Sane2004 Step One

[Craig Weinberg]

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

Craig

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
>

> *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire

> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of
> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is
> a universal commodity.

Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the
comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your
worldview.

>
> *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources,

> supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
> theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from
> the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter
> or exit a computation?

It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
questions simply are relevant.

>
> *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying

> independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark.
> Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
> beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
> constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
> that.

AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
numbers.

In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is
sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
because it is more familiar to his correspondents.

> Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward
> arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?
>

Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.

> Craig
>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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[Craig Weinberg]

On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 10:09:45 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote:

On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
> I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
>
> *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire
> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of
> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is
> a universal commodity.

Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough.

Maybe. In the sense that sleight of hand implies intentional deception. More of a de facto sleight of hand.
 

It is the meat of the
comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your
worldview.

If they do not apply to my worldview, then they compete with my worldview, so I am entitled to debunk the premises, if not the consequences of the argument.
 

>
> *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources,
> supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
> theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from
> the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter
> or exit a computation?

It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
questions simply are relevant.

That's begging the question. Why are mathematical theses necessarily abstract? My point is that if we assume abstraction is possible from the start, then physics and subjective realism become irrelevant and redundant appendages.

>
> *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying
> independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark.
> Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
> beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
> constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
> that.

AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
numbers.

What is that implication or commitment based on? Naive preference for logic over sensation?
 

In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is
sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
because it is more familiar to his correspondents.

> Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward
> arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?
>

Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.

 
Why? They are counterfactuals for comp. If primitive realism is modeled on natural numbers, why does physically originated noise and entropy distort the execution of arithmetic processes but arithmetic processes do not, by themselves, counter things like signal attenuation? Good programs should heal bad wiring.

Craig

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/4/2012 9:48 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Hi Craig,

    Excellent post!

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

    Yep, the assumption is that the function that gives rise to Sense is exactly representable as countable and recursively enumerable functions. The trick is finding the machine configuration that matches each of these. That's where the engineers come in and the theorists go out the door.

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

    The "person" rides the computation, it is not "located" any particular place. But all this is predicated on the condition that consciousness is, at its more rubimentary level, nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. THe real question that we need to ask is: Might there be a point where we no longer are dealing with countable and recursively enumerable functions? What about countable and recursively enumerable functions that are coding for other countable and recursively enumerable functions? Are those still "computable"? So far the answer seems to be: Yes, they are. But what about the "truth" of the statements that those countable and recursively enumerable functions encode? Are they countable and recursively enumerable functions? Nope! Those are something else entirely!

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. This is where my head starts spinning with Bruno's ideas....

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

    Ummhummm, but it is! Why is that is so amazing?! Out notion of individuality is tied to the "autonomously moving and detecting and feeding and reproducing" machine that our minds inhabit! Why does its precise constitution matter? All that matters is that it can "exactly" carry our the necessary functions. Individual minds are just different "versions" of one and the same mind! To steal an idea from Deutsch, Other histories are just different universes are just different minds... The hard question is: How the hell do they get synchronized with each other?
    We know that the synchronization cannot exist "ahead of time", simply because that is a massive contradiction! What if the synchronization is just "accidental" (like Bruno proposes)? Well, not sure about how that would solve the problem! Why? Because the chances of an "accidental" synchronization of an arbitrarily long sequence of matchings between arbitrarily many minds (each defined in terms of infinitely many computations intersecting) is vanishingly small. It is exactly zero! "Huston, We Have A Problem!"
    Benjayk et al are posting about a related subject in the thread: RE: Two reasons why computers IMHO cannot exhibit intelligence It is all focused on the problem of the axiom of choice and constructability. I think the problem can be recast as a computational complexity problem, but I have been known to be not even wrong on occasion. My evidence is that the limitation that we see in the real world on computers is the scarcity of resources, which is why P does not equal NP IMHO. Without an eternally and exponentially expanding supply of resources (or tape), the UD simply cannot be run. Not even one step!
    Might this be just a form of an imperative on the existence of an endless supply of universes with exponentially expanding resources? Isn't this exactly what we observe in the star filled heavens? Maybe we finitely exist because we must, or else existence would contradict itself and vanish (like that Penguin in the Bloom County cartoon). Resources must exist for the computations to occur. We are God's thoughts.

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

    It is an ontological theory that seeks to explain the appearance of "reality", thus it is meta-realism.

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

Craig

    That's the right question to be asking!  Errors are sentences that are false in some code. Exactly how does this happen if one's beliefs are predicated on Bp & p(is true)?

--

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire
> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of
> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is
> a universal commodity.

We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press the button faster if it heard the command "faster", if that were also part of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you devise in order to prove that it was not?


Stathis Papaioannou

[meekerdb]

On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>> I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
>>
>> *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire
>> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
>> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of
>> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is
>> a universal commodity.
> Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the
> comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
> explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
> thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
> of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
> computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your
> worldview.

I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the computations in my
brain. It seems likely that I also require an outside environment/world with which I
interact in order to remain conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter
of the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even the whole galaxy must
be replaced by a digital representation in order to maintain your consciousness
unchanged. But this bothers me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed
universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has been replaced ALONG
WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion that everything is computable.

>
>> *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources,
>> supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
>> theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from
>> the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter
>> or exit a computation?
> It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
> questions simply are relevant.
>
>> *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying
>> independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark.
>> Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
>> beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
>> constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
>> that.
> AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
> ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
> reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
> numbers.

ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or other system of
computation). If often argues that the natural numbers exist, because they satisfy true
propositions: There exists a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This
assumes a Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has argued against.

Brent

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/4/2012 10:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

*yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire 
thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain 
function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of 
non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is 
a universal commodity.

Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the
comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your
worldview. 

Hi Russel,

    In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of contingency? You cannot "Choose" what is Real! That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker!

*Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, 
supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a 
theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from 
the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter 
or exit a computation?

It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
questions simply are relevant.

    The issue of I/O is not irrelevant.

*Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying 
independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. 
Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the 
beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic 
constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
that. 

AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
numbers.

    Note quite. AR is the stipulation that primitive reality = the natural numbers. The idea has been around for a long time. We silly humans simply cannot wrap our minds around the possibility that more exists than we can count! We must be able to count what we can communicate about in the context of any one message, but this does not place an upper finite bound on the host of possible messages.

In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is
sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
because it is more familiar to his correspondents.

    Sure, but this results in a consistent solipsism of a single mind. It is a prison of reflections of itself, over and over, a Ground Hog Day where there is no possible escape. I am interested in a non-prison version of comp.

Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward 
arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.

    No, you just don't understand him.

Craig

[meekerdb]

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable.

Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness.

This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical.

It doesn't assume that.  A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer.  Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution.

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 9/4/2012 9:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
> Hi Russel,
>
> In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a matter of
> contingency? You cannot "Choose" what is Real!

But you choose what is real in your theory of the world. Then you see how well your
theory measures up. The Standard Model is a theory of energy and matter that has passed
thousands of empirical tests to very high accuracy. Its ontology is elementary
particles. It replaced a lot of other theories that had different ontologies.

> That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It is that
> which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not vanish when you stop looking
> at it, simply because you're not its only onlooker!

So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist?

Brent

[Stephen P. King]

Hear Hear! And if it is computable then it is nothing but countable
and recursively enumerable functions. But can functions generate I/O
from themselves? We see nice examples of entire computable universes in
MMORP games that have many people addicted to them. One thing about
them, we require resources to be run. Nothing happens if you don't pay
the fee.

Platonism fails because it cannot explain how many minds interact.
It is a wonderful ontology theory of a single mind, but not of many
differing minds.

>
> Brent

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable.

Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness.

    If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model.

This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical.

It doesn't assume that.  A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer.  Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution.

    Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this:

Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some "Dark Energy". I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from?
    Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running. What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC. What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines!
    Could the brain be a CC that is running on a QC. It would make the many drafts model work! Dennett would be so proud. (Not really!)

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable.

Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness.

    If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model.

Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago.  He's been fatally changed.

This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical.

It doesn't assume that.  A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer.  Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution.

    Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this:

Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some "Dark Energy". I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from?

They are computations.  They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources.  The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource.

    Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running.

There's not difference as computations. 

What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC.

You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources.  Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them.

What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines!

You're confused.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 11:59:55 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote:

On 9/4/2012 9:48 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Hi Craig,

    Excellent post!

Thanks Stephen!
 

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

    Yep, the assumption is that the function that gives rise to Sense is exactly representable as countable and recursively enumerable functions. The trick is finding the machine configuration that matches each of these. That's where the engineers come in and the theorists go out the door.

That seems to be the hypocrisy of comp - it assumes that function is enough, that all-but-computation is epiphenomena, but then wants to bring it back home to the material universe to claim the prize. It makes me think of the self-help guru who preaches that money doesn't make you happy in a best-selling book.
 

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

    The "person" rides the computation, it is not "located" any particular place. But all this is predicated on the condition that consciousness is, at its more rubimentary level, nothing but countable and recursively enumerable functions. THe real question that we need to ask is: Might there be a point where we no longer are dealing with countable and recursively enumerable functions? What about countable and recursively enumerable functions that are coding for other countable and recursively enumerable functions? Are those still "computable"? So far the answer seems to be: Yes, they are. But what about the "truth" of the statements that those countable and recursively enumerable functions encode? Are they countable and recursively enumerable functions? Nope! Those are something else entirely!

Right. Something about microelectronics and neurology though that blinds us to the chasm between the map and the territory. This kind of example with pencil and paper helps me see how really bizarre it is to expect a conscious experience to arise out of mechanism. I guess it's just Leibniz millhouse but really...say we have the code for the experience of the memory of the smell of pancakes. We have a trillion people furiously scribbling on notepads, talking to other scribblers on the phone, passing information, calculating stuff. We introduce this pancake code by calling 350,000 of them on the phone and issuing this code, and they all write it down, add it to the other numbers and addresses and whatnot, make thousands of phonecalls to other people who are also writing this stuff down and adding numbers with their special decoder rings, etc. So why and how does this pancake smell come into play?

If we assume that this is possible that the pancake smell is actually conjured in some way for some reason we can't imagine, then doesn't it open the doorway to disembodied spirits everywhere? We wouldn't need a whole Boltzmann brain to conjure a ghost or a demon, just some Boltzmann bits and seeds.

To me it only makes sense that we are our whole life, not just the brain cells or functions. The body is a public structural shadow of the private qualitative experience, which is an irreducible (but not incorruptible) gestalt.
 

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable. This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical. This is where my head starts spinning with Bruno's ideas....

haha, yes, well Bruno does warn about vertigo in the paper.
 

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

    Ummhummm, but it is! Why is that is so amazing?! Out notion of individuality is tied to the "autonomously moving and detecting and feeding and reproducing" machine that our minds inhabit! Why does its precise constitution matter?

In theory it shouldn't matter, but that's the problem, in reality it does matter and it matters a lot and in thousands of different ways. The constitution is exquisitely specific about how it handles arsenic, LSD, and Cheerios. Everything that feeds feeds on water and oxygen and glucose.
 

