,
> We shouldn't take Wigner's friend as proving CCC, since it is
> intended as a reductio ad absurdum of it.
OK, but I happen to think it is a precise explanation of how reality works.
> And RQM doesn't remotely have that implication.
Yes it does. In RQM the environment is determinate where, and only
where, the observer has observed it. If I am Wigner, and my friend goes
off and does an experiment, the result is indeterminate in my version of
the environment.
>> this is not the
>> case.> - that's why we can shared records of experiments and agree on them.
>>
>> Or, we can deduce those phenomena simply from the coherence of our
>> personal systems.> I'm not sure what you mean by "account for" collapse.
>>
>> I mean that if there is a unitary linear dynamics, with no collapse, as
>> in Everett, no physical collapse, then there is the appearance of
>> collapse only 'in consciousness'.
> But Everett can explain the apperarance of collapse to instruments...
> he doesn't need consciousness.
Everett states very clearly that with respect to the physical body of
the observer there is no collapse. I think the intruments the observer
is using come under the same banner, the linear dynamics. He makes it
very clear that it is only with regard to the "record of sensory
observations and machine configuration" which I equate in his
formulation with the functional identity of the observer, that there is
the appearance of collapse. This is pretty much exactly the definition
of access consciousness, that of which the observer is directly and
immediately aware. (In the human observer, I take the record of machine
configuration to be the observations of the internal state of the
observer, as I explain in detail elsewhere.)
>>> At least one interpretation of QM, advocated by Peres, Fuchs, and
>>> Omnes for example, is that the "collapse" is purely epistemological.
>>> All that changes is our knowledge or model of the state and QM merely
>>> predicts probabilities for this change.
That's what I thought I was saying!
>> Fits my view.
>>
>>> Brent
Andrew Soltau
>> > Clearly it is a universal property of the system in which we find
>> > ourselves, physical or arithmetical.
>
Indeed. Clearly, in this case, it is a universal property of the system
Bruno Marchal
As you suggested, I tried to check the archive to make sense of your replies, but I utterly failed. The archive seems to be full of unexplained terminology as well. In your opinion, which previous messages provide justifications of your claims on finite random strings and white rabbit hallucinations?
1Z
On Mar 8, 1:02 am, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > It's rather well known that reductivism and eliminativism are
> > not equivalent positions, for instance.
> <snip>
> > And reductive identity theorists say mind "is" a bunch
> > of micro physical goings-on, whereas their eliminativist
> > opponents say mind "Is" nothing at all.
>
> Yes, indeed they do, as I am very well aware, but I've said why I
> think that neither of these "well known" positions can adequately
> address the mind-body issues, which is what we are discussing. My
> claim is that they are using circular reasoning, assuming the
> conclusion in the premise, or are simply ignoring the very tools they
> employ to construct their case. What specifically do you find to be
> the error in this analysis?
equivalent
> > Either or neither or both of reductivism and eliminativism can
> > be judged empirically inadequate: in no case does that
> > make them the same
>
> I have explained why I think any real distinction between the two in a
> materialist schema is fundamentally question-begging with respect to
> the mind-body problem, essentially in the terms Bruno articulated so
> succinctly.
who are proposing a theory are allowed to stipulate its principles
> You haven't pointed out what is wrong with my argument,
> merely that others disagree with it.
that materialism means there is no mind.
> It would be more helpful if you
> would say simply what you find to be wrong or unclear in what I have
> said.
>
> David
the reduction of heat to molecular motion. In these cases
the reduced phenomenon still exists. There is still such
a thing as heat. People who sincerely think mind is reducible
to brain states, therefore sincerely hold that mind is not nothing.
If you think that is mistaken, you need to say why. If you
think the mind-to-matter reduction simply fails, that is another
issue.
A failed attempt at reduction is not at all the same thing as denialism
1Z
On Mar 8, 11:32 am, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/03/11 15:06, 1Z wrote:
>
> > On Mar 4, 5:46 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> The measurement problem is the question of why, or even if, collapse
> >> occurs. Certainly no coherent concept of how and why collapse occurs has
> >> been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance. It
> >> appears, as Davies and others explain, the appearance of collapse is
> >> purely subjective,
> > It doesn't "appear" in an univocal way, since there are
> > such things as objective collapse theories
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_collapse_theory
>
> OK, perhaps I stand corrected. But I am sure that no objective collapse
> theory has been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance.
not met with general acceptance either!
>>> as Everett demonstrates.
> > MWI isn't usually presented as a subjective theory. Penrose
> > argues that it makes surreptitious assumptions about how
> > observers' minds work, but that is part of an argument against
> > it.
>
> I would differentiate between Everett and MWI. MWI means to me many
> worlds in some way separate.
same space time
> Everett is without question, in my view,
> saying that there is one physical environment,
>and that it is only
> subjectively that there are different, determinate views of that
> environment.
results to interaction
where in fact ever result occured. However, observer does not mean
human here, since observation is fundamentally entanglement for
Everett
>> In this case, consciousness
> >> is necessarily central, as it is consciousness, and only consciousness,
> >> which encounters this appearance of collapse and change.
> > It is only consciousness that consciously encounters everything else
> > too. However, that does not make consciousness *ontologically*
> > fundamental.
>
> It does if the physical system is static.
>If there is no change,
> objectively, only subjectively, this points to consciousness -
> phenomenal consciousness - being ontologically fundamental.
static universe hypothesis.
>> We know there
> >> is an effective collapse, or the appearance of collapse, because we
> >> experience this subjectively. On the other hand, nothing in the physical
> >> world, including the physical body and the physical brain, can account
> >> for this.
> > Whoah! What he have is a profusion of theores, with no clear winner
>
> What I mean is that if the physical domain is indeed static, as Davies,
> Barbour, Deutsch and others explain, then nothing physical can account
> for the appearance of change we encounter as observers.
> Coupled with the
> inability to find any physiology corresponding to phenomenal
> consciousness,
that phenomenal consciousness can be switched off
by drugs.
> and Chalmers finding that there can be no such
> explanation, I infer this consciousness to be ontologically fundamental
> - an emergent property of the unitary system as a whole.
with no phenomenality at all. All the problems of
QM relate to access consciousness, ie to how
observers get information.
Bruno Marchal
1Z
On Mar 8, 11:47 am, Andrew Soltau <andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/03/11 15:22, 1Z wrote:
>
> > On Mar 4, 8:12 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 04/03/11 19:10, Brent Meeker wrote:> Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people
>
> >> We don't have any evidence for that,
> > Of course we do
>
> That was a rather blanket statement. But if we can doubt the existence
> of everything but our minds, then we don't have any evidence for it!
>
> But I think it is perfectly tenable to say that we cannot prove that the
> instruments which appear to us to be collapsed are in fact not
> collapsed, that there is only the appearance of collapse subjectively.
> How could one possibly disprove that?>> indeed, if we take either the
> >> concept of Wigner's friend or Rovelli's RQM seriously,
> > We shouldn't take Wigner's friend as proving CCC, since it is
> > intended as a reductio ad absurdum of it.
>
> OK, but I happen to think it is a precise explanation of how reality works.
explanation
>> And RQM doesn't remotely have that implication.
> Yes it does. In RQM the environment is determinate where, and only
> where, the observer has observed it.
when they observe something.
>If I am Wigner, and my friend goes
> off and does an experiment, the result is indeterminate in my version of
> the environment.
because
there is no collapse in RQM.
>> this is not the
> >> case.> - that's why we can shared records of experiments and agree on them.
>
> >> Or, we can deduce those phenomena simply from the coherence of our
> >> personal systems.> I'm not sure what you mean by "account for" collapse.
>
> >> I mean that if there is a unitary linear dynamics, with no collapse, as
> >> in Everett, no physical collapse, then there is the appearance of
> >> collapse only 'in consciousness'.
> > But Everett can explain the apperarance of collapse to instruments...
> > he doesn't need consciousness.
>
> Everett states very clearly that with respect to the physical body of
> the observer there is no collapse. I think the intruments the observer
> is using come under the same banner, the linear dynamics. He makes it
> very clear that it is only with regard to the "record of sensory
> observations and machine configuration" which I equate in his
> formulation with the functional identity of the observer, that there is
> the appearance of collapse.
that doesn't clarify matters. As it happens, Everettian record
making can be automated.
> This is pretty much exactly the definition
> of access consciousness, that of which the observer is directly and
> immediately aware.
do any number of non-conscious machines...seismographs,
video recorders, etc. I don't think you can argue
that consciousness is involved just because record making is.
> (In the human observer, I take the record of machine
> configuration to be the observations of the internal state of the
> observer, as I explain in detail elsewhere.)>>> At least one interpretation of QM, advocated by Peres, Fuchs, an
1Z
firing
IS the pain, but physicalese descriptions of neuronal firing don't
capture that because
they are inadequate.
>So,
> eventually, some realize that if neuron plays a role in pain, they can
> only *associate* it to neuronal firing, and this leads to dualism,
> which most materialist abhor. That is even truer for monist
> materialist who are then force to accept a form of epiphenomenalism.
