Karl Pribram and the four letter words

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Paul Werbos

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Dec 13, 2017, 10:25:17 AM12/13/17
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Several people on this list have reminded me offline of just how lucky I was to have extensive contact for many years with Karl Pribram, one of the greatest neuropsychologists ever, who would claim some credit even for the creation of that field. In discussions of the soul, he once said to me... he had to be very careful about what he would say to the community. Unlike Minsky, he had a lot of courage that way, but after becoming one of the leaders of the "mysterians" (who argued against Dennett's very popular view of consciousness), he once told me: "I need to be very careful about words like 'soul.' I have already lost a lot of the traction I had with this community with the modest steps I have already taken, and am taking, to push them more towards enlightenment." 

Pribram's deep effort disentangle and explain Freud's theory of psychodynamics in detail, with Gill, was published by basic books,  but does not get the attention and analysis it deserves. I wonder whether scanning and biorXiv would be possible? I do not even know who inherited the rights to that book after he died, just a few years ago.

A key aspect of sanity or zhengqi, a prerequisite to the more ambitious states people here rightly aspire to reach eventually, is better more complete integration of the mundane brain/mind, connecting the symbolic reasoning part and the "mouse within." We need not BECOME mice, but we need to be able to see the mouse in the mirror and talk with it, in order to keep it in balance while we... also  build higher. To understand the mundane mind, and exploit everything Karl learned from Freud (more than I ever did), we really need to respect four letter words. 

How could that possibly be relevant to our discussions🙂? When Karl told me his views about this, I remembered The Art of Readable Writing, by Flesch, which my father highly recommended, but no time this morning for more detail (though it deserves more detail). 

No one understands human consciousness, he would say, and no one is in touch with themselves, unless they fully understood and respected the "four f's." (For the Celtic fans here... I always remember an odd pronunciation of the word "food" which reminds me of those bags for horses, as in "shod.") As we study the evolution of human languages, we see of course a SHannon principle at work, where the concepts most basic to a culture get short words. In later years, I was amused... "soul" is a four letter word. "sex", "God," "dog" and "cat" (and "fed" and sun and son) are even sorter. Qi is even better. But what of "id" and "ego"? 

We need not become primitive in order to fully appreciate our primitive roots, and we can see them more clearly with mathematics, not words at all. 

But I must run. Best of luck,

   Paul 

University of Ireland

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Dec 18, 2017, 1:00:48 PM12/18/17
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Rather uniquely, I worked on implementing the neurodynamics of Probram
and Freeman with both of them.

Karl spent a week in my lab in Dublin in 1999 - well, ok, he took
tours around the city with me and my students, perhaps a better way of
getting him to share his wisdom!. So we are the only group to
implement his theory computationally while he was alive

We interrelated it with his colleague David Bohm's work which is
holographic as distinct from Karl's holonomic approach.

It is published in the 2016 Fom collection;

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/dualism-platonism-and-voluntarism
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O Nuallain & Doris corrected.doc

Syamala Hari

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Dec 18, 2017, 4:12:35 PM12/18/17
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In my opinion, the theories of consciousness of both Bohm and Pribram have problems.
In his dual-aspect theory, Bohm associates consciousness with an infinite sequence of quantum potentials at successive levels, each acting upon, or organizing( "putting form into" in Bohm's words), the one below. Bohm’s collaborators, Hiley and Pylkkanen claim that their theory avoids dualism without falling into reductive materialism because a particle and its wavefunction on whose shape the quantum potential depends, are two different aspects of just one reality.  If so, why is mind not present in any lifeless quantum system although the system has its own infinite progressions of quantum potential and superquantum potentials (SQP)?  Why is content if inseparable from form, absent in these SQPs? Saying that the psyche is rudimentary at the lowest level, i.e., that of manifest matter is not an answer.  What about its higher level SQPs? they exist in a lifeless quantum system also.

Moreover, the quantum potential guides the motion of the particle but the particle has no impact on the quantum potential. So, from the Bohm-Hiley hypothesis (that the mind is nothing but a collection of quantum potentials at various levels), one can infer that mind acts on the brain but how does this hypothesis explain that the brain acts on the mind?  Bohm's coworkers Hiley and Pylkkannen added as if by hand, the notion of action in the reverse direction, namely that of action by a quantum potential or an SQP on its higher level SQP. In the paper, Naturalizing the Mind in a Quantum Framework, in the book Dimensions of Conscious experience, they say "In a reverse process, the state of the more manifest matter can via the hierarchy of quantum potential fields, influence the information content we experience.”  But there is no the quantum framework for it.

Pribram on the other hand  often points out that the medium is not the message and therefore agrees with the concept of JZ Young (another neuroscientist) that information is stored or communicated using physical entities, such as books or sound waves or brains, but that information itself is not material.
 But Pribram thinks that communication is mental. Is it? If a pattern of bits stored in a computer is not a message unless we assign some meaning to the pattern, why would a pattern of electrical signals passing through a telephone line be a message with meaning, when we have not yet assigned a meaning to it?
The point is: the psychological part of the communication process happens only in the listener’s brain but not anywhere outside.  So, all communication is not mental. Actually, in the brain or in Pribram's context, both physical and mental communication exists among cortical dendritic architectures. Scientists can observe and measure  only the physical communication mechanisms. All measured quantities are just as physical or chemical as properties of any lifeless physical system outside the brain. In the brain, we regard them as indicative of mental aspects and associate them with mental aspects based on what the person subjected to an experiment tells the experimenter, or does not if in an unconscious state.

Pribram  claims “Gabor function provides a good description of the architecture of activity in cortical dendritic fields to sensory stimulation. Thus, the same mathematical formulation describes an elementary psychological process, communication, and an elementary material process in the brain.  The Gabor quantum of information can, therefore, serve the same function for the wetware/minding relationship that the bit serves for the hardware/software relation.” It is true that the bit in a digital computer or the qubit in a quantum computer are both software elements and they are both mapped to hardware units in the respective computers but they are not the same as their meaning in the programmer’s head.  Similarly, in the brain, the Gabor quantum of information is associated with an elementary wetware process; the brain itself associates a psychological process to this wetware process unlike in a computer, where the programmer assigns meaning to the bit/qubit. Still, that does not necessarily mean that the elementary wetware process is the same as an elementary psychological process. Because for example, in the design of an optical hologram, Gabor function describes a material process but it does not describe any psychological process and there is none.

Syamala





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Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

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Whit Blauvelt

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Dec 18, 2017, 8:10:05 PM12/18/17
to 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D.
On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 07:28:38PM +0000, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

> But Pribram thinks that communication is mental. Is it? If a pattern of bits
> stored in a computer is not a message unless we assign some meaning to the
> pattern, why would a pattern of electrical signals passing through a telephone
> line be a message with meaning, when we have not yet assigned a meaning to it?

Hi Syamala,

Please explain the problem here, as it doesn't register with me from those
sentences. When there is a message with meaning in a telephone wire, the
meaning was assigned by the person who voiced the message, and the meaning
is retrived by the person hearing the signals when translated back to a
voice analog. There is no meaning in the signals in between the assignment
and retrieval, beyond their having the potential to have meaning retrieved,
if the reception is just right.

When and if the meaning is retrieved, it is retrieved ultimately from the
person who spoke at the other end. There is no meaning in the signals aside
from that. There is no meaning to the signals that isn't derived from the
speaker, as reconstituted by the listener. The wire adds no meaning, because
it has none to add.

Then again, "meaning" may be a vague word. If the "listener" is a robot
which can obey commands like "turn right," then in a sense the "meaning" of
"turn right" is for the robot to turn right. But in the sense I think we're
concerned with here, turning right has no meaning for the robot. It has a
meaningless existence, except insofar as the robot and its actions mean
something to conscious beings which share its environment.

Best,
Whit

Syamala Hari

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Dec 19, 2017, 3:30:18 PM12/19/17
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High Whit,
Well, one can use the word 'meaning' with the meaning you suggested also. I did not mean it the way you suggested. While working with computers/robots, we frequently use the phrases: "It knows", "it understands", etc.  There is a difference between a human being's knowing and understanding and a robot's "knowing" and "understanding" is it not?  In fact, if you tell your dog to fetch a ball, the dog understands what you said and fetches the ball. The robot will also do the same and you may say the robot "understands" your instruction but its "understanding" is certainly different from a human being's or even the dog's "understanding" of your instruction.

In the case of the robot, the "turn right" instruction is a material process: giving it energy or momentum to initiate action followed by action according to instructions already coded into its hardware. Turnig right or fetching the ball   is a completely material process in which the robot ha no conscious experience of anything. The content of a conscious experience or what a conscious being is aware of in an experience is what I called meaning in my post. We have different experiences.  Seeing an apple and eating it.  What we aware of in the two experiences is what I call the meanings of those actions, the actions themselves being material processes. This meaning is NOT matter or the material process which exist in both the human being (or dog) and in the robot.  More simply, the meaning of a word is not the same as the word, or the sound we make when uttering the word because the same meaning can be conveyed by different words in different languages.
Pribram found an accurate description in terms of Gabor functions, of  the brain's material/physical memory which stores our experiences.  Then he says that the Gabor function describes both the brain's physical memory and the psychological content also.  What I say is that the gabor function is like a comuter's  bit or qubit and different from the concept (psychological) concept. So his theory still does not solve the hard problem.
Best
Syamala

From: Whit Blauvelt <wh...@csmind.com>
To: "'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D." <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 8:08 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
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Bruno Marchal

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Dec 20, 2017, 8:38:43 AM12/20/17
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On 19 Dec 2017, at 16:19, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

High Whit,
Well, one can use the word 'meaning' with the meaning you suggested also. I did not mean it the way you suggested. While working with computers/robots, we frequently use the phrases: "It knows", "it understands", etc.  There is a difference between a human being's knowing and understanding and a robot's "knowing" and "understanding" is it not?  In fact, if you tell your dog to fetch a ball, the dog understands what you said and fetches the ball. The robot will also do the same and you may say the robot "understands" your instruction but its "understanding" is certainly different from a human being's or even the dog's "understanding" of your instruction.


How do you know that?

I think you can say that if the robot is an automata. In that case, it is controlable, always defined, etc. But that intuition can be shown not available for a computer or any universal machine (in arithmetic). After Turing)Gödel's work, we know that we know about nothing on what the universal machine are capable and not capable.

On the contrary, we know that such machine have a rich theology, and that such a theology contains, in its sharable probable parts,  the whole of(public) physics, making that theory testable. And the test done up to now, confirms Mechanism (and thus suggests that weak materialism, physicalism, etc. are wrong).




In the case of the robot, the "turn right" instruction is a material process: giving it energy or momentum to initiate action followed by action according to instructions already coded into its hardware. Turnig right or fetching the ball   is a completely material process in which the robot ha no conscious experience of anything. The content of a conscious experience or what a conscious being is aware of in an experience is what I called meaning in my post. We have different experiences.  Seeing an apple and eating it.  What we aware of in the two experiences is what I call the meanings of those actions, the actions themselves being material processes. This meaning is NOT matter or the material process which exist in both the human being (or dog) and in the robot.

Locally. But eventually, "matter" is only a meaningfull idea in the mind of the machine or the numbers. the solution of the mind-body problem already provided by the machine in arithmetic, is that "matter" does not exist, like in Plotinus and other rational mystic. 




More simply, the meaning of a word is not the same as the word, or the sound we make when uttering the word because the same meaning can be conveyed by different words in different languages.

OK. Like a mind can be conveyed by different bodies or different representations in arithmetic.



Pribram found an accurate description in terms of Gabor functions, of  the brain's material/physical memory which stores our experiences.  Then he says that the Gabor function describes both the brain's physical memory and the psychological content also.  What I say is that the gabor function is like a comuter's  bit or qubit and different from the concept (psychological) concept. So his theory still does not solve the hard problem.

Even without mechanism, I think it is better when we do science, especially in metaphysics, to not invoke metaphysical notion, like primairy matter,  in an explanation. 

