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> Oh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)
> My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power?
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Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules.
"There is no single one. There are infinite varieties of different TMs, and all can exist Platonically/Arithmetically. Gregory Chaitin discovered an equation whose structure models LISP computers. There are likewise other equations corresponding to the Java Virtual Machine, and the Commodore 64. All these Turing machines, and their execution traces of every computer program they can run, exist in math in the same sense that the Mandelbrot set or the decimal expansion of Pi exist in math. Despite the infinite variety of architectures for different Turing machines, their equivalence (in the Turing computability sense) makes the question of “Which Turing machine is running this universe?” impossible to answer, beyond saying, “all of them are.”"
"As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.
For if the truth values of certain simple relations have an independent existence, then so to do the truth values of far more complex equations. Let’s call the Diophantine equation that computes the Wave Function of the Hubble Volume of our universe “Equation X”. Now then, it becomes a question of pure arithmetic, whether it is true or false that:
“In Equation X, does the universal state variable U, at time step T contain a pattern of electrons that encode to the string:‘why does the existence of Universal Equations imply the existence of iterative search processes for solutions?'”
If that question has a definitive objective truth, then it is the case that in the universe U, at time step T, in equation X, there is some person in that universe who had a conscious thought, and wrote it down and it got organized into a pattern of electrons which anyone who inspects this vast equation with its huge variables could see.
Once you get to this point, the last and final step is to reject the possibility that the patterns found in these equations, which behave and act like they are conscious, and claim to be conscious, are philosophical zombies. In other words, to accept that they are conscious beings, just like those who exist in “physical” universes (assuming there is any possible distinction between a physical universe, and a physical universe computed by a Platonic or Arithmetic Turing Machine).
--Oh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)Telmo.Am Do, 11. Aug 2022, um 20:35, schrieb Jason Resch:I found this fascinating. It appears to have many similarities with the type of physical reality that emerges from then universal dovetailer, with new ways of explaining it and some new insights.Jason
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Below is what I wrote:
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.
> I think John rejects zombies,
>so he would have to reject objective truth to believe a physical computer is necessary to produce observers. Below is what I wrote:
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe
> If there were zero objects in the universe then the concept of zero would necessarily exist to preserve the property of the number of physical objects in that nothing. If the concept of zero exists then at least 'one' abstract entity must exist, the one number zero. Now 'two' abstract numbers exist, 'one' and 'zero'. Et cetera.
Brent
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> You defined nothing as a universe of zero physical objects.
> Is zero meaningless in a universe with zero physical things?
> I don't see any way from escaping the necessity of rules and the number zero,
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe
I defined "nothing" as infinite unbounded homogeneity. If you have a better definition of "nothing" I'd like to hear it.
If the concept of zero exists then at least 'one' abstract entity must exist, the one number zero.
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> My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power?Although quite interesting so far Stephen Wolfram cellular automation ideas have been no help whatsoever to physicists, but perhaps someday they may be, maybe someday we'll find that quarks behave the way they do because of some simple cellular automation at work inside them, but even if that day comes to pass you're still not going to be able to make a Turing machine, or anything else, with just a definition.
--ewg--Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules."As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "Oh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)Telmo.Am Do, 11. Aug 2022, um 20:35, schrieb Jason Resch:I found this fascinating. It appears to have many similarities with the type of physical reality that emerges from then universal dovetailer, with new ways of explaining it and some new insights.Jason
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> I defined "nothing" as infinite unbounded homogeneity. If you have a better definition of "nothing" I'd like to hear it.
> I define "nothing" as absence of information about any aspect (projection axis, defining semantic dimension) whatsoever.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 3:33 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 3:09 PM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If there were zero objects in the universe then the concept of zero would necessarily exist to preserve the property of the number of physical objects in that nothing. If the concept of zero exists then at least 'one' abstract entity must exist, the one number zero. Now 'two' abstract numbers exist, 'one' and 'zero'. Et cetera.You're making the argument that there must be more than just one thing in the universe and therefore it can not consist of infinite unbounded homogeneity, and therefore the universe is not nothing, and therefore the universe is something, and therefore it exists. And that's all very fine but it's irrelevant because your claim was that 2+2=4 would exist even if the universe did not. I maintain it would not. I'm certainly not saying 2+2 =4 has no meaning, I'm saying it has a meaning precisely because the universe exists. I'm saying that physics is more fundamental than mathematics.
You defined nothing as a universe of zero physical objects. And have said a number N is meaningless without at least N things in that universe to count.
Is zero meaningless in a universe with zero physical things?
You might argue that it is, but I would say zero is necessary for the operation and preservation of such a universe of zero objects.
Otherwise without some rule saying "the number of physical objects is and shall always be 0" what is to stop the nothing from becoming a universe having a non zero number of objects?
I don't see any way from escaping the necessity of rules and the number zero, for a nothing of the kind you describe.
Not do I see a way for zero to exist apart from all the other numbers.
Zero has properties, including factors. The factors of zero include all integers.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 3:29 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2022 12:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 2:18 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2022 10:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
Below is what I wrote:
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.
But it's truth value does depend on someone assigning the value "t" to some axioms and all mathematical truth values are nothing but "t" arbitrarily assigned to some axioms plus some rules of inference that preserve "t". "t" has little to do with what it true in the world.
The physical world chugs along with anyone having to assign to assign values, or apply rules of inference.
Why can't the same be true for other platonic objects?
Because "Platonic" means "exists only in imagination".
Perhaps conventionally.
But perhaps physical existence is platonic existence (i.e. all self-consistent structures exist, all rule based formal systems, etc.).