>
> Prima facie, comp, which is also a form of reductionism, might seems
> to be lead to a similar problem,
physical happening is that felt qualitiies are not identifiable with
physicalese descriptions. The approach outlined above resolves that
with the idea that concrete physical events have a noumenal
hinterland which is not captured by physicalese descriptions.
However, in the realm of pure math, without "stuffy matter",
no such hinterland is available: neuronal firings have to be
essentially
identical with their physicalese (and hence mathematical)
descriptions.
If the quale isn't there, it isn't anywhere: it has no place to hide.
Bruno Marchal
On 06/03/11 18:07, Bruno Marchal wrote:Chalmers is saying that conciousness cannot be a product of the physical, surely the very opposite of a materialist stance?
I understand Chalmers (materialist) stance,
Iteration is a feature common to all movies. All movies are seqeunces of frames, for iteration. Iteration per se is symmetrical to all movies. The iterative property of the unitary system, which each observer knows as phenomenal consciousness, is similarly symmetrical to all possible moments.
That schroedinger equation has to be redundant.Why should it be redundant? It predicts the results of experiments with the highest precision known to any science in the history of the human race.That alone suggests that SWE might a theorem, and not an axiom or something to be inferred from observation. Isn't it?Slightly lost here, since you state just above that " the quantum principle appears as a very plausible general trait of the universal machine. "
I was not aware that anyone thinks that particles and fileds result from a classical algorithm. What point are you making?That comp, which reduce physics to number theory, is not digital physics, which makes the universe (particles and fields) a computable thing (and thus that physics could be rendered by a classical algorithm, like a classical program computing a quantum computer for example).My point here was the distinction between comp and digital physics.So, by "the reduction of the mind body problem to a purely mathematical body problem" I understand you to mean that the contents of awareness are computable.
But I am having difficulty understanding why this is the *"contrary"* "of the idea that particles and fileds result from a classical algorithm.".
Surely, particles and fields could still result from a classical algorithm,
and in the context of that simulation, the simulation of the contents of awareness can be a process ongoing.
I understand now the distinction between comp and digital physics, but why is comp the contrary of digital physics?
I would differentiate between Everett and MWI. MWI means to me many worlds in some way separate. Everett is without question, in my view, saying that there is one physical environment, and that it is only subjectively that there are different, determinate views of that environment.
It is only consciousness that consciously encounters everything elsetoo. However, that does not make consciousness *ontologically*fundamental.It does if the physical system is static. If there is no change, objectively, only subjectively, this points to consciousness - phenomenal consciousness - being ontologically fundamental.
Computations have been discovered by mathematicians, in mathematics.Yes but! I have no problem with the idea of a Platonic realm of mathematical structures simply existing, with or without the physical to instantiate them. I am aware this is a deep philosophical debate, but the Platonic concept seems somehow more straightforward than the physicalist concept. But for there to be activity, change, time evolution, 'in' that Platonic realm, seems to me a massive leap. That all possible numbers simply exist seems simple and straightforward. And as Russell S points out, all possible numbers is vastly simpler than 'the numbers we have discovered / used / instantiated / whatever. But to posit the exercise of some computation requires something utterly different. There has to be some kind of changing frame of reference, as in a Turing machine in action. Are you saying you believe in this kind of procedural process as a process active in an abstract arithmetical Platonic realm? For it seems this is required in what you declare.
But whatever physical computation is, or whatever the process we are witnessing is, it requires an ongoing change.
The Turing machine moves along the tape, whether it is physical or simply a theoretical construct of a physical machine.
In order to actually move, and carry out the computation, step by step, it requres more than to exist, it has to act. There has to be a time evolution of the state of the system.
Irrespective of the existence of a physical universe, something has to explain how change comes about. Or are you saying that in the arithmetical universe change 'just happens', in the same way as all possible numbers 'just happen' to exist?
The logical types I am referring to embrace any and all computations and computational types. The constructs, algorithms, structures or elements of any computation are of the first logical type. The sequence of steps of a computation is of a second, different, logical type. Iteration, the carrying out of the sequence of steps of a computation of a third, different again, logical type.OK.All those logical types can be seen as non computable set of numbers. I can prove this, but it is long. You might search on Rice theorem in recursion theory (common name for a part of theoretical computer science).
I do not understand how iteration per se, the activity, the process, that which results in numbers being computed, can be a "non computable set of numbers". It is inherently meta to numbers of any kind. Computation is an operation which applies to numbers. It is not a number or a set of numbers.
The time evolution observers encounter in reality. The changes we experience happening all the time. The renewal of the experiential view of reality in the bodymind system of the observer. Any and all changes!
Roughly speaking, the thinkers or the dreamers are the universal numbers relatively to all other universal numbers.(A universal number is just the (finite) code of a universal (Turing, Post, Church, Kleene, ...) digital machine.Assuming comp, as always.
What I am driving at here is the same question as in the email Comp. Granted that all possible states exist, what changes the point of the present moment from one to another. My referring to 'the thinker' was probably not a helpful metaphor. Given the universal numbers, what carries out the process whereby one is transformed into another? What makes the state of the thinker or the dreamer into the state of that entity at the next moment?
Aha. Thanks. Much clearer.So, what Chalmers call "The computational hypothesis" is what is often called "digital physics". It is not the same thing.Do you simply mean that there is no single computational process giving rise to this 'I' that is a machine?A priori the computational hypothesis is incompatible with "digital physics". Chalmers is a bit ambiguous though, due to the 'computational process' wording". In my work it is a result that IF I am a machine, then physics is a (a priori non computable) sum on infinities of computation, so there are no "underlying computational processes", except in some extended sense of "underlying".
I understand this to mean that "I" cannot be told from a simulation on a Turing machine. And, from your concept of replacing increasing amounts of the bodymind of the observer with machine, I understand this to mean that it is "I" at the experiential level, in other words, "I" in terms of the sensations (in the broadest sense, as defined by Page in CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE QUANTUM) experienced, that cannot be told from a simulation on a Turing machine.comp assumes only that "I" is Turing emulable, in the 3-person sense.
UnderstoodDigital physics implies comp, but comp does not imply digital physics,Why so? why should not the emulation of "I" be taking place in an apparently physical universe which is actually an emulation on a digital machine. That would be peculiarly double layered emulation, but I can see no reason why it is ruled out.and imply the negation of digital physics
If you prepare an electron in the state (up + down), and decide to look at it with a {up, down} measuring apparatus, you will experience the personal outcome as non determinate.This is what I don't understand. When I look at it with a {up, down} measuring apparatus, I must necessarily experience a specific determinate outcome, reported by the {up, down} measuring apparatus. The whole puzzle of the measurement problem is that I always experience a specific determinate outcome, reported by the {up, down} measuring apparatus, despite the fact that objectively both results must obtain
You can say with Everett that the outcome of the whole process describing you+electron is determinate: it is you-electron-up + you-electron-down, but with or without collapse, the outcome you are experiencing is not determinate. That is the quantum indeterminacy.
There is only quantum indeterminacy in the absence of collapse.
I can only make sense of your statement "but with or without collapse, the outcome you are experiencing is not determinate." if you mean "you" to be the ensemble of all possible mes. Following Everett, for the physical observer the outcome is not determinate, but the whole point is that the *experience* is determinate. Hence the measurement problem.
With comp, it is simpler. It is the fact that if you are a machine, then I can scan you, annihilate you and reconstitute you in two different place (W and M, say). If I ask you what will happen, you can still say that the outcome is determinate, when seen in the third person view (I will be both in W and in M), but if you are asked what will be your personal experience (what you will put in your memory or diary), you might understand that such a personal outcome cannot be determined. You cannot say "I will be certainly in W", because you can understand the one who will be in M will have to say "I was wrong", and comp makes his opinion valuable. You cannot say "I will be in W and in M", because you know that you will not write "Oh, I see I am in both cities at once", etc...OK
Basically, Everett makes the quantum indeterminacy a sort of particular case of comp indeterminacy, except that I agree with Deutsch that the quantum indterminacy does not involve physical splitting. Only consciousness differentiates. Eventually that is what happens with comp too.OK
I imagine I am simply misunderstanding the language. Do you mean simply the apparent lack of determincy of Wigner's friend's experience of the experiment in Wigner's point of view? My confusion comes from the fact that from Wigner's friend's point of view, the point of view of the subject involved, the outcome is always determinate.I was trying to establish the exact meaning of the phrase first person indeterminacy in an earlier conversation. I statedBy 'first person indeterminacy' in 1 below, I am reading this as the indeterminacy regarding the actual location and thus physical context / instantiation of this observer.It concerns the future of personal experience, in the experiments of comp (or quantum) self-duplication.You can also consider the iteration of self-duplication. If you iterate 64 times, there will be 2^64 versions of you. First person indeterminacy is the fact that most of the 2^64 versions of you will agree that they were unable to predict in advance what was the next outcome at each iteration. Most will consider that their histories (like:"WMMMWWMWMMMMWWWMMWMMWWWWWM ..." (length 64)are random, even Chaitin-incompressible.Does this help?So, 'first person indeterminacy' simply means that I don't know what observation I will make next?
