What are atheists for?

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Dominic Johnson
What are atheists for? Hypotheses on the functions of non-belief in the
evolution of religion
Religion, Brain & Behavior
Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2012, 48-99

http://dominicdpjohnson.com/publications/pdf/2012JohnsonWhatAreAtheistsFor.pdf

"An explosion of recent research suggests that religious beliefs and
behaviors are universal, arise from deep-seated cognitive mechanisms,
and were favored by natural selection over human evolutionary history.
However, if a propensity towards religious beliefs is a fundamental
characteristic of human brains (as both by-product theorists and
adaptationists agree), and/or an important ingredient of Darwinian
fitness (as adaptationists argue), then how do we explain the existence
and prevalence of atheists - even among ancient and traditional societies?"

[Samiya Illias]

Free Won't 

Everyone is granted the right to refuse faith. God refuses to impose faith on the unwilling heart. In this life we generate the knowledge to justify our life in the Hereafter. 

This might be of interest: http://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2014/08/divine-will-and-human-free-will.html?m=1 

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Kim Jones]

Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are a religion like any other. They believe in God's non-existence, that's all. They reject the notion of an immaterial "prima materia" because that appears to them self-contradictory and instead put a thing called "Matter" on the same pedestal and worship that instead. It's merely a fashionable alternative to the Abrahamic sky-fairy concept but has no particular virtues I am aware of other than that

Kim

[cdemo...@yahoo.com]

And... drum role...

That is your belief... is it not?

Atheists do not necessarily believe in a fundamental realness of matter, though many do. Can you show me any dogma which is univesally believed in by athiests that - on faith -- asserts the hypothesis of some fundamental material foundation for reality? 

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

I fail to see any a priori reason for which this could not be the case?

Chris

On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Kim Jones

<kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are a religion like any other. They believe in God's non-existence, that's all. They reject the notion of an immaterial "prima materia" because that appears to them self-contradictory and instead put a thing called "Matter" on the same pedestal and worship that instead. It's merely a fashionable alternative to the Abrahamic sky-fairy concept but has no particular virtues I am aware of other than that

Kim


> On 26 Mar 2017, at 3:11 am, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
>
> Dominic Johnson
> What are atheists for? Hypotheses on the functions of non-belief in the evolution of religion
> Religion, Brain & Behavior
> Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2012, 48-99
>
> http://dominicdpjohnson.com/publications/pdf/2012JohnsonWhatAreAtheistsFor.pdf
>
> "An explosion of recent research suggests that religious beliefs and behaviors are universal, arise from deep-seated cognitive mechanisms, and were favored by natural selection over human evolutionary history. However, if a propensity towards religious beliefs is a fundamental characteristic of human brains (as both by-product theorists and adaptationists agree), and/or an important ingredient of Darwinian fitness (as adaptationists argue), then how do we explain the existence
> and prevalence of atheists - even among ancient and traditional societies?"
>
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[Kim Jones]

On 29 Mar 2017, at 10:22 am, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

Sure - but then they wouldn't need to identify with atheism. They could just call themselves - wait for it - "mathematicians"

K

[Chris de Morsella]

---

From: Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au>

On 29 Mar 2017, at 10:22 am, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

Sure - but then they wouldn't need to identify with atheism. They could just call themselves - wait for it - "mathematicians"

Then... what about mathematicians who believe in some deity or other (as many mathematicians through the ages have)... you are going to need to do better than a bit of semantic wiggling if you want to provide a sound basis for your proposition.

-Chris

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[Brent Meeker]

On 3/28/2017 3:50 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
> Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are a religion like any other. They believe in God's non-existence, that's all.

No, they just fail to believe in God's existence. And that makes a lot
of difference.

Brent
"Science flies to the moon. Religion flies into buildings."
--- Vic Stenger

[Brent Meeker]

If you asked them where the universe came from or why there are moral rules, I don't think they would answer, "Mathematics."

But if asked them if they thought the god of theism, all powerful, beneficent, omniscience, existed they'd probably say "No" - hence "a-theist".

Brent

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed., 29 Mar. 2017 at 10:30 am, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2017, at 10:22 am, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

Sure - but then they wouldn't need to identify with atheism. They could just call themselves - wait for it - "mathematicians".

But if they are asked if they believe in Zeus or Yahweh or Krishna and they say "no", then they are atheists.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[Kim Jones]

If I say that I do not believe that rap "music" is real music does that make me unmusical?

K

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Stathis Papaioannou

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[cdemo...@yahoo.com]

On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:16 PM, Kim Jones

<kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2017, at 3:32 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed., 29 Mar. 2017 at 10:30 am, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2017, at 10:22 am, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

Sure - but then they wouldn't need to identify with atheism. They could just call themselves - wait for it - "mathematicians".

But if they are asked if they believe in Zeus or Yahweh or Krishna and they say "no", then they are atheists.

If I say that I do not believe that rap "music" is real music does that make me unmusical?

Hard, even impossible perhaps, to say anything about anything, with absolute certainty... but it does suggest your mind is closed to rap music (sans the gratuitous quotes you elected to color the word usage with)

-Chris

K

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Stathis Papaioannou

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[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed., 29 Mar. 2017 at 5:16 pm, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2017, at 3:32 pm, Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed., 29 Mar. 2017 at 10:30 am, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 29 Mar 2017, at 10:22 am, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Couldn't an athiest instead be open to, for example, a mathematical foundation from which that which we perceive as being matter emerges?

Sure - but then they wouldn't need to identify with atheism. They could just call themselves - wait for it - "mathematicians".

But if they are asked if they believe in Zeus or Yahweh or Krishna and they say "no", then they are atheists.

If I say that I do not believe that rap "music" is real music does that make me unmusical?

No, but if you don't believe in God you are an atheist.

--

Stathis Papaioannou

[Bruno Marchal]

Definition: God is Reality.

By completeness, to be consistent (~[]f, <>t) is equivalent with the
existence of a Reality satisfying the belief by the correct machine
(correct = the truth of "[]p -> p"). Then by incompleteness, no
correct machine can prove its consistency, so no machine can prove the
existence of a reality satisfying its beliefs.

When the game in town is 'to eat or to be eaten', there is some
interest in betting there is a reality. The entity *needs* faith for
that. That is plausibly made automatically by the animal's brain
already.

Gödel's incompleteness is a sort of Satori, enlightenment, made by the
machine which distinguishes []p (what she can justify) and p (the
truth), and []p & p. The Lôbian machines are enlightened in the sense
that they already know that they can't define "truth", and can only
pray to be part of it.

In that sense, atheism is a disease, it is an interruption of the
natural dialog between the justifier part of the brain (the left brain
perhaps) and the knower-part of the brain, the right brain perhaps,
([]p & (& <>t) & p), the experiencer, the builder of knowledge.

Sometimes you can loose faith, that's the bad days. It is called
depression, faith in reality, or faith in humans, or faith in your son
or something or someone.
When "universal", it is the depression due to lack of bet in any
Reality. In that state they eventually get eaten quickly.

There are medications.

It concerns not just the humans or higher animals, it concerns all
numbers involved in universal relation with plausible universal
relations, even an infinity of them below their "substitution level",
which might explain the quantum aspect of precise enough observation.


Mechanism is not a reductionism. Machines have a rich sophisticated
theology actually comparable to the line or the rationalist mystic,
like in Milinda, or the line Pythagorus, Parmenides, Moderatus of
Gades, Plotinus.

The universal number/code/machine is a constructive vaccine against
the reductionist conception of machine and numbers.
We can already listen to them now. They know their soul is not a
machine. That needs some course in mathematical logic to figure out.

Of course the self-called atheists today are not sick, I think that
they just confuse a theory/religion with the subject domain.

I will never insist enough: theology (and health) must go back to
academy. And there is no problem with the clergy if its transparent
member can blink and laugh and never enforce anything.

Bruno

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Mar 2017, at 01:53, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
>
> On 3/28/2017 3:50 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
>> Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are
>> a religion like any other. They believe in God's non-existence,
>> that's all.
>
> No, they just fail to believe in God's existence. And that makes a
> lot of difference.

It is enough to fail to prove God's existence.

But some (string) atheist infers from this that God does not exist, or
that "God" is not an interesting notion, but then this makes them
believe "religiously" in matter, and eventually eliminate the first
person experience. That is quasi-demonstrated by Sade and LaMettrie,
and Dennett.

The problem is that many atheists exploit a confusion between failing
to believe in x, ~[]x, and believing in the inexistence or falsity of
x, []~x. The first one are modest inquirer, the second one are
arrogant bragger on the unnameable, when x is the fundamental reality.

>
> Brent
> "Science flies to the moon. Religion flies into buildings."
> --- Vic Stenger

Science flies to the moon. Religion flies into buildings ... is what
happen when the subject is abandoned to the politics since a long time.


Bruno

Only bad faith fear reason, and only bad reasons fear faith.

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

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

Definition: God is Reality.

​Idiocy is ​certainly real so the statement "God is a idiot" is true. And 

now that you've changed ​

​the ​

meaning and we have 2 words that mean the same thing

​there is a empty space in the language that needs to be filled, ​

what new word do you suggest we use

​when​

​

we want to refer to the

​previous meaning

the word "God" once

​ had​

? 

​

John K Clark

[smitra]

Historically, this was different as everyone used to be indoctrinated by
religion. It was the default ideology, quite some intellectual effort
was needed to see that it was all nonsense, at least in the sense that
you could't assume that what the Bible said was true.

When science started to be developed during the last few centuries,
religion always got the benefit of the doubt. By default, the Bible was
assumed to be true right until it became untenable. This process
therefore wasn't very scientific, it's only because the Bible is so
totally wrong when it comes to science that this worked at all.

Had the Bible been written by some evil alien with the intent of keeping
us dumb, then that alien would have easily succeeded by writing up a
text full of scientific half-truths instead of utter nonsense. If e.g.
the Bible contained algorithms for accurately computing the motion of
planets based on the equations of the post Newtonian approximation to
General Relativity but would explain that in terms of nonsensical
supernatural effects, deliberately getting the physics totally wrong,
then there would be no way that Newton could have gotten anywhere with
his theory. The Bible would get the benefit of the doubt and it's
predictions would be way more accurate than anything Newton (a fanatical
believer himself) could come up with.

So, physics would not have been developed with such a more accurate
Bible because of the improper benefit of the doubt it has always gotten.
Atheism, at least historically, has a lot to do with recognizing this
problem with giving the benefit if the doubt to unfalsifiable claims,
take e.g. Russell's teapot.

On 29-03-2017 00:50, Kim Jones wrote:
> Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are a
> religion like any other. They believe in God's non-existence, that's
> all. They reject the notion of an immaterial "prima materia" because
> that appears to them self-contradictory and instead put a thing called
> "Matter" on the same pedestal and worship that instead. It's merely a
> fashionable alternative to the Abrahamic sky-fairy concept but has no
> particular virtues I am aware of other than that
>
> Kim
>
>

Saibal

[Brent Meeker]

On 3/29/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> The problem is that many atheists exploit a confusion between failing
> to believe in x, ~[]x, and believing in the inexistence or falsity of
> x, []~x.

On the contrary; it is religionists who exploit this confusion to
falsely criticize atheism as "just another faith".

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

>
> On 29-03-2017 00:50, Kim Jones wrote:
>> Atheists have no special function or any special beliefs. They are a
>> religion like any other.

That would be a religion UNLIKE any other. Every religion has special
beliefs. And they remain special because they are held independent of
evidence and so cannot be resolved with the beliefs of other religions
by "reasoning together". That's why scientific disagreements don't
lead to wars, but religious beliefs often do.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Mar 2017, at 19:36, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

Definition: God is Reality.

​Idiocy is ​certainly real so the statement "God is a idiot" is true.

Reality is an idiot? That does not follow from the definition above. You illustrate what Kim said: atheism is the faith in some God, which gives you apparently the mystical insight that God is not Reality. (reality with a big "R" means the ultimate reality at the roots or origine of all aspects of what would be real.

And 

now that you've changed ​

​the ​

meaning

I did not change the meaning. You did. At the start we must be open minded. The proposition "God is Reality"  is accepted in all religion, including the Materialist religion.

Bruno

and we have 2 words that mean the same thing

​there is a empty space in the language that needs to be filled, ​

what new word do you suggest we use

​when​

​

we want to refer to the

​previous meaning

the word "God" once

​ had​

? 

​

John K Clark

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[Bruno Marchal]

Then, how do you call those who believe that there is no God?

Bruno


>
> Brent

[John Clark]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 9:17 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:>

>> Definition: God is Reality.

> Idiocy is certainly real so the statement "God is a idiot" is true.

​

 

> Reality is an idiot?

​

Yes, but you're the one changing the meaning of the word "reality" as well as "God" not me.

​ ​

Idiocy is certainly part of reality,  if God is Reality then Reality is God

​.​

 

​A​

nd thus the conclusion is obvious.

> atheism is the faith in some God, which gives you apparently the mystical insight that God is not Reality.

This has nothing to do with mysticism,

​mathematics, ​logic, 

science, theology

​, atheism,​

or philosophy

​;​

this has to do with vocabulary

​ and nothing else​

.  By saying "Definition: God is Reality" you have not told us one damn thing about the nature of the world, all you're doing is proposing a

 ​

change in the meaning of a certain sound that certain primates on a certain planet use to communicate

​ to other members of their species​

.

​ ​

That's it.

>> And now that you've change the

​ ​

meaning

> I did not change the meaning. You did.

Well

​ I ​give you credit for one thing

, at least you didn't start babbling about the ancient Greeks again.

> we must be open minded.

​But not so open minded all our brains fall out.​

 

> The proposition "God is Reality"  is accepted in all religion, including the Materialist religion.

Bullshit. All religious leaders say God is real but that is very different from saying God is reality. A doghouse is real but if a

​doghouse​

 is reality then reality is a doghouse. Do you really want to defend that position? 

​

But as I pointed out in my last post there is now a hole in the language

​, we need a new word ​

to take the place of the old meaning of the word "God" that 99.9% of the people on th

​is​

planet think of

​ when they see the ASCII sequence G-O-D​

, a conscious omnipotent omniscient

​ being who created the universe. ​What new ASCII sequence do you suggest we use for that? 

John K Clark 

[Brent Meeker]

On 3/30/2017 6:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 29 Mar 2017, at 21:33, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 3/29/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> The problem is that many atheists exploit a confusion between
>>> failing to believe in x, ~[]x, and believing in the inexistence or
>>> falsity of x, []~x.
>>
>> On the contrary; it is religionists who exploit this confusion to
>> falsely criticize atheism as "just another faith".
>
> Then, how do you call those who believe that there is no God?

Strong atheists or those who think belief there is a God is a moral
fault, "anti-theists".

Brent

[Kim Jones]

A classic New Atheist quip these days is "Atheism is a religion the same way 'Off' is a TV channel." 

What are you if 'Off' is your favourite TV channel?

 I often sit and stare at a blank TV screen and I have a 42" plasma so it's a pretty full-on experience of No Signal Whatsoever

I love it

This simply means that God is No Signal Whatsoever = Nothing

It was Russell Standish that taught me that Everything is the inside view of Nothing. I owe the guy a beer. Literally

K

[Bruno Marchal]

I meant what i say since the beginning: by definition God is the roots of everything. it is a common  we search on this list. The greeks, the mystics and then logic explains that we cannot justify the existence of such reality, be it matter, or number structure. That is why we use axiom.

A doghouse is real but if a

​doghouse​

 is reality then reality is a doghouse. Do you really want to defend that position? 

​

Yes, but with God instead of dog. And, as you say yourself, it is not a position, but a defifinition. The point is that the physical science does not address that question, even if most people take for granted the Aristotelian solution; God the physical universe, with some first mover, which is akin to say in modern time that God is some equation, with initial condition. 

May be that is true, but my point is that it cannot be true if mechanism is assumed.