This would account for fine-tuning, and plausibly yield an answer to "why quantum mechanics?"
--
Brent
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 5:25 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2022 12:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 3:29 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2022 12:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 2:18 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/12/2022 10:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
Below is what I wrote:
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.
But it's truth value does depend on someone assigning the value "t" to some axioms and all mathematical truth values are nothing but "t" arbitrarily assigned to some axioms plus some rules of inference that preserve "t". "t" has little to do with what it true in the world.
The physical world chugs along with anyone having to assign to assign values, or apply rules of inference.
Why can't the same be true for other platonic objects?
Because "Platonic" means "exists only in imagination".
Perhaps conventionally.
But perhaps physical existence is platonic existence (i.e. all self-consistent structures exist, all rule based formal systems, etc.).
Given a sufficiently broad definition of "exists". Just like 2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2.
This would account for fine-tuning, and plausibly yield an answer to "why quantum mechanics?"
One can "account" for anything in words.
Not exactly. The existence of a plentitude implies observers should find themselves entwines with an environment having many-histories.
If there was no QM, that would rule out the existence of a plentitude.
Even God could perhaps not eliminate that indeterminnace as experienced by most observers in such a reality. The feat might be like making a square circle.
Jason
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--Even God could perhaps not eliminate that indeterminnace as experienced by most observers in such a reality. The feat might be like making a square circle.
Jason
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Brent
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> Identical physical states in a deterministic world would evolve identically, as would any supervening mental states.
> However, a supervenient relationship is such that multiple different physical states can give rise to the same mental state.
> The different physical states may then evolve differently giving different subsequent mental states. Subjectively, this would mean that your next mental state is undetermined.
> This idea has been used by the philosopher Christian List to propose a mechanism for libertarian free will in a determined world. I don’t think that works because indeterminacy is not a good basis for free will (the main problem with libertarian free will), but it is an interesting idea nonetheless.
And it’s very much the same story with the ruliad—and with the laws of physics. If we constrain the kind of way that we observe—or “parse”—the ruliad, then it becomes inevitable that the effective laws we’ll see will have certain features, which turns out apparently to be exactly what’s needed to reproduce known laws of physics. The full ruliad is in a sense very wild; but as observers with certain characteristics, we see a much tamer version of it, and in fact what we see is capable of being described in terms of laws that we can largely write just in terms of existing mathematical constructs.
At the outset, we might have imagined that the ruliad would basically just serve as a kind of dictionary of possible universes—a “universe of all possible universes” in which each possible universe has different laws. But the ruliad is in a sense a much more complicated object. Rather than being a “dictionary” of possible separate universes, it is something that entangles together all possible universes. The Principle of Computational Equivalence implies a certain homogeneity to this entangled structure. But the crucial point is that we don’t “look at this structure from the outside”: we are instead observers embedded within the structure. And what we observe then depends on our characteristics. And it turns out that even very basic features of our consciousness and sensory apparatus in a sense inevitably lead to known laws of physics—and in a sense do so generically, independent of details of just where in rulial space we are, or exactly what slice of the ruliad we take.
--
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I think there is more similarity between Wolfram's ideas, and those of Bruno Marchal and Markus P. Müller, which framed things algorithmically and showed how laws of physics can be extracted from the structure of all computations.
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I think there is more similarity between Wolfram's ideas, and those of Bruno Marchal and Markus P. Müller, which framed things algorithmically and showed how laws of physics can be extracted from the structure of all computations.Can you give some citations? I don't obviously see how their work overlaps with the ruliad.
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> Most modern philosophers are compatibilists, so called because they think free will and determinism are compatible.
> Compatibilists say that you act freely if you do so according to your preferences
> or under abnormal influence such as psychotic illness.
> This is the layperson’s definition of freedom and the definition used to establish legal responsibility in court.
On Sat, Aug 13, 2022 at 5:09 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:> Most modern philosophers are compatibilists, so called because they think free will and determinism are compatible.I think before philosophers start saying what free will is and is not compatible with they should first explain what the hell they mean by "free will, but they never do, when asked they just start waving their hands around speaking gibberish.
> Compatibilists say that you act freely if you do so according to your preferencesThere are only 2 possibilities, there is either a reason for my preference in which case it is mechanical, or there is no reason for my preference in which case it is by definition un-reasonable and random.> or under abnormal influence such as psychotic illness.There are only 2 possibilities, there is a reason for that "abnormal" influence in which case it is mechanical or there is no reason for the "abnormal" influence in which case it is by definition un-reasonable and random.
> This is the layperson’s definition of freedom and the definition used to establish legal responsibility in court.Yes, and that is why the legal system is such a ridiculous incoherent mess. There could be no other outcome if something is based on pure nonsense.
> you don't act of your own free will if you do something accidentally, or you are forced,
> There is nothing clever about this, it's the layperson's definition,
>>Yes, and that is why the legal system is such a ridiculous incoherent mess. There could be no other outcome if something is based on pure nonsense.>> The legal system might be a mess, but at least in principle it's a good idea not to punish people who didn't do it, did it under coercion, or didn't know what they were doing because they were dementing, for example.
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 5:52 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:> you don't act of your own free will if you do something accidentally, or you are forced,Everybody is always subjected to force, sometimes, as when an electromagnetic force enters your eye and prevents you from walking into a brick wall it's a good thing because you don't want to walk into a brick wall, and sometimes, such as when the gravitational force prevents you from jumping over a mountain, it's a bad thing because you want to jump over that mountain.
