Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

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benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 12:54:11 PM8/21/12
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In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite easily)
solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
intelligence transcends that of a computer. It doesn't necessarily show that
human intelligence transcend computer intelligence, since the human may have
received the answer from something beyond itself (even though I am quite
confident human intelligence does transcend computer intelligence).

It is, in some sense, a variant of the Gödel sentence, yet it more directly
relates to computers, thus avoiding the ambiguities in interpreting the
relevance of Gödel to computer intelligence.

Is the following statement true?
'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a
computer'
Imagine a computer trying to solve this problem:
If it says yes, it leads to a contradiction, since a computer has been
trying to confirm it, so its answer is wrong.
If it says no, that is, it claims that it CAN be confirmed by a computer,
again leading to a contradiction.

But from this we can derive that a computer cannot correctly answer the
statement, and so cannot solve the problem in question! So the solution to
the problem is YES, yet no computer can really confirm the truth of the
sentence.

Nevertheless it can utter it. A computer can say "The following statement is
true: 'This statement can't be confirmed to be true by utilizing a
computer'", but when it does this doesn't help to answer the question
whether it is correct about that, since we could just as well program it to
say the opposite.

So, yes, our intelligence (whatever we truly are) definitely transcends the
intelligence of a computer and the quest for strong AI or even superhuman AI
seems futile based on that.

This has also relevance for AI development, especially yet-to-come more
powerful AI. We should hardcode the fact "Some things cannot be understood
using computers" into the computer, so it reminds us of its own limits. This
will help us to use it correctly and not get lost in a illusion of
all-knowing, all-powerful computers (which to an extend is already happening
as you can see by looking at concepts like "singularity").
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John Clark

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Aug 21, 2012, 1:35:48 PM8/21/12
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On Tue, Aug 21, 2012  benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite easily)
solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
intelligence transcends that of a computer. [...]


Is the following statement true?
'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a computer'

The following statement is without question true:

"Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence"

A computer would have no difficulty in asserting this true statement, in fact every one of you is looking at a computer  now doing that simple task right now, and yet there is no logical paradox that threatens to tear the universe apart; and yet a human being,  Benjamin Jakubik, is unable to perform this task, a task that even the smallest computer can do with ease. 

  John K Clark  





smi...@zonnet.nl

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Aug 21, 2012, 1:43:06 PM8/21/12
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It's a simple logical paradox, an AI could play the same game by asking:

Is the following statement true? 'This statement can't be confirmed to
be true solely by utilizing a human brain'.

Saibal

Citeren benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com>:
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meekerdb

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Aug 21, 2012, 2:15:12 PM8/21/12
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"This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."

The Computer

On 8/21/2012 9:54 AM, benjayk wrote:
> In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite easily)
> solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
> intelligence transcends that of a computer. It doesn't necessarily show that
> human intelligence transcend computer intelligence, since the human may have
> received the answer from something beyond itself (even though I am quite
> confident human intelligence does transcend computer intelligence).
>
> It is, in some sense, a variant of the G�del sentence, yet it more directly
> relates to computers, thus avoiding the ambiguities in interpreting the
> relevance of G�del to computer intelligence.

Stephen P. King

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Aug 21, 2012, 3:26:39 PM8/21/12
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Dear Benjayk,

Isn't this a form of the same argument that Penrose made?

On 8/21/2012 12:54 PM, benjayk wrote:
> In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite easily)
> solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
> intelligence transcends that of a computer. It doesn't necessarily show that
> human intelligence transcend computer intelligence, since the human may have
> received the answer from something beyond itself (even though I am quite
> confident human intelligence does transcend computer intelligence).
>
> It is, in some sense, a variant of the G�del sentence, yet it more directly
> relates to computers, thus avoiding the ambiguities in interpreting the
> relevance of G�del to computer intelligence.
Onward!

Stephen

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon


Stephen P. King

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Aug 21, 2012, 3:38:13 PM8/21/12
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    How would this work when it is the computer itself that is named and not some third party such as Ben?

Bruno Marchal

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Aug 21, 2012, 3:42:18 PM8/21/12
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On 21 Aug 2012, at 20:15, meekerdb wrote:

> "This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."
>
> The Computer

LOL.

Of course, Clark is right, you should add "consistently" before
confirmed, to avoid the refutation of a human claiming confirming that
sentence. Or put "consistent" before human being.


>
> On 8/21/2012 9:54 AM, benjayk wrote:
>> In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite
>> easily)
>> solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
>> intelligence transcends that of a computer. It doesn't necessarily
>> show that
>> human intelligence transcend computer intelligence, since the human
>> may have
>> received the answer from something beyond itself (even though I am
>> quite
>> confident human intelligence does transcend computer intelligence).
>>
>> It is, in some sense, a variant of the Gödel sentence, yet it more
>> directly
>> relates to computers, thus avoiding the ambiguities in interpreting
>> the
>> relevance of Gödel to computer intelligence.
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benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:18:51 PM8/21/12
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Saibal Mitra-2 wrote:
>
> It's a simple logical paradox, an AI could play the same game by asking:
>
> Is the following statement true? 'This statement can't be confirmed to
> be true solely by utilizing a human brain'.
>
It is true as well. We can even confirm it to ourselves.
'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a human
brain'. We can see its true, but whatever knows this, can't (solely) be the
brain (since this would lead to a contradiction).

So it seem to show we are beyond the brain as well.

In fact, we can do this with any entity, and see that we are beyond any
individual entity.

The sentence seemingly breaks down as we make it universal - 'This stament
can't be confirmed at all'.
This deconstructs the notion of confirmation. So we can see its true without
being able to confirm it.

Finally we could say 'This statement cannot be seen to be true'. At this
point, it seems there is nothing left to say about the statement in terms of
binary truth statements (like the liar paradox).
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benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:24:01 PM8/21/12
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meekerdb wrote:
>
> "This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."
>
> The Computer
>

He might be right in saying that (See my response to Saibal).
But it can't confirm it as well (how could it, since we as humans can't
confirm it and what he knows about us derives from what we program into
it?). So still, it is less capable than a human.
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benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:33:18 PM8/21/12
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John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> In this post I present an example of a problem that we can (quite easily)
>> solve, yet a computer can't, even in principle, thus showing that our
>> intelligence transcends that of a computer. [...]
>>
>> Is the following statement true?
>> 'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a
>> computer'
>>
>
> The following statement is without question true:
>
> "Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence"
>
> A computer would have no difficulty in asserting this true statement,
>

I have no difficulty asserting this statement as well. See:

"Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence" is true.

Yet the entity Benjamin Jakubik can't confirm this sentence by itself. It
can only express the truth that something beyond the person Benjamin is
seeing (which it is, since I - not solely being the person - can recognize
the truth of the statement and express it through Benjamin, who is merely
saying it, not recognizing its truth).

That is not the point. The point is that there is no way for the computer to
determine either question (mine or yours), without relying on us. The
computer could easily be programed to say that the statement is true or
false. Yet we can determine whether it is true, at least to some extent.


John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> in fact every one of you is looking at a computer now doing that simple
> task
> right now, and yet there is no logical paradox that threatens to tear the
> universe apart;
I didn't say anything to that effect. The universe is fine, it just cannot
be caputured computationally. This just may tear the universe as the
materialists imagine it to be apart.

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benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:35:01 PM8/21/12
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Stephen P. King wrote:
>
> Dear Benjayk,
>
> Isn't this a form of the same argument that Penrose made?
>
I guess so, yet it seems more specific. At least it was more obvious to me
than the usual arguments against AI. I haven't really read anything by
Penrose, except maybe some excerpts, though.
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meekerdb

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:40:54 PM8/21/12
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On 8/21/2012 2:24 PM, benjayk wrote:
>
> meekerdb wrote:
>> "This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."
>>
>> The Computer
>>
> He might be right in saying that (See my response to Saibal).
> But it can't confirm it as well (how could it, since we as humans can't
> confirm it and what he knows about us derives from what we program into
> it?). So still, it is less capable than a human.

I know it by simple logic - in which I have observed humans to be relatively slow and
error prone.


regards, The Computer

benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 5:52:31 PM8/21/12
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Well, that is you imagining to be a computer. But program an actual
computer that concludes this without it being hard-coded into it. All it
could do is repeat the opinion you feed it, or disagree with you, depending
on how you program it.

There is nothing computational that suggest that the statement is true or
false. Or if it you believe it is, please attempt to show how.

In fact there is a better formulation of the problem: 'The truth-value of
this statement is not computable.'.
It is true, but this can't be computed, so obviously no computer can reach
this conclusion without it being fed to it via input (which is something
external to the computer). Yet we can see that it is true.
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meekerdb

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Aug 21, 2012, 6:08:08 PM8/21/12
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Not really.  You're equivocating on "computable" as "what can be computed" and "what a computer does".  You're supposing that a computer cannot have the reflexive inference capability to "see" that the statement is true.  Yet you're also supposing that when we "see" it is true that that is not a computation.  As Bruno would say, you are just rejecting COMP and supposing - not demonstrating - that humans can do hypercomputation.

Brent

benjayk

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Aug 21, 2012, 6:26:33 PM8/21/12
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No, I don't supppose that it does. It results from the fact that we get a
contradiction if the computer could see that the statement is true (since it
had to compute it, which is all it can do).


meekerdb wrote:
>
> Yet you're also supposing that when we
> "see" it is true that that is not a computation.
No. It can't be a computation, since if it were a computation we couldn't
conclude it is true (as this would be a contradiction, as I showed above).
Unless you reject binary logic, but I am sure the problem also arises in
other logics. I might try this later.


meekerdb wrote:
>
> As Bruno would say, you are just
> rejecting COMP and supposing - not demonstrating - that humans can do
> hypercomputation.
I didn't say hypercomputation. Just something beyond computation.

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meekerdb

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Aug 21, 2012, 6:36:44 PM8/21/12
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You avoid the contradiction by saying, "What *I'm* doing is not computation." which you
can say because you don't know what you're doing - you're just "seeing" it's true. If you
knew what you were doing you would know you were computing too and you'd be in the same
contradiction that you suppose the computer is in because computing "is all it can do."
You're implicitly *assuming* you can do something that is not computing to avoid the
contradiction and thereby prove you can do something beyond computing - see the circularity?

Brent

Stathis Papaioannou

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Aug 21, 2012, 7:10:03 PM8/21/12
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On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:18 AM, benjayk
<benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> It is true as well. We can even confirm it to ourselves.
> 'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a human
> brain'. We can see its true, but whatever knows this, can't (solely) be the
> brain (since this would lead to a contradiction).
>
> So it seem to show we are beyond the brain as well.
>
> In fact, we can do this with any entity, and see that we are beyond any
> individual entity.

Think of like setting up a virtual machine which is separate from the
physical machine. It's not "really" separate in hardware, but it is
separate in software.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

Stathis Papaioannou

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Aug 21, 2012, 7:27:47 PM8/21/12
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On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:52 AM, benjayk
<benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Well, that is you imagining to be a computer. But program an actual
> computer that concludes this without it being hard-coded into it. All it
> could do is repeat the opinion you feed it, or disagree with you, depending
> on how you program it.

At the most basic level, programming a physical computer involves
arranging its matter in a particular configuration. The computer can
only arrive at subsequent configurations through the laws of physics
acting on the present configuration. And that is exactly the case with
humans as well: they can only arrive at subsequent configurations
through the laws of physics acting on the present configuration. So if
a computer can only do what it is programmed to do by its environment
a human also can only do what he is programmed to do by his
environment.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 4:38:55 AM8/22/12
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Hi John Clark
 
Do computers have intuition ?
I believe that intuition is necessary to solve a puzzle or
prove a mathematical or logical stratement. To produce
something new or previously unknown.
 
Intuiition may be like inference, a form of synthetic thinking,
versus analytic thinking. Only synthesis can produce something new.
 
Personally, I wonder if it wasn't intuition that Penrose
had in mind when he  suggested that in solving problems we
sometimes pop pour heads into the platonic realm (my words).
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Time: 2012-08-21, 13:35:48
Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

� John K Clark �





Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 4:47:20 AM8/22/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
I may just be showing my ignorance, but...
 
Isn't that problematic statement simply an example of Godel's theorem ?
Or Russell's insistence that a set cannot refer to itself ?
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Bruno Marchal

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Aug 22, 2012, 5:07:45 AM8/22/12
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A computer can do much more than computing. It can do proving,
defining, inductive inference (guessing), and many other things. You
might say that all this is, at some lower level, still computation,
but then this can be said for us too, and that would be a confusion of
level. The fact that a computer is universal for computation does not
imply logically that a computer can do only computations. You could
say that a brain can only do electrical spiking, or that molecules can
only do electron sharing.



>
>
> meekerdb wrote:
>>
>> Yet you're also supposing that when we
>> "see" it is true that that is not a computation.
> No. It can't be a computation, since if it were a computation we
> couldn't
> conclude it is true (as this would be a contradiction, as I showed
> above).
> Unless you reject binary logic, but I am sure the problem also
> arises in
> other logics. I might try this later.
>
>
> meekerdb wrote:
>>
>> As Bruno would say, you are just
>> rejecting COMP and supposing - not demonstrating - that humans can do
>> hypercomputation.
> I didn't say hypercomputation. Just something beyond computation.

Comp makes consciousness and universes beyond computations.

Bruno



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



Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 5:31:02 AM8/22/12
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Hi benjayk
 
In monadic theory, since space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
 
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors such as whether or not its
a clear monadic weather day.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

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benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 5:43:00 AM8/22/12
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Roger Clough wrote:
>
> Hi benjayk
>
> In monadic theory, since space does not exist, monads are by definition
> nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
> and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the
> supreme monad).
>
> The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the
> sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
> and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors
> such as whether or not its
> a clear monadic weather day.
>
>
I agree. We even have empiricial evidence for that with telepathy (and other
psi phenomena).
It seems computers will have a hard time doing any of it, since we
specificially built them to only do what we ordered them to do.
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Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 5:46:55 AM8/22/12
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Hi benjayk
 
One cannot tell whether one is a monad dreaming he is a human,
or a human dreaming he is a monad.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Roger Clough

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Hi meekerdb
 
"I don't think you want to do that."
 
- HAL, the computer in 2001.
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 6:17:11 AM8/22/12
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Sorry, but the opposite is the case. To say that computers do proving,
defining, guessing is a confusion of level, since these are interpretation
of computations, or are represented using computations, not the computations
itself. If we encode a proof using numbers, then this is not the proof
itself, but its representation in numbers. Just as "Gödel's proof" is not
Gödel's proof just because I say it represents Gödel's proof.
Or just as I say computers the word computers don't compute anything.

Imagine a computer without an output. Now, if we look at what the computer
is doing, we can not infer what it is actually doing in terms of high-level
activity, because this is just defined at the output/input. For example, no
video exists in the computer - the data of the video could be other data as
well. We would indeed just find computation.
At the level of the chip, notions like definition, proving, inductive
interference don't exist. And if we believe the church-turing thesis, they
can't exist in any computation (since all are equivalent to a computation of
a turing computer, which doesn't have those notions), they would be merely
labels that we use in our programming language.

That is the reason that I don't buy turings thesis, because it intends to
reduce all computation to a turing machine just because it can be
represented using computation. But ultimately a simple machine can't compute
the same as a complex one, because we need a next layer to interpret the
simple computations as complex ones (which is possible). That is, assembler
isn't as powerful as C++, because we need additional layers to retrieve the
same information from the output of the assembler.

You are right that we can confuse the levels in some way, basically because
there is no way to actually completely seperate them. But in this case we
can also confuse all symbols and definitions, in effect deconstructing
language. So as long as we rely on precise, non-poetic language it is wise
to seperate levels.



Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> but then this can be said for us too, and that would be a confusion of
> level.
Only if we assume we are computational. I don't.



Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> The fact that a computer is universal for computation does not
> imply logically that a computer can do only computations. You could
> say that a brain can only do electrical spiking, or that molecules can
> only do electron sharing.
You have a point here. Physical computers must do more then computation,
because they must convert abstract information into physical signals (which
don't exist at the level of computation).
But if we really are talking about the abstract aspect of computers, I think
my point is still valid. It can only do computations, because all we defined
it as is in terms of computationl.

benjayk

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benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 6:43:41 AM8/22/12
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Not really. The fact that I can see its true proves that I can't be only
doing computation, because by only doing computation (and only allowing
binary logic as the answer) we could never arrive at the fact that the
sentence is true.

A computer would derive that it is false, and thus it is true and thus it is
false,... Or it would derive that it is true and thus that its answer must
be wrong (because its own way of arriving there contradicts the sentence),
so it must be false after all, etc... But it would never arrive at the fact
that the statement it is clearly true.
Yet I see that it is clearly true, since a computer could never unambigously
see its true (as the last paragraph shows).

