Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

[freqflyer07281972]

Hey all on the list,

Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this teleportation business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's Razorish to simply conclude from the entire argument that the correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not knowable, but not achievable, which means:

congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment proof that teleportation is impossible in any cases greater than, say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error of about plus/minus 100) ... this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel theorists use some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The problem is, the furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC, and yet in order to make the CTC, the formal and physical conditions require that you already have to have a time machine. This, of course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time machine in the first place, you have to have had a time machine to use as a kind of mechanism for the whole project.

In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the conclusion you want it to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in the computation of some infinite computer) but rather the less appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the same reasons as time travel is impossible.

It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you think if we admit that the teleportation required in your thought experiment is simply not possibly for purely naturalistic (and therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.

Looking forward to your response,

Dan

[John Mikes]

Dear Dan,

you make a lot of sense. Not so surprizing, though: "thought experiments" are created for handling impossible (and NOT knowable) circumstances in the tenets of (possible? believed?) scientific figments. Like e.g. the EPR. 

Or: teleportation (a decade-long bore for me - sorry, Fellows). 

My argument is mainly time-less: you can 'teleportate' (funny word) any PAST event, not the FUTURE so the Teleport (noun for the teleportated?)  will experience a DIFFERENT lifeline from the continuation of the Original. 

Your reference to time-travel is appreciable (can I kill my grandmother before she gave birth to my mother?). 

This seems to be a good pastime-game for people who could do smarter. 

Regards

John Mikes

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[meekerdb]

On 11/10/2012 1:11 AM, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
> Hey all on the list,
>
> Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this teleportation
> business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's Razorish to simply conclude from the
> entire argument that the correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not
> knowable, but not achievable, which means:
>
> congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment proof that teleportation
> is impossible in any cases greater than, say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error
> of about plus/minus 100) ... this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel
> theorists use some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's
> relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The problem is, the
> furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC, and yet in order to make the CTC, the
> formal and physical conditions require that you already have to have a time machine.
> This, of course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time machine in the
> first place, you have to have had a time machine to use as a kind of mechanism for the
> whole project.
>
> In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the conclusion you want it
> to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in the computation of some infinite computer)
> but rather the less appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in
> your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the same reasons as
> time travel is impossible.

I don't see the parallel. Can you spell it out?

Brent

>
> It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you think if we admit
> that the teleportation required in your thought experiment is simply not possibly for
> purely naturalistic (and therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.
>
> Looking forward to your response,
>
> Dan

[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Nov 2012, at 10:11, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

> Hey all on the list,
>
> Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this
> teleportation business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's
> Razorish to simply conclude from the entire argument that the
> correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not knowable,
> but not achievable, which means:
>
> congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment
> proof that teleportation is impossible in any cases greater than,
> say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error of about plus/minus
> 100) ...

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)

COMP -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT
means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness
close to quantum Everett.

> this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel theorists use
> some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's
> relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The
> problem is, the furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC,
> and yet in order to make the CTC, the formal and physical conditions
> require that you already have to have a time machine. This, of
> course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time
> machine in the first place, you have to have had a time machine to
> use as a kind of mechanism for the whole project.

But such loop can exist consistently in solution of the GR equation.
that's what Gödel showed. I don't think this was really a problem for
Einstein, as he said more than once, that time is an illusion. We
would say now that it is a machine mental construction, which obeys
the laws of machines.

>
> In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the
> conclusion you want it to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in
> the computation of some infinite computer) but rather the less
> appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in
> your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the
> same reasons as time travel is impossible.

But then we cannot be even quantum computer, because they can emulate
by a classical machine, and they too exist in the arithmetical realm.

Any way, I don't defend comp, I just show that comp makes physics
derivable in arithmetic, and that if you do it in some way, (using the
logic of self-reference) you can extract a general theory of qualia,
with its quanta part that you can compare with nature, and so test
comp. And up to now, it fits well with the facts.

>
> It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you
> think if we admit that the teleportation required in your thought
> experiment is simply not possibly for purely naturalistic (and
> therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.

But the you need to assume non comp. The non clonability is also easy
to derive from comp, as the matter which constitutes us is eventually
defined by the entire, non computable dovetaling.

But puuting the subst level so low that comp is false, force you to
use a strong form of non comp, where matter is not just infinite, but
have to be a very special infinite not recoverable in the limiting
first person indeterminacy. What you do is a bit like introducing an a
priori unintelligible notion of matter to just avoid the consequence
of a theory. Bilogy and its extreme redundancy and metabolic exchange
pleas for comp, as such redundancy and metabolisation would be
miraculous if not comp emulable. In fact we don't know in nature any
process not emulable by a computer, except for the consciousness
selection, like in the WM duplication, or in quantum everett.

You are logically right, but abandoning comp is premature, before
listening to the machine (AUDA).

I know that some aristotelians are ready for all means, to avoid the
neoplatonist consequences, but that is normal given the 1500 years of
authoritative arguments.

Bruno

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

[meekerdb]

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions:  (MAT is weak materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)

COMP   -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction.  There may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not made many definite predictions that could be contradicted.  That's why I brought up the location of consciousness.  Empirically consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and not reason to be associated with a particular body.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
anti-solipsism requirement.

Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more restricted.

Cheers

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[meekerdb]

On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>> On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
>>> materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
>>> reality)
>>>
>>> COMP -> NOT MAT
>>> MAT -> NOT COMP
>>> NOT MAT or NOT COMP
>>>
>>> I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
>>> MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
>>> weirdness close to quantum Everett.
>> But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
>> may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not
>> made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
>> why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
>> consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
>> of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
>> predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and
>> not reason to be associated with a particular body.
>>
> I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
> is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
> anti-solipsism requirement.

But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from COMP? Is it just an
anthropic selection argument?

Brent

[Russell Standish]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 07:02:04PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
> On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> >I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
> >is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
> >anti-solipsism requirement.
>
> But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from COMP?
> Is it just an anthropic selection argument?
>
> Brent
>

I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
like:

1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness

2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and
complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but
not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."

3) The simplest environment generating a given level of complexity is
one that has arisen as a result of evolution from a much simpler
initial state. This is the evolution in the multiverse observation,
that evolution is the only creative (or information generating)
process.

4) Evolutionary proccesses work with populations, so automatically,
you must have other self-aware entities in your world, and
consequently intersubjectivity.

Note that Bruno does not agree with 1). So I'm not quite sure how he
gets to the anti-solipsist veiwpoint.

1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should expect to
find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex like
brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation is
certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of those, it
may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical though!).

[meekerdb]

On 11/10/2012 8:00 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 07:02:04PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>> On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>> I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
>>> is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
>>> anti-solipsism requirement.
>> But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from COMP?
>> Is it just an anthropic selection argument?
>>
>> Brent
>>
> I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
> like:
>
> 1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness
>
> 2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and
> complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but
> not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
> Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."

But this is the step I questioned. Why not be like the Borg, i.e. one consciousness with
many bodies? I think we only 'expect' to find ourselves as we are because we don't have
good theory about how we might be otherwise. COMP proposes to explain how we are by the
UDA, but it needs to explain why we are associated with bodies - not just assume it to
avoid solipism.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 08:43:29PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
> On 11/10/2012 8:00 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> >I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
> >like:
> >
> >1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness
> >
> >2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and
> >complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but
> >not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
> >Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."
>
> But this is the step I questioned. Why not be like the Borg, i.e.
> one consciousness with many bodies? I think we only 'expect' to

Quite possibly because Borgs have lower measure for the anthropic
selection to work on than single body minds, particularly with mortal
bodies, as I would assume a Borg mind is effectively immortal.

I have always felt that one resolution of the Doomsday Argument is
that humanity mind melds (or uploads, Singularity-style) so that
effectively no new minds get born.

I haven't quite figured out what happens if we invert the relationship
- many minds to a body. Why don't we all exhibit multiple personality
disorder? It probably has to do with the embodiment of the mind, but
still I don't know how this connects to the Anthropic Principle.

> find ourselves as we are because we don't have good theory about how
> we might be otherwise. COMP proposes to explain how we are by the
> UDA, but it needs to explain why we are associated with bodies - not
> just assume it to avoid solipism.
>

Absolutely agree. In fact COMP exacerbates the situation, in that it
is a form of idealism, making the Anthropic Principle mysterious
rather than ordinary. Whilst this is definitely a strike in favour of
materialism, there are so many other disadvantages of materialism that
it is worth trying to nut out how COMP can support the Anthropic Principle.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Nov 2012, at 02:14, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions:  (MAT is weak materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)

COMP   -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction.  There may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. 

The modal logics Z1*, X1*, and S4Grz1 generates an infinity of experiences testing the logic of the observables. Those obtained have been tested, as they corrresponds to orthomodularity, existence of a quatization, etc. It is just an open problem if they can emulate a quatum computer, as they should.