> There is nothing clever about this, it's the layperson's definition,Yeah, it's just saying sometimes you can will what you want to do and sometimes you can't. I don't see why lawyers need to get involved in that but under our legal system they certainly are.>>Yes, and that is why the legal system is such a ridiculous incoherent mess. There could be no other outcome if something is based on pure nonsense.>> The legal system might be a mess, but at least in principle it's a good idea not to punish people who didn't do it, did it under coercion, or didn't know what they were doing because they were dementing, for example.The first question you have to ask is what is the purpose of punishing a murderer? I think the only legitimate answer to that is to prevent a similar murder in the future, anything more than that is not justice, it's just vengeance; I'm no different from anybody else and sometimes I'd like a little vengeance, but I am not proud of that reptilian part of my brain and so I will not defend it. Therefore from a legal point of view it shouldn't matter if somebody is a murderer because he had bad genes, or bad upbringing, or a random cosmic ray distroyed the crucial part of his brain that generates empathy for his fellow creatures, the important point is regardless of the cause he remains a murderer spreading misery wherever he goes and needs to be dealt with accordingly. The only legitimate mitigating circumstance would be if it could be proven that the murder occurred because of extremely unlikely circumstances that were very unlikely to be repeated. We should assume he is likely to murder again unless proven otherwise, and that would not be easy to prove.
>> Everybody is always subjected to force, sometimes, as when an electromagnetic force enters your eye and prevents you from walking into a brick wall it's a good thing because you don't want to walk into a brick wall, and sometimes, such as when the gravitational force prevents you from jumping over a mountain, it's a bad thing because you want to jump over that mountain.>It's different if you say "I was forced by someone holding a gun to my head" or "I was forced by the laws of physics".
> there is no point in punishing a sleepwalker who kills someone because it won't deter other sleepwalkers from doing the same thing.
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 7:39 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:>> Everybody is always subjected to force, sometimes, as when an electromagnetic force enters your eye and prevents you from walking into a brick wall it's a good thing because you don't want to walk into a brick wall, and sometimes, such as when the gravitational force prevents you from jumping over a mountain, it's a bad thing because you want to jump over that mountain.>It's different if you say "I was forced by someone holding a gun to my head" or "I was forced by the laws of physics".If it could be proven that I murdered because somebody put a gun to my head that would be a legitimate mitigating circumstance because it would be unlikely that in the future somebody would hold a gun to my head again and thus I would be unlikely to murder again. But if I did it because of the law of electromagnetism that would not be a mitigating circumstance because I am likely to encounter electromagnetism again and thus likely to murder again.
> there is no point in punishing a sleepwalker who kills someone because it won't deter other sleepwalkers from doing the same thing.But a few amps flowing through his body for just a few seconds would improve him immeasurably and prevent the sleepwalker from ever murdering again. And because he is likely to sleep again, he would be an extremely dangerous man that needs to be dealt with. Imprisonment won't solve the problem, in 2019 in the USA 143 prisoners were murdered by other prisoners who had already been convicted of murder, and the man who murdered Martin Luther King was an escaped prisoner.
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There are two completely incompatible models of free will and thus, the term is overloaded and subject to misinterpretation.1. "free will" in the sense of a necessary description of the way in which a particular self-identified subject choses an action without coercion.
> 2. "free will" in the sense that some elements of our universe may be non-deterministic and in which the idea of the "self" (and particularly, the idea of our own self) may have an ability to change some outcomes based on some concept of agency.
> This is an extremely illusive concept because it is basically unprovable by definition.
> For example, imagine a construct of 10,000 neurons in which you know exactly what each neuron does, precisely how it receives its stimulus and its exact programming. You can then say "I know how this construct works and reliably discern what inputs will lead to what outputs." However, it is *impossible* to prove that there is not another as of yet invisible or unmeasurable mechanism within the construct that can alter or override the standard system of inputs and outputs.
> The concept of "God" bridges over both of these concepts and makes it more complex,
> The idea of acting of your own free will only applies to punishment as deterrent.
And either there was a reason you chose that action rather than another in which case you're a cuckoo clock, or there was no reason you chose that action rather than another in which case you're a roulette wheel. Where does this thing called "free will" enter the picture? Forget figuring out if we have it or not, just tell me what it is supposed to mean. I don't think it means anything, I think it's an idea so bad it's not even wrong.
I can't prove there is not a teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus either, but there's no reason to think there is one and there are plenty of reasons to suspect there is not.
lnb
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>> And either there was a reason you chose that action rather than another in which case you're a cuckoo clock, or there was no reason you chose that action rather than another in which case you're a roulette wheel. Where does this thing called "free will" enter the picture? Forget figuring out if we have it or not, just tell me what it is supposed to mean. I don't think it means anything, I think it's an idea so bad it's not even wrong.> Everything in common usage in the vernacular means something (i.e. it has semantic utility). I already gave one common and useful definition
> and you are welcome to check the OED for more.
>> I can't prove there is not a teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus either, but there's no reason to think there is one and there are plenty of reasons to suspect there is not.> This is exactly the difference between a reasonable assumption and proof.