Brent Meeker
> We could start with lambda terms, or combinators instead. A
> computation (of phi_4(5) is just a sequence
>
> phi_4^0 (5) phi_4^1 (5) phi_4^2 (5) phi_4^3 (5) phi_4^4 (5)
> phi_4^5 (5) phi_4^6 (5) ...
>
> _4 is the program. 5 is the input. ^i is the ith step (i = 0, 1, 2,
> ...), and phi refers implicitly to a universal number.
Bruno, I don't think I understand what a universal number is. Could you
point me to an explication.
thnx, Brent
David Nyman
> There are uncontroversial examples of successful reduction, eg
> the reduction of heat to molecular motion. In these cases
> the reduced phenomenon still exists. There is still such
> a thing as heat. People who sincerely think mind is reducible
> to brain states, therefore sincerely hold that mind is not nothing.
> If you think that is mistaken, you need to say why.
My point has always been simply to hold materialist theory to account
in its own terms. In these terms, when you have reduced heat to
molecular motion, and thence to its putatively fundamental
micro-constituents, you have thereby shown that there is NO HEAT at
this fundamental level. To be clear: it is NOT the case that there is
molecular motion AND heat; there is JUST molecular motion (or rather
its fundamental constituents). I would remind you that you have been
deploying a similar argument with respect to the formal nature of
mathematics, which was the point of departure for this iteration of
the discussion.
Similarly, if you can reduce mind to brain states, and thence to its
micro-constituents, then you have likewise shown that there is NO MIND
at this fundamental level. "Heat" and "mind" are a posteriori mental
constructs, supernumerary to the reduced account; hence the claimed
"identity" with the reduced material substrate is properly an
additional posit necessitated by the after-the-material-fact of mind
and its constructs. To state this is just to state the Hard Problem.
Consequently, what is mistaken about eliminativism is that, since it
must employ the fruits of mind to deny the existence of mind, it is
simply incoherent. What is mistaken about materialist identity theory
is that its assumptions force it to collapse two categorically
orthogonal states into one, which is simply to turn the meaning of
"identity" on its head. This might be acceptable to Humpty Dumpty,
but to a less idiosyncratic user of language it must appear merely ad
hoc and desperate. One can easily see how the "morning star" might be
shown to be one with the "evening star", but the claim that first and
third-person phenomena can be similarly collapsed without residue is
of a very different order. A weaker version (the "easy" option) is
the hope that one type of material state might be reliably correlated
with another (e.g. the neural correlates of consciousness), which is
an empirical possibility; such an approach would permit the theory to
sidestep the orthogonality problem, which lingers stubbornly in the
"hard" corner.
I really don't know why you would consider the above account to be
controversial, based on your arguments elsewhere vis-a-vis
mathematical formalism. Of course I'm not denying that "heat" and
"mind" exist; I'm just saying that nothing of the kind can be
extracted A PRIORI from the fundamental reduction that is the goal and
terminus of micro-physical theory. And the point of saying this is to
articulate the Hard Problem in a particularly pointed way, without all
that distasteful talk of the undead. The end point of reduction is
the a priori elimination of everything composite. Hence there are no
zombies in this etiolated picture. There isn't anything composite at
all; nothing above the level of the micro-physical goings-on
themselves. Everything else manifests after the fact of observation.
And that really is the Hard Problem.
David
1Z
On Mar 8, 9:15 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> > There are uncontroversial examples of successful reduction, eg
> > the reduction of heat to molecular motion. In these cases
> > the reduced phenomenon still exists. There is still such
> > a thing as heat. People who sincerely think mind is reducible
> > to brain states, therefore sincerely hold that mind is not nothing.
> > If you think that is mistaken, you need to say why.
>
> My point has always been simply to hold materialist theory to account
> in its own terms. In these terms, when you have reduced heat to
> molecular motion, and thence to its putatively fundamental
> micro-constituents, you have thereby shown that there is NO HEAT at
> this fundamental level. To be clear: it is NOT the case that there is
> molecular motion AND heat;
molecular
motion is identical to heat, and there is nonetheless no heat.
It *is* the case that there is molecular motion, *which is* heat.
>there is JUST molecular motion (or rather
> its fundamental constituents). I would remind you that you have been
> deploying a similar argument with respect to the formal nature of
> mathematics,
refer. But "heat" does refer. It refers to what "molecular motion"
refers to. Two terms, one referent. Likewise "Muhamad Ali"
and "Cassius Clay". When someone says "Ali is identical to Clay"
they are not asserting the non-existence of either.
>which was the point of departure for this iteration of
> the discussion.
>
> Similarly, if you can reduce mind to brain states, and thence to its
> micro-constituents, then you have likewise shown that there is NO MIND
> at this fundamental level. "Heat" and "mind" are a posteriori mental
> constructs, supernumerary to the reduced account;
We don't
need both "Clay" and "Ali", but both terms have something
to refer to.
> hence the claimed
> "identity" with the reduced material substrate is properly an
> additional posit necessitated by the after-the-material-fact of mind
> and its constructs.
> To state this is just to state the Hard Problem.
of experience. All you have done is asserted something
of an identification that clearly doesn't apply to other
identifications. It is not the case that one of the Morning
Star and the Everning Star doesn't exist (which one?)
> Consequently, what is mistaken about eliminativism is that, since it
> must employ the fruits of mind to deny the existence of mind, it is
> simply incoherent.
world. but it isn't the same thing as reductivism.
> What is mistaken about materialist identity theory
> is that its assumptions force it to collapse two categorically
> orthogonal states into one,
distinct from your claim that reductions in general are eliminations
>which is simply to turn the meaning of
> "identity" on its head.
case. But identification still isn't elimination, and it
works in some cases even if it doesn't work with mind.
> This might be acceptable to Humpty Dumpty,
> but to a less idiosyncratic user of language it must appear merely ad
> hoc and desperate.
a very specific problem to do with the nature of mind and matter.
However, successful reductions don't change the *meaning* of
identity. If anyone is doing *that* it's you!
> One can easily see how the "morning star" might be
> shown to be one with the "evening star", but the claim that first and
> third-person phenomena can be similarly collapsed without residue is
> of a very different order.
still doesn't *mean* ellimination!!
>A weaker version (the "easy" option) is
> the hope that one type of material state might be reliably correlated
> with another (e.g. the neural correlates of consciousness), which is
> an empirical possibility; such an approach would permit the theory to
> sidestep the orthogonality problem, which lingers stubbornly in the
> "hard" corner.
>
> I really don't know why you would consider the above account to be
> controversial, based on your arguments elsewhere vis-a-vis
> mathematical formalism.
to set theory, that doesn;t mean there is no arithmetic.
If sets exist, then numbers do, and if sets don't numbers
don't. It makes no sense to say that the one exists
and the other doesn't. That would be like saying Ali
lives and Clay does not, or the morning star
has been hit by an asteroid, but the evening star has not
> Of course I'm not denying that "heat" and
> "mind" exist; I'm just saying that nothing of the kind can be
> extracted A PRIORI from the fundamental reduction that is the goal and
> terminus of micro-physical theory.
is at least a third non-equivalent version of the claim.
>And the point of saying this is to
> articulate the Hard Problem in a particularly pointed way,
about reduction being elimination were general in nature.
> without all
> that distasteful talk of the undead. The end point of reduction is
> the a priori elimination of everything composite.
> Hence there are no
> zombies in this etiolated picture. There isn't anything composite at
> all; nothing above the level of the micro-physical goings-on
> themselves.
structures and bindings? What ***are*** you on about?
David Nyman
> How can they fail to be composite when they include interactions,
> structures and bindings? What ***are*** you on about?
Say there is a pile of bricks that, under some externally-applied
description, could be construed as a house; then that pile is what
there is, not a pile + "a house". Similarly if a theory says that
what exists is just micro-physical bricks and their relations, then
just those things are what one should expect to encounter - not those
things + an open-ended zoo of higher-order composite entities. Since
the theory of micro-bricks in relation supposes these to do all the
work, what a priori reason would there be to posit additional
composite entities on top of the bricks themselves? In fact
composites command our attention only in the context of observation
after-the-micro-physical-facts, in the form of the
non-micro-physical-facts - the so-called "secondary qualities". To
dramatise this, Chalmers uses the metaphor of the zombie, for which no
secondary qualitative composites exist, nor any apparent need of them.
That's what I'm on about, but in a more general way.
David
1Z
On Mar 9, 1:03 am, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> > How can they fail to be composite when they include interactions,
> > structures and bindings? What ***are*** you on about?
>
> Say there is a pile of bricks that, under some externally-applied
> description, could be construed as a house; then that pile is what
> there is, not a pile + "a house".
why shouldn't I say that such-and-such mortared-together bricks are
a house - the house exists as does the bricks-and-mortar.