That's why I brought up the location of consciousness.  Empirically consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and not reason to be associated with a particular body.

Yes, there is. the fact that you are indeterminate on an infinity of computational histories, which can be relatively deep, making us relatively rare and computationally costly, and yet mutiplied into continuum of very simlar computations, given a notion of Gaussian normality.

Of course it is only a beginning. But it has to work if comp + the classical theory of knoweldge are correct, and it is the only theory which separates naturally the quanta as particular qualia, and give an arithmetical interpretation for the mystical conception of reality (Plato, Plotinus). 

Bruno

Brent

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Nov 2012, at 02:44, Russell Standish wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>> On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
>>> materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
>>> reality)
>>>
>>> COMP -> NOT MAT
>>> MAT -> NOT COMP
>>> NOT MAT or NOT COMP
>>>
>>> I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
>>> MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
>>> weirdness close to quantum Everett.
>>
>> But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
>> may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not
>> made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
>> why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
>> consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
>> of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
>> predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and
>> not reason to be associated with a particular body.
>>
>
> I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
> is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
> anti-solipsism requirement.

The sharing of vast bunch of computations. The existence of first
person plural realities. The entanglement (the contagion of the
duplications) in the statistics on computations.

>
> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
> required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere,

Not everywhere. I suggest only that a disconnected form of
consciousness might exist already for the universal numbers.


> but Loebianity more restricted.

Loebianity is needed for self-consciousness, the bet on reality,
others, etc.

Bruno

>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

[Bruno Marchal]

By praying, mainly. (grin).
It is not excluded that comp leads to solipsism, especially after or
near death, but even after death, it is not guarantied either.
Solipsism is avoided by the first person plural, when the entire
population of universal beings is multiplied into coherent
continuation. There might be anthropic, or consciousness-tropic
conditions justifying this. I do think that the adding of "Dt" makes
the job (and the "1p", redemolish it for the qualia and sensations).

Everett QM illustrate very well the 'contagion of duplications',
making us sharing "normal histories". Empirically, Everett saves comp
from solipsism, but to be "sure", assuming comp, we have to derive
Everett QM from all computations (a concept that Church Thesis makes
utterly mathematically clear, as you can choose any Turing universal
system to be define it mathematically).

>
> 1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
> being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should expect to
> find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex like
> brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
> into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
> generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation is
> certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
> deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of those, it
> may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical
> though!).

It may hard for him/her to become self-conscious, but there are
evidence that ape embryo already dream that they climb in trees, so I
think the new born baby is conscious. But if you put it in a tank, his
consciousness might quite similar to the disconnected consciousness of
a Robinsonian arithmetic. This is not used in UDA. The salvia reports,
but also the reports of people having been victim of some trauma might
suggest this.

Bruno

>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

[Bruno Marchal]

It supports it in this sense. Soon or later the UD emulates the SWE of
the Milky way, but with a different "Planck constant". We might fail
to develop in such computations, or with more sparse and rare
incarnation, hard to access in any immediate way from the type of
normal computations we are living through, and that might justified
the choice of some constant. But this we cannot know in advance,
perhaps the Planck constant is itself determined by a law, that is by
some key number/machine relations. The risk with the anthropic
principle would be in overusing it, hidding some deeper necessary
constrained. from inside there is no device capable of being sure that
this or that is physical or just geographical. If the material
hypostases would have collapsed, comp would have entailed that there
are no physical laws, and that our laws are just a local (in
arithmetic) geography. The Multiverse would have been a continuum of
parametrized laws, with many different physics, but this is unlikely,
both with comp and empiry, except for that 10^500 physical panorama of
string theory, perhaps. Open problem in comp, to say the least.

Bruno

>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/10/2012 8:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 05:14:47PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>> On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions: (MAT is weak
>>> materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical
>>> reality)
>>>
>>> COMP -> NOT MAT
>>> MAT -> NOT COMP
>>> NOT MAT or NOT COMP
>>>
>>> I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really
>>> MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a
>>> weirdness close to quantum Everett.
>> But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction. There
>> may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not
>> made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. That's
>> why I brought up the location of consciousness. Empirically
>> consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point
>> of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would
>> predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and
>> not reason to be associated with a particular body.
>>
> I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
> is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
> anti-solipsism requirement.

Dear Russell,

This is the same idea that I have been trying to address with
Bruno. He does not seem to notice that without a means to define a 3p
localizability that there is no way for minds to distinguish themselves
from each other. This leads, it seems to me, to a solipsism situation
for a mind.

>
> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
> required for consciousness.

But is Loebianity necessary for the ability of a consciousness to
know that it is conscious or is it necesary just to be conscious w/o
knowning that it is? I am ignoring considerations of reportability for
now...

> I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more restricted.

Does Bruno agree with panprotopsychism?



--
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

Hi Brent,

This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
seems to only define a single conscious mind! Bruno talks about
plurality but never shows how the plurality of numbers and their mutual
exclusive identities transfers onto a plurality of minds. It seems to me
that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code propositions then
we cause the uniqueness of number identity to become degenerate. For
example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It can be a particular number,
it can be a Godel code for some other number, it can be a string of
numbers...

>
> Brent
>
>>
>> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
>> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
>> required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
>> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
>> restricted.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>

--
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/10/2012 11:43 PM, meekerdb wrote:
> On 11/10/2012 8:00 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 07:02:04PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>>> On 11/10/2012 5:44 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>>> I think the argument is that association with a body (or brain)
>>>> is required for intersubjectivity between minds. It is an
>>>> anti-solipsism requirement.
>>> But how does the requirement for intersubjectivity follow from COMP?
>>> Is it just an anthropic selection argument?
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>> I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
>> like:
>>
>> 1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness
>>
>> 2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and
>> complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but
>> not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
>> Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."
>
> But this is the step I questioned. Why not be like the Borg, i.e. one
> consciousness with many bodies?

Don't forget the problem of "whose point of view is that of the
consciousness" of the Borg! I guess we can think of each Borg cyberbody
as a sense organ for the Collective, but how is all that data correlated
into a single Boolean Satisfiable whole? Satisfiability requires that
all of the propositions of the BA(lgebra) are mutually consistent, no?

> I think we only 'expect' to find ourselves as we are because we
> don't have good theory about how we might be otherwise.

LOL, yeah!

> COMP proposes to explain how we are by the UDA, but it needs to
> explain why we are associated with bodies - not just assume it to
> avoid solipism.

Absolutely! This is more than the arithmetic body problem; this is
a book keeping problem - how do the bodies locate themselves such that
even if they have identical minds they can use their differences in
location to define a 'external' 3p'ish difference?

>
> Brent
>
>>
>> 3) The simplest environment generating a given level of complexity is
>> one that has arisen as a result of evolution from a much simpler
>> initial state. This is the evolution in the multiverse observation,
>> that evolution is the only creative (or information generating)
>> process.
>>
>> 4) Evolutionary proccesses work with populations, so automatically,
>> you must have other self-aware entities in your world, and
>> consequently intersubjectivity.
>>
>> Note that Bruno does not agree with 1). So I'm not quite sure how he
>> gets to the anti-solipsist veiwpoint.
>>
>> 1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
>> being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should expect to
>> find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex like
>> brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
>> into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
>> generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation is
>> certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
>> deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of those, it
>> may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical
>> though!).
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>

--
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/11/2012 12:24 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 08:43:29PM -0800, meekerdb wrote:
>> On 11/10/2012 8:00 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>>> I'm not sure how Bruno argues for it, but my version goes something
>>> like:
>>>
>>> 1) Self-awareness is a requirement for consciousness
>>>
>>> 2) We expect to find ourselves in an environment sufficiently rich and
>>> complex to support self-aware structures (by Anthropic Principle), but
>>> not more complex than necessary (Occams Razor). Sort of like
>>> Einstein's principle "As simple as possible, and no simpler."
>> But this is the step I questioned. Why not be like the Borg, i.e.
>> one consciousness with many bodies? I think we only 'expect' to
> Quite possibly because Borgs have lower measure for the anthropic
> selection to work on than single body minds, particularly with mortal
> bodies, as I would assume a Borg mind is effectively immortal.

Yes, the Borg mind would be, literally, independent of the
existence of any subset of its collective bodies.

>
> I have always felt that one resolution of the Doomsday Argument is
> that humanity mind melds (or uploads, Singularity-style) so that
> effectively no new minds get born.

Is this a good thing?

>
> I haven't quite figured out what happens if we invert the relationship
> - many minds to a body. Why don't we all exhibit multiple personality
> disorder?

yeah! We see in the cases of MPD that each personality does not
know of the existence of the others until that fact is forced on them.