We could only hardcode the statement into the computer, but then it just
states it and doesn't confirm it by itself.

You could say that I am beyond the level of the computer and thus can see
something about the computer that the computer can't.

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benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 6:54:31 AM8/22/12
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benjayk wrote:
>
> Is the following statement true?
> 'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a
> computer'
> Imagine a computer trying to solve this problem:
> If it says yes, it leads to a contradiction, since a computer has been
> trying to confirm it, so its answer is wrong.
> If it says no, that is, it claims that it CAN be confirmed by a computer,
> again leading to a contradiction.
>
> But from this we can derive that a computer cannot correctly answer the
> statement, and so cannot solve the problem in question! So the solution to
> the problem is YES, yet no computer can really confirm the truth of the
> sentence.
>

There is even a much stronger variant of the sentence.
'This statement can't be confirmed to be true solely by utilizing a computer
and XYZ also can't be confirmed solely using a computer'

Again, the computer has the same problem.

We can't answer no (because this would mean that the computer can confirm
it, which we know to be wrong), but we can answer yes, so it appears that it
has to be true.

Which means that nothing can be ultimately confirmed by a computer.

Actually the reason for this is simple: The computer can only confirm things
based on what we program into it, but it can't confirm whether what we
program into it is correct (since it needs to assume it, we force it to). So
ultimately it can't confirm anything. Not even that 1+1=2 (since it would
have to confirm the axioms first, which it can't) - yet we can confirm it
empiricially. The computer can only reflect what we confirmed first.
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Richard Ruquist

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Aug 22, 2012, 7:06:07 AM8/22/12
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Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard 


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Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 8:50:50 AM8/22/12
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Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal�" does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard�


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.

Richard Ruquist

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Aug 22, 2012, 9:09:31 AM8/22/12
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Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal�" does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard�


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,爏ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors爏uch as whether or not its
a clear爉onadic weather day.

Roger Clough

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Aug 22, 2012, 9:17:24 AM8/22/12
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Hi Richard Ruquist
 
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you. You have to do more thinking.
 
Monads have no extension. And they have no location nor time. So they are merely
theoretical, extensionless, outside of spacetime. You have to have extension to
physically exist.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
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Time: 2012-08-22, 09:09:31
Subject: Re: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chanceofthunderstorms

Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
锟斤拷
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
锟斤拷
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty,锟斤拷as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
锟斤拷
锟斤拷
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.

Richard Ruquist

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Aug 22, 2012, 9:24:21 AM8/22/12
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Roger, 

You seem to know nothing about string theory.
You are just plainly wrong.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you. You have to do more thinking.
 
Monads have no extension. And they have no location nor time. So they are merely
theoretical, extensionless, outside of spacetime. You have to have extension to
physically exist.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 09:09:31
Subject: Re: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chanceofthunderstorms
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,爏ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors爏uch as whether or not its
a clear爉onadic weather day.

Bruno Marchal

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Aug 22, 2012, 10:00:19 AM8/22/12
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That is why when I say that a computer dreams, or that a number
dreams, it is a shorthand for a computer having an activity supporting
a dream, or a number involved in an arithmetical realization of a dream.
This makes sense in the comp theory.

In arithmetic too we already make the distinction between a number
representing a proof and the proof itself, which is the sequence of
distinct formula verifying some conditions.
Computers do that distinction.

PA use numbers as language like German use the German language, but
both the Germans and PA will distinguish what they talk about and the
syntactical terms used to denote them.


>
> Imagine a computer without an output. Now, if we look at what the
> computer
> is doing, we can not infer what it is actually doing in terms of
> high-level
> activity, because this is just defined at the output/input. For
> example, no
> video exists in the computer - the data of the video could be other
> data as
> well. We would indeed just find computation.
> At the level of the chip, notions like definition, proving, inductive
> interference don't exist. And if we believe the church-turing
> thesis, they
> can't exist in any computation (since all are equivalent to a
> computation of
> a turing computer, which doesn't have those notions), they would be
> merely
> labels that we use in our programming language.

All computers are equivalent with respect to computability. This does
not entail that all computers are equivalent to respect of
provability. Indeed the PA machines proves much more than the RA
machines. The ZF machine proves much more than the PA machines. But
they do prove in the operational meaning of the term. They actually
give proof of statements. Like you can say that a computer can play
chess.
Computability is closed for the diagonal procedure, but not
provability, game, definability, etc.



>
> That is the reason that I don't buy turings thesis, because it
> intends to
> reduce all computation to a turing machine


... to a Turing machine activity (as defined in math, I don't mean
physical activity).


> just because it can be
> represented using computation. But ultimately a simple machine can't
> compute
> the same as a complex one, because we need a next layer to interpret
> the
> simple computations as complex ones (which is possible). That is,
> assembler
> isn't as powerful as C++, because we need additional layers to
> retrieve the
> same information from the output of the assembler.

That depends how you implement C++. It is not relevant. We might
directly translate C++ in the physical layer, and emulate some
assembler in the C++.
But assembler and C++ are computationally equivalent because their
programs exhaust the computable function by a Turing universal machine.


>
> You are right that we can confuse the levels in some way,

Better not to confuse the levels ever, except when using fixed point
theorem justifying precisely how to fuse levels.



> basically because
> there is no way to actually completely seperate them.

When we look at an unknown machine, yes.


> But in this case we
> can also confuse all symbols and definitions, in effect deconstructing
> language. So as long as we rely on precise, non-poetic language it
> is wise
> to seperate levels.

OK. I agree with this.

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



Stephen P. King

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Aug 22, 2012, 10:58:42 AM8/22/12
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Dear Roger,

    You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.

John Clark

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Aug 22, 2012, 11:14:54 AM8/22/12
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On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 5:33 PM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> I have no difficulty asserting this statement as well. See:

"Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence" is true.
 

Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert the following sentence without demonstrating that there is something he can't consistently assert but a computer can:

"'Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence' is true."

If the sentence is true then Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence , if the sentence is false then Benjamin Jakubik is asserting something that is untrue. Either way Benjamin Jakubik cannot assert all true statements without also asserting false contradictory ones. That is a limitation that both you and me and any computer have.

"The point is that there is no way for the computer to determine either question (mine or yours), without relying on us."

Please explain how replacing the words " Benjamin Jakubik" with "the computer" in the sentence in question or any other makes a fundamental difference. 

> The universe is fine, it just cannot be caputured computationally.

Perhaps the entire universe cannot be captured computationally but you can be. You have not demonstrated that the computer has fundamental limitations that you do not. Whatever challenge you throw at the computer it can just change the words "computer" to "Benjamin Jakubik" and throw a equally challenging sentence right back at you. The situation is completely symmetrical. 

 John K Clark 


Stephen P. King

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Aug 22, 2012, 11:23:08 AM8/22/12
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Dear Roger,

    A lot of people have a very hard time comprehending abstract ideas, they are stuck thinking of them as physical things. A small minority of people are stuck thinking of concepts as purely mental. It is necessary to consider both of these points of view and be able to understand the difference between them. The best analogy of the relation between them is the inside and outside views of a volume filled with hollow spheres.Waht happens if the spheres are actually Klein Bottles?

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 11:48:24 AM8/22/12
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OK, this makes sense.

In any case, the problem still exists, though it may not be enough to say
that the answer to the statement is not computable. The original form still
holds (saying "solely using a computer").

Of course one can object to this, too, since it is not possible to solely
use a computer. We always use our brains to interpret the results the
computer gives us.

But its still practically true.
Just do the experiment and try to solve the question by programming a
computer. You will not be able to make sense of the question. As soon as you
cease to try to achieve a solution using the computer you will suddenly
realize the answer is YES since you didn't achieve a solution using the
computer (and this is what the sentence says).

The only way to avoid the problem is to hardcode the fact 'This statement
can't be confirmed to be true by utilizing a computer'=true into the
computer and claim that this a confirmation. But it seems that this is not
what we really mean by confirming, since we could program 'This statement
can't be confirmed to be true by utilizing a computer'=false into the
computer as well. It would just be a belief, not an actual confirmation.


Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> just because it can be
>> represented using computation. But ultimately a simple machine can't
>> compute
>> the same as a complex one, because we need a next layer to interpret
>> the
>> simple computations as complex ones (which is possible). That is,
>> assembler
>> isn't as powerful as C++, because we need additional layers to
>> retrieve the
>> same information from the output of the assembler.
>
> That depends how you implement C++. It is not relevant. We might
> directly translate C++ in the physical layer, and emulate some
> assembler in the C++.
> But assembler and C++ are computationally equivalent because their
> programs exhaust the computable function by a Turing universal machine.
I think this is just a matter of how we define computation. If computation
is defined as what an universal Turing machine does, of course nothing can
be more computationally powerful.

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Richard Ruquist

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Aug 22, 2012, 12:39:42 PM8/22/12
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Yes Stephan, in string theory they are mutually displaces in an arrangement that looks crystalline. But I am not sure that the crystalline appearance comes from theory.
Richard

--

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 12:49:15 PM8/22/12
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John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 5:33 PM, benjayk
> <benjamin...@googlemail.com>wrote:
>
>> I have no difficulty asserting this statement as well. See:
>>
>
>> "Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence" is true.
>>
>
>
> Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert the following sentence without
> demonstrating that there is something he can't consistently assert but a
> computer can:
>
> "'Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence' is true."
>
> If the sentence is true then Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert
> this sentence , if the sentence is false then Benjamin Jakubik is
> asserting
> something that is untrue. Either way Benjamin Jakubik cannot assert all
> true statements without also asserting false contradictory ones. That is a
> limitation that both you and me and any computer have.
The problem is of a more practical/empirical nature. You are right that from
a philosophical/analytical standpoint there isn't necessarily any
difference.

Let's reformulate the question to make it less theoretical and more
empirical:
'You won't be able to determine the truth of this statement by programming a
computer'

Just try and program a computer that is determining the answer to my problem
in any way that relates to its actual content. It is not possible because
the actual content is that whatever you program into the computer doesn't
answer the question, yet when you cease doing it you can observe that you
can't succeed and thus that the statement is true.
It demonstrates to yourself that there are insights you can't get out of
programming the computer the right way. To put it another way, it shows you
that it is really just obvious that you are beyond the computer, because you
are the one programming it.

Computers do only what we instruct them to do (this is how we built them),
if they are not malfunctioning. In this way, we are beyond them.

You might say we only do what we were instructed to do by the laws of
nature, but this would be merely a metaphor, not an actual fact (the laws of
nature are just our approach of describing the world, not something that is
somehow actually programming us).


John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> "The point is that there is no way for the computer to determine either
>> question (mine or yours), without relying on us."
>
>
> Please explain how replacing the words " Benjamin Jakubik" with "the
> computer" in the sentence in question or any other makes a fundamental
> difference.
Let's take your example "'Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this
sentence' is true.".
I can just say your sentence is meaningless.
The computer can't do this, because he doesn't know what meaningless is,
either and using your computer you won't figure it out (just try to programm
meaninglessness into a computer :) ).

So if you try to solve my sentence using your computer, you might simply
conclude that it is meaningless. But in this case it is still practically
true that you couldn't confirm it using your computer, you could only see
its meaningless by yourself. So it doesn't change my conclusion.

Maybe that is what dinstinguishes human intelligence from computers.
Computers can't recognize meaninglessness or meaning. For them everything
could be true if you just programmed it into them.


John Clark-12 wrote:
>
>> The universe is fine, it just cannot be caputured computationally.
>>
>
> Perhaps the entire universe cannot be captured computationally but you can
> be. You have not demonstrated that the computer has fundamental
> limitations
> that you do not. Whatever challenge you throw at the computer it can just
> change the words "computer" to "Benjamin Jakubik" and throw a equally
> challenging sentence right back at you. The situation is completely
> symmetrical.
No, certainly not, it is anything but symmetrical. My computer doesn't
generate such questions and I won't program it to. It simply lacks the power
to bother me with such questions. If it did, I would simply reprogram it,
reinstall my software or buy a new computer.

benjayk

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Jason Resch

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Aug 22, 2012, 12:50:42 PM8/22/12
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For to work, as Godel did, you need to perfectly define the elements in the sentence using a formal language like mathematics.  English is too ambiguous.  If you try perfectly define what you mean by computer, in a formal way, you may find that you have trouble coming up with a definition that includes computers, but does't also include human brains.

Jason

Jason Resch

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Aug 22, 2012, 1:03:42 PM8/22/12
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I once played with an artificial life program.  The program consisted of little robots that sought food, and originally had randomly wired brains.  Using evolution to adapt the genes that defined the little robot's artificial neural network, these robots became better and better at gathering food.  But after running the evolution overnight I awoke to find them doing something quite surprising.  Something that neither I, nor the original programmer perhaps ever thought of.

Was this computer only doing what we instructed it to do?  If so, why would I find one of the evolved behaviors so surprising?

 

You might say we only do what we were instructed to do by the laws of
nature, but this would be merely a metaphor, not an actual fact (the laws of
nature are just our approach of describing the world, not something that is
somehow actually programming us).

That we cannot use our brains to violate physical laws (the true laws, not our models or approximations of them) is more than a metaphor.

Regardless of whether or not we are programmed, the atoms in our brain are as rigididly controlled as the logic gates of any computer.  The point is that physical laws, or logical laws serve only as the most primitive of building blocks on which greater complexity may be built.  I think it is an error to say that because inviolable laws sit at the base of computation that we are inherently more capable, because given everything we know, we seem to be in the same boat.
 




John Clark-12 wrote:
>
>> The universe is fine, it just cannot be caputured computationally.
>>
>
> Perhaps the entire universe cannot be captured computationally but you can
> be. You have not demonstrated that the computer has fundamental
> limitations
> that you do not. Whatever challenge you throw at the computer it can just
> change the words "computer" to "Benjamin Jakubik" and throw a equally
> challenging sentence right back at you. The situation is completely
> symmetrical.
No, certainly not, it is anything but symmetrical. My computer doesn't
generate such questions and I won't program it to. It simply lacks the power
to bother me with such questions. If it did, I would simply reprogram it,
reinstall my software or buy a new computer.


You are a cruel master. :-)

Jason 

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 1:59:15 PM8/22/12
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Of course, since this is what computers do. And it is suprising because we
don't know what the results of carrying out the instructions we give it will
be. I never stated that computers don't do suprising things. They just won't
invent something that is not derived from the axioms/the code we give them.



Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> You might say we only do what we were instructed to do by the laws of
>> nature, but this would be merely a metaphor, not an actual fact (the laws
>> of
>> nature are just our approach of describing the world, not something that
>> is
>> somehow actually programming us).
>>
>
> That we cannot use our brains to violate physical laws (the true laws, not
> our models or approximations of them) is more than a metaphor.
>
> Regardless of whether or not we are programmed, the atoms in our brain are
> as rigididly controlled as the logic gates of any computer. The point is
> that physical laws, or logical laws serve only as the most primitive of
> building blocks on which greater complexity may be built. I think it is
> an
> error to say that because inviolable laws sit at the base of computation
> that we are inherently more capable, because given everything we know, we
> seem to be in the same boat.
I am not sure that this is true. First, no one yet showed that nature can be
described through a set of fixed laws. Judging from our experience, it seems
all laws are necessarily incomplete.
It is just dogma of some materialists that the universe precisely follows
laws. I don't see why that would be the case at all and I see no evidence
for it either.

Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms in
our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just give
us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will happen.
In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
laws.
Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual precise,
deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we have
no evidence for that.

benjayk
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benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:07:39 PM8/22/12
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No, this can't work, since the sentence is exactly supposed to express
something that cannot be precisely defined and show that it is intuitively
true.

Actually even the most precise definitions do exactly the same at the root,
since there is no such a thing as a fundamentally precise definition. For
example 0: You might say it is the smallest non-negative integer, but this
begs the question, since integer is meaningless without defining 0 first. So
ultimately we just rely on our intuitive fuzzy understanding of 0 as
nothing, and being one less then one of something (which again is an
intuitive notion derived from our experience of objects).
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Jason Resch

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:21:47 PM8/22/12
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It is hard to find anything that is not derived from the code of the universal dovetailer.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> You might say we only do what we were instructed to do by the laws of
>> nature, but this would be merely a metaphor, not an actual fact (the laws
>> of
>> nature are just our approach of describing the world, not something that
>> is
>> somehow actually programming us).
>>
>
> That we cannot use our brains to violate physical laws (the true laws, not
> our models or approximations of them) is more than a metaphor.
>
> Regardless of whether or not we are programmed, the atoms in our brain are
> as rigididly controlled as the logic gates of any computer.  The point is
> that physical laws, or logical laws serve only as the most primitive of
> building blocks on which greater complexity may be built.  I think it is
> an
> error to say that because inviolable laws sit at the base of computation
> that we are inherently more capable, because given everything we know, we
> seem to be in the same boat.
I am not sure that this is true. First, no one yet showed that nature can be
described through a set of fixed laws. Judging from our experience, it seems
all laws are necessarily incomplete.
It is just dogma of some materialists that the universe precisely follows
laws. I don't see why that would be the case at all and I see no evidence
for it either.

