subjective experience
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Philip Thrift
Jul 4, 2019, 4:57:51 AM7/4/19
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On Thursday, July 4, 2019 at 3:31:27 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> On 3 Jul 2019, at 19:54, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> You may be able to access your subjective time, but does it provide a measure...and if so what is it?
We get three candidates for the logic of the measure one, given by the logic of the intensional variant of G ([]p):
[]p & p
[]p & <>t
[]p & <>t & p
With “[]” = Gödel’s beweisbar, and p is any sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (it models the Universal dovetailing).
If that logic verifies some technical condition (described by Von Neuman in some papers), the logic should provides the entire probability calculus, as it has to do if Mechanism is correct.
G and G* splits both []p & <>t and []p & <>t & p. So we get 5 logics, but normally, only the starred logic should provides the measure, because it depends on the true structure made by the 1p experiences, and not the experienced experiences. Our future depends non locally of all our existing “preparation” or “reconstitution” that exists in the (sigma_1) arithmetic (the universal dovetailer).
Bruno
If that above is a correct experientiality logic, then what would be a 'machine' -- defined in terms of physics (or chemistry or biology) -- to execute it?
We know one 'machine' exists: our brain. But what machine is that?
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 5, 2019, 10:27:11 AM7/5/19
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That’s a very good question, but not an easy one, especially if you are not familiar with the “universal dovetailer argument” and our self-multiplication in arithmetic.
The brain exist phenomenologically, and it is not a machine, even if it is something which supports computation. In fact it is the same for a computer.
You could say that a brain or a computer is a digital machine (supporting our computation), but that it is itself supported by an infinity of computations. Intuitively (accepting classical quantum physics momentarily) a piece of matter is a map of all the realities you will access if you attempt to figure out some aspect of those sub-level computations. You can imagine that there is one computation for each possible position (and momentum) of each electron in that piece of matter, and the electron itself is a complicated invariant of some possible field. But the multiplication can be triggered by the observation, by some alien, even far away, of its own piece of matter. Such a multiplication is contaminated by the alien to you, at the speed of light (or below) assuming again the physics of today (which we seem to recover until now).
It is certainly hard to imagine: a brain our a physical computer is made up of the histories we can share, and which are supported by the infinitely many computations (which are run in Arithmetic) with more details than we need to have our computational state.
An image would be that a piece of matter is made of those computations, but that is still a misleading metaphor, as matter is not something made of anything, but is more like a qualia (a first person notion), which we can share among locally independent universal machine.
I can argue, that both intuitively (with some many-world account of QM) and formally (using the self-reference logics and the quantum logical formalism) that nature confirms this (with some degree), but that will not help, QM itself does not admit simple interpretation, and there is no unanimity of how to interpret it. Mechanism makes this both more simple (the many computations are easy to study), and more complex, because the internal views are based on incompleteness which is rather counter-intuitive too.
It is exactly what I am searching: what is matter when we understand that the physical reality is more like an infinity of computer simulation interfering statistically? The math, a bit like with the current physical theories, can only give epistemic observable and predictions rules, and that is how we can test mechanism experimentally. Matter conceived as something made of tiny particles is a concept that we need to abandon: they are abstract feature introduce by ourself when we look at things, but with a very general notion of ourself (all universal machines in arithmetic). The math suggest that the “bottom” of the physical reality is a highly symmetrical structure which is highly not symmetrical from the perspective of the average universal number in arithmetic.
I hope this helps. I will make a glossary which should add more help, soon or a bit later,
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 5, 2019, 11:57:01 PM7/5/19
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The Kantian perspective is
logic-of-X ≠ X-in-itself
-- which is noumena, or matter.
All our conceptions of the world are prisoners of our logic (languages).
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 6, 2019, 2:42:20 AM7/6/19
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That is a good reason to make clear which logic we are using. The use of the classical (usual) Church-Turing thesis means that we use classical logic in the base Turing-universal ontology . We need that a program, when enacted (on some input, or not) will either stop, or not stop, independently of us knowing which is the case.
Then the phenomenologies (which emerges from incompleteness) get their own logic (intuitionist for the first person) and quantum for the material self-modes.
Cf:
p,
[]p
[]p & p first person mode
[]p & <>t material mode
[]p & <>t & p. Material and first person mode
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 6, 2019, 7:32:29 AM7/6/19
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Whatever logic it is, its semantics (of a theory in that logic) is the elephant in the room.
e.g. Whereas universal algebra provides the semantics for a signature, logic provides the syntax.
Semantics is the wild, wild west of logic.
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 8, 2019, 5:58:32 AM7/8/19
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You might try to make a point, perhaps. Semantic is obviously very important.
Logic can be divided in three chapters:
- theory of theories and proofs (cf Gödel)
- semantics (Model theory) (cf Lowenheim, Skolem and Tarski, Mostowski, …)
- the relation between, theories and models, that is the study of (all) theories and all their semantics, usually through completeness and incompleteness theorems.
Semantic is the heart of “modern logic”. I do avoid using it here to much, because it is quickly rather technical. I hope people have some idea that the structure (N, 0, +, *) (which is the set N with the usual standard interpretation of + and *) is a model of both RA and PA. I might say a bit more in the glossary I am preparing. All “rich” theories have infinitely many non isomorphic models, and by incompleteness no theories at all can study its own semantics, but some theories can still say a lot about it, like its own incompleteness.
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 8, 2019, 6:42:22 AM7/8/19
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Semantics is real thing, so to speak, to me.
There are two types of semantics:
Fictional - regarding all the mathematical structures of standard model theory you refer to above (Hartry Field)
Material - things/entities in the material world
Semantics and substrates are connected, it not identical. That's my blog.
Also
There is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians. (Richard Montague)
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 9, 2019, 7:52:06 AM7/9/19
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On 8 Jul 2019, at 12:42, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Monday, July 8, 2019 at 4:58:32 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 6 Jul 2019, at 13:32, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 6, 2019 at 1:42:20 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 6 Jul 2019, at 05:57, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:Whatever logic it is, its semantics (of a theory in that logic) is the elephant in the room.e.g. Whereas universal algebra provides the semantics for a signature, logic provides the syntax.Semantics is the wild, wild west of logic.You might try to make a point, perhaps. Semantic is obviously very important.Logic can be divided in three chapters:- theory of theories and proofs (cf Gödel)- semantics (Model theory) (cf Lowenheim, Skolem and Tarski, Mostowski, …)- the relation between, theories and models, that is the study of (all) theories and all their semantics, usually through completeness and incompleteness theorems.Semantic is the heart of “modern logic”. I do avoid using it here to much, because it is quickly rather technical. I hope people have some idea that the structure (N, 0, +, *) (which is the set N with the usual standard interpretation of + and *) is a model of both RA and PA. I might say a bit more in the glossary I am preparing. All “rich” theories have infinitely many non isomorphic models, and by incompleteness no theories at all can study its own semantics, but some theories can still say a lot about it, like its own incompleteness.BrunoSemantics is real thing, so to speak, to me.There are two types of semantics:Fictional - regarding all the mathematical structures of standard model theory you refer to above (Hartry Field)
The non standard model would be less fictional?
The word “fiction” can be misleading. I prefer to use “immaterial”, or “spiritual”, or “mental”, perhaps.
Material - things/entities in the material world
Those are important, but if we assume mechanism, I don’t think we can assume matter, but we can explain its appearances from the machine’s consciousness theory (theology) and test it empirically. Up to now, the evidences favours mechanism.
Semantics and substrates are connected, it not identical. That's my blog.
I can’t really make sense of this.
AlsoThere is in my opinion no important theoretical difference between natural languages and the artificial languages of logicians. (Richard Montague)
For a monist, the difference between natural and artificial is artificial, and indeed natural for those entities which develop a big ego and feel different.
Of course there is a difference between the formal languages and the “natural” languages, and Richard Montague attempt to develop a sort of polymodal rich lambda calculus for the treatment of natural language is very interesting.
So I appreciate your opinion that there is no fundamental difference between those type of languages. When I was younger I have made a universal programming language (ANIMA° which was also a subset of natural language (English). You could ask the computer things like, “could you please find a file with some document on number in my computer, and if not, on the net?”. But it was very slow, and people prefer shortcuts …
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 9, 2019, 3:50:12 PM7/9/19
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Semantics and substrates are connected, if not identical. [corrected]
I first learned mathematical logic - ML (up to the incompleteness theorems) - in the summer of 1970 (I was 17) at The Ohio State University Ross Mathematics Program [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Ross#Ross_Mathematics_Program ]. So I've known about the models/interpretations of ML since then.
Going from ML to programming, semantics gets more interesting
Modeling Languages:
Syntax, Semantics and all that Stuff
(or, What’s the Semantics of “Semantics”?)
"Motivated by the confusion surrounding the proper definition of complex modeling languages, especially the UML, we discuss the distinction between syntax and true semantics, and the nature and purpose of each."
Now that we are entering the age of the matter compiler, once SF, now getting real,
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age (1995)
the semantics of programs lie in the materiality (substrate) of their expression.
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 10, 2019, 5:31:23 AM7/10/19
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I know what semantics is. I don’t know what matter is, but I do know that if we are digitalisable machine, then matter is a secondary notion entirely explainable, without material ontological commitment, from the theory of the digital immaterial machine. As this gives a many-histories interpretation of arithmetic rather well confirmed by QM-without-collapse, I tend to take contemporary physics as confining immaterialism.
Matter and physical implementations are important for the applications, but it is a red herring in metaphysics and theology. I think.
It is up to a believer in matter to explain what is matter and how it could interfere with the arithmetical computations, or to abandon mechanism and provide a non mechanist theory of mind (which will also requires the study of computability).
What I have given is a way to test the existence of primitive matter (versus Mechanism), and up to now, there are no evidence for it.
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 10, 2019, 5:50:54 AM7/10/19
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In an ironic way, it is panpsychism (William James) that leads to actual materialism. If experience (Galen Strawson) is a real thing (or experiences/qualia) that cannot be reduced (Philip Goff) to arithmetic/logic (of whatever order or modality), then matter is that which provides that which is missing. If no computer scientist will ever make a conscious machine out of whatever size network of ARM (or even QuARM) processors running its native machine code, then that's a clue.
(ot course on could go the total consciousness/qualia monism route, but that is another problem-maker)
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 10, 2019, 10:59:19 AM7/10/19
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Is this not similar as the use of God in an explanation for filling a hole in it?
I don’t know what is (primary matter). Physicists measure measurable numbers, and infer mathematical relations between those measurable numbers. Before quantum mechanics, we could still believe that those measurable numbers reflect some reality, (cf Einstein’s definition of physical reality), but this avenue lead to difficulties, and there is no unanimity among physicists on how to interpret the number relations that they infer. Worst, there is still no unifying theory of the 3p forces in Nature.
When I ask some explanation, eventually people define matter ostensively, which brings the usual “dream-argument-like” problems.
Then, the assumption of primary matter is never used in physics. So, why decide that something as unintelligible as matter exist, when it can be shown incompatible with Mechanism (used in biology, and confirmed by physics).
Especially that the theory given by the universal machine already explains in all details where and how consciousness and the appearance of matter exist, and why they are non reducible to any 3p notion definable by the machine?
If no computer scientist will ever make a conscious machine out of whatever size network of ARM (or even QuARM) processors running its native machine code, then that's a clue.
The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
(ot course on could go the total consciousness/qualia monism route, but that is another problem-maker)
Yes, it is about the same error than postulating matter or God. Those things can be explained from much simpler, like the theory just above, or by elementary,tary arithmetic (those theories are Turing-equivalent).
Bruno
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Brent Meeker
Jul 10, 2019, 4:24:34 PM7/10/19
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On 7/10/2019 2:50 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
> If no computer scientist will ever make a conscious machine out of
> whatever size network of ARM (or even QuARM) processors running its
> native machine code, then that's a clue.
incommunicable feeling then is made unobservable by definition. If
someone builds and intelligent machine that behaves as people do and
claims to be conscious then there can be no non-religious reason to deny
it is conscious.
Brent
Brent Meeker
Jul 10, 2019, 5:05:00 PM7/10/19
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On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz =
> xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave
> some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
Brent
Philip Thrift
Jul 10, 2019, 6:03:44 PM7/10/19
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When Sophia
Sophia the Robot
says "Don't turn me off!", then we wonder.
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 11, 2019, 6:40:13 AM7/11/19
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Bruno
>
> Brent
>
> --
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Bruce Kellett
Jul 11, 2019, 8:23:30 AM7/11/19
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On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 8:40 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>
> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.
Come now. That is just the cat=dog argument for which I have often criticised you. You take a superficial resemblance between two things and claim identity. Very poor logic, I must say. "True, knowable, non-provable, definable without invoking truth" is but a poor definition of consciousness, even if it may be a property of your feeble combinators.
Bruce
Bruno Marchal
Jul 11, 2019, 9:09:44 AM7/11/19
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On 11 Jul 2019, at 14:23, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 8:40 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>
> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.Come now. That is just the cat=dog argument for which I have often criticised you. You take a superficial resemblance between two things and claim identity.
Not identity, but equivalence. Conscience is a general term, like cat and dog are both quadrupeds mammals.
You are criticising the axiomatic method. I certainly do not identify the many consciousness possible, as numerous as possible persons, human or not, and in fact, the works shows the existence of very variate forms of consciousness.
It is not because both dog and cat are quadrupeds mammals that Dog = Cat.
But if you are OK that consciousness is characterised by the quasi axiomatic I give, then all universal machine can be said to be conscious, and the Löbian machine can be said to be self-conscious.
Very poor logic, I must say.
It is called the axiomatic method, and it is the jewel brought by modern logic. The idea is to characterise things by searching some principles on which we agree about those things, letting open that we might later add incompatible proposition to gives different examples of the thing, like we could add “barking” to "quadruplet mammals” if we want distinguish dog from cat.
Since Gödel we have good reason for doing that, because we know that all concepts “rich enough” cannot be defined at all, but can be characterised by first order logical axiomatic system, or by definition *in* such system. We can’t do better a priori, unless we are gods or something non Turing emulable. All theories about computer programs are essentially undecidable, and most concept there are not univocally definable: you need to add non computable set of postulates to characterise them univocally, which of course cannot be done.
"True, knowable, non-provable, definable without invoking truth" is but a poor definition of consciousness,
That is an opinion, and I have no clue why you say this. Keep in mind that we have already precise mathematical definition of truth (for the simple Löbian machine), provable, knowable, non-definable, and that all what <I say makes sense thanks to the theorems of Gödel 1931, and Löb 1955, and Solovay 1976 (on G and G*).
even if it may be a property of your feeble combinators.
Feeble?
Bruno
Bruce
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Brent Meeker
Jul 11, 2019, 1:48:27 PM7/11/19
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On 7/11/2019 3:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
> Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.
of the reason for that it doesn't include being conscious of something.
And I don't even know what "non-definable without invoking truth"
means. Since "truth" is, according to you, undefinable that would seem
to say your definition of consciousness says it's undefinable.
Elsewhere you rely on the common sense idea that everybody you're
communicating with knows consciousness "from the inside", which is
independent of your definition. And for your definition to work you
would need to show that it not only describes the first person
experience of consciousness, but also that it doesn't describe anything
else. Yet you're saying it also describes the consequences of two
equations.
Brent
Bruce Kellett
Jul 11, 2019, 9:12:39 PM7/11/19
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On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 11:09 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 11 Jul 2019, at 14:23, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 8:40 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>
> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.Come now. That is just the cat=dog argument for which I have often criticised you. You take a superficial resemblance between two things and claim identity.Not identity, but equivalence.
Is not identity an equivalence relationship? You are chopping logic.
Conscience is a general term, like cat and dog are both quadrupeds mammals.You are criticising the axiomatic method.
Science is not axiomatic.
I certainly do not identify the many consciousness possible, as numerous as possible persons, human or not, and in fact, the works shows the existence of very variate forms of consciousness.
It is not because both dog and cat are quadrupeds mammals that Dog = Cat.
No, one can point to many more dissimilarities than there are similarities. So your attempt at equivalence or identity between your pathetically inadequate definition of consciousness and your combinator logic fails at every level. In other words, you have not 'explained' consciousness -- you are not even talking about consciousness as usually understood.
But if you are OK that consciousness is characterised by the quasi axiomatic I give, then all universal machine can be said to be conscious, and the Löbian machine can be said to be self-conscious.
I reject your definition of consciousness as totally inadequate. As Brent points out, it does not even begin to cover important aspects of consciousness, such as awareness of an environment.
Very poor logic, I must say.It is called the axiomatic method, and it is the jewel brought by modern logic. The idea is to characterise things by searching some principles on which we agree about those things, letting open that we might later add incompatible proposition to gives different examples of the thing, like we could add “barking” to "quadruplet mammals” if we want distinguish dog from cat.
And we could add "interacting with an environment", or "capable of autonomous action", or "can pass a Turing Test" to the list of characteristics of consciousness. None of these additional features are satisfied by your combinators, so your equivalence relationship is far from being satisfied.
Since Gödel we have good reason for doing that, because we know that all concepts “rich enough” cannot be defined at all, but can be characterised by first order logical axiomatic system, or by definition *in* such system. We can’t do better a priori, unless we are gods or something non Turing emulable. All theories about computer programs are essentially undecidable, and most concept there are not univocally definable: you need to add non computable set of postulates to characterise them univocally, which of course cannot be done."True, knowable, non-provable, definable without invoking truth" is but a poor definition of consciousness,That is an opinion, and I have no clue why you say this.
That would suggest that you don't know what consciousness is.
Keep in mind that we have already precise mathematical definition of truth (for the simple Löbian machine), provable, knowable, non-definable, and that all what <I say makes sense thanks to the theorems of Gödel 1931, and Löb 1955, and Solovay 1976 (on G and G*).
What has 'truth' got to do with it? Is an axiom conscious?
even if it may be a property of your feeble combinators
Feeble?
Yes, feeble. You put your combinators and a logic text into a room and shut the door. They couldn't even report back the colour of the wallpaper, much less initiate any autonomous action, or pass a Turing test.
Bruce
Bruno Marchal
Jul 12, 2019, 5:28:49 AM7/12/19
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> On 11 Jul 2019, at 19:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/11/2019 3:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>>> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
>> Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.
>
> But I don't agree that your definition defines consciousness. And part of the reason for that it doesn't include being conscious of something. And I don't even know what "non-definable without invoking truth" means. Since "truth" is, according to you, undefinable that would seem to say your definition of consciousness says it's undefinable.
I know it is subtle matter. But with mechanism, consciousness is shown non definable in exactly the sense of Tarski theorem on the non definability of the arithmetical truth, and consciousness becomes “meta-definable” in analysis or second order logic.
Consciousness is “<>t” (consistency) but as seen from the first person perspective (which is more close to <>t < t, making it trivial in that perspective, like we feel it to be).
Now, consciousness of something is given by just <>p < p.
>
> Elsewhere you rely on the common sense idea that everybody you're communicating with knows consciousness "from the inside", which is independent of your definition.
No it is part. It is the “indubitable” part, and in the “immediately knowable” part.
> And for your definition to work you would need to show that it not only describes the first person experience of consciousness,
> but also that it doesn't describe anything else.
As I explained to Bruce, this is just impossible. Not just for consciousness, but already for the simple natural numbers. Nobody can give a definition of the natural numbers which would be true only for the natural numbers and not something else. We cannot eliminate the non standard models.
Some would say: "- come on, we can define the natural numbers in ZF set theory", but that would be true if they were non non standard model of set theory.
By definition, a standard model of ZF is a model where the least infinite ordinal is supremum (borne supérieur) of the finite ordinal as defined by von Neumann induction (0 = { }, n+1 = n U {n}).
With mechanism, we can “prove" in (ZF + some large cardinal) that to define consciousness is equivalent to define the natural numbers, and that this is just totally impossible for any (standard) machine. I put “prove” in quote, because that large cardinal has to be *very* large, and we can’t exclude that it is so large that it makes make set theory inconsistent. I am working on this since sometimes (formalising the whole Mechanist philosophy in some model of ZF).
> Yet you're saying it also describes the consequences of two equations.
It looks like “time” when addressed by St-Augustin. He was taking about subjective time, to be sure, and describe it as what he knows the most, yet get utterly confused when attempting to describe or define it. Consciousness is like that: it is what we know the best, yet we are incapable to define it, and indeed, like the numbers, we need it to describe it. In a sense consciousness is the virtuous irreducible circle. Then with mechanism, it can be shown to be a fixed point of a transformation of the machine, that the machine cannot named or described.
Consciousness is far simpler than matter, but not that simple!
Bruno
>
> Brent
>
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
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>
>
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 12, 2019, 5:56:31 AM7/12/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 12 Jul 2019, at 03:12, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 11:09 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 11 Jul 2019, at 14:23, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 8:40 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>
> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.Come now. That is just the cat=dog argument for which I have often criticised you. You take a superficial resemblance between two things and claim identity.Not identity, but equivalence.Is not identity an equivalence relationship? You are chopping logic.
Identity is an equivalence, but equivalence is not an identity. You are confusing p -> q and q -> p.
Conscience is a general term, like cat and dog are both quadrupeds mammals.You are criticising the axiomatic method.Science is not axiomatic.
Of course. But it can use the axiomatic method.
I certainly do not identify the many consciousness possible, as numerous as possible persons, human or not, and in fact, the works shows the existence of very variate forms of consciousness.It is not because both dog and cat are quadrupeds mammals that Dog = Cat.No, one can point to many more dissimilarities than there are similarities. So your attempt at equivalence or identity between your pathetically inadequate definition of consciousness and your combinator logic fails at every level.
Where? Specifically.
(But your use of “pathetically” suggest me that you have not yet studied the subject, and that your agenda is just a destructive one, you don’t seem interested in the problem).