There are two completely incompatible models of free will and thus, the term is overloaded and subject to misinterpretation.1. "free will" in the sense of a necessary description of the way in which a particular self-identified subject choses an action without coercion. In that sense, one can say "I freely chose to turn right at the intersection" or "I chose to eat this burger." The English language requires such a usage because we need a way to describe actions that exist without coercion.2. "free will" in the sense that some elements of our universe may be non-deterministic and in which the idea of the "self" (and particularly, the idea of our own self) may have an ability to change some outcomes based on some concept of agency. This is an extremely illusive concept because it is basically unprovable by definition.For example, imagine a construct of 10,000 neurons in which you know exactly what each neuron does, precisely how it receives its stimulus and its exact programming. You can then say "I know how this construct works and reliably discern what inputs will lead to what outputs." However, it is *impossible* to prove that there is not another as of yet invisible or unmeasurable mechanism within the construct that can alter or override the standard system of inputs and outputs.This is an extremely hairy problem that extends into paranomal phenomena, UFOlogy, religion, etc. in that one cannot can not, by stating any system of laws or deterministic systems, rule out the possibility of some override function or, for that matter, exceptions where one law simply ceases to function.The concept of "God" bridges over both of these concepts and makes it more complex, because it supposes an external agency that may even have a motive in keeping up trapped inside some presumably maximally deterministic system, or tricking us into thinking that we have agency when we do not, or for that matter, some tricky scenario where some master planners battle for agency. George R. R. Martin's Sandkings is remarkably like 1st Enoch in this regard.I personally suspect agency is non-binary and instead has multiple scalar elements a genetic override function and is rather complex than anyone has modeled to date.
On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 at 14:47, Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:--On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 at 22:07, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 7:39 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:>> Everybody is always subjected to force, sometimes, as when an electromagnetic force enters your eye and prevents you from walking into a brick wall it's a good thing because you don't want to walk into a brick wall, and sometimes, such as when the gravitational force prevents you from jumping over a mountain, it's a bad thing because you want to jump over that mountain.>It's different if you say "I was forced by someone holding a gun to my head" or "I was forced by the laws of physics".If it could be proven that I murdered because somebody put a gun to my head that would be a legitimate mitigating circumstance because it would be unlikely that in the future somebody would hold a gun to my head again and thus I would be unlikely to murder again. But if I did it because of the law of electromagnetism that would not be a mitigating circumstance because I am likely to encounter electromagnetism again and thus likely to murder again.There would be no point in punishing you if you murdered because someone held a gun to your head, because it wouldn’t change your future behaviour or the behaviour of others on a similar situation. On the other hand, punishing someone who kills in order to steal the victim’s money may deter him and others like him from doing it again, even though his brain was just following the laws of physics.> there is no point in punishing a sleepwalker who kills someone because it won't deter other sleepwalkers from doing the same thing.But a few amps flowing through his body for just a few seconds would improve him immeasurably and prevent the sleepwalker from ever murdering again. And because he is likely to sleep again, he would be an extremely dangerous man that needs to be dealt with. Imprisonment won't solve the problem, in 2019 in the USA 143 prisoners were murdered by other prisoners who had already been convicted of murder, and the man who murdered Martin Luther King was an escaped prisoner.The idea of acting of your own free will only applies to punishment as deterrent. You have to have control over your behaviour and to understand what you are doing in order for that to work, and that doesn’t apply to sleepwalkers.Stathis Papaioannou----
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> This is the layperson’s definition of freedom and the definition used to establish legal responsibility in court.
Yes, and that is why the legal system is such a ridiculous incoherent mess. There could be no other outcome if something is based on pure nonsense.
The legal system might be a mess, but at least in principle it's a good idea not to punish people who didn't do it, did it under coercion, or didn't know what they were doing because they were dementing, for example.
Therefore from a legal point of view it shouldn't matter if somebody is a murderer because he had bad genes, or bad upbringing, or a random cosmic ray distroyed the crucial part of his brain that generates empathy for his fellow creatures, the important point is regardless of the cause he remains a murderer spreading misery wherever he goes and needs to be dealt with accordingly.
>> I can't prove there is not a teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus either, but there's no reason to think there is one and there are plenty of reasons to suspect there is not.> This is exactly the difference between a reasonable assumption and proof.
. And if it "is basically unprovable by definition" so you can't prove or disprove it then it's silly and is an idea so bad it's not even wrong.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 2:04 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules.That is a good question. I am not familiar with them myself, but my understanding is they do not provide for any form of computation beyond what is turing computable, so in that sense, I don't know that they provide any additional explanatory power beyond the simple statement that all computations exist.A commenter on my site recently asked, what can we say about the "computer" that computes all these computations. My reply was:"There is no single one. There are infinite varieties of different TMs, and all can exist Platonically/Arithmetically. Gregory Chaitin discovered an equation whose structure models LISP computers. There are likewise other equations corresponding to the Java Virtual Machine, and the Commodore 64.
All these Turing machines, and their execution traces of every computer program they can run, exist in math in the same sense that the Mandelbrot set or the decimal expansion of Pi exist in math. Despite the infinite variety of architectures for different Turing machines, their equivalence (in the Turing computability sense) makes the question of “Which Turing machine is running this universe?” impossible to answer, beyond saying, “all of them are.”"
I think hypergraphs, then, would be just one more mathematical object we could add to the heap of Turing universal mathematical objects which could (and would, if Platonism is correct) underlie the computations of our universe/experiences."As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "
My same reply also provided an explanation/argument, which is applicable to anyone who accepts simple truths concerning abstract objects have definite and objective true/false values, paired with a rejection of philosophical zombies. I think John rejects zombies, so he would have to reject objective truth to believe a physical computer is necessary to produce observers. Below is what I wrote:
The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.