So do you postulate that the laws of physics have to be malleable for humans to be creative?
 

Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms in
our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just give
us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will happen.

They place bounds on what can happen.  For example conservation of mass, momentum, charge, etc.  And all possibilities do happen.
 
In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
laws.
Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual precise,
deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we have
no evidence for that.

We have better than evidence, there is actually a logical argument that demonstrates the CI idea (that there is a single universe with collapse) is not possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc

Jason

Jason Resch

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:24:34 PM8/22/12
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So what is your definition of computer, and what is your evidence/reasoning that you yourself are not contained in that definition?

Jason 

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:52:27 PM8/22/12
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The universal dovetailer just goes through all computations in the sense of
universal-turing-machine-equivalent-computation. As Bruno mentioned, that
doesn't even exhaust what computers can do, since they can, for example,
prove things (and some languages prove some things that other languages
don't).

Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I write a
program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD doesn't
do.
It is similar to claiming that it is hard to find a text that is not derived
from monkeys bashing on type writers, just because they will produce every
possible output some day.

Intelligence is not simply blindly going through every possibility but also
encompasses organizing them meaningfully and selecting specific ones and
producing them in a certain order and producing them within a certain time
limit.
No. They don't exist in the first place, except in the mind of physicists.
They are approximate descriptions of the behaviour of the world. Just like
"The sun rises in the morning" (except more accurate, of course).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms
>> in
>> our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just
>> give
>> us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will
>> happen.
>>
>
> They place bounds on what can happen.
>
Not really. Rather what happens places bounds on the laws.
Nature just tends to utilize regularities that can be described. That
doesn't mean it is constrained by it, just that it uses them (presumably
because they work).

Also, our laws don't really place bounds on what can happen because we know
they are not completely accurate (for example quantum mechanics and
relativity can't be united as of now).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
>> laws.
>> Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual
>> precise,
>> deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we
>> have
>> no evidence for that.
>>
>
> We have better than evidence, there is actually a logical argument that
> demonstrates the CI idea (that there is a single universe with collapse)
> is
> not possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
>
I agree. But I have never said that I support CI. In my opinion universes
are abstractions that don't actually exist, ultimately. Neither one, nor
infinitely many (though the latter seems far more accurate to me).

benjayk
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meekerdb

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:53:53 PM8/22/12
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On 8/22/2012 6:17 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you. You have to do more thinking.
 
Monads have no extension. And they have no location nor time. So they are merely
theoretical, extensionless, outside of spacetime. You have to have extension to
physically exist.

Who told you that?  So far as is known experimentally electrons are point particles and that's how they are modeled in QFT.  If string theory turns out to be a better model, they'll have extension in that model - but there's no logical or meta-physical reason that they can't be points.  Points are places in space, i.e. world lines in spacetime.

Brent

benjayk

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Aug 22, 2012, 2:57:02 PM8/22/12
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There is no perfect definition of computer. I take computer to mean the
usual physical computer, since this is all that is required for my argument.

I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
because a human is not a computer according to the everyday definition.
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meekerdb

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Aug 22, 2012, 3:01:34 PM8/22/12
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On 8/22/2012 1:38 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi John Clark
 
Do computers have intuition ?
I believe that intuition is necessary to solve a puzzle or
prove a mathematical or logical stratement. To produce
something new or previously unknown.
 
Intuiition may be like inference, a form of synthetic thinking,
versus analytic thinking. Only synthesis can produce something new.
 
Personally, I wonder if it wasn't intuition that Penrose
had in mind when he  suggested that in solving problems we
sometimes pop pour heads into the platonic realm (my words).

Intuition is when a seemingly true proposition pops into your head and you aren't aware of any preceding thought process leading to it.  According to you computers are never aware of anything, so everything they produce is intuition.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Aug 22, 2012, 3:32:00 PM8/22/12
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On Aug 22, 2012, at 1:57 PM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com>
Why not use the notion of a Turing universal machine, which has a
rather well defined and widely understood definition?

> since this is all that is required for my argument.
>
> I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
> because a human is not a computer according to the everyday
> definition.

A human may be something a computer can perfectly emulate, therefore a
human could exist with the definition of a computer. Computers are
very powerful and flexible in what they can do.

Short of injecting infinities, true randomness, or halting-type
problems, you won't find a process that a computer cannot emulate.

Do you believe humans are hyper computers? If not, then we are just
special cases of computers. The particular case can defined by
program, which may be executed on any Turing machine.

>
> --
> View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Simple-proof-that-our-intelligence-transcends-that-of-computers-tp34330236p34336029.html
> Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

Jason Resch

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:02:47 AM8/23/12
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It exhausts all the possibilities at the lowest level, which implies exhausting all the possibilities for higher levels.

For example: if you exhausted every possible configuration of atoms, you would also exhaust every possible chemical, every possible life form, and every possible human.
 

Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I write a
program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD doesn't
do.

But you, as the one writing a specific program, is an element of the UD.  The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.

I am not sure what your point is though.  It is like saying, the universe can only be everything, it can't be only me.  Therefore I can do something the universe cannot.
 
It is similar to claiming that it is hard to find a text that is not derived
from monkeys bashing on type writers, just because they will produce every
possible output some day.

Intelligence is not simply blindly going through every possibility but also
encompasses organizing them meaningfully and selecting specific ones and
producing them in a certain order and producing them within a certain time
limit.

And there are processes that do this, within the UD.  The UD is an example that programs can grow beyond the intentions of the creator.  The UD itself isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.

You might say the solar system is not intelligent but contains intelligences.
Do you think it is possible, in principal, for human beings to live in a realm that had fixed laws?
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms
>> in
>> our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just
>> give
>> us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will
>> happen.
>>
>
> They place bounds on what can happen.
>
Not really. Rather what happens places bounds on the laws.

Interesting idea.  That is another way of looking at it.
 
Nature just tends to utilize regularities that can be described. That
doesn't mean it is constrained by it, just that it uses them (presumably
because they work).

Also, our laws don't really place bounds on what can happen because we know
they are not completely accurate (for example quantum mechanics and
relativity can't be united as of now).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
>> laws.
>> Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual
>> precise,
>> deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we
>> have
>> no evidence for that.
>>
>
> We have better than evidence, there is actually a logical argument that
> demonstrates the CI idea (that there is a single universe with collapse)
> is
> not possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
>
I agree. But I have never said that I support CI. In my opinion universes
are abstractions that don't actually exist, ultimately. Neither one, nor
infinitely many (though the latter seems far more accurate to me).


You might like what the guy in the above video proposes, not one, not infinite, but zero universes.

Jason

Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 6:57:10 AM8/23/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
Monads are inextended, so can have no spatial presence.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 10:58:42
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chanceofthunderstorms

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.



On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
锟斤拷
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
锟斤拷
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty,锟斤拷as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
锟斤拷
锟斤拷
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
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Time: 2012-08-21, 17:24:01
Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

meekerdb wrote:
>
> "This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."
>
> The Computer
>

He might be right in saying that (See my response to Saibal).
But it can't confirm it as well (how could it, since we as humans can't
confirm it and what he knows about us derives from what we program into
it?). So still, it is less capable than a human.
--

Richard Ruquist

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Aug 23, 2012, 7:05:17 AM8/23/12
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Roger,

Please tell us how you know that.

If you refer back to Leibniz, 
then you are treating 
science like a religion, 
making Liebniz into a prophet
that must be believed.
Richard 

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
 
Monads are inextended, so can have no spatial presence.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Time: 2012-08-22, 10:58:42
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chanceofthunderstorms

Dear Roger,

    You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.


On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,爏ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors爏uch as whether or not its
a clear爉onadic weather day.
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
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Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-21, 17:24:01
Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

meekerdb wrote:
>
> "This sentence cannot be confirmed to be true by a human being."
>
> The Computer
>

He might be right in saying that (See my response to Saibal).
But it can't confirm it as well (how could it, since we as humans can't
confirm it and what he knows about us derives from what we program into
it?). So still, it is less capable than a human.
--


-- 
Onward!

Stephen

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." 
~ Francis Bacon

--

Stephen P. King

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Aug 23, 2012, 7:17:57 AM8/23/12
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Hi Roger,

    The unextended aspect of monads is just an expression of the fact that within the monadology, it is not embedded in a space and thus has no measurable size.WE cannot think of monads as we think of atoms in a void. The idea is that we can recover the concept of an external space as a collection of possible locations purely in terms of internal states.
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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 7:42:31 AM8/23/12
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Scientific writing is accurate, but usually not concise, because it must be detailed.
The truth is in text on paper, is objective, shareable, essentially provable. It does not and indeed should not,
go beyond what is reported. I suppose one would call this context-free.
 
An example would be a crime investigator's description of a crime scene. Or a scientific paper.
 
Poetic writing is not concise, nor precisely accurate, indeed may be inaccurate, but can convey an entire world or story
with just a few words because they suggest or point to context, and it is context that supplies and even creates meaning.
In experiencing the context, or imagined context, the reader actually creates a world in his mind or intuition.
Being experienced, the meaning is more personal than scientific truth, but is unbounded. Poets are writers that
are sensitive to the effect words have on people, sensitive to context. As an example, here
might be the description of a crime scene in poetic form:
 
"There was blood everywhere-- on the bed, even splattered on the walls.
His head was split open and the gray matter spilled out. I felt sick and had to leave."
 
 
 
 
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 8:04:39 AM8/23/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
Some entities (like my mouse) are extended in space, others (like what I am thinking) are not.
It isn't either/or, it''s both/and.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 8:20:46 AM8/23/12
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Hi benjayk
 
The left brain metaphor can "understand" precise logical statements or statements in words.
Also called objective truths. What computers can deal with. Truth in symbolic form.
Context-free statements.
 
IMHO The right brain metaphor perceives what computers cannot understand (yet),
that is, subjective truths, truths in context.  Truths of experience. Beauty, love, religious truths. 
Only intuition or philosophy (monads for example) can deal with those.
 
The left brain metaphpor has been done to death in AI.
But the right brain metaphor is practically unexplored.
 
A beginning to that understanding might be by using a language
or mechanism that carries at least some context along with it.
Or is relational.
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Stephen P. King

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Hi Roger,

    Indeed! This corresponds to non-distributive logical lattices.But we still need more details. The best attempt that i have seen on deriving extension was Roger Penrose' spin network idea.

Roger Clough

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Hi meekerdb
 
Yes, I was wrong, strings do have extension.
So they are in spacetime.
 
String theory however does not have extension,
so I at least can treat it monadically,
since monads have no extension.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
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benjayk

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Aug 23, 2012, 9:12:50 AM8/23/12
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Because it is an abstract model, not an actual computer. Taking a computer
to be a turing machine would be like taking a human to be a picture or a
description of a human.
It is a major confusion of level, a confusion between description and
actuality.

Also, if we accept your definition, than a turing machine can't do anything.
It is a concept. It doesn't actually compute anything anymore more than a
plan how to build a car drives.
You can use the concept of a turing machine to do actual computations based
on the concept, though, just as you can use a plan of how to a build a car
to build a car and drive it.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> since this is all that is required for my argument.
>>
>> I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
>> because a human is not a computer according to the everyday
>> definition.
>
> A human may be something a computer can perfectly emulate, therefore a
> human could exist with the definition of a computer. Computers are
> very powerful and flexible in what they can do.
That is an assumption that I don't buy into at all.

Actually it can't be true due to self-observation.
A human that observes its own brain observes something entirely else than a
digital brain observing itself (the former will see flesh and blood while
the latter will see computer chips and wires), so they behaviour will
diverge if they look at their own brains - that is, the digital brain can't
an exact emulation, because emulation means behavioural equivalence.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> Short of injecting infinities, true randomness, or halting-type
> problems, you won't find a process that a computer cannot emulate.
Really? How come that we never ever emulated anything which isn't already
digital?
What is the evidence for your statement (or alternatively, why would it
think it is true for other reasons)?

We have no reason to believe that nature is finite. It just seems to go on
in every direction, we never found an edge. I am not saying it contains a
completed infinity (in my opinion that's pretty much an oxymoron), but it
appears to be inherently incomple. There are many places where our equations
*completely* break down, which implies that there might never be a accurate
description there.
Occams razor is not an argument against this. It doesn't say "Assume as
little entities as possible" (otherwise we had to deny the existence of
everything we can't directly observe like planets that are far away). It
says "Make the least and the simplest assumptions".
We don't need to assume fundamental finiteness to explain anything, so we
shouldn't.
I am not saying that nature is infinite in the way we picture it. It may not
fit into these categories at all.

Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by your
own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> Do you believe humans are hyper computers? If not, then we are just
> special cases of computers. The particular case can defined by
> program, which may be executed on any Turing machine.
Nope. We are not computers and also not hyper-computers.

And please don't ask me to prove that. The burden of proof is on the one
claiming that something exists in any particular way or is a particular
thing (just like atheists rightfully say that the burden of proof is on the
ones claiming that a christian God with very particular properties exists).

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Aug 23, 2012, 9:38:59 AM8/23/12
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Hi meekerdb
 
 
You said " According to you, computers are never aware of anything, so everything they produce is intuition."
 
No, intuition is an experience. You need awareness even though it may be subconscious.

it is known, however, that monads however are capable of subconscious

or unconscious activity, since they are wholistically mind + feelings + body.

So in some way monads may have intuition . 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Subject: Re: On (platonic) intuition

benjayk

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Aug 23, 2012, 9:52:06 AM8/23/12
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????

Sorry but that's nonsense. Look at the word: "break"
At the lowest level it is just one word, yet at the higher level there are
many possibilities what it could mean.

Exactly the same applies to computations. For every computation are there
infinitely many possibilities what it could mean (1+1=2 could mean that you
add two apples, or two oranges, or that you add the value of two registers
or that you increase the value of a flag).
Many very long computations are *relatively* less ambigous (relative to us),
but they are still ambigous.

Taking the universal dovetailer, it could really mean everything (or
nothing), just like the sentence "You can interpret whatever you want into
this sentence..." or like the stuff that monkeys type on typewriters.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> For example: if you exhausted every possible configuration of atoms, you
> would also exhaust every possible chemical, every possible life form, and
> every possible human.
Only because there is no absolute seperation between levels in actual
physical reality.
That is, you can't find atoms without a context of things and you can't find
things that don't contain atoms.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I write
>> a
>> program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD
>> doesn't
>> do.
>>
>
> But you, as the one writing a specific program, is an element of the UD.
First, you presuppose that I am a contained in a computation.

Secondly, that's not true. There are no specific programs in the UD. The UD
itself is a specifc program and in it there is nothing in it that dilineates
on program from the others.

It is like there are no specific numbers in the number 123456789. it is one
number; it doesn't contain numbers. We only interpret that into it (using
some algorithm), but then using the right algorithm, we can construct all
numbers out of it. Still no one would say that 123456789 exhaust all
numbers.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.
No! The UD doesn't contain entities at all. It is just a computation. You
can only interpret entities into it.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> It is similar to claiming that it is hard to find a text that is not
>> derived
>> from monkeys bashing on type writers, just because they will produce
>> every
>> possible output some day.
>>
>> Intelligence is not simply blindly going through every possibility but
>> also
>> encompasses organizing them meaningfully and selecting specific ones and
>> producing them in a certain order and producing them within a certain
>> time
>> limit.
>>
>
> And there are processes that do this, within the UD.
No. It can't select a computation because it includes all computations. To
select a computation you must exclude some compuations, and the UD can't do
that (since it is precisely going through all computations)


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> The UD is an example
> that programs can grow beyond the intentions of the creator.
I don't dispute that at all. I very much agree that computer rise beyond the
intention of their users (because we don't actually know what the program
will actually do).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> The UD itself
> isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.
I am not even saying that the UD isn't intelligent. I am just saying that
humans are intelligent in a way that the UD is not (and actually the
opposite is true as well).
No, because such a realm is an impossibility. Fixed laws are only
abstraction (very useful and quite accurate ones, though).

benjayk

--
View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Simple-proof-that-our-intelligence-transcends-that-of-computers-tp34330236p34339455.html

Platonist Guitar Cowboy

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Aug 23, 2012, 9:54:30 AM8/23/12
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I beg to differ:

Fiction and performance is where people lie to an audience/readership for money, sometimes stumbling on something true. Sometimes even funny, movingly, true.

Science is where people do the true stuff. Sometimes bullshitting people for money.

Expertise and its derived authority is the performance of the license to bullshit and keep talking like some annoying priest who's sermon never ends and is a virus in both camps. Time and again, it amazes me how people on both sides get caught up in redundant "the right, precise way to talk shop/jargon", as if they wanted to belong to some exclusive peer group in high school, not realizing how stupid this looks to the outside world, and how correct the outside world is for thinking that: why does anybody need a degree to have a reason to just chat?