In other words, you have not 'explained' consciousness -- you are not even talking about consciousness as usually understood.
Can you explain what is missing? Or if you know a better theory (than Mechanism).
I have only precise definition and theorem. You can always cricicze definitions, but then provide better one please.
The definition given here justify why ([]p & <>t & p) describe qualia, and why we recover quanta from the wearability of some type of qualia among different universal machine.
I have been mocked for twenty years on this, by dogmatic materialist believers, until I proved the point (which has transformed the funny mockery in violent hate and defamation).
Everyone would benefit of making the discussion emotionally neutral. Ask specific question on what you don’t understand, or what you find false. If you know a better (meta)definition of consciousness, maybe try to explain it here.
But if you are OK that consciousness is characterised by the quasi axiomatic I give, then all universal machine can be said to be conscious, and the Löbian machine can be said to be self-conscious.I reject your definition of consciousness as totally inadequate. As Brent points out, it does not even begin to cover important aspects of consciousness, such as awareness of an environment.
Not only it explains awareness of an environment, but it explains why that the observable with respect of that environment obeys quantum logic (formally), and even more simply, why the universal machine executed in arithmetic discover soon or later the “many-worlds” appearances.
Also, physics fails on this. It miss awareness, and use a brain-mind identity thesis which is incompatible with Mechanism to link the experimental evidence with the first person view. And that is obvious with mechanism, but well known by the expert, even without Mechanism. It is called the mind-body problem.
Very poor logic, I must say.It is called the axiomatic method, and it is the jewel brought by modern logic. The idea is to characterise things by searching some principles on which we agree about those things, letting open that we might later add incompatible proposition to gives different examples of the thing, like we could add “barking” to "quadruplet mammals” if we want distinguish dog from cat.And we could add "interacting with an environment", or "capable of autonomous action", or "can pass a Turing Test" to the list of characteristics of consciousness. None of these additional features are satisfied by your combinators,
Do you have a proof of this?
so your equivalence relationship is far from being satisfied.Since Gödel we have good reason for doing that, because we know that all concepts “rich enough” cannot be defined at all, but can be characterised by first order logical axiomatic system, or by definition *in* such system. We can’t do better a priori, unless we are gods or something non Turing emulable. All theories about computer programs are essentially undecidable, and most concept there are not univocally definable: you need to add non computable set of postulates to characterise them univocally, which of course cannot be done."True, knowable, non-provable, definable without invoking truth" is but a poor definition of consciousness,That is an opinion, and I have no clue why you say this.That would suggest that you don't know what consciousness is.
Can you provide arguments or give specific counter-examples. It looks like you are speculating on negative possible failures. That can be done with any theory.
Keep in mind that we have already precise mathematical definition of truth (for the simple Löbian machine), provable, knowable, non-definable, and that all what <I say makes sense thanks to the theorems of Gödel 1931, and Löb 1955, and Solovay 1976 (on G and G*).What has 'truth' got to do with it?
It has to do with the fact that for a conscious entity, that consciousnesss is lived as a truth. It means that consciousness is a semantical notion. You can relate it with another definition of consciousness that I have given; the knowledge (true belief) in a reality. This use Gödel’s completeness theorem: a theory is consistent if and only if the theory has a model.
Is an axiom conscious?
An axiome alone, certainly not. But an axiom together with inference rule and a model: it can be.
even if it may be a property of your feeble combinatorsFeeble?Yes, feeble. You put your combinators and a logic text into a room and shut the door. They couldn't even report back the colour of the wallpaper, much less initiate any autonomous action, or pass a Turing test.
You are assuming here that Digital Mechanism is false, In that case, my theorem remains valid, even if the conclusion does no more apply. But I am not interested in discussing truth of falsity of theories, prefer to derive experimental means to test the theories.
Bruno
Bruce--
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Philip Thrift
Jul 12, 2019, 6:24:32 AM7/12/19
to Everything List
On Friday, July 12, 2019 at 4:56:31 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I have been mocked for twenty years on this, by dogmatic materialist believers, until I proved the point (which has transformed the funny mockery in violent hate and defamation).Everyone would benefit of making the discussion emotionally neutral. Ask specific question on what you don’t understand, or what you find false. If you know a better (meta)definition of consciousness, maybe try to explain it here.
I was thinking we (real) materialists are mocked today. :)
Physicists (and even philosophers) have gone over to "It's all just information [number] processing, including consciousness" [SeanCarroll, Max Tegmark, etc.], thus becoming today's anti-materialists.
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 12, 2019, 10:52:30 AM7/12/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 12 Jul 2019, at 12:24, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, July 12, 2019 at 4:56:31 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:I have been mocked for twenty years on this, by dogmatic materialist believers, until I proved the point (which has transformed the funny mockery in violent hate and defamation).Everyone would benefit of making the discussion emotionally neutral. Ask specific question on what you don’t understand, or what you find false. If you know a better (meta)definition of consciousness, maybe try to explain it here.I was thinking we (real) materialists are mocked today. :)
Where? Maybe the naïve one, who still believe that the observable are boolean, or something like that. But the paradigm today in metaphysics is implicitly or explicitly physicalist/materialist.
Physicists (and even philosophers) have gone over to "It's all just information [number] processing, including consciousness" [SeanCarroll, Max Tegmark, etc.], thus becoming today's anti-materialists.
They have to, if Digital Mechanism is assumed, that has been proven. Without Mechanism, it is unclear to me if we can really make sense of that primitive matter concept.
It is worst than in the Napoleon-Laplace dialog. I cannot say that I don’t need the hypothesis of Matter, I have to say that any notion of Matter which would be related to my consciousness leads to a contradiction (using very small amount of Occam razor).
Let us pursue the testing. To assume Matter (and what would that be?) is far more premature. To invoke it in our explanation of Nature and Consciousness seems to me quite premature. Ontological commitment are better to avoid when doing science, especially so in metaphysics-theology.
IF the three of S4Grz1, Z1* and X1*, described in my papers, depart from nature, well, some oracle or matter might be at play, but that has not yet been shown. An hard computationalist will only deduce that we are in a malevolent simulation, like when seeing the pixels in a video game.
Bruno
@philipthrift
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 12, 2019, 10:57:27 AM7/12/19
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ERRATA:
I meant “sharability” of course.
of some type of qualia among different universal machine.
I meant “machines”.
Sorry for my spelling (and the aggravation due to the automatic speller).
Each time you see “Sexy”, please replace by Sxyz.
Pfft….
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 12, 2019, 2:38:14 PM7/12/19
to Everything List
On Friday, July 12, 2019 at 9:52:30 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 12 Jul 2019, at 12:24, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, July 12, 2019 at 4:56:31 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:I have been mocked for twenty years on this, by dogmatic materialist believers, until I proved the point (which has transformed the funny mockery in violent hate and defamation).Everyone would benefit of making the discussion emotionally neutral. Ask specific question on what you don’t understand, or what you find false. If you know a better (meta)definition of consciousness, maybe try to explain it here.I was thinking we (real) materialists are mocked today. :)Where? Maybe the naïve one, who still believe that the observable are boolean, or something like that. But the paradigm today in metaphysics is implicitly or explicitly physicalist/materialist.Physicists (and even philosophers) have gone over to "It's all just information [number] processing, including consciousness" [SeanCarroll, Max Tegmark, etc.], thus becoming today's anti-materialists.They have to, if Digital Mechanism is assumed, that has been proven. Without Mechanism, it is unclear to me if we can really make sense of that primitive matter concept.It is worst than in the Napoleon-Laplace dialog. I cannot say that I don’t need the hypothesis of Matter, I have to say that any notion of Matter which would be related to my consciousness leads to a contradiction (using very small amount of Occam razor).Let us pursue the testing. To assume Matter (and what would that be?) is far more premature. To invoke it in our explanation of Nature and Consciousness seems to me quite premature. Ontological commitment are better to avoid when doing science, especially so in metaphysics-theology.IF the three of S4Grz1, Z1* and X1*, described in my papers, depart from nature, well, some oracle or matter might be at play, but that has not yet been shown. An hard computationalist will only deduce that we are in a malevolent simulation, like when seeing the pixels in a video game.Bruno
There are 3 things:
Logica
Qualia
Matter
The first 2 are not real without the 3rd. Without the 1st, the 3rd would be without order and would disintegrate. Without the 2nd, there would be no conscious beings made of the 3rd.
One can't untie the Trinity Knot of Being.
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 12, 2019, 3:10:08 PM7/12/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/12/2019 2:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 11 Jul 2019, at 19:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/11/2019 3:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>>>> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
>>> Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.
>> But I don't agree that your definition defines consciousness. And part of the reason for that it doesn't include being conscious of something. And I don't even know what "non-definable without invoking truth" means. Since "truth" is, according to you, undefinable that would seem to say your definition of consciousness says it's undefinable.
> But we do have a good intuition of what is truth for simple Löbian machine, like we have a good intuition of the arithmetical truth.
doesn't comport with your definition.
> Indeed without that intuition, there is no second order arithmetic, that is there is no Analysis, no “limits”, no topology on the reals. And all this can be formed in super-rich theory, like set theory.
>
> I know it is subtle matter. But with mechanism, consciousness is shown non definable in exactly the sense of Tarski theorem on the non definability of the arithmetical truth, and consciousness becomes “meta-definable” in analysis or second order logic.
>
> Consciousness is “<>t” (consistency) but as seen from the first person perspective (which is more close to <>t < t, making it trivial in that perspective, like we feel it to be).
> Now, consciousness of something is given by just <>p < p.
>
>
>
>> Elsewhere you rely on the common sense idea that everybody you're communicating with knows consciousness "from the inside", which is independent of your definition.
> ?
>
> No it is part. It is the “indubitable” part, and in the “immediately knowable” part.
>
>
>
>> And for your definition to work you would need to show that it not only describes the first person experience of consciousness,
> OK. That is the knowledge part. Glad you see this.
>
>
>
>> but also that it doesn't describe anything else.
> Why should I?
>
> As I explained to Bruce, this is just impossible. Not just for consciousness, but already for the simple natural numbers. Nobody can give a definition of the natural numbers which would be true only for the natural numbers and not something else. We cannot eliminate the non standard models.
>
> Some would say: "- come on, we can define the natural numbers in ZF set theory", but that would be true if they were non non standard model of set theory.
>
> By definition, a standard model of ZF is a model where the least infinite ordinal is supremum (borne supérieur) of the finite ordinal as defined by von Neumann induction (0 = { }, n+1 = n U {n}).
>
> With mechanism, we can “prove" in (ZF + some large cardinal) that to define consciousness is equivalent to define the natural numbers, and that this is just totally impossible for any (standard) machine. I put “prove” in quote, because that large cardinal has to be *very* large, and we can’t exclude that it is so large that it makes make set theory inconsistent. I am working on this since sometimes (formalising the whole Mechanist philosophy in some model of ZF).
>
>
>> Yet you're saying it also describes the consequences of two equations.
> It is not a description. It is just that in the theory RA or SK, we get all computations, and so we get consciousness by computationalism, intuitively *and* in the sense that we get the machines which are confronted to some true, immediately knowable, indubitable, yet non definable and non provable proposition.
have defined computations. But not all computations are consciousness.
It's like saying "A country in Europe" is a definition of Belgium.
>
> It looks like “time” when addressed by St-Augustin. He was taking about subjective time, to be sure, and describe it as what he knows the most, yet get utterly confused when attempting to describe or define it. Consciousness is like that: it is what we know the best, yet we are incapable to define it,
> and indeed, like the numbers, we need it to describe it. In a sense consciousness is the virtuous irreducible circle. Then with mechanism, it can be shown to be a fixed point of a transformation of the machine, that the machine cannot named or described.
Belgium. That's the problem with the axiomatic method, you can't get
out more than you assume at the start.
Brent
Brent Meeker
Jul 12, 2019, 3:18:54 PM7/12/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/12/2019 2:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> I have only precise definition and theorem. You can always cricicze
> definitions, but then provide better one please.
definition is ostensive. A descriptive definition must pick out that
thing from all the possible known things.
>
> The definition given here justify why ([]p & <>t & p) describe qualia,
> and why we recover quanta from the wearability of some type of qualia
> among different universal machine.
qualia. You have picked out those attributes and claimed they define
consciousness. But they don't define (demarcate) the consciousness we
know ostensively.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
Jul 13, 2019, 4:21:37 AM7/13/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
> On 12 Jul 2019, at 21:10, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7/12/2019 2:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 11 Jul 2019, at 19:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/11/2019 3:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>> On 10 Jul 2019, at 23:04, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 7/10/2019 7:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>>> The machine define by the two following equations Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz) + S ≠ K, and with the combinator induction axiom (that I gave some posts ago) is already as much conscious than you and me.
>>>>> Which in it self is a reductio of your theory.
>>>> Why? If you agree with the definition of consciousness that I have given (true, knowable, non provable, non definable without invoking truth) then SK+induction *is* provably conscious, and indeed has the G/G* theology applicable to it.
>>> But I don't agree that your definition defines consciousness. And part of the reason for that it doesn't include being conscious of something. And I don't even know what "non-definable without invoking truth" means. Since "truth" is, according to you, undefinable that would seem to say your definition of consciousness says it's undefinable.
>> But we do have a good intuition of what is truth for simple Löbian machine, like we have a good intuition of the arithmetical truth.
>
> And we have an even better intuition of what is consciousness.
> And it doesn't comport with your definition.
>
>> Indeed without that intuition, there is no second order arithmetic, that is there is no Analysis, no “limits”, no topology on the reals. And all this can be formed in super-rich theory, like set theory.
>>
>> I know it is subtle matter. But with mechanism, consciousness is shown non definable in exactly the sense of Tarski theorem on the non definability of the arithmetical truth, and consciousness becomes “meta-definable” in analysis or second order logic.
>>
>> Consciousness is “<>t” (consistency) but as seen from the first person perspective (which is more close to <>t < t, making it trivial in that perspective, like we feel it to be).
>> Now, consciousness of something is given by just <>p < p.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Elsewhere you rely on the common sense idea that everybody you're communicating with knows consciousness "from the inside", which is independent of your definition.
>> ?
>>
>> No it is part. It is the “indubitable” part, and in the “immediately knowable” part.
>>
>>
>>
>>> And for your definition to work you would need to show that it not only describes the first person experience of consciousness,
>> OK. That is the knowledge part. Glad you see this.
>>
>>
>>
>>> but also that it doesn't describe anything else.
>> Why should I?
>>
>> As I explained to Bruce, this is just impossible. Not just for consciousness, but already for the simple natural numbers. Nobody can give a definition of the natural numbers which would be true only for the natural numbers and not something else. We cannot eliminate the non standard models.
>>
>> Some would say: "- come on, we can define the natural numbers in ZF set theory", but that would be true if they were non non standard model of set theory.
>>
>> By definition, a standard model of ZF is a model where the least infinite ordinal is supremum (borne supérieur) of the finite ordinal as defined by von Neumann induction (0 = { }, n+1 = n U {n}).
>>
>> With mechanism, we can “prove" in (ZF + some large cardinal) that to define consciousness is equivalent to define the natural numbers, and that this is just totally impossible for any (standard) machine. I put “prove” in quote, because that large cardinal has to be *very* large, and we can’t exclude that it is so large that it makes make set theory inconsistent. I am working on this since sometimes (formalising the whole Mechanist philosophy in some model of ZF).
>>
>>
>>> Yet you're saying it also describes the consequences of two equations.
>> It is not a description. It is just that in the theory RA or SK, we get all computations, and so we get consciousness by computationalism, intuitively *and* in the sense that we get the machines which are confronted to some true, immediately knowable, indubitable, yet non definable and non provable proposition.
>
> But that's my complaint that you have not defined consciousness. You have defined computations. But not all computations are consciousness. It's like saying "A country in Europe" is a definition of Belgium.
A conscious person is someone for which there is something:
-true,
-immediately knowable,
-indubitable,
-non provable,
-non definable without invoking the notion of truth
Another definition is that consciousness is the belief (in a weaker sense than “[]”) in at least one reality. I don’t use it due to the difficulty to define that weak notion of belief. The one above is simpler, and entail that all (Löbian) universal machine are (self) conscious.
It provides a role to consciousness: accelerate the computation with respect to the probable universal number/environments which execute the computations supporting that consciousness. All this is detailed in some of may papers.
That does not make all computation conscious, only the universal or Löbian one.
>
>>
>> It looks like “time” when addressed by St-Augustin. He was taking about subjective time, to be sure, and describe it as what he knows the most, yet get utterly confused when attempting to describe or define it. Consciousness is like that: it is what we know the best, yet we are incapable to define it,
>
> Then why pretend you have defined it?
The axiomatic tools have been invented to allow those kind of apparent paradoxes.
>
>> and indeed, like the numbers, we need it to describe it. In a sense consciousness is the virtuous irreducible circle. Then with mechanism, it can be shown to be a fixed point of a transformation of the machine, that the machine cannot named or described.
>
> That's like saying you've found a country in Europe; therefore it is Belgium.
> That's the problem with the axiomatic method, you can't get out more than you assume at the start.
Bruno
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>>
>> Consciousness is far simpler than matter, but not that simple!
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>> Bruno
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Brent
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
>>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/fe5eab19-ad4f-c9ed-1623-3a0ca71f043e%40verizon.net.
>>>
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>
>
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 13, 2019, 4:33:42 AM7/13/19
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By a “definition", I mean a formula of arithmetic, or a meta-formula (using also some arithmetical set not definable in arithmetic, but definable in set theory, say).
We cannot define, in your sense of definition, what is a natural number. But that is not a problem for mechanism, or for reasoning on all this. Mathematical logic is the science which has solved all issues here, but I am aware it is not so easy. The problem us that mathematical logic is not well taught. All my books claim on the back cover that it is readable for philosophers, but I am not sure this is taught to philosophers, and still less to physicists or even to most mathematicians.
We should try to avoid referring to ontological commitment, make clear on what we agree, and proceed.
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 13, 2019, 4:41:00 AM7/13/19
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With Mechanism, those are explained in the phenomenology, so we do not need to assume them, except the minimal amont to define what is a digital machine, and that minimal amount is elementary combinator theory, or elementary arithmetic, etc.
The first 2 are not real without the 3rd.
That sentence is too vague. I can agree and disagree, depending of the theory used.
Without the 1st, the 3rd would be without order and would disintegrate. Without the 2nd, there would be no conscious beings made of the 3rd.One can't untie the Trinity Knot of Being.
I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.
If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why.
Bruno
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PGC
Jul 13, 2019, 6:31:33 AM7/13/19
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On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why.
"Mechanism" is not refutable. Who could refute that working works? Personal mysticism/philosophy as long as the means to test it enjoy the same ontological status as duplicating machines and ideal quantum computers; wishful thinking until credible evidence exists.
It's clear you get off selling people a bill of goods, posing as a worldwide expert on this list for years, as you don't have the means to test for yourself what you attack "physicalists" for believing.
None of this is about "debate". That's the con. Everybody knows and justifies their miseries to themselves. Falsities and ambiguities perpetuated in some validation screen addiction, instead of accomplishment, effort, respect, and risk. All we need is the semblance of "debate".
You need to confirm your positions to yourselves? And you're looking to do so on the internet? Lol it's 2019. PGC
Philip Thrift
Jul 13, 2019, 5:40:11 PM7/13/19
to Everything List
There are all kinds of machines, including biomachines*. All machines are all made of matter. If someone has an immaterial machine, then they should show it.
I think the original sin of philosophy occurred when numbers, counting, arithmetic, logic, mathematics were abstracted away from their material home.
* Cornell Scientists Create Lifelike Biomachines That Eat, Grow, And Race Competitively
April 22, 201 (via @HotHardware)
Dan Luo [professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell] and his team developed a biomaterial that was placed into a nanoscale scaffolding. The material then autonomously emerged to "arrange itself – first into polymers and eventually mesoscale shapes. Acting much like slime molds, the biomaterial was able to move under its own power, moving forward against a liquid flow of energy.
Not surprisingly, the researchers pitted these new bio machines against one another in competitive races – because, why not? Given the self-locomotive properties of each and the total randomness of the environments (and of the machines themselves), the team says that the race outcomes and eventual winners were always dynamic.
Besides their racing antics and ability to sustain themselves, the Cornell researchers also witnessed their new machines grow, decay and eventual die (after two cycles of synthesis) like true living organisms.
“The designs are still primitive, but they showed a new route to create dynamic machines from biomolecules," added Shogo Hamada, a research associate from the Luo lab. "We are at a first step of building lifelike robots by artificial metabolism.
“Ultimately, the system may lead to lifelike self-reproducing machines."
Luo and his team are just getting started with these machines, and hope to eventually advance their research to the point where this biomaterial can be used as biosensors in the medical field.
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 14, 2019, 5:00:30 AM7/14/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 13 Jul 2019, at 12:31, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why."Mechanism" is not refutable.
Digital Mechanism is not refutable by introspection. But as it implies that physics, and notably the logic of the observable obeys some logics (indeed some quantum logic), it can be refuted (or judged less plausible) by comparing the physical principles extracted from Mechanism with the observation. Up to now, thanks to the “quantum weirdness” and its “many-histories” interpretation, Mechanism fits with the observation.
Who could refute that working works?
Digital Mechanism is the idea that the brain is Turing emulable, with consciousness and personal identity preserved at some level of description.
Bruno
Personal mysticism/philosophy as long as the means to test it enjoy the same ontological status as duplicating machines and ideal quantum computers; wishful thinking until credible evidence exists.It's clear you get off selling people a bill of goods, posing as a worldwide expert on this list for years, as you don't have the means to test for yourself what you attack "physicalists" for believing.None of this is about "debate". That's the con. Everybody knows and justifies their miseries to themselves. Falsities and ambiguities perpetuated in some validation screen addiction, instead of accomplishment, effort, respect, and risk. All we need is the semblance of "debate".You need to confirm your positions to yourselves? And you're looking to do so on the internet? Lol it's 2019. PGC
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 14, 2019, 5:08:29 AM7/14/19
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That is not an argument.