> It probably has to do with the embodiment of the mind, but
> still I don't know how this connects to the Anthropic Principle.

How do you define the AP? My definition is: An observer cannot
experience itself existing in a world whose rules contradict its
existence in that world. Its just a self-consistency rule.

>> find ourselves as we are because we don't have good theory about how
>> we might be otherwise. COMP proposes to explain how we are by the
>> UDA, but it needs to explain why we are associated with bodies - not
>> just assume it to avoid solipism.
>>
> Absolutely agree. In fact COMP exacerbates the situation, in that it
> is a form of idealism, making the Anthropic Principle mysterious
> rather than ordinary. Whilst this is definitely a strike in favour of
> materialism, there are so many other disadvantages of materialism that
> it is worth trying to nut out how COMP can support the Anthropic Principle.
>

I agree 100%

--
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/11/2012 11:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Nov 2012, at 02:14, meekerdb wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:31 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions:  (MAT is weak materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)

COMP   -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness close to quantum Everett.

But more accurately, we have not yet found a contradiction.  There may be a contradiction with empirical observation, but COMP has not made many definite predictions that could be contradicted. 

The modal logics Z1*, X1*, and S4Grz1 generates an infinity of experiences testing the logic of the observables. Those obtained have been tested, as they corrresponds to orthomodularity, existence of a quatization, etc. It is just an open problem if they can emulate a quatum computer, as they should.

Dear Bruno,

    Of that collection of "an infinity of experiences", is there a single Boolean Algebra for all of the experiences?

That's why I brought up the location of consciousness.  Empirically consciousness is associated with a center body (an essential point of the duplication experiment), yet so far as I can see COMP would predict that a consciousness should have no particular location and not reason to be associated with a particular body.

Yes, there is. the fact that you are indeterminate on an infinity of computational histories, which can be relatively deep, making us relatively rare and computationally costly, and yet mutiplied into continuum of very simlar computations, given a notion of Gaussian normality.

    For me it is important to look at how the infinity of computational histories can be partitioned up into mutually consistent histories. We may need consider multiple narratives, one for each observer. There are good arguments against the idea of a single history or narrative. http://phys.columbia.edu/~judes/qm/10_30_PhilQM.mov

Of course it is only a beginning. But it has to work if comp + the classical theory of knoweldge are correct, and it is the only theory which separates naturally the quanta as particular qualia, and give an arithmetical interpretation for the mystical conception of reality (Plato, Plotinus).

    Sure.

Bruno

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Bruno,

Everett's MWI avoids solipsism by defining an observer in physical
terms! Read his paper for yourself to see this.

>
>
>>
>> 1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
>> being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should expect to
>> find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex like
>> brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
>> into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
>> generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation is
>> certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
>> deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of those, it
>> may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical
>> though!).
>
> It may hard for him/her to become self-conscious, but there are
> evidence that ape embryo already dream that they climb in trees, so I
> think the new born baby is conscious.

To be conscious does not demand that the entity is conscious of its
consciousness, IMHO.

> But if you put it in a tank, his consciousness might quite similar to
> the disconnected consciousness of a Robinsonian arithmetic. This is
> not used in UDA.

Could you elaborate on the disconnected consciousness of a
Robinsonian arithmetic a bit?

> The salvia reports, but also the reports of people having been victim
> of some trauma might suggest this.
>

Salvia seems to work by suppressing memory, by making it so that
the person under the influense only is aware of the present moment with
no thoughts of previous moments of experience.

--
Onward!

Stephen

[freqflyer07281972]

On Saturday, November 10, 2012 3:00:33 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 11/10/2012 1:11 AM, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
> Hey all on the list,
>
> Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this teleportation
> business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's Razorish to simply conclude from the
> entire argument that the correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not
> knowable, but not achievable, which means:
>
> congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment proof that teleportation
> is impossible in any cases greater than, say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error
> of about plus/minus 100) ... this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel
> theorists use some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's
> relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The problem is, the
> furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC, and yet in order to make the CTC, the
> formal and physical conditions require that you already have to have a time machine.
> This, of course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time machine in the
> first place, you have to have had a time machine to use as a kind of mechanism for the
> whole project.
>
> In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the conclusion you want it
> to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in the computation of some infinite computer)
> but rather the less appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in
> your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the same reasons as
> time travel is impossible.

I don't see the parallel.  Can you spell it out?

Brent

Sure, I'll try.

Regarding time travel, there are many reasons for thinking that this is simply impossible. This comes from Sean Carroll's excellent book 'From Eternity to Here' -- I'm just gonna quote it to save time and get on to the teleportation part:

"In 1967, theoretical physicist Robert Geroch investigated the question of wormhole construction, and he showed that you actually could create a wormhole by twisting spacetime in the appropriate way, but only if, as an intermediate step in the process, you created a closed time like curve. In other words, the first step to building a time machine by manipulating a wormhole is to build a time machine so you can make a wormhole." (p. 115)

Now, the analogy I see is this: A person wants to make a teleportation device. Well, in order to teleport object A to some location X, you need to specify the minimum amount of information that A must contain in order to continue having the experience of being A. This is what I take to be 'the substitution level,' (i.e. the level of fine-graining necessary to take a solid person, turn them into some kind of digital representation, send the digital representation at the speed of light across a vast distance, and then reconstitute them at the destination. My thinking is that, much like the wormhole, the substitution level, if known or achievable, would imply that we could build a teleportation device, but we'd need to confirm we had the right substitution level by building a working teleportation device -- in other words, it's a catch-22 - you need the teleportation device capable of dealing with the appropriate amount of information (I'm envisioning a super powerful computer combined with a beam splitter, and a super amazingly written piece of software - i.e. one must never crash!!! because if it does, there is the potential that the person you are teleporting could be lost in the ether!) and yet you need the substitution level to design and build the device properly.

In practice, from what I understand, they have been able to teleport systems of a couple or a few particles over 100 kilometres. Also, there's the no-teleportation theorem of quantum physics that would seem to suggest it's impossible, although I am aware that this doesn't strictly apply in the thought experiment, because the substitution level is something above the quantum level (am I right about this? I think it's implied by the condition that there is 'ambient organic material' in the container at the destination(s))

So why the big fuss over teleportation when the UDA is really all about establishing that comp is consistent and implies computational/machine metaphysics rather than materialism? Well, it would seem to me the entire argument stands or falls on this teleportation business, and if it's not possible, then the argument for the UD doesn't seem to get off the ground.

That's what I meant by the comparison, I hope I'm clear.

Cheers,

Dan



 

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 04:13:38PM -0800, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
>
>
> On Saturday, November 10, 2012 3:00:33 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
> >
> > On 11/10/2012 1:11 AM, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
> > > but rather the less appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the
> > teleportation required in
> > > your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the
> > same reasons as
> > > time travel is impossible.
> >
> > I don't see the parallel. Can you spell it out?
> >
> > Brent
> >
> > Sure, I'll try.
>
> Regarding time travel, there are many reasons for thinking that this is
> simply impossible. This comes from Sean Carroll's excellent book 'From

And many good reasons for thinking it is possible in a Multiverse, as
pointed out by David Deutsch. Time travel into the past is simply
equivalent to going somewhere else in the Multiverse, or to use the
Borge Library of Babel analogy, selecting a book from the Library of
Babel.

It doesn't run into the grandfather paradox, because even when you go
back into the past, and kill your grandfather, because multiple
futures really do exist in the multiverse, you will just end up in a
history that never has the past you growing up in it, just the current
you living your life from where you reentered history. Meanwhile, your
childhood will still exist in a history where you failed to kill your
grandfather, or never even made the attempt.

Just as the grandfather paradox seems to show that past time travel is
impossible unless we live in a Multiverse, the UDA seems to show that
teleportation is impossible unless we live in a Multiverse.

So there may well be a connection between the two, as speculated by
the OP.

Cheers

[meekerdb]

First, you don't necessarily have to confirm it's function for it to function - if that were the case nothing functional could ever be built.  Second, you'd test it by teleporting something across a room, and then a hamster, and then a person, and then across the street, and...  Third, that someone might be destroyed is not an argument that it won't work.  It's easy to get killed trying to fly a rocket to the Moon, that doesn't mean there's some contradiction in rocketry.

In practice, from what I understand, they have been able to teleport systems of a couple or a few particles over 100 kilometres. Also, there's the no-teleportation theorem of quantum physics that would seem to suggest it's impossible, although I am aware that this doesn't strictly apply in the thought experiment, because the substitution level is something above the quantum level (am I right about this? I think it's implied by the condition that there is 'ambient organic material' in the container at the destination(s))

There's a no-cloning theorem, i.e. you can't make a copy of an unknown quantum state.  But the general consensus is that brains are essentially classical computers; QM doesn't play any essential part in our perceived continuity of consciousness.