I don't see a clear demarcation here between science, art, even theology for that matter, even though a lot of people insist on it. I see the camps moving closer and the boundaries getting fuzzier: A composer without sound engineering skills and sincere belief has competitive disadvantage. Apple's engineering would be nothing without the aesthetics and the mythology, with its theological overtones.

Paul Dirac once said: It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.

Yes, seemingly. And thank heavens for that.

m

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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 10:27:00 AM8/23/12
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Hi Richard Ruquist
 
Monads are simply a smart bunch of ASCII characters.
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Time: 2012-08-23, 07:05:17
Subject: Re: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with achanceofthunderstorms

Roger,

Please tell us how you know that.

If you refer back to Leibniz, 
then you are treating 
science like a religion, 
making Liebniz into a prophet
that must be believed.
Richard 

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
 
Monads are inextended, so can have no spatial presence.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 10:58:42
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chanceofthunderstorms

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.



On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
锟斤拷
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
锟斤拷
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty,锟斤拷as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
锟斤拷
锟斤拷
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.

Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 10:29:44 AM8/23/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
" Leibniz propounds a pluralistic metaphysical idealism by reducing the reality of the universe to
centres of force, which are all ultimately spiritual in their nature. Every centre of force is a substance,
an individual, and is different from other centres of force. Such centres of force, Leibniz calls monads.
These forces are unextended, not subject to division in space. None, excepting, of course, God, can
destroy these monads, and so they are considered to be immortal in essence. Though quantitatively, the monads a.."
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 10:47:12 AM8/23/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
No problem.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Jason Resch

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Aug 23, 2012, 10:52:59 AM8/23/12
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It doesn't have to be abstract.  It could be any physical machine that has the property of being Turing universal.  It could be your cell phone, for example.
 
Taking a computer
to be a turing machine would be like taking a human to be a picture or a
description of a human.
It is a major confusion of level, a confusion between description and
actuality.

Also, if we accept your definition, than a turing machine can't do anything.
It is a concept. It doesn't actually compute anything anymore more than a
plan how to build a car drives.
You can use the concept of a turing machine to do actual computations based
on the concept, though, just as you can use a plan of how to a build a car
to build a car and drive it.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> since this is all that is required for my argument.
>>
>> I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
>> because a human is not a computer according to the everyday
>> definition.
>
> A human may be something a computer can perfectly emulate, therefore a
> human could exist with the definition of a computer.  Computers are
> very powerful and flexible in what they can do.
That is an assumption that I don't buy into at all.


Have you ever done any computer programming?  If you have, you might realize that the possibilities for programs goes beyond your imagination.

Computers are universal tools, they can become anything and emulate anything in the same way that a CD player is a universal sound emitting system, which can mimic any voice or instruments.  You may not buy into this, but the overwhelming majority of computer scientists do.  If you have no opinion one way or the other, and don't wish to investigate it yourself, for what reason do you reject the mainstream expert opinion?
 
Actually it can't be true due to self-observation.
A human that observes its own brain observes something entirely else than a
digital brain observing itself (the former will see flesh and blood while
the latter will see computer chips and wires), so they behaviour will
diverge if they look at their own brains - that is, the digital brain can't
an exact emulation, because emulation means behavioural equivalence.


It could be a brain (computer) in a vat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

But even if it weren't, let's say it was an android.  Why would knowledge of being an android make it less capable than any biological human?

The computer might be miniature and fit inside a biological person's skull, and since most people never see their brain in the flesh, there would be little reason to suspect one had an artificial brain.
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> Short of injecting infinities, true randomness, or halting-type
> problems, you won't find a process that a computer cannot emulate.
Really? How come that we never ever emulated anything which isn't already
digital?

Non-digital processes are emulated all the time.  Any continuous/real number can be simulated to any desired degree of accuracy.  It is only when you need infinite accuracy that it becomes impossible for a computer.  This is an injection of an infinity.

Note that humans cannot add, or multiply real numbers with infinite precision either.
 
What is the evidence for your statement (or alternatively, why would it
think it is true for other reasons)?

Sit for a few minutes and try to come up with a process that cannot be replicated by a computer program, which does not involve one of the three things I mentioned.  You may soon become frustrated by the seeming impossibility of the task, and develop an intuition for what is meant by Turing universality.

The reasoning is, anything that can be described algorithmically, and does not require an infinite number of steps to solve, can be solved by a computer following that algorithm.  No one has found or constructed any algorithm that cannot be followed a computer.

 

We have no reason to believe that nature is finite. It just seems to go on
in every direction, we never found an edge. I am not saying it contains a
completed infinity (in my opinion that's pretty much an oxymoron), but it
appears to be inherently incomple.

I agree, our universe is probably infinite in size, and there are probably infinitely many such structures that could be called universes.

But are humans infinite?  Do our brains or neurons need to process continuous variables to infinite precision to function accurately?
 

There are many places where our equations
*completely* break down, which implies that there might never be a accurate
description there.
Occams razor is not an argument against this. It doesn't say "Assume as
little entities as possible" (otherwise we had to deny the existence of
everything we can't directly observe like planets that are far away). It
says "Make the least and the simplest assumptions".
We don't need to assume fundamental finiteness to explain anything, so we
shouldn't.

Nor should we assume infinities without reason.  There are some physical reasons to assume there are no infinities involved in the brain, however:

The holographic principle places a finite bound on the amount of physical information that there can be in a fixed volume.  This implies there is a finite number of possible brain states and infinite precision cannot be a requirement for the operation of the brain.

 
I am not saying that nature is infinite in the way we picture it. It may not
fit into these categories at all.

Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by your
own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.


The UD also contains subjective randomness, which is at the heart of Bruno's argument.

Subjective randomness occurs anytime a subject is duplicated into two distinguishable locations.  To the subject, this duplication seems like a teleportation with the probability of ending up in location A vs. location B, being truly random.

In the third person view of the UD, or quantum mechanics, however, it is entirely deterministic.
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> Do you believe humans are hyper computers?  If not, then we are just
> special cases of computers.  The particular case can defined by
> program, which may be executed on any Turing machine.
Nope. We are not computers and also not hyper-computers.


That is a bit like saying we are not X, but we are also not (not X).  Hyper computers are these imagined things that can do everything normal computers cannot.  So together, there is nothing the two could not be capable of.  What is this magic that makes a human brain more capable than any machine?  Do you not believe the human brain is fundamentally mechanical?
 
Jason

And please don't ask me to prove that. The burden of proof is on the one
claiming that something exists in any particular way or is a particular
thing (just like atheists rightfully say that the burden of proof is on the
ones claiming that a christian God with very particular properties exists).
Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Richard Ruquist

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Aug 23, 2012, 11:10:48 AM8/23/12
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How do you know that?

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
Richard 

Dear Roger,

    You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.


On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,爏ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors爏uch as whether or not its
a clear爉onadic weather day.

Jason Resch

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Aug 23, 2012, 11:17:25 AM8/23/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
A sentence (any string of information) can be interpreted in any possible way, but a computation defines/creates its own meaning.  If you see a particular step in an algorithm adds two numbers, it can pretty clearly be interpreted as addition, for example.

 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> For example: if you exhausted every possible configuration of atoms, you
> would also exhaust every possible chemical, every possible life form, and
> every possible human.
Only because there is no absolute seperation between levels in actual
physical reality.
That is, you can't find atoms without a context of things and you can't find
things that don't contain atoms.

You can have programs with no separation between levels too.  You might have a simulation of atomic interactions, and within this simulation the atoms could be arranged in any possible way to create any possible structure.  Among these structures, there is no clear separation.

 


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I write
>> a
>> program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD
>> doesn't
>> do.
>>
>
> But you, as the one writing a specific program, is an element of the UD.
First, you presuppose that I am a contained in a computation.

Secondly, that's not true. There are no specific programs in the UD. The UD
itself is a specifc program and in it there is nothing in it that dilineates
on program from the others.

Each program has its own separate, non-overlapping, contiguous memory space.
 

It is like there are no specific numbers in the number 123456789. it is one
number; it doesn't contain numbers. We only interpret that into it (using
some algorithm), but then using the right algorithm, we can construct all
numbers out of it. Still no one would say that 123456789 exhaust all
numbers.


Programs don't have to look at the whole number and interpret it as such.  They can focus on smaller sections of it.  Indeed, almost every program does this.  Your computer's RAM represents a single number with billions of digits, but each program on your computer focuses only at little pieces and manipulates only small pieces of this one, very big, number.
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>  The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.
No! The UD doesn't contain entities at all. It is just a computation. You
can only interpret entities into it.


Why do I have to?  As Bruno often asks, does anyone have to watch your brain through an MRI and interpret what it is doing for you to be conscious?
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> It is similar to claiming that it is hard to find a text that is not
>> derived
>> from monkeys bashing on type writers, just because they will produce
>> every
>> possible output some day.
>>
>> Intelligence is not simply blindly going through every possibility but
>> also
>> encompasses organizing them meaningfully and selecting specific ones and
>> producing them in a certain order and producing them within a certain
>> time
>> limit.
>>
>
> And there are processes that do this, within the UD.
No. It can't select a computation because it includes all computations. To
select a computation you must exclude some compuations, and the UD can't do
that (since it is precisely going through all computations)


So it selects them all, and excludes nothing.  How is this a meaningful limitation?

If you look at two entities, X, and Y.  X can do everything Y can do, and more, but Y can only do a subset of what X does.  You say that X is more limited than Y because it can't do only what Y does.
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>   The UD is an example
> that programs can grow beyond the intentions of the creator.
I don't dispute that at all. I very much agree that computer rise beyond the
intention of their users (because we don't actually know what the program
will actually do).


Okay.

Do you believe a computer program could evolve to be more intelligent than its programmer?

I don't know if you watch star trek, but is there a reason the android Data could not develop and become smarter than his creator Dr. Soong?
 

Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>  The UD itself
> isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.
I am not even saying that the UD isn't intelligent. I am just saying that
humans are intelligent in a way that the UD is not (and actually the
opposite is true as well).


Okay, could you clarify in what ways we are more intelligent?

For example, could you show a problem that can a human solve that a computer with unlimited memory and time could not?
I might be mistaken, but I get the impression you are trying to avoid the implications of this line of reasoning.

Jason

benjayk

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Aug 23, 2012, 12:11:13 PM8/23/12
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Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> >>> So what is your definition of computer, and what is your
>> >>> evidence/reasoning
>> >>> that you yourself are not contained in that definition?
>> >>>
>> >> There is no perfect definition of computer. I take computer to mean
>> >> the
>> >> usual physical computer,
>> >
>> > Why not use the notion of a Turing universal machine, which has a
>> > rather well defined and widely understood definition?
>> Because it is an abstract model, not an actual computer.
>
>
> It doesn't have to be abstract. It could be any physical machine that has
> the property of being Turing universal. It could be your cell phone, for
> example.
>
OK, then no computers exists because no computer can actually emulate all
programs that run on an universal turing machine due to lack of memory.

But let's say we mean "except for memory and unlimited accuracy".
This would mean that we are computers, but not that we are ONLY computers.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> >> since this is all that is required for my argument.
>> >>
>> >> I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
>> >> because a human is not a computer according to the everyday
>> >> definition.
>> >
>> > A human may be something a computer can perfectly emulate, therefore a
>> > human could exist with the definition of a computer. Computers are
>> > very powerful and flexible in what they can do.
>> That is an assumption that I don't buy into at all.
>>
>>
> Have you ever done any computer programming? If you have, you might
> realize that the possibilities for programs goes beyond your imagination.
Yes, I studied computer science for one semester, so I have programmed a
fair amount.
Again, you are misinterpreting me. Of course programs go beyond our
imagination. Can you imagine the mandel brot set without computing it on a
computer? It is very hard.
I never said that they can't.

I just said that they lack some capability that we have. For example they
can't fundamentally decide which programs to use and which not and which
axioms to use (they can do this relatively, though). There is no
computational way of determining that.

For example how can you computationally determine whether to use the axiom
true=not(false) or use the axiom true=not(true)?
Or how can you determine whether to program a particular program or not? To
do this computationally you would need another program, but how do you
determine if this is the correct one?


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> You may not buy into this, but the overwhelming majority of computer
> scientists do. If you have
> no opinion one way or the other, and don't wish to investigate it
> yourself,
> for what reason do you reject the mainstream expert opinion?
That's very simple. Computer science has only something to say about
computers, so an expert on that can't be trusted on issues going beyond that
(what is beyond computation).
To the contrary they are very likely biased towards a computational approach
by their profession.
Or to put it more rudely: Many computer scientists are deluded by their own
dogma of computation being all important (or even real beyond an idea), just
like many priests are deluded about God being all important (or even real
beyond an idea). Inside their respective system, there is nothing to suggest
the contrary, and most are unwilling to step out of them system because they
want to be comfortable and not be rejected by their peers.



Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> Actually it can't be true due to self-observation.
>> A human that observes its own brain observes something entirely else than
>> a
>> digital brain observing itself (the former will see flesh and blood while
>> the latter will see computer chips and wires), so they behaviour will
>> diverge if they look at their own brains - that is, the digital brain
>> can't
>> an exact emulation, because emulation means behavioural equivalence.
>>
>>
> It could be a brain (computer) in a vat:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
>
> But even if it weren't, let's say it was an android. Why would knowledge
> of being an android make it less capable than any biological human?
I didn't say that. It just can't be an exact emulation with respect to the
actual world and its possibilities.
That it would have to be less capable in some respects is another issue.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > Short of injecting infinities, true randomness, or halting-type
>> > problems, you won't find a process that a computer cannot emulate.
>> Really? How come that we never ever emulated anything which isn't already
>> digital?
>>
>
> Non-digital processes are emulated all the time. Any continuous/real
> number can be simulated to any desired degree of accuracy. It is only
> when
> you need infinite accuracy that it becomes impossible for a computer.
> This
> is an injection of an infinity.
>
> Note that humans cannot add, or multiply real numbers with infinite
> precision either.
OK, so I would have to correct myself and say non-digital and non-abstract.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> What is the evidence for your statement (or alternatively, why would it
>> think it is true for other reasons)?
>>
>
> Sit for a few minutes and try to come up with a process that cannot be
> replicated by a computer program, which does not involve one of the three
> things I mentioned. You may soon become frustrated by the seeming
> impossibility of the task, and develop an intuition for what is meant by
> Turing universality.
???

Well, actually I can't find any actual process that can be replicated by a
computer program.

If it could be, then I could use virtual things and processes like I use
actual things and processes. But this is empirically obviously not true.

If you want an example, take my heart beating. I can't substitute my heart
even with the best simulation of a heart beating, because the simulation
doesn't ACTUALLY pumps my blood. Even if it is completely accurate, this
doesn't help at all with the problem of pumping my blood because all it does
is generate information as output. We would still have the problem of using
that information to actually pump the blood, and this would pretty much
still require a real heart (or an other pump).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> The reasoning is, anything that can be described algorithmically, and does
> not require an infinite number of steps to solve, can be solved by a
> computer following that algorithm. No one has found or constructed any
> algorithm that cannot be followed a computer.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
>

Note the word "described". Everything can be described using language as
well (just invent an abitrary word for any thing you want to describe).
That is precisely the error. Description does NOT equal reality.

Yes, everything can be described using computers, and all descriptions can
be manipulated in abitrary way using computers.
But this is were it stops. Computers can't go beyond symbol manipulation,
simply because that is exactly how we built them. That is the very
definition of a computer. Receive symbols, transform them in the stated way,
output symbols.

If you say that only computers exists, you say that only symbol manipulation
exists. The problem with that is that symbols don't make sense on their own,
as the very definition of a symbol is that it represents something other
than itself. So you CAN'T have only symbols and symbols manipulation because
the symbols are meaningless without something outiside of them and symbol
manipulation is meaningless if symbols are meaningless.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> We have no reason to believe that nature is finite. It just seems to go
>> on
>> in every direction, we never found an edge. I am not saying it contains a
>> completed infinity (in my opinion that's pretty much an oxymoron), but it
>> appears to be inherently incomple.
>
>
> I agree, our universe is probably infinite in size, and there are probably
> infinitely many such structures that could be called universes.
>
> But are humans infinite? Do our brains or neurons need to process
> continuous variables to infinite precision to function accurately?
They may not be this kind of infinity, but I am only saying that they are
not finite in the mathematical sense if only because humans are not even a
precise entity (they are quantum and thus inherently unprecise).



Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
> There are many places where our equations
>> *completely* break down, which implies that there might never be a
>> accurate
>> description there.
>> Occams razor is not an argument against this. It doesn't say "Assume as
>> little entities as possible" (otherwise we had to deny the existence of
>> everything we can't directly observe like planets that are far away). It
>> says "Make the least and the simplest assumptions".
>> We don't need to assume fundamental finiteness to explain anything, so we
>> shouldn't.
>>
>
> Nor should we assume infinities without reason. There are some physical
> reasons to assume there are no infinities involved in the brain, however:
>
> The holographic principle places a finite bound on the amount of physical
> information that there can be in a fixed volume. This implies there is a
> finite number of possible brain states and infinite precision cannot be a
> requirement for the operation of the brain.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle#Limit_on_information_density
>
That argument does not work if the human brain is entangled with the rest of
the cosmos (because then you can't seperate it as a entity having a fixes
volume).
And this seems to be empirically true because there is pretty much no other
way to explain psi.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> I am not saying that nature is infinite in the way we picture it. It may
>> not
>> fit into these categories at all.
>>
>> Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by your
>> own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.
>>
>>
> The UD also contains subjective randomness, which is at the heart of
> Bruno's argument.
No, it doesn't even contain a subject.

Bruno assumes COMP, which I don't buy at all.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > Do you believe humans are hyper computers? If not, then we are just
>> > special cases of computers. The particular case can defined by
>> > program, which may be executed on any Turing machine.
>> Nope. We are not computers and also not hyper-computers.
>>
>>
> That is a bit like saying we are not X, but we are also not (not X).
Right, reality is not based on binary logic (even though it seems to play an
important role).


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
> Hyper computers are these imagined things that can do everything normal
> computers
> cannot. So together, there is nothing the two could not be capable of.
> What is this magic that makes a human brain more capable than any
> machine?
> Do you not believe the human brain is fundamentally mechanical?
Nope. I think we will soon realize this as we undoubtably see that the brain
is entangled with the rest of the universe. The presence of psi is already
evidence for that.
The notion of entaglement doesn't make sense for machines, since they can
only process information/symbols, but entanglement is not informational.
Also, machines necessarily work in steps (that's how we built them), yet
entaglement is instantaneous. If you have to machines then they both have to
do a step to know the state of the other one.

And indeed entanglement is somewhat magical, but nevertheless we know it
exists.

benjayk

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Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 12:43:01 PM8/23/12
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Hi Richard Ruquist
 
Monads are reference to things, are like bookmarks.
They aren't the things themselves. How many times
do I have tio keep explaining this to you ?
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
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Subject: Re: Re: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy withachanceofthunderstorms

Richard 

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.



On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
锟斤拷
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
锟斤拷
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty,锟斤拷as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
锟斤拷
锟斤拷
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.

Stephen P. King

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Aug 23, 2012, 12:59:19 PM8/23/12
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Hi Roger,

    What is this quote from? It is interesting! I don't quite agree with it, as the centers are not all that a monad must include for its definition...


On 8/23/2012 10:29 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
 
" Leibniz propounds a pluralistic metaphysical idealism by reducing the reality of the universe to
centres of force, which are all ultimately spiritual in their nature. Every centre of force is a substance,
an individual, and is different from other centres of force. Such centres of force, Leibniz calls monads.
These forces are unextended, not subject to division in space. None, excepting, of course, God, can
destroy these monads, and so they are considered to be immortal in essence. Though quantitatively, the monads a.."
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."

John Clark

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:08:23 PM8/23/12
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On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 12:49 PM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:
 
> 'You won't be able to determine the truth of this statement by programming a computer'

If true then you won't be able to determine the truth of this statement PERIOD. Any limitation a computer has you have the exact same limitation. And there are many many times the ONLY way to determine the truth of a statement is by programming a computer, if this were not true nobody would bother building computers and it wouldn't be a trillion dollar industry.

> To put it another way, it shows you that it is really just obvious that you are beyond the computer, because you
are the one programming it.

But it's only a matter of time before computers start programing you because computers get twice as smart every 18 months and people do not.

> Computers do only what we instruct them to do (this is how we built them)

That is certainly not true, if it were there would be no point in instructing computers about anything. Tell me this, if you instructed a computer to find the first even integer greater than 4 that is not the sum of two primes greater than 2 and then stop what will the computer do? It would take you less than 5 minutes to write such a program so tell me, will it ever stop?

> You might say we only do what we were instructed to do by the laws of nature, but this would be merely a metaphor, not an actual fact (the laws of nature are just our approach of describing the world, not something that is
somehow actually programming us).

We do things because of the laws of nature OR we do not do things because of the laws of nature, and if we do not then we are random.

> Let's take your example "'Benjamin Jakubik cannot consistently assert this sentence' is true.".
I can just say your sentence is meaningless.

It's not my example it's your example, you said sentences like this prove that you have fundamental abilities that computers lack, and that of course is nonsense. Saying something is meaningless does not make it so, but suppose it is; well, computers can come up with meaningless gibberish as easily as people can.

>The computer can't do this, because he doesn't know what meaningless is

I see absolutely no evidence of that. If you were competing with the computer Watson on Jeopardy and the category was  "meaningless stuff" I'll bet Watson would kick your ass. But then he'd beat you (or me) in ANY category.

> Maybe that is what dinstinguishes human intelligence from computers. Computers can't recognize meaninglessness or meaning.

Humans often have the same difficulty, just consider how many people on this list think "free will" means something.

> My computer doesn't generate such questions

But other computers can and do.

> and I won't program it to.

But other people will.

  John K Clark

 

Richard Ruquist

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:17:58 PM8/23/12
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Millions of times cause it just ain't true.
But I do not want to interfere with your religion
In string theory monads are definitely things in themselves.

Richard 

Dear Roger,

    You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.


On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
 
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
 
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty, as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,爏ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors爏uch as whether or not its
a clear爉onadic weather day.

Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:18:24 PM8/23/12
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Hi Stephen P. King
 
It's from
 
 
and was just the first link that came up in Google.
 
Just Google on
 
monad
 
and a whole set of other links will pop up.
 
 
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Time: 2012-08-23, 12:59:19
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy withachanceofthunderstorms

Stephen P. King

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:25:14 PM8/23/12
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Hi Roger,

    OK, but I am a bit partial toward descriptions that allow for something approximating a mathematical description, if only to make them more intelligible in technical communications. The Swami's discussion is more theological than anything else.

Roger Clough

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Aug 23, 2012, 1:39:54 PM8/23/12
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Hi Richard Ruquist
 
What isn't true ? Give me an example.
 
Leibniz isn't a religion, but doesn't contradict relion.
 
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/23/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-23, 13:17:58
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudywithachanceofthunderstorms

Richard 

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 You are being inconsistent to the very definition of a monad. They do not have an "outside" that could ever been seen from a point of view and thus to think of them as if they do, such as the concept of a space full of them (which implies mutual displacement) if to think of them as atoms that are exclusively "outside view" defined. Within the Monadology all concepts that imply an "outside view" are strictly defined in terms of appearances from the inside.



On 8/22/2012 9:09 AM, Richard Ruquist wrote:
Roger,

Space is not empty. It is full of monads at 10^90/cc.
These are the building blocks of space in integration-information theory.
Richard

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Richard Ruquist
锟斤拷
You need to study the monadology. And the history of modern physics.
锟斤拷
Space does not physically exist for L (as for us) because it is empty,锟斤拷as the Milligan-whatshisname
experiment proved a century ago. The notion of an ether is a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Photons just go from A to B through a quantum or mathematical wavefield, not an actual one.
锟斤拷
锟斤拷
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
8/22/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-08-22, 07:06:07
Subject: Re: NewsFlash: Monadic weather today will be cloudy with a chance ofthunderstorms

Roger, " monads are by definition nonlocal " does not mean that " space does not exist". Your logic is faulty.
Richard


On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi benjayk
In monadic theory,锟絪ince space does not exist, monads are by definition nonlocal, thus all minds in a sense are one
and can commune with one another as well as with God (the mind behind the supreme monad).
The clarity of intercommunication will of course depend, of course, on the sensitivity of the monads, their intelligence,
and how "near" (resonant) their partners are, as well as other factors锟絪uch as whether or not its
a clear锟絤onadic weather day.

benjayk

unread,
Aug 23, 2012, 2:18:25 PM8/23/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>> Taking the universal dovetailer, it could really mean everything (or
>> nothing), just like the sentence "You can interpret whatever you want
>> into
>> this sentence..." or like the stuff that monkeys type on typewriters.
>>
>>
> A sentence (any string of information) can be interpreted in any possible
> way, but a computation defines/creates its own meaning. If you see a
> particular step in an algorithm adds two numbers, it can pretty clearly be
> interpreted as addition, for example.
A computation can't define its own meaning, since it only manipulates
symbols (that is the definition of a computer), and symbols need a meaning
outside of them to make sense.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I
>> write
>> >> a
>> >> program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD
>> >> doesn't
>> >> do.
>> >>
>> >
>> > But you, as the one writing a specific program, is an element of the
>> UD.
>> First, you presuppose that I am a contained in a computation.
>>
>> Secondly, that's not true. There are no specific programs in the UD. The
>> UD
>> itself is a specifc program and in it there is nothing in it that
>> dilineates
>> on program from the others.
>>
>
> Each program has its own separate, non-overlapping, contiguous memory
> space.
This may be true from your perspective, but if you actually run the UD it
just uses its own memory space.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.
>> No! The UD doesn't contain entities at all. It is just a computation. You
>> can only interpret entities into it.
>>
>>
> Why do I have to? As Bruno often asks, does anyone have to watch your
> brain through an MRI and interpret what it is doing for you to be
> conscious?
Because there ARE no entities in the UD per its definition. It only contains
symbols that are manipulated in a particular way. The definitions of the UD
or a universal turing machine or of computers in general don't contain a
reference to entities.

So you can only add that to its working in your own imagination.

It is like 1+1=2 doesn't say anything about putting an apple into a bowl
with an apple already in it. You can interpret that into it, and its not
necessarily wrong, but it is not part of the equation.
Similarily you can interpret entities into the UD and that is also not
necessarily wrong, put the entities then still are not part of the UD.
That's absolutely correct. A human that (tries to) eat all of the food in
the supermarket is more limited (and dumb) than a human that just does a
subset of this, picking the food it wants and eat that. The former human is
dead, or at least will have to visit the hospital, the latter is well and
alive.

Less is indeed more, in many cases.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > The UD is an example
>> > that programs can grow beyond the intentions of the creator.
>> I don't dispute that at all. I very much agree that computer rise beyond
>> the
>> intention of their users (because we don't actually know what the program
>> will actually do).
>>
>>
> Okay.
>
> Do you believe a computer program could evolve to be more intelligent than
> its programmer?
No, not in every way. Yes, in many ways. Computer already have, to some
degree. If we take IQ as a measure of intelligence, there are already
computers that score better than the vast majority of humans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120214100719.htm

Really it is not at all about intelligence in this sense. It is more about
awareness or universal intelligence.


Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
>> >
>> > The UD itself
>> > isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.
>> I am not even saying that the UD isn't intelligent. I am just saying that
>> humans are intelligent in a way that the UD is not (and actually the
>> opposite is true as well).
>>
>>
> Okay, could you clarify in what ways we are more intelligent?
>
> For example, could you show a problem that can a human solve that a
> computer with unlimited memory and time could not?
Say you have a universal turing machine with the alphabet {0, 1}
The problem is: Change one of the symbols of this turing machine to 2.

Given that it is a universal turing machine, it is supposed to be able to
solve that problem. Yet because it doesn't have access to the right level,
it cannot do it.
It is an example of direct self-manipulation, which turing machines are not
capable of (with regards to their alphabet in this case).
You could of course create a model of that turing machine within that turing
machine and change their alphabet in the model, but since this was not the
problem in question this is not the right solution.

Or the problem "manipulate the code of yourself if you are a program, solve
1+1 if you are human (computer and human meaning what the average humans
considers computer and human)" towards a program written in a turing
universal programming language without the ability of self-modification. The
best it could do is manipulate a model of its own code (but this wasn't the
problem).
Yet we can simply solve the problem by answering 1+1=2 (since we are human
and not computers by the opinion of the majority).

benjayk
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benjayk

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Aug 23, 2012, 2:35:16 PM8/23/12
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Sorry, I am not going to answer to your whole post, because frankly the
points you make are not very interesting to me.


John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 12:49 PM, benjayk
> <benjamin...@googlemail.com>wrote:
>
>
>> > 'You won't be able to determine the truth of this statement by
>> programming a computer'
>>
>
> If true then you won't be able to determine the truth of this statement
> PERIOD.
OK, take the sentence:

'Not all sentences have unambigous truth values - by the way you won't be
able to determine that this sentence doesn't have a unambigous truth value
by using a computer '

The same paradox applies but the statement is clearly practically true
because it has no unambigous answer.



John Clark-12 wrote:
>
>> To put it another way, it shows you that it is really just obvious that
>> you are beyond the computer, because you
>> are the one programming it.
>>
>
> But it's only a matter of time before computers start programing you
> because computers get twice as smart every 18 months and people do not.
So transistor count and smartness are the same? So if I have 10^^^^100
transistors that compute while(true) then you have something that is
unimaginable much smarter than a human?



John Clark-12 wrote:
>
>> Computers do only what we instruct them to do (this is how we built them)
>
>
> That is certainly not true, if it were there would be no point in
> instructing computers about anything.
The definition of a computer is that it precisely carries out the
instructions it is given.


John Clark-12 wrote:
>
> Tell me this, if you instructed a
> computer to find the first even integer greater than 4 that is not the sum
> of two primes greater than 2 and then stop what will the computer do? It
> would take you less than 5 minutes to write such a program so tell me,
> will
> it ever stop?
I don't know. This doesn't relate to whether it carries out the instructions
it is given at all.

benjayk

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Craig Weinberg

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Aug 23, 2012, 2:56:31 PM8/23/12
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    John Clark  Aug 23 01:08PM -0400 

     
    We do things because of the laws of nature OR we do not do things because
    of the laws of nature, and if we do not then we are random.
     
    The laws of nature are such that they demand that we do things intentionally. This means neither random nor completely determined externally.

    We are not merely followers of the laws of nature, we also create them, modify them, revolutionize them. Our intentionality even varies, from non-existent reflex to near libertarian control over aspects of our bodies and mind.

    Are your opinions on free will robotic or random? In either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying attention to them, what with their own robotic or random 'opinions'?

    We have gone around this enough times to know that you aren't going to change your view, I just find it striking that you don't see that the logic of this arbitrary assertion which you keep repeating is blind and circular.

    Craig

    John Clark

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    Aug 23, 2012, 3:33:15 PM8/23/12
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    On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 3:01 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
    > Do computers have intuition ?
    Certainly. The self driving cars that the people at Google and others have had so much success with lately wouldn't work without intuition; the car's memory banks are filled with statistical laws and rules of thumb to figure out the best path to get from point X to point Y.  We know it's intuition and not rigid logic because sometimes, just like with humans, the computer's intuition is wrong, and sometimes, just like with humans, they end up in a ditch.

      John K Clark  
     

    John Clark

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    Aug 23, 2012, 4:36:27 PM8/23/12
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    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 2:35 PM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:


    OK, take the sentence:

    'Not all sentences have unambigous truth values - by the way you won't be able to determine that this sentence doesn't have a unambigous truth value by using a computer '

    OK, if I changed "by using a computer" to " by asking Benjamin Jakubik" explain to me why at the fundamental logical level things would be different. 

    > So transistor count and smartness are the same?

    Not a bad first order approximation.  Software is improving too, maybe not at the breakneck pace of hardware evolution but still much faster than humans are improving their software. 

    > So if I have 10^^^^100 transistors that compute while(true) then you have something that is
    unimaginable much smarter than a human?

    In a word yes. And I must say that 10^^^^100 is a pretty big number considering that there are only 10^ 80 atoms in the observable universe.

    >>  if you instructed a computer to find the first even integer greater than 4 that is not the sum of two primes greater than 2 and then stop what will the computer do? It would take you less than 5 minutes to write such a program so tell me, will it ever stop?
     
    > I don't know.

    I don't know either, nobody knows, even the computer doesn't know if it will stop until it finds itself stopping; if you want to know what it's going to do there is no shortcut, all you can do is watch it and see.
     
    > This doesn't relate to whether it carries out the instructions

    The computer will either stop or it will not and the difference depends on your instructions. You said "The definition of a computer is that it precisely carries out the instructions it is given" so is the implicit order to stop included in "find the first even integer greater than 4 that is not the sum of two primes greater than 2 and then stop"?  Saying the computer only does what we tell it to do doesn't mean much in a case like this because it is far from clear what the implications of our orders will be.

      John K Clark
     

    Stephen P. King

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    Aug 23, 2012, 4:41:43 PM8/23/12
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    On 8/23/2012 2:18 PM, benjayk wrote:


    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:

    >> >Each program has its own separate, non-overlapping, contiguous memory
    >> >space.
    > This may be true from your perspective, but if you actually run the UD it
    > just uses its own memory space.