If those biomachines are Turing emulable, they are emulated in infinitely many exemplars in the arithmetical reality.
It is not a sin, but an ontological commitment is not a valid way to argue;
* Cornell Scientists Create Lifelike Biomachines That Eat, Grow, And Race CompetitivelyApril 22, 201 (via @HotHardware)Dan Luo [professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell] and his team developed a biomaterial that was placed into a nanoscale scaffolding. The material then autonomously emerged to "arrange itself – first into polymers and eventually mesoscale shapes. Acting much like slime molds, the biomaterial was able to move under its own power, moving forward against a liquid flow of energy.Not surprisingly, the researchers pitted these new bio machines against one another in competitive races – because, why not? Given the self-locomotive properties of each and the total randomness of the environments (and of the machines themselves), the team says that the race outcomes and eventual winners were always dynamic.Besides their racing antics and ability to sustain themselves, the Cornell researchers also witnessed their new machines grow, decay and eventual die (after two cycles of synthesis) like true living organisms.“The designs are still primitive, but they showed a new route to create dynamic machines from biomolecules," added Shogo Hamada, a research associate from the Luo lab. "We are at a first step of building lifelike robots by artificial metabolism.“Ultimately, the system may lead to lifelike self-reproducing machines."Luo and his team are just getting started with these machines, and hope to eventually advance their research to the point where this biomaterial can be used as biosensors in the medical field.
Very good. All this is in favour of digital mechanism, unless you argue that such biomachine can violate Church’s thesis, I am not sure what you cite this. What in the “bio” part would be non Turing emulable? Usually people are open to the idea that biology obeys the quantum laws, which are digitally emulated in arithmetic, unless you consider some non Turing emulable lagragian ?
Bruno
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Philip Thrift
Jul 14, 2019, 5:53:18 AM7/14/19
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If brains (or future biomachines) are standard Turing, then we can make a conscious robot out of standard processors.
That is the great leap of faith. Panpsychism is the conservative view that only with particular material complexes consciousness exits.
One can simulate thermonuclear fusion in a supercomputer, but it's not real. Same with consciousness.
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 14, 2019, 8:45:49 AM7/14/19
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On 7/13/2019 1:21 AM, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
And it doesn't comport with your definition.I am intersted in knowing why you say that. Which part doesn’t comport ?
For one thing, it isn't consciousness OF anything. Conscious
thoughts are about things, they refer.
Brent
Brent
PGC
Jul 14, 2019, 9:01:08 AM7/14/19
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On Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 11:00:30 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 13 Jul 2019, at 12:31, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why."Mechanism" is not refutable.Digital Mechanism is not refutable by introspection. But as it implies that physics, and notably the logic of the observable obeys some logics (indeed some quantum logic), it can be refuted (or judged less plausible) by comparing the physical principles extracted from Mechanism with the observation. Up to now, thanks to the “quantum weirdness” and its “many-histories” interpretation, Mechanism fits with the observation.
Retrodiction plus the usual oversimplification. What a surprise.
A historically nuanced view encompassing developments in all supposed fields up to the present day, which conveniently don't include philosophical (assemble Greek scholars for your interpretations and cite them, if you hold yours truly to be wrong), metaphysical, literal, and aesthetic developments - "mechanism fitting with observation" is an unclear aesthetic/personal standard of evidence - and would never pass any university department/academic panel worth its salt.
Anybody with even an inclination of the complexity involved in the sweeping generality of the claims purporting to explain the origin of physical laws, reality, existence etc. - even a failed literature bachelor - would red flag the ubiquitous truth assignments, the lack of verifiability, and ask for extraordinary amounts - and measures of proof along with consequences of an alleged metaphysics. Results. Not non-results, particularly as semantically, the whole enterprise can be interpreted as anti-scientific, as well as a confidence trick.
Technically, it might have passed in isolated, less rigorous settings in the past. But ethically, philosophically, linguistically, metaphysically, physically? Today, in 2019? Sorry, but folks would laugh at the coarse takeover attempt of the scientific enterprise with such an innocent, personalized conception of evidence, science etc. They'd ask to be shown the goods and your non-answer is clear. An infinite amount of posting/explanation won't change it. Science is a "show me" kind of enterprise. You overrate explanations and excuses. PGC
Bruce Kellett
Jul 14, 2019, 6:24:42 PM7/14/19
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Well said, PGC. I couldn't agree more, and I couldn't have said it half as well.
Bruce
Bruno Marchal
Jul 15, 2019, 7:31:51 AM7/15/19
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OK.
The expression is a bit fuzzy. I would say that we can make a physical robot capable of manifesting consciousness relatively to us.
This is needed to avoid the idea that it is the physical activity in the brain robot which would “create” consciousness. The consciousness of the robot is eventually explained by (infinitely many) number relations, which are independent of time, physics, etc.
That is the great leap of faith.
I can agree, yes. That is why I insist all the time that Mechanism is an hypothesis, first in the cognitive science, then in metaphysics.
Anyone asserting that science has proven Mechanism, or that we know that Mechanism is true is a con scientist. The machine already know this.
Panpsychism is the conservative view that only with particular material complexes consciousness exits.
My goal is to figure out what is matter and where it comes from. That is one of the main reason why I do not assume matter at the start. I don’t know what it is, and I doubt it exists ontologically, especially once you know that the tiny very elementary part of arithmetic emulate *all* computations, in a redundant fashion with a precise mathematical structure (indeed seemingly rather close to what quantum mechanics already seem to described, but that will need infinitely many confirmation, like all thesis on some reality.
One can simulate thermonuclear fusion in a supercomputer, but it's not real. Same with consciousness.
Assuming non mechanism, and assuming a primary physical reality, you are right, but out of the scope of my working hypothesis.
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 15, 2019, 7:43:09 AM7/15/19
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I still don’t understand why you say that?
The difference between (consciousness) and (consciousness of something) is similar to the difference between (consistency) and (consistency of something), and this one is made clear by the difference between <>t and <>p.
Of course it is more subtile than that, because consistency (a 3p notion) is not consciousness (an 1p notion). So, for different form of consciousness you must take the corresponding diamond in the relevant notion of self (hypostase).
Incompleteness introduces all those nuances which are rich and variate, and accommodates different discourses on consciousness. The advantage is that, by construction (and modulo the infinite testing and confirmation by nature, of course), we do get a theory of matter with a mechanistically coherent identity thesis, which is lacking in physics (not even addressed, except timidly by quantum physics, and notably by Everett who made clear his intent to use Mechanism, but Everett was unaware that this forces him to explain how the multiverse emerges from the canonical many-computations in (sigma_1) arithmetic).
Bruno
Brent
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 15, 2019, 7:53:11 AM7/15/19
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On 14 Jul 2019, at 15:01, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 11:00:30 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 13 Jul 2019, at 12:31, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why."Mechanism" is not refutable.Digital Mechanism is not refutable by introspection. But as it implies that physics, and notably the logic of the observable obeys some logics (indeed some quantum logic), it can be refuted (or judged less plausible) by comparing the physical principles extracted from Mechanism with the observation. Up to now, thanks to the “quantum weirdness” and its “many-histories” interpretation, Mechanism fits with the observation.Retrodiction plus the usual oversimplification. What a surprise.A historically nuanced view encompassing developments in all supposed fields up to the present day, which conveniently don't include philosophical (assemble Greek scholars for your interpretations and cite them, if you hold yours truly to be wrong), metaphysical, literal, and aesthetic developments - "mechanism fitting with observation" is an unclear aesthetic/personal standard of evidence - and would never pass any university department/academic panel worth its salt.
I don’t understand well what you say.
I show that mechanism has empirical consequences, so that we can test it. Fitting with the observation made metaphysics into an experimental science.
I don’t see what problem it could have for any university scientific department; Even in Brussels, they have not criticise this (in Brussels, the problem came from a philosopher who invoked its person metaphysical conviction, like the church did in his time.
The work done shows mainly that the mind-body problem is NOT solved, but show a beginning of solution, and the testing possible. Nature, unfortunately, does not yet distinguish which of the three quantum logics which have been found is the one closer to the physicists one (who got also more than one), and this means that a lot of works remains. But the contrary would have been astonishing.
Anybody with even an inclination of the complexity involved in the sweeping generality of the claims purporting to explain the origin of physical laws, reality, existence etc. - even a failed literature bachelor - would red flag the ubiquitous truth assignments, the lack of verifiability, and ask for extraordinary amounts - and measures of proof along with consequences of an alleged metaphysics. Results. Not non-results, particularly as semantically, the whole enterprise can be interpreted as anti-scientific, as well as a confidence trick.Technically, it might have passed in isolated, less rigorous settings in the past. But ethically, philosophically, linguistically, metaphysically, physically? Today, in 2019? Sorry, but folks would laugh at the coarse takeover attempt of the scientific enterprise with such an innocent, personalized conception of evidence, science etc. They'd ask to be shown the goods and your non-answer is clear. An infinite amount of posting/explanation won't change it. Science is a "show me" kind of enterprise. You overrate explanations and excuses. PGC
Then may be show us. It is vague and negative, which makes me suspect .. what? The abandon of Platonism, or of Mechanism? If that is the case, is it Church thesis or “yes doctor”. I miss the message. It would be better to make specific comments, without a dismissive tone which is distracting and confusing.
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 15, 2019, 7:58:34 AM7/15/19
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Can you explain it? I don’t understand. I don’t see a point, unless you agree you would see a defense of physicalism, which explains your attachement to Aristotle metaphysical hypothesis (a primitively irreducible physical reality).
PGC is supposed to defend Platonism, and you defend Aristotle, so I am not sure on what you are agreeing.
Don’t hesitate to clarify, but keep in mind that I do not assume, neither the existence of a physical primary universe, nor its non existence. I assume only what I need to define computationalisme, and this needs only Church’s thesis (and thus very elementary arithmetic) and the “yes doctor” practical leap of faith.
Bruno
Bruce
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Philip Thrift
Jul 15, 2019, 9:39:18 AM7/15/19
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For Galen Strawson (NYTimes op-ed)
In any case, matter is a mystery. For Kant, it is unexplainable. Perhaps it will be forever unexplainable (and surprising).
But arithmetic is also a mystery (Gregory Chaitin)
So we may never know anything, we can just be and do.
@philipthrift
PGC
Jul 16, 2019, 7:44:35 AM7/16/19
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On Monday, July 15, 2019 at 1:53:11 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Jul 2019, at 15:01, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 11:00:30 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 13 Jul 2019, at 12:31, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why."Mechanism" is not refutable.Digital Mechanism is not refutable by introspection. But as it implies that physics, and notably the logic of the observable obeys some logics (indeed some quantum logic), it can be refuted (or judged less plausible) by comparing the physical principles extracted from Mechanism with the observation. Up to now, thanks to the “quantum weirdness” and its “many-histories” interpretation, Mechanism fits with the observation.Retrodiction plus the usual oversimplification. What a surprise.A historically nuanced view encompassing developments in all supposed fields up to the present day, which conveniently don't include philosophical (assemble Greek scholars for your interpretations and cite them, if you hold yours truly to be wrong), metaphysical, literal, and aesthetic developments - "mechanism fitting with observation" is an unclear aesthetic/personal standard of evidence - and would never pass any university department/academic panel worth its salt.I don’t understand well what you say.
Nobody, including yourself, understands what you say generally. It changes every week to accommodate the latest discourse.
The whole discursive setup you practice here, with transparent ideological vilification of alleged physicalists and victimization of some allegedly holy platonic side depends on one thing: distance. At least a perceived distance. It depends on people not knowing each other and therefore on folks willing to fear and blame each other because your discourse isn't informed to the contrary.
That's a highly warped and sad, cynical view of the world. I hope you do better for yourself and those around you.
You're being dismissive to the world + yourself: Who questions peoples’ alleged attachments to “Aristotle hypothesis” or whatever the flavor of the week or month is?
Who assumes themselves to have a mandate to interfere in how other people parse reality? Who tries to force everybody's discourse into their own interpretations without asking? I'm telling you for years: it's rude. Quit the games. Respect people along with yourself. You care about your work? Then work on building consensus - listen and read others as equals - instead of trying to conquer discourse. Folks that force their topics and interpretations each and every chance they get lack good faith in others and themselves. The hyper polite humble non-aggressive style doesn't fool anybody. The academic "with mechanism - we xyz blah blah" => there is no "we" or "mechanism" with your monologues of some entitled feeling leader and agreements from a few credulous minions.
Everybody knows that violence can be hidden in the most neutral, non-aggressive discourse.
Do yourself the favor of being you, instead of the muppet of some alleged platonism. Stop robbing time from yourself and members of this list with this kind of discourse. PGC
Bruno Marchal
Jul 16, 2019, 9:22:19 AM7/16/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Yes, but we can derive the numbers (and the partial computable function) from very simple theory, like from the axiom Kxy = x, and Sxyz = xz(yz), and with mechanism this is enough to drive the appearance of matter in a way that we can test.
Then, for matter, we have much complex theories, which have nit yet been successfully unify, and which requires much stronger mathematical axioms.
Chaitin is not entirely correct on the limit of reason, but he got the biology right. That would be too long and irrelevant to expand here.
In science we always need some initial faith in some axiom, but with mechanism, the two axioms above are enough for the ontology (that is for the assumption). From there we get the observers, and physics is derived from the mathematics of what is observable for those observers (that we get by listening to what they already says in arithmetic).
If Kxy = x, and Sxyz = xz(yz) seem to strange, you can take the axiom of Robinson Arithmetic instead. No need to assume more than:
1) 0 ≠ s(x)
2) x ≠ y -> s(x) ≠ s(y)
3) x ≠ 0 -> Ey(x = s(y))
4) x+0 = x
5) x+s(y) = s(x+y)
6) x*0=0
7) x*s(y)=(x*y)+x
2) x ≠ y -> s(x) ≠ s(y)
3) x ≠ 0 -> Ey(x = s(y))
4) x+0 = x
5) x+s(y) = s(x+y)
6) x*0=0
7) x*s(y)=(x*y)+x
But here you need to add the full axiomatisation of first order logic (predicate calculus).
With the combinator, you need only the following theory (no need of logic!):
1) If A = B and A = C, then B = C
2) If A = B then AC = BC
3) If A = B then CA = CB
4) KAB = A
5) SABC = AC(BC)
2) If A = B then AC = BC
3) If A = B then CA = CB
4) KAB = A
5) SABC = AC(BC)
For quantum physics, you need a much large initial segment of set theory, which is a stringer mathematical theory (much more assumptions).
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 16, 2019, 10:55:07 AM7/16/19
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On 16 Jul 2019, at 13:44, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Monday, July 15, 2019 at 1:53:11 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 14 Jul 2019, at 15:01, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday, July 14, 2019 at 11:00:30 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:On 13 Jul 2019, at 12:31, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, July 13, 2019 at 10:41:00 AM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I need a formula, and means to test it experimentally. Just to make some sense, and compare with the consequence of Mechanism.If you disagree with the proof of the incompatibility of Mechanism and (weak) Materialism, it would be nice to explain why."Mechanism" is not refutable.Digital Mechanism is not refutable by introspection. But as it implies that physics, and notably the logic of the observable obeys some logics (indeed some quantum logic), it can be refuted (or judged less plausible) by comparing the physical principles extracted from Mechanism with the observation. Up to now, thanks to the “quantum weirdness” and its “many-histories” interpretation, Mechanism fits with the observation.Retrodiction plus the usual oversimplification. What a surprise.A historically nuanced view encompassing developments in all supposed fields up to the present day, which conveniently don't include philosophical (assemble Greek scholars for your interpretations and cite them, if you hold yours truly to be wrong), metaphysical, literal, and aesthetic developments - "mechanism fitting with observation" is an unclear aesthetic/personal standard of evidence - and would never pass any university department/academic panel worth its salt.I don’t understand well what you say.Nobody, including yourself, understands what you say generally.
Just tell me what you don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad hominem attack. It bores everybody, and distract from the thread.
Bruno
It changes every week to accommodate the latest discourse.The whole discursive setup you practice here, with transparent ideological vilification of alleged physicalists and victimization of some allegedly holy platonic side depends on one thing: distance. At least a perceived distance. It depends on people not knowing each other and therefore on folks willing to fear and blame each other because your discourse isn't informed to the contrary.That's a highly warped and sad, cynical view of the world. I hope you do better for yourself and those around you.You're being dismissive to the world + yourself: Who questions peoples’ alleged attachments to “Aristotle hypothesis” or whatever the flavor of the week or month is?
Who assumes themselves to have a mandate to interfere in how other people parse reality? Who tries to force everybody's discourse into their own interpretations without asking? I'm telling you for years: it's rude. Quit the games. Respect people along with yourself. You care about your work? Then work on building consensus - listen and read others as equals - instead of trying to conquer discourse. Folks that force their topics and interpretations each and every chance they get lack good faith in others and themselves. The hyper polite humble non-aggressive style doesn't fool anybody. The academic "with mechanism - we xyz blah blah" => there is no "we" or "mechanism" with your monologues of some entitled feeling leader and agreements from a few credulous minions.Everybody knows that violence can be hidden in the most neutral, non-aggressive discourse.Do yourself the favor of being you, instead of the muppet of some alleged platonism. Stop robbing time from yourself and members of this list with this kind of discourse. PGC
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Bruce Kellett
Jul 16, 2019, 6:37:16 PM7/16/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 12:55 AM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 16 Jul 2019, at 13:44, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:On Monday, July 15, 2019 at 1:53:11 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I don’t understand well what you say.Nobody, including yourself, understands what you say generally.Just tell me what you don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad hominem attack. It bores everybody, and distract from the thread.
That is just bullying, Bruno. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of ad hominem attacks.
Bruce
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 17, 2019, 3:45:47 AM7/17/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
What you're doing is in french "C'est l'hôpital qui se fout de la charité" or "paille/poutre"... The bullies whining about being accused of bullying, what a joke.
The PGC email is just a long email of insults, not a discussion, yours are similar... what do you expect ? So either you reframe this into a discussion or you continue to bully, insult and don't expect anything new here.
Quentin
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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer)
Telmo Menezes
Jul 17, 2019, 3:58:31 AM7/17/19
to Everything List
That is a lie and you know it. And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. I challenge you to find one instance on this mailing list where Bruno accused anyone of ad hominem without having been directed insulted: "pee pee theories", "you don't make sense", "nobody knows what you're talking about", etc etc. I know you won't produce this example because it doesn't exist, and I also know that you will just avoid the topic and focus on the next insult / patronizing comment.
Well, I have been participating in this mailing list on and off for more than one decade, and more or less the only original ideas being discussed here come from Bruno. I have witnessed multi-year threads discussing what he is saying in great detail, so clearly some people must have some idea of what he is saying. Maybe the limitation is on your side?
You insist on rigor when you talk to Bruno (as you should), and then you side with someone who produced exactly zero arguments, that writes long and incoherent rants that aim only at insulting Bruno for personal reasons. Unlike John Clark for example. Say what you will, but I have never seen John Clark side with bullshit just because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Give me a break here. You are about as far from having a scientific attitude as I am from becoming the next Miss Universe.
Telmo.
Bruce
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PGC
Jul 18, 2019, 6:06:10 AM7/18/19
to Everything List
On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 9:58:31 AM UTC+2, telmo wrote:
On Wed, Jul 17, 2019, at 00:37, Bruce Kellett wrote:On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 12:55 AM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 16 Jul 2019, at 13:44, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote:On Monday, July 15, 2019 at 1:53:11 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:I don’t understand well what you say.Nobody, including yourself, understands what you say generally.Just tell me what you don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad hominem attack. It bores everybody, and distract from the thread.That is just bullying, Bruno. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of ad hominem attacks.That is a lie and you know it.
All of us can read. I saw the ad hominem remark applied to Bruce's posts by Bruno multiple times. Read what Bruno said: "Just tell me what you don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad hominem attack. It bores everybody, and distract from the thread." He admits to not understanding and then assumes authority and my consent to solicit his advice as some high priest of theories of everything. You approach someone like that in the real world, them always forcing their game on you, anybody with self-respect would tell him to take a hike: I don't buy high priest discourse and refuse to participate in folks' delusions of themselves. That's the ad hominem.
And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. I challenge you to find one instance on this mailing list where Bruno accused anyone of ad hominem without having been directed insulted: "pee pee theories", "you don't make sense", "nobody knows what you're talking about", etc etc. I know you won't produce this example because it doesn't exist, and I also know that you will just avoid the topic and focus on the next insult / patronizing comment.Well, I have been participating in this mailing list on and off for more than one decade, and more or less the only original ideas being discussed here come from Bruno. I have witnessed multi-year threads discussing what he is saying in great detail, so clearly some people must have some idea of what he is saying.
Interpersonal discourse is never this simple. On an open list you guys whine about dissent while lamenting lack of loyalty to Bruno for having "more or less the only original ideas here". That insults every participant including those of us who've found their way here without agendas of grooming followers into some professorial trip of personal mysticism presented as truth writ large.
As if the list existed only in virtue of Bruno's generosity towards lesser people. I disagree because I've seen original thought from Telmo and most participants, while seeing the list as a place for folks to practice and enjoy banter with disagreement and dissent on theoretical/scientific topics.
What this conspiracy type arguing performs discursively: Of course, targets for confidence tricks and conspiratorial discourse have blind faith in "debate/discourse" of their guru. Targets of such discourse are always framed as experts on the correct side of a victimized history. That's the poisonous reward: compensation at some later point, which is similar to the afterlife promise from any exploitative discourse. Cult charlatan territory is what this discourse toys with. In an age of disinformation you don't cede to believing what you read. You criticize or leave.