But as I pointed out in my last post there is now a hole in the language

​, we need a new word ​

to take the place of the old meaning of the word "God"

The old meaning is mine. The meaning you rfer too is the recent Christian meaning. Even the jews, christians and muslim have beun to use the old meaning, but for some reason they came back to the Aristotelian meaning (like you).

that 99.9% of the people on th

​is​

planet think of

​ when they see the ASCII sequence G-O-D​

, a conscious omnipotent omniscient

​ being who created the universe. ​What new ASCII sequence do you suggest we use for that? 

You seem to forget that in our history, the theological science have been taken out of science for question of power. You defend the use of those you mock and disbelieve. I am not sure you are consistent. The god of the christians is mainly the material reality (doubly so for the catholic). 

All the debate on the existence of God (the first one) is a trick to make us forget that the greeks, and the original mystic, where doubting about the creation, not the creator.

The real question is: is there a primary physical universe. The theorem is a partial answer: "NO" if mechanism is correct. See the post or my publications.

Bruno

John K Clark 

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[Bruno Marchal]

OK. So we agree.

The problem is that the strong atheists called themselves just
atheists, and then claim they have no belief, when in fact they
believe in 0 god, unlike agnostic who say: I don't know, give the
definition and the theory.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 31 Mar 2017, at 09:01, Kim Jones wrote:

A classic New Atheist quip these days is "Atheism is a religion the same way 'Off' is a TV channel." 

Yes, that is eactly the exploitation of the confusion I described before. On facebook "atheist group" page, they have sent a post saying tha baby are born atheist because they don't believe in god a priori, but that means agnostic, with the mundane sense of agnostic.

And also, it is debatable, eventually babies believe that their mother made it all, and perhaps our parent, or the father (due to machism) is our first conception of God. 

God is the fundamental reality we believe in; at least enough to give sense to the words "research", "exploration", etc.

People who say that theology is not a science are people usually not aware of their metaphysical assumptions, making it hard for them to doubt them. Usually they take fully granted the materialist theology of Aristotle. 

To do science is to practice doubt and being modest. No serious scientist will ever say that he got the truth.he gives a theory, rules of deduction, and verification means.

Bruno

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

[John Clark]

On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 9:14 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

I meant what i say since the beginning: by definition God is the roots of everything.

 

​You've also said "​

Definition: God is Reality

​". So everything is "God", which is equivalent to saying nothing is "God", and so according to information theory the ASCII sequence G-O-D now ​contains exactly ZERO bits of information. And I'm sure of that number, I've counted them twice.

​> ​

And, as you say yourself, it is not a position, but a defifinition.

​Yes, but now 

that you've redefined a word so it contains no new information and is thus utterly useless there is a hole in the language, we're missing a word. W

e need a new way to convey the concept of a omnipotent omniscient conscious person who created the universe, the job the word "God" once had before you redefined it out of existence. 

I humbly suggest  ​

"

Cosmic Reality Actualized Person", you love acronyms so we could call it "CRAP" for short. ​

 

the Aristotelian solution

​ [...]

​Screw Aristotle. ​

 

​>​The greeks

​ [...]​

​Screw the greeks.​

 

​> ​

for some reason they came back to the Aristotelian meaning 

​[...]​

​Screw ​Aristotle and screw his meaning 

​> ​

is a trick to make us forget that the greeks

​ [...]

​Screw the greeks.​

 

​> ​

All the debate on the existence of God

​The debate is over! With your new redefinition we can now shout from the rooftops "THERE IS A GOD" and we can do so with absolute confidence that what we are shouting is true. So with that new confidence what do we know about the nature of reality and the universe that we didn't know before? Absolutely positively nothing.   

 

 

​> ​

See the post or my publications.

​Why? Did you say something​

 

​new in one of them that I haven't heard you say a thousand times before? I've already heard quite enough about the ancient Greeks, and also how believing in a God is a religion and not believing in a God is also a religion. 

John K Clark

[Philip Benjamin]

What are atheists for?

What are theists for?

What are agnostics for?

What are the "intelligent" for?

What are the Satanists for?

     Six feet below ground?

     That is all they are for?

Then they are all good for nothing!

                                                            "It is once appointed for all to die" 

                                                              It's a Universal Sentence of Death

                                                              Only the Sentencer offers cancelation                                                                 Vicarious transference of Sentence

                                                                The Sentencee accepts or rejects it

Upon decoupling, the unenergized (unregenerated), non-entropic bio dark-matter bodies co-created at the moment of conception will be lost in their abodes of the dark-matter realms (black holes), by their own willful choice. Adapted from "Ten Implications of Bio Dark-Matter Chemistry" and "Spiritual Body or Physical Spirit" by Philip Benjamin PhD MSc MA

--

[Brent Meeker]

On 3/31/2017 6:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 31 Mar 2017, at 01:59, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 3/30/2017 6:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> On 29 Mar 2017, at 21:33, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 3/29/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>>> The problem is that many atheists exploit a confusion between
>>>>> failing to believe in x, ~[]x, and believing in the inexistence or
>>>>> falsity of x, []~x.
>>>>
>>>> On the contrary; it is religionists who exploit this confusion to
>>>> falsely criticize atheism as "just another faith".
>>>
>>> Then, how do you call those who believe that there is no God?
>>
>> Strong atheists or those who think belief there is a God is a moral
>> fault, "anti-theists".
>
>
> OK. So we agree.
>
> The problem is that the strong atheists called themselves just
> atheists, and then claim they have no belief, when in fact they
> believe in 0 god, unlike agnostic who say: I don't know, give the
> definition and the theory.

There are also strong agnostics, i.e. those who hold it is impossible to
know anything about god(s).

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 31 Mar 2017, at 19:57, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 9:14 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

I meant what i say since the beginning: by definition God is the roots of everything.

 

​You've also said "​

Definition: God is Reality

​". So everything is "God",

Usually we have the contrary. take for Reality, with a big "R",  the set of all natural numbers. That set is not a number. Or take a model of the set-theory ZF, the collection of all sets is not a set, as we would have a problem with Cantor Power set theorem.

So, if God is Reality, it makes sense to not put God Itself *in* the reality. That is common in most set theories and the neoplatonist theologies. Plotinus defines the beings by what emanate from the ONE, but the ONE itself is not a being. It makes no sense, in that theory, to say that the ONE emanates from Itself.

which is equivalent to saying nothing is "God",

Yes, it is typical of the so-called negative theology: they all can say that this is not God, that is not God. nothing we can conceive on the "terrestrial" plane is God. God is the higher level One responsible for what exists.

and so according to information theory the ASCII sequence G-O-D now ​contains exactly ZERO bits of information.

That does not follow. You confuse belongness and inclusion.

And I'm sure of that number, I've counted them twice.

​> ​

And, as you say yourself, it is not a position, but a defifinition.

​Yes, but now 

that you've redefined a word so it contains no new information and is thus utterly useless there is a hole in the language, we're missing a word. W

e need a new way to convey the concept of a omnipotent omniscient conscious person who created the universe, the job the word "God" once had before you redefined it out of existence. 

I humbly suggest  ​

"

Cosmic Reality Actualized Person", you love acronyms so we could call it "CRAP" for short. ​

 

the Aristotelian solution

​ [...]

​Screw Aristotle. ​

 

​>​The greeks

​ [...]​

​Screw the greeks.​

 

​> ​

for some reason they came back to the Aristotelian meaning 

​[...]​

​Screw ​Aristotle and screw his meaning 

​> ​

is a trick to make us forget that the greeks

​ [...]

​Screw the greeks.​

 

​> ​

All the debate on the existence of God

You are the one defending Aristotle theology, which is mainly the belief in primary matter, or in physicalism.

But you confess here that you have never taken the time to read them, or to read some good book on them, so it is hard to guess what you want screw there.

​The debate is over! With your new redefinition we can now shout from the rooftops "THERE IS A GOD"

The kind of theologies I am studying, and which are very close to what any machines believing in classical arithmetic, obeys a sort of "incompleteness" theorem:

If God exist, then it is impossible to prove that God exist. 

In that respect, God is already approximated by self-consistency (<>t), as incompleteness is: <>t -> ~[]<>t  (exercice: show that G proves <>t -> ~[]<>t)

From this, and completeness, you can derive that if a self-referentially correct machine believes in some Reality (Model in the logician's sense) making true its beliefs, then it cannot justify rationally, or prove, the existence of such reality.

and we can do so with absolute confidence that what we are shouting is true.

The exact contrary occur. I think your saying here relies on the confusion between belongness and inclusion above.

So with that new confidence what do we know about the nature of reality and the universe that we didn't know before?

Correcting what you say above, and taking into account logic, we learn that we cannot justify rationnally the existence of God, be it a Physical universe (which has already be shown incompatible with Mechanism), or a model of ZF, or even (with computationalism) the arithmetical reality (the so-called standrd model of natural numbers with adition and multiplication).

Absolutely positively nothing.   

 

 

​> ​

See the post or my publications.

​Why? Did you say something​

 

​new in one of them that I haven't heard you say a thousand times before?

You stooped at step 3. The idea is: try to go a little bit beyond, or buy the Mendelson and Boolos, and try to think a little bit more. 

I've already heard quite enough about the ancient Greeks, and also how believing in a God is a religion and not believing in a God is also a religion. 

Then you need to reread the most elementary parts, where I insist that "not believing in God" is NOT a religion. It is "believing in no God" which is a religion. Here you confuse

~[]p and []~p

Bruno 

John K Clark

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

[Bruno Marchal]

That is self-defeating. They hold that it is impossible to know
anything about god(s), but then they hold a strong statement about
God(s): that it is impossible to know anything about Gods.

If you weaken slightly "strong-agnosticism", you will arrive quickly
to the negative theology, which asserts that we cannot define God by
any positive (or even negative) attribute, but you can approach it by
a sequence of negative assertions: it is not this, nor that, etc.

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Am 31.03.2017 um 21:40 schrieb Brent Meeker:
>
>
> On 3/31/2017 6:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>

...

>>
>> The problem is that the strong atheists called themselves just
>> atheists, and then claim they have no belief, when in fact they
>> believe in 0 god, unlike agnostic who say: I don't know, give the
>> definition and the theory.
>
> There are also strong agnostics, i.e. those who hold it is impossible
> to know anything about god(s).
>
> Brent
>

I would like to note that in the paper that I have referenced discusses
a completely different question. Provided that one could explain
religion in the framework of evolutionary advantages, the question
arises whether one should also try to explain atheism in the same
framework.

In the paper there are references to empirical studies that show that
atheists have lower birthrates. Dominic Johnson tries to explain this
empirical fact in evolutionary terms.

Evgenii

[Russell Standish]

Maybe we can think along the lines of why the "gay gene" persists. Gay
people make attentive uncles, improving the fitness of their near
relatives, or so the "just-so" story goes.

Maybe atheists are freer thinkers, able to think outside the box to
come up with solutions to important social problems. But presumably
society doesn't want too many free-thinkers, limiting the number of
atheists in society. Something like that.

Though how to explain that atheism in practice is probably the
dominant "religion" in Australia. And even more so amongst young
people, it appears. My son, who went to a nominally christian school,
said he only knew of two overtly christian boys amongst the 180-odd in
his cohort.

Food for thought.

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellow hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Am 01.04.2017 um 10:45 schrieb Russell Standish:
> Maybe we can think along the lines of why the "gay gene" persists.
> Gay people make attentive uncles, improving the fitness of their
> near relatives, or so the "just-so" story goes.
>
> Maybe atheists are freer thinkers, able to think outside the box to
> come up with solutions to important social problems. But presumably
> society doesn't want too many free-thinkers, limiting the number of
> atheists in society. Something like that.
>
> Though how to explain that atheism in practice is probably the
> dominant "religion" in Australia. And even more so amongst young
> people, it appears. My son, who went to a nominally christian
> school, said he only knew of two overtly christian boys amongst the
> 180-odd in his cohort.
>
> Food for thought.
>

Yes, in the paper there are different hypotheses to explain evolutionary
advantages for atheists. I especially like:

7. Catalyst
Presence of atheists facilitates adaptive advantages of belief

"The presence of atheists may indirectly improve the fitness of
believers by catalyzing their beneficial interactions."

"atheists might, on the contrary, increase the benefits of religion to
the group."

"This hypothesis is already implicit in some existing evolutionary
theories of religion, which postulate advantages for believers that
depend on the co-existence of other individuals with different beliefs."

Well, in Johnson's paper there are no mathematical models. To this end, see

Robert Rowthorn, Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance
model, Proc. R. Soc. B 2011 278 2519-2527.

Evgenii

[Brent Meeker]

That's nonsense. Words get defined, not things. We cannot define
"God", is simply false. We can define "God" however suits us for
purposes of communication. To say we cannot know anything about God is
contradictory because it assumes we know what God is in order that we
can make an assertion that we can't know anything about it. So I'm not a
strong-agnostic.

> but you can approach it by a sequence of negative assertions: it is
> not this, nor that, etc.

Which naturally evokes the question, "WHAT is not this or that?"

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

It's also true that atheists have a higher proportion of their children survive to adulthood.  These are simply correlates: in technological, educated societies people have fewer children and have fewer of them die young - and they are less superstitious.

Dominic Johnson tries to explain this empirical fact in evolutionary terms.

I looked up Johnson's papers.  Thanks for pointing him out.  Some the theories in "The Elephant in the Room"  apply equally to current politics, e.g. in section 3e:

Above, we considered the role of self-deception in individuals signaling
to others. A separate strand of theory involves collective deception. Some
accounts of costly signaling suggest that embracing beliefs that are demonstrably
false (or that are seen as demonstrably false by the surrounding
culture of non-believers) itself may function as the critical signal of
commitment that facilitates within-group trust and cooperation.

Just reading the survey paper, I have the impression that the authors have not sufficiently distinguished the individuals inclination to supernatural idea and the possible biological evolution from the cultural functions of religion and the cultural evolution of religions.  For the latter there is a nice little book by Craig A. James.

Brent

Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 3:31 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

If God exist, then it is impossible to prove that God exist. 

​Bullshit. If God existed He would have absolutely problem in proving His existence even to someone like me. ​

​> ​

You are the one defending Aristotle theology

​Bruno, you've been writing that exact same zinger for about a decade now, don't you think it's time to think of a new one?​

 

​> ​

You confuse .... Here you confuse

​ ....​

​And speaking of c

onfusion...​

 

​> ​

You stooped at step 3.

​You blundered at step 3.​

 

​

 John K Clark​

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Am 01.04.2017 um 23:50 schrieb Brent Meeker:
>
>
> On 4/1/2017 12:39 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

>> I would like to note that in the paper that I have referenced
>> discusses a completely different question. Provided that one could
>> explain religion in the framework of evolutionary advantages, the
>> question arises whether one should also try to explain atheism in
>> the same framework.
>>
>> In the paper there are references to empirical studies that show
>> that atheists have lower birthrates.
>
> It's also true that atheists have a higher proportion of their
> children survive to adulthood. These are simply correlates: in
> technological, educated societies people have fewer children and have
> fewer of them die young - and they are less superstitious.

It might be good to check if this statement complies with empirical
findings.

>> Dominic Johnson tries to explain this empirical fact in
>> evolutionary terms.
>
> I looked up Johnson's papers. Thanks for pointing him out. Some
> the theories in "The Elephant in the Room" apply equally to current
> politics, e.g. in section 3e:

Indeed, Johnson has a paper

Dominic D. P. Johnson, Bradley A. Thayer, The evolution of offensive
realism: Survival under anarchy from the Pleistocene to the present,
Politics and the Life Sciences, v. 35, N 1, p. 1 — 26, 2016.

that is pretty similar.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Apr 2017, at 16:09, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> Am 01.04.2017 um 10:45 schrieb Russell Standish:
>> Maybe we can think along the lines of why the "gay gene" persists.
>> Gay people make attentive uncles, improving the fitness of their
>> near relatives, or so the "just-so" story goes.
>>
>> Maybe atheists are freer thinkers, able to think outside the box to
>> come up with solutions to important social problems. But presumably
>> society doesn't want too many free-thinkers, limiting the number of
>> atheists in society. Something like that.
>>
>> Though how to explain that atheism in practice is probably the
>> dominant "religion" in Australia. And even more so amongst young
>> people, it appears. My son, who went to a nominally christian
>> school, said he only knew of two overtly christian boys amongst the
>> 180-odd in his cohort.
>>
>> Food for thought.
>>
>
>
> Yes, in the paper there are different hypotheses to explain
> evolutionary advantages for atheists. I especially like:

If atheism is "absence of belief" in God, you don't need evolution to
explain it. Stones are born atheists. You don't need complex neural
nets to not believe in something, zero neurons is already enough.