All that matters is that it can "exactly" carry our the necessary functions. Individual minds are just different "versions" of one and the same mind! To steal an idea from Deutsch, Other histories are just different universes are just different minds... The hard question is: How the hell do they get synchronized with each other?

I think they are synchronization itself to begin with. The question to me is, how do they get de-synchronized, and I think it's by introducing latency on a borrowed-as-space basis.
 

    We know that the synchronization cannot exist "ahead of time", simply because that is a massive contradiction!

Why? If everything is a singular totality on one level, then synchronization is the precondition of time. Time is nothing but perspective-orchestrated de-synchronization.
 

What if the synchronization is just "accidental" (like Bruno proposes)? Well, not sure about how that would solve the problem! Why? Because the chances of an "accidental" synchronization of an arbitrarily long sequence of matchings between arbitrarily many minds (each defined in terms of infinitely many computations intersecting) is vanishingly small. It is exactly zero! "Huston, We Have A Problem!"

There could and would be multiple octaves and resonance artifacts due to the accidental re-synchronizations (which feed back on the original pre-synchronization at zero point). This is where living organisms come in...stuff that has fallen apart to such an extent that it begins to put itself back together on a higher octave...making opportunities for meta-feedback.
 

    Benjayk et al are posting about a related subject in the thread: RE: Two reasons why computers IMHO cannot exhibit intelligence It is all focused on the problem of the axiom of choice and constructability. I think the problem can be recast as a computational complexity problem, but I have been known to be not even wrong on occasion. My evidence is that the limitation that we see in the real world on computers is the scarcity of resources, which is why P does not equal NP IMHO. Without an eternally and exponentially expanding supply of resources (or tape), the UD simply cannot be run. Not even one step!
    Might this be just a form of an imperative on the existence of an endless supply of universes with exponentially expanding resources? Isn't this exactly what we observe in the star filled heavens? Maybe we finitely exist because we must, or else existence would contradict itself and vanish (like that Penguin in the Bloom County cartoon). Resources must exist for the computations to occur. We are God's thoughts.

Yeah, I don't know, any kind of universe-as-machine cosmology seems no better than a theological cosmology. What machine does the machine run on? What meta-arithmetic truths make arithmetic truths true?

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

    It is an ontological theory that seeks to explain the appearance of "reality", thus it is meta-realism.

It doesn't find a purpose for realism though, so it seems like an unrealism to me.
 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

    That's the right question to be asking!  Errors are sentences that are false in some code. Exactly how does this happen if one's beliefs are predicated on Bp & p(is true)?

Yeah, it seems to me like we should have to be spraying cybercide all over the place to prevent supercomputers from springing up in the vacuum flux or the sewer systems of large cities.

Craig
 

[Craig Weinberg]

I think it would progress just like dementia or brain cancer as far as the subject is concerned. They would experience increasing alienation from their mind and body as more of their brain was converted to an automated processing and control system. The extent to which that would translate into behavior that doctors, family, and friends would notice depends entirely on the quality of the technology used to destroy and replace the person.

The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator.

Craig

Stathis Papaioannou

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 12:47 AM, meekerdb wrote:
> On 9/4/2012 9:37 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
>> Hi Russel,
>>
>> In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a
>> matter of contingency? You cannot "Choose" what is Real!
>
> But you choose what is real in your theory of the world. Then you see
> how well your theory measures up. The Standard Model is a theory of
> energy and matter that has passed thousands of empirical tests to very
> high accuracy. Its ontology is elementary particles. It replaced a
> lot of other theories that had different ontologies.

Hi Brent,

Sure, we do chose our theories, but we don't get to chose the
facts. I am just looking at what may be down the road. ;-)

>
>> That is the entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of
>> any one. It is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon
>> does not vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're
>> not its only onlooker!
>
> So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist?

No. Existence is necessary possibility. It is not contingent. The
specifics of observed properties, that is another story. Existence is
not dependent on us; what we measure, is.

[Craig Weinberg]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:48:09 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote:

So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist?

What is existence other than the capacity to be detected in some way by some thing (itself if nothing else)?

What would be the difference between a moon that has no possibility of being detected in any way by any thing and nothingness?

Craig

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable.

Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness.

    If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model.

Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago.  He's been fatally changed.

    Never, I am not the impermanent image on the world stage. I am the fire that casts the images.

This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical.

It doesn't assume that.  A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer.  Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution.

    Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this:

Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some "Dark Energy". I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from?

They are computations.  They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources.  The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource.

    Sure, but the explanation of the idea requires matter to be communicated. A slight oversight perhaps.

    Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running.

There's not difference as computations.

    You are correct but only in the absence of considerations of inputs and outputs and their concurrency. Abstract theory leaves out the obvious, but when it pretends to toss out the obvious, that is going to far.

 

What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC.

You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources.  Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them.

    No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair.

What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines!

You're confused.

    Maybe. I can handle being wrong. I learn from mistakes.

Brent
--

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> Something about microelectronics and neurology though that blinds us
> to the chasm between the map and the territory. This kind of example
> with pencil and paper helps me see how really bizarre it is to expect
> a conscious experience to arise out of mechanism. I guess it's just
> Leibniz millhouse but really...say we have the code for the experience
> of the memory of the smell of pancakes. We have a trillion people
> furiously scribbling on notepads, talking to other scribblers on the
> phone, passing information, calculating stuff. We introduce this
> pancake code by calling 350,000 of them on the phone and issuing this
> code, and they all write it down, add it to the other numbers and
> addresses and whatnot, make thousands of phonecalls to other people
> who are also writing this stuff down and adding numbers with their
> special decoder rings, etc. So why and how does this pancake smell
> come into play?

Hi Craig,

You are up awful late! So am I, GULP! The smell is at a different
level. We can't account for things in a flat logical structure.

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> To me it only makes sense that we are our whole life, not just the
> brain cells or functions. The body is a public structural shadow of
> the private qualitative experience, which is an irreducible (but not
> incorruptible) gestalt.

Bingo!

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

All that matters is that it can "exactly" carry our the necessary functions. Individual minds are just different "versions" of one and the same mind! To steal an idea from Deutsch, Other histories are just different universes are just different minds... The hard question is: How the hell do they get synchronized with each other?

I think they are synchronization itself to begin with. The question to me is, how do they get de-synchronized, and I think it's by introducing latency on a borrowed-as-space basis.

Hi Craig,

    I am low on brain juice but here goes. What is synchronization at one level is non-synchronization at some other. The idea is to start off thinking that what is fundamental is change, shit is constantly happening; it never sits still, really. Existence is an eternal process?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> Why? If everything is a singular totality on one level, then
> synchronization is the precondition of time. Time is nothing but
> perspective-orchestrated de-synchronization.

No. Time is an order of sequentially givens. DO not assume per-orderings
because those have to be accounted for by something else. Think of
Rubber Ducks swimming in a long row. Did they just get to be in that
order by random chance, really?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> Yeah, I don't know, any kind of universe-as-machine cosmology seems no
> better than a theological cosmology. What machine does the machine run
> on? What meta-arithmetic truths make arithmetic truths true?

Maybe it is the act of us being aware of them that collectively makes
them true. Jaakko Hintikka has some ideas on that:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=K7yJLmZCbFUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA415&ots=IXTvX1iloM&sig=OD5xNX3OZBcCWgiVjkVGPCX_11I#v=onepage&q&f=false

We just need to widely expand what the "we" is! Poor humans think
that they are "it". What Hubris!

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:20 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

That's the right question to be asking!  Errors are sentences that are false in some code. Exactly how does this happen if one's beliefs are predicated on Bp & p(is true)?

Yeah, it seems to me like we should have to be spraying cybercide all over the place to prevent supercomputers from springing up in the vacuum flux or the sewer systems of large cities.

It is the I/O that makes the difference. We do actually spay cybercide when we spray for mosquitoes. What is it that bacteria and virii are, from the logical side of the duality after all?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 2:35 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:48:09 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote:

So you think somebody has to be looking at the Moon for it to exist?

What is existence other than the capacity to be detected in some way by some thing (itself if nothing else)?

    "Necessary Possibility", its exactly that.

What would be the difference between a moon that has no possibility of being detected in any way by any thing and nothingness?

    Nada.

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 07:26:53PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
> On Tuesday, September 4, 2012 10:09:45 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote:
> > It is the meat of the
> > comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
> > explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
> > thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
> > of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
> > computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to your
> > worldview.
> >
>
> If they do not apply to my worldview, then they compete with my worldview,
> so I am entitled to debunk the premises, if not the consequences of the
> argument.

Good luck with that! Seriously, though, what you need to do is derive some
consequences of the premises that contradict observations. Or show the
premises to be self-contradictory. It is not enough to show that the
premises contradict some other totally random premise, as not everyone
is likely to agree that the other premise is self-evident.

>
>
> >
> > >
> > > *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of
> > resources,
> > > supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
> > > theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from
> > > the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data
> > enter
> > > or exit a computation?
> >
> > It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
> > questions simply are relevant.
> >
>
> That's begging the question. Why are mathematical theses necessarily
> abstract?

Surely that is the point of mathematics!

> My point is that if we assume abstraction is possible from the
> start, then physics and subjective realism become irrelevant and redundant
> appendages.
>

Why?

>
> > >
> > > *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying
> > > independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the
> > dark.
> > > Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
> > > beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
> > > constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
> > > that.
> >
> > AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
> > ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
> > reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
> > numbers.
> >
>
> What is that implication or commitment based on? Naive preference for logic
> over sensation?
>

Does it need to be based on anything?

>
> >
> > In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality
> > is
> > sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
> > because it is more familiar to his correspondents.
> >
> > > Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull
> > toward
> > > arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?
> > >
> >
> > Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.
> >
>
> Why? They are counterfactuals for comp. If primitive realism is modeled on
> natural numbers, why does physically originated noise and entropy distort
> the execution of arithmetic processes but arithmetic processes do not, by
> themselves, counter things like signal attenuation? Good programs should
> heal bad wiring.
>

Erroneous computations are still computations. Are you trying to
suggest that the presence of randomness is a counterfactual for COMP perhaps?

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 12:37:22AM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
> Hi Russel,
>
> In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a
> matter of contingency? You cannot "Choose" what is Real! That is the
> entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It
> is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not
> vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its
> only onlooker!

I don't think I ever suggested that reality was an arbitrary
choice. But whilst that reality is unknown, it seems quite reasonable
to suppose it is this or that, and to see whether the consequences of
that assumption match up with observations. It is how science is done,
after all.

For certain choices of "this or that", the ultimate reality is
actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete
basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely
unknowable to the denizens of that computation. This is a consequence
of the Church thesis.

>
> >
> >>*Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources,
> >>supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
> >>theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from
> >>the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter
> >>or exit a computation?
> >It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
> >questions simply are relevant.
>
> The issue of I/O is not irrelevant.
>

How?