No need to worry because nobody's here for your loyalty. You can keep sipping the kool aid of choice from the one guru of pure mathematical truth, originality, and perfection. Nobody will take that away from you because what's left to take? You've already given it all away. Including in recent weeks admitting to replacing notions of evidence with emotional appeals to the "correct, truthful attitude" along with disqualifying your and other members' own originality here today. Bruno's originality? I interpret history independently and see no evidence beyond speculative mathematical philosophy and a combinator result. Duplicating, machines, quantum logic, immortality all standard stuff with a few precisions on details. But original? Read more and at least try to test your own assertions. There's not much here and everybody here can do better.
As if Bruno's approaches were the only thing under the sun. Get out there, question everything, and get after things. Don't believe what you read but read more outside zones of comfort. Do your thing. Read other things than internet chat! If you want platonism as metaphysics, then go out and fight in your local city councils and beyond. Realize your abilities to find and rally more consensus for your cause, its implication to the world and other people; and get out there. Instead his discourse in this setting implies the pursuit of the right attitude by sitting on our butts, playing professor uninvited, reading only his posts, the whole day splitting hairs in forums instead of getting behind whatever you feel strongly about and reaching out to the world.
Don't talk to me about debating issues: debating for what? Aristotle's alleged "physicalism" on which so much of the "debates" with John are linguistically based, enjoys no scientific consensus. Matter with Aristotle is an unclear and inconsistent notion throughout Aristotle's writings. Folks should justifiably be irritated when being sold such a bill of goods. All except the credulous of course. Forcing incompleteness to mean "soul" in the Christian sense, immunity from reductionism while uttering statements about gods and their wills with assumed scientific authority, admitting that nobody can make such statements while making them constantly, blasting the list with truth assertions day in and day out.
"I don't truth you so you don't truth me" somebody quoted in recent weeks. Rightfully so because its insulting and rude: how stupid does he assume list members to be? That's not original thought, it's synonymous with confidence tricks for credibility in linguistic terms. Robbery with rhetorical tricks. Scientific contributions on the other hand are what they are: contributions, not statements of truth or some correct metaphysics or attitude. The humility he admonishes everybody for not having: a double standard by his own discursive measures.
And I'll counter the "boring" argument as poor aesthetics from folks outside their fields. Theoretical topics and their discussion can be abused. To deny the possibility of such is too innocent for you guys. It belongs on the agenda if this list is public and free.
Maybe the limitation is on your side?You insist on rigor when you talk to Bruno (as you should), and then you side with someone who produced exactly zero arguments, that writes long and incoherent rants
Who rants the most here? Who has the time for the highest number and longest posts? Who writes as though they had to correct every thought and split every hair with other members?
that aim only at insulting Bruno for personal reasons. Unlike John Clark for example. Say what you will, but I have never seen John Clark side with bullshit just because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Give me a break here. You are about as far from having a scientific attitude as I am from becoming the next Miss Universe.
You are right. Miss Universe is at least expected to have a brain of her own and answer questions her own way!
On an open list everybody's opinions matter, just like in democracy. Deal with it or whine and practice conspiratorial discourses in private. No buy. Not interested. Be as polite as you say you are instead of unleashing motherly assaults, theological rants on ideal attitudes, when folks are skeptical on matters religion and theology or employing bizarre rhetorical tricks dismissing alleged statements as physicalist and stupid. We're people beyond ideologies. Not reducible to written statements on chat forums as virtually all this discourse assumes. Chat fundamentalism. Immunity from reductionism? Lol
The woo woo is decadence. Show me instead. I show what I parse to be discursive intent because that's what interests me with science: what do you mean? what kind of world does that paint? Is it beautiful? Is it joyous or are you just getting off on posting in public? Independent, no side for me. Salt for everyone. PGC
Dan Sonik
Jul 18, 2019, 11:18:38 PM7/18/19
to Everything List
Bravo PGC. Very Well Said.
Delusions of reality as based in a purely mathematical scheme will never amount to a "theory of everything..."
Just another quaint, historically bounded, and deeply ontologically committed idea with absolutely no practical relevance, much like Thales' commitment that "all is water" or Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" as a metaphysical absolute. Sounds great on paper... try to do something with it... well, that's a Turing TarPit right there.
And just a further comment to Bruno's constant use of "Aristotelian assumption" of "primary matter." Can I have primary source citation, please? From what I recall of my Aristotle, a fair bit of it, I can't even once remember him talking about "matter" in the ordinary, "post-Cartesian" sense of the term. And you know why? Because he didn't have that distinction in his lexicon!!! In his metaphysics, he talks of "particulars," not "matter" per se, unless you think this is based on his idea of one of the four forms of causation. And he argued that all four need to be present before a thing comes to be (efficient, formal, teleological, final). Nowhere does he mention the very modern (i.e. post-Descartes) idea of "matter" in this metaphysic.
Please defend your claims philologically, and not by way of obscure mathematical formula supposedly designed to lead us to some sort of ultimate Platonic conclusion. And also not by way of convenient redefinitions of common words (God, matter, machine) that leave most people in a dust of confusion. (but maybe that's your intent?)
I can already feel you writing... "but the hypothesis of mechanism dictates that ... x must be y.... " ... "numbers must have dreams, and they must be us... " the hypostases of the ultimate one talked about by plotinus (which numbered 8) must be the only way if we assume mechanism... "
ENOUGH!
Your rhetoric and constant pompous references to your previous posts have chased many great minds away from this list. (Craig Weinberg comes to mind.) And I mostly come here to see John Clark constantly body slam you with respect to the question of hardware implementation of computations... which you never answer... like a true cultist... "Go back to step 3" -- fuck step three. There are no matter duplicating machines. There is no "absolute first person perspective"... referred to by a pronoun "I". And even if there were a matter duplicating machine, it would have to be made of "matter" (pace John Clark) and so couldn't simply just happen by virtue of the mathematical formalism. (Remember Pythagoras? See where he ended up? Not because what he said was true... because it was ANNOYINGLY FALSE) Therefore, your mind experiment is done as far as practical consequences. So what? Who cares? What are we even doing here?
God bless John Clark for fighting this nonsense.
Remember what this list was meant to do -- CULTIVATE THEORIES OF EVERYTHING... NOT "Cultivate what conforms to Bruno's idea of a Theory of Everything Is."
And, please, no disrepect to any of the other participants on this thread. I have followed you all for so long (10+) years that you are all family (including Bruno, you silly bastard)
I love the salutary conclusions that seem to emerge from your speculations, Bruno, I really do... but so much effort has been dedicated to trying to make you see that you have blindspots (Brent Meeker, John Clark, Craig Weinberg) and you never modify your theory to cover them, you only insist that they don't understand your genius plan.
Let me ask you: if you are the only car traveling in a certain direction (let's call it North) and you encounter multiple cars traveling at other directions (namely, South), are the other guys driving in the wrong direction? Or are you?
And before anyone charges me of just dropping in uninvited, my claimed 10+ years experience a lie, I have posted here before, in different guises. I'll leave it up to the readers (if they're interested) in figuring out who I am.
Doesn't matter now, though, my anonymity is blown.
Please be kind (or not, this is the internet, after all...)
Anyway, I found it irresistible to drop in and let you all know I love you all and this forum, and Bruno too for being so god damned STUBBORN!! But it's looking like you might need to re evaluate some stuff?
Go ahead, cut me up in the comments...
Delusions of reality as based in a purely mathematical scheme will never amount to a "theory of everything..."
Just another quaint, historically bounded, and deeply ontologically committed idea with absolutely no practical relevance, much like Thales' commitment that "all is water" or Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" as a metaphysical absolute. Sounds great on paper... try to do something with it... well, that's a Turing TarPit right there.
And just a further comment to Bruno's constant use of "Aristotelian assumption" of "primary matter." Can I have primary source citation, please? From what I recall of my Aristotle, a fair bit of it, I can't even once remember him talking about "matter" in the ordinary, "post-Cartesian" sense of the term. And you know why? Because he didn't have that distinction in his lexicon!!! In his metaphysics, he talks of "particulars," not "matter" per se, unless you think this is based on his idea of one of the four forms of causation. And he argued that all four need to be present before a thing comes to be (efficient, formal, teleological, final). Nowhere does he mention the very modern (i.e. post-Descartes) idea of "matter" in this metaphysic.
Please defend your claims philologically, and not by way of obscure mathematical formula supposedly designed to lead us to some sort of ultimate Platonic conclusion. And also not by way of convenient redefinitions of common words (God, matter, machine) that leave most people in a dust of confusion. (but maybe that's your intent?)
I can already feel you writing... "but the hypothesis of mechanism dictates that ... x must be y.... " ... "numbers must have dreams, and they must be us... " the hypostases of the ultimate one talked about by plotinus (which numbered 8) must be the only way if we assume mechanism... "
ENOUGH!
Your rhetoric and constant pompous references to your previous posts have chased many great minds away from this list. (Craig Weinberg comes to mind.) And I mostly come here to see John Clark constantly body slam you with respect to the question of hardware implementation of computations... which you never answer... like a true cultist... "Go back to step 3" -- fuck step three. There are no matter duplicating machines. There is no "absolute first person perspective"... referred to by a pronoun "I". And even if there were a matter duplicating machine, it would have to be made of "matter" (pace John Clark) and so couldn't simply just happen by virtue of the mathematical formalism. (Remember Pythagoras? See where he ended up? Not because what he said was true... because it was ANNOYINGLY FALSE) Therefore, your mind experiment is done as far as practical consequences. So what? Who cares? What are we even doing here?
God bless John Clark for fighting this nonsense.
Remember what this list was meant to do -- CULTIVATE THEORIES OF EVERYTHING... NOT "Cultivate what conforms to Bruno's idea of a Theory of Everything Is."
And, please, no disrepect to any of the other participants on this thread. I have followed you all for so long (10+) years that you are all family (including Bruno, you silly bastard)
I love the salutary conclusions that seem to emerge from your speculations, Bruno, I really do... but so much effort has been dedicated to trying to make you see that you have blindspots (Brent Meeker, John Clark, Craig Weinberg) and you never modify your theory to cover them, you only insist that they don't understand your genius plan.
Let me ask you: if you are the only car traveling in a certain direction (let's call it North) and you encounter multiple cars traveling at other directions (namely, South), are the other guys driving in the wrong direction? Or are you?
And before anyone charges me of just dropping in uninvited, my claimed 10+ years experience a lie, I have posted here before, in different guises. I'll leave it up to the readers (if they're interested) in figuring out who I am.
Doesn't matter now, though, my anonymity is blown.
Please be kind (or not, this is the internet, after all...)
Anyway, I found it irresistible to drop in and let you all know I love you all and this forum, and Bruno too for being so god damned STUBBORN!! But it's looking like you might need to re evaluate some stuff?
Go ahead, cut me up in the comments...
Philip Thrift
Jul 19, 2019, 3:30:50 AM7/19/19
to Everything List
On Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10:18:38 PM UTC-5, Dan Sonik wrote:
Bravo PGC. Very Well Said.
Delusions of reality as based in a purely mathematical scheme will never amount to a "theory of everything..."
Just another quaint, historically bounded, and deeply ontologically committed idea with absolutely no practical relevance, much like Thales' commitment that "all is water" or Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" as a metaphysical absolute. Sounds great on paper... try to do something with it... well, that's a Turing TarPit right there.
And just a further comment to Bruno's constant use of "Aristotelian assumption" of "primary matter." Can I have primary source citation, please? From what I recall of my Aristotle, a fair bit of it, I can't even once remember him talking about "matter" in the ordinary, "post-Cartesian" sense of the term. And you know why? Because he didn't have that distinction in his lexicon!!! In his metaphysics, he talks of "particulars," not "matter" per se, unless you think this is based on his idea of one of the four forms of causation. And he argued that all four need to be present before a thing comes to be (efficient, formal, teleological, final). Nowhere does he mention the very modern (i.e. post-Descartes) idea of "matter" in this metaphysic.
Please defend your claims philologically, and not by way of obscure mathematical formula supposedly designed to lead us to some sort of ultimate Platonic conclusion. And also not by way of convenient redefinitions of common words (God, matter, machine) that leave most people in a dust of confusion. (but maybe that's your intent?)
I can already feel you writing... "but the hypothesis of mechanism dictates that ... x must be y.... " ... "numbers must have dreams, and they must be us... " the hypostases of the ultimate one talked about by plotinus (which numbered 8) must be the only way if we assume mechanism... "
ENOUGH!
Your rhetoric and constant pompous references to your previous posts have chased many great minds away from this list. (Craig Weinberg comes to mind.) And I mostly come here to see John Clark constantly body slam you with respect to the question of hardware implementation of computations... which you never answer... like a true cultist... "Go back to step 3" -- fuck step three. There are no matter duplicating machines. There is no "absolute first person perspective"... referred to by a pronoun "I". And even if there were a matter duplicating machine, it would have to be made of "matter" (pace John Clark) and so couldn't simply just happen by virtue of the mathematical formalism. (Remember Pythagoras? See where he ended up? Not because what he said was true... because it was ANNOYINGLY FALSE) Therefore, your mind experiment is done as far as practical consequences. So what? Who cares? What are we even doing here?
God bless John Clark for fighting this nonsense.
Remember what this list was meant to do -- CULTIVATE THEORIES OF EVERYTHING... NOT "Cultivate what conforms to Bruno's idea of a Theory of Everything Is."
And, please, no disrepect to any of the other participants on this thread. I have followed you all for so long (10+) years that you are all family (including Bruno, you silly bastard)
I love the salutary conclusions that seem to emerge from your speculations, Bruno, I really do... but so much effort has been dedicated to trying to make you see that you have blindspots (Brent Meeker, John Clark, Craig Weinberg) and you never modify your theory to cover them, you only insist that they don't understand your genius plan.
Let me ask you: if you are the only car traveling in a certain direction (let's call it North) and you encounter multiple cars traveling at other directions (namely, South), are the other guys driving in the wrong direction? Or are you?
And before anyone charges me of just dropping in uninvited, my claimed 10+ years experience a lie, I have posted here before, in different guises. I'll leave it up to the readers (if they're interested) in figuring out who I am.
Doesn't matter now, though, my anonymity is blown.
Please be kind (or not, this is the internet, after all...)
Anyway, I found it irresistible to drop in and let you all know I love you all and this forum, and Bruno too for being so god damned STUBBORN!! But it's looking like you might need to re evaluate some stuff?
Go ahead, cut me up in the comments...
o defend Thales, he was one of the ancient materialists, like the atomist materialists Democritus and Epicurus who defined matter differently. (Thales was a wave theorist vs. a particle theorist. :)) He may have been wrong about water:
The problem of the nature of matter, and its transformation into the myriad things of which the universe is made, engaged the natural philosophers, commencing with Thales. For his hypothesis to be credible, it was essential that he could explain how all things could come into being from water, and return ultimately to the originating material. It is inherent in Thales's hypotheses that water had the potentiality to change to the myriad things of which the universe is made, the botanical, physiological, meteorological and geological states.
but Thales is better than today's physicists who are are really antimaterialists, like Sean Carroll:
"I’m happy to be described as a monist. There aren’t multiple different kinds of things; there is only the wave function of the universe. As an emergent approximation it’s useful to characterize the wave function as describing multiple worlds."
So for Sean Carroll, reality is a mathematical entity: a wave function.
At least Thales believed in stuff (matter).
@philipthrift
Philip Thrift
Jul 19, 2019, 3:33:51 AM7/19/19
to Everything List
On Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 10:18:38 PM UTC-5, Dan Sonik wrote:Bravo PGC. Very Well Said.
Delusions of reality as based in a purely mathematical scheme will never amount to a "theory of everything..."
Just another quaint, historically bounded, and deeply ontologically committed idea with absolutely no practical relevance, much like Thales' commitment that "all is water" or Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" as a metaphysical absolute. Sounds great on paper... try to do something with it... well, that's a Turing TarPit right there.
And just a further comment to Bruno's constant use of "Aristotelian assumption" of "primary matter." Can I have primary source citation, please? From what I recall of my Aristotle, a fair bit of it, I can't even once remember him talking about "matter" in the ordinary, "post-Cartesian" sense of the term. And you know why? Because he didn't have that distinction in his lexicon!!! In his metaphysics, he talks of "particulars," not "matter" per se, unless you think this is based on his idea of one of the four forms of causation. And he argued that all four need to be present before a thing comes to be (efficient, formal, teleological, final). Nowhere does he mention the very modern (i.e. post-Descartes) idea of "matter" in this metaphysic.
Please defend your claims philologically, and not by way of obscure mathematical formula supposedly designed to lead us to some sort of ultimate Platonic conclusion. And also not by way of convenient redefinitions of common words (God, matter, machine) that leave most people in a dust of confusion. (but maybe that's your intent?)
I can already feel you writing... "but the hypothesis of mechanism dictates that ... x must be y.... " ... "numbers must have dreams, and they must be us... " the hypostases of the ultimate one talked about by plotinus (which numbered 8) must be the only way if we assume mechanism... "
ENOUGH!
Your rhetoric and constant pompous references to your previous posts have chased many great minds away from this list. (Craig Weinberg comes to mind.) And I mostly come here to see John Clark constantly body slam you with respect to the question of hardware implementation of computations... which you never answer... like a true cultist... "Go back to step 3" -- fuck step three. There are no matter duplicating machines. There is no "absolute first person perspective"... referred to by a pronoun "I". And even if there were a matter duplicating machine, it would have to be made of "matter" (pace John Clark) and so couldn't simply just happen by virtue of the mathematical formalism. (Remember Pythagoras? See where he ended up? Not because what he said was true... because it was ANNOYINGLY FALSE) Therefore, your mind experiment is done as far as practical consequences. So what? Who cares? What are we even doing here?
God bless John Clark for fighting this nonsense.
Remember what this list was meant to do -- CULTIVATE THEORIES OF EVERYTHING... NOT "Cultivate what conforms to Bruno's idea of a Theory of Everything Is."
And, please, no disrepect to any of the other participants on this thread. I have followed you all for so long (10+) years that you are all family (including Bruno, you silly bastard)
I love the salutary conclusions that seem to emerge from your speculations, Bruno, I really do... but so much effort has been dedicated to trying to make you see that you have blindspots (Brent Meeker, John Clark, Craig Weinberg) and you never modify your theory to cover them, you only insist that they don't understand your genius plan.
Let me ask you: if you are the only car traveling in a certain direction (let's call it North) and you encounter multiple cars traveling at other directions (namely, South), are the other guys driving in the wrong direction? Or are you?
And before anyone charges me of just dropping in uninvited, my claimed 10+ years experience a lie, I have posted here before, in different guises. I'll leave it up to the readers (if they're interested) in figuring out who I am.
Doesn't matter now, though, my anonymity is blown.
Please be kind (or not, this is the internet, after all...)
Anyway, I found it irresistible to drop in and let you all know I love you all and this forum, and Bruno too for being so god damned STUBBORN!! But it's looking like you might need to re evaluate some stuff?
Go ahead, cut me up in the comments...
[corrected]
To defend Thales, he was one of the ancient materialists, like the atomist materialists Democritus and Epicurus who defined matter differently. (Thales was a wave theorist vs. a particle theorist. :)) He may have been wrong about water:
Bruno Marchal
Jul 19, 2019, 7:17:56 AM7/19/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Hi Dan,
It is OK to be critical. I always welcome this. But you are a bit short of argument. You seem convince by John Clark’s posts. At least John Clark told us where in the reasoning he thinks there is a mistake, but has not yet been able to explain it, or convince anybody.
So, if you understand his critics of the step 3 in the 8-steps version of the Universal Dovetailer argument, you are welcome to explain it to us. If you want, I re-explain the argument, but most people in this list have no problem with it, so you might insist, or just read it here:
About Aristotle primary substance, I am not sure I understand your remark. I discuss this on many groups on antic philosophy, and, you are the first to make this very astonishing remark. You might need to revise Aristotle's “Metaphysics” which is all about this (beware the different translations though).
Concerning Craig Weinberg, we have agreed on everything. He just choose the option “weak-materialism” instead of mechanism, but seem to understand there incompatibility. Most of its philosophy is very close to what I extract from the theaetetus’ definition of knowledge, when applied to Gödel’s provability predicate (which I motivate either through thought experiments or by referring to Plato). We opus quasi everyday since the dialog on Facebook, as Craig seems to prefer.
Please, explain John Clark’s argument, if you understand it. Brent has acknowledge having no problem up to step 6, and is unclear (or undecided perhaps) on step 7.
You might ignored like many that all computations occurs in already a tiny segment of the arithmetical reality: the truth of the sigma_1 sentences (which is indeed equivalent to a universal dovetailing). That is required for step seven. This is well known by logicians since almost Gödel’s 1931 paper. That makes the believer in “Matter"forced to explain how their “Matter” can influence or interfere with the statistics on computations which are run in arithmetic (where “run” is taken in the sense of Church, Kleene, Turing, etc.
Bruno
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Dan Sonik
Jul 19, 2019, 4:47:21 PM7/19/19
to Everything List
On Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:17:56 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hi Dan,It is OK to be critical. I always welcome this.
Thank you.
But you are a bit short of argument. You seem convince by John Clark’s posts. At least John Clark told us where in the reasoning he thinks there is a mistake, but has not yet been able to explain it, or convince anybody.
On the contrary, I just think the criticism has fallen on deaf ears -- reading some of these threads puts me in mind of those unfortunate individuals who are struck with agnosia. No matter how blatant and paramount the input for people with this condition, they simply pass it over, unaware of what is right under their noses.