> Similarly if a theory says that
> what exists is just micro-physical bricks and their relations, then
> just those things are what one should expect to encounter - not those
> things + an open-ended zoo of higher-order composite entities.
and binding between molecules are just the way they get composite
entities get composed. If you mortar bricks together you intend
to build something
> Since
> the theory of micro-bricks in relation supposes these to do all the
> work, what a priori reason would there be to posit additional
> composite entities on top of the bricks themselves?
are they non-existent. They are identified with subsets of their
component parts.
> In fact
> composites command our attention only in the context of observation
> after-the-micro-physical-facts, in the form of the
> non-micro-physical-facts - the so-called "secondary qualities".
parts, whilst actually being so.
> To
> dramatise this, Chalmers uses the metaphor of the zombie, for which no
> secondary qualitative composites exist,
issue.
>nor any apparent need of them.
> That's what I'm on about, but in a more general way.
We can imagine zombies because we don't understand
the neuron-qualia link. But we do understand the molecule-heat
link, and the brick-house link. So it is insane to say "that is just
mortared-together bricks, not a building".
>
> read more »
Bruno Marchal
The expression "universal numbers" is mine, but the idea is implicit
in any textbook on theoretical computer science, or of recursion
theory (like books by Cutland, or Rogers, or Boolos and Jeffrey, ...).
Fix any universal system, for example numbers+addition+multiplication,
or LISP programs.
You can enumerate the programs:
P_0, P_1, P_2, ...
So that you can enumerate the corresponding phi_i
phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ...
Take a computable bijection between NXN and N, so that couples of
numbers <x,y> are code by numbers, and you can mechanically extract x
and y from <x,y>
Then u is a universal number if for all x and y you have that
phi_u(<x,y>) = phi_x(y).
In practice x is called program, and y is called the input.
Now, I use, as fixed initial universal system, a Robinson Arithmetic
prover. I will say that a number u is universal if RA can prove the
(purely arithmetical) relation phi_u(<x,y>) = phi_x(y).
The notion is not entirely intrinsic (so to be universal is not like
to be prime), but this is not important because from the machine's
point of view, all universal numbers have to be taken into account.
With that respect, here, mind theorist have an easier work than
computer scientist which search intrinsic notion of universality. We
don't need that, because the personal Löbian machine and their
hypostases does not depend on the initial choice, neither of the
computable bijection, nor of the "first universal" system.
To put it more simply: a universal number is the Gödel number of the
code of a universal system (a computer, or a general purpose computer
(in french: an 'ordinateur'), or a 'programming language interpreter').
OK? Ask for more if needed.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
Except that it is not a brute fact that the neuronal firing is the
pain. That does not make sense. A neuronal firing is entirely
descriptibe in a thrid person way, but a pain is not at all. You can
associate them, but you can't equate them. You can identify 3-heat
with molecular cinetic energy, but you cannot equate the sensation of
heat with neuronal firing in the same way. The problem is that *any*
physicalese or not, third person description of what could be the pain
will fail, because the pain quale is just not a third person
describable phenomenon. Comp solves the problem by identifying the
pain with what appears to be existing non describable, by numbers,
attribute of numbers' relation.
>
>> So,
>> eventually, some realize that if neuron plays a role in pain, they
>> can
>> only *associate* it to neuronal firing, and this leads to dualism,
>> which most materialist abhor. That is even truer for monist
>> materialist who are then force to accept a form of epiphenomenalism.
>>
>> Prima facie, comp, which is also a form of reductionism, might seems
>> to be lead to a similar problem,
>
> It leads to a worse problem. The objection to identifying qualia with
> physical happening is that felt qualitiies are not identifiable with
> physicalese descriptions.
Yes.
> The approach outlined above resolves that
> with the idea that concrete physical events have a noumenal
> hinterland which is not captured by physicalese descriptions.
Well, this is introducing magical thing in the picture. If such
noumenal things exist, they have to escape the comp description. I can
say "yes" to the doctor if my consciousness and qualia is related to a
noumenal hinterland of the matter in my physical brain. That noumenal
matter hinterland contradicts the idea that there is a level of
description of myself where matter and physical structure can be
replaced by arbitrary different matter and structure, once they
preserve the computational relations, which are arithmetical, by
digitality.
> However, in the realm of pure math, without "stuffy matter",
> no such hinterland is available: neuronal firings have to be
> essentially
> identical with their physicalese (and hence mathematical)
> descriptions.
The contrary happens. The physical stuff lost the possibility to be
entirely describe in mathematical terms. We need theological terms,
and the whole self-reference logics.
> If the quale isn't there, it isn't anywhere: it has no place to hide.
It has the whole theological realm, which exists *epistemologically*
for any universal machine introspecting itself. And the self-reference
logic justifies entirely their non communicable feature, without
denying them and without trying to localize them in any way, like
numbers are not localized in any place. Localization is a higher
epistemological emerging notion, not a primitive one, in the comp
picture.
Bruno Marchal
1Z
identification
is true as a brute fact, then it is the description that is failing.
Since
it fails, we can't grasp the brute fact, but brute facts aren't
necessarily
graspable...that is the point of the jargon term "brute fact". In the
world of mathematics, ideas such as brute facts and unreachable
noumena don't make sense, because mathematical objects are fully
describable. Brute facts belong to realism, where certain things "just
are"
and there is no guarantee they will be comprehensible.
> You can
> associate them, but you can't equate them. You can identify 3-heat
> with molecular cinetic energy, but you cannot equate the sensation of
> heat with neuronal firing in the same way. The problem is that *any*
> physicalese or not, third person description of what could be the pain
> will fail, because the pain quale is just not a third person
> describable phenomenon.
>se will fail, but then we can keep
the identity between the pain and the neural activity, and reject
the identity between the nerual firing and the physicalese description
>Comp solves the problem by identifying the
> pain with what appears to be existing non describable, by numbers,
> attribute of numbers' relation.
>
>
>
> >> So,
> >> eventually, some realize that if neuron plays a role in pain, they
> >> can
> >> only *associate* it to neuronal firing, and this leads to dualism,
> >> which most materialist abhor. That is even truer for monist
> >> materialist who are then force to accept a form of epiphenomenalism.
>
> >> Prima facie, comp, which is also a form of reductionism, might seems
> >> to be lead to a similar problem,
>
> > It leads to a worse problem. The objection to identifying qualia with
> > physical happening is that felt qualitiies are not identifiable with
> > physicalese descriptions.
>
> Yes.
>
> > The approach outlined above resolves that
> > with the idea that concrete physical events have a noumenal
> > hinterland which is not captured by physicalese descriptions.
>
> Well, this is introducing magical thing in the picture. If such
> noumenal things exist, they have to escape the comp description.
computationalism, as a theory of qualia, are the same are the same as
physicalism
only worse.
> I can
> say "yes" to the doctor if my consciousness and qualia is related to a
> noumenal hinterland of the matter in my physical brain. That noumenal
> matter hinterland contradicts the idea that there is a level of
> description of myself where matter and physical structure can be
> replaced by arbitrary different matter and structure, once they
> preserve the computational relations, which are arithmetical, by
> digitality.
how to write subroutines for phenomenality. That artificial people
do not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.
> > However, in the realm of pure math, without "stuffy matter",
> > no such hinterland is available: neuronal firings have to be
> > essentially
> > identical with their physicalese (and hence mathematical)
> > descriptions.
>
> The contrary happens. The physical stuff lost the possibility to be
> entirely describe in mathematical terms. We need theological terms,
> and the whole self-reference logics.
> > If the quale isn't there, it isn't anywhere: it has no place to hide.
>
> It has the whole theological realm, which exists *epistemologically*
> for any universal machine introspecting itself. And the self-reference
> logic justifies entirely their non communicable feature, without
> denying them and without trying to localize them in any way, like
> numbers are not localized in any place. Localization is a higher
> epistemological emerging notion, not a primitive one, in the comp
> picture.
>
Andrew Soltau
>
> On Mar 8, 11:32 am, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 06/03/11 15:06, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 4, 5:46 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> The measurement problem is the question of why, or even if, collapse
>>>> occurs. Certainly no coherent concept of how and why collapse occurs has
>>>> been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance. It
>>>> appears, as Davies and others explain, the appearance of collapse is
>>>> purely subjective,
>>> It doesn't "appear" in an univocal way, since there are
>>> such things as objective collapse theories
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_collapse_theory
>> OK, perhaps I stand corrected. But I am sure that no objective collapse
>> theory has been formulated in a manner which meets with general acceptance.
>
> Subjective collapse theories, and no collapse theories have
> not met with general acceptance either!
>>>> as Everett demonstrates.
>>> MWI isn't usually presented as a subjective theory. Penrose
>>> argues that it makes surreptitious assumptions about how
>>> observers' minds work, but that is part of an argument against
>>> it.