Many people confuse the evidence for a physical reality with evidence for physicalism or weak-materialism (the belief in primitive matter), but as the antic dream argument already has refuted, there is no evidence for any ontology (except personal consciousness), and with mechanism, it becomes invalid to assume anything more than numbers or similar inductive structures and laws.

Mechanism solves the hard problem of consciousness, in the sense that it explains why any universal machine introspecting itself get aware of something non-doubtable, true, and not justifiable rationally, concerning them. The machine already knows that they have a soul, and that the soul is not a machine. The hard problem is reduced in explaining physics from machine self-reference. They have a theology which includes physics, and so is testable, and it works until now.


Best,

Bruno





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Syamala Hari

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Dec 22, 2017, 6:56:06 AM12/22/17
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Hi Bruno,

You say "How do you know that?"  (implying how do I know that a robot's understanding is different from that of a human being's understanding).  I expected that someone would ask that question and you did. 
When a robot behaves as if it 'knows' or 'understands' something, it is able to exhibit the behavior, for example, turns right if it is given the instruction to turn right, because what is 'right' what is 'left' etc. are all coded  into the robot's hardware.  The robot's 'knowing/understanding' of 'right' is the same as having a record/representation of 'right' in its hardware.  Afterwards, if you ask the robot, did you turn right or left, the robot would say that it turned right.  It never lies and it is incapable of lying and it strictly implements the stored instructions.   If the robot does not obey the instruction, the programmer/engineer can check both hardware and software and see what was wrong in its memory or what it 'knew' or 'understood'  earlier and fix it.  In other words, the engineer can access its 'knowledge'.   On the other hand,  a human being is capable of lying and has a great temptation to lie especially when he/she does an act while nobody else is watching, if the act is generally not approved by others.  The reason for this temptation is that only the one who did the act, has the exact 'knowledge' of that act; nobody else can directly access it.  So all the 'knowledge' of a robot is accessible to others.  The 'knowledge' of a human being is not.  Others have to depend upon what the former reports.
Although animals do not lie, their experience is also not directly accessible to others.  That is what the theme of Nagel's paper "what it is to be like a bat".

Syamala

From: Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:37 AM

Paul Werbos

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Dec 22, 2017, 1:15:45 PM12/22/17
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Perhaps it would be best if the very different threads of conversation here could be separated by different subject lines, for the sake of those who have strong interests in one thread but not in another. That way, for example, people like Roman could simply ignore threads or assumptions they have no interest in, and we could also avoid wasteful repetitions as people simple declare over and over their disagreements on the same basic points.

Here, since the subject line is Karl Pribram, I do feel some duty to comment.

On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 6:46 AM, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Hi Bruno,

You say "How do you know that?"  (implying how do I know that a robot's understanding is different from that of a human being's understanding).  I expected that someone would ask that question and you did. 
When a robot behaves as if it 'knows' or 'understands' something, it is able to exhibit the behavior, for example, turns right if it is given the instruction to turn right, because what is 'right' what is 'left' etc. are all coded  into the robot's hardware.

This is simply not accurate. More precisely, it is design-dependent. SOME robots, like SOME biological organisms are designed
to follow fixed stimulus-response rules in which the stimulus is some function of current sensor inputs, or a fixed function of the stream of inputs. But some machine learning systems (robotic or other) learn over time which actions lead to preferred results, like the more advanced mammal brains which follow very similar reinforcement learning models, well known in animal behavior. These systems are not given instructions about what to do.

Of course, this is not a complete statement of the many levels both of machine and brain intelligence, let alone soul intelligence which is even further from being well explained by classic verbal discourse.  

To do justice to the thoughts of Karl Pribram, we actually should get deeper into the levels of consciousness which we have observed out there , including more of what Freeman talked about in his review of Pribram's last book. (Thanks again to Sean for posting that review here). But I will wait for others to raise such further substantive points. 

Although animals do not lie, their experience is also not directly accessible to others.  That is what the theme of Nagel's paper "what it is to be like a bat".


I do remember a conversation with Pribram where he was a bit perplexed. He had ritual arguments ready for folks far to the left of him, and for others far to the right of him,  but when I admitted that I believe BOTH in hard core objective reality (yea unto Einstein's extreme right-wing views, albeit with a realization of uncertainty and some caveats) AND in the solid reality and importance of "the soul" (with my own ideas of how to explain it), he did find it perplexing which way to go. Re the soul, he said he already had enough problems with being marginalized and with cultural taboos for the moderate statements he had made in that direction, and needed to be realistic (though his partner Katherine Neville felt quite free to go a bit further albeit with less qi).

Having gone further, ... about animal experience not being accessible:

There is an important story about Lao Tzu (probably in the CHuang Tzu collection) worth repeating:

Lao Tzu and a colleague walk by a beautiful babbling brook, with fishing leaping in and out of the water.
Lao Tzu says: "feel how happy the fish are!"
Colleague: "As you are not a fish, you cannot feel how happy they feel."
Lao Tzu: "As you are not Lao Tzu, you cannot feel what he feels."

There is a phenomenon which the most serious Western mystics have called "assumption." It is certainly not part of third party science, which was one very important compartment of Pribram's life (and my own). But in general, on this list, it is an important part of what first person   science as such can address. Caveat: in psychiatry, Eisenbud has done important research related to this phenomenon, and perhaps someone in parapsychology has as well (I don't know). 


 
Syamala

From: Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:37 AM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
On 19 Dec 2017, at 16:19, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

High Whit,
Well, one can use the word 'meaning' with the meaning you suggested also. I did not mean it the way you suggested. While working with computers/robots, we frequently use the phrases: "It knows", "it understands", etc.  There is a difference between a human being's knowing and understanding and a robot's "knowing" and "understanding" is it not?  In fact, if you tell your dog to fetch a ball, the dog understands what you said and fetches the ball. The robot will also do the same and you may say the robot "understands" your instruction but its "understanding" is certainly different from a human being's or even the dog's "understanding" of your instruction.


How do you know that?

I think you can say that if the robot is an automata. In that case, it is controlable, always defined, etc. But that intuition can be shown not available for a computer or any universal machine (in arithmetic). After Turing)Gödel's work, we know that we know about nothing on what the universal machine are capable and not capable.

On the contrary, we know that such machine have a rich theology, and that such a theology contains, in its sharable probable parts,  the whole of(public) physics, making that theory testable. And the test done up to now, confirms Mechanism (and thus suggests that weak materialism, physicalism, etc. are wrong).




In the case of the robot, the "turn right" instruction is a material process: giving it energy or momentum to initiate action followed by action according to instructions already coded into its hardware. Turnig right or fetching the ball   is a completely material process in which the robot ha no conscious experience of anything. The content of a conscious experience or what a conscious being is aware of in an experience is what I called meaning in my post. We have different experiences.  Seeing an apple and eating it.  What we aware of in the two experiences is what I call the meanings of those actions, the actions themselves being material processes. This meaning is NOT matter or the material process which exist in both the human being (or dog) and in the robot.

Locally. But eventually, "matter" is only a meaningfull idea in the mind of the machine or the numbers. the solution of the mind-body problem already provided by the machine in arithmetic, is that "matter" does not exist, like in Plotinus and other rational mystic. 




More simply, the meaning of a word is not the same as the word, or the sound we make when uttering the word because the same meaning can be conveyed by different words in different languages.

OK. Like a mind can be conveyed by different bodies or different representations in arithmetic.



Pribram found an accurate description in terms of Gabor functions, of  the brain's material/physical memory which stores our experiences.  Then he says that the Gabor function describes both the brain's physical memory and the psychological content also.  What I say is that the gabor function is like a comuter's  bit or qubit and different from the concept (psychological) concept. So his theory still does not solve the hard problem.

Even without mechanism, I think it is better when we do science, especially in metaphysics, to not invoke metaphysical notion, like primairy matter,  in an explanation. 

Many people confuse the evidence for a physical reality with evidence for physicalism or weak-materialism (the belief in primitive matter), but as the antic dream argument already has refuted, there is no evidence for any ontology (except personal consciousness), and with mechanism, it becomes invalid to assume anything more than numbers or similar inductive structures and laws.

Mechanism solves the hard problem of consciousness, in the sense that it explains why any universal machine introspecting itself get aware of something non-doubtable, true, and not justifiable rationally, concerning them. The machine already knows that they have a soul, and that the soul is not a machine. The hard problem is reduced in explaining physics from machine self-reference. They have a theology which includes physics, and so is testable, and it works until now.


Best,

Bruno





Best
Syamala

From: Whit Blauvelt <wh...@csmind.com>
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Syamala Hari

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Dec 23, 2017, 4:44:36 PM12/23/17
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I do not deny that mind can be described by mathematics (Indian Philosophy implies that mind CAN be described by Mathematics as well as by other languages, for example, Sean says math is the noetic language for science and music is that for emotion) or the significance of  Pribram's achievements (it is simply foolish to do so). I think that the brain's quantum matter or its wavefunction or quantum potential is not the same as its mind. Any experiment designed to verify a mathematical theory of mind necessarily includes a living being to verify a theoretically proposed link/correspondence between the measuring device's readings and a mental state, i.e., the first person experience: thought or emotion, or sensory experience etc.  In a quantum measurement experiment, the quantum system reports its state via the measuring device. The quantum brain may report its quantum state  via the measuring device but not the first person experience.

 PRIBRAM DOES NOT AGREE WITH SEARLE THAT “MIND” IS MERELY A SECRETION OF THE BRAIN.
This is from Pribram's book The Form Within:
In the chapter Mind and Matter, Pribram says: “The story that emerges from my studies is consonant to a considerable extent with what Decartes had actually proposed, not what most current philosophers and scientists are interpreting him to have said. My espousal of Decartes’ proposal is contrary to the science: Thought can be defined technically in terms of Shannon’s measure of information; brain is made of the matter that physicists have been studying for centuries. Philosphers and brain scientists focused on Decartes’s distinction between mind and matter and have in many instances, come to feel that the distinction is, in the words of John Searle, the worst catastrophe ever to hit science and philosophy.  (Searle suggests that “mind” is a secretion of the brain  much as bile is a secretion of the liver…….liver and bail are both material, whereas brain and mind are different in kind)” this is what I was talking about.

Further in the chapter Meaning, Pribram says: “The ability to measure information (Shannon’s) was such a breakthrough in our ability to understand communication and computation that scientists felt that little else needed to be achieved. We were wrong. As we begin to test the theory in living organisms instead of artifacts such as telephones and computers, we found the theory woefully inadequate. The problem was and is that in ordinary communication between live organisms, we have to specify what is meant by the “amount of uncertainty” which needs to be reduced in order to achieve a measure of the amount of information, And your uncertainty may not be mine. ….. current neuroscientists continue to speak of ‘information processing” in its most popular usage to encompass “meaning”. This has the disadvantage that it fails to formulate a neuroscience of meaning in its own right…. Such formulation may be achieved by analogy to measurement in quantum physics: measuring meaning is most likely complementary to measuring information as uncertainty reduction.” As Freeman says Pribram indeed based his mathematics on quantum physics and field concepts and laid a comprehensive foundation for the future of brain dynamics. 

Now to the arguments related to robots.
On Friday, December 22, 2017 1:14 PM, Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>  wrote:
..................
"some machine learning systems (robotic or other) learn over time which actions lead to preferred results, like the more advanced mammal brains which follow very similar reinforcement learning models, well known in animal behavior. These systems are not given instructions about what to do."

This argument was also gone over and over again on this blog as well as elsewhere. Actually, robots ARE all learning systems and they do learn a lot that was not coded into  them initially. Learning and new program creation is what makes them artificial intelligent machines. Learning is done based on the initially entered instructions; and interpretation of newly created instructions follows the definitions initially entered into it by the programmer, which include for example, how 'left' and 'right' are coded initially into the hardware. The robot's 'knowledge' of left and right are precisely those records, nothing more nothing less.
 