> >
> >>*Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self justifying
> >>independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark.
> >>Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
> >>beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
> >>constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
> >>that.
> >AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
> >ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
> >reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
> >numbers.
>
> Note quite. AR is the stipulation that primitive reality = the
> natural numbers. The idea has been around for a long time. We silly

I assume by your comment you mean "nothing buttery". If everything
about the observed universe can be explained by the properties of the
natural numbers, then it matters not whether the primitive reality
_is_ the natural numbers (nothing but), or simply models it (has all
the properties of the natural numbers, but may have other, unspecified
and unobservered, properties).

> humans simply cannot wrap our minds around the possibility that more
> exists than we can count! We must be able to count what we can
> communicate about in the context of any one message, but this does
> not place an upper finite bound on the host of possible messages.
>

Countability is not normally considered to be a finite property,
unless you're an ultrafinitist.

> >
> >In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive reality is
> >sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
> >because it is more familiar to his correspondents.
>
> Sure, but this results in a consistent solipsism of a single
> mind. It is a prison of reflections of itself, over and over, a

> Ground Hog Day <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA> where

> there is no possible escape. I am interested in a non-prison version
> of comp.
>

I don't really buy this statement. I get the impression that the
debates flowing around on this topic on this list are being conducted
by people who don't know what they're talking about (whether pro or
con). Or at least, I don't know what is being talked about, which is
why I usually prefer to remain silent...

>
> >
> >>Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward
> >>arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?
> >>
> >Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.
>
> No, you just don't understand him.
>

I'm sure that is true too. Unfortunately, he has a habit of stating
something completely distant from the topic being responded to, which
doesn't help that understanding.

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg

 

Speaking of teleportation, if that means time travel, I find it strangely comforting that my parents

are actually, really alive back there in 1950. So in effect, you never

die, you just get time-shifted.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/5/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Craig Weinberg

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 02:20:22

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

I'm not talking about gradual brain replacement specifically but
replacement of the whole person with an AI controlling a robot. We
assume the machine is very technologically advanced. Progress in AI
may have been slow over the past few decades but extrapolate that slow
pace of change a thousand years into the future. Do you think you
would still be able to distinguish the robot from the human, and if so
what test would you use?


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg

 

 

I don't like the word "existence" as it carries

so much baggage with it. What you describe

below is physical existence. That is a property

of extended entities.

 

Inextended entities such as mind and 1p and

thouights and feelings would be mentally

existent.

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/5/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Craig Weinberg

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 02:35:23

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

That is step 6.

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations.

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely.

You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption.

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

It is a discovery by mathematicians. 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".

Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.

Bruno

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

[Craig Weinberg]

The ability to test depends entirely on my familiarity with the human and how good the technology is. Can I touch them, smell them? If so, then I would be surprised if I could be fooled by an inorganic body. Has there ever been one synthetic imitation of a natural biological product that can withstand even moderate examination?

If you limit the channel of my interaction with the robot however, I stand much less of a chance of being able to tell the difference. A video conference with the robot only requires that they look convincing on camera. We can't tell the difference between a live performance and a taped performance unless there is some clue in the content. That is because we aren't literally present so we are only dealing with a narrow channel of sense experience to begin with.

In any case, what does being able to tell from the outside have to do with whether or not the thing feels? If it is designed by experts to fool other people into thinking that it is alive, then so what if it succeeds at fooling everyone? Something can't fool itself into thinking that it is alive.

Craig

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:14, meekerdb wrote:

> On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:

>>> I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
>>>

>>> *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up

>>> the entire
>>> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
>>> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the
>>> functioning of
>>> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human
>>> individuality is
>>> a universal commodity.

>> Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the

>> comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
>> explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
>> thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
>> of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
>> computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to
>> your
>> worldview.
>

> I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the
> computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an
> outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain
> conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of
> the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even
> the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in
> order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers
> me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed
> universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has
> been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion
> that everything is computable.

That's a good argument for saying that the level of substitution is
not that low. But the reasoning would still go through, and we would
lead to a unique computable universe. That is the only way to make a
digital physics consistent (as I forget to say sometimes). Then you
get a more complex "other mind problem", and something like David
Nyman- Hoyle beam would be needed, and would need to be separate from
the physical reality, making the big physical whole incomplete, etc.
yes this bothers me too. Needless to say, I tend to believe that if
comp is true, the level is much higher.



>
>>
>>> *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of

>>> resources,
>>> supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
>>> theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from
>>> realism from
>>> the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does
>>> data enter
>>> or exit a computation?

>> It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
>> questions simply are relevant.
>>

>>> *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self

>>> justifying
>>> independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in
>>> the dark.
>>> Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
>>> beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
>>> constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
>>> that.

>> AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
>> ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
>> reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
>> numbers.
>

> ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or
> other system of computation). If often argues that the natural
> numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists
> a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a
> Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has
> argued against.

? I would say that the contrary is true. It is because natural numbers
exists, and seems to obeys laws like addition and multiplication that
true propositions can be made on them. 2 exists, and only 1 and 2
divides 2, so 2 is prime, and thus prime numbers exists. 2 itself
exists just because Ex(x = s(s(0))) is true. Indeed take x = s(s(0)),
and the proposition follows from s(s(0)) = s(s(0)).

Bruno



>
> Brent

>
>>
>> In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive
>> reality is
>> sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
>> because it is more familiar to his correspondents.
>>

>>> Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the
>>> pull toward
>>> arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come
>>> from?
>>>

>> Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.
>>

>>> Craig
>>>
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[Craig Weinberg]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:43:35 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:

Hi Craig Weinberg

 

 

I don't like the word "existence" as it carries

so much baggage with it. What you describe

below is physical existence. That is a property

of extended entities.

I agree, existence means different things in different contexts.
 

 

Inextended entities such as mind and 1p and

thouights and feelings would be mentally

existent.

 

I try to avoid that confusion by using the word 'insist' and 'insistence' instead of exist when I am talking about the private half of the cosmos.

Craig

[Bruno Marchal]

You lost me. Functions are set of I/O.

I don't see this at all. many minds comes from the fact that universal
machine can interact. That the easy thing to explain, seen also by
Schmidhuber and Tegmark, but as Deustch argued, this explains to much.
Yet Deustch critics either assumes non comp, or is inconsistent, as
comp implies the realities used by Schmidhuber and Tegmark. What the
three of them ignores is that this entails also the first person
indeterminacy, and this makes the idea of interaction or physics
entirely and necessarily retrievable from self-reference, and this
works well until now. Then we have the "Solovay" gift, the splitting
between provable and true-but-non-provable, whose intensional variants
explains completely the quanta/qualia divergence.

You keep saying that interaction is not explained by comp, but this
makes no sense, as a computation, even in arithmetic, is only a matter
of local interactions. It is the essence of computability to reduce
activity into local tiny elementary interactions. Then physical-like
interaction must be recovered at the more holistic level of the
machine's epistemological person views.

Bruno



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

[Craig Weinberg]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

That is step 6.

I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading "In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is
represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow" from 1.
 

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations.

So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness?

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely.

You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption.

Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality and presume consciousness to explain consciousness. Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or matter at all? If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos, not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities.
 

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.

It can't ask for anything by itself though. We are the ones to whom the significance relates. Information is nothing but an experience that can be remembered and transmitted to other experiencers through formation.
 

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

It is a discovery by mathematicians. 

And it is a valid discovery in the context of mathematical theory, but it doesn't translate to the realism of subjectivity and physics. It assumes weightless computation that generates weight (for not particular reason).
 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".

Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.

I admit that I have only a wisp of understanding about modal logic and Gödelian-Löbianian ideas, but I feel like even this surface understanding is enough to tell me that it is ultimately a red herring. These concepts seem to just be about self-reference - maps of maps with no territory. Great for simulating some aspects of thought, because indeed, thinking has to do with copying copies and intellectual grammar, but feeling doesn't. These are ways of mentioning how ideas are mentioned. In reality, this sentence does not refer to itself. There are only characters, or pixels, or optical phenomena here. The significance does not arise from the same level in which it is transmitted. This is the Chinese Room. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Craig

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 12:37:22AM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:
>>
>> Hi Russel,
>>
>> In Craig's defense. When did ontological considerations become a
>> matter of contingency? You cannot "Choose" what is Real! That is the
>> entire point of Reality. It is not up to the choice of any one. It
>> is that which is incontrovertible for All of us. The Moon does not
>> vanish when you stop looking at it, simply because you're not its
>> only onlooker!
>
> I don't think I ever suggested that reality was an arbitrary
> choice. But whilst that reality is unknown, it seems quite reasonable
> to suppose it is this or that, and to see whether the consequences of
> that assumption match up with observations. It is how science is done,
> after all.
>
> For certain choices of "this or that", the ultimate reality is
> actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete
> basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely
> unknowable to the denizens of that computation.

Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* "bottom" is the
result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8)
and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/measure on
all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and
it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical
commodities.

Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and
wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be
described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same
computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of
combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers
from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same
and we can "know" it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice
of a base in a linear space.

Bruno

[Roger Clough]

 

I don't think that life or mind or intelligence

can be teleported. Especially since nobody knows what

they are.

 

I also don't believe that you can download

the contents of somebody's brain.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/5/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Bruno Marchal

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 11:04:53

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg

 

Insist.  Interesting idea.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/5/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Craig Weinberg

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 11:07:00

Subject: Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Stephen P. King]

Input/Output is interfacing, it is at least a second-order
function. More on this soon.

With what? Itself?

> That the easy thing to explain, seen also by Schmidhuber and Tegmark,
> but as Deustch argued, this explains to much.
> Yet Deustch critics either assumes non comp, or is inconsistent, as
> comp implies the realities used by Schmidhuber and Tegmark. What the
> three of them ignores is that this entails also the first person
> indeterminacy, and this makes the idea of interaction or physics
> entirely and necessarily retrievable from self-reference, and this
> works well until now. Then we have the "Solovay" gift, the splitting
> between provable and true-but-non-provable, whose intensional variants
> explains completely the quanta/qualia divergence.

Deutsch. Tegmark and Schmidhuber do not explicitly consider the
interaction question and so miss the point. They seem to just assume the
equivalent to 1p indeterminacy via local individuation.

>
> You keep saying that interaction is not explained by comp, but this
> makes no sense, as a computation, even in arithmetic, is only a matter
> of local interactions.

How is "locality" explained by COMP? Locality induces the ability
to distinguish what is otherwise indistinguishable. If there is no
"Moscow" that is different from "Washington" how does 1p indeterminacy
obtain?

> It is the essence of computability to reduce activity into local tiny
> elementary interactions.

You are discussing a different issue, using the idea of
neighborhood, as in the sequence 1234: 2 is local to 1 and 3.

> Then physical-like interaction must be recovered at the more holistic
> level of the machine's epistemological person views.

Sure.

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

[meekerdb]

On 9/5/2012 5:17 AM, Craig wrote:

The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be
> walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on.
> Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different
> durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can
> tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical
> doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator.