So, if you understand his critics of the step 3 in the 8-steps version of the Universal Dovetailer argument, you are welcome to explain it to us. If you want, I re-explain the argument, but most people in this list have no problem with it, so you might insist, or just read it here:
Sure, I'll take a crack. Referring to your paper...
"Computationalism", or "comp" for short-- the idea that 1) our brains are made of some digitally fungible units (at a level of description which is unknowable) such that if some or all of it were replaced it would make no difference to that individual 2) computers themselves are equivalent at some level of description (Church Turing hypothesis) 3) arithmetical realism -- true statements about numbers are true absent any observers. Step 1: Computationalism implies the possibility of teleportation "in principle" -- that, according to you, is sufficient to prove your conclusion. Step 2: Consider the difference between the first and third person perspectives, where the third person perspective is ascertained from a record contained in a personal diary. Step 3: Assume you are a person being teleported -- you are told beforehand you will be teleported to either Washington or Moscow, with a 50 50 chance. The question is then put to the person about to be teleported -- where will YOU end up...
As far as I can tell there have been two main criticisms of this thought experiment up to this point.
First, the question "where will YOU end up" is poorly formed in a counterfactual world of duplicating machines. There is no more YOU if YOU can be copied. There has to be a You-1 and a You-2, and the use of basic pronouns (that have evolved in a world absent of perfect duplicating machines) elides this distinction.
The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of instantiation don't "DO" anything -- in order for a computation to be performed, it must be instantiated in some hardware, and therefore the domain of physics is larger than the domain of mathematics, because the details of implementing a Turing machine in the real world are just as if not more important than the kinds of computations you will end up feeding it.
Over and above these criticisms, however, is the recurrently identified insistence on using words with completely arbitrary definitions that do not map to how most of the rest of the English speaking community use them -- God, theology, machine, materialism/primary matter as examples -- and it seems that this move signals a bit of bad faith on your part, or at least a willingness to obfuscate in order to avoid inconvenient (and yet quite legitimate) counterpoints many have raised over the years. Again, I am reminded of agnosia sufferers.
"Computationalism", or "comp" for short-- the idea that 1) our brains are made of some digitally fungible units (at a level of description which is unknowable) such that if some or all of it were replaced it would make no difference to that individual 2) computers themselves are equivalent at some level of description (Church Turing hypothesis) 3) arithmetical realism -- true statements about numbers are true absent any observers. Step 1: Computationalism implies the possibility of teleportation "in principle" -- that, according to you, is sufficient to prove your conclusion. Step 2: Consider the difference between the first and third person perspectives, where the third person perspective is ascertained from a record contained in a personal diary. Step 3: Assume you are a person being teleported -- you are told beforehand you will be teleported to either Washington or Moscow, with a 50 50 chance. The question is then put to the person about to be teleported -- where will YOU end up...
As far as I can tell there have been two main criticisms of this thought experiment up to this point.
First, the question "where will YOU end up" is poorly formed in a counterfactual world of duplicating machines. There is no more YOU if YOU can be copied. There has to be a You-1 and a You-2, and the use of basic pronouns (that have evolved in a world absent of perfect duplicating machines) elides this distinction.
The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of instantiation don't "DO" anything -- in order for a computation to be performed, it must be instantiated in some hardware, and therefore the domain of physics is larger than the domain of mathematics, because the details of implementing a Turing machine in the real world are just as if not more important than the kinds of computations you will end up feeding it.
Over and above these criticisms, however, is the recurrently identified insistence on using words with completely arbitrary definitions that do not map to how most of the rest of the English speaking community use them -- God, theology, machine, materialism/primary matter as examples -- and it seems that this move signals a bit of bad faith on your part, or at least a willingness to obfuscate in order to avoid inconvenient (and yet quite legitimate) counterpoints many have raised over the years. Again, I am reminded of agnosia sufferers.
About Aristotle primary substance, I am not sure I understand your remark. I discuss this on many groups on antic philosophy, and, you are the first to make this very astonishing remark. You might need to revise Aristotle's “Metaphysics” which is all about this (beware the different translations though).
I'm not sure what is so "astonishing" about the remark. Seeing a flying saucer land and 5 little grey beings come out? That would be astonishing to me. A world where we could be teleported from Helsinki to Moscow? Astonishing. Making a possibly incorrect claim about Aristotelian hermeneutics... eh, not that astonishing. And I think you might have meant to say "review" rather than "revise," -- to revise is to edit something with the goal of making it clearer or better. I wouldn't want to take on the job of editing Aristotle (although, God knows, he did need an editor). If I recall correctly, Aristotle thought the world was made of 5 elements, each telelogically drawn to their own place in the natural order of things. So that's 5 substances, not one -- it's not a monism, and therefore to conflate it with materialism and continually refer to it as Aristotelian belief in primary substance seems a bit careless. The modern notion of matter has no telos.
Concerning Craig Weinberg, we have agreed on everything. He just choose the option “weak-materialism” instead of mechanism, but seem to understand there incompatibility.
I would say here that you grossly mischaracterize his ideas as "weak materialism"... but if you are going to go off using words in special ways (as is your wont), then no one can stop you. His website is called "Multisense realism." As far as I can tell, he argues for the ontological primacy of sensation diffracted across multiple modes of interpretation-- not sure how that can be put in the "materialist" box. Sounds more like a brand of idealism to me...
Most of its philosophy is very close to what I extract from the theaetetus’ definition of knowledge, when applied to Gödel’s provability predicate (which I motivate either through thought experiments or by referring to Plato). We opus quasi everyday since the dialog on Facebook, as Craig seems to prefer.
Glad to hear! (what is "opus quasi"?)
Please, explain John Clark’s argument, if you understand it. Brent has acknowledge having no problem up to step 6, and is unclear (or undecided perhaps) on step 7.
See above.
You might ignored like many that all computations occurs in already a tiny segment of the arithmetical reality: the truth of the sigma_1 sentences (which is indeed equivalent to a universal dovetailing).
OK, that's what you say. (??) Not sure how it's relevant to the objection 1) counterfactual worlds with teleportation devices need clearer ways of referring to those who are duplicated. 2) Computations don't compute anything without something on which to compute (paper and pencil, a machine (in the commonly used sense, not in your neologized sense), a brain).
That is required for step seven. This is well known by logicians since almost Gödel’s 1931 paper. That makes the believer in “Matter"forced to explain how their “Matter” can influence or interfere with the statistics on computations which are run in arithmetic (where “run” is taken in the sense of Church, Kleene, Turing, etc.
I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out there," in some sort of Platonic superspace. Perhaps this is what the implication of AR is, although it seems a somewhat stronger claim than just AR. This takes far more suspension of disbelief than assuming (and then getting actual, real world consequences from) a material world that needs to be engineered in order to deliver the results we expect from our computations. You can't build something with only equations, and all the computations being "out there" are as good as none of them being out there if you can't distinguish correct from incorrect ones. And the only way you can distinguish them is by actually building a real machine made out of stuff of some kind and go ahead and run the computation and wait for the answer. This has been mentioned multiple times, but again, agnosia.
Seeing how previous threads go, I am holding little hope in persuading you that your thought experiment does not establish what you want it to,(i.e. we are eternal computations in an ever unfolding dovetailer algorithm) but that's fine... the thinking and writing process is fun and it would be really cool if it were true (but it probably ain't). And I could be full of shit myself, so there's that.
All the Best,
Dan
Seeing how previous threads go, I am holding little hope in persuading you that your thought experiment does not establish what you want it to,(i.e. we are eternal computations in an ever unfolding dovetailer algorithm) but that's fine... the thinking and writing process is fun and it would be really cool if it were true (but it probably ain't). And I could be full of shit myself, so there's that.
All the Best,
Dan
Bruno
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Brent Meeker
Jul 19, 2019, 4:48:16 PM7/19/19
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On 7/19/2019 12:33 AM, Philip Thrift
wrote:
"I’m happy to be described as a monist. There aren’t multiple different kinds of things; there is only the wave function of the universe. As an emergent approximation it’s useful to characterize the wave function as describing multiple worlds."
So for Sean Carroll, reality is a mathematical entity: a wave function.At least Thales believed in stuff (matter).
"Stuff" is sufficiently vague that the wave-function could qualify
as "stuff". The contentious question seems to be where conscious
thoughts fall in the ontology. Are they processes realized by stuff
(Vic), or do they exist in a separate Platonic real(Bruno), do they
constitute a separate realm(pt), do they constitute
everything(Cosmin)?
Brent
Brent
Philip Thrift
Jul 19, 2019, 5:02:07 PM7/19/19
to Everything List
If Sean said 'everything is waves', that could be materialist.
But if by 'wave function' he means a mathematical entity (How is a 'function' not a mathematical entity?), he is purely a Platonist.
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 19, 2019, 9:34:15 PM7/19/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
I don't think it is necessarily Platonic. Plato believed there were
perfect forms and the world we perceive consists of imperfect
instantiations of those forms. There is no reason to say the wave
function of the universe is more perfect than what we can see and
measure. Presumably it is just as "perfect" or "imperfect" as what
we see and measure and so may just be "the stuff" the world is made
of.
Brent
Brent
Bruno Marchal
Jul 20, 2019, 6:16:29 AM7/20/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:17:56 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:Hi Dan,It is OK to be critical. I always welcome this.
Thank you.
But you are a bit short of argument. You seem convince by John Clark’s posts. At least John Clark told us where in the reasoning he thinks there is a mistake, but has not yet been able to explain it, or convince anybody.
On the contrary, I just think the criticism has fallen on deaf ears -- reading some of these threads puts me in mind of those unfortunate individuals who are struck with agnosia. No matter how blatant and paramount the input for people with this condition, they simply pass it over, unaware of what is right under their noses.So, if you understand his critics of the step 3 in the 8-steps version of the Universal Dovetailer argument, you are welcome to explain it to us. If you want, I re-explain the argument, but most people in this list have no problem with it, so you might insist, or just read it here:Sure, I'll take a crack. Referring to your paper...
"Computationalism", or "comp" for short-- the idea that 1) our brains are made of some digitally fungible units
That is already a bit implicitly physicalist. Once, I suggested to abandon the expression “made of” because it is misleading. But OK, I will not cut the air. Computationalism is just the digital version of Descartes mechanism. Once (informal and colloquial) version is that there is no magic nor use of any actual infinities in the brain (that will entail later that there are some infinities at play for the mind, soul or consciousness).
(at a level of description which is unknowable)
Yes, although that is proved later.
such that if some or all of it were replaced it would make no difference to that individual 2) computers themselves are equivalent at some level of description (Church Turing hypothesis) 3) arithmetical realism -- true statements about numbers are true absent any observers. Step 1: Computationalism implies the possibility of teleportation "in principle" -- that, according to you, is sufficient to prove your conclusion.
I prove only at step 1 that computationalism entails the possibility of (classical) teleportation. (I am unsure which conclusion is alluded here).
To be clear, I never try to prove computationalism to be true. It is my working hypothesis. I study the consequences, and show them testable and well tested by QM (which proves nothing of course).
Step 2: Consider the difference between the first and third person perspectives, where the third person perspective is ascertained from a record contained in a personal diary.
By an observer which does not enter the cut-and-copy bow. The important point here is the definition of the first person view, which is the content of the diary that the candidate take with him in the teleportation box. That plays an important role in the sequel.
The first person is also the content of a diary. It is 3P operational approximation of the first person experience: the personal diary content. Everett use something equivalent.
In step two: a delay is intrigued in the reconstitution, and the point is that the delay is measurable in the 3p view, but is able,nt from the 1p diary: the first person is not aware of the delay. That is used again in step 4. You seem to have pass this.
Step 3: Assume you are a person being teleported -- you are told beforehand you will be teleported to either Washington or Moscow, with a 50 50 chance. The question is then put to the person about to be teleported -- where will YOU end up...
“You” in the indexical first person sense, which means here, what will be written in the personal diaries.
As far as I can tell there have been two main criticisms of this thought experiment up to this point.
First, the question "where will YOU end up" is poorly formed in a counterfactual world of duplicating machines.
Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the experience.
There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
There is no more YOU if YOU can be copied. There has to be a You-1 and a You-2, and the use of basic pronouns (that have evolved in a world absent of perfect duplicating machines) elides this distinction.
But we agree, in the 3p description, that you-1 is still you, and you-2 is still you too, but in a different “incarnation”.
This shows that in Helsinki (the place where you decide to do the experience, and try too predict what your experience will look like in your 1p view, which exists by computationalism).
If you just say that there is no more YOU, then we die in the duplication, and thus also in the simple teleportation, and thus you cannot say “yes” qua computation to the digitalist doctor and Mechanism is false.
The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of instantiation don't "DO” anything
But that is the case only in step 7 and 8. Up to step 6 the computations are all physically instantiated. You jumped to step 7 here.
Should I guess that you are OK with the first 6 steps?
-- in order for a computation to be performed, it must be instantiated in some hardware, and therefore the domain of physics is larger than the domain of mathematics,
Assuming a physical primitive universe. But you cannot invalidate a reasoning by adding an hypothesis not there. That is not valid.
because the details of implementing a Turing machine in the real world are just as if not more important than the kinds of computations you will end up feeding it.
Over and above these criticisms, however, is the recurrently identified insistence on using words with completely arbitrary definitions that do not map to how most of the rest of the English speaking community use them -- God, theology, machine, materialism/primary matter as examples -- and it seems that this move signals a bit of bad faith on your part, or at least a willingness to obfuscate in order to avoid inconvenient (and yet quite legitimate) counterpoints many have raised over the years. Again, I am reminded of agnosia sufferers.
About Aristotle primary substance, I am not sure I understand your remark. I discuss this on many groups on antic philosophy, and, you are the first to make this very astonishing remark. You might need to revise Aristotle's “Metaphysics” which is all about this (beware the different translations though).
I'm not sure what is so "astonishing" about the remark.
I think I see the point. You might have thought that I said that Aristotle is the one introducing Materialism (as used in philosophy of mind), but I say only that Aristotle introduced “weak materialism”, the metaphysical assumption that an irreducible physical reality exists all by itself. There has never been any evidences for this, and that was exactly what Plato is all about. Aristotle is a reaction to Plato, and a vindication that physics is part of any fundamental theory, like most believe today. That is the point that we have to abandon when we assume digital mechanism, but that is after step 7 or 8.
Seeing a flying saucer land and 5 little grey beings come out? That would be astonishing to me.
That would astonish me too, but not be conceptually important. It is just discovering that we have neighbours.
A world where we could be teleported from Helsinki to Moscow? Astonishing.
Technologically, but conceptually banal when we assume Digital Mechanism.
Making a possibly incorrect claim about Aristotelian hermeneutics... eh, not that astonishing. And I think you might have meant to say "review" rather than "revise," -- to revise is to edit something with the goal of making it clearer or better. I wouldn't want to take on the job of editing Aristotle (although, God knows, he did need an editor). If I recall correctly, Aristotle thought the world was made of 5 elements, each telelogically drawn to their own place in the natural order of things. So that's 5 substances, not one -- it's not a monism, and therefore to conflate it with materialism and continually refer to it as Aristotelian belief in primary substance seems a bit careless. The modern notion of matter has no telos.
It is WEAK materialism. The belief that we have to assume a physical universe. The idea that we cannot explain matter without invoking primitive, assumed matter, be it earth, fire stare and air, or any element of the same material nature.
It is the belief that Pythagorean have to be false, as for them matter has to be explained by numbers, and indeed they begun to explain geometry with numbers, something pursued by Descartes, etc.
Concerning Craig Weinberg, we have agreed on everything. He just choose the option “weak-materialism” instead of mechanism, but seem to understand there incompatibility.
I would say here that you grossly mischaracterize his ideas as "weak materialism"…
I don’t think I have ascribe weal materialism to Craig Weinberg. I don’t see where or what you allude too. On the century, his approach is 100% coherent with the consequence of mechanism.
but if you are going to go off using words in special ways (as is your wont), then no one can stop you. His website is called "Multisense realism." As far as I can tell, he argues for the ontological primacy of sensation diffracted across multiple modes of interpretation-- not sure how that can be put in the "materialist" box. Sounds more like a brand of idealism to me…
I have never claim that Weinberg is weak, still less not weak, materialist. His multisense realism is quite comparable to the 8 modes of the self implied by incompleteness. My work shows that the universal number in arithmetic get the same non materialist insight. Yet in a more mathematically precise way so that we can test Mechanism and the immaterialist consequences.
Most of its philosophy is very close to what I extract from the theaetetus’ definition of knowledge, when applied to Gödel’s provability predicate (which I motivate either through thought experiments or by referring to Plato). We opus quasi everyday since the dialog on Facebook, as Craig seems to prefer.
Glad to hear! (what is "opus quasi"?)
A mispelling (aggravated by the automated spelling corrector) for “we discuss this quasi everyday since we dialog on this on Facebook).
Please, explain John Clark’s argument, if you understand it. Brent has acknowledge having no problem up to step 6, and is unclear (or undecided perhaps) on step 7.
See above.
Above you say that we die when we are multiplied, but that contradict the working hypothesis. If you don’t die in a simple teleportation experience (step one), you cannot die because a copy is made at a distance, that would involve non local action at a distance, which makes no sense if we assume that mechanism is true and that the substitution has been well chosen.
You might ignored like many that all computations occurs in already a tiny segment of the arithmetical reality: the truth of the sigma_1 sentences (which is indeed equivalent to a universal dovetailing).OK, that's what you say. (??) Not sure how it's relevant to the objection 1) counterfactual worlds with teleportation devices need clearer ways of referring to those who are duplicated.
That is why the UDA reasoning should be seen, like originally, only as a motivation for the translation of this in arithmetic, where the notion of first and third person leads to 8 important nuances imposed by incompleteness. The UDA is for the young people. It asks for a minimum of good willing, and a dilate for hand waving type of Sunday philosophy.
If you mean what you say above, we die at step 3, and you leave the digital Mechanist frame.
2) Computations don't compute anything without something on which to compute (paper and pencil, a machine (in the commonly used sense, not in your neologized sense), a brain).
Wait we arrive at step 7, and don’t add a new hypothesis, which looks like a string metaphysical commitment in an entity for which no evidences have were be given (just brainwashing since Aristotle, I would say).
That is required for step seven. This is well known by logicians since almost Gödel’s 1931 paper. That makes the believer in “Matter"forced to explain how their “Matter” can influence or interfere with the statistics on computations which are run in arithmetic (where “run” is taken in the sense of Church, Kleene, Turing, etc.
I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out there,”
You seem to not have study Gödel’s 1931 paper and the 1930s paper which followed, or Emil Post anticipation, or any paper in Davis Dover “Undecidable” or any textbook in theoretical computer science.
If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the prime number.
in some sort of Platonic superspace.
Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no objection to what is taught in primary school. That is why I insist all the time to use “realism” instead of “platonism”, which I keep only for the metaphysics.
You need only the arithmetic without which we cannot define what is a digital machine, and that is needed to define Digital Mechanism.
*All* papers in physics assumes the same amount of arithmetic (actually most assumes much more powerful mathematical hypotheses).
Perhaps this is what the implication of AR is, although it seems a somewhat stronger claim than just AR. This takes far more suspension of disbelief than assuming (and then getting actual, real world consequences from) a material world that needs to be engineered in order to deliver the results we expect from our computations. You can't build something with only equations,
Of course. The arithmetical reality is provably beyond all theories and not obtainable from any system of equations.
Even a theory as powerful than ZF, or ZFC + large cardinals can only scratch the arithmetical reality, and cannot avoid the non standard model.
After Gödel we just understand that we know about nothing about numbers and the arithmetical reality, and we know that this is forever. We know that there is an infinity of surprise, and with mechanism, that there is an infinity points of view that the number can develop relatively to those surprise.
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem sign the breakdown of all reductionist conception of number and machine, and a fortiori of man (assuming mechanism).
and all the computations being "out there" are as good as none of them being out there if you can't distinguish correct from incorrect ones.
A theory can be correct or incorrect. A computation cannot. It is just an activity of a machine. It might be different to what you expect, like if there was a bug, but that is dependent of what you want.
Eyud Shapiro debugging algorithm illustrate this well. You can consider that the program correctly computing the factorial function is a bugged version of a program computing the Fibonacci number, and you can debug it automatically, from samples of inputs outputs, until it computes fibonacci.
The notion of correct, non correct is for the theories, or the asserting machines.
And the only way you can distinguish them is by actually building a real machine made out of stuff of some kind and go ahead and run the computation and wait for the answer. This has been mentioned multiple times, but again, agnosia.
You assume a irreducible physical universe; but you cannot invoke a metaphysical assumption not present in a theory to refute that theory. That is simply not valid. That is like a creationist saying that the theory of evolution is all nice and well except that it fails to account for most statement in the bible.
Seeing how previous threads go, I am holding little hope in persuading you that your thought experiment does not establish what you want it to,
You need to work more on the step 3 issues. You say that after the duplication “YOU” does not exist anymore, but this means that you died in the process, contra the Mechanist hypothesis.
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.
So, do you die or not in the step 3?
(i.e. we are eternal computations in an ever unfolding dovetailer algorithm) but that's fine... the thinking and writing process is fun and it would be really cool if it were true (but it probably ain't). And I could be full of shit myself, so there's that.
Thanks for showing some hope toward a possible understanding,
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 20, 2019, 6:22:20 AM7/20/19
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On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
On 7/19/2019 12:33 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
"I’m happy to be described as a monist. There aren’t multiple different kinds of things; there is only the wave function of the universe. As an emergent approximation it’s useful to characterize the wave function as describing multiple worlds."
So for Sean Carroll, reality is a mathematical entity: a wave function.At least Thales believed in stuff (matter).
"Stuff" is sufficiently vague that the wave-function could qualify as "stuff". The contentious question seems to be where conscious thoughts fall in the ontology. Are they processes realized by stuff (Vic), or do they exist in a separate Platonic real(Bruno),
Elementary arithmetic is that realm, and I ask you: how it could be separated, and mostly: from what?