For if the truth values of certain simple relations have an independent existence, then so to do the truth values of far more complex equations. Let’s call the Diophantine equation that computes the Wave Function of the Hubble Volume of our universe “Equation X”. Now then, it becomes a question of pure arithmetic, whether it is true or false that:“In Equation X, does the universal state variable U, at time step T contain a pattern of electrons that encode to the string:‘why does the existence of Universal Equations imply the existence of iterative search processes for solutions?'”If that question has a definitive objective truth, then it is the case that in the universe U, at time step T, in equation X, there is some person in that universe who had a conscious thought, and wrote it down and it got organized into a pattern of electrons which anyone who inspects this vast equation with its huge variables could see.Once you get to this point, the last and final step is to reject the possibility that the patterns found in these equations, which behave and act like they are conscious, and claim to be conscious, are philosophical zombies. In other words, to accept that they are conscious beings, just like those who exist in “physical” universes (assuming there is any possible distinction between a physical universe, and a physical universe computed by a Platonic or Arithmetic Turing Machine).
JasonOh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)Telmo.
Am Do, 11. Aug 2022, um 20:35, schrieb Jason Resch:
I found this fascinating. It appears to have many similarities with the type of physical reality that emerges from then universal dovetailer, with new ways of explaining it and some new insights.
Jason
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 3:04 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:
> Oh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)
Well, I like Stephen Wolfram
and I agree 100% with the ASCII sequence that Stephen Wolfram's physical brain produced:
"As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?" But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "
All completely true, however you can't make a computation with a definition, not even if the definition is what a computation is. For a definition to make any sense you need a mind, and to have a mind you need a brain, and a brain needs to process information, and if a Turing Machine cannot process a given amount of information then nothing can. And nobody, I repeat absolutely nobody, has been able to make a Turing machine without using the laws of physics
or has even propose a theory about how such a thing could be possible because, as I said in the above, you can't make a computation with nothing but a definition, in fact you can't do anything at all if all you have is a definition.
> My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power?
Although quite interesting so far Stephen Wolfram cellular automation ideas have been no help whatsoever to physicists, but perhaps someday they may be,
maybe someday we'll find that quarks behave the way they do because of some simple cellular automation at work inside them, but even if that day comes to pass you're still not going to be able to make a Turing machine, or anything else, with just a definition.
ewg
Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules.
"As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "
Oh boy, John Clark is not going to like this :)Telmo.Am Do, 11. Aug 2022, um 20:35, schrieb Jason Resch:I found this fascinating. It appears to have many similarities with the type of physical reality that emerges from then universal dovetailer, with new ways of explaining it and some new insights.Jason
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 1:56 PM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think John rejects zombies,
Yes and I have a very good reason for doing so. I know for a fact I am conscious and the evidence is overwhelming that Darwinian evolution is correct, but if you could have intelligent behavior without consciousness then natural selection could never have invented it, yet it did.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that consciousness is the inevitable byproduct of intelligence.
>so he would have to reject objective truth to believe a physical computer is necessary to produce observers. Below is what I wrote:The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe
But I don't believe that. If there were zero or even just one thing in the entire universe then the very concept of "2" would be meaningless, as would the concept of additon. In fact if there was just one thing then there would be nothing because the best definition of "nothing" that I know of is infinite unbounded homogeneity.
idb
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>> And if it "is basically unprovable by definition" so you can't prove or disprove it then it's silly and is an idea so bad it's not even wrong.
> Then by your definition your idea that 'there is not a teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus' is 'an idea so bad it's not even wrong'
> The rest of us live in a world of reasonable assumptions
> including the OED
> which is mostly reliable in how to built semantic webs of meaning
> and not at all concerning the ultimate truth of anything.
> If it's a matter of bad genes or cosmic rays that's not something that can enter into informing the calculation to commit murder so there's no point in making an example of those murderers.
>> Well, I like Stephen Wolfram
> I like him too. Mathematica is a beautiful piece of software and I bought his book "A New Kind of Science" when it came out, which is also beautiful and inspiring.
> We are physical beings existing within the laws of physics. It could be that there is a larger computational reality, and that our universe and the laws of physics are "local" to the "sector" of the computation that we inhabit. We are experiencing this computational reality from the inside.
> The tricky thing, that Jason expanded on better than me, is that the outcomes of computations preexist,
> in the sense that the outcome will be the same independently of how, when or where the computation is performed. We might need a physical computer to find out that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050, but it was already and it always has been and will be the case that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050 (by definition of the natural numbers and multiplication).
> I agree with your premises but not with your conclusions. I agree that:- I am conscious.- There is overwhelming evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution.
> I disagree that:- Natural selection "invented" consciousness.Maybe stars are conscious. Why not? How do you know?
>> If you could have intelligent behavior without consciousness then natural selection could never have invented it.> Why? Some people are born without legs. Does that means that natural selection could not have invented legs?
>> before you start worrying about deterrence you should make sure that the man you have just convicted of murder does not murder again. Take for example the case of Kenneth McDuff, he was convicted of the rape torture and murder of 3 children in 1966 and sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life in prison. Despite the life sentence he was released from prison in 1989 due to overcrowding. As a free man over the next 3 years McDuff tortured at least 5 more children to death before he was caught. In 1998 he was finally executed, he never killed anybody after that and I think we can be pretty sure he never will.> Removing a hazard, if that’s how you want to look at the legal system, does not require any consideration of the criteria for free will, but deterring people from breaking legal or moral rules does.
Am Fr, 12. Aug 2022, um 19:56, schrieb Jason Resch:On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 2:04 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules.That is a good question. I am not familiar with them myself, but my understanding is they do not provide for any form of computation beyond what is turing computable, so in that sense, I don't know that they provide any additional explanatory power beyond the simple statement that all computations exist.A commenter on my site recently asked, what can we say about the "computer" that computes all these computations. My reply was:"There is no single one. There are infinite varieties of different TMs, and all can exist Platonically/Arithmetically. Gregory Chaitin discovered an equation whose structure models LISP computers. There are likewise other equations corresponding to the Java Virtual Machine, and the Commodore 64.This is really interesting, I didn't know about that! Can you provide some references?