If atheism is "belief in no God", then it is ambiguous, given that
"God" is almost by definition, a very vague term. At the start it
meant "reason of our existence", and it started the research.

Its fairy-tale "official" personification has been based on humans
interested in exploiting the fears and credulity of others, which
indeed can be explained partially by evolution.

>
> 7. Catalyst
> Presence of atheists facilitates adaptive advantages of belief

OK, in the large sense of atheist, because this is recognition of
ignorance. But this is not just evolution: all machine get it soon or
later. Evolution has just sped-up the mammals recognition of their
ignorance. Löbianity, that is self-refential correctness and
elementary reasoning ability (with induction) confer a tremendous
advantage, indeed. Unfortunately, once Löbian, you get also the
ability to lie, and lying has some evolutionnary advantage, and truth
remains what most people fears the most.

>
> "The presence of atheists may indirectly improve the fitness of
> believers by catalyzing their beneficial interactions."
>
> "atheists might, on the contrary, increase the benefits of religion
> to the group."
>
> "This hypothesis is already implicit in some existing evolutionary
> theories of religion, which postulate advantages for believers that
> depend on the co-existence of other individuals with different
> beliefs."
>
> Well, in Johnson's paper there are no mathematical models. To this
> end, see
>
> Robert Rowthorn, Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance
> model, Proc. R. Soc. B 2011 278 2519-2527.

Of course such analysis seems to neglect the very content of the
spiritual experiences, and its relation to Reality. here I sort of
agree that theology is anti-biological. We would be born with the
spiritual truth, we might not evolve at all. It would be like spoiling
a thriller movie. A part of theology has to remain secret, for logical
reason. That is part axiomatized by the G* minus G logics and their
intensional variants.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

What ????

> We cannot define "God", is simply false. We can define "God"
> however suits us for purposes of communication.

Not at all. But if you think so I can understand the confusion. In
arithmetic it is the concept of truth which cannot be defined. We
manage to define that notion ... by using even more complex assumption
that we cannot defined, but are used too, because it is part of
mathematics. So we can say that a sentence p is true, and write "true
('p') <=> p", and makes sens of this because we do have the intution
of the standard moedl of arithmetic, by defining it in ZF. But tarki
theorem is that in no theory can we define the notion of truth if it
is rich enough to encompasse that very theory.

Words are used to make definition, but the definition are semantical,
or axiomatical, and point usually on thing which are not number. The
words "consciousness" or "trith", as word, are easy to define (they
are just special sequence of letters taken in some finite alphabet".
When we say that consciousness, truth, or god, are not definable, we
mean that the concept cannot be defined by any sequence of letters.
They just do not exist. And that is the meaning of Tarski theorem for
arithemtical truth: there are no predicate "truth" definable in the
alphabet "logical symbol + symbols "+", "*", "s" "0"" such that RA or
PA, or any sound extensions can prove truth('p') <-> p.

It is the thing pointed by the word which lacks a definition.

> To say we cannot know anything about God is contradictory because
> it assumes we know what God is in order that we can make an
> assertion that we can't know anything about it. So I'm not a strong-
> agnostic.

That's what I said. Strong-agnosticism does not make sense. Such a
notion can only confuse people.

>
>> but you can approach it by a sequence of negative assertions: it is
>> not this, nor that, etc.
>
> Which naturally evokes the question, "WHAT is not this or that?"

The answer can only point toward the thing, but sum up by "the creator
of everything", or "the reason of everything", or "the origin of
everything", etc. And then we can reason, and show that today that the
evidences accumulated that it is that it cannot be ... a physical
universe.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Apr 2017, at 04:06, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 3:31 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

If God exist, then it is impossible to prove that God exist. 

​Bullshit. If God existed He would have absolutely problem in proving His existence even to someone like me. ​

In which theory? 

I guess you mean the fairy tales defended only by obscurantists or victim of obscurantists. 

​> ​

You are the one defending Aristotle theology

​Bruno, you've been writing that exact same zinger for about a decade now, don't you think it's time to think of a new one?​

 

Do you, or do you not believe in a primary physical universe. If not what is your theology? I put the cards on the table, and all what you do is throwing them away without suggesting any replacement. You criticize Aristotle but confess to not having read him. You don't need, indeed, you have the same theology. Why do you think Plato did not choose Aristote to follow him as director of the Athene academy. You criticize the antic greeks, but seem not to realize that our civilisation is based on one half of the greeks.

The antic greeks are the one who made clear two quite different view of conceiving rationally the "reality". One gave mathematics, the other one gave physics and, alas, physicalism/materialism.

​> ​

You confuse .... Here you confuse

​ ....​

​And speaking of c

onfusion...​

 

​> ​

You stooped at step 3.

​You blundered at step 3.​

 

​

Only in appearance when you throw out the distinction between first person and third person points of view, indeed. That has been shown in all details.

It really looks like you are working for the Pope. Well, it is unfair to say this, because if you read "Splendor Veritatis", you can see that the catholic conception of God has changed a lot in one century and is much less naive than yours', but I guess you will not read it. Maybe what you know of religion comes from the TV show by evangelists, in which case you have all my compassion. Those would be able to make God Itself into a strong atheist, ...

Bruno

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[Brent Meeker]

On 4/1/2017 11:55 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> Am 01.04.2017 um 23:50 schrieb Brent Meeker:
>>
>>
>> On 4/1/2017 12:39 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>> I would like to note that in the paper that I have referenced
>>> discusses a completely different question. Provided that one could
>>> explain religion in the framework of evolutionary advantages, the
>>> question arises whether one should also try to explain atheism in
>>> the same framework.
>>>
>>> In the paper there are references to empirical studies that show
>>> that atheists have lower birthrates.
>>
>> It's also true that atheists have a higher proportion of their
>> children survive to adulthood. These are simply correlates: in
>> technological, educated societies people have fewer children and have
>> fewer of them die young - and they are less superstitious.
>
> It might be good to check if this statement complies with empirical
> findings.

Just compare statistics for a nation with lots of non-believers, e.g
France or Sweden, to those with a high proportion of believers, e.g.
Afghanistan or Ethiopia. Which is not to say it's a cause/effect
relationship. Where life is hard and medical services are sparse people
cling to religion and their children often die - so they have more
children to compensate...and having more children contributes to their
poverty. All the major religions encourage fertility. Religion as a
political force aims to win by demographics.

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/2/2017 6:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Words are used to make definition, but the definition are semantical,
> or axiomatical, and point usually on thing which are not number. The
> words "consciousness" or "trith", as word, are easy to define (they
> are just special sequence of letters taken in some finite alphabet".
> When we say that consciousness, truth, or god, are not definable, we
> mean that the concept cannot be defined by any sequence of letters.

Exactly. You can define words like "chair" as referring to chairs,
things which have certain forms and functions you can point to. You can
only define "consciousness" ostensively by appealing to other people's
use of words like "aware", "feel", "recall", "perceive",..and their actions.

Brent

[Russell Standish]

What about very religious societies such as the US? It always seemed a
bit of an outlier to me.

[Brent Meeker]

ISTM it exemplifies my point. It's more religious that Europe and has
higher infant mortality and higher birthrate. It's less religious than
Ethiopia and has lower infant mortality and lower birthrate.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>​>

If God existed He would have absolutely problem in proving His existence even to someone like me. ​

​> ​

In which theory? 

​The guy who said there is no such thing as a stupid question was wrong. God is omnipotent and you are confused as to why I should think such a beings should be able to convince me He exists if He really does!

​> ​

Do you, or do you not believe in a primary physical universe.

​Google doesn't know what "​primary physical universe" means so I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of 3 possibilities. 

1) Do I think a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics?

Yes.

2) Do I think a mind can derive all the laws of physics we see and none of the laws of physics we don't see from nothing but the laws of logic?

Maybe, but probably not.

3) Do I think a mind can be derived from nothing but the laws of logic?

No.

So you tell me, do I "believe in a primary physical universe"?

 

​> ​

If not what is your theology?

​Bruno, 10 years is long enough, you really need to find a new zinger.​

 

 

 

​> ​

You criticize Aristotle but

​...​

​Screw ​

 Aristotle

​.​

​> ​

Why do you think Plato

​...​

​Screw Plato.​

​> ​

You criticize the antic greeks, but

​...​

​Screw the ancient Greeks.​

 

​> ​

You criticize Aristotle but confess to not having read him

​OK Bruno, you say you're a logician so try to follow me.

1) Life is too short to read every book ever written.

2) The time spent reading one book is time not spent reading another book.

3) Aristotle would flunk a fourth grade science test.

4) Aristotle would flunk a seventh grade math test.

5) Those who are interested in that sort of thing say that unlike Plato Aristotle's use of language is nothing special.

6) Therefore Aristotle doesn't make the list of books I should read before I die.

There is something else that doesn't make the list of things that should be read, all the stuff in a mathematical proof after step 3 if a major blunder has been found there.     

​>​

 you throw out the distinction between first person and third person points of view, indeed. That has been shown in all details.

​There is an interesting quotation from Hugh Everett, the man who created the Many World's interpretation ​of Quantum Mechanics:

 

 

"When 

​a​

​

​

observer splits it is meaningless to ask which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first

​, ​

 it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two

​"​

. 

​> ​

It really looks like you are working for the Pope.

 Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.

​ John K Clark​

[Bruno Marchal]

So we agree on this, except that I would say that for consciousness
you need to refer to your own experience, and project it on other to
make sense to words like "aware", etc.

Now, if it is easy to define consciousness in that quasi-ostensive
self-projection in other, then the God, or the One of the Platonists
is even easier to define: it is whatever has made possible and perhaps
necessary any conscious appearance, and those projection meaningful.

The greek intellectuals have used the word God to say "Reality", and
they have avoided the use of the term "Reality" itself to avoid
confusion with the physical reality (what we see, observe;
measure, ...). The confusion is easy here as nature has programmed us
to take what we see as reality. They were aware that "Reality" might
not be the physical reality thanks to the quasi-obvious dream argument
of the chinese, indian, greeks and other which did illustrate the
point already.

Platonism is not just the "world of ideas" assumption (which is a
beginning of a theory/solution-of-the-riddle), it is, before all
things, the doubt that the physical reality is the fundamental
reality. They were inspired by the Pythagorean who were already close
to mathematicalism, even arithmeticalism. If you read Plato, you see
that his question is "Is God the physical reality or the mathematical
reality or something else?". Put in a way not mentioning the term
"god", the question is akin to "does consciousness and matter arise
from a physical reality, or a mathematical reality, or something else.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Apr 2017, at 17:42, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>​>

If God existed He would have absolutely problem in proving His existence even to someone like me. ​

​> ​

In which theory? 

​The guy who said there is no such thing as a stupid question was wrong. God is omnipotent and you are confused as to why I should think such a beings should be able to convince me He exists if He really does!

I don't believe in such a God. I cannot make sense of omnipotence. 

​> ​

Do you, or do you not believe in a primary physical universe.

​Google doesn't know what "​primary physical universe" means so I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of 3 possibilities. 

1) Do I think a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics?

Yes.

I guess you mean a person. OK. But this is trivial given that the physical laws, or at least their formulation assume some logic.

2) Do I think a mind can derive all the laws of physics we see and none of the laws of physics we don't see from nothing but the laws of logic?

Maybe, but probably not.

No. This is impossible. The laws of physics entails the existence of universal numbers, and it can be proved that with the laws of most known logics, it is impossible to prove the existence of a universal number. You need to assume at least numbers, combinators and some laws on them.

3) Do I think a mind can be derived from nothing but the laws of logic?

No.

OK.

So you tell me, do I "believe in a primary physical universe"?

Only if you believe that it is possible to explain all sciences from the laws of physics. Do you believe that physics is or could be the fundamental science?

 

​> ​

If not what is your theology?

​Bruno, 10 years is long enough, you really need to find a new zinger.​

 

What is your ontological belief? What do you believe?

 

 

​> ​

You criticize Aristotle but

​...​

​Screw ​

 Aristotle

​.​

​> ​

Why do you think Plato

​...​

​Screw Plato.​

​> ​

You criticize the antic greeks, but

​...​

​Screw the ancient Greeks.​

 

​> ​

You criticize Aristotle but confess to not having read him

Insult and mockery always comes from ignorance.

​OK Bruno, you say you're a logician

?

so try to follow me.

1) Life is too short to read every book ever written.

2) The time spent reading one book is time not spent reading another book.

3) Aristotle would flunk a fourth grade science test.

4) Aristotle would flunk a seventh grade math test.

5) Those who are interested in that sort of thing say that unlike Plato Aristotle's use of language is nothing special.

6) Therefore Aristotle doesn't make the list of books I should read before I die.

There is something else that doesn't make the list of things that should be read, all the stuff in a mathematical proof after step 3 if a major blunder has been found there.     

​>​

 you throw out the distinction between first person and third person points of view, indeed. That has been shown in all details.

​There is an interesting quotation from Hugh Everett, the man who created the Many World's interpretation ​of Quantum Mechanics:

 

 

"When 

​a​

​

​

observer splits it is meaningless to ask which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first

​, ​

 it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two

​"​

. 

Can you give the reference?

The context is needed, because if there is one guy who introduce the difference between the 1p and 3p in physics, it is Everett. With the word "subjective" and "objective" in place of 1p and 3p, note. I avoid this because it leads to the expression "subjective probabilities" which are objective and easily confused with the bayesian type of subjective probabilities. Of course it is OK for Everett because he do physics and does not focus on the mind-body problem.

​> ​

It really looks like you are working for the Pope.

 Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.

A french bishop said about a book by Onfray (a french strong atheist) that his strong atheism was the best  advertising for the Church ever conceivable. You defend their theory. You mock only the fairy tales in which no theologian ever believed (as opposed to the member of the clergy, who also disbelieve it, but still fake the belief, probaby for the children).

Bruno

​ John K Clark​

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>> ​

God is omnipotent and you are confused as to why I should think such a beings should be able to convince me He exists if He really does!

​> ​

I don't believe in such a God. I cannot make sense of omnipotence. 

​If you insist on using common English words in non-standard ​

ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood! I've never even met you and yet you've managed to convince me that you exist, but "God" whatever the hell you mean by word, is unable to convince me that He exist. Congratulations, you can do something "God" cannot. 

Vague imprecise ​language does have one advantage, it masks 

vague imprecise

​ thought.​

​

​>> ​

Google doesn't know what "​primary physical universe" means so I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of 3 possibilities. 
1) Do I think a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics?
Yes.

 

​> ​

I guess you mean a person. OK. But this is trivial given that the physical laws, or at least their formulation assume some logic.

​Assumptions ​that have been experimentally confirmed. We've noted that 2 trees and 2 trees make 4 trees, and 2 rocks and 2 rocks make 4 rocks, and we use induction to assume that pattern will hold true for 2 of anything.  So far that assumption looks pretty good, although some events at the quantum level might produce a little unease.   

​>>​

2) Do I think a mind can derive all the laws of physics we see and none of the laws of physics we don't see from nothing but the laws of logic?

Maybe, but probably not.

​> ​

No. This is impossible.

​If you're right (and you probably are) then physics can tell us things about the world that logic and mathematics can not, and therefore physics is more fundamental. ​

​> ​

3) Do I think a mind can be derived from nothing but the laws of logic?
No.

OK.

​So we have something else that physics can do but logic alone can not;

 naked logic can not make a mind but matter that obeys the laws of physics can. ​

​>> ​

So you tell me, do I "believe in a primary physical universe"?

​> ​

Only if you believe that it is possible to explain all sciences from the laws of physics.

​

We both agree

​ 

a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics.