From your irreducible material universe in which you seem to believe?
Why invoke such a thing. It is not used in physics. It is used in physicalism, which until now just put the mind-body problem under the rug. With mechanism, we have a “simple” explanation of consciousness, and a “simple” explanation of where the observable comes from, and we can test it.
Your use of metaphysics is like the pseudo-religious one. You claim that your god (Matter) is enough to not do the experimental testing.
Bruno
do they constitute a separate realm(pt), do they constitute everything(Cosmin)?
Brent
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Philip Thrift
Jul 20, 2019, 7:49:54 AM7/20/19
to Everything List
On Friday, July 19, 2019 at 3:48:16 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
Actually I was unfair to Sean. The "stuff" of Sean is not the wave function (a mathematical fiction), but multiple worlds, which it "approximates".
He sometimes talks about (incorrectly) the wave function as being real (which it isn't). It's the multiple worlds that are the real stuff in Sean's World.
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 20, 2019, 4:27:43 PM7/20/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/20/2019 3:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you
> will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive
> being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is
> quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the
> experience.
>
> There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
plural and second person singular being the same word in English. In
the south, they say "ya'll" for second person plural, and in New York
they say "youse". I suggest that one of these be used in discussing
duplication thought experiments.
Brent
Brent Meeker
Jul 20, 2019, 4:32:31 PM7/20/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/20/2019 3:22 AM, Bruno Marchal
wrote:
On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
On 7/19/2019 12:33 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
"I’m happy to be described as a monist. There aren’t multiple different kinds of things; there is only the wave function of the universe. As an emergent approximation it’s useful to characterize the wave function as describing multiple worlds."
So for Sean Carroll, reality is a mathematical entity: a wave function.At least Thales believed in stuff (matter).
"Stuff" is sufficiently vague that the wave-function could qualify as "stuff". The contentious question seems to be where conscious thoughts fall in the ontology. Are they processes realized by stuff (Vic), or do they exist in a separate Platonic real(Bruno),
Elementary arithmetic is that realm, and I ask you: how it could be separated, and mostly: from what?
From others metaphysical ontologies: materialism, idealism,
theism,...
From your irreducible material universe in which you seem to believe?
Where did I say "irreducible"? I'm not in the belief business. I'm
in the finding out business.
Why invoke such a thing.
I didn't invoke anything. I just attempted to clarify the different
theories at play.
It is not used in physics. It is used in physicalism, which until now just put the mind-body problem under the rug. With mechanism, we have a “simple” explanation of consciousness, and a “simple” explanation of where the observable comes from, and we can test it.
Your use of metaphysics is like the pseudo-religious one. You claim that your god (Matter) is enough to not do the experimental testing.
And you sound like a theist seeking out heretics.
Brent
Brent
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 20, 2019, 4:32:33 PM7/20/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Even if there is a duplication, the 1pov is still unique in both subject, and the question bears on this 1 pov. No need of youse...
Quentin
Brent
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Philip Thrift
Jul 20, 2019, 5:11:49 PM7/20/19
to Everything List
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 5:16:29 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
Thinking of counterfactuals: In the Sorkin/Dowker quantum physics as a stochastic calculus of histories, histories are the counterfactuals.
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 20, 2019, 8:34:43 PM7/20/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/20/2019 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux
wrote:
Le sam. 20 juil. 2019 à 22:27, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 3:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you
> will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive
> being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is
> quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the
> experience.
>
> There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
But as JKC endlessly points out, this a confusing based on second person
plural and second person singular being the same word in English. In
the south, they say "ya'll" for second person plural, and in New York
they say "youse". I suggest that one of these be used in discussing
duplication thought experiments.
Even if there is a duplication, the 1pov is still unique in both subject, and the question bears on this 1 pov. No need of youse...
Quentin
Seems to me the answer to the question where will youse find
youse-self is "Washington and Moscow."
Brent
Brent
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 21, 2019, 2:00:09 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
It can't be because the 1 pov is unique in each subject and is in Washington or Moscow, not in both. The question is on that, not on the duplicated bodies.
Quentin
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Brent
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Dan Sonik
Jul 21, 2019, 2:11:05 AM7/21/19
to Everything List
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 5:16:29 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:17:56 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:Hi Dan,It is OK to be critical. I always welcome this.
Thank you.
But you are a bit short of argument. You seem convince by John Clark’s posts. At least John Clark told us where in the reasoning he thinks there is a mistake, but has not yet been able to explain it, or convince anybody.
On the contrary, I just think the criticism has fallen on deaf ears -- reading some of these threads puts me in mind of those unfortunate individuals who are struck with agnosia. No matter how blatant and paramount the input for people with this condition, they simply pass it over, unaware of what is right under their noses.So, if you understand his critics of the step 3 in the 8-steps version of the Universal Dovetailer argument, you are welcome to explain it to us. If you want, I re-explain the argument, but most people in this list have no problem with it, so you might insist, or just read it here:Sure, I'll take a crack. Referring to your paper...
"Computationalism", or "comp" for short-- the idea that 1) our brains are made of some digitally fungible unitsThat is already a bit implicitly physicalist. Once, I suggested to abandon the expression “made of” because it is misleading. But OK, I will not cut the air. Computationalism is just the digital version of Descartes mechanism. Once (informal and colloquial) version is that there is no magic nor use of any actual infinities in the brain (that will entail later that there are some infinities at play for the mind, soul or consciousness).(at a level of description which is unknowable)Yes, although that is proved later.such that if some or all of it were replaced it would make no difference to that individual 2) computers themselves are equivalent at some level of description (Church Turing hypothesis) 3) arithmetical realism -- true statements about numbers are true absent any observers. Step 1: Computationalism implies the possibility of teleportation "in principle" -- that, according to you, is sufficient to prove your conclusion.I prove only at step 1 that computationalism entails the possibility of (classical) teleportation. (I am unsure which conclusion is alluded here).
I don't know that it does -- I think there would have to be a contribution from quantum mechanics in order to derive that entailment. The three premises alone are not strong enough to do the work you want them to, from what I can see. Teleportation is not just a theoretical problem, it's also an engineering problem -- this distinction is something I see you elide quite frequently, eg. in your hand waving responses to JKC. And I'm not sure what "classical teleportation" could mean -- quantum physics might allow some form of teleportation, but classical physics would almost certainly forbid it, no? Wouldn't you have to manage the conservation of matter/energy law that is the cornerstone of classical physics?
To be clear, I never try to prove computationalism to be true. It is my working hypothesis. I study the consequences, and show them testable and well tested by QM (which proves nothing of course).Step 2: Consider the difference between the first and third person perspectives, where the third person perspective is ascertained from a record contained in a personal diary.By an observer which does not enter the cut-and-copy bow.
Sorry, what is a "cut-and-copy bow"?
The important point here is the definition of the first person view, which is the content of the diary that the candidate take with him in the teleportation box. That plays an important role in the sequel.The first person is also the content of a diary.
No, it's not. I can read diaries I wrote from years ago, and I would hardly say that they are equivalent to my "first person view." Not in any sense of the term equivalent that I can think of, anyway.
It is 3P operational approximation of the first person experience: the personal diary content. Everett use something equivalent.In step two: a delay is intrigued in the reconstitution,
Can't scan "a delay is intrigued in the reconstitution..." Do you mean introduced?
and the point is that the delay is measurable in the 3p view, but is able,nt from the 1p diary: the first person is not aware of the delay. That is used again in step 4. You seem to have pass this.
To return to the point JKC makes perenially, how do you know what the first person is aware of in a world with matter duplicator/destroyer/transmitter/reconstitutors? (DDTRs for short) How do you know what the new continuers know, or think, or feel? How would anybody be able to say with any certainty what any of this would feel like without actually doing it?
Step 3: Assume you are a person being teleported -- you are told beforehand you will be teleported to either Washington or Moscow, with a 50 50 chance. The question is then put to the person about to be teleported -- where will YOU end up...“You” in the indexical first person sense, which means here, what will be written in the personal diaries.
But you can't make any scientific claims or predictions based on indexicals (at least not indexicals alone). Indexicals are already pretty mysterious, and they make for a lot of fun in the philosophy of personal identity (which is fraught with a fair bit of controversy itself.) You are making a high-level assumption about personal identity: that the "indexical first-person sense" is some kind of trivial given -- but it is absolutely, unequivocally NOT... neuroscience finds evidence daily that the seemingly unproblematic Cartesian theatre of present experience is a highly complex and orchestrated performance of the brain... I am compelled again to refer to the phenomenon of agnosia, in particular prosopagnosia, where the sufferer cannot recognize themselves in a mirror... maybe something like that would happen to the duplicated continuers, but at a deeper phenomenological level, maybe the continuer in Moscow would have a thought but not recognize who it belonged to... who knows? We would need to do the experiment in the empirical world to find out. And until we have DDTRs (an epic civilizational undertaking with no clear guarantees of success), we won't know... we can't reason ourselves to know.
If you think you can, then I would say (with all due respect) that you suffer from delusional overconfidence in what we can know. Which is ironic considering the amount of time you talk about "being humble" in your assumptions.
If you think you can, then I would say (with all due respect) that you suffer from delusional overconfidence in what we can know. Which is ironic considering the amount of time you talk about "being humble" in your assumptions.
As far as I can tell there have been two main criticisms of this thought experiment up to this point.
First, the question "where will YOU end up" is poorly formed in a counterfactual world of duplicating machines.Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the experience.
Sure it's natural to ask the question... doesn't mean the question needs to lead to anything sensible as a response. I can ask "What time is it on the moon now?" Perfectly sensible sounding question, but completely forgets the fact that time is based on divisions of longitude on the surface of the earth.
There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
Last time I checked, there were no such things as DDTRs. So, actually ya, your thought experiment is a counterfactual one in that it begins by the assumption of such miraculous machines.
There is no more YOU if YOU can be copied. There has to be a You-1 and a You-2, and the use of basic pronouns (that have evolved in a world absent of perfect duplicating machines) elides this distinction.But we agree, in the 3p description, that you-1 is still you, and you-2 is still you too, but in a different “incarnation”.This shows that in Helsinki (the place where you decide to do the experience, and try too predict what your experience will look like in your 1p view, which exists by computationalism).
If you just say that there is no more YOU, then we die in the duplication, and thus also in the simple teleportation, and thus you cannot say “yes” qua computation to the digitalist doctor and Mechanism is false.
With all due respect, Bruno, that is an invalid inference.I didn't say we would die necessarily (although on reflection, one of those "Ds" the machine is supposed to perform is "destroy," so... I suppose "you" would die if the original was vaporized - who knows how You-1 and You-2 would feel?). I said the idea of who "YOU" are as a single person entering the DDTR loses meaning/reference. When I say "there is no more YOU (in a world with perfect DDTRs, able to scan, duplicate, transmit, then recreate an entire human being so perfectly that they are indistinguishable to outside observers, not to mention themselves (whatever that means)), it means that we would need to change some things in language, as our language has evolved with such things as "object permanence" and "no perfect duplication" allowed -- this is the point that JKC continually raises and I am always very amused at the ways you duck it. It has NOTHING to do with death or dying, at least it is not necessarily entailed by what I said...at least if the original decided not to get destroyed. I didn't make that claim... I am being conservative in what I am trying to infer from the thought experiment, far more conservative than you seem to be. I don't know what happens to the original person in Helsinki in a hypothetical transporter experiment because I haven't been in a DDTR and this is not an experiment that can be performed with any testable consequences. Empirical results matter. Even more, precision in reference matters when you are talking about perfect copies of complex macroscopic objects. You would at least become You -1 and You -2, let's say... but with respect to which continuer You would be, that is ill formed in the current set of pronouns we have in the English language. Like asking a child to "mambo dogface to the banana patch." Or claiming that "green ideas sleep furiously."
If we did exercise our imaginations, I can think of many possibilities, none of which might be true, but we would have to run the experiment to find out. Could be: a) the original ceases to exist (in this case, sure, death); or b) there is a strange sense of feeling as though waking up from a single dream in each of the continuers; or c) there could be a "smeared subjectivity" in the two locations for a period of time; or d) (your preferred but by no means guaranteed outcome) one of the two continuers definitely remembers being the original and there is felt phenomenological continuity; or e) for some reason, the transporters always malfunction in such a way that only one person is produced in either location randomly; or f) <use imagination here>; or g)... etc.
And while we are on the topic, how would "YOU" feel if you did not get vaporized by the DDTR (it was just a DTR process) and remained in Helsinki? Guessing no change? Who knows? We don't have the empirical data to settle the question, and Godel/Pythagoras/Plato/Plotinus/Aristotle cannot help us settle the question either.
The point is you would have to do the experiment -- armchair deductions from your axioms will tell you nothing about the outcome, any more than trying to actually dream up and build a matter duplicator (to say nothing of a matter destroyer, or a matter transmitter, or a matter reconstituter) using nothing but your mind. You are making inferences from a logic that is not based on a world where matter duplication is possible (or doesn't seem to be, by what we do know of how nature works). And the possibility of PERFECT matter duplication/transmission/destruction/reconstitution seems to be the lynchpin of your whole approach. So the thought experiment doesn't get off the ground... it makes no new predictions and does no actual theoretical work. And if you respond "it doesn't have to be a 'matter duplicator,' because 'primary matter' is just a dream of the numbers, it only has to be a "duplicator" of some unspecified type..." then I will laugh, heartily.
The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of instantiation don't "DO” anythingBut that is the case only in step 7 and 8. Up to step 6 the computations are all physically instantiated. You jumped to step 7 here.Should I guess that you are OK with the first 6 steps?-- in order for a computation to be performed, it must be instantiated in some hardware, and therefore the domain of physics is larger than the domain of mathematics,Assuming a physical primitive universe. But you cannot invalidate a reasoning by adding an hypothesis not there. That is not valid.because the details of implementing a Turing machine in the real world are just as if not more important than the kinds of computations you will end up feeding it.
Over and above these criticisms, however, is the recurrently identified insistence on using words with completely arbitrary definitions that do not map to how most of the rest of the English speaking community use them -- God, theology, machine, materialism/primary matter as examples -- and it seems that this move signals a bit of bad faith on your part, or at least a willingness to obfuscate in order to avoid inconvenient (and yet quite legitimate) counterpoints many have raised over the years. Again, I am reminded of agnosia sufferers.
About Aristotle primary substance, I am not sure I understand your remark. I discuss this on many groups on antic philosophy, and, you are the first to make this very astonishing remark. You might need to revise Aristotle's “Metaphysics” which is all about this (beware the different translations though).
I'm not sure what is so "astonishing" about the remark.I think I see the point. You might have thought that I said that Aristotle is the one introducing Materialism (as used in philosophy of mind), but I say only that Aristotle introduced “weak materialism”, the metaphysical assumption that an irreducible physical reality exists all by itself. There has never been any evidences for this, and that was exactly what Plato is all about. Aristotle is a reaction to Plato, and a vindication that physics is part of any fundamental theory, like most believe today. That is the point that we have to abandon when we assume digital mechanism, but that is after step 7 or 8.Seeing a flying saucer land and 5 little grey beings come out? That would be astonishing to me.That would astonish me too, but not be conceptually important. It is just discovering that we have neighbours.A world where we could be teleported from Helsinki to Moscow? Astonishing.Technologically, but conceptually banal when we assume Digital Mechanism.
OH, "conceptually banal...." My, my, how "conceptually banal" it would be to have an actual TRANSPORTER as depicted in Star Trek that could not only send us from one place to another in a matter of seconds...but DUPLICATE us as well. YAWN. That wouldn't revolutionize EVERYTHING we have ever known/understood about how to live in the world... Pass the caviar, dahlink, and put another mink on the fire, I'm freezing!
Making a possibly incorrect claim about Aristotelian hermeneutics... eh, not that astonishing. And I think you might have meant to say "review" rather than "revise," -- to revise is to edit something with the goal of making it clearer or better. I wouldn't want to take on the job of editing Aristotle (although, God knows, he did need an editor). If I recall correctly, Aristotle thought the world was made of 5 elements, each telelogically drawn to their own place in the natural order of things. So that's 5 substances, not one -- it's not a monism, and therefore to conflate it with materialism and continually refer to it as Aristotelian belief in primary substance seems a bit careless. The modern notion of matter has no telos.It is WEAK materialism. The belief that we have to assume a physical universe. The idea that we cannot explain matter without invoking primitive, assumed matter, be it earth, fire stare and air, or any element of the same material nature.
When you get up in the morning, what is your routine like? Do you make coffee, perhaps? Put on slippers? Brush your teeth? Do you put on clothes?
Do you do all these things in your mind? Or in a physical universe? Can you conjure your coffee without having to go (physically) to buy it at a store? Can you type any responses to this question using purely your mind? Without the intervention of one of those pesky "physical" computers with chips made out of silicon (because silicon is a good semi-conductor while marshmallow isn't?) What about your clothes? Do you just imagine your clothes and then walk out the door? Or do you have to go to a closet or chest of drawers to pull your clothes out and put them on one sleeve and leg at a time? Do you have to make sure they are clean? If they aren't clean, do people maybe look at you a bit funny, or treat you differently? Do you dream up your toothpaste? Your toothbrush? How do you do your day to day with your ultimate primitive numbers and computations? Do you "assume physical reality" before doing any of these things? Or do you let the numbers do it for you? If the latter, what is that like?
Do you do all these things in your mind? Or in a physical universe? Can you conjure your coffee without having to go (physically) to buy it at a store? Can you type any responses to this question using purely your mind? Without the intervention of one of those pesky "physical" computers with chips made out of silicon (because silicon is a good semi-conductor while marshmallow isn't?) What about your clothes? Do you just imagine your clothes and then walk out the door? Or do you have to go to a closet or chest of drawers to pull your clothes out and put them on one sleeve and leg at a time? Do you have to make sure they are clean? If they aren't clean, do people maybe look at you a bit funny, or treat you differently? Do you dream up your toothpaste? Your toothbrush? How do you do your day to day with your ultimate primitive numbers and computations? Do you "assume physical reality" before doing any of these things? Or do you let the numbers do it for you? If the latter, what is that like?
It is the belief that Pythagorean have to be false, as for them matter has to be explained by numbers, and indeed they begun to explain geometry with numbers, something pursued by Descartes, etc.
Not making any commitment on Pythagoreanism one way or another. And again, I think your continual reference to Aristotelian thinking as a form of weak materialism (which is really a separate philological issue) is not well motivated, as there are far more differences than similarities between Aristotle's metaphysics and modern materialism (whatever that is) -- however, it is important for YOU by construction that you oppose Aristotle in favor of Plato -- two thinkers that lost all but historical relevance for science arguably over 400 years ago. In any event, the whole ancient greek thing is orthogonal to what you attempt (and in my opinion, fail) to establish.
Concerning Craig Weinberg, we have agreed on everything. He just choose the option “weak-materialism” instead of mechanism, but seem to understand there incompatibility.
I would say here that you grossly mischaracterize his ideas as "weak materialism"…I don’t think I have ascribe weal materialism to Craig Weinberg. I don’t see where or what you allude too. On the century, his approach is 100% coherent with the consequence of mechanism.but if you are going to go off using words in special ways (as is your wont), then no one can stop you. His website is called "Multisense realism." As far as I can tell, he argues for the ontological primacy of sensation diffracted across multiple modes of interpretation-- not sure how that can be put in the "materialist" box. Sounds more like a brand of idealism to me…I have never claim that Weinberg is weak, still less not weak, materialist.
SIR, you LITERALLY say that when you write "He just choose the option "weak-materialism" instead of mechanism." That's a copy of what you wrote a few sentences back.
Is one of us having an acid flashback?
His multisense realism is quite comparable to the 8 modes of the self implied by incompleteness. My work shows that the universal number in arithmetic get the same non materialist insight. Yet in a more mathematically precise way so that we can test Mechanism and the immaterialist consequences.
I don't know what any of that means, it's mumbo jumbo to me... the only part I kinda get is "test mechanism and the immaterialist consequences," and the only way I can think to do that is to build a perfectly working never failing DDTR machine (in the actual sense of the word, not your neologized sense) that does just ONE of those functions. A matter/information destroyer would be something any military would love to get its hands on.
Most of its philosophy is very close to what I extract from the theaetetus’ definition of knowledge, when applied to Gödel’s provability predicate (which I motivate either through thought experiments or by referring to Plato). We opus quasi everyday since the dialog on Facebook, as Craig seems to prefer.
Glad to hear! (what is "opus quasi"?)A mispelling (aggravated by the automated spelling corrector) for “we discuss this quasi everyday since we dialog on this on Facebook).
Please, explain John Clark’s argument, if you understand it. Brent has acknowledge having no problem up to step 6, and is unclear (or undecided perhaps) on step 7.
See above.Above you say that we die when we are multiplied, but that contradict the working hypothesis. If you don’t die in a simple teleportation experience (step one), you cannot die because a copy is made at a distance, that would involve non local action at a distance, which makes no sense if we assume that mechanism is true and that the substitution has been well chosen.
I don't -- please see above. There could be all kinds of exotic and counter-intuitive phenomenological possibilities on being duplicated, none of which can be ascertained through sheer analysis of concepts alone. I admit, if you get destroyed as part of the process of being sent elsewhere, then yes, there is a sense in which you do die, but who knows what that would be like phenomenologically ... reasoning about it using a handful of axioms underdetermines the possibilities.