In his 1987 book Algorithmic Information Theory, Gregory Chaitin describes one such equation: the “Exponential Diophantine Equation Computer.” It has 20,000 variables and is two hundred pages long.
This equation perfectly replicates the behavior of the LISP programming language. He describes the equation as follows:
If the LISP expression has no value, then this equation will have no solution. If the LISP expression has a value, then this equation will have exactly one solution. In this unique solution, = the value of the expression .
Gregory Chaitin in “META MATH! The Quest for Omega” (2004)
All these Turing machines, and their execution traces of every computer program they can run, exist in math in the same sense that the Mandelbrot set or the decimal expansion of Pi exist in math. Despite the infinite variety of architectures for different Turing machines, their equivalence (in the Turing computability sense) makes the question of “Which Turing machine is running this universe?” impossible to answer, beyond saying, “all of them are.”"I agree.
I think hypergraphs, then, would be just one more mathematical object we could add to the heap of Turing universal mathematical objects which could (and would, if Platonism is correct) underlie the computations of our universe/experiences."As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "My same reply also provided an explanation/argument, which is applicable to anyone who accepts simple truths concerning abstract objects have definite and objective true/false values, paired with a rejection of philosophical zombies. I think John rejects zombies, so he would have to reject objective truth to believe a physical computer is necessary to produce observers. Below is what I wrote:The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.For if the truth values of certain simple relations have an independent existence, then so to do the truth values of far more complex equations. Let’s call the Diophantine equation that computes the Wave Function of the Hubble Volume of our universe “Equation X”. Now then, it becomes a question of pure arithmetic, whether it is true or false that:“In Equation X, does the universal state variable U, at time step T contain a pattern of electrons that encode to the string:‘why does the existence of Universal Equations imply the existence of iterative search processes for solutions?'”If that question has a definitive objective truth, then it is the case that in the universe U, at time step T, in equation X, there is some person in that universe who had a conscious thought, and wrote it down and it got organized into a pattern of electrons which anyone who inspects this vast equation with its huge variables could see.Once you get to this point, the last and final step is to reject the possibility that the patterns found in these equations, which behave and act like they are conscious, and claim to be conscious, are philosophical zombies. In other words, to accept that they are conscious beings, just like those who exist in “physical” universes (assuming there is any possible distinction between a physical universe, and a physical universe computed by a Platonic or Arithmetic Turing Machine).I tend to agree with you, because this is the most parsimonious explanation of reality than assuming some mysterious process/mechanism/entity that makes it so that this particular Universe and this particular state of affairs and this particular moment in time is real and others are not.
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 3:02 PM Joel Dietz <jdi...@gmail.com> wrote:>> And if it "is basically unprovable by definition" so you can't prove or disprove it then it's silly and is an idea so bad it's not even wrong.> Then by your definition your idea that 'there is not a teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus' is 'an idea so bad it's not even wrong'
On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 7:07 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:>> Well, I like Stephen Wolfram> I like him too. Mathematica is a beautiful piece of software and I bought his book "A New Kind of Science" when it came out, which is also beautiful and inspiring.Me too, that book is on my bookshelf only about 10 feet away from me right now.> We are physical beings existing within the laws of physics. It could be that there is a larger computational reality, and that our universe and the laws of physics are "local" to the "sector" of the computation that we inhabit. We are experiencing this computational reality from the inside.Yes we could be part of a computer simulation, but the computer simulating us must be operating according to physical law, unless it is also a simulation. But unless it's turtles all the way down eventually you're going to hit the bedrock of physical reality.> The tricky thing, that Jason expanded on better than me, is that the outcomes of computations preexist,The trouble is if all correct computations exist in some sort of platonic heaven then all incorrect computations exist there too, you need physics to tell the difference. If you have 2 rocks and then find 3 more you can make a one to one correspondence between the rocks and the fingers of your hand, but if you have 2 rocks and only find 2 more you cannot.> in the sense that the outcome will be the same independently of how, when or where the computation is performed. We might need a physical computer to find out that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050, but it was already and it always has been and will be the case that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050 (by definition of the natural numbers and multiplication).But you needed a physical computer or a physical brain to figure that out. If platonic heaven contains everything that is true it also contains everything that is false, and there are many more false things than true things (that's why science is so difficult) so platonic Heaven is a pretty uninteresting place because it is so dense with things that are untrue.
> There are many dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milkyway, and hence also orbiting Uranus. Perhaps there is intelligent life in one of these dwarf galaxies which makes teapots.
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[Philip Benjamin]
Very rarely I will again any response!!
If there nothing never existed, never ever anything will exist anywhere. This is the ‘rational’ question of aseity and the inevitable necessity of infinite regress. What is more rational ? Aseity of ‘dead matter’ that create life? Or aseity of LIFE with creating both dead matter and life forms?
Patriarchs, Prophets and the Apostles expounded the aseity of Adonai (plural) YHWH (singular) Elohim (plural). A corollary from Genesis is the Sabbath—the seventh day and the seven days of the week which has no rhyme or reason in any astronomy or solar, lunar, planetary equations. The Western academia (WAMP-the-Ingrate) arbitrarily accepted the Scriptural
Sabbath and Sabbatical. The compelling addition of the first day also was because of the 100% Jewish earliest Church (“multitudes”) on Acts 17: 17-24, that witnessed the earth rending Resurrection on the First Day.