So why the big fuss over teleportation when the UDA is really all about establishing that comp is consistent and implies computational/machine metaphysics rather than materialism? Well, it would seem to me the entire argument stands or falls on this teleportation business, and if it's not possible, then the argument for the UD doesn't seem to get off the ground.

Lawrence Krauss has discussed the problem in "The Physics of Star Trek" and concluded that it is nomologically impossible because it would take enormous energy to measure the position of every molecule.  But Bruno is only considering it as a thought experiment supposedly illustrating how the fact that any computation can be duplicated introduces an indeterminancy of experience parallel with that implied by Everett's MWI.

Brent

That's what I meant by the comparison, I hope I'm clear.

Cheers,

Dan



 

>
> It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you think if we admit
> that the teleportation required in your thought experiment is simply not possibly for
> purely naturalistic (and therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.
>
> Looking forward to your response,
>
> Dan
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[meekerdb]

On 11/11/2012 4:45 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

And many good reasons for thinking it is possible in a Multiverse, as
pointed out by David Deutsch. Time travel into the past is simply
equivalent to going somewhere else in the Multiverse, or to use the
Borge Library of Babel analogy, selecting a book from the Library of
Babel.

It doesn't run into the grandfather paradox, because even when you go
back into the past, and kill your grandfather, because multiple
futures really do exist in the multiverse, you will just end up in a
history that never has the past you growing up in it, just the current
you living your life from where you reentered history. Meanwhile, your
childhood will still exist in a history where you failed to kill your
grandfather, or never even made the attempt.

Just because it doesn't produce a contradiction doesn't mean it's nomologically possible.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

From all of the above, a suitably high fidelity virtual reality
generator will suffice - bizarre as that seems. Whilst it may be
beyond current day technology, I don't see it as being nomologically so.

[Roger Clough]

Hi Russell Standish

Consciousness and intelligence, not just consciousness.
A cave man had to determine if a twig lying on the ground is a snake or a twig.


Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
11/12/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Russell Standish
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-11-10, 23:00:23
Subject: Re: Doesn't UDA simply imply that teleportation is impossible?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.

[Bruno Marchal]

That's part of the body problem, which admits a precise mathematical
formulation derivable from comp.

> This leads, it seems to me, to a solipsism situation for a mind.

This cannot been excluded, but then comp is made very plausibly false,
as it is a non solipsism at the start, given that it attributes
different minds to an infinity of different relative numbers.

>
>
>>
>> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
>> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
>> required for consciousness.
>
> But is Loebianity necessary for the ability of a consciousness to
> know that it is conscious

Possible.

> or is it necesary just to be conscious w/o knowning that it is? I am
> ignoring considerations of reportability for now...

I tend to think that a planaria is conscious, but not self-conscious,
contrary to jumping spiders, octopi and all vertebrates and other
Löbian entities.

>
>> I know that I disagree with Bruno on this
>> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
>> restricted.
>
> Does Bruno agree with panprotopsychism?

No. Only person, in a larger sense than human person of course, are
conscious, and they all necessitate a computer or relative universal
number.

Comp makes panprotopsychism even undefined, as "pan" is very
ambiguous. Does it means all numbers, or all physical objects, or all
mental objects?

With comp, only person supported by universal relations can think and
can be conscious.

Bruno



>
>
>
> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen

>
>
> --
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>

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

[Bruno Marchal]

?

That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different conscious
mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.
You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian machine
common to them.

> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
> plurality of minds.

It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
different experiences and minds.

> It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code
> propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity to
> become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It
> can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for some other
> number, it can be a string of numbers...

A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You
have the same problem with any notion of states description in
physics, or in any theory.

Bruno

>
>
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>>
>>> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
>>> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity) is
>>> required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on
>>> this
>>> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
>>> restricted.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
>

[Bruno Marchal]

Of course. He presumes a physical reality, although quite mathematical
(the universal wave). But then comp this work only if that universal
wave function is explained by the machine epistemology/theology, and
the statistics on relative computations.
I love everett, but logically, it is not neede for UDA and AUDA, only
for comparing the comp-physics with the physics extrapolated today by
the physicists.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> 1) comes from the fact that applying 2), without something like 1)
>>> being true, leads to the Occam catastrophe, namely we should
>>> expect to
>>> find ourselves in a very simple boring world with nothing complex
>>> like
>>> brains in it. Given that we can conceive of ourselves as being born
>>> into a virtual reality (eg matrix style) where the virtual reality
>>> generator renders nothing at all, the occams catastrophe situation
>>> is
>>> certainly conceivable. Hence my interest at what happens in sensory
>>> deprivation experiments. If you put a newborn baby in one of
>>> those, it
>>> may never become conscious (not that that experiment is ethical
>>> though!).
>>
>> It may hard for him/her to become self-conscious, but there are
>> evidence that ape embryo already dream that they climb in trees, so
>> I think the new born baby is conscious.
>
> To be conscious does not demand that the entity is conscious of
> its consciousness, IMHO.

I agree. This asks for one more reflexive loop. It is the difference
between universal number and Löbian number.

>
>> But if you put it in a tank, his consciousness might quite similar
>> to the disconnected consciousness of a Robinsonian arithmetic. This
>> is not used in UDA.
>
> Could you elaborate on the disconnected consciousness of a
> Robinsonian arithmetic a bit?

It is consciousness without any idea of a self, nor even of a reality.
It can be attained, with a lot of training, in the sleep states, or
with some dissociative drugs, apparently.

>
>> The salvia reports, but also the reports of people having been
>> victim of some trauma might suggest this.
>>
> Salvia seems to work by suppressing memory,

It is a deeper disconnection, or dissociation. there is also a feeling
or remembering something which seem obvious in that state, but seems
quasi-contradictory in the normal state.

> by making it so that the person under the influense only is aware of
> the present moment with no thoughts of previous moments of experience.

Even the awareness of the present moment, or anything related to time
and space can disappear. Sometimes you can keep your whole memory, but
don't consider it as having anything to do with what you are.

Bruno


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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Nov 2012, at 01:13, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

So why the big fuss over teleportation when the UDA is really all about establishing that comp is consistent and implies computational/machine metaphysics rather than materialism? Well, it would seem to me the entire argument stands or falls on this teleportation business, and if it's not possible, then the argument for the UD doesn't seem to get off the ground. 

Neither comp nor QM makes it impossible to teleport classical informations. On the contrary comp explains why teleportation of unknown physical state are impossible. Up to now QM confirms comp, especially what seems weird (from an aristotelian perspective).

Anyway, comp does not suppose any physical theory at the start. It  presupposes a physical reality (a priori primitive or not) and it presupposes that such a physical reality is enough rich to support relative universal machine, if only to give sense to brain and concrete computers. 

Then we can reason from that, and eventually recognize that, like Darwin show life evolving from material inter-relations, comp shows the laws of physics are themselves born and developing in the first person apperception of the numbers relatively to the numbers and their inter-relations.

This makes arithmetic, or equivalent, into a testable TOE.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first
person.
That might also be confused with solipsism.

Again, this is truly even more at the opposite of solipsism. It is the
case where not only you attribute consciousness to others, but you
attribute to them your own identity, where solipsism denies them
consciousness and subjective identity (and thus consider them as
zombie). To say that there is only person is very natural in the
context of the WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view, you
are in both cities, and then you differentiate, but you can still
consider or understand that the doppelganger is "you", put in a
different context, and then you can generalize and get the idea that
we are all the same original amoeba, but put in a quite big set of
variate experiences and sensations, which deludes us about our
identity and we fail to recognize ourselves in the others.

Bruno

>
>
>
>
>> It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code
>> propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity to
>> become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It
>> can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for some other
>> number, it can be a string of numbers...
>
> A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You
> have the same problem with any notion of states description in
> physics, or in any theory.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I think the association is required for self-awareness,
>>>> leading me to the conclusion that self-awareness (aka Loebianity)
>>>> is
>>>> required for consciousness. I know that I disagree with Bruno on
>>>> this
>>>> matter, who sees consciousness everywhere, but Loebianity more
>>>> restricted.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Onward!
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Everything List" group.

>> To post to this group, send email to everything-
>> li...@googlegroups.com.

[Stephen P. King]

> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract L�bian machine
> common to them.

Dear Bruno,

I am trying to figure out how you differentiate "individual
persons" (which seem to be distinguished by their relative locations -
such as being in Moscow and being in Washington) from the abstract
L�bian machine common to them.

>
>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
>> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
>> plurality of minds.
>
> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
> different experiences and minds.

What distiguishes the different machines? My question follows from
the way that Godel numbering makes the natural ordering of the Integers
vanish unless there is a way to keep the native identity of the integers
separated from the Godel numbers and from the universal numbers.