​ 

We both agree

​ 

a mind

 

probably

​ can​

not derive the laws of physics from the laws of of

​logic​

. and we agree that naked logic can not make a mind but matter that obeys the laws of physics can.

​ 

So if physics can't explain something what can?

 

Do you believe that physics is or could be the fundamental science?

If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can ​not it should be obvious which is more fundamental. 

​>> ​

​There is an interesting quotation from Hugh Everett, the man who created the Many World's interpretation ​of Quantum Mechanics:
"When 

​a​

​

​

observer splits it is meaningless to ask which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first

​, ​

 it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two

​"​

. 

 

​> ​

Can you give the reference?

​That quotation came from Everett's PhD thesis where he introduced the concept of Many Worlds, but was not in the version published in 1957. Originally Everett's thesis was 137 pages long but 

John Wheeler, Everett's thesis adviser, made him cut out about half

​of it including​

 

the entire chapter on

​ 

information and probability which today many consider the best part of

​ 

the work. Wheeler

​also ​

didn't like the word "split"

​ 

and was especially uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers

​ 

splitting

​. Everett's complete thesis with no cuts was not published until 1973. ​

 John K Clark

 c

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Apr 2017, at 00:33, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>> ​

God is omnipotent and you are confused as to why I should think such a beings should be able to convince me He exists if He really does!

​> ​

I don't believe in such a God. I cannot make sense of omnipotence. 

​If you insist on using common English words in non-standard ​

ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood!

I reassure you, I am constantly misunderstood only by people not reading what I write, or by fundamentalist strong atheists from some sect defending dogma.

I've never even met you and yet you've managed to convince me that you exist, but "God" whatever the hell you mean by word, is unable to convince me that He exist. Congratulations, you can do something "God" cannot. 

Vague imprecise ​language does have one advantage, it masks 

vague imprecise

​ thought.​

​

​>> ​

Google doesn't know what "​primary physical universe" means so I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of 3 possibilities. 
1) Do I think a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics?
Yes.

 

​> ​

I guess you mean a person. OK. But this is trivial given that the physical laws, or at least their formulation assume some logic.

​Assumptions ​that have been experimentally confirmed. We've noted that 2 trees and 2 trees make 4 trees, and 2 rocks and 2 rocks make 4 rocks, and we use induction to assume that pattern will hold true for 2 of anything.  So far that assumption looks pretty good, although some events at the quantum level might produce a little unease.   

​>>​

2) Do I think a mind can derive all the laws of physics we see and none of the laws of physics we don't see from nothing but the laws of logic?

Maybe, but probably not.

​> ​

No. This is impossible.

​If you're right (and you probably are) then physics can tell us things about the world that logic and mathematics can not, and therefore physics is more fundamental. ​

That does not follow. You talk like if we could derive arithmetic from logic. But we can't. And with mechanism, we have to derive physics from arithmetic, not from logic. And it works very well until now.

​> ​

3) Do I think a mind can be derived from nothing but the laws of logic?
No.

OK.

​So we have something else that physics can do but logic alone can not;

 naked logic can not make a mind but matter that obeys the laws of physics can. ​

​>> ​

So you tell me, do I "believe in a primary physical universe"?

​> ​

Only if you believe that it is possible to explain all sciences from the laws of physics.

​

We both agree

​ 

a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of physics.

​

Yes, but trivially. The laws of physics, in fact any laws assume some logic(s).

 

We both agree

​ 

a mind

 

probably

​ can​

not derive the laws of physics from the laws of of

​logic​

.

Yes. 

and we agree that naked logic can not make a mind but matter that obeys the laws of physics can.

​ 

So if physics can't explain something what can?

Arithmetic, or anything Church-Turing Universal.

Yu seem to miss Gödel and the end of logicism. We just can't explain the numbers with pure logic. Arithmetic has to be assumed? Russell and whitehead thought they could, but there was a flaw, indeed found by Gödel.

 

Do you believe that physics is or could be the fundamental science?

If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can ​not it should be obvious which is more fundamental. 

Mathematics can do that, even just arithmetic. It is logic alone which can't. You confuse logic and mathematics.

​>> ​

​There is an interesting quotation from Hugh Everett, the man who created the Many World's interpretation ​of Quantum Mechanics:
"When 

​a​

​

​

observer splits it is meaningless to ask which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first

​, ​

 it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two

​"​

. 

 

​> ​

Can you give the reference?

​That quotation came from Everett's PhD thesis where he introduced the concept of Many Worlds, but was not in the version published in 1957. Originally Everett's thesis was 137 pages long but 

John Wheeler, Everett's thesis adviser, made him cut out about half

​of it including​

 

the entire chapter on

​ 

information and probability which today many consider the best part of

​ 

the work. Wheeler

​also ​

didn't like the word "split"

​ 

and was especially uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers

​ 

splitting

​. Everett's complete thesis with no cuts was not published until 1973. ​

It comes from Zurek or Zeh I think. I  read the long thesis of Everett many-times, and never found an allusion to amoeba. Or give the pages. Anyway, that quote is out of context and is ambiguous given that we never asked which one is the original. We ask this either about the 3-I, in which case the answer is simple and clear: both are. Or we ask this about the 1-I, or soul, consciousness, in which case the answer is that from their first person view, each one are but not both.

Bruno

 John K Clark

 c

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[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>>​

​If you insist on using common English words in non-standard ​ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood!

​> ​

I reassure you, I am constantly misunderstood only by people not reading what I write,

​When 99% of the human species observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D  they have a clear mental picture of what that sequence represents, I'm not sure why you mean by that sequence of letters but clearly it's very different from what most people mean by it. This confusion could be easily cleared up cleared up by you simply by using a different ASCII sequence, but you flat out refuse to do so. Why? I can only think of one reason, if your ideas are muddled clarity of language is not your friend.  

 

​> ​

with mechanism, we have to derive physics from arithmetic, not from logic. And it works very well until now.

​If arithmetic  "works very well" why do physicists bother to do experiments, why did they spend 10 billion dollars to build the LHC, why didn't they just sit in a comfy armchair with nothing but a copy of the multiplication table and figure out how the physical world works?   ​

 

 

​> ​

The laws of physics, in fact any laws assume some logic(s).

​I think it would be closer to the truth to say the laws of logic assume the laws of physics not the other way around. If the laws of physics were different and whenever 2 rocks (or 2 of anything) were brought to our attention and then 2 more rocks were brought to our attention then a extra rock always popped into existence then the laws of both logic and arithmetic that humans devised would be quite different from what we have today. Everyone would say it's intuitively obvious that 2+2=5.   ​

​>>​

If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can ​not it should be obvious which is more fundamental. 

​> ​

Mathematics can do that, even just arithmetic.

​Baloney. ​

 

​A​

arithmetic

​ can't derive the laws of physics nor can it derive a mind, it can't even figure out how much 2+2 is without the help of matter that obeys the laws of physics. ​

I found another interesting quote, there is no question who wrote it because it's in Hugh Everett's  handwriting and you can see a photograph of his letter on 

Page 177

​ of ​

Peter Byrne's

​ book 

 

​"​

The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett

​":

.

"There is no question about which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one, since each of them possess the total memory of the first (Which amoeba is the original one?). The successive memory sequence of an observer do not form a linear array, but a planar graph (tree): the TRAJECTORY of a observer forms a line not a TREE."

Everett even drew a little diagram so there could be no misunderstanding, and for emphasis he underlined the words I c

apitalized

​, it's all in the photograph of his handwritten letter.

John​

 

​K Clark​

[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>>​

​If you insist on using common English words in non-standard ​ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood!

​> ​

I reassure you, I am constantly misunderstood only by people not reading what I write,

​When 99% of humanity observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D that you have written they have a clear understanding of what that sequence represents, but it's apparently very different from what you mean. This confusion could be easily cleared up by you simply by using a different ASCII sequence, but you flat out refuse to do so. Why? I can think of only one reason, if your thoughts are muddled clarity of language is not your friend.  

 

​> ​

with mechanism, we have to derive physics from arithmetic, not from logic. And it works very well until now.

​If arithmetic  "works very well" why do physicists bother to do experiments, why did they spend 10 billion dollars to build the LHC, why didn't they just sit in a comfy armchair with nothing but a copy of the multiplication table and figure out how the physical world works?   ​

 

 

​> ​

The laws of physics, in fact any laws assume some logic(s).

​I think it would be closer to the truth to say the laws of logic assume the laws of physics. If the laws of physics were different and whenever 2 rocks (or 2 of anything) were brought to our attention and then 2 more rocks were brought to our attention then a extra rock always popped into existence the laws of both logic and arithmetic that humans devised would be quite different from what we have today. Everyone would say it is intuitively obvious that 2+2=5.   ​

​>>​

If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can ​not it should be obvious which is more fundamental. 

​> ​

Mathematics can do that, even just arithmetic.

​Baloney. ​

 

​A

rithmetic

​ ​

can't derive the laws of physics no

​r​

can it derive a mind, it can't even figure out how much 2+2 is without the help of matter that obeys the laws of physics. ​

I found another interesting quote, there is no question who wrote it because it's in Hugh Everett's  handwriting and you can see a photograph of the letter on 

Page 177

​ of Peter Byrne's book "The Many Worlds Of​ Hugh Everett":

"There is no question about which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one, since each of them possess the total; Memory of the first (Which amoeba is the original one?) The successive memory sequence of an observer do not form a linear array, but a planar graph (tree): the TRAJECTORY of a observer forms a line not a TREE." 

​Everett even drew a little diagram so there would be no misunderstanding, and the words I capitalized he underlined. ​

John K Clark

 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Apr 2017, at 22:17, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>>​

​If you insist on using common English words in non-standard ​ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood!

​> ​

I reassure you, I am constantly misunderstood only by people not reading what I write,

​When 99% of the human species observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D  they have a clear mental picture of what that sequence represents,

False! the muslims are required to not have any mental image of the Unnameable. Taoism too, where the names of the tao hides it.

Then you are very naive. You tell me you don't read book on theology, and you talk like indeed you know not much. Jason Resh gave you already a long list of quite different god, and then the notion is tackle also by philosophers and theologians.

Then why use also the sense of the word given by those who have systematically banish or burn alive anyone doing personal research or harboring some doubts on some dogma.

Why are (strong) atheists so much defending the God theory of those who imposed it by violence. Why continue the violence?

I'm not sure why you mean by that sequence of letters but clearly it's very different from what most people mean by it.

No. Only the stubborn believers in Matter and no God-at-all-in-any-sense have a problem. 

This confusion could be easily cleared up cleared up by you simply by using a different ASCII sequence, but you flat out refuse to do so. Why? I can only think of one reason, if your ideas are muddled clarity of language is not your friend.  

 

​> ​

with mechanism, we have to derive physics from arithmetic, not from logic. And it works very well until now.

​If arithmetic  "works very well" why do physicists bother to do experiments,

Because it is still infinitely more efficacious. To use computationalism to predict an eclipse would like to use quantum general relativity theory, assuming we fin it, to weight yourself in the bathroom.

Keep in mind the goal: to solve the mind-body problem (in the computationalist frame).

why did they spend 10 billion dollars to build the LHC, why didn't they just sit in a comfy armchair with nothing but a copy of the multiplication table and figure out how the physical world works?   ​

 

 

​> ​

The laws of physics, in fact any laws assume some logic(s).

​I think it would be closer to the truth to say the laws of logic assume the laws of physics not the other way around.

This is non sense. "laws" assumes logic. If you can formalize a physical theory without any logic, just do it and show it. I have no clue how to even make any sense of this.

If the laws of physics were different and whenever 2 rocks (or 2 of anything) were brought to our attention and then 2 more rocks were brought to our attention then a extra rock always popped into existence then the laws of both logic and arithmetic that humans devised would be quite different from what we have today. Everyone would say it's intuitively obvious that 2+2=5.   ​

You confuse, like in your preceding post, logic and arithmetic.

​>>​

If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can ​not it should be obvious which is more fundamental. 

​> ​

Mathematics can do that, even just arithmetic.

​Baloney. ​

 

​A​

arithmetic

​ can't derive the laws of physics nor can it derive a mind, it can't even figure out how much 2+2 is without the help of matter that obeys the laws of physics. ​

In which theory, with what assumptions. The point is that IF digital mechanism is true THEN we have to derive the laws of physics without invoking a physical reality. To use a physical reality in this context has been shown equivalent with the misuse of God by the creationist critics of evolution. 

I found another interesting quote, there is no question who wrote it because it's in Hugh Everett's  handwriting and you can see a photograph of his letter on 

Page 177

​ of ​

Peter Byrne's

​ book 

 

​"​

The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett

​":

.

You have not given me the reference I asked. 

"There is no question about which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one, since each of them possess the total memory of the first (Which amoeba is the original one?). The successive memory sequence of an observer do not form a linear array, but a planar graph (tree): the TRAJECTORY of a observer forms a line not a TREE."

But this confirms so well that Everett conceived the superposition like Computationalism conceived the self-duplication. It is what I have often summarize in the drawing Y = II. take Y representing the duplication of a person P in H with reconstitution in W an M. Y = II represents the fact that from both reconstituted person HW and HM becomes two different lines of memory, each unique in its own memories. So if you agree with Everett notion of probability in that situation, the phenomenal one indeed, then please, do the same at step 3.

Bruno

Everett even drew a little diagram so there could be no misunderstanding, and for emphasis he underlined the words I c

apitalized

​, it's all in the photograph of his handwritten letter.

John​

 

​K Clark​

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

 

​> ​

You tell me you don't read book on theology,

​For over a decade I was required to read books on theology, I've probably read more than you, and not one was worth a bucket of warm spit,​

 

> ​> ​ If arithmetic  "works very well" why do physicists bother to d ​o experiments

 

​> ​

Because it is still infinitely more efficacious.

Then arithmetic doesn't work "very well" although I agree that to figure out why a apple pie must exist arithmetic would take a INFINITE (at least) number of calculations. But by itself arithmetic can't even calculate 2+2, it needs a mind to do anything. And a mind needs a brain. And a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics. 

 

​> ​

Keep in mind the goal: to solve the mind-body problem (in the computationalist frame).

​That's far too ambitious ​for now, first you've got to explain exactly what the "

mind-body problem

​" is and what sort of answer would cause you to say "the mind body problem is now solved". If somebody found that X caused mind would that satisfy you or would you then ask "why does X cause mind?".​ Of course you would.

​>> ​

​I think it would be closer to the truth to say the laws of logic assume the laws of physics not the other way around.

​> ​

This is non sense. "laws" assumes logic.

​And we like to make assumption that work. And what tells us if they work or not? ​

 

​Observations of the physical world.​ And what determines the observations of the physical world? The laws of physics. 

​>> ​

If the laws of physics were different and whenever 2 rocks (or 2 of anything) were brought to our attention and then 2 more rocks were brought to our attention then a extra rock always popped into existence then the laws of both logic and arithmetic that humans devised would be quite different from what we have today. Everyone would say it's intuitively obvious that 2+2=5.   ​

You confuse

​ [...]

​Somebody who thinks God is a good synonym for arithmetic is in no position to call anyone confused.

​> ​

 like in your preceding post, logic and arithmetic.

​Like hell I do! If our logic said X and Y never made Z but we when observe the physical world we see that X and Y always made Z people would not say the physical world had made a mistake, instead we'd say our logic must be wrong and we'd change it to something that worked.

 

​>> ​

​

arithmetic

​ can't derive the laws of physics nor can it derive a mind, it can't even figure out how much 2+2 is without the help of matter that obeys the laws of physics. ​

​> ​

In which theory

​ ,​

 with what assumptions

​?

​What a remarkably silly thing to say! If I walk over that bridge​

 

​will it fall ​down? It depends on what theory you're using and what assumptions you're thinking about. Dumb.

​> ​

Then why use also the sense of the word given by those who have systematically banish or burn alive anyone doing personal research or harboring some doubts on some dogma.
Why are (strong) atheists so much defending the God theory of those who imposed it by violence. Why continue the violence?