How would that work?  The person would always respond to questions, like, "Do you feel any different?" in exactly the same way.  How would you tell whether they really felt the same or just said they did? 

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 9/5/2012 8:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are
> emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators
> as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence
> of combinators in arithmetic,

I don't think I understand that remark. Doesn't arithmetic *assume* combinators, i.e. +
and * ?

Brent

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/5/2012 11:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote:

For certain choices of "this or that", the ultimate reality is
actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete
basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely
unknowable to the denizens of that computation.

Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* "bottom" is the result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/measure on all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical commodities.

 Dear Bruno,

    I am trying hard to be sure that I understand your ideas here. Could you specify the cardinality of "all universal machines"? How many of them possibly exist?

Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can "know" it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space.

    So is there or is there not something that corresponds to "resources" (such as memory) for the Universal machines in your thought?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The ability to test depends entirely on my familiarity with the human and
> how good the technology is. Can I touch them, smell them? If so, then I
> would be surprised if I could be fooled by an inorganic body. Has there ever
> been one synthetic imitation of a natural biological product that can
> withstand even moderate examination?
>
> If you limit the channel of my interaction with the robot however, I stand
> much less of a chance of being able to tell the difference. A video
> conference with the robot only requires that they look convincing on camera.
> We can't tell the difference between a live performance and a taped
> performance unless there is some clue in the content. That is because we
> aren't literally present so we are only dealing with a narrow channel of
> sense experience to begin with.
>
> In any case, what does being able to tell from the outside have to do with
> whether or not the thing feels? If it is designed by experts to fool other
> people into thinking that it is alive, then so what if it succeeds at
> fooling everyone? Something can't fool itself into thinking that it is
> alive.

A film is nor a good example because you can't interact with it. The
point is that if it is possible to make a robot that fools everyone
then this is ipso facto a philosophical zombie. It doesn't feel but it
pretends to feel. A corollary of this is that a philosophical zombie
could display all the behaviour of a living being. So how can you be
sure that living beings other than you are not zombies? Also, what is
the evolutionary utility of consciousness if the same results could
have in principle been obtained without it?


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[meekerdb]

I agree with all you say, except the implication of the last sentence: that evolution would never produce results with some inessential side effect.  First, evolution has to produce things by evolving - not starting from a clean sheet.  In the case of consciousness I think it quite likely that this happened.  Conscious thinking is similar to talking-to-yourself because evolution happened to take advantage of auditory processing of language to internalize symbolic cogitation.  Second, even though the same result might be obtained in some other way, it might be less efficient in some sense to do so.  We might conceivably make a human-acting robot that cogitated using a computer separate from the one used for processing language and while I think it would be conscious, it would be conscious in a different way.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 05:37:18PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote:
> >
> >For certain choices of "this or that", the ultimate reality is
> >actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete
> >basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely
> >unknowable to the denizens of that computation.
>
> Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* "bottom" is the
> result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or
> 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a
> competition/measure on all computations. The initial base ontology
> is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or
> another, except for technical commodities.
>
> Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware
> and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be
> described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same
> computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of
> combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of
> numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really
> the same and we can "know" it (betting on comp). It is really like
> the choice of a base in a linear space.
>
> Bruno

We're in perfect agreement here, actually, just expressing it differently!

[Craig Weinberg]

It would work because the person responding to the questions would be you. You would know what the experience of surviving the brain transfer was like. That is how you can tell whether you really felt the same is by actually feeling the same.

Craig
 

Brent

[Stathis Papaioannou]

But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain
responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from
the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing,
but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 10:32 AM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

> I agree with all you say, except the implication of the last sentence: that
> evolution would never produce results with some inessential side effect.
> First, evolution has to produce things by evolving - not starting from a
> clean sheet. In the case of consciousness I think it quite likely that this
> happened. Conscious thinking is similar to talking-to-yourself because
> evolution happened to take advantage of auditory processing of language to
> internalize symbolic cogitation. Second, even though the same result might
> be obtained in some other way, it might be less efficient in some sense to
> do so. We might conceivably make a human-acting robot that cogitated using
> a computer separate from the one used for processing language and while I
> think it would be conscious, it would be conscious in a different way.

The most plausible explanation is that consciousness is a necessary
side-effect of the type of information processing that goes at its
simplest stimulus->response->behaviour modification.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Craig Weinberg]

That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the form of many conscious relations.

If you have one hemisphere of your brain downloaded into a computer, and then live in the computer for a while and then upload it back into your brain - if that were feasible then you would theoretically retain some of the memory of your experience. You could then judge whether you remember it as being unpleasant or different in some way, or if it was like Spock's brain and you suddenly became a large facility without it really being an issue.

Craig
 

--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Craig Weinberg]

I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost power...because...why?

Craig
 

--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain
>> responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from
>> the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing,
>> but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed.
>>
>>
>
> That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine
> which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three
> dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but
> neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of
> human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the
> form of many conscious relations.

But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what
chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing
without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or
ligand concentration. We've talked about this before and it just isn't
consistent with any scientific evidence. You interpret the existence
"spontaneous neural activity" as meaning that something magical like
this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion
> people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of
> consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it
> might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to
> accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to
> my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then
> a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification.
> Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost
> power...because...why?

No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as
to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the
ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea
is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This
consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the
billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing
and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Craig Weinberg]

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:25:02 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But you couldn't realise you felt different if the part of your brain
>> responsible for realising were receiving exactly the same inputs from
>> the rest of the brain. So you could feel different, or feel nothing,
>> but maintain the delusional belief that nothing had changed.
>>
>>
>
> That's begging the question. You are assuming that the brain is a machine
> which produces consciousness. I think that the brain is the three
> dimensional shadow of many levels of experience and it produces nothing but
> neurochemistry and alterations in our ability to access an individual set of
> human experiences. The brain does not produce consciousness, it defines the
> form of many conscious relations.

But you believe that the neurochemicals do things contrary to what
chemists would predict, for example an ion channel opening or closing
without any cause such as a change in transmembrane potential or
ligand concentration.

No, I only say that a thought can be generated from the top down, and that event is manifested in the brain as whatever changes in transmembrane potentials, ligand concentrations or ion channel status are appropriate. I can notice that I am breathing, or I can take a deep breath. Either way, there are similar neural pathways and mechanisms involved. Without knowing about free will, we could never tell the difference between the neurology of the voluntary act and the involuntary or semi-voluntary act. They would all appear not to contradict what chemists would predict, because their predictions don't specify when or where spontaneous brain activity will occur.

We've talked about this before and it just isn't
consistent with any scientific evidence.

Your existence isn't consistent with any scientific evidence either. Science looks at objects. Consciousness is a subject. As long as science defines itself in that way, it is not possible for it to explain consciousness in any meaningful way.
 

You interpret the existence
"spontaneous neural activity" as meaning that something magical like
this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all.

Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms do but computers don't.

Craig
 

--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Craig Weinberg]

You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. This being is literally made out of nothing at all except the fact of these computations taking place somewhere...but where? You say not in the consciousness of the brains of the people, so where? In the lead of the pencils on paper? In the signals of the telephone calls? Why is this new being local to this process? How is it attached to the computation-ness?

Craig
 

--
Stathis Papaioannou

[meekerdb]

Your theory is like the denial of evolution because those genetic variations might have been spontaneous (intentional) instead of random.  But the point is that there is no need to hypothesize non-random, non-caused events in the brain.  The randomness of thermodynamics, quantum radioactive decay, and external influences are plenty to account for the unpredictability you call spontaneous.  There is no need hypothesize any extra 'magic'.

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 9/5/2012 10:44 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 1:32:21 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote:

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion
> people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of
> consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it
> might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to
> accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to
> my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then
> a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification.
> Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost
> power...because...why?

No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as
to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the
ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea
is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This
consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the
billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing
and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing.

You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being.

That's where the hypothetical breaks down. The BPB would not have a body to control or a world to interact with.  Could it have dream?  Maybe - but it would need a simulated world to interact with in order to have human-like consciousness.

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

Intention is not magic and doesn't need hypothetical permission to exist. If your words are random ricochets of quantum radioactive decay or thermodynamic anomalies, then they are meaningless noise. You can't account for them because any accounting you can produce with your fingertips is only the random twitchings of your nervous system. Your view that denies the very reality of intention that you employ to state your denial. The fact that you deny that it does shows me that you are only capable of framing the question in the one way that it can never be answered. Your view is to say, I choose to deny my ability to choose.

Craig

Brent

[Craig Weinberg]

So you have a Quintillion Person Brain+World instead. That just makes the absurdity even more apparent. Now you have an invisible world conjured into the ethers out of nothing but synchronized incantations. Maybe those virtual people could form a Trillion Virtual Person Brain + WalMart and go shopping in the meta-ethers?

Craig

Brent

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> You interpret the existence
>> "spontaneous neural activity" as meaning that something magical like
>> this happens, but it doesn't mean that at all.
>
>
> Spontaneous is just that, spontaneous. It isn't magical. It is quite
> ordinary. I could do the usual things I do, or I could spontaneously decide
> to invent something new to do or think about. This is what living organisms
> do but computers don't.

That's the large scale effect of neural activity, but the neural
activity itself is deterministic. Putting it crudely, every component
in the brain moves because it is jostled by another component. This
movement may coincide with mental activity that is apparently
out-of-the-blue. For example, the brain states may progress S1, S2, S3
at times T1, T2, T3 and corresponding with mental states M1, M2 and
M3. M2 may appear as a sudden idea with no apparent antecedent, but
that does *not* mean that S1, S2 or S3 arise without antecedent. S1
leads to S2 and S2 leads to S3 in a deterministic way, entirely
explainable in terms of chemical reactions. If it were otherwise then
scientists would observe miracles at the microscopic level, and
nothing like this has ever been observed.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as
>> to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the
>> ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea
>> is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This
>> consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the
>> billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing
>> and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing.
>
>
> You are confirming what I have said. You are saying that a billion people
> doing the appropriate computations on paper with pencils and erasers and
> telephones to talk to each other would create a magical personality that
> nobody would know about but nonetheless would be born into the universe as a
> thinking, feeling, eating, crapping being. This being is literally made out
> of nothing at all except the fact of these computations taking place
> somewhere...but where? You say not in the consciousness of the brains of the
> people, so where? In the lead of the pencils on paper? In the signals of the
> telephone calls? Why is this new being local to this process? How is it
> attached to the computation-ness?

If neurons can give rise to thinking beings then why can't billions of
people? What essential quality do the neurons have that people lack?


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Roger Clough]

Hi Stathis Papaioannou

 

All mental activity is out of the blue,

meaning inextended, outside of spacetime.

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

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Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 03:06:20

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Roger Clough]

Hi Craig Weinberg

 

 

I don't think you can separate a man's brain from his mind or vice versa,

since the mind is the brain's monad and monads cannot be created or destroyed.

At least according to Leibniz.

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

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Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 21:12:22

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Roger Clough]

I must have missed something. What does the

thinking of men have to do with evolution ?