Empiricism counts!
Philip Benjamin
From:
everyth...@googlegroups.com
everyth...@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou
Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2022 4:09 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why Does the Universe Exist? Some Perspectives from Our Physics Project—Stephen Wolfram Writings
On Sat, 13 Aug 2022 at 21:53, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Aug 13, 2022 at 12:49 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Identical physical states in a deterministic world would evolve identically, as would any supervening mental states.
Yes.
> However, a supervenient relationship is such that multiple different physical states can give rise to the same mental state.
True, and in that situation things would not be reversible; a cellular automation like Conway's LIFE is not reversible and for the same reason. Something can be 100% deterministic in the forward time dimension but not in the backward time dimension, but so far at least nobody has any experimental evidence that fundamental physics has that property, fundamental physics can't explain why you can't unscramble an egg, you need more than the laws of physics to explain that you need to invoke initial conditions. That situation could change if some of Stephen Wolfram's ideas turn out to be correct, but so far there is no evidence that they are.
> The different physical states may then evolve differently giving different subsequent mental states. Subjectively, this would mean that your next mental state is undetermined.
> The universe exists for much the same reason it is not possible to define nothingness without paradox. Nothingness cannot exist, otherwise by its existential nature it would be something. If nothingness does not exist. then something must exist, which annuls nothing. The quantum vacuum shares this property, where complete vacuum is unstable.
On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 5:51 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:Am Fr, 12. Aug 2022, um 19:56, schrieb Jason Resch:On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 2:04 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:Hi Jason,This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Since Wolfram started going in this direction, something that occurs to me is this: hypergraphs are perhaps one of the most general mathematical constructs that can be conceived of. Almost everything else can be seen as a special case of hypergraphs. Like you say, with the update rules, we shouldn't be surprised if they are equivalent to the UD. My scepticism is this: is anything being gained in terms of explanatory power? Should we be surprised that such a powerful representation can contain the rules of our reality? I do admit that I have to study these ideas in more detail, and there is something really compelling about hypergraphs + update rules.That is a good question. I am not familiar with them myself, but my understanding is they do not provide for any form of computation beyond what is turing computable, so in that sense, I don't know that they provide any additional explanatory power beyond the simple statement that all computations exist.A commenter on my site recently asked, what can we say about the "computer" that computes all these computations. My reply was:"There is no single one. There are infinite varieties of different TMs, and all can exist Platonically/Arithmetically. Gregory Chaitin discovered an equation whose structure models LISP computers. There are likewise other equations corresponding to the Java Virtual Machine, and the Commodore 64.This is really interesting, I didn't know about that! Can you provide some references?Sure.In his 1987 book Algorithmic Information Theory, Gregory Chaitin describes one such equation: the “Exponential Diophantine Equation Computer.” It has 20,000 variables and is two hundred pages long.
This equation perfectly replicates the behavior of the LISP programming language. He describes the equation as follows:
If the LISP expression has no value, then this equation will have no solution. If the LISP expression has a value, then this equation will have exactly one solution. In this unique solution, = the value of the expression .
Gregory Chaitin in “META MATH! The Quest for Omega” (2004)
All these Turing machines, and their execution traces of every computer program they can run, exist in math in the same sense that the Mandelbrot set or the decimal expansion of Pi exist in math. Despite the infinite variety of architectures for different Turing machines, their equivalence (in the Turing computability sense) makes the question of “Which Turing machine is running this universe?” impossible to answer, beyond saying, “all of them are.”"I agree.Nice.I think hypergraphs, then, would be just one more mathematical object we could add to the heap of Turing universal mathematical objects which could (and would, if Platonism is correct) underlie the computations of our universe/experiences."As soon as one starts talking about “running programs” some people will immediately ask “On what computer?” But a key intellectual point is that computational processes can ultimately be defined completely abstractly, without reference to anything like a physical computer. "My same reply also provided an explanation/argument, which is applicable to anyone who accepts simple truths concerning abstract objects have definite and objective true/false values, paired with a rejection of philosophical zombies. I think John rejects zombies, so he would have to reject objective truth to believe a physical computer is necessary to produce observers. Below is what I wrote:The way I like to think about it is this: If one is willing to believe that truth values for mathematical relations like “2 + 2 = 4” can exist and be true independently of the universe or someone writing it down, or a mathematician thinking about it, that is all you need.For if the truth values of certain simple relations have an independent existence, then so to do the truth values of far more complex equations. Let’s call the Diophantine equation that computes the Wave Function of the Hubble Volume of our universe “Equation X”. Now then, it becomes a question of pure arithmetic, whether it is true or false that:“In Equation X, does the universal state variable U, at time step T contain a pattern of electrons that encode to the string:‘why does the existence of Universal Equations imply the existence of iterative search processes for solutions?'”If that question has a definitive objective truth, then it is the case that in the universe U, at time step T, in equation X, there is some person in that universe who had a conscious thought, and wrote it down and it got organized into a pattern of electrons which anyone who inspects this vast equation with its huge variables could see.Once you get to this point, the last and final step is to reject the possibility that the patterns found in these equations, which behave and act like they are conscious, and claim to be conscious, are philosophical zombies. In other words, to accept that they are conscious beings, just like those who exist in “physical” universes (assuming there is any possible distinction between a physical universe, and a physical universe computed by a Platonic or Arithmetic Turing Machine).I tend to agree with you, because this is the most parsimonious explanation of reality than assuming some mysterious process/mechanism/entity that makes it so that this particular Universe and this particular state of affairs and this particular moment in time is real and others are not.Thank you for that. I have yet to find an idea that can explain more while assuming less (in this case only assuming that 2+2=4, and the rest can be shown constructively).Jason
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On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 7:07 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:>> Well, I like Stephen Wolfram> I like him too. Mathematica is a beautiful piece of software and I bought his book "A New Kind of Science" when it came out, which is also beautiful and inspiring.Me too, that book is on my bookshelf only about 10 feet away from me right now.> We are physical beings existing within the laws of physics. It could be that there is a larger computational reality, and that our universe and the laws of physics are "local" to the "sector" of the computation that we inhabit. We are experiencing this computational reality from the inside.Yes we could be part of a computer simulation, but the computer simulating us must be operating according to physical law, unless it is also a simulation. But unless it's turtles all the way down eventually you're going to hit the bedrock of physical reality.