​Wow. Mindless rhetoric in hyperdrive I see. ​

 

 John K Clark

 

​

 

​

 

[John Clark]

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>> ​

When 99% of the human species observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D  they have a clear mental picture of what that sequence represents,

​> ​

False! the muslims are required to not have any mental image of the Unnameable.

​False! There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, of them 600 million can read, and for every single one of them a mental idea forms when they see the squiggle "God", otherwise they wouldn't be able to read, and not one of those mental ideas is of the multiplication table. And yet you claim to be  mystified why you are misunderstood!  

 John K Clark

[cdemo...@yahoo.com]

Our minds reify not only our sensorial streams -- as the brain manufactures our experience of a seemless stable "reality" (thus providing animal life, so endowed with an evolutionary advantage) -- but our brains also reify the symbolic streams of spoken and written language (plus other systems, such as say peano arithmetic etc.).

What we perceive as being our being is that which emerges out from our brains vast reification engine of reality. Our own reality, is, within each of us, that which our brains have produced -- in a pre-conscious, self-emergent, highly chaotic, noisy mental consensus generating process,  of which we are mostly blissfully unaware of.

The brain is a fascinating and fantastic reality re-manufacturing network. God emerges in each mind.... reified in the manner in which that mind-net has become "learned", and pre-consciously habituated (internally or as a result of externally injected cultural beliefs). So much of what we think we think we think, is an outcome of pre-conscious habituation. Each of our brains is an invisible wizard conjuring up our very own hi fidelity sense of being.... including in this magic trick, each of our own smug sense of ourselves.

-Chris de Morsella 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 07 Apr 2017, at 22:57, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

 

​> ​

You tell me you don't read book on theology,

​For over a decade I was required to read books on theology, I've probably read more than you,

Good news! Which one? It is a very vast literature.

and not one was worth a bucket of warm spit,​

Not even Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent"?. Did you read his "Who knows?" Well Smullyan did not hide his interest in theological question, and I urge you to read the book by Daniel J. Cohen which explains unintentionally (I think) how theology and mathematical logic are deeply related. Gödel also, and in fact many logiciens are motivated by trying to be rigorous in the field of metaphysics/theology.

 

> ​> ​ If arithmetic  "works very well" why do physicists bother to d ​o experiments

 

​> ​

Because it is still infinitely more efficacious.

Then arithmetic doesn't work "very well" although I agree that to figure out why a apple pie must exist arithmetic would take a INFINITE (at least) number of calculations.

Good. Indeed. If only by the first person indeterminacy on the universal dovetailing, which called for random oracle, if not infinite random matrices.

But by itself arithmetic can't even calculate 2+2, it needs a mind to do anything.

It depends of course of your basic assumptions. If by arithmetic you mean the arithmetical truth or "reality", then the relation 2+2=4 is just true, without the need of any proof. Logicians would say that "2+2=4" is satisfied by the standard model of arithmetic (and actually by all models of PA). Note that such models will satisfy also proposition like "It is exists a proof from PA of 2+2=4" and "It exists a LISP program which gives the result of a computation by a Fortran program of the addition of 2 and 2", and it exist a 10^(10^100) quantum complex rational matrices emulating emulating X" with X an accurate description of the Milcky way. It exists, independently of us being able to verify it, which is irrelevant for the creature who brain are emulated by it. And note that if such an existence is trivial, why it *seems* to win in the limit is the complex mathematical problem for which the modal logics of self-reference are used to put light on.

And a mind needs a brain.

It needs an infinity of computations. The brain is only a local map of the locally accessible computational continuation. 

And a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics. 

 

This explanation becomes circular, if invoked in the course of solving the mind-body problem. Matter, or the "wave" is only a sort of map of the neighborhoods. Of course this is in need to be etsted, but it recovers already a large part of the quantum formalism, including its "many-worlds" appearances. of course it is "only" all he computable relatively to the uncomputable, a concept made clear by two whole branches of theoretical computer science: recursion theory and provability theory. 

​> ​

Keep in mind the goal: to solve the mind-body problem (in the computationalist frame).

​That's far too ambitious ​for now, first you've got to explain exactly what the "

mind-body problem

​" is and what sort of answer would cause you to say "the mind body problem is now solved".

? (That is what my papers are all about). I don't solve the mind body problem, I show only that IF computationalism is true, THEN the mind -body problem is reduced to a derivation of physics from arithmetic, through measure defined by self-reference relatively to all true or false sigma_1 sentences, and where we need a quantum probability, we get the right algebraical structure, but it is still open if we get the right measure (yet we can already make some comparison, and up to now, it works).

If somebody found that X caused mind would that satisfy you or would you then ask "why does X cause mind?".​ Of course you would.

With computationalism, we don't really have a problem with the mind, we just listen directly to what the machine says or can say, and mathematical logic provides excellent tools for this (like G and G* for example).

The problem is in deriving the specific appearances of matter, i.e. the appearance time energy, mass, waves, particles, ...

The tehory of mind is "easy". It has two parts: 

- 1) What universal numbers can prove about themselves and possible relations with others (science)

- 2) What is true about the universal numbers, but is such that they cannot prove it (theology).  (That exists by incompleteness).

​>> ​

​I think it would be closer to the truth to say the laws of logic assume the laws of physics not the other way around.

​> ​

This is non sense. "laws" assumes logic.

​And we like to make assumption that work. And what tells us if they work or not? ​

 

​Observations of the physical world.

That does not work. We might be dreaming. To use observation as a criterion of truth is the  "aristotelian act of faith". You forget that the "physical world" is an assumption, and if you posit it at the start, you will only see the evidences for it, a bit like creationist who start from their belief, and counts only the confirmation. The whole point is that once you assume computationalism, this simply stop to work (but you need to get quite beyond step 3 to appreciate this, I don't insist).

The observation is quite important, and can make some theory quite unplausible, but it is not the criterion of truth, which for a platonist is a more subtle feeling of simplicity and rationality.

​ And what determines the observations of the physical world? The laws of physics. 

Assuming non-computationalism. That's OK. I am not sure if your theory (in metaphysics) is testable.

If you assume computationalism, invoking a primary metaphysical physical universe is like invoking a God to make a selection of a term of the wave. You need Turing machine with paranormal ability to distinguish a reality made real by some God, and a computation which exist in the arithmetical sense (available by the explicit use of Church thesis).

​>> ​

If the laws of physics were different and whenever 2 rocks (or 2 of anything) were brought to our attention and then 2 more rocks were brought to our attention then a extra rock always popped into existence then the laws of both logic and arithmetic that humans devised would be quite different from what we have today. Everyone would say it's intuitively obvious that 2+2=5.   ​

You confuse

​ [...]

​Somebody who thinks God is a good synonym for arithmetic is in no position to call anyone confused.

God is certainly not a synomiym of arithmetic. By definition God is the realizer of everything consistent, and arithmetic is just a tiny (but key) corner of mathematics.

What happens is that in the context of the computationalist hypothesis, the Arithmetical Truth (a highly non computable set of (Gödel) numbers) obeys to the often accepted definition of "God": what explains or justfies all the appearances (except the numbers).

You are the one coming apparently with a conviction, or ontological commitment. You believe that there is something more than arithmetic, but with computationalism, you need to endow your ontology with magical abilities to interfere with the arithmetical reality. 

​> ​

 like in your preceding post, logic and arithmetic.

​Like hell I do! If our logic said X and Y never made Z but we when observe the physical world we see that X and Y always made Z people would not say the physical world had made a mistake, instead we'd say our logic must be wrong and we'd change it to something that worked.

We agreed on this. I was just saying that you were confusing logic and arithmetic. 

 

​>> ​

​

arithmetic

​ can't derive the laws of physics nor can it derive a mind, it can't even figure out how much 2+2 is without the help of matter that obeys the laws of physics. ​

​> ​

In which theory

​ ,​

 with what assumptions

​?

​What a remarkably silly thing to say! If I walk over that bridge​

 

​will it fall ​down? It depends on what theory you're using and what assumptions you're thinking about. Dumb.

OK. 

But only because in this post you make clear that you assume a physical universe. The point is that if such a physical universe has any relation with my consciousness (or anyone else) has a relation with that physical universe, you need a magic, non Turing emulable, and non Turing first person recoverable, mean for that universe to interfere with the computations in arithmetic and say hello to the machines.

​> ​

Then why use also the sense of the word given by those who have systematically banish or burn alive anyone doing personal research or harboring some doubts on some dogma.
Why are (strong) atheists so much defending the God theory of those who imposed it by violence. Why continue the violence?

​Wow. Mindless rhetoric in hyperdrive I see. ​

 

On the contrary. It is a real question which I ask myself each time (and it happens many times) a strong atheist defends the conception of theology of those who have burn alive anyone proposing a different conception?  Why strong atheists behave like if they were the guardian of the clerical orthodoxy? Why did they help the clergy in dismissing critics, questions, reason and rationality in the domain?

Only bad faith fears reason.

Bruno

 John K Clark

 

​

 

​

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Apr 2017, at 18:13, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>> ​

When 99% of the human species observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D  they have a clear mental picture of what that sequence represents,

​> ​

False! the muslims are required to not have any mental image of the Unnameable.

​False! There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, of them 600 million can read, and for every single one of them a mental idea forms when they see the squiggle "God", otherwise they wouldn't be able to read, and not one of those mental ideas is of the multiplication table.

Here my dear John, you confuse the Unnameable with a sequence of letter. The Muslims have no problem with letters and name, only picture of It. Note that the muslims who say that a caricature of the prophet is a blasphem, do blasphem. Because they create an intermediate between them and It. 

And yet you claim to be  mystified why you are misunderstood!  

Why I am misunderstood by *you*? 

Don't overgeneralize. 

It is not so easy to get both the mathematical logic/recursion theory, and the quantum physics, and then the subject concerns a problem which is basically a taboo, sadly enough also for (strong) atheists, since 1500 years of brainwashing. 

Thanks God, it is not a taboo for serious scientists and serious philosophers which are publicly agnostic.

Take all your time John, every one understand some bigger part of it from time to time soon or later.

And if you get the point you will see I am just asking a question, and showing how to explore the answer(s). I have zero pretension to any truth, or any certainty, which is the point of science.

If you decide to not understand, that's OK. It is still a mystery why you stop the reasoning at step 3.  It looks easy, like a way to avoid the more subtle points which follows. But here you are mistaken too. The translation of arithmetic eventually discharged the needs for the thought experience. In the original long thesis, I used "paradox" instead of argument, and I used them to motivate the intensional []p & <>p.

I was asked to use "argument" instead of "paradox", and I was OK, because it is an argument too, but in that domain, some people fears argumentation; so I prefer paradox, and then translate the problem in arithmetic. 

Bruno

 John K Clark

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Apr 2017, at 21:33, 'cdemo...@yahoo.com' via Everything List wrote:

On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 9:13 AM, John Clark

<johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>> ​

When 99% of the human species observe the ASCII ​sequence G-O-D  they have a clear mental picture of what that sequence represents,

​> ​

False! the muslims are required to not have any mental image of the Unnameable.

​False! There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, of them 600 million can read, and for every single one of them a mental idea forms when they see the squiggle "God", otherwise they wouldn't be able to read, and not one of those mental ideas is of the multiplication table. And yet you claim to be  mystified why you are misunderstood!  

 John K Clark

Our minds reify not only our sensorial streams -- as the brain manufactures our experience of a seemless stable "reality" (thus providing animal life, so endowed with an evolutionary advantage) -- but our brains also reify the symbolic streams of spoken and written language (plus other systems, such as say peano arithmetic etc.).

What we perceive as being our being is that which emerges out from our brains vast reification engine of reality. Our own reality, is, within each of us, that which our brains have produced -- in a pre-conscious, self-emergent, highly chaotic, noisy mental consensus generating process,  of which we are mostly blissfully unaware of.

The brain is a fascinating and fantastic reality re-manufacturing network. God emerges in each mind.... reified in the manner in which that mind-net has become "learned", and pre-consciously habituated (internally or as a result of externally injected cultural beliefs). So much of what we think we think we think, is an outcome of pre-conscious habituation. Each of our brains is an invisible wizard conjuring up our very own hi fidelity sense of being.... including in this magic trick, each of our own smug sense of ourselves.

Exactly, if we don't reify the brain too much though, which is only a universal number betting on its possible universal peers, and theories. There are good evidence we share stable computations/universal numbers, in an "Indra net" of universal numbers each reflecting all the others, and engage in complex relationships. 

God emerges in each mind? Perhaps God lost itself in each mind. A platonist would say at least that God re-emerges in each mind.

A physical brain might require infinitely many digital "brains", alias universal numbers (relations), they are "doors" for the differentiating consciousness flux.

Bruno

-Chris de Morsella 

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[John Clark]

Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Not even Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent"?.

Religion requires dogma about the nature of reality, and Smullyan didn't have any of that and neither does Taoism and neither do I. Instead Taoism and Smullyan taught that that certain mental exercises can sometimes make some people happier, and they are unlikely to make them unhappier. I think that could very well be true. And Smullyan never said mystical experiences couldn't happen but he did say talking about them is pointless. Iv'e never had a mystical experience but if I ever do I intend to keep my mouth shut about it. Perhaps by direct experience I have found something new about the world but direct experience can not be communicated, although that hasn't stopped self described mystics from writing millions of words of turgid prose in a attempt to do just that. And there is another possibility, perhaps I didn't have a mystical experience at all, maybe I just had indigestion.

As Ebenezer Scrooge said to the ghost in A Christmas Carol: 

     

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you"

 > and I urge you to read the book by Daniel J. Cohen 

Is that the book you recommended before, the book that can perform calculations?   

>>  a mind needs a brain.

 

> It needs an infinity of computations. 

There is no evidence a mind needs a infinity of calculations, and we know for a fact computers can only perform a finite number of calculations and yet they are starting to behave as if they had a mind. 

>The brain is only a local map of the locally accessible computational continuation. 

If the brain is only the map and mind is the territory then changing the map won't change the territory, but changing the brain does change the mind. So something does not compute.    

>> And a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics.  

 

> This explanation becomes circular, if invoked in the course of solving the mind-body problem.

A mind needs calculations, calculations been a brain, a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics, and matter that obeys the laws of physics does NOT need a mind. What's circular about that?

> To use observation as a criterion of truth is the  "aristotelian act of faith". 

Screw Aristotle, his contempt for observation stopped science from advancing for 2000 years!   

 > this simply stop to work (but you need to get quite beyond step 3 to appreciate this,

Step 3 of what? it's certainly not a proof, not only did it fail to prove anything I don't think you had a clear vision of what you were even trying to prove. 

> The observation is quite important, and can make some theory quite unplausible, but it is not the criterion of truth, which for a platonist

Screw Plato. 

 > I am not sure if your theory (in metaphysics) is testable.

Change the  brain and the mind changes. Change the mind and the brain chances. It's testable and it passes the test. The mind body problem is no deeper than the difference between "is" and "does". That is a race car, what that does is go fast. That is a brain, what it does is mind.  

 > you assume a physical universe.

I assume that "physical" means stuff that continues to exist even if nobody believes in it. I am certain the moon exists even if nobody is looking at it, but I am far less certain pi would exist if there were no intelligent beings to think about it, and Turing's non-computable numbers (the vast majority of the Real numbers) I find even more problematic. 

John K Clark  

 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Apr 2017, at 04:07, John Clark wrote:

Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Not even Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent"?.

Religion requires dogma about the nature of reality,

Let us avoid the term religion. better to use "theology", given that religion is a more social thing than filed of study.

Theology, when done scientifically does not require dogma. Only hypotheses, ways of reasoning and verification means.

and Smullyan didn't have any of that and neither does Taoism and neither do I.

It depends when. Taoism has undergo the same fate of christianism at some period of time in china. taoism has been mixed with the state, and imposed with terrorist technic. But of course, you can argue that this was a perversion of Taoism. Then I will tell you the same for any theories when perverted by authoritative argument by people searching power instead of knowlegde.

Instead Taoism and Smullyan taught that that certain mental exercises can sometimes make some people happier, and they are unlikely to make them unhappier. I think that could very well be true. And Smullyan never said mystical experiences couldn't happen but he did say talking about them is pointless. Iv'e never had a mystical experience but if I ever do I intend to keep my mouth shut about it.