>
>> It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to code
>> propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity to
>> become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many things. It
>> can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for some other
>> number, it can be a string of numbers...
>
> A number support a person only relatively to a universal number. You
> have the same problem with any notion of states description in
> physics, or in any theory.

How are the universal numbers distinguished from each other at the
Platonic level?




--
Onward!

Stephen

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/12/2012 12:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
>>> seems to only define a single conscious mind!
>>
>> ?
>>
>> That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different
>> conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
>> Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
>> conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.

>> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract L�bian machine

>> common to them.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
>>> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
>>> plurality of minds.
>>
>> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
>> different experiences and minds.
>
> Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first
> person.

If there is only one first person how is the content of such
completely self-consistent? My problem is that I don't understand how
all of the possible points of view implied by a plurality of minds can
be combined together into a single narrative of a self.

> That might also be confused with solipsism.

If there is only one mind that exists then that mind is solipsistic
by definition; there are no other minds to consider. "... the self is
the only existing reality and that all other reality, including the
external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and
have no independent existence." It seems that minds cannot know of each
other directly at all.

>
> Again, this is truly even more at the opposite of solipsism. It is the
> case where not only you attribute consciousness to others, but you
> attribute to them your own identity,

What does this mean: "you attribute to them your own identity?

> where solipsism denies them consciousness and subjective identity (and
> thus consider them as zombie).

Yes, in the case of strong solipsism, but solipsism is not a bad
thing if we are careful. One mind cannot know the content of some other
mind and thus minds 'do not exist' to each other (unless you use my
weird definition of existence).

> To say that there is only person is very natural in the context of the
> WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view,

I do not understand how the 3-view obtains in your thinking. Is
there an entity that has as its personal 1p the entire content of this
'3-view"? In my thinking the 3-view is an concept and is not real at all.

> you are in both cities,

You are defining "you-ness" or "I-ness" in a strange way. I only
find myself in one location at any time. I join with John Clark in
complaining about this strange idea that you are promoting.

> and then you differentiate, but you can still consider or understand
> that the doppelganger is "you",

What maintains the identity? What is the invariant under the
transformations of location?

> put in a different context, and then you can generalize and get the
> idea that we are all the same original amoeba,

Ummm, you are thinking of consciousness as if it where a single
continuous 'fluid" that is distributed over all forms of life?

> but put in a quite big set of variate experiences and sensations,
> which deludes us about our identity and we fail to recognize ourselves
> in the others.

This is the greatest failing of humanity in my opinion, the lack of
empathy.

>
> Bruno
>
>


--
Onward!

Stephen

[Bruno Marchal]

>> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian

>> machine common to them.
>
> Dear Bruno,
>
> I am trying to figure out how you differentiate "individual
> persons" (which seem to be distinguished by their relative locations
> - such as being in Moscow and being in Washington) from the abstract

> Löbian machine common to them.

It is the same difference as the difference between a program applied
to some input, and the same program applied to another input. Here the
location might be virtual like in step six. A localization is a mean
to get an information. We could have used more abstract
differentiation with just two bits 0 or 1.

>
>>
>>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
>>> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
>>> plurality of minds.
>>
>> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
>> different experiences and minds.
>
> What distiguishes the different machines?

Either their codes, or their inputs, or both.

> My question follows from the way that Godel numbering makes the
> natural ordering of the Integers vanish

That does not make sense.

> unless there is a way to keep the native identity of the integers
> separated from the Godel numbers and from the universal numbers.

? The identity of the numbers follows by the theory. Ax 0 ≠ s(x),
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y, etc. A Gödel number is just a program or machine
description written in arithmetic.
The Gödel numbering (programming) would not work, if it would change
the elementary arithmetical truth. Gödel numbers are built on the top
of it.

>
>>
>>> It seems to me that if we allow got Godel numbering schemes to
>>> code propositions then we cause the uniqueness of number identity
>>> to become degenerate. For example: 0123456789 can mean many
>>> things. It can be a particular number, it can be a Godel code for
>>> some other number, it can be a string of numbers...
>>
>> A number support a person only relatively to a universal number.
>> You have the same problem with any notion of states description in
>> physics, or in any theory.
>
> How are the universal numbers distinguished from each other at
> the Platonic level?

Like 0 ≠ s(0).

Bruno


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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Nov 2012, at 00:48, Stephen P. King wrote:

> On 11/12/2012 12:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
>>>> seems to only define a single conscious mind!
>>>
>>> ?
>>>
>>> That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different
>>> conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
>>> Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
>>> conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.

>>> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian

>>> machine common to them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
>>>> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
>>>> plurality of minds.
>>>
>>> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
>>> different experiences and minds.
>>
>> Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first
>> person.
>
> If there is only one first person how is the content of such
> completely self-consistent?

There is only one person, in the sense of saying that if I duplicate
you in the WM way, you can consider that the person in W and M are the
same person (indeed you), but just put in different context.

No need to proceed if you disagree with this. It jusy makes sense: it
is consistent with comp, but the contrary too, so no need to proceed
on that identity question before understanding the whole UDA, as you
might be confused. It is really another topic.

> My problem is that I don't understand how all of the possible points
> of view implied by a plurality of minds can be combined together
> into a single narrative of a self.

One the same person might have different experiences in this case.

Then, it an altogether different question to see if such lives can be
recombined. I think so, but again, this is not used in the reasoning.
the reason I think so is that we can wake up and realize we were doing
two dreams at once. It is not different than remembering two different
hollidays, and not being able to remember which one occur first.

>
>
>> That might also be confused with solipsism.
>
> If there is only one mind that exists then that mind is
> solipsistic by definition;

Not with the usual definition of solipsism, which makes the others
into zombie.

> there are no other minds to consider.

The other mind still exists, even if they belong to the experiences of
the same person. It is like with time travel. You go in the past and
talk with yourself. That is locally two different minds, even if from
a later pov, they can appear to belong to the same person.

Comp does not exclude *logically* that I might wake up and realize
that dreamed both your life and mine.

> "... the self is the only existing reality and that all other
> reality, including the external world and other persons, are
> representations of that self, and have no independent existence." It
> seems that minds cannot know of each other directly at all.
>
>>
>> Again, this is truly even more at the opposite of solipsism. It is
>> the case where not only you attribute consciousness to others, but
>> you attribute to them your own identity,
>
> What does this mean: "you attribute to them your own identity?

Imagine you look at a video. You see children playing soccer, and then
after 10 minutes, you realize that one of the kid there is you. You
recognize yourself in that kid. Well, it is the same here. You
recognize yourself in some other.

>
>> where solipsism denies them consciousness and subjective identity
>> (and thus consider them as zombie).
>
> Yes, in the case of strong solipsism, but solipsism is not a bad
> thing if we are careful.

Solipsism is or the type fact, from the 1p view, but becomes a
plausible dangerous falsity as a metaphysical assumption. It is an
elimination of all the others. A zombification, we could say.

> One mind cannot know the content of some other mind and thus minds
> 'do not exist' to each other (unless you use my weird definition of
> existence).

Yes, that's the 1p fact.

>
>> To say that there is only person is very natural in the context of
>> the WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view,
>
> I do not understand how the 3-view obtains in your thinking. Is
> there an entity that has as its personal 1p the entire content of
> this '3-view"? In my thinking the 3-view is an concept and is not
> real at all.

Eventually there is no physical 3p, but without any 3p, then we are
back to the doctrinal ridiculous zombification of the other.
In comp we have arithmetic as a very good 3p base. Physics can be
used, like in UDA, but eventually physics is itself only 1p plural.
The 1p-plural can be very like a 3p, and can admit local 3p
descriptions, well, like in physics.

>
>> you are in both cities,
>
> You are defining "you-ness" or "I-ness" in a strange way.

You must quote the whole paragraph. here the you was the 3p you (the
bodies, in that setting).

> I only find myself in one location at any time.

Yes. That is the 1p view.

> I join with John Clark in complaining about this strange idea that
> you are promoting.

This contradicts all what you said for years. Gosh, you keep losing
me. You stop at step 3, now?

>
>> and then you differentiate, but you can still consider or
>> understand that the doppelganger is "you",
>
> What maintains the identity?

The memory of your past, the content of the diary (again in the UDA
protocols). It is stable by the comp hypothesis.

> What is the invariant under the transformations of location?

Many things. Arithmetic, computer science, the laws of mind, the laws
of thought, physics, etc.

>
>> put in a different context, and then you can generalize and get the
>> idea that we are all the same original amoeba,
>
> Ummm, you are thinking of consciousness as if it where a single
> continuous 'fluid" that is distributed over all forms of life?

No.

>
>> but put in a quite big set of variate experiences and sensations,
>> which deludes us about our identity and we fail to recognize
>> ourselves in the others.
>
> This is the greatest failing of humanity in my opinion, the lack
> of empathy.

OK, but empathy is a weaker notion than what I was describing.