>> I would differentiate between Everett and MWI. MWI means to me many
>> worlds in some way separate.
> That's vague. Worlds separate on decoherence but share the
> same space time
>> Everett is without question, in my view,
>> saying that there is one physical environment,
> That's vague too.
>> and that it is only
>> subjectively that there are different, determinate views of that
>> environment.
> And that. Observers embedded in the system will see determinate
> results to interaction
> where in fact ever result occured. However, observer does not mean
> human here, since observation is fundamentally entanglement for
> Everett
change, with respect to the memory of the observer.
>>> In this case, consciousness
>>>> is necessarily central, as it is consciousness, and only consciousness,
>>>> which encounters this appearance of collapse and change.
>>> It is only consciousness that consciously encounters everything else
>>> too. However, that does not make consciousness *ontologically*
>>> fundamental.
>> It does if the physical system is static.
>
>> If there is no change,
>> objectively, only subjectively, this points to consciousness -
>> phenomenal consciousness - being ontologically fundamental.
> On the other hand, the appearance of change refutes the
> static universe hypothesis.
subjective appearance of collapse and change.
>>> We know there
>>>> is an effective collapse, or the appearance of collapse, because we
>>>> experience this subjectively. On the other hand, nothing in the physical
>>>> world, including the physical body and the physical brain, can account
>>>> for this.
>>> Whoah! What he have is a profusion of theores, with no clear winner
>> What I mean is that if the physical domain is indeed static, as Davies,
>> Barbour, Deutsch and others explain, then nothing physical can account
>> for the appearance of change we encounter as observers.
> Well, *they* don't think that,
illusion. Davies makes similar statements. Barbour simply leaves it at
there is no time.
>> Coupled with the
>> inability to find any physiology corresponding to phenomenal
>> consciousness,
> That's an odd thing to say. It is rather well known
> that phenomenal consciousness can be switched off
> by drugs.
human being, no physiological explanation can be found for phenomenal
consciousness, as Chalmers spends the majority of a whole book carefully
explaining.
>> and Chalmers finding that there can be no such
>> explanation, I infer this consciousness to be ontologically fundamental
>> - an emergent property of the unitary system as a whole.
> But you could have observers in quantum mechanics
> with no phenomenality at all. All the problems of
> QM relate to access consciousness, ie to how
> observers get information.
hulks in other commentaries. But invoking phenomenal consciousness as a
system property solves the 'objectively static, subjective appearance of
collapse and change' issue.
I'm not aware of a problem of how observers get information in QM.
Everett posits the basic mechanism of an observer as one with sensory
apparatus and recording capability. As he demonstrates, this physical
entity becomes a superposition -> mixture of all possible states having
made all possible versions of the observation, and only with respect to
the contents of the memory is there a specific determinate outcome,
which is perhaps what you are referring to as 'getting information'.
(Agreed of course that all this is to do with access consciousness.)
This seems to me to be exactly the same process as in RQM, where the
correlations record defines the determinacy of the effective physical
environment of the observer, except that in Everett the correlations
record is defined by sensory observations. But is nonetheless a record
of correlations with the physical environment, and thus defines the
determinacy of the effective physical environment. (And hence my
conclusion, that the 'record of sensory observations and machine state',
which I dub the world hologram, as it is the definition of the
subjective reality of the observer, defines the determinacy of the
effective physical environment of that observer, which I find as
fascinating as it is also to me rather terrifying!)
Andrew Soltau
>
> On Mar 8, 11:47 am, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 06/03/11 15:22, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 4, 8:12 pm, Andrew Soltau<andrewsol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 04/03/11 19:10, Brent Meeker wrote:> Collapse "appears" to instruments as well as people
>>>> We don't have any evidence for that,
>>> Of course we do
>> That was a rather blanket statement. But if we can doubt the existence
>> of everything but our minds, then we don't have any evidence for it!
>>
>> But I think it is perfectly tenable to say that we cannot prove that the
>> instruments which appear to us to be collapsed are in fact not
>> collapsed, that there is only the appearance of collapse subjectively.
> That they really are collapsed is tenable too.
subjectively there is collapse, and that objectively, 'most of the
time', the wave equation applies, complete with decoherence producing a
mixture of all possible states.
>> How could one possibly disprove that?>> indeed, if we take either the
>>>> concept of Wigner's friend or Rovelli's RQM seriously,
>>> We shouldn't take Wigner's friend as proving CCC, since it is
>>> intended as a reductio ad absurdum of it.
>> OK, but I happen to think it is a precise explanation of how reality works.
> It is strange to regard something intended as a paradox as an
> explanation
the world really is as Schroedinger's cat demonstrates.
>>> And RQM doesn't remotely have that implication.
>> Yes it does. In RQM the environment is determinate where, and only
>> where, the observer has observed it.
> In RQM, the observers knowledge becomes determinate
> when they observe something.
environment correlated with the observer by 'observation', which in RQM
means physical interaction.
>> If I am Wigner, and my friend goes
>> off and does an experiment, the result is indeterminate in my version of
>> the environment.
> Well, you don't know it. But you don't cause the friend to collapse,
> because
> there is no collapse in RQM.
>>> this is not the
>>>> case.> - that's why we can shared records of experiments and agree on them.
>>>> Or, we can deduce those phenomena simply from the coherence of our
>>>> personal systems.> I'm not sure what you mean by "account for" collapse.
>>>> I mean that if there is a unitary linear dynamics, with no collapse, as
>>>> in Everett, no physical collapse, then there is the appearance of
>>>> collapse only 'in consciousness'.
>>> But Everett can explain the apperarance of collapse to instruments...
>>> he doesn't need consciousness.
>> Everett states very clearly that with respect to the physical body of
>> the observer there is no collapse. I think the intruments the observer
>> is using come under the same banner, the linear dynamics. He makes it
>> very clear that it is only with regard to the "record of sensory
>> observations and machine configuration" which I equate in his
>> formulation with the functional identity of the observer, that there is
>> the appearance of collapse.
> SInce you didn't say whether you mean human or machine observer,
> that doesn't clarify matters. As it happens, Everettian record
> making can be automated.
argument applies to non humans.
>> This is pretty much exactly the definition
>> of access consciousness, that of which the observer is directly and
>> immediately aware.
> Access consciousness involves record making, and so
> do any number of non-conscious machines...seismographs,
> video recorders, etc. I don't think you can argue
> that consciousness is involved just because record making is.
producing observations and instantiating the record of observations.
David Nyman
ontological and epistemological claims that makes me think that you
haven't taken on board the fundamental distinction entailed in Bruno's
original statement:
"Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
*elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*."
If we haven't resolved something so fundamental at the outset, it's no
wonder you find what I go on to say so difficult to follow. As Bruno
implies, the whole POINT of any ontological reduction programme is
ontological elimination: it is an attempt (however incapable of final
success it may be) to distinguish what "REALLY" exists from what
"APPEARS" to exist. Hence it is of the greatest significance that
ontological elimination doesn't also entail epistemological
elimination; i.e. even when composites seem to have been shown to have
no "really real" ontological status distinct from their components,
they nonetheless somehow stubbornly hang on to their "apparently real"
epistemological status.
The relationship to the Hard Problem should now be clear, I think: the
"zombie" is just the reduced ontology of the components, shorn of any
composite epistemology. Since ontological reduction wants to say that
this reduced state of affairs JUST IS what the "real" situation
consists in, this shouldn't be a problem, and indeed this is the
eliminativist position, however bizarre it may seem. However, unless
we lapse into that sort of inconsistency, it manifestly IS a problem -
i.e. the Hard one.
David
1Z
On Mar 9, 12:50 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
> Peter, your comments appear to illustrate a basic confusion between
> ontological and epistemological claims that makes me think that you
> haven't taken on board the fundamental distinction entailed in Bruno's
> original statement:
>
> "Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological
> *elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*."
>
> If we haven't resolved something so fundamental at the outset, it's no
> wonder you find what I go on to say so difficult to follow. As Bruno
> implies, the whole POINT of any ontological reduction programme is
> ontological elimination: it is an attempt (however incapable of final
> success it may be) to distinguish what "REALLY" exists from what
> "APPEARS" to exist. Hence it is of the greatest significance that
> ontological elimination doesn't also entail epistemological
> elimination; i.e. even when composites seem to have been shown to have
> no "really real" ontological status distinct from their components,
> they nonetheless somehow stubbornly hang on to their "apparently real"
> epistemological status.
is not real/apparent, because houses and heat are not held to be
illusions.
The crucial distinction is fundamental/non-fundamental. To reduce
is to identify a higher-level phenomeonon with a more fundamental one.
Note the phrase "more fundamental". The wise reductionist does
not claim to know what is really fundamental. That being the case,
it is unwise to insist that the non-fundamental
is unreal, since the reduction base might ultimately be non-
fundamental itself
One can reduce a house to mortared bricks without knowing that bricks
are made of atoms.
Neural activity is also non-fundamental, but where is the materialist
who
insists it is unreal?