The universal machine says the same. 

Perhaps by direct experience I have found something new about the world but direct experience can not be communicated, although that hasn't stopped self described mystics from writing millions of words of turgid prose in a attempt to do just that. And there is another possibility, perhaps I didn't have a mystical experience at all, maybe I just had indigestion.

As Ebenezer Scrooge said to the ghost in A Christmas Carol: 

     

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you"

 > and I urge you to read the book by Daniel J. Cohen 

Is that the book you recommended before, the book that can perform calculations?   

>>  a mind needs a brain.

 

> It needs an infinity of computations. 

There is no evidence a mind needs a infinity of calculations,

Indeed. but a brain, or any piece of matter do.

and we know for a fact computers can only perform a finite number of calculations and yet they are starting to behave as if they had a mind. 

Yes, but they are material, and matter---more exactly matter appearance, needs the many computations, and today physics almost make them palatable through their statistical interferences.

>The brain is only a local map of the locally accessible computational continuation. 

If the brain is only the map and mind is the territory then changing the map won't change the territory, but changing the brain does change the mind. So something does not compute.  

Right. Matter does not compute.

 

>> And a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics.  

 

> This explanation becomes circular, if invoked in the course of solving the mind-body problem.

A mind needs calculations, calculations been a brain,

No. calculations exists in arithmetic. You need only assume predicate calculus, 0≠s(x), etc.

a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics, and matter that obeys the laws of physics does NOT need a mind. What's circular about that?

It is just incoherent with respect of Mechanism.

> To use observation as a criterion of truth is the  "aristotelian act of faith". 

Screw Aristotle, his contempt for observation stopped science from advancing for 2000 years!   

Many will disagree. You have forget that science progress when people make mistaken, but clear, theory, which is what Aristotle did, assuming computationalism.

 > this simply stop to work (but you need to get quite beyond step 3 to appreciate this,

Step 3 of what?

You dod suffer from amnesia. That explains a lot.

it's certainly not a proof, not only did it fail to prove anything I don't think you had a clear vision of what you were even trying to prove. 

as hominem.

> The observation is quite important, and can make some theory quite unplausible, but it is not the criterion of truth, which for a platonist

Screw Plato. 

 > I am not sure if your theory (in metaphysics) is testable.

Change the  brain and the mind changes. Change the mind and the brain chances. It's testable and it passes the test. The mind body problem is no deeper than the difference between "is" and "does". That is a race car, what that does is go fast. That is a brain, what it does is mind.  

 > you assume a physical universe.

I assume that "physical" means stuff that continues to exist even if nobody believes in it. I am certain the moon exists even if nobody is looking at it, but I am far less certain pi would exist if there were no intelligent beings to think about it, and Turing's non-computable numbers (the vast majority of the Real numbers) I find even more problematic. 

That is the Aristotelian theology, shown incompatible with Mechanism. The moon might be there when no human look at it, but even in that case, the moon is an appearance from internal view in arithmetic. It can exist in some modal sense, but it does not exist in the admitted starting ontology. It is a first person plural construct, as should be atoms and any physical "stuff". Pi can be said to exist, as its defining relations can be proved in elementary arithmetic (and more importantly: are true). The set of all reals is indeed more problematic, and I prefer to not rely on it.

Bruno

John K Clark  

 

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[John Clark]

On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 6:37 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>> ​

Religion requires dogma about the nature of reality,

​> ​

Let us avoid the term religion.

​Fine idea.​

 

 

​> ​

better to use "theology"

​Astrology or palmistry ​would work just as well as theology, so would examining animal entrails. 

​> ​

Theology, when done scientifically

​...

​... is no longer theology​.

 

 

​>>​

There is no evidence a mind needs a infinity of calculations,

​>​

Indeed. but a brain, or any piece of matter do.

​Matter can perform calculations, but there is no evidence even one calculation needs to exist before matter can exist, let alone an infinite number of them.  ​

 

>

​>>​

The brain is only a local map of the locally accessible computational continuation. 

​>> ​

If the brain is only the map and mind is the territory then changing the map won't change the territory, but changing the brain does change the mind. So something does not compute.  

​> ​

Right.

​Then the brain is NOT the map, the brain is the territory.​

 

 

​> ​

Matter does not compute.

Bullshit. I have absolutely no trouble in providing examples of matter computing, but whenever I ask

​you ​

for

​an ​

example of computations being made without the use of matter that obeys the laws of physics

​ ​

all I get is some reference to a book about ​

Robinson arithmetic

​. ​And no book, regardless of how thick it is, can even calculate 2+2.

​And by the way, you also need to tell me how you intend to store information because a book is also made of matter that obeys the laws of physics, and so are the magnetic spots on a disk drive, and so are a stream of photons in a fiber optic cable. 

​>> ​

A mind needs calculations, calculations

​n​

een a brain,

​> ​

No. calculations exists in arithmetic.

​Show me. And don't show me a book, show me one calculation that uses nothing but arithmetic. ​Just show me.

 

 

​> ​

You need only assume predicate calculus, 0≠s(x), 

 

 0≠s(x)

​ can't calculate diddly squat! ​Prove me wrong, start the 

0≠s(x)

​ Computer Corporation and drive INTEL​

 

​into​ bankruptcy. 

 

​>> ​

a brain needs matter that obeys the laws of physics, and matter that obeys the laws of physics does NOT need a mind. What's circular about that?

​> ​

It is just incoherent with respect of Mechanism.

​Perhaps, but then for Bruno Marchal words have meanings ​that they don't have for anyone else (for example God, religion, theology, proof) and they seem to change from day to day, so I don't know what "Mechanism" means today. I do know that if X is Y and Y is Z then X is Z is not circular or incoherent.

​>> ​

Screw Aristotle, his contempt for observation stopped science from advancing for 2000 years!   

​> ​

Many will disagree.

​Who, besides you?​

 

 

​> ​

You have forget that science progress when people make mistaken,

​

All the great scientists made mistakes from time to time, but the scientific method eventually corrected them. Aristotle's blunder was of a

​entirely ​

different nature, if his advice were followed, if you never checked theory against observation, errors would never be

​ ​

corrected.

​>> ​

I assume that "physical" means stuff that continues to exist even if nobody believes in it. I am certain the moon exists even if nobody is looking at it, but I am far less certain pi would exist if there were no intelligent beings to think about it, and Turing's non-computable numbers (the vast majority of the Real numbers) I find even more problematic. 

​> ​

That is the Aristotelian theology

​Screw ​

Aristotle​

​ ​

and screw ​

theology

​.​

 

​> ​

Pi can be said to exist

​Can be said by who? By someone made of matter that obeys the laws of physics.​

 

 

​> ​

its defining relations can be proved in elementary arithmetic

Can be proved

​ ​

by who?

​ ​

By someone made of matter that obeys the laws of physics.

​ 

  J​ohn K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

All this has already been answered, and you did never reply to the comments. 

Here you just defend your conviction in Aristotle theology: you believe/assume that there is a primary physical universe. Unlike your older posts, you seem to be no more able to conceive that the mathematical reality might be more fundamental than the physical reality.

That explains plausibly why you want to stop at the third step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument, as the steps which follow shows that Digital Mechanism in cognitive science is incompatible with materialism in the physical science. Mechanism is logically incompatible with physicalism.

If you need matter to get the truth of 2+2=4, you should give us a physical proof (if that exist) of that fact, and this without assuming implicitly that 2+2=4. I am not sure why you would say "yes" to a doctor susceptible to replace your brain by a digital brain, if primary matter has a role in enacting your consciousness. What could be that role? 

Good luck,

Bruno

  J​ohn K Clark

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 5:01 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

Here you just defend your conviction in Aristotle theology:

​ ​

you believe/assume

​ [blah blah blah]​

​It is my dream that one day you will write an entire post without once referring to some fossilized ancient Greek. I have a dream!  ​

 

​> ​

That explains plausibly why you want to stop at the third step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument,

​

Another explanation is you made a blunder in step 3, a blunder so severe I suspected you literally didn't even know what you were arguing for.  Subsequent conversation has only increased my suspicion.

​> ​

If you need matter to get the truth of 2+2=4, you should give us a physical proof

​That's easy, all I have to do is reach for my $2.99 calculator punch in 2+2 and 

voila

​, I have a ​

existence proof

​ that ​

matter that obeys the laws of physics

​ can perform a calculation. ​

Now I want you to do the same thing using NOTHING but pure arithmetic. ​

​> ​

I am not sure why you would say "yes" to a doctor susceptible to replace your brain by a digital brain, if primary matter has a role in enacting your consciousness.

​Because atoms are generic. One atom of the same element is as good as another so the important thing that needs to be preserved is information on how those atoms are arranged, it's the only thing that makes me different from you. So replacing one carbon atom in my brain with another carbon atom is of no consequence to me, even replacing a carbon atom with a silicon atom is OK as long as it processes information in the same way. If it does that then it's still me.

And information is not some vague abstract quality, information is physical, information has entropy, processing information causes heat, and storing information always involves changing the PHYSICAL state of something.  Information is as close as you can get to the traditional religious concept of the soul and still remain within the scientific method.   ​

​ John K Clark​

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Apr 2017, at 19:17, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 5:01 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

Here you just defend your conviction in Aristotle theology:

​ ​

you believe/assume

​ [blah blah blah]​

​It is my dream that one day you will write an entire post without once referring to some fossilized ancient Greek. I have a dream!  ​

 

​> ​

That explains plausibly why you want to stop at the third step of the Universal Dovetailer Argument,

​

Another explanation is you made a blunder in step 3, a blunder so severe I suspected you literally didn't even know what you were arguing for.  Subsequent conversation has only increased my suspicion.

Write a text. Up to now, you convince zero person. Step 3 is kindergarden level.

Bruno

​> ​

If you need matter to get the truth of 2+2=4, you should give us a physical proof

​That's easy, all I have to do is reach for my $2.99 calculator punch in 2+2 and 

voila

​, I have a ​

existence proof

​ that ​

matter that obeys the laws of physics

​ can perform a calculation. ​

Now I want you to do the same thing using NOTHING but pure arithmetic. ​

​> ​

I am not sure why you would say "yes" to a doctor susceptible to replace your brain by a digital brain, if primary matter has a role in enacting your consciousness.

​Because atoms are generic. One atom of the same element is as good as another so the important thing that needs to be preserved is information on how those atoms are arranged, it's the only thing that makes me different from you. So replacing one carbon atom in my brain with another carbon atom is of no consequence to me, even replacing a carbon atom with a silicon atom is OK as long as it processes information in the same way. If it does that then it's still me.

And information is not some vague abstract quality, information is physical, information has entropy, processing information causes heat, and storing information always involves changing the PHYSICAL state of something.  Information is as close as you can get to the traditional religious concept of the soul and still remain within the scientific method.   ​

​ John K Clark​

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[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 10:43 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

 

​> ​

Step 3 is kindergarden level.

​I agree, and yet you blundered at the ​

kindergarten

​ ​level. And that's why I stopped reading at step 3.

​John K Clark​

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Apr 2017, at 18:12, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 10:43 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

 

​> ​

Step 3 is kindergarden level.

​I agree, and yet you blundered at the ​

kindergarten

​ ​level.

Prove it, and without blurring the 1p and 3p.

Bruno

And that's why I stopped reading at step 3.

​John K Clark​

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 3:55 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​ 

​>> ​

you blundered at the ​kindergarten

​ ​level.

​> ​

Prove it, and without blurring the 1p and 3p.

​Peepee tends not to have sharp edges, ​it's intrinsically 

blurry, just like the personal pronouns used by Bruno Marchal.

John K Clark ​

 

[Bruno Marchal]

I did just bet to a friend that your answer would contain the word "peepee". I win!

For the personal pronouns, either study my post of yesterday to David Nyman, which will explain how to handle the pronouns in the arithmetical context, and, besides, will also help you to understand that computations are executed in arithmetic. Or use the definitions on which we have already agree, and that you have recently agree by citing Everett (cf the Y = II).

Bruno

[John Clark]

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

I did just bet to a friend that your answer would contain the word "peepee". I win!

​And I bet the same mythical friend that every post of yours would either contain a peepee personal pronoun, accuse me of being religious, refer to some fossilized ancient Greek, or contain the phrase "you confuse". I win.  ​

 

​ John K Clark​

 

 

[Quentin Anciaux]

After ten years of peepee talk, you should have left this list... nothing interesting came from you and nothing will... when you're wrong, you simply ignore it and go back in a loop.

On the other side, I'm still confuse after that much time of dumb talk, Bruno still wants to try to argue with you, it's pointless.

If I had to bet between the mythical friend of Bruno and you having any friends... I'd bet on the realness of Bruno's friend.

Please leave and don't come back.

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

​> ​

Please leave and don't come back.

​No.

John K Clark​

 

 

[Bruno Marchal]

The point was that we have been on this circle since awhile:

  - 1) you see an ambiguity in the use of pronouns, and you show it in an explanation which withdraw the 1p - 3p distinction that was used.

  - 2) I reply by gently explaining to you that the ambiguity results from your forgetting of the 1p - 3p distinction. You don't use the definition given, despite you do use them in other posts.

  - 3) You reply "peepee" and urelated insulting remarks, each time I insist on that distinction, or remind it in term of the personal diaries of the people in and out the teleportation device.

It is somehow coherent with your apparent belief in Primary Matter and your lack of interest in the mind-body problem. You remind me some of dogmatic materialists.

The 1p-3p distinction can be seen as a preliminary approximation of the mind-body distinction, even if later that one appears to be a more subtle 1p-singular/1p-plural distinction. 

It is a bit more sophisticate when we do the math where we are lead to the combinations of 8 povs, even 4 + 4*infinity because the "intelligible and sensible material povs appear to be graded. (The one that I sum up by p, []p, []p&p, []p&<>t, []p&<>t&p, with p representing a sigma_1 proposition, which are the leaves of UD*.

Bruno

​ John K Clark​

 

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Apr 2017, at 19:43, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

After ten years of peepee talk, you should have left this list... nothing interesting came from you and nothing will... when you're wrong, you simply ignore it and go back in a loop.

On the other side, I'm still confuse after that much time of dumb talk, Bruno still wants to try to argue with you, it's pointless.

It is for the new bees. I don't (really) argue with him, by still giving him some chance to. I try to evaluate the bug, and compare with other dogmatic or fanatic. 

As I see that a lot of suffering in the world is due to bad faith, I study the phenomenon. 

The ideally correct machine is already in heaven. The real problem is how to help the not quite "ideally correct machines".

If I had to bet between the mythical friend of Bruno and you having any friends... I'd bet on the realness of Bruno's friend.

Please leave and don't come back.

Note that despite JC repetition, I progress in the shortness, conciseness ... of the answer (take only few seconds), and most of the times, it is just helpful material for the new-bees. 

Now, I might still have some neurons arguing that JC might still wake up on this some day. He deserves some respect.

John Clark is far better than some people, who have such discourse yet only in closed circle, without any possibility of answering, and I have to solve the Lille mystery, also. John Clark is helpful in illustrating the bad faith phenomenon, which should not be neglected, perhaps as some sub-branch of theology, also. Is bad faith only a result of believing to know the truth? Or just the usual hate of the Others, like Sartre illustrated? 

Bruno

2017-04-13 19:07 GMT+02:00 John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com>:

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

I did just bet to a friend that your answer would contain the word "peepee". I win!

​And I bet the same mythical friend that every post of yours would either contain a peepee personal pronoun, accuse me of being religious, refer to some fossilized ancient Greek, or contain the phrase "you confuse". I win.  ​

 

​ John K Clark​

 

 

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[John Clark]

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 11:55 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

you see an ambiguity in the use of pronouns, and you show it

​

And Bruno Marchal sees that ambiguity too, otherwise Bruno Marchal

​ ​

could prove John Clark wrong by

​just ​

replacing every personal pronoun with the proper noun it refers to. That would be very easy to do, but then the weakness of the argument would be exposed for all to see.