Empathy let you attribute consciousness and (human, animal) identity
to others, but this does not force you to put *your* identity in
others, which is a much stronger statement, mainly asserted by mystics
or logicians working in philosophy of mind or cognitive science. It
required some altered state of consciousness to make sense, and is
usually an handicap in the usual struggle of life. Of course, such
notion, when lived in some way, enhances the usual empathy, but the
contrapositive of it does not necessarily follow.

Bruno


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

[Stephen P. King]

On 11/13/2012 11:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 13 Nov 2012, at 00:48, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>> On 11/12/2012 12:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
>>>>> seems to only define a single conscious mind!
>>>>
>>>> ?
>>>>
>>>> That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different
>>>> conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
>>>> Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite different
>>>> conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and perhaps God.

>>>> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract L�bian

>>>> machine common to them.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality of
>>>>> numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto a
>>>>> plurality of minds.
>>>>
>>>> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
>>>> different experiences and minds.
>>>
>>> Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one first
>>> person.
>>
>> If there is only one first person how is the content of such
>> completely self-consistent?
>
> There is only one person, in the sense of saying that if I duplicate
> you in the WM way, you can consider that the person in W and M are the
> same person (indeed you), but just put in different context.
>
> No need to proceed if you disagree with this. It jusy makes sense: it
> is consistent with comp, but the contrary too, so no need to proceed
> on that identity question before understanding the whole UDA, as you
> might be confused. It is really another topic.

Dear Bruno,

We need to better understand where you define "personal identity"
such that this all follows. What defines your notion of "same"?

>
>> My problem is that I don't understand how all of the possible points
>> of view implied by a plurality of minds can be combined together into
>> a single narrative of a self.
>
> One the same person might have different experiences in this case.

What defines "sameness"?

I do not understand your definition of "same-ness". My notion of
"same person" has to do with my memory of being in a succession of
locations and states in a narratable sequence where each new experience
is not inconsistent with the previous states and locations.

>
>>
>>> where solipsism denies them consciousness and subjective identity
>>> (and thus consider them as zombie).
>>
>> Yes, in the case of strong solipsism, but solipsism is not a bad
>> thing if we are careful.
>
> Solipsism is or the type fact, from the 1p view, but becomes a
> plausible dangerous falsity as a metaphysical assumption. It is an
> elimination of all the others. A zombification, we could say.

It depends on how you define solipsism as a property and what has it.

>
>
>
>
>> One mind cannot know the content of some other mind and thus minds
>> 'do not exist' to each other (unless you use my weird definition of
>> existence).
>
> Yes, that's the 1p fact.

We agree.

>
>
>>
>>> To say that there is only person is very natural in the context of
>>> the WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view,
>>
>> I do not understand how the 3-view obtains in your thinking. Is
>> there an entity that has as its personal 1p the entire content of
>> this '3-view"? In my thinking the 3-view is an concept and is not
>> real at all.
>
> Eventually there is no physical 3p, but without any 3p, then we are
> back to the doctrinal ridiculous zombification of the other.

I know! I am trying to clarify this concept.

> In comp we have arithmetic as a very good 3p base. Physics can be
> used, like in UDA, but eventually physics is itself only 1p plural.
> The 1p-plural can be very like a 3p, and can admit local 3p
> descriptions, well, like in physics.

But the way that physics has tried to eliminate the observer is now
causing huge problems... One of my goals as a philosopher is to find a
generic notion of an observer that can be used in physics.

>
>>
>>> you are in both cities,
>>
>> You are defining "you-ness" or "I-ness" in a strange way.
>
> You must quote the whole paragraph. here the you was the 3p you (the
> bodies, in that setting).
>
>
>
>> I only find myself in one location at any time.
>
> Yes. That is the 1p view.
>
>
>
>> I join with John Clark in complaining about this strange idea that
>> you are promoting.
>
> This contradicts all what you said for years. Gosh, you keep losing
> me. You stop at step 3, now?

It seems so. I am confused on your definition of "same person". Now
that I understand more of the AUDA's formal logic, it is making my
understanding of the UDA confused. Please consider that I am trying to
clear up errors in my understanding of comp.

>
>>
>>> and then you differentiate, but you can still consider or understand
>>> that the doppelganger is "you",
>>
>> What maintains the identity?
>
> The memory of your past, the content of the diary (again in the UDA
> protocols). It is stable by the comp hypothesis.

What acts as a memory in the arithmetic formalism of AUDA?

>
>> What is the invariant under the transformations of location?
>
> Many things. Arithmetic, computer science, the laws of mind, the laws
> of thought, physics, etc.

OK, what defines the set of variables over which the invariants
exist? An invariant can be defined only given some continuous
transformation on some closed collection, no?

>
>
>>
>>> put in a different context, and then you can generalize and get the
>>> idea that we are all the same original amoeba,
>>
>> Ummm, you are thinking of consciousness as if it where a single
>> continuous 'fluid" that is distributed over all forms of life?
>
> No.

Then what is your intuition or concept of it? Is it continuous over
all universal machines?

>
>>
>>> but put in a quite big set of variate experiences and sensations,
>>> which deludes us about our identity and we fail to recognize
>>> ourselves in the others.
>>
>> This is the greatest failing of humanity in my opinion, the lack
>> of empathy.
>
> OK, but empathy is a weaker notion than what I was describing.
>
> Empathy let you attribute consciousness and (human, animal) identity
> to others, but this does not force you to put *your* identity in
> others, which is a much stronger statement, mainly asserted by mystics
> or logicians working in philosophy of mind or cognitive science. It
> required some altered state of consciousness to make sense, and is
> usually an handicap in the usual struggle of life. Of course, such
> notion, when lived in some way, enhances the usual empathy, but the
> contrapositive of it does not necessarily follow.

Sure, I agree.

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


--
Onward!

Stephen

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Nov 2012, at 19:34, Stephen P. King wrote:

> On 11/13/2012 11:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 13 Nov 2012, at 00:48, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/12/2012 12:50 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 12 Nov 2012, at 17:08, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 11 Nov 2012, at 21:16, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is what I wish to know and understand as well! AFAIK, comp
>>>>>> seems to only define a single conscious mind!
>>>>>
>>>>> ?
>>>>>
>>>>> That is contradicted by step 3, which features two different
>>>>> conscious mind, one in Moscow, and the other in M.
>>>>> Then after UDA we know that arithmetic is full of quite
>>>>> different conscious entities, from machines to many Gods and
>>>>> perhaps God.

>>>>> You might confuse individual persons and the abstract Löbian

>>>>> machine common to them.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Bruno talks about plurality but never shows how the plurality
>>>>>> of numbers and their mutual exclusive identities transfers onto
>>>>>> a plurality of minds.
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems obvious, as arithmetic allow different machines with
>>>>> different experiences and minds.
>>>>
>>>> Once I said that I am open to the idea that there is only one
>>>> first person.
>>>
>>> If there is only one first person how is the content of such
>>> completely self-consistent?
>>
>> There is only one person, in the sense of saying that if I
>> duplicate you in the WM way, you can consider that the person in W
>> and M are the same person (indeed you), but just put in different
>> context.
>>
>> No need to proceed if you disagree with this. It jusy makes sense:
>> it is consistent with comp, but the contrary too, so no need to
>> proceed on that identity question before understanding the whole
>> UDA, as you might be confused. It is really another topic.
>
> Dear Bruno,
>
> We need to better understand where you define "personal identity"
> such that this all follows.

I have already explain how UDA avoids the need of solving the personal
identity problem.

> What defines your notion of "same"?

There are as many notion of same that there are hypostases.

>
>
>>
>>> My problem is that I don't understand how all of the possible
>>> points of view implied by a plurality of minds can be combined
>>> together into a single narrative of a self.
>>
>> One the same person might have different experiences in this case.
>
> What defines "sameness"?

At the ontological level, it is defined by the axiom of equality.
At the other level, by the hypostases modalities, and their
arithmetical content, or their higher level contents. But we don't
need that to get the "reversal".

Don't mind this too much. I tend to think that there is only one 1p-
person, but this is advanced speculation. It is not used for the
reversal, and my opinion on this can still change a lot.

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>> where solipsism denies them consciousness and subjective identity
>>>> (and thus consider them as zombie).
>>>
>>> Yes, in the case of strong solipsism, but solipsism is not a bad
>>> thing if we are careful.
>>
>> Solipsism is or the type fact, from the 1p view, but becomes a
>> plausible dangerous falsity as a metaphysical assumption. It is an
>> elimination of all the others. A zombification, we could say.
>
> It depends on how you define solipsism as a property and what has
> it.

I always use the most standard meaning of the technical terms.