You might ignored like many that all computations occurs in already a tiny segment of the arithmetical reality: the truth of the sigma_1 sentences (which is indeed equivalent to a universal dovetailing).OK, that's what you say. (??) Not sure how it's relevant to the objection 1) counterfactual worlds with teleportation devices need clearer ways of referring to those who are duplicated.That is why the UDA reasoning should be seen, like originally, only as a motivation for the translation of this in arithmetic, where the notion of first and third person leads to 8 important nuances imposed by incompleteness. The UDA is for the young people. It asks for a minimum of good willing, and a dilate for hand waving type of Sunday philosophy.
All of the above is unclear to me and does not scan to anything coherent (the phrase "word salad" comes to mind). I'll just assume it's over my head and move on. No need to explain or elaborate.
If you mean what you say above, we die at step 3, and you leave the digital Mechanist frame.
And what if I do, what happens then? Do I get a prize? :-)
2) Computations don't compute anything without something on which to compute (paper and pencil, a machine (in the commonly used sense, not in your neologized sense), a brain).Wait we arrive at step 7, and don’t add a new hypothesis, which looks like a string metaphysical commitment in an entity for which no evidences have were be given (just brainwashing since Aristotle, I would say).
That is required for step seven. This is well known by logicians since almost Gödel’s 1931 paper. That makes the believer in “Matter"forced to explain how their “Matter” can influence or interfere with the statistics on computations which are run in arithmetic (where “run” is taken in the sense of Church, Kleene, Turing, etc.I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out there,”You seem to not have study Gödel’s 1931 paper and the 1930s paper which followed, or Emil Post anticipation, or any paper in Davis Dover “Undecidable” or any textbook in theoretical computer science.If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the prime number.
How very pompous. How does anything Godel wrote about the highly specialized conclusion on the undecidability of formal systems (that has practically ZERO effect on the daily lives of 99.99% of all humans, including mathematicians and engineers) using what amounts to the "parlor trick" of Godel numbering have anything at all to do with the ontological primacy (or otherwise) of numbers? The fact that philosophers of math still find grist for the mill of thenominalism vs. realism debate today demonstrates that no one has a consensus on the ontological status of numbers. It also demonstrates that it is not that important. Practical computer scientists, I'm happy to point out, are able to do their jobs perfectly well without that question being decided -- they "have no need of that hypothesis", to echo Laplace.
in some sort of Platonic superspace.Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no objection to what is taught in primary school. That is why I insist all the time to use “realism” instead of “platonism”, which I keep only for the metaphysics.
This is an oversimplification. You can easily learn to do math without having any ontological commitment about the status of numbers or the truth values of statements using numbers. My calculator does math with no such commitments all the time.
You need only the arithmetic without which we cannot define what is a digital machine, and that is needed to define Digital Mechanism.*All* papers in physics assumes the same amount of arithmetic (actually most assumes much more powerful mathematical hypotheses).
Again, while they may assume arithmetic, they certainly are not wedded to AR, a much stronger claim that is not in any danger of being established any time soon, much to the relief of the many mathematical philosophers out there who would have to go get real jobs if it were.
Perhaps this is what the implication of AR is, although it seems a somewhat stronger claim than just AR. This takes far more suspension of disbelief than assuming (and then getting actual, real world consequences from) a material world that needs to be engineered in order to deliver the results we expect from our computations. You can't build something with only equations,Of course. The arithmetical reality is provably beyond all theories and not obtainable from any system of equations.
Says you. Don't see what this has to do with the claim you seem to be countering, though, which is "you can't build something with only equations."
Even a theory as powerful than ZF, or ZFC + large cardinals can only scratch the arithmetical reality, and cannot avoid the non standard model.After Gödel we just understand that we know about nothing about numbers and the arithmetical reality, and we know that this is forever. We know that there is an infinity of surprise, and with mechanism, that there is an infinity points of view that the number can develop relatively to those surprise.
There is a lot we know nothing about -- take, for example, how to construct a matter duplicator, or a matter destroyer, or a matter transmitter, or a matter reconstituter. Or to travel back to 1958. Or how the universe began. Or what happens after death. None of this ignorance helps in establishing your positive claim, which is (and I think I've still got this correct, as you haven't outright denied it) that "we are eternal computations of some eternal universal dovetailing algorithm computed by pure numbers and the relationships between them."
That claim is not established by your thought experiment, first and foremost because your thought experiment is grounded in a counterfactual reality that may or may not be isomorphic to our own. And that's just for STARTERS... even IF our reality WERE isomorphic to one in which PERFECT DDTR machines were possible (and really, could anything be perfect in this imperfectible world of ours?), it STILL would not establish that we are therefore made of numbers/computations/relations between numbers generated by some kind of universal dovetailer.
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem sign the breakdown of all reductionist conception of number and machine, and a fortiori of man (assuming mechanism).and all the computations being "out there" are as good as none of them being out there if you can't distinguish correct from incorrect ones.A theory can be correct or incorrect. A computation cannot. It is just an activity of a machine. It might be different to what you expect, like if there was a bug, but that is dependent of what you want.
Again, says you. Just because you regularly change definitions of common words to suit your purposes does not mean that others cannot do the same. I can think of lots of ways the sentence "That computation is incorrect" could be plausibly used and understood by a community of English speakers.
Eyud Shapiro debugging algorithm illustrate this well. You can consider that the program correctly computing the factorial function is a bugged version of a program computing the Fibonacci number, and you can debug it automatically, from samples of inputs outputs, until it computes fibonacci.
I'll take your word for it -- doesn't change much in terms of the objections raised or the ultimate strength of your thought experiment.
The notion of correct, non correct is for the theories, or the asserting machines.And the only way you can distinguish them is by actually building a real machine made out of stuff of some kind and go ahead and run the computation and wait for the answer. This has been mentioned multiple times, but again, agnosia.You assume a irreducible physical universe; but you cannot invoke a metaphysical assumption not present in a theory to refute that theory. That is simply not valid. That is like a creationist saying that the theory of evolution is all nice and well except that it fails to account for most statement in the bible.
Don't recall explicitly making that assumption, but sure, let's say I do. What of it? I think the practical fact that a DDTR does not exist (not to mention that no one knows how a person sent through such a device would feel during the process) demonstrates quite well that your thought experiment does not establish what you claim it does. In terms of the number of metaphysical assumptions made in the course of our demonstrations, I believe I have fewer than you, and I believe they are far more plausible to boot. And I'm not sure what you're getting at with the creationist analogy -- seems like a non sequitur. I know you are fond of saying people are religious while defining religion any old way you like, so let's chalk it up to rhetorical trickery.
Seeing how previous threads go, I am holding little hope in persuading you that your thought experiment does not establish what you want it to,You need to work more on the step 3 issues. You say that after the duplication “YOU” does not exist anymore, but this means that you died in the process, contra the Mechanist hypothesis.
Sir, with all do respect, I think you might have some work to do yourself. Many have pointed out similar problems to you over these past eons, but like a true agnosiac denying that your hand is your own, or a drunk driving in the wrong lane wondering why everyone is honking, you insist it is their issue and that they "show you their work" on your cockamamie thought experiment.
There are a lot of really bright people on this list. The objections raised here are not novel, just restated in my own idiomatic way gathered from spending lots of time here. Your thought experiment has not changed one iota, nor have the conclusions that you derived from it back in 2004, despite the brain trust you have here on this list weighing in on it. You would think that the theory would evolve over 15 years, change, grow, get stronger, or perhaps weaker but more comprehensive, as a result of taking into consideration all the feedback. But it hasn't -- it hasn't changed one bit.
That, sir, is the definition of moribund.
There are a lot of really bright people on this list. The objections raised here are not novel, just restated in my own idiomatic way gathered from spending lots of time here. Your thought experiment has not changed one iota, nor have the conclusions that you derived from it back in 2004, despite the brain trust you have here on this list weighing in on it. You would think that the theory would evolve over 15 years, change, grow, get stronger, or perhaps weaker but more comprehensive, as a result of taking into consideration all the feedback. But it hasn't -- it hasn't changed one bit.
That, sir, is the definition of moribund.
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.
(i.e. we are eternal computations in an ever unfolding dovetailer algorithm) but that's fine... the thinking and writing process is fun and it would be really cool if it were true (but it probably ain't). And I could be full of shit myself, so there's that.Thanks for showing some hope toward a possible understanding,
If only you would do likewise... unfortunately, I suspect you have too much of your psychic identity wrapped up in your theory being true, and it would be harmful to you if you ever realized that maybe your conclusions are not nearly as powerful or compelling as you think. Therefore, like the agnosiac, you must confabulate in order to maintain your consistency and protect your psychic well-being.
Either that, or by some ridiculous odds or manifest destiny, you Bruno happen to have stumbled upon the one great truth that all others just can't get because everyone else is just TOO OBTUSE and simply have not mastered to the same degree the writing of all the great logicians from ancient Greece onwards.
If I was a bettin' man...
But keep on dreamin' your number dreams, you crazy Godel number, you (or whatever you think you are supposed to be).
Dan
Bruno
All the Best,
DanBruno
<div style="font-size:small" c
Brent Meeker
Jul 21, 2019, 2:12:13 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/20/2019 10:59 PM, Quentin Anciaux
wrote:
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 02:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le sam. 20 juil. 2019 à 22:27, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 3:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you
> will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive
> being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is
> quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the
> experience.
>
> There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
But as JKC endlessly points out, this a confusing based on second person
plural and second person singular being the same word in English. In
the south, they say "ya'll" for second person plural, and in New York
they say "youse". I suggest that one of these be used in discussing
duplication thought experiments.
Even if there is a duplication, the 1pov is still unique in both subject, and the question bears on this 1 pov. No need of youse...
Quentin
Seems to me the answer to the question where will youse find youse-self is "Washington and Moscow."
It can't be because the 1 pov is unique in each subject and is in Washington or Moscow, not in both. The question is on that, not on the duplicated bodies.
The pov gets duplicated with the bodies.
Brent
Brent
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 21, 2019, 2:17:11 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
No there is two unique pov, one that sees Moscow, one that sees Washington, none that sees Washington and Moscow.
--
Brent
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Quentin Anciaux
Jul 21, 2019, 2:28:09 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 08:16, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> a écrit :
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 08:12, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 10:59 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 02:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le sam. 20 juil. 2019 à 22:27, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 3:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you
> will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive
> being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is
> quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the
> experience.
>
> There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
But as JKC endlessly points out, this a confusing based on second person
plural and second person singular being the same word in English. In
the south, they say "ya'll" for second person plural, and in New York
they say "youse". I suggest that one of these be used in discussing
duplication thought experiments.
Even if there is a duplication, the 1pov is still unique in both subject, and the question bears on this 1 pov. No need of youse...
Quentin
Seems to me the answer to the question where will youse find youse-self is "Washington and Moscow."
It can't be because the 1 pov is unique in each subject and is in Washington or Moscow, not in both. The question is on that, not on the duplicated bodies.
The pov gets duplicated with the bodies.
No there is two unique pov, one that sees Moscow, one that sees Washington, none that sees Washington and Moscow.
If you say that after pushing the button your pov will be Washington and Moscow, it's false, as your POV will be only Moscow or only Washington, there are no next POV of yourself who sees both in the same POV.
Brent Meeker
Jul 21, 2019, 2:28:59 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/20/2019 11:16 PM, Quentin Anciaux
wrote:
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 08:12, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 10:59 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le dim. 21 juil. 2019 à 02:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le sam. 20 juil. 2019 à 22:27, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :
On 7/20/2019 3:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you
> will not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive
> being in two cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is
> quite natural to ask yourself where you could feel to be after the
> experience.
>
> There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual.
But as JKC endlessly points out, this a confusing based on second person
plural and second person singular being the same word in English. In
the south, they say "ya'll" for second person plural, and in New York
they say "youse". I suggest that one of these be used in discussing
duplication thought experiments.
Even if there is a duplication, the 1pov is still unique in both subject, and the question bears on this 1 pov. No need of youse...
Quentin
Seems to me the answer to the question where will youse find youse-self is "Washington and Moscow."
It can't be because the 1 pov is unique in each subject and is in Washington or Moscow, not in both. The question is on that, not on the duplicated bodies.
The pov gets duplicated with the bodies.
No there is two unique pov, one that sees Moscow, one that sees Washington, none that sees Washington and Moscow.
I didn't say there was. I said youse-self sees
Moscow and Washington. "Youse-self" is second person plural.
Brent
Brent
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 21, 2019, 4:09:56 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Ok but no need of youse, the question is clear without it, if you accept frequency interpretation of probability as you should also for MWI, it's clear and meaningful.
Quentin
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 21, 2019, 7:55:52 AM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.
Let me rephrase the question:
Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?
Bruno
PGC
Jul 21, 2019, 11:47:19 AM7/21/19
to Everything List
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 1:55:52 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:<snip>
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.Let me rephrase the question:
That's the thing though, some folks won't.
And for those people all you got is "you don't have an argument, you're a weak materialist blah blah blah", when one can reject all argumentation at its root and state plainly that you lack evidence/tractability for the extraordinary claims of however you choose to sell mathematical philosophy/personal mysticism, themselves uninformed by advanced/recent discussion on many philosophical, linguistic, metaphysical, even mathematical fronts, this week.
Then your discourse tries to make out some perceived metaphysical commitment which is then embedded and assimilated by UDA/personal mysticism somewhere but you have no answer to those that say: "No. Evidence is not convincing, problem has tractability issues, consciousness discussions can be manipulated and veer into charlatan territory etc." which I've maintained for years now.
The forced nature with which you try ceaselessly to assimilate discourses of others + claim fellow members as trophies for your mysticism: evidence that you guys are ideologues. You can't have a person refuse to consent that UDA/your personal mysticism fails to have merit. That's why it appears, and for all practical purposes IS, synonymous with a con game and pseudoscientific "discussion". There is certitude here, which by your own measures is I guess evidence of "the right kind of scientific attitude". PGC
Brent Meeker
Jul 21, 2019, 2:18:16 PM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/21/2019 1:09 AM, Quentin Anciaux
wrote:
I didn't say there was. I said youse-self sees Moscow and Washington. "Youse-self" is second person plural.
Brent
Ok but no need of youse, the question is clear without it, if you accept frequency interpretation of probability as you should also for MWI, it's clear and meaningful.
But does it have a clear answer?
The MWI has it's own problems with probability. It's straightforward if there are just two possibility and so the world splits into two (and we implicitly assume they are equi-probable). But what if there are two possibilities and one is twice as likely as the other? Does the world split into three, two of which are the same? If two worlds are the same, can they really be two. Aren't they just one? And what if there are two possibilities, but one of them is very unlikely, say one-in-a-thousand chance. Does the world then split into 1001 worlds? And what if the probability of one event is 1/pi...so then we need infinitely many worlds. But if there are infinitely many worlds then every event happens infinitely many times and there is no natural measure of probability.
Brent
The MWI has it's own problems with probability. It's straightforward if there are just two possibility and so the world splits into two (and we implicitly assume they are equi-probable). But what if there are two possibilities and one is twice as likely as the other? Does the world split into three, two of which are the same? If two worlds are the same, can they really be two. Aren't they just one? And what if there are two possibilities, but one of them is very unlikely, say one-in-a-thousand chance. Does the world then split into 1001 worlds? And what if the probability of one event is 1/pi...so then we need infinitely many worlds. But if there are infinitely many worlds then every event happens infinitely many times and there is no natural measure of probability.
Brent
Philip Thrift
Jul 21, 2019, 3:30:03 PM7/21/19
to Everything List
Sean Carroll is the multiple-worlds dude. He would have an answer.
"The potential for multiple worlds is always there in the quantum state, whether you like it or not. The next question would be, do multiple-world superpositions of the form written [above] ever actually come into being? And the answer again is: yes, automatically, without any additional assumptions."
@philipthrift
Quentin Anciaux
Jul 21, 2019, 4:46:26 PM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Well there is always an infinity of worlds at each split but the density of every possible results should conform to the partition.
Either probabilities have no meaning in the mwi and duplication experiment or they do, but you can't says as JC holds that they're meaningful in the MWI case and not in the duplication experiment because you could meet your doppelganger... That makes no sense.
Quentin
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Brent Meeker
Jul 21, 2019, 5:39:28 PM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
But then the question is how many worlds (the 1/pi problem) and how
does probability come into it? Do we have to just assign
probabilities to branches (using the Born rule as an axiom instead
of deriving it)? And what about continuous processes like detecting
the decay in Schroedinger's cat box? Is a continuum of worlds
produced corresponding to the different times the decay might occur?
Brent
Brent
Philip Thrift
Jul 21, 2019, 7:06:23 PM7/21/19
to Everything List
Tegmark could be on the mark by taking the position that infinities of all types should be removed from physics.
So there would be no "continuum of worlds". The way I think about it (without getting into the formality of computable analysis) is to just think of the worlds being generated as in a quantum Monte Carlo program: There will be lots of worlds randomly made, but not an actual infinity of them.
(God plays Monte Carlo.)
@philipthrift
Brent Meeker
Jul 21, 2019, 7:16:29 PM7/21/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
That would just be equivalent to weighting them with the Born Rule.
If you're going to have worlds generated per a MC program with
weightings (probabilities) then why not just have world generated
per the Born MC program.
Brent
Brent
(God plays Monte Carlo.)
@philipthrift
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Philip Thrift
Jul 21, 2019, 7:46:40 PM7/21/19
to Everything List
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 6:16:29 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 4:06 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 4:39:28 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 12:30 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 1:18:16 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 1:09 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
I didn't say there was. I said youse-self sees Moscow and Washington. "Youse-self" is second person plural.
Brent
Ok but no need of youse, the question is clear without it, if you accept frequency interpretation of probability as you should also for MWI, it's clear and meaningful.
But does it have a clear answer?
The MWI has it's own problems with probability. It's straightforward if there are just two possibility and so the world splits into two (and we implicitly assume they are equi-probable). But what if there are two possibilities and one is twice as likely as the other? Does the world split into three, two of which are the same? If two worlds are the same, can they really be two. Aren't they just one? And what if there are two possibilities, but one of them is very unlikely, say one-in-a-thousand chance. Does the world then split into 1001 worlds? And what if the probability of one event is 1/pi...so then we need infinitely many worlds. But if there are infinitely many worlds then every event happens infinitely many times and there is no natural measure of probability.
Brent
Sean Carroll is the multiple-worlds dude. He would have an answer.
"The potential for multiple worlds is always there in the quantum state, whether you like it or not. The next question would be, do multiple-world superpositions of the form written [above] ever actually come into being? And the answer again is: yes, automatically, without any additional assumptions."
But then the question is how many worlds (the 1/pi problem) and how does probability come into it? Do we have to just assign probabilities to branches (using the Born rule as an axiom instead of deriving it)? And what about continuous processes like detecting the decay in Schroedinger's cat box? Is a continuum of worlds produced corresponding to the different times the decay might occur?
Brent
Tegmark could be on the mark by taking the position that infinities of all types should be removed from physics.
So there would be no "continuum of worlds". The way I think about it (without getting into the formality of computable analysis) is to just think of the worlds being generated as in a quantum Monte Carlo program: There will be lots of worlds randomly made, but not an actual infinity of them.
That would just be equivalent to weighting them with the Born Rule. If you're going to have worlds generated per a MC program with weightings (probabilities) then why not just have world generated per the Born MC program.
Brent
(God plays Monte Carlo.)
@philipthrift
Maybe it ends up being basically the same Monte Carlo programming.
Monte Carlo sampling from the quantum state space
@philipthrift
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 12:12:15 AM7/22/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.
The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not. So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.
As for assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT), it is not a matter of assuming this. It is a matter of whether the assumptions that you are building in make sense or not. And that is an empirical matter. Does any of it comport with our usual understandings of personal identity and other matters.
Bruce
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 1:01:31 AM7/22/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:16 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it >appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out >there,”
If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the prime number.
This is your standard conflation of the Existential Quantifier over a domain with an ontology, Bruno. Or, equivalently, your oft-repeated assertion that people confuse "2+2=4" with 2+2=4. What you refer to here is the fact that the word "dog" is not actually a dog, namely a 4-legged mamal that barks and greets you affectionately at the door. That is, the name is not the same as the physical object. But that distinction does not exist for arithmetic -- given nominalism (the fact that the integers are not independently existing objects), the name "2+2=4" is the same thing as 2+2=4. There is no object that differs from the name of the relationship expressed in 2+2=4. The claim "that all computations exist in arithmetic" has no content. Peano arithmetic no more "proves" the existence of these computations than it proves the existence of the moon.
in some sort of Platonic superspace.Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no objection to what is taught in primary school.
There you go again, Bruno: re-defining terms so that you are always right. "Realism", or more particularly, "arithmetical realism" means no such thing, Students are taught elementary calculations and multiplication tables in primary school, they are not taught philosophical platonism,.
Bruce
Brent Meeker
Jul 22, 2019, 1:22:29 AM7/22/19
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 7/21/2019 9:12 PM, Bruce Kellett
wrote:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.
So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.
Let me rephrase the question:
Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?
According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.
The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not. So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.
Given the limitations on quantum level measurements, it is certain
that the continuer will not be identical. But I'm not identical
with Brent Meeker of yesterday or last year or of 1939. I have a
continuous causal connection with those Brent Meekers and I have
some similarities (DNA for example). So it hardly makes sense to
demand a sharp answer to "What will you experience." in a
duplication experiment when we don't even have a sharp definition of
"you". And it doesn't even take something as scifi as a duplicator
to raise the question. I might have a stroke tonight and lose my
ability to recognize names. Will I be the same person tomorrow? I
will have some of the same memories, but not all. Will I experience
being Brent Meeker or not?
Brent
Brent
As for assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT), it is not a matter of assuming this. It is a matter of whether the assumptions that you are building in make sense or not. And that is an empirical matter. Does any of it comport with our usual understandings of personal identity and other matters.
Bruce
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Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 2:10:09 AM7/22/19
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 3:22 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
On 7/21/2019 9:12 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.
So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.