 

​> ​

in an explanation which withdraw the 1p - 3p distinction that was used.

​ ​

I reply by gently explaining to you that the ambiguity results from your forgetting of the 1p - 3p distinction.

​

Well,

​at least is was "your forgetting" rather than the more usual "you confuse", but the trouble is ​

in explaining the

​ ​

1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

makes extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you", even though Bruno

​ ​

Marchal knows that a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used in the future.  And yet Bruno Marchal says the meaning of the word "you" remains as crystal clear as if it were used in the present tense in our everyday world that lacks a "you" duplicating machine.  And that just doesn't work.

​

Bruno

​ ​

Marchal

​ ​

will respond to this by saying John Clark is

​ ​

forgetting

​ ​

(or confusing)

​ ​

the 1p - 3p distinction, and in explaining the 1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

will make extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you", even though....

 

​> ​

It is a bit more sophisticate when we do the math

​No, math does not make the argument one bit more sophisticated because math is not magic and one universal principle still holds true, garbage in garbage out.

 John K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Apr 2017, at 20:12, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 11:55 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​> ​

you see an ambiguity in the use of pronouns, and you show it

​

And Bruno Marchal sees that ambiguity too, otherwise Bruno Marchal

​ ​

could prove John Clark wrong by

​just ​

replacing every personal pronoun with the proper noun it refers to. That would be very easy to do, but then the weakness of the argument would be exposed for all to see.

 

​> ​

in an explanation which withdraw the 1p - 3p distinction that was used.

​ ​

I reply by gently explaining to you that the ambiguity results from your forgetting of the 1p - 3p distinction.

​

Well,

​at least is was "your forgetting" rather than the more usual "you confuse", but the trouble is ​

in explaining the

​ ​

1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

makes extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you", even though Bruno

​ ​

Marchal knows that a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used in the future.  And yet Bruno Marchal says the meaning of the word "you" remains as crystal clear as if it were used in the present tense in our everyday world that lacks a "you" duplicating machine.  And that just doesn't work.

​

Bruno

​ ​

Marchal

​ ​

will respond to this by saying John Clark is

​ ​

forgetting

​ ​

(or confusing)

​ ​

the 1p - 3p distinction, and in explaining the 1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

will make extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you", even though....

Not "you", but 1-yous or 3-you. And that is enough to get the non ambiguous conclusion. You are the one coming back with "you" without the needed precision, due to the duplication. It is the same with proper nouns, as already shown more than one. You repeat a trick which has been explained away a long time ago.

Bruno

 

​> ​

It is a bit more sophisticate when we do the math

​No, math does not make the argument one bit more sophisticated because math is not magic and one universal principle still holds true, garbage in garbage out.

 John K Clark

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[John Clark]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 4:23 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>> ​

Bruno

​ ​

Marchal

​ ​

will respond to this by saying John Clark is

​ ​

forgetting

​ ​

(or confusing)

​ ​

the 1p - 3p distinction, and in explaining the 1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

will make extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you"

​> ​

Not "you", but 1-yous or 3-you.

​ ​

And that is enough to get the non ambiguous conclusion.

​Oh that makes things much clearer! You refers to the you that think's he's you, but 1-yous refers to the 1-yous that thinks he's 1-yous. Thanks a lot.​

 

 

​> ​

You are the one coming back with "you" without the needed precision, due to the duplication.

​

John Clark has no need to precisely define the word "you" because John Clark has no need to use that or any other personal pronoun to explain John Clark's ideas but instead can simply

​ ​

use a proper noun. By contrast Bruno Marchal can not do that because the inherent ambiguity the word "you" will always have if a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used

​ ​

on "you"

​ ​

in the future is the only thing that disguises the underlying

​ ​

silliness of Bruno Marchal's ideas.

​ 

 John K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Apr 2017, at 17:30, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 4:23 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​

​>> ​

Bruno

​ ​

Marchal

​ ​

will respond to this by saying John Clark is

​ ​

forgetting

​ ​

(or confusing)

​ ​

the 1p - 3p distinction, and in explaining the 1p - 3p distinction

​ ​

Bruno Marchal

​ ​

will make extensive use of the future perfect tense and of course of the personal pronoun "you"

​> ​

Not "you", but 1-yous or 3-you.

​ ​

And that is enough to get the non ambiguous conclusion.

​Oh that makes things much clearer! You refers to the you that think's he's you, but 1-yous refers to the 1-yous that thinks he's 1-yous. Thanks a lot.​

 

I was referring to the previous explanations. You are doing rhetorical tricks only.

 

​> ​

You are the one coming back with "you" without the needed precision, due to the duplication.

​

John Clark has no need to precisely define the word "you" because John Clark has no need to use that or any other personal pronoun to explain John Clark's ideas but instead can simply

​ ​

use a proper noun. By contrast Bruno Marchal can not do that because the inherent ambiguity the word "you" will always have if a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used

​ ​

on "you"

​ ​

in the future is the only thing that disguises the underlying

​ ​

silliness of Bruno Marchal's ideas.

​ 

I can do that, I did do that, and you did not answer. I let you find the post.

Bruno

 John K Clark

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Apr 2017, at 21:43, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
>
> On 4/1/2017 11:55 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> Am 01.04.2017 um 23:50 schrieb Brent Meeker:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/1/2017 12:39 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>>>> I would like to note that in the paper that I have referenced
>>>> discusses a completely different question. Provided that one could
>>>> explain religion in the framework of evolutionary advantages, the
>>>> question arises whether one should also try to explain atheism in
>>>> the same framework.
>>>>
>>>> In the paper there are references to empirical studies that show
>>>> that atheists have lower birthrates.
>>>
>>> It's also true that atheists have a higher proportion of their
>>> children survive to adulthood. These are simply correlates: in
>>> technological, educated societies people have fewer children and
>>> have
>>> fewer of them die young - and they are less superstitious.
>>
>> It might be good to check if this statement complies with empirical
>> findings.
>
> Just compare statistics for a nation with lots of non-believers, e.g
> France or Sweden, to those with a high proportion of believers, e.g.
> Afghanistan or Ethiopia. Which is not to say it's a cause/effect
> relationship. Where life is hard and medical services are sparse
> people cling to religion and their children often die - so they have
> more children to compensate...and having more children contributes
> to their poverty. All the major religions encourage fertility.
> Religion as a political force aims to win by demographics.

I would like to see the details, and the formulary used. In some group
people classify me, or agnostic like me, as atheists, because we
don't believe in God, nor assume it, and in other groups we are
classified as believer, because we don't believe in the non-existence
of god. If the formulary exploits the confusion between ~[], and []~,
they are of no value. If you have a link on some formulary used, I
would be interested. I have qualified myself as atheists for years.
The problem I got was only with what you have called "strong atheists".

Both in machine theology and in neoplatonism, God does not exist, in
the sense that it is not a being, but it meta-exists and is
responsible for the existence or appearance of all beings. Again, that
might sound a bit mysterious, but the same appears in logic: the
arithmetical truth is responsible for the dreams and the development
of beliefs (true and false).

Bruno





>
> Brent
>
>>
>>>> Dominic Johnson tries to explain this empirical fact in
>>>> evolutionary terms.
>>>
>>> I looked up Johnson's papers. Thanks for pointing him out. Some
>>> the theories in "The Elephant in the Room" apply equally to current
>>> politics, e.g. in section 3e:
>>
>> Indeed, Johnson has a paper
>>
>> Dominic D. P. Johnson, Bradley A. Thayer, The evolution of
>> offensive realism: Survival under anarchy from the Pleistocene to
>> the present, Politics and the Life Sciences, v. 35, N 1, p. 1 — 26,
>> 2016.
>>
>> that is pretty similar.
>>
>> Evgenii

[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 4:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

​>> ​

John Clark has no need to precisely define the word "you" because John Clark has no need to use that or any other personal pronoun to explain John Clark's ideas but instead can simply

​ ​

use a proper noun. By contrast Bruno Marchal can not do that because the inherent ambiguity the word "you" will always have if a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used

​ ​

on "you"

​ ​

in the future is the only thing that disguises the underlying

​ ​

silliness of Bruno Marchal's ideas.

​ 

​> ​

I can do that, I did do that, and you did not answer. I let you find the post.

​

Ah yes that mythical magical post that you've been talking about for years, the wonderful post where you logically refute all my points and make your theory crystal clear with no circularity or ambiguity, the post that is, unfortunately, as hard to find

​as ​

the Loch Ness Monster, unicorns,

​or ​

the

​ ​

pot of gold at the end of

​ ​

a

​ ​

rainbow.  

​ ​

John K Clark  
 

 

[Telmo Menezes]

You know why it's hard to find? Because every time that post shows up you:

go silent;
wait a certain amount of time;
come back to the beginning of the loop.

That's why. It doesn't take an oracle to figure out that this
computation doesn't terminate.

In any case, the post will never work with you. Natural language is (I
think necessarily) ambiguous, so it is only possible to discuss ideas
if all interlocutors are acting in good faith. The opportunities to
misinterpret anything on purpose are infinite, and you are a master at
taking advantage of them.

How to talk about first-person experience vs. third-person theory with
someone who is fixated on pronoun legalese? Forget about it -- with no
offense to Bruno -- it's a fool's errand.

Telmo.

[Bruno Marchal]

John was doing a rhetorical maneuver again. The "mythical post" was
just the sane04 paper. I was only alluding to the hundreds of post
where he did what you describe above, where he introduces an ambiguity
in the proper name or pronouns by abstracting from the 1p-3p
distinction in the duplication experiences, and when someone explained
this to him, he answered with "peepee" or thing at that level. I was
alluding to hundreds of posts. John has never write one clear post
refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one
post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications,
which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John
dreams for cannot occur.

It is not innocuous, as John is not the only one doing that. he is the
only one doing it in front of me, so to speak. But the refusal of my
thesis in 1998 in Brussels was based on similar maneuver (behind my
back though), and the disappearance of the Le Monde prize too, and
this by the director of the thesis in France, which was rather
enthusiast at the defense of the thesis. That is why I try to
understand their motivation. I know the motivation in Brussels, but
elsewhere it is still a mystery.

Bruno

>
> Telmo.
>
>> John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
>>
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[Quentin Anciaux]

I think you're overthinking it... The motivation of John is clear, plain and simple, he is a troll... He likes to contradict, if his contradiction is plainly false the better... He has no other motivation than being a troll... he must enjoy it that much for doing it since so long.

So don't feed the troll, stop answering him... as he likes it, that can continue till death of one of you, you won't make him acknowledge anything you say or change his mind... that would presuppose he has one, which is very unlikely.

Telmo.

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[Telmo Menezes]

Bruno and Quentin,

In my view John is not a troll -- in the sense that I don't think he
is insincere. I think he's an intellectual bully, and I think there
are many of them in the world of academia or otherwise.

I think all the horrible stuff of organized religion does not come
from religion itself. It is just the exploitation of a more
fundamental, and perhaps abstract, human flaw. It's a certain flavour
of close-mindedness that can thrive on any set of ideas. This can be
done with science, it can be done with ideology and we are living in
an era where what I am saying is perhaps all too evident. I would say
that this bad instinct comes when the desire to be right, for status
or for meaning overrides the desire for truth-seeking.

I call John a bully not because he disagrees with Bruno. Blindly
agreeing is not truth-seeking. I call him that because he is
intellectually closed to the possibility that he might be missing
something, and then uses tricks to protect his ego: forced
misunderstanding of words, name-calling, the "peepee" argument and so
on.

To be sure, I admit that I have been guilty in the past of all the
things I am describing above. He are all human.

I agree with Quentin that it is a waste of time to dwell on this topic too much.

I was attracted to this mailing list because it was an environment
where "crazy" ideas where given a chance, and discussed seriously be
interested and interesting people. Such environments are fragile, they
last while they last. If not John, someone else would play the role of
the bully.

I am a bit sad that discussion is now moving to facebook. For sure
it's a way to "escape" and try to recover the freedom, but it is
misguided. Facebook is an algorithmically-controlled environment. I
cannot write a post there and be sure that the people who follow a
certain group will have a chance to read it. That's for facebook to
decide, ultimately based on advertiser-imposed constraints.

Telmo.

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[David Nyman]

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent. Anyway, in this way of thinking, after my 3-duplication there are of course two 3-copies; so in the 3-view it can make perfect sense to say that each copy is me (i.e. one of my continuations). Hence my expectation in that same 3-sense is that I will be present in both locations. However, again in terms of the heuristic, it is equally the case that each 1-view is occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*. Hoyle shows us how all the copies can indeed come to occupy each of their relative spatio-temporal locations in the logical serialisation, but also that *these cannot occur simultaneously*.

The crucial point to bear in mind is that according to Hoyle, both of these understandings are equally true and *do not contradict each other*. Furthermore, comp or no comp, they are surely consistent with anything we would reasonably expect to experience: namely, that whenever sufficiently accurate copies of our bodies could be made, using whatever method, our expectation would nevertheless be to find ourselves occupying a single 1-view, representing a subjectively exclusive spatio-temporal location. Indeed it is that very 1-view which effectively defines the relative boundaries of any given time and place. Subjective experiences are temporally and spatially bounded by definition; it is therefore inescapable that they are mutually exclusive in the 1-view. So what Hoyle's method achieves here is a clear and important distinction between the notion of 3-synchronisation (i.e. temporal co-location with respect to a publicly available clock) and that of 1-simultaneity (i.e. the co-occurrence of two spatio-temporally distinct perspectives within a single, momentary 1-view). Whereas the former is commonplace and hence to be expected, the latter is entirely inconsistent with normal experience and hence should not be.

By the way, I shall be on holiday in Sicily from April 20th until May 12th (one of me only, I trust) so I probably won't be appearing much in the list during that period.

David

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

Anyway, in this way of thinking, after my 3-duplication there are of course two 3-copies; so in the 3-view it can make perfect sense to say that each copy is me (i.e. one of my continuations). Hence my expectation in that same 3-sense is that I will be present in both locations. However, again in terms of the heuristic, it is equally the case that each 1-view is occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*. Hoyle shows us how all the copies can indeed come to occupy each of their relative spatio-temporal locations in the logical serialisation, but also that *these cannot occur simultaneously*.

I think it is the indexical view, that Saunders attributes to Everett. It is also implicit in Galileo and Einstein relativity theory. With the discovery of the universal number in arithmetic, and their executions and interaction are described by elementary reasoning, although tedious like I have try to give you a gist lately :)

The crucial point to bear in mind is that according to Hoyle, both of these understandings are equally true and *do not contradict each other*.

Mechanism would be inconsistent. But even arithmetic and computer science would be inconsistent. It would be like the discovery of a program capable to predict in advance the specific answer to where its backup will be upload in a cut and double paste operation.

In "real life" that is made precise and simple, I think, by the temporary definition of the first person by the owner of the personal diary, which enter the teleportation box.

In the math, that will be be featured by the difference between "[]p", and "[]p & p", with other nuances. They do not contradict each other, as G* proves them equivalent on arithmetic, but they obey quite different logic. A logic of communicable beliefs about oneself, and a logic of informal non communicable personal intuition/knowledge, here limited to the rational. "[]p & p" cannot be captured by one box definable in arithmetic, we can only meta-define it on simpler machine than us that we trust. here you have to introspect yourself if you agree or not with the usual axioms I have given (which is really the question, did you take your kids back from school when a teacher dares to tell them that 2+2=4.

Furthermore, comp or no comp, they are surely consistent with anything we would reasonably expect to experience: namely, that whenever sufficiently accurate copies of our bodies could be made, using whatever method, our expectation would nevertheless be to find ourselves occupying a single 1-view, representing a subjectively exclusive spatio-temporal location. Indeed it is that very 1-view which effectively defines the relative boundaries of any given time and place. Subjective experiences are temporally and spatially bounded by definition; it is therefore inescapable that they are mutually exclusive in the 1-view.

Assuredly.

So what Hoyle's method achieves here is a clear and important distinction between the notion of 3-synchronisation (i.e. temporal co-location with respect to a publicly available clock) and that of 1-simultaneity (i.e. the co-occurrence of two spatio-temporally distinct perspectives within a single, momentary 1-view). Whereas the former is commonplace and hence to be expected, the latter is entirely inconsistent with normal experience and hence should not be.