 

The evolution of plantlife ,at least, occurred before men were here.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

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Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Roger Clough]

Hi Stathis Papaioannou

 

IMHO Intelligence, as I see it, is the ability to make choices autonomously (one's own choices).

    One could, if so desired, lie about something. Or create something nonscientific (a watercolor)

 

Robot choices made by software or hardware are not autonomous because somebody outside constructed them.

 

Only living entities seem to have that mental freedom, freedom to make choices independently

of hardware/software. Or at least mostly independent.

 

So robots can be neither alive nor have any intelligence.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

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Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 21:21:03

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Roger Clough]

Hi Stathis Papaioannou

 

If the prime numbers were there from the beginning, before man,

then  I think they were mind-created (platonic) not brain-created (human creations).

 

Are the prime numbers an invention by man or one of man's discoveries ? 

 

I believe that the prime numbers are not a human invention,

they were there from the beginning. Humans can discover

them by brute calculation, but there is a pattern to them

(except for 1, 3 and 5, spaced  6 apart, plus or minus one)

 

Thus 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 etc.

 

 

for n>5, they can be placed +-1 on a grid with a spacing of 6

 

That spacing seems to me at least to be a priori, out of man's control.

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

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From: Stathis Papaioannou

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 01:24:31

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Roger,

    Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

[Roger Clough]

Hi Stephen P. King

 

 

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic example.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change itself  is a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

 

If numbers are platonic, I wonder what the  presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> I must have missed something. What does the
> thinking of men have to do with evolution ?
>
> The evolution of plantlife ,at least, occurred before men were here.

The question is whether philosophical zombies are possible or not. If
they are possible, then why are we not zombies?


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Roger Clough]

Hi Stathis Papaioannou

 

A fun question. I assume that zombies are the dead brought back

to life somehow. That monads cannot be created or destroyed

Is a peculiar feature of Leibniz's metaphysics that would enable the

resurrection of zombies.

 

Leibniz believed that even when we die, our monad will

still be attached to a dead and rotting corpse, since monads cannot be created

or destroyed and must always be attached to bodies. Heaven then at first

seems problematic, but that may be the reason for the Bible's doctrine of the resurrection of

the dead, during which we will be given spiffy new (younger probably)

bodies. Presumably those sent to hell would remain rotting bodies.

 

It seems reasonable to assume that the witches or voodoo used to

bring the zombies back from a dead state would have imperfect

abilities so that the dead would then be brought back perhaps to a

state reasembing a nightmare in which they are made to believe

that they must eat human flesh So there you are.

 

The zombies should be killable a second time like the first.

 

To answer you second question, I don't believe we are

zombies because our intellect seems not to be in a dream state and also

that we don't crave human flesh.

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

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Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 08:16:16

Subject: Re: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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[Brian Tenneson]

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.  The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

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[Stephen P. King]

Dear Brian,

    "can be defined ..." implies the necessary existence of something or process or whatever that does the act of defining the set. Truth values do not do this, btw. Sets are collections defined in terms of functions, but numbers in-themselves are not those functions.. Unless you are considering some other ideas of what sets are... If we are going to think of set as having ontological primacy we have to have a notion of a set that does not need a membership function.

[Brian Tenneson]

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that sets and membership cannot be defined in terms of a more primary mathematical concept.  Functions can be defined in terms of this primitive called sets.  Numbers are sets; natural numbers are defined directly in terms of sets (via the Von Neumann approach) and every more complicated number set can be defined in terms of the previous type of number set all the way up to real numbers, complex numbers, and nonstandard number sets.  The only type of number I am not sure how they can be seen as sets is that of surreal numbers described by Conway I believe.  I don't know much about surreal numbers.

Yes, this approach necessitates the existence of sets and membership.

There probably are other ways to define numbers but all properties that we want numbers to have can come from how they are defined in terms of sets.  In other words, the set theoretical description of various number sets is sufficient.

Kronecker said "God made the integers; all else is the work of man."  I would amend that to say God made sets (and membership); all else is the work of man.

--

[Roger Clough]

Hi Brian Tenneson

 

I'm just to establish the fact that numbers are a priori

and so not created by man. Given that, it doesn't matter if sets are

a priori or not. Presumably (I am not a mathematician)  you cannot

have sets without numbers, so the numbers rule.

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 10:28:51

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.� The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

�

�

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic锟絜xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change锟絠tself 锟絠s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

�

If numbers are platonic,锟絀 wonder what the� presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

�

�

�

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷� Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

[Roger Clough]

Hi Brian Tenneson

 

Could be, but I'll stick with Kronecer.

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 11:09:25

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that sets and membership cannot be defined in terms of a more primary mathematical concept.� Functions can be defined in terms of this primitive called sets.� Numbers are sets; natural numbers are defined directly in terms of sets (via the Von Neumann approach) and every more complicated number set can be defined in terms of the previous type of number set all the way up to real numbers, complex numbers, and nonstandard number sets.� The only type of number I am not sure how they can be seen as sets is that of surreal numbers described by Conway I believe.� I don't know much about surreal numbers.

Yes, this approach necessitates the existence of sets and membership.

There probably are other ways to define numbers but all properties that we want numbers to have can come from how they are defined in terms of sets.� In other words, the set theoretical description of various number sets is sufficient.

Kronecker said "God made the integers; all else is the work of man."� I would amend that to say God made sets (and membership); all else is the work of man.

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

Dear Brian,

锟斤拷� "can be defined ..." implies the necessary existence of something or process or whatever that does the act of defining the set. Truth values do not do this, btw. Sets are collections defined in terms of functions, but numbers in-themselves are not those functions.. Unless you are considering some other ideas of what sets are... If we are going to think of set as having ontological primacy we have to have a notion of a set that does not need a membership function.

On 9/6/2012 10:28 AM, Brian Tenneson wrote:

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.� The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

�

�

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic锟絜xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change锟絠tself 锟絠s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

�

If numbers are platonic,锟絀 wonder what the� presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

�

�

�

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷� Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

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[Stephen P. King]

On 9/6/2012 11:09 AM, Brian Tenneson wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that sets and membership cannot be defined in terms of a more primary mathematical concept.  Functions can be defined in terms of this primitive called sets.  Numbers are sets; natural numbers are defined directly in terms of sets (via the Von Neumann approach) and every more complicated number set can be defined in terms of the previous type of number set all the way up to real numbers, complex numbers, and nonstandard number sets.  The only type of number I am not sure how they can be seen as sets is that of surreal numbers described by Conway I believe.  I don't know much about surreal numbers.

Yes, this approach necessitates the existence of sets and membership.

Hi Brian,

    Surreals and hyperreals and non-standard numbers and so on, the list is long! My point is that there really is no such thing as an absolutely irreducible entity.

There probably are other ways to define numbers but all properties that we want numbers to have can come from how they are defined in terms of sets.  In other words, the set theoretical description of various number sets is sufficient.

    Depending on what intends to try to explain, but sure.

Kronecker said "God made the integers; all else is the work of man."  I would amend that to say God made sets (and membership); all else is the work of man.

    Balderdash! We can use the God concept as a way to capture the sum of what exists and its evolution and so forth, but it is just another word that may not refer to anything that really exists.

[Brian Tenneson]

Sure you can have sets without numbers.

The popular set theory's development known as ZFC is not based on numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%E2%80%93Fraenkel_set_theory

Numbers are defined in terms of sets.  What that means is that all numbers are sets but not all sets are numbers.

I do agree that numbers are not created by man but neither are sets.

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:19 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Brian Tenneson

 

I'm just to establish the fact that numbers are a priori

and so not created by man. Given that, it doesn't matter if sets are

a priori or not. Presumably (I am not a mathematician)  you cannot

have sets without numbers, so the numbers rule.

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 10:28:51

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.� The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

�

�

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic爀xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change爄tself 爄s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

�

If numbers are platonic,營 wonder what the� presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

�

�

�

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

牋� Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

[Stephen P. King]

Dear Roger,

    Why is it that people persist in even suggesting that numbers are "created by man"? Why the anthropocentric bias? Pink Ponies might have actually crated them, or Polka-dotted Unicorns! The idea is just silly! The point is that properties do not occur at the whim of any one thing, never have and never will.

On 9/6/2012 11:19 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Brian Tenneson

 

I'm just to establish the fact that numbers are a priori

and so not created by man. Given that, it doesn't matter if sets are

a priori or not. Presumably (I am not a mathematician)  you cannot

have sets without numbers, so the numbers rule.

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 10:28:51

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.� The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

�

�

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic爀xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change爄tself 爄s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

�

If numbers are platonic,營 wonder what the� presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

�

�

�

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

牋� Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

[meekerdb]

On 9/5/2012 11:18 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Intention is not magic and doesn't need hypothetical permission to exist. If your words are random ricochets of quantum radioactive decay or thermodynamic anomalies, then they are meaningless noise. You can't account for them because any accounting you can produce with your fingertips is only the random twitchings of your nervous system. Your view that denies the very reality of intention that you employ to state your denial. The fact that you deny that it does shows me that you are only capable of framing the question in the one way that it can never be answered. Your view is to say, I choose to deny my ability to choose.

No, that is a misconception.  Simply because there is some randomness at a molecular level doesn't make the whole process noise.  Or looked at another way the structure of you brain amplifies and shapes the noise and combines it with perception to produce your actions in a way that we recognize as constituting your consistent character.

Brent

[Brian Tenneson]

I couldn't agree more.

--

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

    Notice that both the duplication and the teleportation, as discussed, assume that the information content is exactly copyable.

Not exactly. Only sufficiently accurately to maintain your consciousness.

    If the copy is not exact then functional equivalence is not exact either and this is fatal for the model.

Then you should mourn the Stephen P. King of and hour ago.  He's been fatally changed.

    Never, I am not the impermanent image on the world stage. I am the fire that casts the images.

This is not qubits that are involved... The point here is that this comp model assume that Reality is, at is ground level, classical.

It doesn't assume that.  A fully quantum computation can be performed on a classical, i.e. Turing, computer.  Bruno would just say it just takes a lower level of substitution.

    Yes, a classical computer can emulate a finite quantum computation given sufficient resources. This is not the same thing as the EPR effect that I am considering. The idea that I am considering is more like this:

Consider the visible physical universe. We know from observation that not only is it open on one end and that it's expansion is accelerating. People want to put this off on some "Dark Energy". I think that it is something else, driving it. Consider a classical computer that needs to emulate a quantum computation. It has to have even increasing resources to keep up with the QC if the QC is modeling an expanding universe. It we take Bruno's AR literally, where are these resources coming from?

They are computations.  They exist in Platonia. He's trying to explain matter, so he can't very well assume material resources.  The world is made out of arithmetic, an infinite resource.

    Sure, but the explanation of the idea requires matter to be communicated. A slight oversight perhaps.

But there is matter, in the comp theory. That is all what UDA explains, and what the Z and X logics axiomatizes. 

    Let's turn the tables and make Reality Quantum in its essence. The classical computation may just be something that the QC is running.