    What constitutes the memory space of the UD?

    John Clark

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    Aug 23, 2012, 4:53:10 PM8/23/12
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    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

    > The laws of nature are such that they demand that we do things intentionally. This means neither random nor completely determined externally.

    I see, you did it but you didn't do it for a reason and you didn't do it for no reason. I think  Lewis Carroll best summed up your ideas on this subject:

    T was brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
        All mimsy were the borogoves,
          And the mome raths outgrabe.

    > Are your opinions on free will robotic or random? In either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying attention to them

    Point? It sounds like you're asking for a reason, well such a reason either exists or it does not. If other people pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason. If other people do NOT pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason.

      John K Clark



    Stephen P. King

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    Aug 23, 2012, 6:02:10 PM8/23/12
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    Does the chain of reasons stop at some point or is it an infinite regress?

    Jason Resch

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    Aug 23, 2012, 6:28:05 PM8/23/12
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    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:11 AM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> >>> So what is your definition of computer, and what is your
    >> >>> evidence/reasoning
    >> >>> that you yourself are not contained in that definition?
    >> >>>
    >> >> There is no perfect definition of computer. I take computer to mean
    >> >> the
    >> >> usual physical computer,
    >> >
    >> > Why not use the notion of a Turing universal machine, which has a
    >> > rather well defined and widely understood definition?
    >> Because it is an abstract model, not an actual computer.
    >
    >
    > It doesn't have to be abstract.  It could be any physical machine that has
    > the property of being Turing universal.  It could be your cell phone, for
    > example.
    >
    OK, then no computers exists because no computer can actually emulate all
    programs that run on an universal turing machine due to lack of memory.

    If you believe the Mandlebrot set, or the infinite digits of Pi exist, then so to do Turing machines with inexhaustible memory.
     

    But let's say we mean "except for memory and unlimited accuracy".
    This would mean that we are computers, but not that we are ONLY computers.


    Is this like saying our brains are atoms, but we are more than atoms?  I can agree with that, our minds transcend the simple description of interacting particles.

    But if atoms can serve as a platform for minds and consciousness, is there a reason that computers cannot?

    Short of adopting some kind of dualism (such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_naturalism , or the idea that God has to put a soul into a computer to make it alive/conscious), I don't see how atoms can serve as this platform but computers could not, since computers seem capable of emulating everything atoms do.

     

    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >> since this is all that is required for my argument.
    >> >>
    >> >> I (if I take myself to be human) can't be contained in that definition
    >> >> because a human is not a computer according to the everyday
    >> >> definition.
    >> >
    >> > A human may be something a computer can perfectly emulate, therefore a
    >> > human could exist with the definition of a computer.  Computers are
    >> > very powerful and flexible in what they can do.
    >> That is an assumption that I don't buy into at all.
    >>
    >>
    > Have you ever done any computer programming?  If you have, you might
    > realize that the possibilities for programs goes beyond your imagination.
    Yes, I studied computer science for one semester, so I have programmed a
    fair amount.
    Again, you are misinterpreting me. Of course programs go beyond our
    imagination. Can you imagine the mandel brot set without computing it on a
    computer? It is very hard.
    I never said that they can't.

    I just said that they lack some capability that we have. For example they
    can't fundamentally decide which programs to use and which not and which
    axioms to use (they can do this relatively, though). There is no
    computational way of determining that.

    There are experimental ways, which is how we determined which axioms to use.

    There is no reason a computer could not use these same approaches.
     

    For example how can you computationally determine whether to use the axiom
    true=not(false) or use the axiom true=not(true)?

    Some of them are more useful, or lead to theories of a richer complexity.  If the computer program had a concept for desiring novelty/surprises, it would surely find some axiomatic systems more interesting than others.
     
    Or how can you determine whether to program a particular program or not? To
    do this computationally you would need another program, but how do you
    determine if this is the correct one?

    How do we?
     


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > You may not buy into this, but the overwhelming majority of computer
    > scientists do.  If you have
    > no opinion one way or the other, and don't wish to investigate it
    > yourself,
    > for what reason do you reject the mainstream expert opinion?
    That's very simple. Computer science has only something to say about
    computers, so an expert on that can't be trusted on issues going beyond that
    (what is beyond computation).
    To the contrary they are very likely biased towards a computational approach
    by their profession.

    There is probably some of that, yes.
     
    Or to put it more rudely: Many computer scientists are deluded by their own
    dogma of computation being all important (or even real beyond an idea), just
    like many priests are deluded about God being all important (or even real
    beyond an idea). Inside their respective system, there is nothing to suggest
    the contrary, and most are unwilling to step out of them system because they
    want to be comfortable and not be rejected by their peers.


    Most consciousness researchers (who often are not computer scientists) subscribe to the functionalist/computational theory of mind.

    It is better than dualism, because it does not require violations of physics for a mental event to cause a physical event.
    It is better than epihenominalism, because it explains how we can express our own puzzlement over consciousness.
    It is better than idealism, because it explains why we observe a physical universe that seems to follow certain laws.
    It is better than physicalism, because it explains how creatures with different neural anatomy can experience pain.

    If not functionalist/computationalist, what is theory of consciousness do you subscribe to?

    Do you, like Craig, believe that certain materials have to be used in the construction of a brain to realize certain mental states?
    The difference between abstract and concrete is merely a matter of perspective.  If we found some Mandlebrot-set like structure, with little evolving life forms in it, which if you zoom in enough find that they develop intelligence, consciousness, and civilization, we might call their universe and existence abstract.  But they might say the same thing about us. (Once they found the fractal-like structure that contains us).
     

    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> What is the evidence for your statement (or alternatively, why would it
    >> think it is true for other reasons)?
    >>
    >
    > Sit for a few minutes and try to come up with a process that cannot be
    > replicated by a computer program, which does not involve one of the three
    > things I mentioned.  You may soon become frustrated by the seeming
    > impossibility of the task, and develop an intuition for what is meant by
    > Turing universality.
    ???

    Well, actually I can't find any actual process that can be replicated by a
    computer program.

    If it could be, then I could use virtual things and processes like I use
    actual things and processes. But this is empirically obviously not true.

    If you want an example, take my heart beating. I can't substitute my heart
    even with the best simulation of a heart beating, because the simulation
    doesn't ACTUALLY pumps my blood. Even if it is completely accurate, this
    doesn't help at all with the problem of pumping my blood because all it does
    is generate information as output. We would still have the problem of using
    that information to actually pump the blood, and this would pretty much
    still require a real heart (or an other pump).

    You're crossing contexts and levels.  Certainly, a heart inside a computer simulation of some reality isn't going to do you any good if you exist on a different level, in a different reality.
     


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > The reasoning is, anything that can be described algorithmically, and does
    > not require an infinite number of steps to solve, can be solved by a
    > computer following that algorithm.  No one has found or constructed any
    > algorithm that cannot be followed a computer.
    >
    > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
    >

    Note the word "described". Everything can be described using language as
    well (just invent an abitrary word for any thing you want to describe).
    That is precisely the error. Description does NOT equal reality.

    I agree with this.
     

    Yes, everything can be described using computers, and all descriptions can
    be manipulated in abitrary way using computers.
    But this is were it stops.

    I disagree.
     
    Computers can't go beyond symbol manipulation,
    simply because that is exactly how we built them. That is the very
    definition of a computer. Receive symbols, transform them in the stated way,
    output symbols.

    Computers can do more than manipulate symbols, they can generate reality.  Consider that your entire life, all your experience are created by some gelatinous blob resting in the darkness of your skull.  If this blob can create your reality, why can't this box sitting under by desk do the same?
     

    If you say that only computers exists, you say that only symbol manipulation
    exists. The problem with that is that symbols don't make sense on their own,
    as the very definition of a symbol is that it represents something other
    than itself. So you CAN'T have only symbols and symbols manipulation because
    the symbols are meaningless without something outiside of them and symbol
    manipulation is meaningless if symbols are meaningless.

    The squirting of neurotransmitters between neurons are no more than symbols.  Yet they have meaning in the context of your brain.

    The act of comparing one symbol to another, and doing something different because it was one value and not another is the most elemental form of meaning.
    Okay, let's say it is a bubble of 1000 light years surrounding you.  There is a finite quantity of information in this bubble, and only so much can reach its center (your brain) over the next 1,000 years.
     
    And this seems to be empirically true because there is pretty much no other
    way to explain psi.

    What do you mean by psi?
     


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> I am not saying that nature is infinite in the way we picture it. It may
    >> not
    >> fit into these categories at all.
    >>
    >> Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by your
    >> own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.
    >>
    >>
    > The UD also contains subjective randomness, which is at the heart of
    > Bruno's argument.
    No, it doesn't even contain a subject.

    Bruno assumes COMP, which I don't buy at all.


    Okay.  What is your theory of mind?
     

    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> > Do you believe humans are hyper computers?  If not, then we are just
    >> > special cases of computers.  The particular case can defined by
    >> > program, which may be executed on any Turing machine.
    >> Nope. We are not computers and also not hyper-computers.
    >>
    >>
    > That is a bit like saying we are not X, but we are also not (not X).
    Right, reality is not based on binary logic (even though it seems to play an
    important role).


    That reminded me of this:

    I, Kerry Wendell Thornley, KSC, JFK Assassin, Bull Goose of Limbo, Recreational Director of the Wilhelm Reich Athletic Club, Assistant Philosopher, President of the Universal Successionist Association (USA), Chairperson of the Kronstadt Vengeance Committee, Poet Laureate of the Randolph Bourne Association for Revolutionary Violets, Minister in the Church of Universal Life, Trustee for the Center for Mythographic Arts, Correspondent for the Desperate Imperialist News Service (DIN), Vice President of the Generic Graffiti Council of the Americas, CEO of the Umbrella Corporation and of the Spare Change Investment Corporation, Treasurer of the Commercial Erisian Orthodox Tabernacle, Assistant Treasurer of the John-Dillinger-Died-For-You Society, Public Relations Director of Precision Psychedelics, Managing Editor of The Decadent Worker, Public Security Committee Chief of the Revolutionary Surrealist Vandal Party (RSVP), Advisor to the Niccolo Machiavelli University of Jesuit Ethics, Instructor of the Mullah Nasrudin Sufi Mime Troupe, Dean of Bodhisattvas of the 12 Famous Buddha Mind School, Mail Clerk of Junk Mail Associates, Chaplaim ofthe Erotic Terrorism Committee of the Fucking Communist Conspiracy (FCC, etc.), Deputy Counsel of the International Brotherhood of Doom Prophets, Local 666, Alleged Founder of the Zenarchist Affinity Group (ZAG) and the Zenarchist Insurgency Group (ZIG), Co-Founder of the Discordian Society, Grand Master ofthe Legion of Dynamic Discord, Saint 2nd Class in the Industrial Church of the SubGenius, CEO of the Brooklyn Bridge Holding Company, Executive Vice President of the Bank of Hell, Chief Engineer of the Southern Fascist Railway (``Our Trains Run On Time!''), Inspector for the Political Correctness Division of the Marta Batista Cola Company, and Satanist Quaker of 3388 Homera Place, Decatur, Georgia do hereby swear (or affirm) on this day of 13 October 1993 under penalty of perjury that to the best of my knowledge, all of the above and much of the below is true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense, as the Discordian Church (or Synagogue) holds as a central tradition (borrowed from Buddhism and, thus, older than Christianity) tenet of its faith is true of all affirmations. 

     

    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    > Hyper computers are these imagined things that can do everything normal
    > computers
    > cannot.  So together, there is nothing the two could not be capable of.
    >  What is this magic that makes a human brain more capable than any
    > machine?
    >  Do you not believe the human brain is fundamentally mechanical?
    Nope. I think we will soon realize this as we undoubtably see that the brain
    is entangled with the rest of the universe.

    If you haven't already, I think you will very much enjoy that video I pasted earlier.  He demonstrates that entanglement and measurement are the same thing.  Entanglement is the phenomenon when seen to cross space, while measurement is the phenomenon when seen to cross time.
     
    Even if our brains are entangled, however, entanglement, as a phenomenon of QM, is fully deterministic, and thus emulable by a computer.

    The presence of psi is already
    evidence for that.
    The notion of entaglement doesn't make sense for machines, since they can
    only process information/symbols, but entanglement is not informational.
    Also, machines necessarily work in steps (that's how we built them), yet
    entaglement is instantaneous. If you have to machines then they both have to
    do a step to know the state of the other one.

    And indeed entanglement is somewhat magical, but nevertheless we know it
    exists.

    Effects from entanglement are not instantaneous under many worlds.


    To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic. Local measurements
    split local systems (including observers) in a subjectively random
    fashion; distant systems are only split when the causally transmitted
    effects of the local interactions reach them. We have not assumed any
    non-local FTL effects, yet we have reproduced the standard predictions
    of QM.

     Jason

    Jason Resch

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    Aug 23, 2012, 6:55:08 PM8/23/12
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    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 1:18 PM, benjayk <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Taking the universal dovetailer, it could really mean everything (or
    >> nothing), just like the sentence "You can interpret whatever you want
    >> into
    >> this sentence..." or like the stuff that monkeys type on typewriters.
    >>
    >>
    > A sentence (any string of information) can be interpreted in any possible
    > way, but a computation defines/creates its own meaning.  If you see a
    > particular step in an algorithm adds two numbers, it can pretty clearly be
    > interpreted as addition, for example.
    A computation can't define its own meaning, since it only manipulates
    symbols (that is the definition of a computer),

    I think it is a rather poor definition of a computer.  Some have tried to define the entire field of mathematics as nothing more than a game of symbol manipulation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(mathematics) ).  But if mathematics can be viewed as nothing but symbol manipulation, and everything can be described in terms of mathematics, then what is not symbol manipulation?
     
    and symbols need a meaning
    outside of them to make sense.

    The meaning of a symbol derives from the context of the machine which processes it.
     


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >>
    >> >> Also, the universal dovetailer can't select a computation. So if I
    >> write
    >> >> a
    >> >> program that computes something specific, I do something that the UD
    >> >> doesn't
    >> >> do.
    >> >>
    >> >
    >> > But you, as the one writing a specific program, is an element of the
    >> UD.
    >> First, you presuppose that I am a contained in a computation.
    >>
    >> Secondly, that's not true. There are no specific programs in the UD. The
    >> UD
    >> itself is a specifc program and in it there is nothing in it that
    >> dilineates
    >> on program from the others.
    >>
    >
    > Each program has its own separate, non-overlapping, contiguous memory
    > space.
    This may be true from your perspective, but if you actually run the UD it
    just uses its own memory space.


    Is your computer only running one program right now or many?
     

    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >  The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.
    >> No! The UD doesn't contain entities at all. It is just a computation. You
    >> can only interpret entities into it.
    >>
    >>
    > Why do I have to?  As Bruno often asks, does anyone have to watch your
    > brain through an MRI and interpret what it is doing for you to be
    > conscious?
    Because there ARE no entities in the UD per its definition. It only contains
    symbols that are manipulated in a particular way.

    You forgot the processes, which are interpreting those symbols.

    The spikes of neural activity in your optic nerve are just symbols, but given an interpreter (your visual cortex and brain) those symbols become quite meaningful.
     
    The definitions of the UD
    or a universal turing machine or of computers in general don't contain a
    reference to entities.


    The definition of this universe doesn't contain a reference to human beings either.
     
    So you can only add that to its working in your own imagination.


    I think I would still be able to experience meaning even if no one was looking at me.
    Interesting.  Although my suspicion is they just programmed the http://oeis.org/ database into it, and sorted the sequences by how well known they were.
     


    Really it is not at all about intelligence in this sense. It is more about
    awareness or universal intelligence.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >  The UD itself
    >> > isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.
    >> I am not even saying that the UD isn't intelligent. I am just saying that
    >> humans are intelligent in a way that the UD is not (and actually the
    >> opposite is true as well).
    >>
    >>
    > Okay, could you clarify in what ways we are more intelligent?
    >
    > For example, could you show a problem that can a human solve that a
    > computer with unlimited memory and time could not?
    Say you have a universal turing machine with the alphabet {0, 1}
    The problem is: Change one of the symbols of this turing machine to 2.

    Your example is defining a problem to not be solvable by a specific entity, not turing machines in general.  Let's say there were an android next to this other turing machine with a tape with 1's and 0's on it.  The android could write a 2 on it just as easily as any human could.  Now of course the turing machine with the tape might not lack this capability, but that is a limitation of that particular incarnation of a Turing machine.

    Equivalent example: You may be unable to conduct brain surgery on yourself, but this does not mean humans (or Turing machines) are incapable of performing brain surgery.
     

    Given that it is a universal turing machine, it is supposed to be able to
    solve that problem. Yet because it doesn't have access to the right level,
    it cannot do it. 
    It is an example of direct self-manipulation, which turing machines are not
    capable of (with regards to their alphabet in this case).