> The tricky thing, that Jason expanded on better than me, is that the outcomes of computations preexist,The trouble is if all correct computations exist in some sort of platonic heaven then all incorrect computations exist there too, you need physics to tell the difference. If you have 2 rocks and then find 3 more you can make a one to one correspondence between the rocks and the fingers of your hand, but if you have 2 rocks and only find 2 more you cannot.
> in the sense that the outcome will be the same independently of how, when or where the computation is performed. We might need a physical computer to find out that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050, but it was already and it always has been and will be the case that 12345 * 67890 = 838102050 (by definition of the natural numbers and multiplication).But you needed a physical computer or a physical brain to figure that out. If platonic heaven contains everything that is true it also contains everything that is false, and there are many more false things than true things (that's why science is so difficult) so platonic Heaven is a pretty uninteresting place because it is so dense with things that are untrue.
Meaning needs contrast. Michelangelo's David was carved from a single huge block of marble that was a 100 million years old, but it would be silly to say David was 100 million years old and Michelangelo did nothing but unpack it from the marble that was not part of David.
And to make a real calculation rather than a pretend toy one you have to differentiate the correct from the incorrect, you not only have to mention the correct answer you have to make it clear that all the other answers, and there are an infinite number of them, are wrong. And for that you need a physical machine.wpr
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>> Yes we could be part of a computer simulation, but the computer simulating us must be operating according to physical law, unless it is also a simulation. But unless it's turtles all the way down eventually you're going to hit the bedrock of physical reality.> This is the case if the physical laws that we observe are universal across all possible universes,
> Or physics could be an emergent property of consistency between computations.
> And since you, like me, are a strong believer in Darwinism, we don't even have to go into the metaphysical. You might also want to consider that there is no reason for evolution to provide us with direct access to reality.
> Of course they could have evolved some more sophisticated strategies,
> but since the vision range was a genetic parameter, it was simply easier for evolution to provide global coordination by limiting the vision range, and then it got stuck at this local optimum.
> I still think about this to this day, and wonder if such a phenomenon has biological plausibility.
Am Mi, 17. Aug 2022, um 21:52, schrieb Brent Meeker:
> On 8/17/2022 8:29 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>> And since you, like me, are a strong believer in Darwinism, we don't
>> even have to go into the metaphysical. You might also want to consider
>> that there is no reason for evolution to provide us with direct access
>> to reality. It might also be the case that some illusion is a better
>> adaptation. Donald Hoffman goes as far as claiming that the most
>> likely situation is that we evolved to perceive such an illusion. Are
>> you familiar with his ideas?
>
> The "illusion" must have some relation to reality in order to provide
> better adaptation. But in that case why call it "illusion"? Is it an
> illusion that we don't perceive RF or gamma rays? Are dogs
> hallucinating when they smell things we don't?
It could be that actively preventing us from perceiving some aspect of reality increases our biological fitness, but at the same time ultimately prevents us from fully understanding reality. It could be some fundamental cognitive distortion.
A long time ago I was programming an artificial life simulation. It was this typical thing, a simulated environment with agents foraging for food. The agents underwent an evolutionary process. To test the evolutionary process, I decided to make the view range of the agents a genetic parameter without constraints. I was fully expecting this value to quickly go to infinity. To my surprise, when I checked the simulation the next morning, the view range had stabilized at a relatively short value. The reason was this: agents with infinite vision range went for big piles of food that were far away. They all chose the same pile, and when they converged there was not enough food for everyone, and they had spent too much energy going the distance. Of course they could have evolved some more sophisticated strategies, but since the vision range was a genetic parameter, it was simply easier for evolution to provide global coordination by limiting the vision range, and then it got stuck at this local optimum. I still think about this to this day, and wonder if such a phenomenon has biological plausibility.
On Thu, Aug 18, 2022 at 6:46 AM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:> Of course they could have evolved some more sophisticated strategies,Yes but the other agents could've evolved more sophisticated strategies too, and the behavior of the other agents must be considered because they are a very important part of the environment, if not the most important part.
> but since the vision range was a genetic parameter, it was simply easier for evolution to provide global coordination by limiting the vision range, and then it got stuck at this local optimum.Your agents could've gotten stuck in an ESS, a Evolutionarily Stable Strategy. Once the majority of a population are using a ESS a mutant who follows a different strategy will soon die out even though if everybody followed that strategy everybody would be better off. It is one of the many flaws in Darwinian Evolution and why it took over 3 billion years for it to invent brains. Just a century ago humans had no idea how to make a brain but today we're very close.
> I still think about this to this day, and wonder if such a phenomenon has biological plausibility.It certainly does! Richard Dawkins talks about this extensively in his wonderful books "The Selfish Gene" and "The Extended Phenotype", two of the best books I've ever read and I read a lot.
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Jason
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