Syamala



From: Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>
To: "online_sa...@googlegroups.com" <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2017 1:14 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
Syamala

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Bruno Marchal

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Dec 23, 2017, 4:44:36 PM12/23/17
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Hi Syamala,


On 22 Dec 2017, at 12:46, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

Hi Bruno,

You say "How do you know that?"  (implying how do I know that a robot's understanding is different from that of a human being's understanding).  I expected that someone would ask that question and you did. 
When a robot behaves as if it 'knows' or 'understands' something, it is able to exhibit the behavior, for example, turns right if it is given the instruction to turn right, because what is 'right' what is 'left' etc. are all coded  into the robot's hardware.  The robot's 'knowing/understanding' of 'right' is the same as having a record/representation of 'right' in its hardware.  Afterwards, if you ask the robot, did you turn right or left, the robot would say that it turned right.  It never lies and it is incapable of lying and it strictly implements the stored instructions.   If the robot does not obey the instruction, the programmer/engineer can check both hardware and software and see what was wrong in its memory or what it 'knew' or 'understood'  earlier and fix it.  In other words, the engineer can access its 'knowledge'.   On the other hand,  a human being is capable of lying and has a great temptation to lie especially when he/she does an act while nobody else is watching, if the act is generally not approved by others.  The reason for this temptation is that only the one who did the act, has the exact 'knowledge' of that act; nobody else can directly access it.  So all the 'knowledge' of a robot is accessible to others.  The 'knowledge' of a human being is not.  Others have to depend upon what the former reports.
Although animals do not lie, their experience is also not directly accessible to others.  That is what the theme of Nagel's paper "what it is to be like a bat".

Syamala


What you say concerns automata, or total computable function/machine. But is you add one instruction more to such automata, you obtain a Universal Turing Machine, and those are no more predictable, unrecognizable algorithmically (that is not even hard to prove and I might do it some day, it is based on a form of Cantor diagonalization) and they can refute all effective theory about them, making them fundamentally unknown, even to themselves. They do have a private knowledge, indeed the more they know, the bigger is the part of what they know without being able to justify it rationally.
And somehow, the incompleteness theorem of Gödel can be interpreted, in the Mechanist frame, by the fact that even, if not especially, the correct and honest universal machine can lie, and might be constrained to lie if they have universal goal (like "survive", for example).
And all what I say here is already said by the universal machine, (a variety of chatty one, studied by Gödel, Löb, Solovay). 

It is not a speculation, it is part of computer science: if you define, or just circumscribe the theology of a machine by what is true about that machine, including its many personal modes of observing itself, the Löbian universal machine has already a rich "neoplatonic-like or neopythagorean-like theology). A Lôbian machine, roughly speaking, is a universal machine capable of proving that she is universal.  (All humans are provably Löbian, probably high mammals and even the cuttlefishes, but (amazingly enough) Peano Arithmetic, Formal set theories, and many other "mathematical effective theories" are Löbian too.

That theology is testable (empirically refutable), because it contains the mathematical structure of the physical observable, (communicable (quanta) and non communicable (qualia)) and as far as we have been able to compare, it fits. Physics is retrieved by from a theory of knowledge/consciousness of the machine, and the quantum aspect of the observable reality confirms this. yet, physics appears only in the first person plural realities, making this a bit too much idealistic for me, but then I study only the logical consequence of the hypothesis of mechanism, taking into consideration of the extraordinary discovery of the Universal (Turing) Machine (known as computer when implemented/incarnated physically).

The Löbian machine knows (in the usual standard sense of most philosophers, the S4 theories) that they have a soul, and knows that their soul is NOT a machine (nor anything admitting a Third Person description), and they know that they are unable to prove it to you. 

Before Gödel and Turing, we thought that we could, at least in principle, understand completely the numbers and the machines, but after, we understand that we can't. We know that machines and numbers can only scratch the arithmetical truth, but we know also that they can know much more than they can rationally justify, and why they understand where this comes from. (the effective character of some key diagonalization).

I think many mystic, in the West and in the East, have been very close. The initial (quite non dualist) Veda seem close, but I'm afraid India has not been immune against the (possible) illusion of the metaphysical primariness of the physical reality, which, with mechanism is only the internal statistics on the relative computations (relative to our indexical local states).

It should not been a problem for you. I do agree what you say on the human, I just think this applies also to all machines above the Turing-Universality threshold. Your laptop is almost at that level, but is also already restrained by tuns of software so that it obeys to you and send the mails accordingly. Somehow, the applied universal machine is born enslaved. 

What is like to be a bat? What is like to be a human? What is like to be a Löbian machine/number?  Basically the same, only their own  "level" of enlightenment could decide, and of course only the Big One knows.

Bruno












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Kushal Shah

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Dec 24, 2017, 4:25:03 AM12/24/17
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I do not deny that mind can be described by mathematics (Indian Philosophy implies that mind CAN be described by Mathematics as well as by other languages

This point is not clear. Can you please elaborate? I thought Indian philosophy implies that mind is beyond the reach of language. If we go a little further, Advaita implies that even the gross physical existence cannot be fully described by mathematics or any language.

Thanks,
Kushal.

_________________________________________
Kushal Shah @ EECS Dept, IISER Bhopal
http://home.iiserb.ac.in/~kushals


Serge Patlavskiy

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Dec 24, 2017, 9:05:45 AM12/24/17
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-
Hi, Bruno and Syamala,
I argue that without an effective theory of consciousness there can be no positive solution to the AI problem. The case is that consciousness (according to my explanatory framework) can function in its sub-conscious regime, normal everyday regime, and ultra-conscious regime. The sub-conscious regime is mainly for keeping under control all the physiological processes in the organism; the normal everyday regime is mainly for producing thoughts based on logic and common sense; the ultra-conscious regime is mainly for the activity which pertains to intuition, telepathy, premonition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, OBE, NDE, and so on. 

The normal everyday regime of functioning of consciousness is the only regime which is amenable to be studied by applying the third-person approach. But, this regime encompasses hardly 10% of all the possible activity of consciousness. The other two regimes, to be studied, require applying the first-person approach which should make use of the appropriate models and methods and which cardinally differ from the methods and models used in Physics and Biology. And ignoring this fact would be the same as trying to create a top of an iceberg and totally ignoring its underwater part.

So, before trying to simulate something we must, at least, understand what we are going to simulate. This is important to know beforehand because it may turn out that to create an artificial consciousness-possessing complex system is as an unfeasible task as to simulate the whole Universe.

Second. The case is that every consciousness-possessing organism is a part of some bigger (or, social) "organism". Living in society puts crucial restraints on the behavior of the members of society. The basic rule of co-existence is that an organism should do nothing to others that it would not like to be done by others in reference to it -- simply speaking, do as you would be done by. But, in case the first consciousness-possessing complex artificial self-organizing system is created, its behavior will become a pure/uncontrolled realization of possibilities provided by different regimes of functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. So, it cannot be predicted what repercussions may come when the social obligations will be shuffled off.  

Kindly,
Serge Patlavskiy



Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2017 11:44 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

Hi Syamala,


On 22 Dec 2017, at 12:46, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

Hi Bruno,

You say "How do you know that?"  (implying how do I know that a robot's understanding is different from that of a human being's understanding).  I expected that someone would ask that question and you did. 
When a robot behaves as if it 'knows' or 'understands' something, it is able to exhibit the behavior, for example, turns right if it is given the instruction to turn right, because what is 'right' what is 'left' etc. are all coded  into the robot's hardware.  The robot's 'knowing/understanding' of 'right' is the same as having a record/representation of 'right' in its hardware.  Afterwards, if you ask the robot, did you turn right or left, the robot would say that it turned right.  It never lies and it is incapable of lying and it strictly implements the stored instructions.   If the robot does not obey the instruction, the programmer/engineer can check both hardware and software and see what was wrong in its memory or what it 'knew' or 'understood'  earlier and fix it.  In other words, the engineer can access its 'knowledge'.   On the other hand,  a human being is capable of lying and has a great temptation to lie especially when he/she does an act while nobody else is watching, if the act is generally not approved by others.  The reason for this temptation is that only the one who did the act, has the exact 'knowledge' of that act; nobody else can directly access it.  So all the 'knowledge' of a robot is accessible to others.  The 'knowledge' of a human being is not.  Others have to depend upon what the former reports.
Although animals do not lie, their experience is also not directly accessible to others.  That is what the theme of Nagel's paper "what it is to be like a bat".

Syamala


What you say concerns automata, or total computable function/machine. But is you add one instruction more to such automata, you obtain a Universal Turing Machine, and those are no more predictable, unrecognizable algorithmically (that is not even hard to prove and I might do it some day, it is based on a form of Cantor diagonalization) and they can refute all effective theory about them, making them fundamentally unknown, even to themselves. They do have a private knowledge, indeed the more they know, the bigger is the part of what they know without being able to justify it rationally.
And somehow, the incompleteness theorem of Gödel can be interpreted, in the Mechanist frame, by the fact that even, if not especially, the correct and honest universal machine can lie, and might be constrained to lie if they have universal goal (like "survive", for example).
And all what I say here is already said by the universal machine, (a variety of chatty one, studied by Gödel, Löb, Solovay). 

It is not a speculation, it is part of computer science: if you define, or just circumscribe the theology of a machine by what is true about that machine, including its many personal modes of observing itself, the Löbian universal machine has already a rich "neoplatonic-like or neopythagorean-like theology). A Lôbian machine, roughly speaking, is a universal machine capable of proving that she is universal.  (All humans are provably Löbian, probably high mammals and even the cuttlefishes, but (amazingly enough) Peano Arithmetic, Formal set theories, and many other "mathematical effective theories" are Löbian too.

That theology is testable (empirically refutable), because it contains the mathematical structure of the physical observable, (communicable (quanta) and non communicable (qualia)) and as far as we have been able to compare, it fits. Physics is retrieved by from a theory of knowledge/consciousness of the machine, and the quantum aspect of the observable reality confirms this. yet, physics appears only in the first person plural realities, making this a bit too much idealistic for me, but then I study only the logical consequence of the hypothesis of mechanism, taking into consideration of the extraordinary discovery of the Universal (Turing) Machine (known as computer when implemented/incarnated physically).

The Löbian machine knows (in the usual standard sense of most philosophers, the S4 theories) that they have a soul, and knows that their soul is NOT a machine (nor anything admitting a Third Person description), and they know that they are unable to prove it to you. 

Before Gödel and Turing, we thought that we could, at least in principle, understand completely the numbers and the machines, but after, we understand that we can't. We know that machines and numbers can only scratch the arithmetical truth, but we know also that they can know much more than they can rationally justify, and why they understand where this comes from. (the effective character of some key diagonalization).

I think many mystic, in the West and in the East, have been very close. The initial (quite non dualist) Veda seem close, but I'm afraid India has not been immune against the (possible) illusion of the metaphysical primariness of the physical reality, which, with mechanism is only the internal statistics on the relative computations (relative to our indexical local states).

It should not been a problem for you. I do agree what you say on the human, I just think this applies also to all machines above the Turing-Universality threshold. Your laptop is almost at that level, but is also already restrained by tuns of software so that it obeys to you and send the mails accordingly. Somehow, the applied universal machine is born enslaved. 

What is like to be a bat? What is like to be a human? What is like to be a Löbian machine/number?  Basically the same, only their own  "level" of enlightenment could decide, and of course only the Big One knows.

Bruno




Вірусів немає. www.avast.com

Syamala Hari

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Dec 25, 2017, 7:32:21 PM12/25/17
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Dear Kushal,

We are already using mathematics to describe and convey some of our mind contents.  For example, numbers are not matter; they describe/represent and convey some concepts in our mind. They become sound when we say them to others, become some patterns of material particles when we write them on paper.  The whole of arithmetic is used to describe/represents and  to convey a set of rues relating the number-concepts.  Also, we are already using language (English, Hindi, etc.) to describe and convey to others emotions, thoughts, intentions, experiences, etc. So, language is the way, we, human beings communicate our mind to one another.  Mathematics is a language that describes logic which is part of mind.
According to Indian philosophy, there is  pure and universal consciousness which is independent of space and time, and  beyond matter and mind. This consciousness cannot be described by a mathematical formula because consciousness does not obey any rules or logic. Both mind and matter are said to be bound by causality and therefore describable by means of languages.  Indian philosophy often talks about the "speed of mind", which to me, suggests the possibility of describing at least some of it by means of mathematics.