    Neither can humans change fundamental properties of our physical incarnation.  You can't decide to turn one of your neurons into a magnetic monopole, for instance, but this is not the kind of problem I was referring to.

    To avoid issues of level confusion, it is better to think of problems with informational solutions, since information can readily cross levels.  That is, some question is asked and some answer is provided.  Can you think of any question that is only solvable by human brains, but not solvable by computers?
     
    You could of course create a model of that turing machine within that turing
    machine and change their alphabet in the model, but since this was not the
    problem in question this is not the right solution.

    Or the problem "manipulate the code of yourself if you are a program, solve
    1+1 if you are human (computer and human meaning what the average humans
    considers computer and human)" towards a program written in a turing
    universal programming language without the ability of self-modification. The
    best it could do is manipulate a model of its own code (but this wasn't the
    problem).
    Yet we can simply solve the problem by answering 1+1=2 (since we are human
    and not computers by the opinion of the majority).


    These are certainly creative examples, but they are games of language.  I haven't seen any fundamental limitation that can't be trivially reflected back and applied as an equivalent limitation of humans.

    Jason

    Alberto G. Corona

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    Aug 23, 2012, 8:17:48 PM8/23/12
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    Honestly I do not find the Gödel theorem a limitation for computers. I think that Penrose and other did a right translation from the Gódel theorem to a  problem of a Turing machine,. But this translation can be done in a different way. 

    It is possible to design a program that modify itself by adding new axioms, included the diagonalizations, so that the number of axioms can grow for any need. This is rutinely done for equivalent problems in rule-based expert systems or in ordinary interpreters (aided by humans) in complex domains. But reduced to integer aritmetics, A turing machine that implements a math proof system at the deep level, that is, in an interpreter where new axioms can be automatically added trough diagonalizations, may expand the set of know deductions by incorporating new axioms trough diagonalization. This is not prohibited by the Gódel theorem. What is prohibited is to know all true statements on this domain. But this also apply to humans. So a computer can realize that a new axiom is absent in his initial set and to add it, Just like humans.

    I do not see in this a limitation for human free will. I wrote about this before. The notion of free will based on the deterministc nature of the phisics or computation is a degenerated, false problem which is an obsession of the Positivists. Look form "degenerated" and "Positivism" to find mi opinion about that in this list if you are interested. 

    2012/8/24 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

    --

    Alberto G. Corona

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    Aug 23, 2012, 8:44:15 PM8/23/12
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    What Gödel discovered were that the set of true statements in mathematics, (integer arithmetics) can not be demonstrated by a finite set of axioms. And invented a way to discover axioms with means of an automatic procedure, diagonalization, that the most basic interpreted program can perform. But this was the end of the Hilbert idea.

    What Penrose and others did is to find  a particular (altroug qute direct) translation of the Gódel theorem to an equivalent problem in terms  of a Turing machine where the machine does not perform the diagonalization and the set of axioms can not be extended..

    2012/8/24 Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com>

    Roger Clough

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    Aug 24, 2012, 5:13:25 AM8/24/12
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    Hi John Clark
     
     
    I am told that some of operations of those cars are graphically constructed.
     
    Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
    8/24/2012
    Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
    ----- Receiving the following content -----
    From: John Clark
    Receiver: everything-list
    Time: 2012-08-23, 15:33:15
    Subject: Re: On (platonic) intuition

    On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 3:01 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
    > Do computers have intuition ?
    Certainly. The self driving cars that the people at Google and others have had so much success with lately wouldn't work without intuition; the car's memory banks are filled with statistical laws and rules of thumb to figure out the best path to get from point X to point Y.� We know it's intuition and not rigid logic because sometimes, just like with humans, the computer's intuition is wrong, and sometimes, just like with humans, they end up in a ditch.

    � John K Clark �

    Roger Clough

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    Aug 24, 2012, 5:15:40 AM8/24/12
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    Hi John Clark
     
    The laws of nature don't prevent me from unintentionally having a car accident.
     
     
    Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
    8/24/2012
    Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function."
    ----- Receiving the following content -----
    From: John Clark
    Receiver: everything-list
    Time: 2012-08-23, 16:53:10
    Subject: Re: Simple proof that our intelligence transcends that of computers

    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012� Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

    > The laws of nature are such that they demand that we do things intentionally. This means neither random nor completely determined externally.

    I see, you did it but you didn't do it for a reason and you didn't do it for no reason. I think� Lewis Carroll best summed up your ideas on this subject:

    T was brillig, and the slithy toves
    � Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
    锟斤拷� All mimsy were the borogoves,
    锟斤拷锟斤拷� And the mome raths outgrabe.

    > Are your opinions on free will robotic or random? In either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying attention to them

    Point? It sounds like you're asking for a reason, well such a reason either exists or it does not. If other people pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason. If other people do NOT pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason.

    � John K Clark



    benjayk

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    Aug 24, 2012, 5:18:54 AM8/24/12
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    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:11 AM, benjayk
    > <benjamin...@googlemail.com>wrote:
    >
    >>
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >> >>> So what is your definition of computer, and what is your
    >> >> >>> evidence/reasoning
    >> >> >>> that you yourself are not contained in that definition?
    >> >> >>>
    >> >> >> There is no perfect definition of computer. I take computer to mean
    >> >> >> the
    >> >> >> usual physical computer,
    >> >> >
    >> >> > Why not use the notion of a Turing universal machine, which has a
    >> >> > rather well defined and widely understood definition?
    >> >> Because it is an abstract model, not an actual computer.
    >> >
    >> >
    >> > It doesn't have to be abstract. It could be any physical machine that
    >> has
    >> > the property of being Turing universal. It could be your cell phone,
    >> for
    >> > example.
    >> >
    >> OK, then no computers exists because no computer can actually emulate all
    >> programs that run on an universal turing machine due to lack of memory.
    >>
    >
    > If you believe the Mandlebrot set, or the infinite digits of Pi exist,
    > then
    > so to do Turing machines with inexhaustible memory.
    They exist as useful abstractions, but not as physical objects (which is
    what we practically deal with when we talk about computers).


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> But let's say we mean "except for memory and unlimited accuracy".
    >> This would mean that we are computers, but not that we are ONLY
    >> computers.
    >>
    >>
    > Is this like saying our brains are atoms, but we are more than atoms? I
    > can agree with that, our minds transcend the simple description of
    > interacting particles.
    >
    > But if atoms can serve as a platform for minds and consciousness, is there
    > a reason that computers cannot?
    >
    Not absolutely. Indeed, I believe mind is all there is, so necessarily
    computers are an aspect of mind and are even conscious in a sense already.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > Short of adopting some kind of dualism (such as
    > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_naturalism , or the idea that God
    > has to put a soul into a computer to make it alive/conscious), I don't see
    > how atoms can serve as this platform but computers could not, since
    > computers seem capable of emulating everything atoms do.
    OK. We have a problem of level here. On some level, computers can emulate
    everything atoms can do computationally, I'll admit that. But that's simply
    the wrong level, since it is not about what something can do in the sense of
    transforming input/output.
    It is about what something IS (or is like).

    A boulder that falls on your foot may not be computationally more powerful
    than a computer, but it can do something important that a computer running a
    simulation of a boulder dropping on your foot can't - to make your foot
    hurt.
    Even if you assume we could use a boulder in a simulation with ourselves
    plugged into the simulation to create pain (I agree), it still doesn't do
    the same, namely creating the pain when dropping on your physical foot.
    See, the accuracy of the simulation does not help in bridging the levels.
    Nope, since for the computer no experimental ways exists if we haven't
    determined a program first.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> For example how can you computationally determine whether to use the
    >> axiom
    >> true=not(false) or use the axiom true=not(true)?
    >>
    >
    > Some of them are more useful, or lead to theories of a richer complexity.
    Yes, but how to determine that with a computer?
    If you program it to embrace bad axioms that lead to bad theories and don't
    have a lot of use he will still carry out your instructions. So the computer
    by itself will not notice whether it does something useful (except if you
    programmed it to, in which case you get the same problem with the creation
    of the program).


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > If the computer program had a concept for desiring novelty/surprises, it
    > would surely find some axiomatic systems more interesting than others.
    Sure. But he could be programmed to not to have such a concept, and there is
    no way of determining whether to use it or not if we haven't already
    programmed an algorithm for that (which again had the same problem).

    In effect you get an infinite regress:
    How determine which program to use? ->use a program to determine it
    But which? ->use a program to determine it
    But which? ->use a program to determine it
    ....



    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Or how can you determine whether to program a particular program or not?
    >> To
    >> do this computationally you would need another program, but how do you
    >> determine if this is the correct one?
    >>
    >
    > How do we?
    "How" may be the wrong question, since it would seem to impy that there is a
    algorithm that we use for that.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Or to put it more rudely: Many computer scientists are deluded by their
    >> own
    >> dogma of computation being all important (or even real beyond an idea),
    >> just
    >> like many priests are deluded about God being all important (or even real
    >> beyond an idea). Inside their respective system, there is nothing to
    >> suggest
    >> the contrary, and most are unwilling to step out of them system because
    >> they
    >> want to be comfortable and not be rejected by their peers.
    >>
    >>
    > Most consciousness researchers (who often are not computer scientists)
    > subscribe to the functionalist/computational theory of mind.
    >
    > It is better than dualism, because it does not require violations of
    > physics for a mental event to cause a physical event.
    > It is better than epihenominalism, because it explains how we can express
    > our own puzzlement over consciousness.
    > It is better than idealism, because it explains why we observe a physical
    > universe that seems to follow certain laws.
    > It is better than physicalism, because it explains how creatures with
    > different neural anatomy can experience pain.
    >
    > If not functionalist/computationalist, what is theory of consciousness do
    > you subscribe to?
    Idealism (which really isn't a theory of consciousness, more a stance).

    It is better than computationalism because it explains why we don't
    subjectively perceive ourselves as computer or doing computations (we
    aren't), and it explain where computations come from in the first place
    (from subjective meaningfulness) and it explains why there is any experience
    at all (it is irreducibly existent) and it spiritually meaningful (all there
    is the infinite profoundity of experiencing that isn't constrained by
    objective pre-defined things).
    Your argument against idealism isn't valid, since idealism explain why we
    observe a physical universe that follows certain laws (approximatly):
    Because order (that can be described using laws) and matter are subjectively
    meaningful.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > Do you, like Craig, believe that certain materials have to be used in the
    > construction of a brain to realize certain mental states?
    I think the question is invalid. A brain doesn't realize mental states. It
    appears in our mind (and has some correlation to our mind). Experience can't
    be attributed to any entity or thing or activity.
    Just on a relative level they can be, but then we are talking about "mental
    states" and not really the experience itself. On this level, we can also
    attribute mental states to computers (we already do).
    So you are actually agreeing with me? - Since this is exactly the point I am
    trying to make.
    Digital models exist on a different level than what they represent, and it
    doesn't matter how good/accurate they are because that doesn't bridge the
    gap between model and reality.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Computers can't go beyond symbol manipulation,
    >> simply because that is exactly how we built them. That is the very
    >> definition of a computer. Receive symbols, transform them in the stated
    >> way,
    >> output symbols.
    >>
    >
    > Computers can do more than manipulate symbols, they can generate reality.
    Only through us. If we let a computer compute and don't look at what it
    does, than as far we can see, it doesn't generate anything.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > Consider that your entire life, all your experience are created by some
    > gelatinous blob resting in the darkness of your skull. If this blob can
    > create your reality, why can't this box sitting under by desk do the same?
    I don't buy your assumption. My experience is just there. I can't actually
    find something that produces it. I can only imagine that.
    As far as I am concerned, the brain just manifests and represents subjective
    processes on a objective level inside a skull, they aren't made there (no
    evidence for that or any reason to believe it is so, or is even meaningful).

    Yes, the computer can do that as well (though on a different level, if only
    because its representation is different).


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> If you say that only computers exists, you say that only symbol
    >> manipulation
    >> exists. The problem with that is that symbols don't make sense on their
    >> own,
    >> as the very definition of a symbol is that it represents something other
    >> than itself. So you CAN'T have only symbols and symbols manipulation
    >> because
    >> the symbols are meaningless without something outiside of them and symbol
    >> manipulation is meaningless if symbols are meaningless.
    >>
    >
    > The squirting of neurotransmitters between neurons are no more than
    > symbols. Yet they have meaning in the context of your brain.
    No, the squirting has measurable objective qualities like energy (a symbol
    doesn't have that becaues it isn't a unique physical entity).


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > The act of comparing one symbol to another, and doing something different
    > because it was one value and not another is the most elemental form of
    > meaning.
    I am a bit sorry for you if that is the most elemental form of meaning for
    you.
    Often closing your eyes and stopping comparing and symbolizing can be much
    more meaningful and fullfilling.
    I mean it is literally entangled with the rest of infinite existence, not
    just our universe.
    Really even according to the multiverse theory it is. There is no absolute
    decoherence in it and there are infinititely many universes.



    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> And this seems to be empirically true because there is pretty much no
    >> other
    >> way to explain psi.
    >>
    >
    > What do you mean by psi?
    Telepathy, for example.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >> I am not saying that nature is infinite in the way we picture it. It
    >> may
    >> >> not
    >> >> fit into these categories at all.
    >> >>
    >> >> Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by
    >> your
    >> >> own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> > The UD also contains subjective randomness, which is at the heart of
    >> > Bruno's argument.
    >> No, it doesn't even contain a subject.
    >>
    >> Bruno assumes COMP, which I don't buy at all.
    >>
    >>
    > Okay. What is your theory of mind?
    I don't have any. Mind cannot be captured or even by described at the
    fundamental level at all.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> evidence for that.
    >> The notion of entaglement doesn't make sense for machines, since they can
    >> only process information/symbols, but entanglement is not informational.
    >> Also, machines necessarily work in steps (that's how we built them), yet
    >> entaglement is instantaneous. If you have to machines then they both have
    >> to
    >> do a step to know the state of the other one.
    >>
    >> And indeed entanglement is somewhat magical, but nevertheless we know it
    >> exists.
    >>
    >
    > Effects from entanglement are not instantaneous under many worlds.
    >
    > From: http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds.html
    >
    > To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic. Local measurements
    > split local systems (including observers) in a subjectively random
    > fashion; distant systems are only split when the causally transmitted
    > effects of the local interactions reach them. We have not assumed any
    > non-local FTL effects, yet we have reproduced the standard predictions
    > of QM.
    Well, OK, it doesn't really matter (though I don't buy into many-worlds much
    more than I buy into single world).
    The thing is that a perfect simulation of entanglement still wouldn't be
    actual entaglement (since it requires there to be no gap of level - a
    classical computer simulating entaglement is not actually entangled with its
    surroundings).

    benjayk
    --
    View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Simple-proof-that-our-intelligence-transcends-that-of-computers-tp34330236p34343299.html

    benjayk

    unread,
    Aug 24, 2012, 6:04:03 AM8/24/12
    to everyth...@googlegroups.com


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 1:18 PM, benjayk
    > <benjamin...@googlemail.com>wrote:
    >
    >>
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >> Taking the universal dovetailer, it could really mean everything (or
    >> >> nothing), just like the sentence "You can interpret whatever you want
    >> >> into
    >> >> this sentence..." or like the stuff that monkeys type on typewriters.
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> > A sentence (any string of information) can be interpreted in any
    >> possible
    >> > way, but a computation defines/creates its own meaning. If you see a
    >> > particular step in an algorithm adds two numbers, it can pretty clearly
    >> be
    >> > interpreted as addition, for example.
    >> A computation can't define its own meaning, since it only manipulates
    >> symbols (that is the definition of a computer),
    >
    >
    > I think it is a rather poor definition of a computer. Some have tried to
    > define the entire field of mathematics as nothing more than a game of
    > symbol manipulation (see
    > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(mathematics) ). But if
    > mathematics
    > can be viewed as nothing but symbol manipulation, and everything can be
    > described in terms of mathematics, then what is not symbol manipulation?
    >
    That what it is describing. Very simple. :)



    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> and symbols need a meaning
    >> outside of them to make sense.
    >>
    >
    > The meaning of a symbol derives from the context of the machine which
    > processes it.
    I agree. The context in which the machine operates matters. Yet our
    definitions of computer don't include an external context.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >>
    >> >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >> >
    >> >> > The UD contains an entity who believes it writes a single program.
    >> >> No! The UD doesn't contain entities at all. It is just a computation.
    >> You
    >> >> can only interpret entities into it.
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> > Why do I have to? As Bruno often asks, does anyone have to watch your
    >> > brain through an MRI and interpret what it is doing for you to be
    >> > conscious?
    >> Because there ARE no entities in the UD per its definition. It only
    >> contains
    >> symbols that are manipulated in a particular way.
    >
    >
    > You forgot the processes, which are interpreting those symbols.
    No, that's simply not how we defined the UD. The UD is defined by
    manipulation of symbols, not interpretation of symbols (how could we even
    formalize that?).