> The relationship to the Hard Problem should now be clear, I think: the
> "zombie" is just the reduced ontology of the components, shorn of any
> composite epistemology.
reduction-means-elimination. We can imagine that zombies
lack qualia, because we don't see how the alleged reduction base,
their neural activity, would necessitate it. Far from being an example
of reduction, that is a case where reductive explanation has *failed*
to occur
because where there is a successful reductive explanation, the
necessity
of the higher-level phenomenon being present is clear. If heat *is*
molecular motion it *must* be present where molecular motion is
present!
There are no heat zombies -- the idea is unthinkable!
Zombies are not a typical example of the problems of reduction,
they are an instance of the reduction being bought too cheaply:
the reductive materialist presents the off-the-peg conclusion that
consciousness
"just is" neural firing, without filling in the explanation that
allows
us to see that it *must be*, so that we instead remain being able to
see that it
*might not* be!
Andrew Soltau
>
> 1) SWE
what is SWE?
1Z
because
"determinacy" is relational
Individual systems may or may not be able to extract classical
information from other individual systems
David Nyman
Peter, this is too confusing, you seem to be debating a straw man.
Let's try to keep it simple: am I to assume that you don't agree that
ontological reduction entails ontological elimination?
David
1Z
On Mar 9, 1:46 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> Peter, this is too confusing, you seem to be debating a straw man.
> Let's try to keep it simple: am I to assume that you don't agree that
> ontological reduction entails ontological elimination?
>
> David
>
Phlogiston was eliminated, heat was reduced. There's a difference
David Nyman
> Phlogiston was eliminated, heat was reduced. There's a difference
So on this basis you would claim that heat is *ontologically* (i.e.
not merely epistemologically) distinguishable from molecular motion?
1Z
On Mar 9, 2:23 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> > Phlogiston was eliminated, heat was reduced. There's a difference
>
> So on this basis you would claim that heat is *ontologically* (i.e.
> not merely epistemologically) distinguishable from molecular motion?
>
motion, and molecular motion exists, so heat exists, so
heat was not eliminated
David Nyman
>> So on this basis you would claim that heat is *ontologically* (i.e.
>> not merely epistemologically) distinguishable from molecular motion?
>>
> No. I would say it is ontologically the same as molecular
> motion, and molecular motion exists, so heat exists, so
> heat was not eliminated
It seems that you persistently misunderstand the meaning of
elimination in this context. If something can be shown to be a
composite of more fundamental ontological components, it is of course
disqualified (i.e. eliminated) thereby as an ontological fundamental,
else such use of the terms "ontological", "fundamental" and
"eliminated" is rendered meaningless. Hence heat can indeed be
eliminated from the catalogue of ontological fundamentals in this way,
and understood as consisting in the more fundamental phenomenon of
molecular motion. Of course the *concept* (and a fortiori the
sensation) of heat isn't thereby eliminated epistemologically, but
this is the very distinction we are trying to establish on a firm
footing. The reductionist programme seeks to eliminate any need (in
principle) to appeal to any and all non-fundamental ontological
entities in precisely this way, and hence show ontology as resting on
a single fundamental base, thereby situating composite entities at the
epistemological level.
David
Bruno Marchal
Brent Meeker
>> I can
>> > say "yes" to the doctor if my consciousness and qualia is related to a
>> > noumenal hinterland of the matter in my physical brain. That noumenal
>> > matter hinterland contradicts the idea that there is a level of
>> > description of myself where matter and physical structure can be
>> > replaced by arbitrary different matter and structure, once they
>> > preserve the computational relations, which are arithmetical, by
>> > digitality.
>>
> Yep. Comp is a bad theory of qualia. We don't know
> how to write subroutines for phenomenality.
Maybe we do. We just don't know that we know.
> That artificial people
> do not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.
>
>
To me that is an open question. Are philosophical zombies possible? It
seems unlikely, but when I consider specific ideas about consciousness,
such as Julian Jaynes, then it seems more plausible that conscious-like
behavior could be evinced with such different internal processing that
it would not realize consciousness as I experience it - though it might
still be consciousness in Bruno's sense of being capable of mathematical
self-reference.
Brent
Brent Meeker
>>> Coupled with the
>>> inability to find any physiology corresponding to phenomenal
>>> consciousness,
>> That's an odd thing to say. It is rather well known
>> that phenomenal consciousness can be switched off
>> by drugs.
> True, but when not switched off, when operating in an alive and awake
> human being, no physiological explanation can be found for phenomenal
> consciousness, as Chalmers spends the majority of a whole book
> carefully explaining.
Chalmers should take a lesson from Newton. When asked to explain how
gravity worked he replied, "Hypothesi non fingo."
Brent
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret,
they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct
which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes
observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct
is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.
--�John von Neumann
Bruno Marchal
You canassociate them, but you can't equate them. You can identify 3-heatwith molecular cinetic energy, but you cannot equate the sensation ofheat with neuronal firing in the same way. The problem is that *any*physicalese or not, third person description of what could be the painwill fail, because the pain quale is just not a third persondescribable phenomenon.
I dare say any physicale
se will fail, but then we can keepthe identity between the pain and the neural activity, and reject
the identity between the nerual firing and the physicalese description
Comp solves the problem by identifying thepain with what appears to be existing non describable, by numbers,attribute of numbers' relation.So,eventually, some realize that if neuron plays a role in pain, theycanonly *associate* it to neuronal firing, and this leads to dualism,which most materialist abhor. That is even truer for monistmaterialist who are then force to accept a form of epiphenomenalism.Prima facie, comp, which is also a form of reductionism, might seemsto be lead to a similar problem,It leads to a worse problem. The objection to identifying qualia withphysical happening is that felt qualitiies are not identifiable withphysicalese descriptions.Yes.The approach outlined above resolves thatwith the idea that concrete physical events have a noumenalhinterland which is not captured by physicalese descriptions.Well, this is introducing magical thing in the picture. If suchnoumenal things exist, they have to escape the comp description.
Is that so shocking? As I have said, the problems with
computationalism, as a theory of qualia, are the same are the same as
physicalism
only worse.
I cansay "yes" to the doctor if my consciousness and qualia is related to anoumenal hinterland of the matter in my physical brain. That noumenalmatter hinterland contradicts the idea that there is a level ofdescription of myself where matter and physical structure can bereplaced by arbitrary different matter and structure, once theypreserve the computational relations, which are arithmetical, bydigitality.
Yep. Comp is a bad theory of qualia.
We don't know
how to write subroutines for phenomenality.
That artificial people
do not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.
However, in the realm of pure math, without "stuffy matter",no such hinterland is available: neuronal firings have to beessentiallyidentical with their physicalese (and hence mathematical)descriptions.The contrary happens. The physical stuff lost the possibility to beentirely describe in mathematical terms. We need theological terms,and the whole self-reference logics.
I don't see why
If the quale isn't there, it isn't anywhere: it has no place to hide.It has the whole theological realm, which exists *epistemologically*for any universal machine introspecting itself. And the self-referencelogic justifies entirely their non communicable feature, withoutdenying them and without trying to localize them in any way, likenumbers are not localized in any place. Localization is a higherepistemological emerging notion, not a primitive one, in the comppicture.
I don't think you can model qualia just as being incommunicable.
Brent Meeker
>>>> Omnes for example, is that the "collapse" is purely
>>>> epistemological. All that changes is our knowledge or model of the
>>>> state and QM merely
>>>> predicts probabilities for this change.
> That's what I thought I was saying!
No. Everett and Omnes are quite different. Omnes says the wave
function is merely a representation of what we know about an initial
state (e.g. one we've prepared in the laboratory) and the wave equation
tells us the probabilities of what we will observe. Since the WF is
just a representation of our knowledge, it abruptly changes
("collapses") when we gain new knowledge. Everett on the other hand
reifies the wave function and assumes it never collapses.
Brent
Brent Meeker
Peter, your comments appear to illustrate a basic confusion between ontological and epistemological claims that makes me think that you haven't taken on board the fundamental distinction entailed in Bruno's original statement: "Ontological reduction does not necessarily entail epistemological *elimination*, but it does entail ontological *elimination*."
Brent
1Z
is quite possible for comp to be false whilst naturalism remains
true.
of qualia?
> Comp is the
> assumption that qualia are preserved through functional substitution
> at some level. It happens that when a machine introspects itself it
> brings on a plateau a theory of qualia (Z1*, X1*, and perhaps S4Grz1).
> And both UDA and AUDA makes it testable, because quanta are the
> sharable part of those qualia, so that we can compare them to empiric
> facts.
>
>
>
> >> I can
> >> say "yes" to the doctor if my consciousness and qualia is related
> >> to a
> >> noumenal hinterland of the matter in my physical brain. That noumenal
> >> matter hinterland contradicts the idea that there is a level of
> >> description of myself where matter and physical structure can be
> >> replaced by arbitrary different matter and structure, once they
> >> preserve the computational relations, which are arithmetical, by
> >> digitality.