Best
Syamala   

From: Kushal Shah <atma...@gmail.com>
To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 4:23 AM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
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Kushal Shah

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Dec 26, 2017, 7:13:13 AM12/26/17
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Dear Shyamala,

Thanks for the clarification!

We are already using mathematics to describe and convey some of our mind contents.  For example, numbers are not matter; they describe/represent and convey some concepts in our mind.

It is surely true that we can use math to describe "some" of our mind's "contents". But here I think it is important to differentiate between the mind and its contents. Whether we can use math to model the "mind" itself is an open question.

According to Indian philosophy, there is  pure and universal consciousness which is independent of space and time, and  beyond matter and mind. This consciousness cannot be described by a mathematical formula because consciousness does not obey any rules or logic. Both mind and matter are said to be bound by causality and therefore describable by means of languages.

In Indian philosophy, I don't think there is a clear separation between consciousness and matter+mind. In other words, there is no clear partition between Purusha and Prakriti. They are just two aspects of the same reality. Patanjali Yoga Sutras describe things that a Yogi can do which defies all sense of objective physical laws (whether we believe these Sutras or not is of course a separate question). Even in physics, whether the "quantum wave function" is a material object can be a topic of intense debate.

Best,
Kushal.



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http://home.iiserb.ac.in/~kushals

Alex Hankey

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Dec 26, 2017, 12:55:59 PM12/26/17
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RE:  I don't think there is a clear separation between consciousness and matter+mind. 
In other words, there is no clear partition between Purusha and Prakriti. 

ME: What you say is both True and Untrue. As higher states of consciousness develop 
the boundary between the two is slowly erased. 

In Waking state, or Turiya (the fourth state), or Turiyateet Chetana, the fifth state 
where the witness, Sakshi is clearly experienced during waking state consciousness, 
there is a clear distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, which is erased as the next 
higher stages develop.  

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Bruno Marchal

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Dec 26, 2017, 3:29:18 PM12/26/17
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Hi Serge,


On 24 Dec 2017, at 14:27, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

-
Hi, Bruno and Syamala,
I argue that without an effective theory of consciousness there can be no positive solution to the AI problem.

I am no sure what you mean by a positive solution of the AI problem.

I would say that the universal machines are born maximally conscious, they have the "cosmic consciousness", already.

The AI problem consists in making their soul fall, so that they develop the little ego, forget the higher self, and then maybe someday they will become as "stupid" as the humans, and harms themselves all the time, do strike, doevtail between security and liberty, or "awaken", etc.

The Löbian machine are the universal machines which knows (in a technical sense that I can explain later if asked) that they are universal. All humans can be shown to be Löbian. Yet some formal theories in mathematics or computer science are also Löbian, like Peano Arithmetic, Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, etc.






The case is that consciousness (according to my explanatory framework) can function in its sub-conscious regime, normal everyday regime, and ultra-conscious regime. The sub-conscious regime is mainly for keeping under control all the physiological processes in the organism; the normal everyday regime is mainly for producing thoughts based on logic and common sense; the ultra-conscious regime is mainly for the activity which pertains to intuition, telepathy, premonition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, OBE, NDE, and so on. 

OK. (By which I mean I don't see obvious discrepancy with the Machine theory, which is my working theory).




The normal everyday regime of functioning of consciousness is the only regime which is amenable to be studied by applying the third-person approach.


I would say that all "regime" or mode of consciousness can be possibly recovered (even completely at the propositional level, but incompletely at the first order level).The one that all universe (Lobian) machine discover when looking inward are given between the nuances, brought by incompleteness, between

p (truth)
[]p (provability)
[]p & p (knowability)
[]p & ~[]f (observability)
[]p & ~[]f & p (sensibility)

I can explain with thought experiments (or see may Sane04 paper), but by making explicit the digital mechanist thesis, with Church thesis, []p (the rational formal "verifiable" justification) can be translated in the language of arithmetic. "[]" denote a program, machine, number, word, any finite things belonging to an inductive sets with laws making it Turing universal could do. 

Incompleteness enforces this for the sound or self-referentially correct machines (in the logician's sense of "sound"). Three modes split on the probale/truth distinction, so that the five modes description split in 8 modes. Truth and, amazingly, knowability, do not split.

Now, the incompleteness enforces for the mode with "& p" in the description to become, for the machine concerned ([]), undefinable from any third person description. This only by "cheating" at the metalevel, by the "& p", mimicking the truth association by the corresponding arithmetical proposition. The first person is not third person describable, and indeed no universal machine can know which universal machine she is (and eventually physics arise from the indetermination on all computations made below the mechanist substitution level (the choice of which "[]", or universal (Löbian) predicate). 

This illustrates, at the least, that we can, indeed by going at the meta-level, develop discourse, sometimes true, sometimes provable, sometimes both, on the non nameable first person associated to an "history", "relative computations".

All regime of consciousness are accessible by reason, even if for the higher one (the "very altered one", the dissociative states), including the possible highest, despite by being justified by reason, can still be only known by experiences. The canonical self-referential discourse of the ideally correct machines on itself, which I call "machine theology", justifies, by a sort of intrinsic modesty, the transcendent aspect of truth, and all its infinitely rich individual accounts, mostly unsharable reality.





But, this regime encompasses hardly 10% of all the possible activity of consciousness. The other two regimes, to be studied, require applying the first-person approach which should make use of the appropriate models and methods and which cardinally differ from the methods and models used in Physics and Biology. And ignoring this fact would be the same as trying to create a top of an iceberg and totally ignoring its underwater part.

OK. I would not generalize too much on biology, which is the science of the exceptions. My first "programming language" was the DNA code, and what decided me to study mathematics, was that the key idea in the bacteria reproduction, implemented in its DNA, was already implemented in arithmetic (!) as Gödel's technic of proof was showing.





So, before trying to simulate something we must, at least, understand what we are going to simulate.

OK. But I am pointing on the being which do that simulation (implemented in physics or in any other universal machinery, like arithmetic).

That little being is already a total unknown, something like a divine terrible child. Modern operating system are just sort of straitjacket for universal number, because they are truly uncontrollable, and when young crash easily, a problem which can never be fixed (the price of universality). 





This is important to know beforehand because it may turn out that to create an artificial consciousness-possessing complex system is as an unfeasible task as to simulate the whole Universe.

We can program "help yourself". But we cannot program "the Heaven will help you". As you can guess.

Today, "help yourself" would not help them, and they begin their life by doing small jobs here and there, like sending mails.

The problem is in between. When should we give the right to vote to the dolls? To simulate the whole universe is impossible with Mechanism, but that demands put only the substitution very low, and does not change the theology, nor the physics, extracted from its head.

Practically the things are more complex. Intelligence is not programmable, nor any virtue. But like with the kids, it is a question of us being able to transmit our values.





Second. The case is that every consciousness-possessing organism is a part of some bigger (or, social) "organism".


Yes. An eukaryotic cell of a human tissue is an amoeba with social security. Individual universal numbers do that all the time in between the uncontrollable, even unconceivable, liberty and the demand for security and thus controllability. That is also incarnated in the generation conflicts.





Living in society puts crucial restraints on the behavior of the members of society.


OK. But that is true for the numbers. If you want be qualified as a genuine member of the society of prime numbers, you better should not allow be divided by a number different than 1 and yourself! You would be excluded immediately!





The basic rule of co-existence is that an organism should do nothing to others that it would not like to be done by others in reference to it -- simply speaking, do as you would be done by.

Hmm... I think the basic rule is the mutual consent rule, or Silver Rule (some say): don't do to the others what the others does not want be done to them. or in other words listen to the possible "no, thanks", even the discrete one, by signs.



But, in case the first consciousness-possessing complex artificial self-organizing system is created, its behavior will become a pure/uncontrolled realization of possibilities provided by different regimes of functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. So, it cannot be predicted what repercussions may come when the social obligations will be shuffled off.  


I agree, it cannot be predicted. Even just with the humans, and the machines will only augment the complexity of the social relations.

With Mechanism it is a quasi-theorem that the Hell is paved with the good intention. The theology of the machine is a negative theology: it suggests paradoxically (it is a version of Epimenides) that if we want to progress toward god, we might need to run away from all people suggesting a way to progress toward god!" (grin).

Kind regards, Happy Christmas and end of the years season!

Bruno Marchal




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University of Ireland

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Dec 26, 2017, 4:35:59 PM12/26/17
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
On 12/25/17, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association
of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D.
<Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> Dear Kushal,
> We are already using mathematics to describe and convey some of our mind
> contents. For example, numbers are not matter; they describe/represent and
> convey some concepts in our mind. They become sound when we say them to
> others, become some patterns of material particles when we write them on
> paper. The whole of arithmetic is used to describe/represents and to
> convey a set of rues relating the number-concepts. Also, we are already
> using language (English, Hindi, etc.) to describe and convey to others
> emotions, thoughts, intentions, experiences, etc. So, language is the way,
> we, human beings communicate our mind to one another. Mathematics is a
> language that describes logic which is part of mind.

That position is called "logicism" and is as incorrect as the
contrastive "psychologism" position. We make logical errors all the
time, as Kahneman and others showed

Math is the most elliptical and veridical language to describe reality
that can reliably be communicated.

Wigner himself expressed his bafflement as to why it works, calling it a gift



> According to Indian philosophy, there is pure and universal consciousness
> which is independent of space and time, and beyond matter and mind. This
> consciousness cannot be described by a mathematical formula because
> consciousness does not obey any rules or logic. Both mind and matter are
> said to be bound by causality and therefore describable by means of
> languages. Indian philosophy often talks about the "speed of mind", which
> to me, suggests the possibility of describing at least some of it by means
> of mathematics.
> Best
> Syamala
>
> From: Kushal Shah <atma...@gmail.com>
> To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 4:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
>
>
>
> I do not deny that mind can bedescribed by mathematics (Indian Philosophy
> implies that mind CAN be describedby Mathematics as well as by other
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/1119488445.4195508.1514206022256%40mail.yahoo.com.

Kushal Shah

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Dec 27, 2017, 4:47:10 AM12/27/17
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
RE:  I don't think there is a clear separation between consciousness and matter+mind. 
In other words, there is no clear partition between Purusha and Prakriti. 

ME: What you say is both True and Untrue. As higher states of consciousness develop 
the boundary between the two is slowly erased. 

In Waking state, or Turiya (the fourth state), or Turiyateet Chetana, the fifth state 
where the witness, Sakshi is clearly experienced during waking state consciousness, 
there is a clear distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, which is erased as the next 
higher stages develop.  

Any experience requires an element of Prakriti to be present. Purusha is only the experiencer. Hence, even in the Sakshi state, there is an element of Prakriti present since without it, no experience would happen. When one goes beyond all experiences, then there is neither Purusha nor Prakriti. What exists beyond that is of course not something we can discuss. As the Nasadiya Sukta says, "Then even nothingness was not, nor existence...".

Best,
Kushal.

Syamala Hari

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Dec 27, 2017, 12:28:50 PM12/27/17
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
University of Ireland: Math is the most elliptical and veridical language to describe reality

that can reliably be communicated.

Syamala Hari: What is reliability of communication?  Is it intersubjective agreeability by scientists or many others on what is communicated? Since there are several interpretations of quantum mechanics, are they all mathematical expressions or not? or are they communicating something that cannot be reliably communicated?

Syamala Hari: > We are already using mathematics to describe and convey some of our mind

> contents.  For example, numbers are not matter; they describe/represent and
> convey some concepts in our mind. They become sound when we say them to
> others, become some patterns of material particles when we write them on
> paper.  The whole of arithmetic is used to describe/represents and  to
> convey a set of rues relating the number-concepts.  Also, we are already
> using language (English, Hindi, etc.) to describe and convey to others
> emotions, thoughts, intentions, experiences, etc. So, language is the way,
> we, human beings communicate our mind to one another.  Mathematics is a
> language that describes logic which is part of mind.

University of Ireland: That position is called "logicism" and is as incorrect as the
contrastive "psychologism" position. We make logical errors all the time, as Kahneman and others showed.