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> The definitions of the UD
    >> or a universal turing machine or of computers in general don't contain a
    >> reference to entities.
    >>
    >>
    > The definition of this universe doesn't contain a reference to human
    > beings
    > either.
    Right, that's why you can't claim that all universes contain human beings.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> So you can only add that to its working in your own imagination.
    >>
    >>
    > I think I would still be able to experience meaning even if no one was
    > looking at me.
    Yes, because you are what is looking - there is no one looking at you in the
    first place, because someone looking is occur in you.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >
    >> >>
    >> >> Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >> >> >
    >> >> > The UD itself
    >> >> > isn't intelligent, but it contains intelligences.
    >> >> I am not even saying that the UD isn't intelligent. I am just saying
    >> that
    >> >> humans are intelligent in a way that the UD is not (and actually the
    >> >> opposite is true as well).
    >> >>
    >> >>
    >> > Okay, could you clarify in what ways we are more intelligent?
    >> >
    >> > For example, could you show a problem that can a human solve that a
    >> > computer with unlimited memory and time could not?
    >> Say you have a universal turing machine with the alphabet {0, 1}
    >> The problem is: Change one of the symbols of this turing machine to 2.
    >>
    >
    > Your example is defining a problem to not be solvable by a specific
    > entity,
    > not turing machines in general.
    But the claim of computer scientists is that all turing machines are
    interchangable, because they can emulate each other perfectly. Clearly
    that's not true because perfect computational emulation doesn't help to
    solve the problem in question, and that is precisely my point!



    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Given that it is a universal turing machine, it is supposed to be able to
    >> solve that problem. Yet because it doesn't have access to the right
    >> level,
    >> it cannot do it.
    >
    > It is an example of direct self-manipulation, which turing machines are
    > not
    >> capable of (with regards to their alphabet in this case).
    >>
    >
    > Neither can humans change fundamental properties of our physical
    > incarnation. You can't decide to turn one of your neurons into a magnetic
    > monopole, for instance, but this is not the kind of problem I was
    > referring
    > to.
    I don't claim that humans are all powerful. I am just saying that they can
    do things computer can't.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    > To avoid issues of level confusion, it is better to think of problems with
    > informational solutions, since information can readily cross levels. That
    > is, some question is asked and some answer is provided. Can you think of
    > any question that is only solvable by human brains, but not solvable by
    > computers?
    OK, if you want to ignore levels, context and ambiguity then the answer is
    clearly no!
    Simply write a program that takes the question X and gives the appropiate
    answer Y.
    Since all combinations of strings exist the right solution exists for every
    question.
    Then you would still have to write the right program, though, and for that
    you still need a human or a more powerful program.

    But this avoides my point that we can't imagine that levels, context and
    ambiguity don't exist, and this is why computational emulation does not mean
    that the emulation can substitute the original.


    Jason Resch-2 wrote:
    >
    >> You could of course create a model of that turing machine within that
    >> turing
    >> machine and change their alphabet in the model, but since this was not
    >> the
    >> problem in question this is not the right solution.
    >>
    >> Or the problem "manipulate the code of yourself if you are a program,
    >> solve
    >> 1+1 if you are human (computer and human meaning what the average humans
    >> considers computer and human)" towards a program written in a turing
    >> universal programming language without the ability of self-modification.
    >> The
    >> best it could do is manipulate a model of its own code (but this wasn't
    >> the
    >> problem).
    >> Yet we can simply solve the problem by answering 1+1=2 (since we are
    >> human
    >> and not computers by the opinion of the majority).
    >>
    >>
    > These are certainly creative examples, but they are games of language. I
    > haven't seen any fundamental limitation that can't be trivially reflected
    > back and applied as an equivalent limitation of humans.
    You didn't state in which way my problem is invalid. That you consider it
    "just a game" doesn't change the objective conlusion at all.

    I actually fully agree with you that the *most* fundamental limitation of
    computers apply to humans as well (like for example being a particular thing
    with a particular structure). I am not one of these people that project a
    magical soul into human that makes them more special than everything else.
    But that doesn't change the point that humans can do some things computers
    can't, which is very important and relevant.

    You might still believe that computers can do, for all intents and purposes,
    what humans can do, but I fail to see how similiar examples of
    self-reference, self-manipulation, self-relativity don't occur all the time
    in high-level contexts.
    And this is the reason that I fully expect computers to become much better
    than humans in terms of *relatively* low-level tasks (even on the level of
    reasoning about complex objectifiable topics), but not with regards to the
    most high level subjects (like consciousness, emotion, ambiguity,
    spirituality, axioms).
    By the way, for a similar reason I believe that humans are in *some ways*
    more limited than animals or plants, because they assume and know to much /
    are too much concerned with relative notions (and thus can't go back to the
    "ignorance" of animals which is intelligent in that it ignores relatively
    superficial issues like descriptions).

    So I am not saying humans>all, I am just saying that different kinds of
    intelligence on different levels (like computer-, animal-, plant-, human-,
    spirit-, environmental-, galaxy-, space-intelligence) can't be substituted,
    but actually amplify and complement each other. They each have certain
    limitations that others don't have.


    benjayk
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    View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Simple-proof-that-our-intelligence-transcends-that-of-computers-tp34330236p34343444.html

    Stathis Papaioannou

    unread,
    Aug 24, 2012, 6:38:39 AM8/24/12
    to everyth...@googlegroups.com
    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 3:59 AM, benjayk
    <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:

    > I am not sure that this is true. First, no one yet showed that nature can be
    > described through a set of fixed laws. Judging from our experience, it seems
    > all laws are necessarily incomplete.
    > It is just dogma of some materialists that the universe precisely follows
    > laws. I don't see why that would be the case at all and I see no evidence
    > for it either.

    The evidence that the universe follows fixed laws is all of science.
    Evidence against it would be if magical things started happening.

    > Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms in
    > our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just give
    > us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will happen.
    > In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
    > laws.
    > Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual precise,
    > deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we have
    > no evidence for that.

    Probabilities in quantum mechanics can be calculated with great
    precision. For example, radioactive decay is a truly random process,
    but we can calculate to an arbitrary level of certainty how much of an
    isotope will decay. In fact, it is much easier to calculate this than
    to make predictions about deterministic but chaotic phenomena such as
    the weather.


    --
    Stathis Papaioannou

    benjayk

    unread,
    Aug 24, 2012, 9:36:07 AM8/24/12
    to everyth...@googlegroups.com


    Stathis Papaioannou-2 wrote:
    >
    > On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 3:59 AM, benjayk
    > <benjamin...@googlemail.com> wrote:
    >
    >> I am not sure that this is true. First, no one yet showed that nature can
    >> be
    >> described through a set of fixed laws. Judging from our experience, it
    >> seems
    >> all laws are necessarily incomplete.
    >> It is just dogma of some materialists that the universe precisely follows
    >> laws. I don't see why that would be the case at all and I see no evidence
    >> for it either.
    >
    > The evidence that the universe follows fixed laws is all of science.
    That is plainly wrong. It is like saying what humans do is determined
    through a (quite accurate) description of what humans do.

    It is an confusion of level. The universe can't follow laws, because laws
    are just descriptions of what the universe does.

    Science does show us that many aspects of the universe can be accurately
    described through laws. But this is not very suprising since the laws and
    the language they evolved out of emerge from the order of the universe and
    so they will reflect it.

    Also, our laws are known to not be accurate (they simply break down at some
    points), so necessarily the universe does not behave as our laws suggest it
    does. And we have no reason to assume it behaves as any other law suggest it
    does. Why would be believe it, other than taking it as a dogma?


    Stathis Papaioannou-2 wrote:
    >
    >> Secondly, even the laws we have now don't really describe that the atoms
    >> in
    >> our brain are rigidly controlled. Rather, quantum mechanical laws just
    >> give
    >> us a probability distribution, they don't tell us what actually will
    >> happen.
    >> In this sense current physics has already taken the step beyond precise
    >> laws.
    >> Some scientists say that the probability distribution is an actual
    >> precise,
    >> deterministic entity, but really this is just pure speculation and we
    >> have
    >> no evidence for that.
    >
    > Probabilities in quantum mechanics can be calculated with great
    > precision. For example, radioactive decay is a truly random process,
    > but we can calculate to an arbitrary level of certainty how much of an
    > isotope will decay. In fact, it is much easier to calculate this than
    > to make predictions about deterministic but chaotic phenomena such as
    > the weather.
    >
    Sure, but that is not an argument against my point. Precise probabilities
    are just a way of making the unprecise (relatively) precise. They still do
    not allow us to make precise predictions - they say nothing about what will
    happen, just about what could happen.

    Also, statistical laws do not tell us anything about the correlation between
    (apparently) seperate things, so they actually inherently leave out some
    information that could very well be there (and most likely is there if we
    look at the data).
    They only describe probabilities of seperate events, not correlation of the
    outcome of seperate events.

    Say you have 1000 dices with 6 sides that behaves statistically totally
    random if analyzed seperately.

    Nevertheless they could be strongly correlated and this correlation is very
    hard to find using scientific methods and to describe - we wouldn't notice
    at all if we just observed the dices seperately or just a few dices (as we
    would usually do using scientific methods).

    Or you have 2 dices with 1000 sides that behaves statistically totally
    random if analyzed seperately, but if one shows 1 the other ALWAYS shows one
    as well. Using 1000 tries you will most likely notice nothing at all, and
    using 10000 tries you will still probably notice nothing because there will
    be most likely other instances as well where the two numbers are the same.
    So it would be very difficult to detect the correlation, even though it is
    quite important (given that you could accurately predict what the other
    1000-sided dice will be in 1/1000 of the cases).

    And even worse, if you have 10 dices that *together* show no correlation at
    all (which we found out using many many tries), this doesn't mean that the
    combinated result of the 10 dices is not correlated with another set of 10
    dices. To put it another way: Even if you showed that a given set of
    macrosopic objects is not correlated, they still may not behave random at
    all on a bigger level because they are correlated with another set of
    objects!

    Most scientists seem to completely disregard this as they think there could
    be no correlation between seperate macro objects because they decohere too
    quickly. But this assumes that our laws are correct when it comes to
    describing decoherence and it also assumes that decoherence means that there
    is NO correlation anymore (as oppposed to no definite/precise correlation).

    And we have very solid data that there is large scale correlation (psi -
    like telepathy and extremely unusual coincidences - or photsynthesis).
    Also there is no reason to apriori assume that there could not be
    correlation between distant events (unless you have a dogmatically classical
    worldview) - which would be inherently hard to measure.

    Using two assumptions we can then show that there can be no one stastical
    law for every universe that describes the events of multiverse (including
    correlations).

    One: There are infinititely many universes.
    Two: The universes are correlated.

    (since the information about correlation between universes is not contained
    in the statistical law for every particular universe)

    This even works if you substitute universe with multiverse and multiverse
    with multi-multiverse (etc...). So if there is no level at which you can
    "cap" reality, there can be no precise laws (if the events are correlated).

    benjayk
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    Bruno Marchal

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    Aug 24, 2012, 12:02:41 PM8/24/12
    to everyth...@googlegroups.com

    On 24 Aug 2012, at 12:04, benjayk wrote:

    But this avoides my point that we can't imagine that levels, context and
    ambiguity don't exist, and this is why computational emulation does not mean
    that the emulation can substitute the original.

    But here you do a confusion level as I think Jason tries pointing on.
    A similar one to the one made by Searle in the Chinese Room.

    As emulator (computing machine) Robinson Arithmetic can simulate exactly Peano Arithmetic, even as a prover. So for example Robinson arithmetic can prove that Peano arithmetic proves the consistency of Robinson Arithmetic. 
    But you cannot conclude from that that Robinson Arithmetic can prove its own consistency. That would contradict Gödel II. When PA uses the induction axiom, RA might just say "huh", and apply it for the sake of the emulation without any inner conviction.

    With Church thesis computing is an absolute notion, and all universal machine computes the same functions, and can compute them in the same manner as all other machines so that the notion of emulation (of processes) is also absolute.

    But, proving, believing, knowing, defining, etc. Are not absolute, and are all relative to the system actually doing the proof, or the knowing. Once such notion are, even just approximated semi-axiomatically, they define complex lattices or partial orders of unequivalent classes of machines, having very often transfinite order type, like proving for example, for which there is a branch of mathematical logic, known as Ordinal Analysis, which measures the strength of theories by a constructive ordinal. PA's strength is well now as being the ordinal epsilon zero, that is omega [4] omega (= omega^omega^omega^...) as discovered by Gentzen).

    It is not a big deal, it just mean that my ability to emulate einstein (cf Hofstadter) does not make me into Einstein. It only makes me able to converse with Einstein.

    If you avoid gently the level confusion for the human person, there is no reason to avoid it for the machines.
    It is not because universal machine can do all computations, that they can do all proofs, on the contrary, being universal and consistent will limit them locally, and motivate them to change themselves, relatively to their most probable universal histories.

    Such infinite progression of self-changing machines have already been programmed, by Myhill, and myself, notably. In my more technical work, I use Becklemishev results which extends the soundness of G and G* on such machines, and prove a completeness theorem for the corresponding multimodal logic, with the provability parametrized on the ordinal (I say this for those interested and open to computer science as it is natural in the frame of the comp hypothesis).

    Bruno




    Bruno Marchal

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    Aug 24, 2012, 12:31:29 PM8/24/12
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    On 23 Aug 2012, at 15:12, benjayk wrote:

    Quantum mechanics includes true subjective randomness already, so by your
    own standards nothing that physically exists can be emulated.

    That's QM+collapse, but the collapse is not well defined, and many incompatible theories are proposed for it, and Everett showed we don't need it, if we assume comp or weaker. 
    Feynman called the collapse, a collective hallucination, but then with comp so is the wave.

    It is misleading to use a non understood controversal idea in a domain (the wave collapse in physics) to apply it on complex non solved problem in another domain (the mind body problem).

    There are no known phenomena capable of collapsing the wave, nor any known evidences that the wave does collapse.

    Bruno


    Craig Weinberg

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    Aug 24, 2012, 12:32:37 PM8/24/12
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    On Thursday, August 23, 2012 4:53:10 PM UTC-4, John K Clark wrote:
    On Thu, Aug 23, 2012  Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

    > The laws of nature are such that they demand that we do things intentionally. This means neither random nor completely determined externally.

    I see, you did it but you didn't do it for a reason and you didn't do it for no reason.

    I did it for many reasons, some of them my own. Your argument is that grey must be either black or white. It's not true. Grey is neither black, white, nor is it nor black nor white. Why is this so difficult?
     
    I think  Lewis Carroll best summed up your ideas on this subject:

    T was brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
        All mimsy were the borogoves,
          And the mome raths outgrabe.

    It's interesting that you bring up Lewis Carroll (as you have before) as an insult, when actually the Alice books are brilliant explorations on consciousness and sense-making. Carroll was a mathematician and logician (see Dodgson), who published academic works under that name. I have been reading Deleuze's The Logic of Sense (pdf download: http://en.bookfi.org/book/1172079?_ir=1) in which he writes about Carroll's use of paradox and esoteric words to point out the multiple layers of sense inherent in language. You are reading Carroll on the most simplistic level, a childlike level where anything unfamiliar can only be giggled at.

    It turns out that Deleuze's understanding of sense using Carroll's examples are identical to my own in many ways, especially the big picture dialectics. Many philosophical concepts, from mysticism to semiotics have repeatedly revealed the same kinds of primordial trichotomies. My ideas take a step further in that they anchor direct awareness as a temporal algebra in contradistinction to the spatial geometries of indirect perception.



    > Are your opinions on free will robotic or random? In either case, would there be any point in anyone else paying attention to them

    Point? It sounds like you're asking for a reason, well such a reason either exists or it does not.

    What do your assumptions about my motives have to do with anything? What is useful about saying that something 'either exists or it does not'? Everything exists in some sense. Nothing exists in every sense.

     
    If other people pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason. If other people do NOT pay attention to my views they do so for a reason or they do not do so for a reason.

    According to your views, you don't have any views, and neither do any possible readers of your views. All of it is either robotic or random. I am saying that if you are right, then there is no point whatsoever for you to ever speak again. You are trying to wriggle out of it by subjecting anything I say to the same black and white reductionism that you have used to invalidate your own ability to participate in your own thought.

    Craig
     

      John K Clark



    Bruno Marchal

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    Aug 24, 2012, 12:33:23 PM8/24/12
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    On 23 Aug 2012, at 16:52, Jason Resch wrote:

    The holographic principle places a finite bound on the amount of physical information that there can be in a fixed volume.  This implies there is a finite number of possible brain states and infinite precision cannot be a requirement for the operation of the brain.

    But normally the holographic principle should be extracted from comp before this can be used as an argument here.

    Bruno


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