>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> One mind cannot know the content of some other mind and thus minds
>>> 'do not exist' to each other (unless you use my weird definition
>>> of existence).
>>
>> Yes, that's the 1p fact.
>
> We agree.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> To say that there is only person is very natural in the context
>>>> of the WM duplication experience, where from the 3-view,
>>>
>>> I do not understand how the 3-view obtains in your thinking. Is
>>> there an entity that has as its personal 1p the entire content of
>>> this '3-view"? In my thinking the 3-view is an concept and is not
>>> real at all.
>>
>> Eventually there is no physical 3p, but without any 3p, then we are
>> back to the doctrinal ridiculous zombification of the other.
>
> I know! I am trying to clarify this concept.
>
>> In comp we have arithmetic as a very good 3p base. Physics can be
>> used, like in UDA, but eventually physics is itself only 1p plural.
>> The 1p-plural can be very like a 3p, and can admit local 3p
>> descriptions, well, like in physics.
>
> But the way that physics has tried to eliminate the observer is
> now causing huge problems... One of my goals as a philosopher is to
> find a generic notion of an observer that can be used in physics.

Keep in mind that with comp we can't postulate physics. (We can assume
that there is a physical reality but we must explain it: that's the
unavoidable (by the UDA) comp "body problem".

>
>>
>>>
>>>> you are in both cities,
>>>
>>> You are defining "you-ness" or "I-ness" in a strange way.
>>
>> You must quote the whole paragraph. here the you was the 3p you
>> (the bodies, in that setting).
>>
>>
>>
>>> I only find myself in one location at any time.
>>
>> Yes. That is the 1p view.
>>
>>
>>
>>> I join with John Clark in complaining about this strange idea that
>>> you are promoting.
>>
>> This contradicts all what you said for years. Gosh, you keep losing
>> me. You stop at step 3, now?
>
> It seems so. I am confused on your definition of "same person".

This is not used in the UDA. You do an experience, and you have to
predict what experience you will lived, in the usual sense of you, as
you remain alive and singular in the duplication, as comp predicts.
John Clark makes only a confusion between first and third person views.

> Now that I understand more of the AUDA's formal logic, it is making
> my understanding of the UDA confused.

That's why I think it is better to be familiar with the UDA
consequences before studying AUDA.

> Please consider that I am trying to clear up errors in my
> understanding of comp.
>
>>
>>>
>>>> and then you differentiate, but you can still consider or
>>>> understand that the doppelganger is "you",
>>>
>>> What maintains the identity?
>>
>> The memory of your past, the content of the diary (again in the UDA
>> protocols). It is stable by the comp hypothesis.
>
> What acts as a memory in the arithmetic formalism of AUDA?

The usual notion of computer's memory. Computers are arithmetical
entity (relative universal numbers/numbers relations).

>
>>
>>> What is the invariant under the transformations of location?
>>
>> Many things. Arithmetic, computer science, the laws of mind, the
>> laws of thought, physics, etc.
>
> OK, what defines the set of variables over which the invariants
> exist?

Unclear question.

> An invariant can be defined only given some continuous
> transformation on some closed collection, no?

Why?

>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> put in a different context, and then you can generalize and get
>>>> the idea that we are all the same original amoeba,
>>>
>>> Ummm, you are thinking of consciousness as if it where a single
>>> continuous 'fluid" that is distributed over all forms of life?
>>
>> No.
>
> Then what is your intuition or concept of it? Is it continuous
> over all universal machines?

Unclear question. Sorry. If you use "continuous" you should give me
which set you are alluding too, which transformations

Bruno.

>
>>
>>>
>>>> but put in a quite big set of variate experiences and sensations,
>>>> which deludes us about our identity and we fail to recognize
>>>> ourselves in the others.
>>>
>>> This is the greatest failing of humanity in my opinion, the lack
>>> of empathy.
>>
>> OK, but empathy is a weaker notion than what I was describing.
>>
>> Empathy let you attribute consciousness and (human, animal)
>> identity to others, but this does not force you to put *your*
>> identity in others, which is a much stronger statement, mainly
>> asserted by mystics or logicians working in philosophy of mind or
>> cognitive science. It required some altered state of consciousness
>> to make sense, and is usually an handicap in the usual struggle of
>> life. Of course, such notion, when lived in some way, enhances the
>> usual empathy, but the contrapositive of it does not necessarily
>> follow.
>
> Sure, I agree.
>
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
>

[freqflyer07281972]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I think I'd like to respond here:

On Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:32:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 10 Nov 2012, at 10:11, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

> Hey all on the list,
>
> Bruno, I must say, thinking of the UDA. The key assumption is this  
> teleportation business, and wouldn't it really be quite Ockham's  
> Razorish to simply conclude from the entire argument that the  
> correct substitution level is, in principle, not only not knowable,  
> but not achievable, which means:
>
> congratulations, you have found a convincing thought experiment  
> proof that teleportation is impossible in any cases greater than,  
> say, 12 atoms or so (give me a margin of error of about plus/minus  
> 100) ...

No problem. UDA shows the equivalent propositions:  (MAT is weak  
materialism: the doctrine that there is a primitive physical reality)

COMP   -> NOT MAT
MAT -> NOT COMP
NOT MAT or NOT COMP

I keep COMP as a working hypothesis, as I have no clue what really MAT  
means or explains, and we don't find a contradiction, just a weirdness  
close to quantum Everett.

> this is very reminiscent of the way that time travel theorists use  
> some of godel's closed timelike curve (CTC) solutions to einstein's  
> relativity to argue that time travel to the past is possible. The  
> problem is, the furthest back you can go is when you made the CTC,  
> and yet in order to make the CTC, the formal and physical conditions  
> require that you already have to have a time machine. This, of  
> course, leads to paradox, because in order to travel in the time  
> machine in the first place, you have to have had a time machine to  
> use as a kind of mechanism for the whole project.

But such loop can exist consistently in solution of the GR equation.  
that's what Gödel showed. I don't think this was really a problem for  
Einstein, as he said more than once, that time is an illusion. We  
would say now that it is a machine mental construction, which obeys  
the laws of machines.

But here we have the essence of the problem, I think. Simply because the mathematics or the logics of a given
problem happens to state that something CAN occur, this is absolutely no imposition upon nature that such things
MUST occur... we find certain things in mathematics that may or may not correspond to reality. It is truly uncanny in the
ways that mathematics does correspond, absolutely no doubt or argument. But what of all that stuff where
the math simply has nothing to say? How can you possibly derive qualia from math without a bunch of basic
handwaving -- which is really what you are doing when you cite such arguments as Bp & p.... etc etc.... it is
really a lot of handwaving nonsense that never gets close to the issue at all...

I really love the idea of your theory of everything Bruno, I really do, but when it comes to my next meal, or what I need to do with my
life, or what my next big decision is going to be, this is of no help. BTW, if it's of any console, Craig's theory of everything doesn't help me in the
same basic ways, so there... the thing is... all this stuff is about abstraction, and yet life as lived is anything but abstraction...
all particularities matter, at every level, shouldn't a theory of everything really be a theory of particularities and contingencies, as they have been produced?
and not a theory of general particularities that no one is really concerned about?

cheers,

Dan

>
> In the same way, I think, does your ingenious UDA lead not to the  
> conclusion you want it to, (i.e. we are eternal numbers contained in  
> the computation of some infinite computer) but rather the less  
> appealing conclusion that, perhaps, the teleportation required in  
> your entire thought experiment is simply impossible, for much of the  
> same reasons as time travel is impossible.

But then we cannot be even quantum computer, because they can emulate  
by a classical machine, and they too exist in the arithmetical realm.

Any way, I don't defend comp, I just show that comp makes physics  
derivable in arithmetic, and that if you do it in some way, (using the  
logic of self-reference) you can extract a general theory of qualia,  
with its quanta part that you can compare with nature, and so test  
comp. And up to now, it fits well with the facts.

>
> It's still an important result, but perhaps not as profound as you  
> think if we admit that the teleportation required in your thought  
> experiment is simply not possibly for purely naturalistic (and  
> therefore not computational, or mechanistic) reasons.

But the you need to assume non comp. The non clonability is also easy  
to derive from comp, as the matter which constitutes us is eventually  
defined by the entire, non computable dovetaling.

But puuting the subst level so low that comp is false, force you to  
use a strong form of non comp, where matter is not just infinite, but  
have to be a very special infinite not recoverable in the limiting  
first person indeterminacy. What you do is a bit like introducing an a  
priori unintelligible notion of matter to just avoid the consequence  
of a theory. Bilogy and its extreme redundancy and metabolic exchange  
pleas for comp, as such redundancy and metabolisation would be  
miraculous if not comp emulable. In fact we don't know in nature any  
process not emulable by a computer, except for the consciousness  
selection, like in the WM duplication, or in quantum everett.

You are logically right, but abandoning comp is premature, before  
listening to the machine (AUDA).