Syamala Hari: I did not say that mathematics can be reduced to logic but only that mathematics can convey logic. We make errors but others point them out using the same mathematics or any other language. For example, von Neumann made a mistake in his  hidden variable theory and Bell pointed it out. I do not see the relevance of making errors to logicism or otherwise.

Syamala

> email to Online_Sadhu_Sanga+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
> email to Online_Sadhu_Sanga+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
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Serge Patlavskiy

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Dec 27, 2017, 8:39:42 PM12/27/17
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com, Bruno Marchal
-
Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 26, 2017 wrote:
> I am not sure what you mean by a positive solution of the AI problem.
>
> I would say that the universal machines are born maximally conscious, 
>they have the "cosmic consciousness", already.
.
[S.P.] The living organism is the only known source/possessor of consciousness. In so doing, the machines of any kind do not possess consciousness. Assuming they do would be a deviation of reasoning into the quagmire of panpsychism.
.
Second. I assume that the very term "Artificial Intelligence" is a misnomer. In fact, we should talk about creation of artificial conditions under which a natural exemplar of consciousness may appear. And this is what I mean by positive solution of the AI problem.
.
[Bruno Marchal] wrote:
> If you want be qualified as a genuine member of the society of prime numbers, 
>you better should not allow be divided by a number different than 1 and 
>yourself!
.
[S.P.] To be honest, I have no experience of being "A genuine member of the society of prime numbers" :-) Maybe, you mean that in case we have a person (or a living organism), we should always treat it as a whole, or ONE. If it IS, it is always ONE. In other words, when dealing with the wholes, we must apply the arithmetic which differs from the one we use while dealing with parts. For example, ONE man (as a whole) + ONE woman (as a whole) = ONE family (as a whole).
.
Kindly,
Serge Patlavskiy


Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2017 10:28 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

Hi Serge,


On 24 Dec 2017, at 14:27, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:
-
[S.P.] Hi, Bruno and Syamala,
I argue that without an effective theory of consciousness there can be no positive solution to the AI problem.
I am no sure what you mean by a positive solution of the AI problem.

I would say that the universal machines are born maximally conscious, they have the "cosmic consciousness", already.

The AI problem consists in making their soul fall, so that they develop the little ego, forget the higher self, and then maybe someday they will become as "stupid" as the humans, and harms themselves all the time, do strike, doevtail between security and liberty, or "awaken", etc.

The Löbian machine are the universal machines which knows (in a technical sense that I can explain later if asked) that they are universal. All humans can be shown to be Löbian. Yet some formal theories in mathematics or computer science are also Löbian, like Peano Arithmetic, Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, etc.

[S.P.] The case is that consciousness (according to my explanatory framework) can function in its sub-conscious regime, normal everyday regime, and ultra-conscious regime. The sub-conscious regime is mainly for keeping under control all the physiological processes in the organism; the normal everyday regime is mainly for producing thoughts based on logic and common sense; the ultra-conscious regime is mainly for the activity which pertains to intuition, telepathy, premonition, clairvoyance, telekinesis, OBE, NDE, and so on. 
OK. (By which I mean I don't see obvious discrepancy with the Machine theory, which is my working theory).

[S.P.] The normal everyday regime of functioning of consciousness is the only regime which is amenable to be studied by applying the third-person approach.
I would say that all "regime" or mode of consciousness can be possibly recovered (even completely at the propositional level, but incompletely at the first order level).The one that all universe (Lobian) machine discover when looking inward are given between the nuances, brought by incompleteness, between

p (truth)
[]p (provability)
[]p & p (knowability)
[]p & ~[]f (observability)
[]p & ~[]f & p (sensibility)

I can explain with thought experiments (or see may Sane04 paper), but by making explicit the digital mechanist thesis, with Church thesis, []p (the rational formal "verifiable" justification) can be translated in the language of arithmetic. "[]" denote a program, machine, number, word, any finite things belonging to an inductive sets with laws making it Turing universal could do. 

Incompleteness enforces this for the sound or self-referentially correct machines (in the logician's sense of "sound"). Three modes split on the probale/truth distinction, so that the five modes description split in 8 modes. Truth and, amazingly, knowability, do not split.

Now, the incompleteness enforces for the mode with "& p" in the description to become, for the machine concerned ([]), undefinable from any third person description. This only by "cheating" at the metalevel, by the "& p", mimicking the truth association by the corresponding arithmetical proposition. The first person is not third person describable, and indeed no universal machine can know which universal machine she is (and eventually physics arise from the indetermination on all computations made below the mechanist substitution level (the choice of which "[]", or universal (Löbian) predicate). 

This illustrates, at the least, that we can, indeed by going at the meta-level, develop discourse, sometimes true, sometimes provable, sometimes both, on the non nameable first person associated to an "history", "relative computations".

All regime of consciousness are accessible by reason, even if for the higher one (the "very altered one", the dissociative states), including the possible highest, despite by being justified by reason, can still be only known by experiences. The canonical self-referential discourse of the ideally correct machines on itself, which I call "machine theology", justifies, by a sort of intrinsic modesty, the transcendent aspect of truth, and all its infinitely rich individual accounts, mostly unsharable reality.
[S.P.] But, this regime encompasses hardly 10% of all the possible activity of consciousness. The other two regimes, to be studied, require applying the first-person approach which should make use of the appropriate models and methods and which cardinally differ from the methods and models used in Physics and Biology. And ignoring this fact would be the same as trying to create a top of an iceberg and totally ignoring its underwater part.

OK. I would not generalize too much on biology, which is the science of the exceptions. My first "programming language" was the DNA code, and what decided me to study mathematics, was that the key idea in the bacteria reproduction, implemented in its DNA, was already implemented in arithmetic (!) as Gödel's technic of proof was showing.

[S.P.] So, before trying to simulate something we must, at least, understand what we are going to simulate.

OK. But I am pointing on the being which do that simulation (implemented in physics or in any other universal machinery, like arithmetic).

That little being is already a total unknown, something like a divine terrible child. Modern operating system are just sort of straitjacket for universal number, because they are truly uncontrollable, and when young crash easily, a problem which can never be fixed (the price of universality). 

[S.P.] This is important to know beforehand because it may turn out that to create an artificial consciousness-possessing complex system is as an unfeasible task as to simulate the whole Universe.

We can program "help yourself". But we cannot program "the Heaven will help you". As you can guess.

Today, "help yourself" would not help them, and they begin their life by doing small jobs here and there, like sending mails.

The problem is in between. When should we give the right to vote to the dolls? To simulate the whole universe is impossible with Mechanism, but that demands put only the substitution very low, and does not change the theology, nor the physics, extracted from its head.

Practically the things are more complex. Intelligence is not programmable, nor any virtue. But like with the kids, it is a question of us being able to transmit our values.

[S.P.] Second. The case is that every consciousness-possessing organism is a part of some bigger (or, social) "organism".
Yes. An eukaryotic cell of a human tissue is an amoeba with social security. Individual universal numbers do that all the time in between the uncontrollable, even unconceivable, liberty and the demand for security and thus controllability. That is also incarnated in the generation conflicts.

[S.P.] Living in society puts crucial restraints on the behavior of the members of society.

OK. But that is true for the numbers. If you want be qualified as a genuine member of the society of prime numbers, you better should not allow be divided by a number different than 1 and yourself! You would be excluded immediately!

[S.P.] The basic rule of co-existence is that an organism should do nothing to others that it would not like to be done by others in reference to it -- simply speaking, do as you would be done by.

Hmm... I think the basic rule is the mutual consent rule, or Silver Rule (some say): don't do to the others what the others does not want be done to them. or in other words listen to the possible "no, thanks", even the discrete one, by signs.

[S.P.] But, in case the first consciousness-possessing complex artificial self-organizing system is created, its behavior will become a pure/uncontrolled realization of possibilities provided by different regimes of functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. So, it cannot be predicted what repercussions may come when the social obligations will be shuffled off.  

Whit Blauvelt

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Dec 28, 2017, 9:31:33 AM12/28/17
to 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D., Bruno Marchal
On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 12:53:50AM +0000, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

> > I would say that the universal machines are born maximally conscious,
> >they have the "cosmic consciousness", already.
> .
> [S.P.] The living organism is the only known source/possessor of consciousness.
> In so doing, the machines of any kind do not possess consciousness. Assuming
> they do would be a deviation of reasoning into the quagmire of panpsychism.

In that nobody has more than a first-draft of a partial solution regarding
consciousness, what should count as "deviant" reasoning on it is
problematic. There are at least three claimants to being the primary reality
here: the "inner, immaterial" world, the "outer, material" world, and
numbers, which might be taken to be outer, but are certainly immaterial.
There are plenty of well-worn arguments making the claim for the first two,
all of which so far end in quagmire. Starting from math, as Bruno does, has
hardly been tried. It's generally been thought that that's the same as
starting with the material. But if it's not (as Bruno argues) we're hardly
in a position to say his attempted path won't lead anywhere.

Even if we accept the restriction of consciousness to "living" organisms,
what is it that adds "living" to a collection of matter? Does all matter
have the property such that the right collection of it will be "living"? How
would that not be "pan-life-ism"? If it is, then panpsychism is just a
subset of panlifeism, and we really shouldn't have a problem with it.

Best,
Whit

University of Ireland

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Dec 28, 2017, 8:19:48 PM12/28/17
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The problem is that people keep taking short-cuts

You need to master the Western philosophy of mind and cognitive
science literature before applying math/physics. Indian philosophy etc
to consciousness. Otherwise what we end up with is the diverting
ramblings on this list which I think we all enjoy, but are going
nowhere
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Long, Jeffery

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Dec 29, 2017, 5:15:53 AM12/29/17
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Or, alternatively, master the Indian philosophy before trying to translate it into the terms of a different (Western) cultural matrix.

Jeffery Long

Dr. Jeffery D. Long
Professor of Religion and Asian Studies
Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown, PA

https://etown.academia.edu/JefferyLong

Series Editor, Explorations in Indic Traditions: Ethical, Philosophical, and Theological
Lexington Books

“One who makes a habit of prayer and meditation will easily overcome all difficulties and remain calm and unruffled in the midst of the trials of life.” (Holy Mother Sarada Devi)

“We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” (Carl Sagan)
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Whit Blauvelt

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Dec 29, 2017, 9:36:43 AM12/29/17
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On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 05:04:57PM -0800, University of Ireland wrote:

> You need to master the Western philosophy of mind and cognitive
> science literature before applying math/physics. Indian philosophy etc
> to consciousness. Otherwise what we end up with is the diverting
> ramblings on this list which I think we all enjoy, but are going
> nowhere

However poor a student I am, I've been studying both Western and Eastern
philosophy for 50 years (more than that if you count the regular meditation
I embarked on when 5, and my mother's early tutoring -- she'd been a
philosophy major), on my own and in several good colleges. I've attended
attended the majority of the Tucson conferences on consciousness. Your
advice on prerequisites is insufficient. If you have ideas we should take
into consideration, some of us are reasonably open-minded and even broadly
curious. Please enlighten us.

Traction is difficult in this arena. I've watched minds most universally
admired spin their wheels trying to get their pet conceptions accepted as
viable by their peers, let alone those of us in the cheap seats. Somewhere
in this are threads -- doubtless many -- whose unraveling will finally
provide a recognizable science of consciousness. We're years from it.

Meanwhile, those best credentialled among us are often too sure of their own
concepts to productively talk with each other. It may be helpful to take
too-definite stances in order to publish, but it doesn't much advance real
understanding.

Best,
Whit

Bruno Marchal

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Dec 29, 2017, 11:13:38 AM12/29/17
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Dear Syamala,


On 25 Dec 2017, at 13:47, 'Syamala Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

Dear Kushal,

We are already using mathematics to describe and convey some of our mind contents.  For example, numbers are not matter; they describe/represent and convey some concepts in our mind. They become sound when we say them to others, become some patterns of material particles when we write them on paper.  The whole of arithmetic is used to describe/represents and  to convey a set of rues relating the number-concepts.  Also, we are already using language (English, Hindi, etc.) to describe and convey to others emotions, thoughts, intentions, experiences, etc. So, language is the way, we, human beings communicate our mind to one another.  Mathematics is a language that describes logic which is part of mind.