>
> > Yep. Comp is a bad theory of qualia.
>
> As I said, Comp is the assumption that qualia are preserved through
> functional substitution at some level. A theory of qualia emerges from
> the self-reference logic.
> But then if you abandon comp at this stage, it means I have made my
> point. I thought you were defending COMP + MAT(*)
PLATO is dropped. COMP may be a bad theory for other reasons.
> If you have a theory of qualia using primitive matter, and coherent
> with comp, then you should be able to use it to extract a flaw in the
> UD Argument.
real conscious if they run "on the metal" (at the zeroth
level of abstraction). That's not your version of COMP,
but it is adequate for most AI researchers, and for
anybody who wants to be reincarnated in silicon
> (*) For the new people: MAT = weak materialism = the common doctrine
> that primitive matter exists, or that matter exists at the basic
> ontological level.
>
> > We don't know
> > how to write subroutines for phenomenality.
>
> Assuming comp, it is enough to write the code of a universal machine.
> For example RA (Robinson Arithmetic) has qualia, but RA lacks the
> cognitive ability to understand the notion of qualia. If you give it
> the induction axioms (getting PA), you get a Löbian machine, and it
> has the full power to find its own theory of qualia.
just a necessary feature of qualia
> > That artificial people
> > do not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.
>
> And ?
underly the badness of COMP as a theory
of qualia
> >>> However, in the realm of pure math, without "stuffy matter",
> >>> no such hinterland is
>
>
> read more »
1Z
survive as a convenient shorthand -- but that is an argument
that goes way beyond reduction itself. "House", "heat"
etc are not subject to it.
Brent Meeker
Zombies are not a typical example of the problems of reduction, they are an instance of the reduction being bought too cheaply: the reductive materialist presents the off-the-peg conclusion that consciousness "just is" neural firing, without filling in the explanation that allows us to see that it *must be*, so that we instead remain being able to see that it *might not* be!
I think eventually we will have a theory tells us which kind of neural firings or computation produce what kind of conscious thoughts. And that will be the end of explanation.
Brent
1Z
On Mar 9, 3:25 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> >> So on this basis you would claim that heat is *ontologically* (i.e.
> >> not merely epistemologically) distinguishable from molecular motion?
>
> > No. I would say it is ontologically the same as molecular
> > motion, and molecular motion exists, so heat exists, so
> > heat was not eliminated
>
> It seems that you persistently misunderstand the meaning of
> elimination in this context. If something can be shown to be a
> composite of more fundamental ontological components, it is of course
> disqualified (i.e. eliminated) thereby as an ontological fundamental
The point of eliminativism is that the eliminated thing doesn't exist
at all.
Moreover, it is difficult to see why anyone would complain
about a sense of "elimination" that just means non-fundamental,
when we don't necessarily know what is fundamental, and
we are going to continue using the term
> else such use of the terms "ontological", "fundamental" and
> "eliminated" is rendered meaningless. Hence heat can indeed be
> eliminated from the catalogue of ontological fundamentals in this way,
> and understood as consisting in the more fundamental phenomenon of
> molecular motion. Of course the *concept* (and a fortiori the
> sensation) of heat isn't thereby eliminated epistemologically
same referent as another concept. But if your are going to
call that "elimination", what are you going to call
what happened to phlogiston? "Extermination"?
>, but
> this is the very distinction we are trying to establish on a firm
> footing. The reductionist programme seeks to eliminate any need (in
> principle) to appeal to any and all non-fundamental ontological
> entities in precisely this way, and hence show ontology as resting on
> a single fundamental base, thereby situating composite entities at the
> epistemological level.
I don't think it is a synonym for "non fundamental"
David Nyman
> To me that is an open question. Are philosophical zombies possible? It
> seems unlikely, but when I consider specific ideas about consciousness, such
> as Julian Jaynes, then it seems more plausible that conscious-like behavior
> could be evinced with such different internal processing that it would not
> realize consciousness as I experience it - though it might still be
> consciousness in Bruno's sense of being capable of mathematical
> self-reference.
My reading of Jaynes (and TOOCITBOTBM is one of my favourites) is that
by "non-conscious" he actually meant non-self-conscious. The
non-self-conscious person essentially obeys the voices in her head,
but when these can no longer provide guidance, internal dialogue - and
with it, self-consciousness - may emerge as a superior survival
strategy. However I don't believe Jaynes thought that the bicameral
person literally lacked phenomenal experience.
David
Bruno Marchal
On Mar 9, 4:30 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:OK. I guess you associate pain to the primitive matter. But that iseven more incoherent with respect to the comp hypothesis.
There is nothing mystical about the falsehood of comp. It
is quite possible for comp to be false whilst naturalism remains
true.
Computationalism is not per se a theory of qualia.
How can it be a theory of consciousness without being a theory
of qualia?
Yep. Comp is a bad theory of qualia.As I said, Comp is the assumption that qualia are preserved throughfunctional substitution at some level. A theory of qualia emerges fromthe self-reference logic.
A theory of indescribable something-or-others does
But then if you abandon comp at this stage, it means I have made mypoint. I thought you were defending COMP + MAT(*)
I was pointing out that COMP does not imply not-MAT once
PLATO is dropped. COMP may be a bad theory for other reasons.
If you have a theory of qualia using primitive matter, and coherentwith comp, then you should be able to use it to extract a flaw in theUD Argument.
Here's one: minds can be computed, but they only have
real conscious if they run "on the metal" (at the zeroth
level of abstraction). That's not your version of COMP,
but it is adequate for most AI researchers, and for
anybody who wants to be reincarnated in silicon
(*) For the new people: MAT = weak materialism = the common doctrinethat primitive matter exists, or that matter exists at the basicontological level.We don't knowhow to write subroutines for phenomenality.Assuming comp, it is enough to write the code of a universal machine.For example RA (Robinson Arithmetic) has qualia, but RA lacks thecognitive ability to understand the notion of qualia. If you give itthe induction axioms (getting PA), you get a Löbian machine, and ithas the full power to find its own theory of qualia.
Assuming indescribability is a sufficient, and not
just a necessary feature of qualia
That artificial peopledo not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.And ?
So the intuitions that underly the HP also
underly the badness of COMP as a theory
of qualia
David Nyman
> The point of eliminativism is that the eliminated thing doesn't exist
> at all.
Just so. At a reduced ontological level, heat doesn't exist at all -
it's just molecular motion, no more, no less, and any explanation
invoking heat could in principle be entirely eliminated by one
invoking molecular motion.
> Moreover, it is difficult to see why anyone would complain
> about a sense of "elimination" that just means non-fundamental,
> when we don't necessarily know what is fundamental, and
> we are going to continue using the term
Not knowing what (if anything) may ultimately turn out to be the
bottom level doesn't stop us from knowing that, in the hierarchy of
explanation, molecular motion is a more fundamental level than heat.
And the question of whether we go on using the eliminated term is an
epistemological matter (i.e. it concerns what we know and can say) not
an ontological one (concerning what ultimately exists).
> More importantly, the concept has a referent. It is just the
> same referent as another concept. But if your are going to
> call that "elimination", what are you going to call
> what happened to phlogiston? "Extermination"?
If here you want to say that phlogiston was eliminated, then you are
clearly using the word in a non-standard way. Phlogiston is just a
theoretical term of an incorrect theory of combustion, and hence no
longer has a place in the replacement theory. Heat, on the other
hand, is believed to refer correctly to a more fundamental underlying
molecular phenomenon, and hence can be retained as a theoretical
concept, though eliminated as a fundamental entity in its own right.
>> The reductionist programme seeks to eliminate any need (in
>> principle) to appeal to any and all non-fundamental ontological
>> entities in precisely this way, and hence show ontology as resting on
>> a single fundamental base, thereby situating composite entities at the
>> epistemological level.
>
> It is hard to see what you mean by "epistemological" there.
> I don't think it is a synonym for "non fundamental"
In effect, it *is* a synonym for non-fundamental. If, as reductive
programmes envisage, ontology can be grounded somewhere in a finite
set of ultimate entities and their relations, then non-fundamental
entities (composites) must be aspects of what we know, not what things
ultimately are.
David
1Z
On Mar 9, 5:56 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> In that sense all right. Comp is the theory which accept as axiom that
> my brain/body is Turing emulable at some level.
> But in that sense, comp is a theory of everything. Indeed, it even
> makes elementary arithmetic a theory of everything, with both quanta
> and qualia derivable from digital machine's self-reference.
> >> But then if you abandon comp at this stage, it means I have made my
> >> point. I thought you were defending COMP + MAT(*)
>
> > I was pointing out that COMP does not imply not-MAT once
> > PLATO is dropped. COMP may be a bad theory for other reasons.
>
> COMP makes no sense at all without "Plato" (that is we need to believe
> that phi_x(y) converges or does not converge.
> No more is needed for
> the epistemological reversal. Or show the flaw in UDA, or show where
> more than such "Plato" is used.