There's not difference as computations.

    You are correct but only in the absence of considerations of inputs and outputs and their concurrency. Abstract theory leaves out the obvious, but when it pretends to toss out the obvious, that is going to far.

Matter is not obvious. 

 

What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC.

You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources.  Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them.

    No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair.

Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. 

What do you mean by "real computations"? Do you mean "physical computations"? Why would they lack resources?

Bruno

What if we have an infinite and eternal QC running infinitely many finite CCs and each of these CC's is trying to emulate a single QC. Map this idea out and look at the nice self-referential loop that this defines!

You're confused.

    Maybe. I can handle being wrong. I learn from mistakes.

Brent
--

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

That is step 6.

I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading "In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is
represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow" from 1.
 

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations.

So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness?

Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA).

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely.

You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption.

Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality

At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum. 

and presume consciousness to explain consciousness.

Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain (from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our hypothesis and reason, and propose tests.

Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or matter at all?

Comp is used to formulate the problem in math. Then we can see the general shape of the solution, which is a reduction of physics into arithmetic, with the advantage that we get a clear explanation of the difference of qualia and quanta. And we can test the quanta.

If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos, not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities.
 

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.

It can't ask for anything by itself though.

Proof.

We are the ones to whom the significance relates.

Actually God told me yesterday that we are wrong on this. Only the jumping spider can do that.

Information is nothing but an experience that can be remembered and transmitted to other experiencers through formation.
 

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

It is a discovery by mathematicians. 

And it is a valid discovery in the context of mathematical theory, but it doesn't translate to the realism of subjectivity and physics.

Physics, or not physics are not among the hypothesis. More in the questioning.

It assumes weightless computation that generates weight (for not particular reason).

We search the reason. You say "for no particular reason" without providing a reason.

 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".

Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.

I admit that I have only a wisp of understanding about modal logic and Gödelian-Löbianian ideas, but I feel like even this surface understanding is enough to tell me that it is ultimately a red herring.

This is self-defeating.

These concepts seem to just be about self-reference - maps of maps with no territory. Great for simulating some aspects of thought, because indeed, thinking has to do with copying copies and intellectual grammar, but feeling doesn't.

The machine knows that, already. Feeling and first person notion have no 3p representation at all. For logical reason, explainable with the math above.

These are ways of mentioning how ideas are mentioned. In reality, this sentence does not refer to itself. There are only characters, or pixels, or optical phenomena here. The significance does not arise from the same level in which it is transmitted. This is the Chinese Room. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

This has already been commented. You confuse the 3p self-reference and the 1p self-reference. I think.

Bruno

Craig

Bruno

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

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 18:12, Roger Clough wrote:

 

I don't think that life or mind or intelligence

can be teleported. Especially since nobody knows what

they are.

 

I also don't believe that you can download

the contents of somebody's brain.

This is just restating that you don't believe in comp. 

OK, develop your theory, and predict something testable, and we will better understand what you mean.

If not it looks just  like a form of racism based on magic.

Bruno

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/5/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Bruno Marchal

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-05, 11:04:53

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

On 05 Sep 2012, at 06:14, meekerdb wrote:

> On 9/4/2012 7:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

>> On Tue, Sep 04, 2012 at 06:48:58PM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>> I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:
>>>

>>> *yes, doctor*: This is really the sleight of hand that props up

>>> the entire
>>> thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain
>>> function and that your brain function can be replaced by the
>>> functioning of
>>> non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human
>>> individuality is
>>> a universal commodity.

>> Calling it a sleight of hand is a bit rough. It is the meat of the
>> comp assumption, and spelling it out this way makes it very
>> explicit. Either you agree you can be copied (without feeling a
>> thing), or you don't. If you do, you must face up to the consequences
>> of the argument, if you don't, then you do not accept
>> computationalism, and the consequences of the UDA do not apply to
>> your
>> worldview.
>
> I suppose I can be copied. But does it follow that I am just the
> computations in my brain. It seems likely that I also require an
> outside environment/world with which I interact in order to remain
> conscious. Bruno passes this off by saying it's just a matter of
> the level of substitution, perhaps your local environment or even
> the whole galaxy must be replaced by a digital representation in
> order to maintain your consciousness unchanged. But this bothers
> me. Suppose it is the whole galaxy, or the whole observed
> universe. Does it really mean anything then to say your brain has
> been replaced ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE? It's just the assertion
> that everything is computable.

That's a good argument for saying that the level of substitution is
not that low. But the reasoning would still go through, and we would
lead to a unique computable universe. That is the only way to make a
digital physics consistent (as I forget to say sometimes). Then you
get a more complex "other mind problem", and something like David
Nyman- Hoyle beam would be needed, and would need to be separate from
the physical reality, making the big physical whole incomplete, etc.
yes this bothers me too. Needless to say, I tend to believe that if
comp is true, the level is much higher.



>
>>
>>> *Church thesis*: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of

>>> resources,
>>> supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a
>>> theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from
>>> realism from
>>> the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does
>>> data enter
>>> or exit a computation?

>> It is necessarily an abstract mathematical thesis. The latter two
>> questions simply are relevant.
>>
>>> *Arithmetical Realism*: The idea that truth values are self

>>> justifying
>>> independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in
>>> the dark.
>>> Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the
>>> beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic
>>> constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of
>>> that.

>> AR is not just about internal consistency of mathematics, it is an
>> ontological commitment about the natural numbers. Whatever primitive
>> reality is, AR implies that the primitive reality models the natural
>> numbers.
>
> ISTM that Bruno rejects any reality behind the natural numbers (or
> other system of computation). If often argues that the natural
> numbers exist, because they satisfy true propositions: There exists
> a prime number between 1 and 3, therefore 2 exists. This assumes a
> Platonist view of mathematical objects, which Peter D. Jones has
> argued against.

? I would say that the contrary is true. It is because natural numbers
exists, and seems to obeys laws like addition and multiplication that
true propositions can be made on them. 2 exists, and only 1 and 2
divides 2, so 2 is prime, and thus prime numbers exists. 2 itself
exists just because Ex(x = s(s(0))) is true. Indeed take x = s(s(0)),
and the proposition follows from s(s(0)) = s(s(0)).

Bruno



>
> Brent
>
>>
>> In fact, for COMP, and the UDA, Turing completeness of primitive
>> reality is
>> sufficient, but Bruno chose the natural numbers as his base reality
>> because it is more familiar to his correspondents.

>>
>>> Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the
>>> pull toward
>>> arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come
>>> from?
>>>

>> Again, these two questions seem irrelevant.
>>
>>> Craig

>>>
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[meekerdb]

On 9/6/2012 11:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content,
> obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space,

Even if it is not *in* spacetime, my consciousness seems to depend on some particular
localized matter in spacetime.

> but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness.

An atemporal consciousness sounds like a contradiction in terms. If we rely on our
intuitive introspection to know what consciousness is (as you often say) we can't then
just throw away that insight and say consciousness is something else.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 21:36, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/5/2012 8:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic,

I don't think I understand that remark.  Doesn't arithmetic *assume* combinators, i.e.  + and * ?

Combinators are defined by

K is a combinator

S is a combinator

if x and y are combinator, then (x, y) are combinators.

So they are K, S, (K K), (S S), (K S), (S K), (K (K K)), ((K K) K), etc.

The left parenthesis are often not written, for reason of readability.

The axioms are

Kxy = x

Sxyz = xz(yz).

This is Turing universal, and you can define numbers, + and * in that system. See the lovely book by Smullyan "To mock a mocking bird" for more, or my little course on them on this list.

Likewise, you can define them, and emulate them, using only 0, s(0), ... and the laws:

x+0 = x

x+s(y) = s(x+y)

x*0=0

x*s(y)=(x*y)+x

Which is also Turing universal.

Bruno

Brent

and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can "know" it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space.

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2012, at 22:24, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 11:37 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 On 05 Sep 2012, at 14:01, Russell Standish wrote:

For certain choices of "this or that", the ultimate reality is
actually unknowable. For instance, the choice of a Turing complete
basis means that the hardware running the computations is completely
unknowable to the denizens of that computation.

Not really. With comp we know that the *physical* "bottom" is the result of the competition among all universal machines, (by UD-7 or 8) and this leads to (re)define physics by such a competition/measure on all computations. The initial base ontology is really irrelevant, and it makes no sense to choose one or another, except for technical commodities.

 Dear Bruno,

    I am trying hard to be sure that I understand your ideas here. Could you specify the cardinality of "all universal machines"?

Aleph_0

How many of them possibly exist?

Aleph_0, like the primes.

Put in another way: there is no ontological hardware. The hardware and wetware are emergent on the digital basic ontology (which can be described by numbers or combinators as they describe the same computations and the same object: you can prove the existence of combinators in arithmetic, and you can prove the existence of numbers from the combinator S and K. So the basic ontology is really the same and we can "know" it (betting on comp). It is really like the choice of a base in a linear space.

    So is there or is there not something that corresponds to "resources" (such as memory) for the Universal machines in your thought?

Yes, Stephen, most digital beings have memories, and things like that. All universal machine defines their own way to memorize, and interact. 

And none, a priori, use any physical resource, only when they are implemented in a special universal one which we bet support us too, but that is a relative situation. 

Please ask if not clear, or read some good book on computer science. All the (mathematical) machine have memories or equivalent. Keep in mind that they can all emulate each other. So arithmetic (above) can emulate a UNIVAC with transistors and tube, like it can emulate a quantum topological modular functor à-la Kitaev-Friedman.

Bruno

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

[Craig Weinberg]

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

That is step 6.

I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading "In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is
represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow" from 1.
 

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations.

So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness?

Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA).

If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to? In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and write down numbers that they get from each other and perform arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in? What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it could, why should it do such a thing?

 

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely.

You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption.

Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality

At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum. 

and presume consciousness to explain consciousness.

Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain (from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our hypothesis and reason, and propose tests.

Why not just recognize it formally and say that consciousness doesn't need any explanation other than the experience of "this" and "that".
.

Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or matter at all?

Comp is used to formulate the problem in math. Then we can see the general shape of the solution, which is a reduction of physics into arithmetic, with the advantage that we get a clear explanation of the difference of qualia and quanta. And we can test the quanta.

I'm ok with reducing physics to math or math to physics, but neither have any link back to experience.
 

If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos, not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities.
 

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.

It can't ask for anything by itself though.

Proof.

We can't coerce data into keeping secrets. All forms of secrecy require some kind of social control of information. Data will always talk to strangers. (see my post today: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/everything-list/L9LbbtQAN9U)
 

We are the ones to whom the significance relates.

Actually God told me yesterday that we are wrong on this. Only the jumping spider can do that.

Jumping spiders and God are us too.
 

Information is nothing but an experience that can be remembered and transmitted to other experiencers through formation.
 

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

It is a discovery by mathematicians. 

And it is a valid discovery in the context of mathematical theory, but it doesn't translate to the realism of subjectivity and physics.

Physics, or not physics are not among the hypothesis. More in the questioning.