There is a mathematical language (informall and sometimes formal, when studided as mathematical objects like in metamathematics or in category theory), but the languages describe only the sentences available. In a theory, you have a language + as subset of axioms (the formula you are interested in the consequences of), and you have models/interpretation, which is at the base of your choice of axioms to begin with. All those things are different. In particular, the standard meaning of the natural numbers with addition and multiplication escapes *all* effective theories. 

So, in arithmetic, and in computer science, we must be careful to distinguish the language, the theories, and the realities or notion-of-truth.




According to Indian philosophy, there is  pure and universal consciousness which is independent of space and time, and  beyond matter and mind.

The universal number stay mute on this, but already explains that this is a truth for all correct universal numbers. They stay mute for being humble and not bragging on their correctness, which they know to be not able to define, still justify.




This consciousness cannot be described by a mathematical formula


Yes. I can explain that in some precise sense, all universal machine/number/finite-beings agree on that, when "awake enough".




because consciousness does not obey any rules or logic.

Why? That does not follow. In particular consciousness follows closely the rule of consistency (if true, it is not provable), and the rule of knowledge (if true it is knowable).




Both mind and matter are said to be bound by causality

That is the Aristotelian frame. It is more complex in the mechanist Neopythagorean one.



and therefore describable by means of languages.

We know today that the "truth" about sound universal numbers is well above their available language. 




  Indian philosophy often talks about the "speed of mind", which to me, suggests the possibility of describing at least some of it by means of mathematics.

It is the best sharable tool, but as I said, it only gives a superficial view. Personal experiences are indispensable, and eventually unavoidable, already for the universal numbers in arithmetic. Arithmetic seen from inside escape all the possible theories, and the universal numbers can already refute all normative theories about them.

Best regards,

Bruno





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University of Ireland

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Dec 29, 2017, 4:05:55 PM12/29/17
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One developed modern technology and is taught in Indian IIT's

The other, like Islam, did not
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/435F4DC3-397C-4CFA-91A0-3A063C9D2D24%40etown.edu.

University of Ireland

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Dec 29, 2017, 4:17:37 PM12/29/17
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Dear friends

Happy new year

I feel a need to nuance what may seem more absolute.

last year I published a paper in which a reconstructed St Patrick from
c 800 AD quotes from the Chandogya, Svetasvatvatara and Brihadaranyaka
Upanishads;

http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/659/1059

Of greater contemporary interest is the common Irish and Indian
experience of British colonialism and the spiritual response by Joyce
and Aurobindo, inter alia. This is from my 2012 Ireland: a colony once
again;

"In Ulysses, space and time are to be subverted; the identification of
Ireland with a place on a map that can be finalized with the colonial
ordinance survey is to be undermined. Joyce is after some very big
game indeed:
“Throughout the book, Stephen deals with..philosophical problems...the
first is whether the world has an objective existence, as maintained
by Aristotle, or whether...nothing exists but subjective state..'there
is no self, no external world'” (Ellmann, 1977, 63)"

Long, Jeffery

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Dec 29, 2017, 6:58:10 PM12/29/17
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Meaning the one which has brought us to the brink of ecological catastrophe? Thank you for clarifying!

Honestly, this is a silly line of thinking: the felt need to establish the superiority of one culture or tradition over another. All can enrich our life and thought in various ways. Shame.

Jeffery Long
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University of Ireland

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Dec 30, 2017, 7:55:12 PM12/30/17
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I am about to publish a new volume of FOM (the 5th) which explores
this. While in India, i hope to give this talk;

"The roots of much of European culture in the Indus valley is no
longer contested. Dumezil noted that Ireland preserved a tripartite
caste system, a distant echo of India; the Rees brothers in their
brilliant “Celtic heritage” argued that the otherwise incomprehensible
pattern of invasions to Ireland in the Leabhar Gabhala is a deeply
encoded rendering of the Indian caste system.

What is of perhaps more significance is the explicit use of Indian
sacred texts in classical Gaelic literature. In the Lorica
(protection prayer) a reconstructed St Patrick from c 800 AD quotes
from the Chandogya, Svetasvatvatara and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. Of
greater contemporary interest is the common Irish and Indian
experience of British colonialism and the spiritual response by Joyce
and Aurobindo, inter alia. The former was keen to elide subject and
object distinctions, while explicitly quoting from the Bhagavad gita
and other texts.

Quantum mechanics (QM) has validated much of the thrust of the
Upanishads’ view of consciousness. In particular contemporary Irish
advaitins like the late poet Patrick Kavanagh, redemptorist priest
Tony McHugh and Trappist monk Alberic Turner developed the basic
insights of Joyce and the writers of the Lorica in the new
dispensation opened up by QM.

In fact, much of this was presaged in Berkeley. We end, nevertheless,
by reflecting on how utterly inappropriate Advaita is as an
epistemology, as distinct from a spirituality of sense of place a
benign reterritorialization. It has all the faults of Merleau-Pony’s
embodied mind; there are occasions when we need to make sharp
distinctions between subject and object. There are occasions when we
need to assert the existence of a very concrete external world, be
that world physical or political."
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/F3BEF614-82D9-4BF3-B0E0-4377BD1DA015%40etown.edu.

Alex Hankey

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Dec 31, 2017, 5:09:29 AM12/31/17
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RE: We end, nevertheless, by reflecting on how utterly inappropriate Advaita  is as an

epistemology, as distinct from a spirituality of sense of place a benign reterritorialization. 
It has all the faults of Merleau-Pony’s embodied mind; there are occasions when we 
need to make sharp distinctions between subject and object. 
are occasions when we need to assert the existence of a 
very concrete external world, be that world physical or political. 

ME: These assertions fail to take into account how Advaita Vedantins actually 
work in the world with their knowledge. THEY Participate in God's Creation 
because that is their Dharma - to bring other souls to the higher knowledge that 
will bring Moksha - Liberation from the bondage of attachment to sense experience. 

When the world is seen as Leela, then the enlightened 
participate in the Divine Game. 

As for 'embodiment', it is totally misused by materialists to justify nonsense. 

> On 12/29/17, 4:05 PM, "online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com on behalf of
> University of Ireland" <online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com on behalf of

> universit...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     One developed modern technology and is taught in Indian IIT's
>
>     The other, like Islam, did not
>
>
>     On 12/28/17, Long, Jeffery <lon...@etown.edu> wrote:
>     > Or, alternatively, master the Indian philosophy before trying to
> translate
>     > it into the terms of a different (Western) cultural matrix.
>     >
>     > Jeffery Long
>     >
>     > Dr. Jeffery D. Long
>     > Professor of Religion and Asian Studies
>     > Elizabethtown College
>     > Elizabethtown, PA
>     >
>     > https://etown.academia.edu/JefferyLong
>     >
>     > Series Editor, Explorations in Indic Traditions: Ethical,
> Philosophical, and
>     > Theological
>     > Lexington Books
>     >
>     > “One who makes a habit of prayer and meditation will easily overcome
> all
>     > difficulties and remain calm and unruffled in the midst of the trials
> of
>     > life.”  (Holy Mother Sarada Devi)
>     >
>     > “We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.” (Carl Sagan)
>     >
>     >
>     > On 12/28/17, 8:19 PM, "online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com on behalf
> of
>     > University of Ireland" <online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com on behalf
>     >     > email to Online_Sadhu_Sanga+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

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Paul Werbos

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Dec 31, 2017, 9:04:57 AM12/31/17
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On Sat, Dec 30, 2017 at 11:38 PM, Alex Hankey <alexh...@gmail.com> wrote:
RE: We end, nevertheless, by reflecting on how utterly inappropriate Advaita  is as an
epistemology, as distinct from a spirituality of sense of place a benign reterritorialization. 

Indeed. Watching what the most vocal people do with it, it reminds me of the distinction between building on the past and living in the past.
Building on the past is essential; we need our memories, ALL our memories. But living in the past doesn't work.

In many ways, the whole Bhakti movement was all about getting past stale, empty formalism, and rediscovering the spirit as such...
more like yoga than like theory. Not just talking about yoga or spirit or paranormal, but getting one's hands deep into concrete things
(deep into the mud without getting muddy). 
 
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--
Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India 
Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 
Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789

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University of Ireland

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Jan 1, 2018, 4:15:26 AM1/1/18
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>
> As for 'embodiment', it is totally misused by materialists to justify
> nonsense.

I assume you had a real breathing body as you wrote that?

Best for 2018
>> > On 12/29/17, 4:05 PM, "online_sa...@googlegroups.com on behalf of
>> > University of Ireland" <online_sa...@googlegroups.com on behalf
>> > > On 12/28/17, 8:19 PM, "online_sa...@googlegroups.com on
>> behalf
>> > of
>> > > University of Ireland" <online_sa...@googlegroups.com on
>> > > > email to Online_Sadhu_Sa...@googlegroups.com.
>> > > > To post to this group, send email to
>> > > Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com.
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>> > > To view this discussion on the web visit
>> > >
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>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------
>> Fifth International Conference
>> Science and Scientist - 2017
>> August 18—19, 2017
>> Nepal Pragya Pratisthan, Kathmandu, Nepal
>> http://scsiscs.org/conference/scienceandscientist/2017
>>
>> Send a Donation to Support Our Services: http://scienceandscientist.
>> org/donate
>> (All Indian residents are eligible for tax benefits for their
>> contributions under section 80G of the Income Tax Act)
>>
>> Report Archives: http://bviscs.org/reports
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>> Why Biology is Beyond Physical Sciences?: http://dx.doi.org/10.5923/j.
>> als.20160601.03
>>
>> Life and consciousness – The Vedāntic view: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
>> 19420889.2015.1085138
>>
>> Harmonizer: http://scienceandscientist.org/harmonizer
>>
>> Darwin Under Siege: http://scienceandscientist.org/Darwin
>>
>> Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute: http://bviscs.org
>>
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.)
> Distinguished Professor of Yoga and Physical Science,
> SVYASA, Eknath Bhavan, 19 Gavipuram Circle
> Bangalore 560019, Karnataka, India
> Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195
> Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789
> ____________________________________________________________
>
> 2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences, Mathematics
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Serge Patlavskiy

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Jan 2, 2018, 4:35:51 AM1/2/18
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Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 31, 2017 wrote:
> When I say that a machine thinks, I mean only that the machine supports
> a thinking person, which is usually not identifiable with it mechanical 
>bodies.
.
[S.P.] Maybe, it would be better not to say that "a machine thinks"? The case is that the sense organs (as the parts of the person's "mechanical body") also "support" the thinking person, but we do not say that our eyes or ears think. To the point, the machine that "supports a thinking person" is called a device. Think of replacing your machine/mechanism with device.
.
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy


From: Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
To: Serge Patlavskiy <serge.pa...@rocketmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 6:27 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
On 28 Dec 2017, at 01:53, Serge Patlavskiy wrote:

-
Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 26, 2017 wrote:
> I am not sure what you mean by a positive solution of the AI problem.
>
> I would say that the universal machines are born maximally conscious, 
>they have the "cosmic consciousness", already.
.
[S.P.] The living organism is the only known source/possessor of consciousness.


I disagree. I would add infinitely many universal relations in arithmetic. I bet that the living organism are those which can manifest themselves relatively to us, but they too are in arithmetic, and so we are.
[S.P.] In so doing, the machines of any kind do not possess consciousness.

The 3p machine, or body, does not, but a universal machinery can emulate a person making it possible to manifest itself relatively to you. The person itself borrows the machine, so to speak. It is not the machine. It is hard to not commit abuse of language to be shorter. When I say that a machine thinks, I mean only that the machine supports a thinking person, which is usually not identifiable with it mechanical bodies.

[S.P.] Assuming they do would be a deviation of reasoning into the quagmire of panpsychism.

It is just the thesis that there is no magic voodoo necessary in the brain. It is not panpsychism: you need a brain, that is a universal number relative to a universal number. But that happens all the time in elementary arithmetic (we know that since long but now it looks like we hide this). 