>
>
>
> >> If you have a theory of qualia using primitive matter, and coherent
> >> with comp, then you should be able to use it to extract a flaw in the
> >> UD Argument.
>
> > Here's one: minds can be computed, but they only have
> > real conscious if they run "on the metal" (at the zeroth
> > level of abstraction). That's not your version of COMP,
> > but it is adequate for most AI researchers, and for
> > anybody who wants to be reincarnated in silicon
>
> Then there is a flaw in UDA+MGA. Where?
Platonism
> >>> That artificial people
> >>> do not have "real feelings" is a staple of sci fi.
>
> >> And ?
>
> > So the intuitions that underly the HP also
> > underly the badness of COMP as a theory
> > of qualia
>
> What is HP?
1Z
On Mar 9, 6:00 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> > The point of eliminativism is that the eliminated thing doesn't exist
> > at all.
>
> Just so. At a reduced ontological level, heat doesn't exist at all -
> it's just molecular motion, no more, no less, and any explanation
> invoking heat could in principle be entirely eliminated by one
> invoking molecular motion.
equivalent or synonymous one does not show that
neither has a referent
> > Moreover, it is difficult to see why anyone would complain
> > about a sense of "elimination" that just means non-fundamental,
> > when we don't necessarily know what is fundamental, and
> > we are going to continue using the term
>
> Not knowing what (if anything) may ultimately turn out to be the
> bottom level doesn't stop us from knowing that, in the hierarchy of
> explanation, molecular motion is a more fundamental level than heat.
> And the question of whether we go on using the eliminated term is an
> epistemological matter (i.e. it concerns what we know and can say) not
> an ontological one (concerning what ultimately exists).
because the issue of whether it has something to refer to is
ontological
(albeit not fundamentally so). We *can* stop using the term
"pholgiston" because it has nothing to refer to.
> > More importantly, the concept has a referent. It is just the
> > same referent as another concept. But if your are going to
> > call that "elimination", what are you going to call
> > what happened to phlogiston? "Extermination"?
>
> If here you want to say that phlogiston was eliminated, then you are
> clearly using the word in a non-standard way.
different ideas.
> Phlogiston is just a
> theoretical term of an incorrect theory of combustion, and hence no
> longer has a place in the replacement theory.
> Heat, on the other
> hand, is believed to refer correctly to a more fundamental underlying
> molecular phenomenon, and hence can be retained as a theoretical
> concept, though eliminated as a fundamental entity in its own right.
exist in its own right...whereas eliminativists believe it doesn't
exist at all.
> >> The reductionist programme seeks to eliminate any need (in
> >> principle) to appeal to any and all non-fundamental ontological
> >> entities in precisely this way, and hence show ontology as resting on
> >> a single fundamental base, thereby situating composite entities at the
> >> epistemological level.
>
> > It is hard to see what you mean by "epistemological" there.
> > I don't think it is a synonym for "non fundamental"
>
> In effect, it *is* a synonym for non-fundamental. If, as reductive
> programmes envisage, ontology can be grounded somewhere in a finite
> set of ultimate entities and their relations, then non-fundamental
> entities (composites) must be aspects of what we know, not what things
> ultimately are.
Aspects of knowledge would be things like truth and justification
Evgenii Rudnyi
define what molecular motion is.
At the beginning, the molecules and atoms were considered as hard
spheres. At this state, there was the problem as follows. We bring a
glass of hot water in the room and leave it there. Eventually the
temperature of the water will be equal to the ambient temperature.
According to the heat theory, the temperature in the glass will be hot
again spontaneously and it is in complete agreement with our experience.
With molecular motion, if we consider them as hard spheres there is a
nonzero chance that the water in the glass will be hot again. Moreover,
there is a theorem (Poincar� recurrence) that states that if we wait
long enough then the temperature of the glass must be hot again. No
doubt, the chances are very small and time to wait is very long, in a
way this is negligible. Yet some people are happy with such statistical
explanation, some not. Hence, it is a bit too simple to say that
molecular motion has eliminated heat at this level.
Then we could say that molecules and atoms are not hard spheres but
quantum objects. This however brings even more problems, as we do not
have macroscopic objects then. Let me quote Laughlin to this end
"By the most important effect of phase organisation is to cause objects
to exist. This point is subtle and easily overlooked, since we are
accustomed to thinking about solidification in terms of packing of
Newtonian spheres. Atoms are not Newtonian spheres, however, but
ethereal quantum-mechanical entities lacking that most central of all
properties of an object � an identifiable position. This is why attempts
to describe free atoms in Newtonian terms always result in nonsense
statements such as their being neither here nor there but simultaneously
everywhere. It is aggregation into large objects that makes a Newtonian
description of the atoms meaningful, not the reverse. One might compare
this phenomenon with a yet-to-be-filmed Stephen Spilberg movie in which
a huge number of little ghosts lock arms and, in doing so, become
corporeal."
So I personally not that sure that molecular motion has more meaning
*ontologically* than heat.
Evgenii
P.S. For those who love heat, entropy, and information:
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/12/entropy-and-artificial-life.html
On 09.03.2011 15:39 1Z said the following:
Brent Meeker
>> If you have a theory of qualia using primitive matter, and coherent
>> > with comp, then you should be able to use it to extract a flaw in the
>> > UD Argument.
>>
> Here's one: minds can be computed, but they only have
> real conscious if they run "on the metal" (at the zeroth
> level of abstraction). That's not your version of COMP,
> but it is adequate for most AI researchers, and for
> anybody who wants to be reincarnated in silicon
>
>
But how do we know what the zeroth level is? What is really meant is
OUR level - the one in which we can give ostensive definitions. Which
is my point about BIVs. We can only know them to be conscious insofar
as they can be grounded in our zeroth level.
Brent
Brent Meeker
> On 9 March 2011 16:21, Brent Meeker<meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>
>
>> > To me that is an open question. Are philosophical zombies possible? It
>> > seems unlikely, but when I consider specific ideas about consciousness, such
>> > as Julian Jaynes, then it seems more plausible that conscious-like behavior
>> > could be evinced with such different internal processing that it would not
>> > realize consciousness as I experience it - though it might still be
>> > consciousness in Bruno's sense of being capable of mathematical
>> > self-reference.
>>
> My reading of Jaynes (and TOOCITBOTBM is one of my favourites) is that
> by "non-conscious" he actually meant non-self-conscious. The
> non-self-conscious person essentially obeys the voices in her head,
> but when these can no longer provide guidance, internal dialogue - and
> with it, self-consciousness - may emerge as a superior survival
> strategy. However I don't believe Jaynes thought that the bicameral
> person literally lacked phenomenal experience.
>
> David
>
>
Yes, I realize there are kinds of consciousness. I thought the
interesting idea in Jaynes was that perceptual consciousness, which I'm
sure my dog has, was co-opted by evolution to become
self-consciousness. Specifically that with the development of language,
communication of aural information became very important. The brain
evolved to internalize this into an inner-narration to realize the
advantage of keeping one's thought's to oneself (e.g. decpetion). It
would imply that if, for example written communication was invented
before language, then our brains might implement consciousness through
an inner text (like those ribbons across the bottom of a TV news
program) instead of an inner voice. This is what leads me to speculate
that there could be completely different modes of internal cogitation
that we could not easily identify even though the external behavior was
what we could call "conscious". The intelligent Mars Rover may be an
example of this.
Brent
1Z
On Mar 9, 5:15 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/2011 5:30 AM, 1Z wrote:
>
> > Zombies are not a typical example of the problems of reduction,
> > they are an instance of the reduction being bought too cheaply:
> > the reductive materialist presents the off-the-peg conclusion that
> > consciousness
> > "just is" neural firing, without filling in the explanation that
> > allows
> > *might not* be!
>
> But keep in mind what counts as "explanation". In science it is really
> just a model that tells us how something can manipulated.
claims. I think models do as well. If you always get a result
however you manipulate a model, it's necessary within that
model. If you sometimes do, it's possible. Never, impossible.
Brent Meeker
>
> On Mar 9, 5:15 pm, Brent Meeker<meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/9/2011 5:30 AM, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Zombies are not a typical example of the problems of reduction,
>>> they are an instance of the reduction being bought too cheaply:
>>> the reductive materialist presents the off-the-peg conclusion that
>>> consciousness
>>> "just is" neural firing, without filling in the explanation that
>>> allows
>>> us to see that it*must be*, so that we instead remain being able to
>>> see that it
>>> *might not* be!
>>>
>> But keep in mind what counts as "explanation". In science it is really
>> just a model that tells us how something can manipulated.
>>
> As opposed to what?
As opposed to stories about what exists, but can never be tested.
Brent
David Nyman
Fine, Peter, have it your way. We can't seem to progress beyond
vocabulary difficulties to the substance. No doubt I have been less
than persuasive, and thus have failed to convince you that there is
indeed any substance. But since I have nothing further to add at this
point, I'll stop here (and so save you some typing, as you are wont to
say).
David