It assumes weightless computation that generates weight (for not particular reason).

We search the reason. You say "for no particular reason" without providing a reason.

The realism of physical weight in the universe is what I am saying is one of the things that is not derived from pure computation. There seems to be no anchoring in mass (despite info-theoretic confusions about entropy). To comp, it makes no difference whether a program operates on a galactic scale or microscopic scale - the code is weightless. That is not our experience of galaxies and atoms though.
 

 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".

Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.

I admit that I have only a wisp of understanding about modal logic and Gödelian-Löbianian ideas, but I feel like even this surface understanding is enough to tell me that it is ultimately a red herring.

This is self-defeating.

Why, do you feel yourself to be defeated ;) ?
 

These concepts seem to just be about self-reference - maps of maps with no territory. Great for simulating some aspects of thought, because indeed, thinking has to do with copying copies and intellectual grammar, but feeling doesn't.

The machine knows that, already. Feeling and first person notion have no 3p representation at all. For logical reason, explainable with the math above.

I agree. Why does 1p machine theory propose the existence of feeling though?
 

These are ways of mentioning how ideas are mentioned. In reality, this sentence does not refer to itself. There are only characters, or pixels, or optical phenomena here. The significance does not arise from the same level in which it is transmitted. This is the Chinese Room. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

This has already been commented. You confuse the 3p self-reference and the 1p self-reference. I think.

I don't think that I do (nor does Searle or Korzybski, Magritte...)

Craig
 

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/6/2012 1:44 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

snip

 

What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC.

You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources.  Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them.

    No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair.

Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. 

What do you mean by "real computations"? Do you mean "physical computations"? Why would they lack resources?

Bruno

Dear Bruno,

    I am talking about physical systems that have the capacity of carrying out in their dynamics the functions that implement the abstract computations that you are considering. The very thing that you claim is unnecessary.

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi Stathis Papaioannou
>
> A fun question. I assume that zombies are the dead brought back
> to life somehow. That monads cannot be created or destroyed
> Is a peculiar feature of Leibniz's metaphysics that would enable the
> resurrection of zombies.
>
> Leibniz believed that even when we die, our monad will
> still be attached to a dead and rotting corpse, since monads cannot be
> created
> or destroyed and must always be attached to bodies. Heaven then at first
> seems problematic, but that may be the reason for the Bible's doctrine of
> the resurrection of
> the dead, during which we will be given spiffy new (younger probably)
> bodies. Presumably those sent to hell would remain rotting bodies.
>
> It seems reasonable to assume that the witches or voodoo used to
> bring the zombies back from a dead state would have imperfect
> abilities so that the dead would then be brought back perhaps to a
> state reasembing a nightmare in which they are made to believe
> that they must eat human flesh So there you are.
>
> The zombies should be killable a second time like the first.
>
> To answer you second question, I don't believe we are
> zombies because our intellect seems not to be in a dream state and also
> that we don't crave human flesh.

A philosophical zombie is a being that acts as if it's conscious but
isn't really:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Sep 2012, at 20:44, meekerdb wrote:

> On 9/6/2012 11:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its
>> local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to
>> time and space,
>
> Even if it is not *in* spacetime, my consciousness seems to depend
> on some particular localized matter in spacetime.

Seeming can be wrong. Only the content of consciousness depends on the
particular matter localized in space-time.

>
>> but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness.
>
> An atemporal consciousness sounds like a contradiction in terms.

I agree. I don't use that in the reasoning. It is a recent suggestion,
corroborated by the salvia reports and experiences. I was used to
agree with Brouwer that consciousness and subjective time are not
separable, like the 1p logic examplifies (S4Grz is both a temporal
logic, and the machine's 1p logic), but I am open to change my mind on
this. We can hallucinate being conscious in a completely atemporal
mode. I would not have believed this without living it, as it seems
indeed to be a contradiction from the usual mundane state of
consciousness.
But it makes sense in arithmetic, or for the consciousness of the
universal non Löbian machine. Apparently, subjective time might be a
result of self-consciousness, and not just consciousness. This makes
consciousness a bit more "primitive" than I thought indeed.

> If we rely on our intuitive introspection to know what
> consciousness is (as you often say) we can't then just throw away
> that insight and say consciousness is something else.

Yes. That is why such an insight requires "altered state of
consciousness". I agree it is weird, but it makes sense if we agree to
declare non Löbian machine already conscious.

I have no certainty at all in this matter. The experiences have just
added one more doubt, on the link between subjective time and
consciousness. I would have thought that by losing Löbianity, you
loose consciousness, but it seems that is not the case. We need more
data and reports to better figure out what happens.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Sep 2012, at 21:25, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Thursday, September 6, 2012 2:02:02 PM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 17:27, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:50:02 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 03:48, Craig Weinberg wrote:

Taking another look at Sane2004. This isn't so much as a challenge to Bruno, just sharing my notes of why I disagree. Not sure how far I will get this time, but here are my objections to the first step and the stipulated assumptions of comp. I understand that the point is to accept the given definition of comp, and in that respect, I have no reason to doubt that Bruno has accomplished what he sets out to as far as making a good theory within comp, and if he has not, I wouldn't be qualified to comment on it anyhow. From my perspective however, this is all beside the point, since the only point that matters is the actual truth of what consciousness actually is, and what is it's actual relation to physics and information. Given the fragile and precious nature of our own survival, I think that implications for teleportation and AI simulation/personhood which are derived from pure theory rather than thorough consideration of realism would be reckless to say the least.

Step one talks about teleportation in terms of being reconstructed with ambient organic materials. If comp were true though, no organic materials or reconstructions would be necessary. The scanning into a universal machine would be sufficient.

That is step 6.

I haven't even gotten to step 2 yet. I'm reading "In the figure the teleported individual is represented by a black box. Its annihilation is
represented by a white box appearing at the left of the arrow" from 1.
 

Taking this to the China Brain level, the universal machine could be a trillion people with notebooks, pencils, paper, and erasers, talking to each other over cell phones. This activity would have to collectively result in the teleported person now being conjured as if by incantation as a consequence of...what? The writing and erasing on paper? The calling and speaking on cell phones? Where does the experience of the now disembodied person come in?

As you illustrate here, plausibly not on the physical means used by the brain. Step 8 shows that indeed the physical has nothing to do with consciousness, except as a content of consciousness. Keeping comp here, we associate consciousness with the logical abstract computations.

So the person's consciousness arises spontaneously through the overall effort-ness behind the writing, erasing, and calling, or does it gradually constellate from lesser fragments of disconnected effort-ness?

Consciousness does not arise. It is not in space, nor in time. Its local content, obtained by differentiation, internally can refer to time and space, but that's particular content of an atemporal consciousness. I would say (no need of this in UDA).

If you exclude space and time, what kind of locality do you refer to?

The computational locality used in the local universal system.

In my example, a quintillion people call each other on the phone and write down numbers that they get from each other and perform arithmetic functions on them (which in turn may inform them on how to process subsequent arithmetic instructions, etc). Ok. So where does the interpretation of these trillion events per second come in? What knows what all of the computations add up to be? At what point does the 'local content' begin to itch and turn blue? Even if it could, why should it do such a thing?

Because it concerns a machine looking at herself and its probable environment. Then the logic shows that it is unavoidable that the machine get non justifiable truth. You can see that informally with thought experiment, like in UDA, or formally in the logics of self-reference.

 

Step one talks about annihilation as well, but it is not clear what role this actually plays in the process, except to make it seem more like teleportation and less like what it actually would be, which is duplication. If I scan an original document and email the scan, I have sent a duplicate, not teleported the original.

Right. Classical teleportation = duplication + annihilation of the original. That's step 5, precisely.

You understand the reasoning very well, but we know that the problem for you is in the assumption.

Yes, the assumption seems to presume physicality to disprove physicality

At some place, yes. In a reductio ad absurdum. 

and presume consciousness to explain consciousness.

Yes. Like we presume (at some metalevel) anything we want to explain (from some other realm). It is not a lott, but science works that way. We don't know the public truth. We can only make clear our hypothesis and reason, and propose tests.

Why not just recognize it formally and say that consciousness doesn't need any explanation other than the experience of "this" and "that".

I am OK with this, and that is why I refer mostly to the first person discourse than to consciousness per se.

But of course an explanation of why the 1p comes from is given.

.

Computation seems to have nothing to do with either one of them in comp other than the fact of the plasticity and aloofness of comp can be seen as a sign that it is neither mind nor matter. It still doesn't answer the question of why have appearances of mind or matter at all?

Comp is used to formulate the problem in math. Then we can see the general shape of the solution, which is a reduction of physics into arithmetic, with the advantage that we get a clear explanation of the difference of qualia and quanta. And we can test the quanta.

I'm ok with reducing physics to math or math to physics, but neither have any link back to experience.

Physics doesn't, except an embryonic one with thermodynamic and Everett QM. Computer science does, and that is what I am illustrating, notably through the duplication experiences, and the intensional variants of G and G*.

 

If there is a reason, then that reason is the nature of the cosmos, not the filing and organizing system that indexes it's activities.
 

I have problems with all three of the comp assumptions:

yes, doctor: This is really the sleight of hand that props up the entire thought experiment. If you agree that you are nothing but your brain function and that your brain function can be replaced by the functioning of non-brain devices, then you have already agreed that human individuality is a universal commodity.

Why? A program or piece of information is not nothing. It asks works, can be paid for, can be precious and rare, etc.

It can't ask for anything by itself though.

Proof.

We can't coerce data into keeping secrets. All forms of secrecy require some kind of social control of information. Data will always talk to strangers. (see my post today: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/everything-list/L9LbbtQAN9U)

? 

 

We are the ones to whom the significance relates.

Actually God told me yesterday that we are wrong on this. Only the jumping spider can do that.

Jumping spiders and God are us too.

OK :)

 

Information is nothing but an experience that can be remembered and transmitted to other experiencers through formation.
 

Church thesis: Views computation in isolation, irrespective of resources, supervenience on object-formed computing elements, etc. This is a theoretical theory of computation, completely divorced from realism from the start. What is it that does the computing? How and why does data enter or exit a computation?

It is a discovery by mathematicians. 

And it is a valid discovery in the context of mathematical theory, but it doesn't translate to the realism of subjectivity and physics.

Physics, or not physics are not among the hypothesis. More in the questioning.

It assumes weightless computation that generates weight (for not particular reason).

We search the reason. You say "for no particular reason" without providing a reason.

The realism of physical weight in the universe is what I am saying is one of the things that is not derived from pure computation.

Indeed. Such a realism is shown to be an illusion, even if a persistent one.

There seems to be no anchoring in mass (despite info-theoretic confusions about entropy). To comp, it makes no difference whether a program operates on a galactic scale or microscopic scale - the code is weightless. That is not our experience of galaxies and atoms though.

But we can justify exactly that. Those are experiences, and they correspond to stable patterns of information, not to primitive mass or realistic physics. 