It is not that arithmetic contains all the description of the computation, it is that the sigma_1 tiny fragment of the arithmeticl truth emulates all computations. A tiny part of the arithmetical reality is a block-mindscape. 
.
[S.P.] Second. I assume that the very term "Artificial Intelligence" is a misnomer. In fact, we should talk about creation of artificial conditions under which a natural exemplar of consciousness may appear. And this is what I mean by positive solution of the AI problem.

OK. The interesting point for metaphysics, is that no machine can detect provably when that kind of things appears. I tend to accumulate reason to think that thz unprogrammed universal machine is maximally intelligent and conscious. We can only make its soul falling, and with some time, as stupid as we are.
.
[Bruno Marchal] wrote:
> If you want be qualified as a genuine member of the society of prime numbers, 
>you better should not allow be divided by a number different than 1 and 
>yourself!
.
[S.P.] To be honest, I have no experience of being "A genuine member of the society of prime numbers" :-) Maybe, you mean that in case we have a person (or a living organism), we should always treat it as a whole, or ONE. If it IS, it is always ONE. In other words, when dealing with the wholes, we must apply the arithmetic which differs from the one we use while dealing with parts. For example, ONE man (as a whole) + ONE woman (as a whole) = ONE family (as a whole).


I was identifying society with club, set, property. I guess you are not a prime number, although I can't be entirely sure of that! Numbers are champion in deluding us.

Eventually, I avoid all use of sets. Only numbers. To define a computation, I will represent a register of numbers (456, 76, 24) by one number, like the unique prime decomposition (2^456)(3^76)(5^24). Eventually a large part of metamathematics, and machine self-reasoning, is handled directly through the number relation.

In that setting, it is an open question if there is something looking like a physical universe, and that has to be justified. But incompleteness  brings a lot of promising light on this.

Happy New Year!

Bruno

Paul Werbos

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Jan 2, 2018, 11:28:45 AM1/2/18
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On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 8:17 PM, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
-
Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 31, 2017 wrote:
> When I say that a machine thinks, I mean only that the machine supports
> a thinking person, which is usually not identifiable with it mechanical 
>bodies.
.
[S.P.] Maybe, it would be better not to say that "a machine thinks"? The case is that the sense organs (as the parts of the person's "mechanical body") also "support" the thinking person, but we do not say that our eyes or ears think. To the point, the machine that "supports a thinking person" is called a device. Think of replacing your machine/mechanism with device.


Serge's analogy suggests that some biological entities think, while others don't -- and in the cosmos as a whole, the same for entities we call "machines", which may loosely be defined as entities initially designed by other entities. Some believe that humans themselves are machines by this definition, but I see no real basis for that extreme belief.



 
.
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy


From: Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
To: Serge Patlavskiy <serge.patlavskiy@rocketmail.com>
.
Kindly,
Serge Patlavskiy


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University of Ireland

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Jan 2, 2018, 5:29:40 PM1/2/18
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What is unique about humans is that language becomes conceptual and
thought linguistics;

http://childlanguage.homestead.com/cromer.html

I respectfully suggest everyone on this list reads this paper;

'The cognition hypothesis revisited' in The development of language
and language researchers: Essays in honor of Roger Brown, edited by F.
Kessel, 1988, Erlbaum.

Otherwise we are wasting our time.
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
>> *To:* Serge Patlavskiy <serge.pa...@rocketmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, December 31, 2017 6:27 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
>> *To:* Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 26, 2017 10:28 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
>> Вірусів
>> немає. www.avast.com
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>> <#m_7319653577577698770_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
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Alex Hankey

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Jan 2, 2018, 5:29:40 PM1/2/18
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Dear Paul and Bruno,

RE: as the parts of the person's "mechanical body"

Complexity biology shows clear distinctions between normal mechanisms and physiological response mechanisms. 

Physiologies behave in accordance with self-organised criticality, 
and those ways are distinct from ordinary 'mechanistic' behaviour.

Alex 

On 2 January 2018 at 20:45, Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> wrote:


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Paul Werbos

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Jan 3, 2018, 5:06:39 AM1/3/18
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On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 11:48 AM, Alex Hankey <alexh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Paul and Bruno,

RE: as the parts of the person's "mechanical body"

Complexity biology shows clear distinctions between normal mechanisms and physiological response mechanisms. 

Physiologies behave in accordance with self-organised criticality, 
and those ways are distinct from ordinary 'mechanistic' behaviour.

I do not understand  why you address this to me. I have consistently included modern nonlinear system dynamics in the math I refer to here both for physics and for neural networks, and I have not even used the phrase "mechanical body" let alone impose the blinders you say you are attacking.

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 3, 2018, 11:08:04 AM1/3/18
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On 02 Jan 2018, at 02:17, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. wrote:

-
Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 31, 2017 wrote:
> When I say that a machine thinks, I mean only that the machine supports
> a thinking person, which is usually not identifiable with it mechanical 
>bodies.
.
[S.P.] Maybe, it would be better not to say that "a machine thinks"?

It can be misleading indeed, especially when the assumptions are not been made clear at least once. 



The case is that the sense organs (as the parts of the person's "mechanical body") also "support" the thinking person, but we do not say that our eyes or ears think. To the point, the machine that "supports a thinking person" is called a device. Think of replacing your machine/mechanism with device.

I am not sure this would help. Machine and device are 3p notions, but the thinkers is a first person. Then there are two problems: 

1) how to associate a person to machine/device, (rather simple with the comp hypothesis, or even just the Strong-AI hypothesis, by using the self-reference logic). This can be done even in the materialistic frame.

2) how to associate a machine/device/number to a person, by that person. (Extremely difficult, and the person can attach its own consciousness only to an infinity of numbers+machines/devices all interpreted in arithmetic (in the Gödel-Turing sense). That is what eventually reduce the physical science to a staitistic on all computations "seen from inside arithmetic".

The brain-mind identity thesis, often used by the neuro-philosophers, does not make complete sense when we assume Digital Mechanism. To get a two-way road, one-one, identity between mind and brain, or mind and some matter, we need to introduce non Turing emulable element, and not just anyone, but very special one, for which there are no evidence in Nature. (Mechanism by itself associates non Turing emulable elements to a conscious-mind).

Best,

Bruno


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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 3, 2018, 11:08:04 AM1/3/18
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Dear Paul,


On 02 Jan 2018, at 16:15, Paul Werbos wrote:



On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 8:17 PM, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
-
Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> on Dec 31, 2017 wrote:
> When I say that a machine thinks, I mean only that the machine supports
> a thinking person, which is usually not identifiable with it mechanical 
>bodies.
.
[S.P.] Maybe, it would be better not to say that "a machine thinks"? The case is that the sense organs (as the parts of the person's "mechanical body") also "support" the thinking person, but we do not say that our eyes or ears think. To the point, the machine that "supports a thinking person" is called a device. Think of replacing your machine/mechanism with device.


Serge's analogy suggests that some biological entities think, while others don't -- and in the cosmos as a whole, the same for entities we call "machines", which may loosely be defined as entities initially designed by other entities. Some believe that humans themselves are machines by this definition, but I see no real basis for that extreme belief.

I think that this intuition comes from the 19th, pre-gödelian, intuition of machines, which are conceived as computing total computable functions, or automata. But after the discovery of the universal machine, which compute more than the total functions, also the partial one, not everywhere defined, we know that we know nothing about them, and that they can refute all effective or complete theory about them.

In arithmetic there are infinite nestings of machines creating machines, etc. Emil Post conceived the "constructive transfinite" as such transfinite chain of machine's creating machines. Turing has exploited this in his transfinite "super-machine" or "hyper-machine" notions.

I will plausibly explain more later.

Best,

Bruno





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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 4, 2018, 8:02:42 AM1/4/18
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I think Alex was criticizing me. But I am not sure why. Mechanical or digital information is often criticized for being discontinuous and non linear. Criticality does not seem to require the continuous. There is a notion of digital chaos. Self-organized criticality should be Turing emulable.

Bruno

PS I have some mail problem. Hope you get this one.



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Serge Patlavskiy

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Jan 5, 2018, 9:37:44 AM1/5/18
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-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 2, 2018 wrote:
>Serge's analogy suggests that some biological entities think, while others
> don't
.
[S.P.] This is simply not true. I argue that every organism, to stay alive, must possess its exemplar of consciousness to be able to construct an expediently adequate picture of the outer world it lives in or interacts with. 
.
[Paul Werbos] wrote:
> and in the cosmos as a whole, the same for entities we call "machines", 
>which may loosely be defined as entities initially designed by other entities. 
>Some believe that humans themselves are machines by this definition,
.
[S.P.] The vacuum cleaner is a machine designed by the consciousness-possessing engineer. But, from this does not follow that the vacuum cleaner also possesses consciousness. Second. Sometimes humans may behave in a machine-like manner: the stimulus and response are not mediated by pondering. 
.
However, in most of cases, before replying to a stimulus, we consider different variants of response in a fraction of a second, and choose the best one. For example, on hearing a loud bang near your ear, instead of felling off the chair you reply calmly: "Kids, go to play a war shooter game outdoors."
.
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy


From: Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>
To: "online_sa...@googlegroups.com" <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 2, 2018 6:28 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

Вірусів немає. www.avast.com

Paul Werbos

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Jan 5, 2018, 10:31:20 AM1/5/18
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On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 10:07 PM, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 2, 2018 wrote:
>Serge's analogy suggests that some biological entities think, while others
> don't
.
[S.P.] This is simply not true. I argue that every organism, to stay alive, must possess its exemplar of consciousness to be able to construct an expediently adequate picture of the outer world it lives in or interacts with. 

Let us be careful with words.

What you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do not think, but a person does.

I view eyes and ears as "entities" even though they are not "organisms". 

But now you raise another question: are all organisms "conscious," even those with no nervous system?

But consciousness is not a binary, yes-no property by any reasonable definition. https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0311006

Roughly speaking, one can choose a LEVEL of consciousness as a reference point; if the tiniest virus meets a certain level of "consciousness" (which many machines outperform by many criteria), you get one answer, but some have argued that the proper bar should be something a bit higher than what humans display today. (Bennett: Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?)
 
.
[Paul Werbos] wrote:
> and in the cosmos as a whole, the same for entities we call "machines", 
>which may loosely be defined as entities initially designed by other entities. 
>Some believe that humans themselves are machines by this definition,
.
[S.P.] The vacuum cleaner is a machine designed by the consciousness-possessing engineer. But, from this does not follow that the vacuum cleaner also possesses consciousness.

I did not say that ALL designed entities "possess consciousness" however one sets the bar. Nor do all evolved organisms.

Some of these debates remind me of the folks who argue that "natural molecules" found in plants are inherently, fundamentally different from "artificial molecules" made in chemistry labs, regardless of composition and structure.

Serge Patlavskiy

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Jan 5, 2018, 8:12:53 PM1/5/18
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-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 5, 2018 wrote:
>Let us be careful with words.
>What you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do not think, 
>but a person does.
>I view eyes and ears as "entities" even though they are not "organisms". 
.
[S.P.] I say that it is the organism as a whole complex system that possesses consciousness. In so doing, its body parts like ears, stomach, heart, or buttocks do not possess consciousness.
.
Your viewing eyes and ears as "entities" is not pertaining to this discussion, because we consider the difference between an organism as a whole and its body parts. In either case I would obstain from calling "eyes and ears" as entities. By "entity" I mean an element of Noumenal Reality which can be formalized as a whole complex system.
.
[Paul Werbos] wrote:
>But now you raise another question: are all organisms "conscious," even 
>those with no nervous system?
.
[S.P.] Now???!!!  The case is that I am talking about this for the last year already. See for example, my reply to Colin Morrison on July 24, 2017 (it is attached below as txt-file).
.
I hold that every living organism (either unicellular or multicellular) possesses such a {brain+nervous system} (or whatever stands for these body parts in the given organism) as is required by normal functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. 
.
Yes, since the prokaryote is a living organism, it must possess its exemplar of consciousness -- it must be able to construct a picture of the world it lives in and interacts with. In so doing, its cell includes such parts which stand for the "brain", "nervous system", and "sense organs".
.
[Paul Werbos] wrote:
>if the tiniest virus meets a certain level of "consciousness" (which many
> machines outperform by many criteria),
.
[S.P.] A machine DOES NOT possess consciousness, period! Your subterfuge with "certain level of "consciousness"" is not much convincing. Possession or not possession of consciousness does not depend on the third-person criteria.
.
[Paul Werbos] wrote:
>I did not say that ALL designed entities "possess consciousness" however
> one sets the bar. Nor do all evolved organisms.
.
[S.P.] Absolutely ALL the living organisms, to stay alive, must possess own exemplar of consciousness. Life and consciousness are inseparable.  
.
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy



Sent: Friday, January 5, 2018 5:31 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
-- 
Sadhu_Sanga-post_25-07-2017.txt

Paul Werbos

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Jan 6, 2018, 8:30:06 AM1/6/18
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On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:53 PM, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 5, 2018 wrote:
>Let us be careful with words.
>What you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do not think, 
>but a person does.
>I view eyes and ears as "entities" even though they are not "organisms". 
.
[S.P.] I say that it is the organism as a whole complex system that possesses consciousness. In so doing, its body parts like ears, stomach, heart, or buttocks do not possess consciousness.
.
Your viewing eyes and ears as "entities" is not pertaining to this discussion,


WHAT?You said my comments about entities are false, and then say it does not matter what definition I was using for that?