I know that some aristotelians are ready for all means, to avoid the  
neoplatonist consequences, but that is normal given the 1500 years of  
authoritative arguments.

Bruno

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

[freqflyer07281972]

And where you say:

Any way, I don't defend comp, I just show that comp makes physics  
derivable in arithmetic, and that if you do it in some way, (using the  
logic of self-reference) you can extract a general theory of qualia,  
with its quanta part that you can compare with nature, and so test  

comp. And up to now, it fits well with the facts.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't mean to be John Clark rude, but
honestly, I can't see at all how qualia can possibly emerge from your theory,

Cheers, and still looking for "the answer",

Dan

[Bruno Marchal]

Which reality? What are your assumptions?

To give sense to the word "comp" (and Church thesis), we must agree that the artithmetical propositions are true or not independently of us. 

In particular, the statement "freqflyer07281972 believes that he has sent a post to the everything list on the 12 october 2013" is (amazingly enough) provable in arithmetic (modulo acceptable definition, acceptable in the comp theory, to be sure).

(Now the real consciousness of freqflyer07281972 does not only depends on that proposition, but on all proofs (in the mathematical sense) which exist in arithmetic). 

It is the very basic idea defended in the everything list that everything consistent exist. Comp forces us to extend Everett multiplication of worlds into a multiplication of dreams (and nothing else is real, in that theory).

It is truly uncanny in the
ways that mathematics does correspond, absolutely no doubt or argument. But what of all that stuff where
the math simply has nothing to say?

Some mathematical truth are beyond the saying of some machines.

How can you possibly derive qualia from math without a bunch of basic
handwaving -- which is really what you are doing when you cite such arguments as Bp & p.... etc etc.... it is
really a lot of handwaving nonsense that never gets close to the issue at all...

You are a bit quick here. Are you sure you grasp the math and the notion involved? 

The Bp & p idea occurred to Theaetetus, and in many Indians analyses. 

If you have some better definition, capable of formalizing the antic dream argument for doubting reality, I might appreciate. 

If not, it looks like saying qualia are not mathematically representable (which is true) and thus cannot be mathematically explained (which does not follow, as the Bp & p can be proved to be non mathematically representable too by the machine to which it applies, and there are many examples of this, notably appearing when machines looks at themselves.

Note that even if comp is false, the hypostases describe real self-referential discourse by machines, existing in arithmetic. It makes your point being like saying, "oh, but those are only machine, and thus are zombies".

I really love the idea of your theory of everything Bruno, I really do, but when it comes to my next meal, or what I need to do with my
life, or what my next big decision is going to be, this is of no help.

All right. The idea is to contemplate possible truth. It is not necessarily practical.

Yet, I do think comp has a (meta) practical role: to remind us our ignorance, especially in theology. To illustrate that we can do theology scientifically, and that we are abyssally  ignorant. We can use comp to just measure how big that ignorance is. It might help human to harbor less certainties on those issues, and that could be good, as those certainties are the roots of much of the human suffering.

Comp explains that the correct machine are universal dissident. Like I explained to John Mike, and Craig, comp is a quasi universal vaccine against the reduction or elimination of the person.

BTW, if it's of any console, Craig's theory of everything doesn't help me in the
same basic ways, so there... the thing is... all this stuff is about abstraction, and yet life as lived is anything but abstraction...
all particularities matter, at every level, shouldn't a theory of everything really be a theory of particularities and contingencies, as they have been produced?
and not a theory of general particularities that no one is really concerned about?

It is the same. Pure math get applied all the time. 

Also, computationalism is fundamentally very concrete: as it is a question of life and death when dying and in front of accepting an artificial brain. And then my point is that if we can survive such substitution, then reality might be like Plato and the mystics said, and unlike Aristotle and the naturalists pretend. (I fight against all dogma).

Understanding this can be life changing, if only because it introduce new fears, like afterlife. 

You can also smoke salvia, which sums pretty  well the dream-argument and enlarges it in a life changing way. 

It does it in less than 8 minutes, which is much shorter than a life of study of computer science.

That plant is stealing my job somehow!

 Fortunately it becomes illegal, so comp keeps its role :)

(Well ... as long as comp is not illegal ...)

Best, thanks for the kind words,

Bruno

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Oct 2013, at 09:24, freqflyer07281972 wrote:

And where you say:

Any way, I don't defend comp, I just show that comp makes physics  
derivable in arithmetic, and that if you do it in some way, (using the  
logic of self-reference) you can extract a general theory of qualia,  
with its quanta part that you can compare with nature, and so test  
comp. And up to now, it fits well with the facts.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't mean to be John Clark rude, but
honestly, I can't see at all how qualia can possibly emerge from your theory,

Clark has no problem with computationalism. He has even defend the idea that comp is the only possible theory, but he has a problem with the first person indeterminacy. 

Cheers, and still looking for "the answer",

You have to made it more precise. 

Are you saying that the qualia problem refutes computationalism (a bit like Craig says) ?

Are you saying that the qualia problem can be used to show that the UDA is not valid?

Craig assumes the qualia, so he does not try to explain them. I find this premature.

What would be an explanation of qualia which would satisfy you?

My opinion is that computationalism explains the most possible about qualia, including the machine's feeling (qualia) that no theories at all can explain them completely.

To be frank, I don't extend that explanation more than I need to debunk the argument against comp and based on qualia. To debunk that debunking, you have to provide a better explanation of qualia.

How does that comp-explanation of qualia work?

Hmm... I will avoid the math, and try to give you the gist of it.

Imagine you build a machine, and for some reason you want it being quite independent of you, like a robot that you would send on some Planet. On that planet there are many dangers, like acid rains, hole in the grounds, dangerous tempest, etc.

So you program it with a basic instruction, with the shape: "whatever happens to you, do anything you can do to avoid self-destruction, or self-injuries. 

You can program "self" without problem (ask more if interested). You can provide to the robots many sensors, so that it can detect the possible dangers. For example, they have a sort of skin, and when too much acid attacks it, the brain get to cope with urgency warnings, and the "do anything you can to avoid a possible self-destruction and miss of the mission".

Now, in some "real" relatively to you, computational histories, that robot is actually send on that planet, and in that story, at some point, it get stuck in a crevasse and then it rains (acid rains!). 

The robot has a complex software which is in some chaotic regime, with many conflicting procedure (raised by too much universal goal of doing whatever is possible to avoid self-destruction. It pull its leg to escape the crevasse and the rain, but he got new warning of self-destruction that he is programmed to avoid. 

But eventually the rain ceases, and the robot succeed to escape the hole, and to complete the mission. On Earth, he got some medal and was interviewed by a philosopher.

The philosopher asks the robot if he/it:she enjoyed the mission, and would do it again. The philosopher asked the robot to tell its story when he was stuck under the acid rain, and if that was painful.

Now, the robot was able to behave like if some situation were unpleasant or pleasant. He was, by learning, imitation or simple inference inductive, using words like "pleasant" and "unpleasant" to describe its memories of episodes which were accordingly containing few slight warning (like "it is time to drink some oil"), or episodes with much severe warnings (unpleasant). 

The memorized experience, which involves quite complex third person possible relations, is memorized as something experienced, true by default (the robot did not wake up saying that is was a dream), and which has a content, describable in a diary, for example. The qualia will be the way many aspect of the (self-referential) situation, coded in some way, is perceived by the person run by the robot's brain, and they have to contain some feature impossible to prove. The philosopher might try to convince the machine, that she has no qualia, but the argument will have no value for the machine, as it would put a doubt on not just its memories and their content, but on the existence of the experience of having those memories. At that moment, the machine will execute one loop more and conclude that the philosophers is "obviously" wrong, because that contradict the current experience. 

The qualia has two components/ Some information (yes, no, Washington, Moscow, ...). It is a self-selection in some history, and the experience related to the overall self-perception, including the personal day-to-day history, the goal, the mission, etc.

This makes sense, as far as it has sense (which "we" believe in, when sending the robot on the planet). The self-referentially robot, lost on a Planet will be able to interrogate that sense, perhaps he will try to change its software, to diminish the severity of useless warnings, or cut them all together, like most commandant do when piloting a plane. 

The true qualia itself can be "defined" by the set of all histories, with equivalent warnings and amounts of information, conflicting goals (in this case). 

You can be a human or a machine, in all case you need to be a poet to describe the qualia.  You will need music, images, words, movie, and hoping the publics get enough similar experiences to relate with the movie content.

The math just makes this precise, and with the most common definition of knowledge, it shows that the universal machines already explain that they know/infer something that they are unable to justify, with all the many different nuances, and some match well the "qualia problem". 

I don't know if comp is true, but non-comp looks a bit like racism or xenophobism. 

It condemns a priori possible souls because it has not the right clothe. 

This proves nothing of course.

Hope this help, though. Feel free to elaborate on your point.

Bruno

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