You talk, like many, like if the primitive physical universe was a datum, and not an hypothesis. This comes from the fact that such an hypothesis has been hardwired in our brain since a long time, for it of course an hypothesis. Indeed, it is refuted in the comp theory. You might think that this refute comp, but then we have already agreed on that. That is why I say that your position is coherent; you keep matter and abandon comp. No problem, given that my point is that *in* comp, we have to explain matter from non material relations.

 

 

Arithmetical Realism: The idea that truth values are self justifying independently of subjectivity or physics is literally a shot in the dark. Like yes, doctor, this is really swallowing the cow whole from the beginning and saying that the internal consistency of arithmetic constitutes universal supremacy without any real indication of that. Wouldn't computers tend to be self-correcting by virtue of the pull toward arithmetic truth within each logic circuit? Where do errors come from?

They come from the inadequacy between belief and truth. Incompleteness makes this unavoidable at the root, and that is why the logic of Bp & p is different from the logic of Bp, despite G* proves Bp -> p. G does not prove it, so correct machine already knows that they might be incorrect "soon enough".

Your last paragraph confirms you are still thinking of machines and numbers in a pre-Godelian or pre-Löbian way, I think.

I admit that I have only a wisp of understanding about modal logic and Gödelian-Löbianian ideas, but I feel like even this surface understanding is enough to tell me that it is ultimately a red herring.

This is self-defeating.

Why, do you feel yourself to be defeated ;) ?
 

These concepts seem to just be about self-reference - maps of maps with no territory. Great for simulating some aspects of thought, because indeed, thinking has to do with copying copies and intellectual grammar, but feeling doesn't.

The machine knows that, already. Feeling and first person notion have no 3p representation at all. For logical reason, explainable with the math above.

I agree. Why does 1p machine theory propose the existence of feeling though?

Feeling are handled by Bp & Dt & p, and behave like feeling and qualia. They have shape, and many attributes, but are private and incommunicable as such, etc.

 

These are ways of mentioning how ideas are mentioned. In reality, this sentence does not refer to itself. There are only characters, or pixels, or optical phenomena here. The significance does not arise from the same level in which it is transmitted. This is the Chinese Room. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

This has already been commented. You confuse the 3p self-reference and the 1p self-reference. I think.

I don't think that I do (nor does Searle or Korzybski, Magritte...)

I don't see a reference to first person in "ceci n'est pas une pipe". Everything is 3p, at that level. The 1p is a fixed point of personal doubting procedures, and is not representable in any way, provably so for machines.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again.

I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and "solid" than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :).

Bruno

-- 
Onward!

Stephen

http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Sep 2012, at 16:28, Brian Tenneson wrote:

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets.  The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

I would say "invented", as many different notion of sets can exist.

You can take sets for the ontology, but it makes everything more complex, and possibly confusing. 

With comp the cardinal ontology is undecidable, and I think it is simpler to limit to the finite things. If you want set, with comp a good choice would be the hereditarily finite sets, but it is equivalent (for the computability and provability) with PA.

A set seems to me to be a typical construction of the mind. Like physics, analysis, etc.

But comp is consistent with set theory, a priori, so no real problems here.

Bruno

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

[Roger Clough]

Hi Brian Tenneson

 

Whether or not sets were there (true) a priori is a subject of debate.

You might want to see

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics

 

My own (uninformed) view is based on Leibnizian thinking.

He lists two kinds oif logic, necessary or rational logic,

which is always either true or false, and contingent logic,

which can be true in some cases and no0t uin other ones.

 

To this way of thinking, all neccessary (rational) truths

since tyhey must always be either true or false, if true

were always true and therefore necessary truths must

be a priori.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 11:31:35

Subject: Re: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

Sure you can have sets without numbers.

The popular set theory's development known as ZFC is not based on numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zermelo%E2%80%93Fraenkel_set_theory

Numbers are defined in terms of sets.锟斤拷 What that means is that all numbers are sets but not all sets are numbers.

I do agree that numbers are not created by man but neither are sets.

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:19 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Brian Tenneson

锟斤拷

I'm just to establish the fact that numbers are a priori

and so not created by man. Given that, it doesn't matter if sets are

a priori or not. Presumably (I am not a mathematician) 锟斤拷you cannot

have sets without numbers, so the numbers rule.

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 10:28:51

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets. The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic锟絜xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change锟絠tself 锟絠s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

If numbers are platonic,锟絀 wonder what the presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷 Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

[Roger Clough]

Hi Bruno Marchal

 

Eventually you will have to answer the question of what is teleportable.

I have no doubt that someday matter can be transported, even information.

Even energy.

 

But the more important question to me is whether or not experiences

(the stuff of life or consciousness) can be transported.

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Bruno Marchal

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 13:44:55

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

[Roger Clough]

Hi Stephen P. King

 

I believe that what is necessarily true (rationally true)

had to be always true and thus a priori. Man may think he

created numbers or whatever, but whatever was there

before man (to allow physics etc. to happen) something else

had to create. Man simply discovered numbers.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 11:35:56

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷锟斤拷锟斤拷 Why is it that people persist in even suggesting that numbers are "created by man"? Why the anthropocentric bias? Pink Ponies might have actually crated them, or Polka-dotted Unicorns! The idea is just silly! The point is that properties do not occur at the whim of any one thing, never have and never will.

On 9/6/2012 11:19 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Brian Tenneson

锟斤拷

I'm just to establish the fact that numbers are a priori

and so not created by man. Given that, it doesn't matter if sets are

a priori or not. Presumably (I am not a mathematician) 锟斤拷you cannot

have sets without numbers, so the numbers rule.

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

锟斤拷

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Brian Tenneson

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 10:28:51

Subject: Re: Where do numbers and geometry come from ?

All numbers can be defined in terms of sets. The question becomes this:
do sets have ontological primacy relative to mankind or are sets invented or created by mankind?

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

Yes, of course, but I wanted a more obvious, dramatic锟絜xample.

The philosophy of mathematics says something like the numbers

belong to a static or eternal world, change锟絠tself 锟絠s a property of geometry.

Numbers and geometry thus belong to the platonic world,

which is forbidden or at least not consistent with the philosophy

of materialism, IMHO.

If numbers are platonic,锟絀 wonder what the presumably materialist

Steven Hawkings has to say about their origin in his recent

book on numbers.

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/6/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stephen P. King

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 07:53:18

Subject: Re: Could we have invented the prime numbers ?

Dear Roger,

锟斤拷 Could the mere possibility of being a number (without the specificity of which one) be considered to be "there from the beginning"?

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/7/2012 2:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> It is a recent suggestion, corroborated by the salvia reports and
> experiences. I was used to agree with Brouwer that consciousness and
> subjective time are not separable, like the 1p logic examplifies
> (S4Grz is both a temporal logic, and the machine's 1p logic), but I am
> open to change my mind on this. We can hallucinate being conscious in
> a completely atemporal mode. I would not have believed this without
> living it, as it seems indeed to be a contradiction from the usual
> mundane state of consciousness.
> But it makes sense in arithmetic, or for the consciousness of the

> universal non L�bian machine. Apparently, subjective time might be a

> result of self-consciousness, and not just consciousness. This makes
> consciousness a bit more "primitive" than I thought indeed.

Dear Bruno,

Could you explain a bit more what the experience of "being
conscious in a completely atemporal mode" was like? Where you aware of
any kind of change in your environment? Was one's internal narrative (of
external events) silent?

I have always suspected that "subjective time might be a result of
self-consciousness" but have not had any way of discussing the idea
coherently. If we stipulate that "subjective time" is a form of noticing
that one is noticing changes (a second order aspect) in one's
environment, then this would fall into being a result of
self-consciousness (which is obviously a second order effect at least to
me). I have debated this idea before on this List with Russell Standish
but we didn't seem to reach any definite conclusion.

[Roger Clough]

 

An intention is a desire in the form of thought,

so is nonphysical, as are all of the processes of mind.

In Leibniz's philosophy, intentions are

essentially what L calls "appetites" in

monads. They are goal-directed,

following what Aristotle called "end causation",

which are potential, pulling forces,characteristic

of life, rather than the effective, acting or "pushing" forces

characteristic of mechanics.

 

 

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: meekerdb

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 11:38:19

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

[Stephen P. King]

On 9/7/2012 3:14 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 07 Sep 2012, at 04:20, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/6/2012 1:44 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2012, at 08:38, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 2:03 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 10:07 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 9/5/2012 12:38 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 9/4/2012 8:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

snip

 

What is most interesting is that the QC can run an arbitrary number of classical computations, all at the same time. The CC can only barely compute the emulation of a single QC.

You are talking about QC and CC as though they were material computers with finite resources.  Once you've assumed material resources you've lost any non-circular possibility of explaining them.

    No, I am pointing out that real computations require real resources. Only when we ignore this fact we can get away with floating castles in midair.

Brent just point out that arithmetic contains infinite resource. 

What do you mean by "real computations"? Do you mean "physical computations"? Why would they lack resources?

Bruno

Dear Bruno,

    I am talking about physical systems that have the capacity of carrying out in their dynamics the functions that implement the abstract computations that you are considering. The very thing that you claim is unnecessary.

But you claim that too, as matter is not primitive. or you lost me again.

I need matter to communicate with you, but that matter is explained in comp as a a persistent relational entity, so I don't see the problem. It is necessary in the sense that it is implied by the comp hypothesis, even constructively (making comp testable). It is even more stable and "solid" than anything we might extrapolate from observation, as we might be dreaming. Indeed it comes from the atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers, that you recently mention as not created by man (I am very glad :).

Bruno

Dear Bruno,

    Matter is not primitive as it is not irreducible. My claim is that matter is, explained very crudely, patterns of invariances for some collection of inter-communicating observers (where an observer can be merely a photon detector that records its states). This is not contradictory to your explanation of it as "persistent relational entity", but my definition is very explicit about the requirements that give rise to the "persistent relations".  I believe that these might be second order relations between computational streams. and can be defined in terms of bisimulation relations between streams.
    I question the very idea of "atemporal ultra-stable relations between numbers" since numbers cannot be considered consistently as just entities that correspond to 0, 1, 2, 3, ... We have to consider all possible denotations of the signified. See http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html#signified for an explanation. Additionally, there are not just a single type of number as there is a dependence on the model of arithmetic that one is using. For example Robinson Arithmetic and Peano Arithmetic do not define the same numbers.
    So we have multiple signified and multiple signifiers and cannot assume a single mapping scheme between them. I suppose that a canonical map exists in terms of the Tennebaum theorem, but I need to discuss this more with you to resolve my understanding of this question.

[Roger Clough]

 

 

According to my argument below, all rational truths must be a priori  

and all contingent truths (facts) have to be a posteriori.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Roger Clough

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-07, 06:51:10

Subject: A leibnizian argument that necessary truths would seem to be a priori

[Roger Clough]

Hi meekerdb

 

Could not the brain be the sixth sense ?

It senses (and creates as well) thoughts and sensual experiences.

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

9/7/2012

Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him

so that everything could function."

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: meekerdb

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-09-06, 14:44:11

Subject: Re: Sane2004 Step One

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