Let me rephrase the question:
Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?
According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.
The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not. So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.
Given the limitations on quantum level measurements, it is certain that the continuer will not be identical. But I'm not identical with Brent Meeker of yesterday or last year or of 1939. I have a continuous causal connection with those Brent Meekers and I have some similarities (DNA for example). So it hardly makes sense to demand a sharp answer to "What will you experience." in a duplication experiment when we don't even have a sharp definition of "you". And it doesn't even take something as scifi as a duplicator to raise the question. I might have a stroke tonight and lose my ability to recognize names. Will I be the same person tomorrow? I will have some of the same memories, but not all. Will I experience being Brent Meeker or not?
These are good questions. That is why the 'closest continuer' theory has some merit. It gives a reasonable account of how you remain the same person under the continual changing of the atoms/molecules that make up your body and brain. In the case of stroke or other head injury, memories may be seriously disrupted or lost, but your family will still recognise 'you' as the same Brent as yesterday, showing that bodily continuity is a significant component in the concepts of personal identity over changes in body and mind. It is not all down to clear memories of the earlier self.
Nozick's closest continuer theory was developed in the light of data from, and experience of, split brain individuals, which are the closest we can currently come to the idea of personal duplication. The philosophy of personal identity is complex, and there are not necessarily any clear winners in the debate. In my opinion, that is a cogent reason for being sceptical about Bruno's simplistic models.
Bruce
Philip Thrift
Jul 22, 2019, 4:43:56 AM7/22/19
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Of course the moon is a numerical entity, the result of some (numerical) computation. :)
Once one posits numerical reality as producing (computing) things, then one is saying arithmetic is a programming language, and then the issue is what sort of semantics it has, e.g.
The operational semantics for a programming language describes how a valid program is interpreted as sequences of computational steps. These sequences then are the meaning of the program.
The semantics of a program leads down to some sort of machinery, which in numerical reality are platonic machines - which basically have all the properties of the material machines that PLT operational semantics addresses (no pun intended).
they are not taught philosophical platonism
Of course they are. When students are told numbers exist, that is the beginning of their brainwashing by platonism.
@philipthrift
Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 5:13:11 AM7/22/19
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On 22 Jul 2019, at 01:06, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 4:39:28 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 12:30 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 1:18:16 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 1:09 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
I didn't say there was. I said youse-self sees Moscow and Washington. "Youse-self" is second person plural.
Brent
Ok but no need of youse, the question is clear without it, if you accept frequency interpretation of probability as you should also for MWI, it's clear and meaningful.
But does it have a clear answer?
The MWI has it's own problems with probability. It's straightforward if there are just two possibility and so the world splits into two (and we implicitly assume they are equi-probable). But what if there are two possibilities and one is twice as likely as the other? Does the world split into three, two of which are the same? If two worlds are the same, can they really be two. Aren't they just one? And what if there are two possibilities, but one of them is very unlikely, say one-in-a-thousand chance. Does the world then split into 1001 worlds? And what if the probability of one event is 1/pi...so then we need infinitely many worlds. But if there are infinitely many worlds then every event happens infinitely many times and there is no natural measure of probability.
Brent
Sean Carroll is the multiple-worlds dude. He would have an answer.
"The potential for multiple worlds is always there in the quantum state, whether you like it or not. The next question would be, do multiple-world superpositions of the form written [above] ever actually come into being? And the answer again is: yes, automatically, without any additional assumptions."
But then the question is how many worlds (the 1/pi problem) and how does probability come into it? Do we have to just assign probabilities to branches (using the Born rule as an axiom instead of deriving it)? And what about continuous processes like detecting the decay in Schroedinger's cat box? Is a continuum of worlds produced corresponding to the different times the decay might occur?
BrentTegmark could be on the mark by taking the position that infinities of all types should be removed from physics.
Like computationalism forbid the axiom of infinity for the basic ontology. Recently I have realised that even the induction axiom have to be removed. There are only part of the observers’ code, and yes, the phenomenology needs the axiom induction, and the axiom of infinity, etc.
So there would be no "continuum of worlds”.
That is because Tegmark remains physicalist, and still believe in physical world. Here mechanism differs; there is a continuum of parallel histories, and we might need ZF + Large-cardinal to do its mathematic.
The way I think about it (without getting into the formality of computable analysis) is to just think of the worlds being generated as in a quantum Monte Carlo program: There will be lots of worlds randomly made, but not an actual infinity of them.
Yes, you need that to keep an ontological reality, but this will entail a continuum of zombies in the arithmetical reality, and eventually you will need to say “No” to the doctor, or to claim that CT is false (which you did), so no problem. You are working in a non-mechanist theory. It is coherent with ontological matter, and holy water …
Bruno
(God plays Monte Carlo.)@philipthrift
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 5:14:52 AM7/22/19
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On 22 Jul 2019, at 01:16, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
On 7/21/2019 4:06 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 4:39:28 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 12:30 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 1:18:16 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 7/21/2019 1:09 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
I didn't say there was. I said youse-self sees Moscow and Washington. "Youse-self" is second person plural.
Brent
Ok but no need of youse, the question is clear without it, if you accept frequency interpretation of probability as you should also for MWI, it's clear and meaningful.
But does it have a clear answer?
The MWI has it's own problems with probability. It's straightforward if there are just two possibility and so the world splits into two (and we implicitly assume they are equi-probable). But what if there are two possibilities and one is twice as likely as the other? Does the world split into three, two of which are the same? If two worlds are the same, can they really be two. Aren't they just one? And what if there are two possibilities, but one of them is very unlikely, say one-in-a-thousand chance. Does the world then split into 1001 worlds? And what if the probability of one event is 1/pi...so then we need infinitely many worlds. But if there are infinitely many worlds then every event happens infinitely many times and there is no natural measure of probability.
Brent
Sean Carroll is the multiple-worlds dude. He would have an answer.
"The potential for multiple worlds is always there in the quantum state, whether you like it or not. The next question would be, do multiple-world superpositions of the form written [above] ever actually come into being? And the answer again is: yes, automatically, without any additional assumptions."
But then the question is how many worlds (the 1/pi problem) and how does probability come into it? Do we have to just assign probabilities to branches (using the Born rule as an axiom instead of deriving it)? And what about continuous processes like detecting the decay in Schroedinger's cat box? Is a continuum of worlds produced corresponding to the different times the decay might occur?
Brent
Tegmark could be on the mark by taking the position that infinities of all types should be removed from physics.
So there would be no "continuum of worlds". The way I think about it (without getting into the formality of computable analysis) is to just think of the worlds being generated as in a quantum Monte Carlo program: There will be lots of worlds randomly made, but not an actual infinity of them.
That would just be equivalent to weighting them with the Born Rule. If you're going to have worlds generated per a MC program with weightings (probabilities) then why not just have world generated per the Born MC program.
Only if is deduced from the sigma_1-measure problem, or Mechanism has to be andonned.
Bruno
Brent
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 5:28:03 AM7/22/19
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On 22 Jul 2019, at 07:01, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:16 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:>I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it >appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out >there,”If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the prime number.This is your standard conflation of the Existential Quantifier over a domain with an ontology, Bruno.
It is not a conflation. It is a necessary conclusion.
Or, equivalently, your oft-repeated assertion that people confuse "2+2=4" with 2+2=4.
? (Yes, some people just did it many times just recently, but I don’t see the relation with the ontological existence).
What you refer to here is the fact that the word "dog" is not actually a dog, namely a 4-legged mamal that barks and greets you affectionately at the door. That is, the name is not the same as the physical object.
The name of an object is not the same as the object (physical or not).
But that distinction does not exist for arithmetic -- given nominalism (the fact that the integers are not independently existing objects),
But that is not among my assumption. My assumption is (at the meta-level) only YD and CT.
Then, from this we show that the TOE is “only” elementary arithmetic, or combinators, or any first order specification of a universal machinery, or universal machine.
the name "2+2=4" is the same thing as 2+2=4.
That is a huge mistake (even for a nominalist). It is beyond ridiculous.
There is no object that differs from the name of the relationship expressed in 2+2=4. The claim "that all computations exist in arithmetic" has no content.
Hmm… I *can* agree. It is a shortcut for the model (N, 0, +, *, s) satisfies all the condition for the computations to be relatively run.
Peano arithmetic no more "proves" the existence of these computations than it proves the existence of the moon.
In the Aristotelian metaphysics, that might be given some sense, but you cannot invoke your metaphysics in a work in metaphysics.
That is the same, in metaphysics, as saying that the structure (N, +) refutes group theory, in mathematics.
in some sort of Platonic superspace.Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no objection to what is taught in primary school.There you go again, Bruno: re-defining terms so that you are always right.
Ad hominem + I only show how weak the realist assumption is.
"Realism", or more particularly, "arithmetical realism" means no such thing, Students are taught elementary calculations and multiplication tables in primary school, they are not taught philosophical platonism,.
Of course. But we do metaphysics, and it is important to understand that the metaphysics is in CT and “yes doctor”, not in the arithmetical realism, which is used only to make sense of CT (needed to make mathematical precise sense of “digital”).
Bruno
Bruce
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 7:09:35 AM7/22/19
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On 22 Jul 2019, at 06:12, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:<snip>Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.Let me rephrase the question:Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).
That shows, as I explained in details in my long version, that Nozick’s closer continuer is incompatible with digital Mechanism. But I ma not sure you get it right. From memory, it seems Nozick chose the closest continuer. In step 4, he would choose the one on the branche without the delay.
Anyway, are you saying that you stop at step 4? Then you have to stop at step 2, then step 1, and then you are just saying that you do not assume mechanism, but then you are outside the scope of the reasoning.
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not.
Not at all. There is nothing that we can verify empirically at this stage, except by assessing having personally survived, which typically cannot be used here.
Yet, what I say follows from the theoretical Digital Mechanist assumption, very easily.
So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.
Then you condemn all theories, including all theoretical physics. On the contrary, we have to take our assumptions seriously, to get some consequences that we can test, in the usual 3p way. Mechanism itself is not directly testable.
As for assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT), it is not a matter of assuming this. It is a matter of whether the assumptions that you are building in make sense or not.
We can never known that in advance. But mechanism is one of the most fertile assumption in the history of science, used by Darwin. Diderot consider it to be the most rational theory, and if you shows it making nonsense, it is up to you to show the contradiction.
And that is an empirical matter.
Yes. But not from what you say, just from the fact that if mechanism is true, then the logic of the observable must be given by the “probability” and credibility one, and that has been tested positively up to now.
Does any of it comport with our usual understandings of personal identity and other matters.
It does so, where physicalism needs a non computationalist theory of mind, which they usually does not even handle yet.
If you are OK with Digital Mechanism, you are the one who need to abandon the metaphysical assumption of (weak) materialism. Or just say that you don’t believe in Mechanism, or find an error in the reasoning (which you didn’t).
Bruno
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Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 7:17:41 AM7/22/19
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On 22 Jul 2019, at 08:09, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 3:22 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:On 7/21/2019 9:12 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.
So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.
Let me rephrase the question:
Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?
According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.
The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not. So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.
Given the limitations on quantum level measurements, it is certain that the continuer will not be identical. But I'm not identical with Brent Meeker of yesterday or last year or of 1939. I have a continuous causal connection with those Brent Meekers and I have some similarities (DNA for example). So it hardly makes sense to demand a sharp answer to "What will you experience." in a duplication experiment when we don't even have a sharp definition of "you". And it doesn't even take something as scifi as a duplicator to raise the question. I might have a stroke tonight and lose my ability to recognize names. Will I be the same person tomorrow? I will have some of the same memories, but not all. Will I experience being Brent Meeker or not?These are good questions. That is why the 'closest continuer' theory has some merit. It gives a reasonable account of how you remain the same person under the continual changing of the atoms/molecules that make up your body and brain. In the case of stroke or other head injury, memories may be seriously disrupted or lost, but your family will still recognise 'you' as the same Brent as yesterday, showing that bodily continuity is a significant component in the concepts of personal identity over changes in body and mind. It is not all down to clear memories of the earlier self.
As you point out, it requires a continuum, or some topologies on the set of accessible consistent extension, and it *that* sense, we recover some” closer continuation” from the topology imposed by incompleteness (related to the S4Grz1 logics, and its variants). But in the case of numerical identical preparation/reconsitition, which exists in infinitely many occurrences in the arithmetical reality/model, we do get the first person indeterminacy and the quantum logic associated to them.
Nozick's closest continuer theory was developed in the light of data from, and experience of, split brain individuals, which are the closest we can currently come to the idea of personal duplication. The philosophy of personal identity is complex, and there are not necessarily any clear winners in the debate. In my opinion, that is a cogent reason for being sceptical about Bruno's simplistic models.
Ad hominem insult. The version of mechanism I present is both on the informal and formal level, more precise and more subtle than most version in the literature, which avoid the existential quantification on the substitution level, and then the thought experiments are just an explanation of how I found all this, how to explain to non mathematician, but the “real” work is in the mathematics which follows, and which is everything but “simplistic”, and you just seem to be negative for the pleasure of being negative, and that shows your prejudices.
Then your metaphysics is implicit, but it s-does seem that you are a dogmatic believer, which does not help.
Bruno
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Stathis Papaioannou
Jul 22, 2019, 7:37:49 AM7/22/19
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What evidence do you think “the relevant brain scans” could provide that might have any bearing on the question of personal identity?
Stathis Papaioannou
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 7:46:00 AM7/22/19
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 7:28 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 22 Jul 2019, at 07:01, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:16 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:>I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it >appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out >there,”If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the prime number.This is your standard conflation of the Existential Quantifier over a domain with an ontology, Bruno.It is not a conflation. It is a necessary conclusion.
It is a clear conflation - necessay for no one.
Or, equivalently, your oft-repeated assertion that people confuse "2+2=4" with 2+2=4.? (Yes, some people just did it many times just recently, but I don’t see the relation with the ontological existence).
Don't you, now. Maybe that explains quite a lot of what you are missing.
What you refer to here is the fact that the word "dog" is not actually a dog, namely a 4-legged mammal that barks and greets you affectionately at the door. That is, the name is not the same as the physical object.
The name of an object is not the same as the object (physical or not).But that distinction does not exist for arithmetic -- given nominalism (the fact that the integers are not independently existing objects),But that is not among my assumption. My assumption is (at the meta-level) only YD and CT.
Who said it was among your assumptions? I state it as a fact that must be taken into account.
Then, from this we show that the TOE is “only” elementary arithmetic, or combinators, or any first order specification of a universal machinery, or universal machine.
But that "proof" requires exactly the conflation of an existential quantifier with an ontology. The difference between "2+2=4" and 2+2=4 is that one is the name for the other. But the name is all that exists, so these are identical.
the name "2+2=4" is the same thing as 2+2=4.That is a huge mistake (even for a nominalist). It is beyond ridiculous.
That is your mistake, not mine.
There is no object that differs from the name of the relationship expressed in 2+2=4. The claim "that all computations exist in arithmetic" has no content.Hmm… I *can* agree. It is a shortcut for the model (N, 0, +, *, s) satisfies all the condition for the computations to be relatively run.
The theory consisting of (N, 0, +, *, s) is sufficiently rich for one to write down all arithmetical computations. But that does not bring these computations into existence -- you require pen and paper and intelligence, or something equivalent, to do that. The computations do not exist in the abstract.
Peano arithmetic no more "proves" the existence of these computations than it proves the existence of the moon.In the Aristotelian metaphysics, that might be given some sense, but you cannot invoke your metaphysics in a work in metaphysics.
Oh dear. So all your work is a futile waste of time, then, is it? You invoke your metaphysics all the time. I reject your metaphysics in order to criticize it, by adopting a more reasonable metaphysical attitude.
That is the same, in metaphysics, as saying that the structure (N, +) refutes group theory, in mathematics.
No, it is not. Sarcasm is not your strong point, Bruno.
in some sort of Platonic superspace.Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no objection to what is taught in primary school.There you go again, Bruno: re-defining terms so that you are always right.Ad hominem
Bullying yet again, Bruno. That only goes to show that you have no reasonable rebuttal of my point.
+ I only show how weak the realist assumption is."Realism", or more particularly, "arithmetical realism" means no such thing, Students are taught elementary calculations and multiplication tables in primary school, they are not taught philosophical platonism,.Of course. But we do metaphysics, and it is important to understand that the metaphysics is in CT and “yes doctor”, not in the arithmetical realism, which is used only to make sense of CT (needed to make mathematical precise sense of “digital”).
Without arithmetical realism (defined in the usual way, not as in Brunospeak), you cannot get all computations as existing in arithmetic, and the dovetailer does not ever get off the ground. So your metaphysics is strongly built in from the start. So don't you dare criticize me for my metaphysics.
Bruce
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 7:49:51 AM7/22/19
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Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, questions about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed out several times.
Bruce
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 8:10:02 AM7/22/19
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 9:09 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 22 Jul 2019, at 06:12, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> wrote:<snip>Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of substitution was correctly chosen.So, do you die or not in the step 3?
I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first.Let me rephrase the question:Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3?According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in several different places.The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists (dies).That shows, as I explained in details in my long version, that Nozick’s closer continuer is incompatible with digital Mechanism.
I agree. So since Nozick's theory is closer to the ordinary understanding of personal identity than something depending only on memories, That is a strong argument against digital mechanism.
But I ma not sure you get it right. From memory, it seems Nozick chose the closest continuer. In step 4, he would choose the one on the branche without the delay.Anyway, are you saying that you stop at step 4? Then you have to stop at step 2, then step 1, and then you are just saying that you do not assume mechanism, but then you are outside the scope of the reasoning.
Of course I do not 'assume' mechanism. I am criticizing it because it does not make any sense when more closely examined.
So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to whether the "person" continues unaltered or not.Not at all. There is nothing that we can verify empirically at this stage, except by assessing having personally survived, which typically cannot be used here.
But the question of whether or not we personally survive is exactly the point that is in need of empirical testing or verification. You are begging the question.
Yet, what I say follows from the theoretical Digital Mechanist assumption, very easily.So rather than armchair philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on what will or will not happen.Then you condemn all theories, including all theoretical physics.
Really, you do overstep the mark quite often in your pathetic attempts at sarcasm, Bruno. Physics is an empirical enterprise, subject at all stages to empirical test. It is not a matter of armchair philosophizing -- in the opinion of many people, that is where string theory has gone wrong in recent years; it has lost touch with the experimental realities.
On the contrary, we have to take our assumptions seriously, to get some consequences that we can test, in the usual 3p way. Mechanism itself is not directly testable.
But the real trouble is that you have not been able to make any contact with testable physics. It is doubtful if there is even such a thing as specifically quantum logic. There is just ordinary logic applied to quantum mechanics.
As for assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT), it is not a matter of assuming this. It is a matter of whether the assumptions that you are building in make sense or not.We can never known that in advance. But mechanism is one of the most fertile assumption in the history of science, used by Darwin. Diderot consider it to be the most rational theory, and if you shows it making nonsense, it is up to you to show the contradiction.
It contradicts ordinary experience -- which is the basis of all scientific knowledge.
And that is an empirical matter.Yes. But not from what you say, just from the fact that if mechanism is true, then the logic of the observable must be given by the “probability” and credibility one, and that has been tested positively up to now.
Your so-called "tests" are meaningless -- all seen through rose-coloured spectacles.
Does any of it comport with our usual understandings of personal identity and other matters.It does so, where physicalism needs a non computationalist theory of mind, which they usually does not even handle yet.
You can't get physics. Allow the neurologists and neuropsychologists the same latitude! It may take some time, but the engineering solution to the problems of consciousness will be clear once we have a functional AI with human-like capabilities.
If you are OK with Digital Mechanism, you are the one who need to abandon the metaphysical assumption of (weak) materialism. Or just say that you don’t believe in Mechanism, or find an error in the reasoning (which you didn’t).
I don't accept digital mechanism. And I (and others) have found many glaring deficiencies in your reasoning. The trouble is that you refuse to see them.
Bruce
Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 8:12:20 AM7/22/19
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 9:17 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 22 Jul 2019, at 08:09, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:Nozick's closest continuer theory was developed in the light of data from, and experience of, split brain individuals, which are the closest we can currently come to the idea of personal duplication. The philosophy of personal identity is complex, and there are not necessarily any clear winners in the debate. In my opinion, that is a cogent reason for being sceptical about Bruno's simplistic models.Ad hominem insult.
Bullying again, Bruno!
Bruce
Bruno Marchal
Jul 22, 2019, 8:43:21 AM7/22/19
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No, you did the bullying here, toward me, or toward all people studying the very rich and subtle consequence of the Mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive science.
If not, you would have used “simple models” or even “elegant” instead of “simplistic models", which is only insulting, without argument or justification. After Gödel, not only is “mechanism” not a simplistic issue, but it provides a vaccine against all reductionist conception of the natural number, or digital machines.
Bruno
Bruce--
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Bruce Kellett
Jul 22, 2019, 8:53:38 AM7/22/19
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 10:43 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 22 Jul 2019, at 14:12, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 9:17 PM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:On 22 Jul 2019, at 08:09, Bruce Kellett <bhkel...@gmail.com> wrote:Nozick's closest continuer theory was developed in the light of data from, and experience of, split brain individuals, which are the closest we can currently come to the idea of personal duplication. The philosophy of personal identity is complex, and there are not necessarily any clear winners in the debate. In my opinion, that is a cogent reason for being sceptical about Bruno's simplistic models.Ad hominem insult.Bullying again, Bruno!No, you did the bullying here, toward me, or toward all people studying the very rich and subtle consequence of the Mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive science.If not, you would have used “simple models” or even “elegant” instead of “simplistic models",
I said "simplistic" because I meant simplistic. That is, over-simplifying by ignoring many of the most important characteristics in order to further an agenda, but not to enlighten in any objective sense.
Bruce
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