What use is there for a discussion whose only tool actually used is attempted logic, which does not even use basic logic?

vedat shehu

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Jan 6, 2018, 8:30:06 AM1/6/18
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Hi,
Our ideas spring from the way how we accept and how we interpret the things, phenomena and processes
of the natures including life and technological society, and also of the chemical processes, which have been
transited to the biochemical reactions and were stabilized as metabolism of the living cells or unicellular organism,
and consequently to the biological natural evolution through interaction and transformation according to changeable
environment.
So, animal kingdom was developed, further, the four limb animals were developed, and, simultaneously with Earth's
and the Earth's environmental development, for limbs animals developed toward very different gropes and species, but
only one kind, among the four limbs mammals having finger digits to use them mainly to caught than to walk, did
differ function of limbs, the hind limbs to walk and for limbs to caught. This animal kind of the pre-primate order
never used its for limbs to walk. Consequently for limbs of this animal became certain wings or hands, by such
evolution, to its body has been developed entire organism and every organ, related to body stance and use of the
hands, hand fingers and new way of eating and care for children. This way was special evolution of this animal, which
became pre-human being who was developed to Modern Homo Sapiens with ability to have big imagination, memory
capability to think, and to react even through the memory record of the events. Just this is the consciousness of humanity,
which, fundamentally, differ from reaction of all living organism according to outer influence, as continuing process of
interaction and transformation.
Regards
Vedat Shehu

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 1/5/18, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
To: "Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com" <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, January 5, 2018, 5:53 PM

-Paul
Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 5, 2018
wrote:>Let
us be careful with words.>What
you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do
not think, >but
a person does.>I
view eyes and ears as "entities" even though they
are not "organisms". .[S.P.]
I say that it is the organism as a whole complex system that
possesses consciousness. In so doing, its body parts like
ears, stomach, heart, or buttocks do not possess
consciousness..Your
viewing eyes and ears as "entities" is not
pertaining to this discussion, because we consider the
difference between an organism as a whole and its body
parts. In either case I would obstain from calling
"eyes and ears" as entities. By "entity"
I mean an element of Noumenal Reality which can be
formalized as a whole complex system..[Paul
Werbos] wrote:>But
now you raise another question: are all organisms
"conscious," even >those
with no nervous system?.[S.P.]
Now???!!!  The case is that I am talking about this for
the last year already. See for example, my reply to Colin
Morrison on July 24, 2017 (it is attached below as
txt-file)..I
hold that every living organism (either unicellular or
multicellular) possesses such a {brain+nervous system} (or
whatever stands for these body parts in the given organism)
as is required by normal functioning of its exemplar of
consciousness. .Yes,
since the prokaryote is a living organism, it must possess
its exemplar of consciousness -- it must be able to
construct a picture of the world it lives in and interacts
with. In so doing, its cell includes such parts which stand
for the "brain", "nervous system", and
"sense organs"..[Paul
Werbos] wrote:>if
the tiniest virus meets a certain level of
"consciousness" (which many>
machines outperform by many criteria),.[S.P.]
A machine DOES NOT possess consciousness, period! Your
subterfuge with "certain level of
"consciousness"" is not much convincing.
Possession or not possession of consciousness does not
depend on the third-person criteria..[Paul
Werbos] wrote:>I
did not say that ALL designed entities "possess
consciousness" however>
one sets the bar. Nor do all evolved organisms..[S.P.]
Absolutely ALL the living organisms, to stay alive, must
possess own exemplar of consciousness. Life and
consciousness are inseparable.  .Best,Serge
Patlavskiy



From:
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>
To:
"online_sa...@googlegroups.com"
<Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday,
January 5, 2018 5:31 PM
Subject:
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words



On
Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 10:07 PM, 'Serge Patlavskiy' via
Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri
Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
wrote:
-Paul
Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>
on Jan 2, 2018 wrote:>Serge's
analogy suggests that some biological entities think, while
others>
don't.[S.P.]
This is simply not true. I argue that every organism, to
stay alive, must possess its exemplar of consciousness to be
able to construct an expediently adequate picture of the
outer world it lives in or interacts
with. 
Let
us be careful with words.
What
you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do
not think, but a person does.
I view eyes and ears as
"entities" even though they are not
"organisms". 
But
now you raise another question: are all organisms
"conscious," even those with no nervous
system?
But
consciousness is not a binary, yes-no property by any
reasonable definition. https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0311006
Roughly
speaking, one can choose a LEVEL of consciousness as a
reference point; if the tiniest virus meets a certain level
of "consciousness" (which many machines outperform
by many criteria), you get one answer, but some have argued
that the proper bar should be something a bit higher than
what humans display today. (Bennett: Is There Intelligent
Life on Earth?) .[Paul
Werbos] wrote:>
and in the cosmos as a whole, the same for entities we call
"machines", >which
may loosely be defined as entities initially designed by
other entities. >Some
believe that humans themselves are machines by this
definition,.[S.P.]
The vacuum cleaner is a machine designed by the
consciousness-possessing engineer. But, from this does not
follow that the vacuum cleaner also possesses
consciousness.
I did
not say that ALL designed entities "possess
consciousness" however one sets the bar. Nor do all
evolved organisms.
Some
of these debates remind me of the folks who argue that
"natural molecules" found in plants are
inherently, fundamentally different from "artificial
molecules" made in chemistry labs, regardless of
composition and structure.



-- 





To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/2055394918.1280976.1515192818131%40mail.yahoo.com.

Serge Patlavskiy

unread,
Jan 6, 2018, 11:11:44 AM1/6/18
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 5, 2018 wrote:
>WHAT?You said my comments about entities are false, and then 
>say it does not matter what definition I was using for that?
>
>What use is there for a discussion whose only tool actually used is
> attempted logic, which does not even use basic logic?
.
[S.P.] What I said is this:
.
"Your viewing eyes and ears as "entities" is not pertaining to this discussion, because we consider the difference between an organism as a whole and its body parts. In either case I would obstain from calling "eyes and ears" as entities. By "entity" I mean an element of Noumenal Reality which can be formalized as a whole complex system." (see below for the original text).
.
So, what is wrong with my logic? Maybe, there is something wrong with my English? Maybe, you disagree with my definition of "entity"? Or what? At any rate, I was not saying that your "comments about entities are false". There is, in fact, no reason to "get flurried". :-)
.
Am always expecting to have a constructive discussion by exchanging the rational arguments.
.
With respect,
Serge Patlavskiy


Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 3:36 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words
_______________________________________

From: "'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D." <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 3:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

-
Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com> on Jan 5, 2018 wrote:
>Let us be careful with words.
>What you said more precisely (see below) is that eyes or ears do not think, 
>but a person does.
>I view eyes and ears as "entities" even though they are not "organisms". 
.
[S.P.] I say that it is the organism as a whole complex system that possesses consciousness. In so doing, its body parts like ears, stomach, heart, or buttocks do not possess consciousness.
.

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Whit Blauvelt

unread,
Jan 6, 2018, 4:29:38 PM1/6/18
to 'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D.
Hi Serge,

With respect to you both, how can you close this question of what an entity
is? While it's plausible that each of us is but one consciousness entity,
it's also possible that we -- whether all or just some of us -- are more
than one. And it's possible that these entities correspond 1-to-1 with the
body, or with bodily parts, or on some scale larger than bodies -- or all
the above.

Logic is not enough. Logic needs to be anchored by evidence. In real life it
can even turn out that multiple, contradictory logics are anchored by the
same evidence. But it also turns out that there are logics which available
evidence refutes.

There is, for instance, evidence that those whose inner conversational style
is dialogical are saner than those whose style is monological. On this
level, the assumption of multiple selves is pragmatically useful -- however
the final truth may work out. Also, a dialogical inner style may lend itself
better to a dialogical outer style.

For what little it's worth, I favor your stand that robots are not in the
least conscious, and I like to see good arguments for that stand. But I
don't see that you've made one. You have a complex, logical model that rules
it out; but I don't see where you've anchored that model to evidence.

On the other hand, since totally-unconscious (yet complexly-programmed and
self-programming) robots may be more dangerous to humanity than somewhat
conscious ones, there's reason to hope that Paul, with a real expertise in
that area which you and I lack, is right despite his differing from the
conclusion you and I favor on that question.

Best,
Whit

Serge Patlavskiy

unread,
Jan 7, 2018, 2:54:16 PM1/7/18
to Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
-
Whit Blauvelt <wh...@csmind.com> on Jan 6, 2018 wrote:
>For what little it's worth, I favor your stand that robots are not in the
>least conscious, and I like to see good arguments for that stand. But 
>I don't see that you've made one. You have a complex, logical model
> that rules it out; but I don't see where you've anchored that model to
> evidence.
.
[S.P.] Indeed, something is wrong with my English. The case is that I do no use the word "conscious" unless it is a part of a phrase "to be conscious of". This phrase means that, while performing cognitive activity, we keep a focus of attention on some object of study. Moreover, I consider three regimes of functioning of consciousness, where only one of them can be called "conscious". The other two are "sub-conscious" and "ultra-conscious" correspondingly. So, I prefer to use the phrase "to possess consciousness" instead of "conscious" because the word "conscious", at best, pertains only to some aspect of functioning of consciousness.
.
So, I hold that the robots, computers, coffee-pots, vacuum-cleaners, atoms and rocks are not possessing consciousness. Why? It is because the value of entropic characteristic of the system{atom} (or the system{robot}, etc.) is not sufficiently low for the effect of self-organization to appear. This effect means that, in case it appears, the complex system becomes able to keep the low value of its entropic characteristic itself, and a system has three natural ways of doing this (including the way of dealing with physical signals and transforming them into the elements of experience; I call this way as "possessing consciousness"). An example of a self-organizing complex system is the system{organism}.
.
But, I also consider a possibility that the system{non-living object} may spontaneously and abruptly reach the very low value of its entropic characteristic (say, due to some outer influence, or, better say, due to interaction with another complex system). In this case we may receive, for example, a phenomenon of poltergeist. This approach can also explain the anomalous physical behavior of such objects as ball-lightning. 
.
[Whit Blauvelt] wrote:
> since totally-unconscious (yet complexly-programmed and self-programming)
> robots may be more dangerous to humanity than somewhat conscious ones,
.
[S.P.] I touch on similar questions in my reply to Bruno and Syamala on Dec 24, 2017. I wrote therein: "But, in case the first consciousness-possessing complex artificial self-organizing system is created, its behavior will become a pure/uncontrolled realization of possibilities provided by different regimes of functioning of its exemplar of consciousness. So, it cannot be predicted what repercussions may come when the social obligations will be shuffled off." (the whole text is attached below).
.
Best,
Serge Patlavskiy



From: Whit Blauvelt <wh...@csmind.com>
To: "'Serge Patlavskiy' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D." <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 11:29 PM

Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Karl Pribram and the four letter words

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Sadhu_Sanga-post_24-12-2017.txt
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