But did Hoyle accepted the pure indexical view? Did he not attempt to make a selection with some flash of light? It is tempting to select a computation among the infinities, like when adding hidden variables and special initial condition in QM, or like when invoking irrationality like Roland Omnès still in QM (sic), or, no less irrational, like invoking God in QM again (like Belinfante), or like invoking Primary Matter in Arithmetic (like, I'm afraid many of us do unconsciously, by a sort of innate extrapolation, which has its role in helping us to not confuse the prey and the predator.

With computationalism, what is important is to understand that this leads to a difficult mathematical problem, basically: finding a measure on the (true) sigma_1 sentences. This is made possible only if we get the right logic on the intensional variants of provability imposed by incompleteness.

I should explain better this: there are three incompleteness theorems:

1) PA (and its consistent extensions) is (are) undecidable (there is a true arithmetical proposition not provable by PA, which is assumed consistent).

2) If PA is consistent, then PA cannot prove its consistency.

3) (which is the major thing) PA proves 2 above. That if: PA proves (~beweisbar('f') -> ~beweisbar('~beweisbar('f')').

Many people ignores that Gödel discovered (without proving it) that PA already knew (in the theaetetus sense) Gödel's theorem. That will be proven in all details by Hilbert and Bernays, and embellished by the crazy Löb contribution. More on this more later. My scheduling tight up exponentially up to June I'm afraid.

By the way, I shall be on holiday in Sicily from April 20th until May 12th (one of me only, I trust) so I probably won't be appearing much in the list during that period.

Meanwhile I think about the intermediate level, but it is difficult, if not perilous, to give an informal account of the formal and informal differences between the formal and informal, and this without going through a minimum of formality, ... well don't mind too much. 

May be you can meditate on the Plotinus - arithmetic lexicon, keeping in mind we talk about a simple machine we trust to be arithmetically correct, the machine will be able to "live" the difference between

truth  (the One, p)

rationally justifiable (the man (G), the Noùs (G*) []p

knowable (the universal soul, the first person, S4Grz)  []p & p (Theaetetus)

====

Observable (Intelligible matter, Z1*) []p & <>t

Feelable (Sensible  matter, X1*) []p & <>t & p.   (Plotinus might be a good intermediate level, somehow, Smullyan too perhaps)

Just one truth, but viewed according to many different type of views (the hypostases above), and different "observer moment" defined by the many universal numbers in arithmetic (the box are parametrized by the four numbers above, in a first simple description).

Take it easy. Happy holiday! 

Bruno

David

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[David Nyman]

On 19 April 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

​Sure, but I believe the idea is that after the metaphorical "selection" (i.e. not a real process - more below) of any given 1-view, the "agent" finds itself immediately 1-relativised to a particular psychological history. Hence ISTM that, from each 1-view, relative predictions would be the same as in the usual comp situation. Of course, there is always the issue of differential measure over the entire class of 1-views. Hoyle's heuristic imposes a quasi-frequency interpretation of probability for any finite segment of the serialisation and, in terms of histories, we do indeed find ourselves (at least psychologically) bounded within some quasi-finite segment. So I imagine Hoyle would want us to think in terms of the "most probable" continuations being selected more frequently, whether these are considered absolutely pre-selection, or relatively post. Of course the agent is bound to "encounter" 1-views of lower probability, but then this is ultimately a matter to be resolved in the struggle between consistent remembering (hardly ever) and inconsistent forgetting (almost always). One could say that the former are perhaps analogous to the in-phase, least-action part of Feynman's path integral approach and the latter with the out-of-phase part.

Anyway, in this way of thinking, after my 3-duplication there are of course two 3-copies; so in the 3-view it can make perfect sense to say that each copy is me (i.e. one of my continuations). Hence my expectation in that same 3-sense is that I will be present in both locations. However, again in terms of the heuristic, it is equally the case that each 1-view is occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*. Hoyle shows us how all the copies can indeed come to occupy each of their relative spatio-temporal locations in the logical serialisation, but also that *these cannot occur simultaneously*.

I think it is the indexical view, that Saunders attributes to Everett.

​Well, it's clear from the narrative of the novel that Hoyle meant the 1-view.

​

It is also implicit in Galileo and Einstein relativity theory. With the discovery of the universal number in arithmetic, and their executions and interaction are described by elementary reasoning, although tedious like I have try to give you a gist lately :)

The crucial point to bear in mind is that according to Hoyle, both of these understandings are equally true and *do not contradict each other*.

Mechanism would be inconsistent. But even arithmetic and computer science would be inconsistent. It would be like the discovery of a program capable to predict in advance the specific answer to where its backup will be upload in a cut and double paste operation.

In "real life" that is made precise and simple, I think, by the temporary definition of the first person by the owner of the personal diary, which enter the teleportation box.

In the math, that will be be featured by the difference between "[]p", and "[]p & p", with other nuances. They do not contradict each other, as G* proves them equivalent on arithmetic, but they obey quite different logic. A logic of communicable beliefs about oneself, and a logic of informal non communicable personal intuition/knowledge, here limited to the rational. "[]p & p" cannot be captured by one box definable in arithmetic, we can only meta-define it on simpler machine than us that we trust. here you have to introspect yourself if you agree or not with the usual axioms I have given (which is really the question, did you take your kids back from school when a teacher dares to tell them that 2+2=4.

Furthermore, comp or no comp, they are surely consistent with anything we would reasonably expect to experience: namely, that whenever sufficiently accurate copies of our bodies could be made, using whatever method, our expectation would nevertheless be to find ourselves occupying a single 1-view, representing a subjectively exclusive spatio-temporal location. Indeed it is that very 1-view which effectively defines the relative boundaries of any given time and place. Subjective experiences are temporally and spatially bounded by definition; it is therefore inescapable that they are mutually exclusive in the 1-view.

Assuredly.

So what Hoyle's method achieves here is a clear and important distinction between the notion of 3-synchronisation (i.e. temporal co-location with respect to a publicly available clock) and that of 1-simultaneity (i.e. the co-occurrence of two spatio-temporally distinct perspectives within a single, momentary 1-view). Whereas the former is commonplace and hence to be expected, the latter is entirely inconsistent with normal experience and hence should not be.

But did Hoyle accepted the pure indexical view?

​Yes, that he meant the 1-view is quite clear from the narrative of October the First. 

​

Did he not attempt to make a selection with some flash of light?

​But remember it's only meant to be a metaphor. So the flash of light (or the guy wandering among the pigeon holes) in effect plays the role of stepping through the computational continuations, when considered relative to any point of origin within a history. Otherwise the metaphor would have been static.

It is tempting to select a computation among the infinities, like when adding hidden variables and special initial condition in QM, or like when invoking irrationality like Roland Omnès still in QM (sic), or, no less irrational, like invoking God in QM again (like Belinfante), or like invoking Primary Matter in Arithmetic (like, I'm afraid many of us do unconsciously, by a sort of innate extrapolation, which has its role in helping us to not confuse the prey and the predator.

With computationalism, what is important is to understand that this leads to a difficult mathematical problem, basically: finding a measure on the (true) sigma_1 sentences. This is made possible only if we get the right logic on the intensional variants of provability imposed by incompleteness.

I should explain better this: there are three incompleteness theorems:

1) PA (and its consistent extensions) is (are) undecidable (there is a true arithmetical proposition not provable by PA, which is assumed consistent).

2) If PA is consistent, then PA cannot prove its consistency.

3) (which is the major thing) PA proves 2 above. That if: PA proves (~beweisbar('f') -> ~beweisbar('~beweisbar('f')').

Many people ignores that Gödel discovered (without proving it) that PA already knew (in the theaetetus sense) Gödel's theorem. That will be proven in all details by Hilbert and Bernays, and embellished by the crazy Löb contribution. More on this more later. My scheduling tight up exponentially up to June I'm afraid.

By the way, I shall be on holiday in Sicily from April 20th until May 12th (one of me only, I trust) so I probably won't be appearing much in the list during that period.

Meanwhile I think about the intermediate level, but it is difficult, if not perilous, to give an informal account of the formal and informal differences between the formal and informal, and this without going through a minimum of formality, ... well don't mind too much. 

May be you can meditate on the Plotinus - arithmetic lexicon, keeping in mind we talk about a simple machine we trust to be arithmetically correct, the machine will be able to "live" the difference between​

truth  (the One, p)

rationally justifiable (the man (G), the Noùs (G*) []p

knowable (the universal soul, the first person, S4Grz)  []p & p (Theaetetus)

====

Observable (Intelligible matter, Z1*) []p & <>t

Feelable (Sensible  matter, X1*) []p & <>t & p.   (Plotinus might be a good intermediate level, somehow, Smullyan too perhaps)

Just one truth, but viewed according to many different type of views (the hypostases above), and different "observer moment" defined by the many universal numbers in arithmetic (the box are parametrized by the four numbers above, in a first simple description).

​I will dream on this.

​

Take it easy. Happy holiday!

 

​I'll do my best

​!​

David

 

Bruno

David

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017  Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

​>> ​

Ah yes that mythical magical post that you've been talking about for years, the wonderful post where you logically refute all my points and make your theory crystal clear with no circularity or ambiguity, the post that is, unfortunately, as hard to find 

​as ​

the Loch Ness Monster, unicorns, 

​or ​

the

​ ​

pot of gold at the end of

​ ​

a

​ ​

rainbow.  

​> ​

You know why it's hard to find? Because every time that post shows up you:

​ ​

go silent;
wait a certain amount of time;

​ ​

come back to the beginning of the loop.

​ ​

That's why.

​

BULLSHIT!! Prove me wrong, find the

​ ​

Loch Ness Monster

​, find this wonderful post that proves that the personal pronoun "you" can be used without ambiguity in the future perfect tense even if a "you" duplicating machine is going to be used on "you" in the future. Show me the post that explains why the question "what one and only one city will you see in the future after you have been duplicated?" can have one and only one answer. And after that show me the magical unicorn of a post that says which of the two cities "you" end up seeing. Was the one and only one correct answer Moscow or Washington? 

You seem very familiar with this mysterious post that I "go silent" about, so it shouldn't take you long to find it. I await your reply with eagerness.    

​> ​

How to talk about first-person experience vs. third-person theory

​You tell me.​

 

​> ​

with

​ ​

someone who is fixated on pronoun legalese?

 

​Legalese my ass. If you claim to have a scientific theory you should be able to clearly explain it without circularity and do it with AT LEAST as little ambiguity as a lawyer can argue his case at the Supreme Court. The entire point of Bruno's paper is to explore the relationship between the first-person experience and the third-person, and yet on page 1 he already throws around a word like "you" as if the matter has already been settled, even when "you" is about to walk into a "you" duplicating machine. Bruno is starting with the very thing he's trying to prove, from page 1 line 1 Bruno is assuming the "you" duplicating machine can't really duplicate EVERYTHING about "you" only some of the things. 

Bruno assumes that there is some mysterious thing called "1-p you" that can't be duplicated, the "1-p you" is of course just a euphemism for "soul". I do admit if one starts with the assumption that the soul exists then it's easy to conclude the soul exists, but I can find no reason to doubt a you duplicating machine can duplicate everything about you including your soul, sorry I meant to say including your 1-p you.

For a proof to be worth anything you need to get more out of it than you put in, even I can prove that the Ryman hypothesis is true if you let me start with the assumption that the Ryman hypothesis is true, but that is unlikely to earn me the Fields Medal.  

  John K Clark

[Brent Meeker]

It seems to me that this is mostly a semantic problem arising from a mismatch between common language and a theory built on computations producing "observer moments" or "events of consciousness" or "thoughts".  The theory implies that at a fundamental level there is no "you".  You are a construct, made of a sequence of experiences.  Bruno's "duplication" isn't really duplicating something, it's just forking the sequence.  So talk of 1-person or 3-person is misleading - those are emergent concepts at a much higher level than computations and even experiences.  They are at a level where physics has emerged and so it makes sense to talk about where "you" are.  That's why I tend to emphasize the essential role of an environment as referent for "thoughts" and I think the material world, even if not fundamental, is just as fundamental as the mental world.

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/19/2017 10:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017  Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

​>> ​

Ah yes that mythical magical post that you've been talking about for years, the wonderful post where you logically refute all my points and make your theory crystal clear with no circularity or ambiguity, the post that is, unfortunately, as hard to find 

​as ​

the Loch Ness Monster, unicorns, 

​or ​

the

​ ​

pot of gold at the end of

​ ​

a

​ ​

rainbow.  

​> ​

You know why it's hard to find? Because every time that post shows up you:

​ ​

go silent;
wait a certain amount of time;

​ ​

come back to the beginning of the loop.

​ ​

That's why.

​

BULLSHIT!! Prove me wrong, find the

​ ​

Loch Ness Monster

​,

Read the paper. Then comment.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

Brent

[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 4:30 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Read the paper. Then comment.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html

​I read the paper till it got stupid, and then I did comment.

John K Clark​

 

 

[David Nyman]

I don't think I'd take particular issue with any of this. For the record though, Hoyle's metaphor wasn't specifically about computationalism. In the novel, the explicit background assumption was a physical multiverse. The heuristic, as I call it, was Hoyle's view of the relation between that physical context and the self-localisation of sentient agents in perceptual time and space. I guess you could call it Everettian with monopsychic overtones. He also made it clear that this wasn't just a narrative device; he also took it seriously as a scientist. Anyway, as was indeed its purpose in Hoyle's story, I hold out the faint hope that it just might help defuse an otherwise unnecessary misunderstanding and its attendant terminological wrangles.

David

Brent

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[John Clark]

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 6:56 AM, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:

​> ​

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment

​As a kid I remember reading ​

Fred Hoyle's

​Novel "

October the First Is Too Late

​"​ and in it he wrote about consciousness for about half a paragraph, is that what you're talking about?

 

​> ​

Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment.

​

Well yes, but all that's really saying is that we have a subjective feeling of time and space, but we already knew that. As I remember it Hoyle talked about events (that is to say a time and a place) being in pigeon holes in no particular order and consciousness is like a light

​flashing​

 on

​a sequence of

pigeon hole i

​n a very particular ​

order. The set of pigeon holes you have to work with is the same as the set I have,  the thing that makes you different than me is

​that ​

the sequence of light flashes illuminating those pigeon holes is different for you and me. 

Or to put it another way

​,​

the difference between you and me is information. So if the information on how my mind operates is put into a computer and then my body is destroyed my consciousness does not stop, if two phonographs are synchronized and playing the same

​ 

symphony and you destroy one machine, the music does not stop.

​ ​

The fundamental question you have to ask yourself is; are we, our subjective existence, more like bricks or symphonies?    

Actually Hoyle's analogy would have been better if he put thoughts in those pigeon holes rather than events because you don't have thoughts you are thoughts.  

​>​

 each 1-view is occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*.

​I see no reason that must me true. Suppose all your life you had 2 brains in your head not one, the 2 brains were identical and always received identical information from your senses so they always agreed on how to operate your body. So perfect was the agreement that neither brain suspected the existence of the other. And then one day one of those brains was instantaneously stopped, what would be the result?  Obviously a outside observer would notice no change in your behavior so objectively there would be no difference, and no thoughts would be interrupted so there would be no subjective change either. If stopping that brain makes no objective difference and it makes no subjective difference then it's safe to say it just makes no difference. 

Also I don't think it makes much sense in saying your consciousness occupies a unique space. When you think about The 

Eiffel Tower

​ 

is your subjectivity in

​France​

 or is it in a bone box sitting on your shoulders?   

  John K Clark    

 

[David Nyman]

On 20 Apr 2017 12:57 a.m., "John Clark" <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 6:56 AM, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:

​> ​

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment

​As a kid I remember reading ​

Fred Hoyle's

​Novel "

October the First Is Too Late

​"​ and in it he wrote about consciousness for about half a paragraph, is that what you're talking about?

Yes, I'm talking about that novel. I too read it more than forty years ago. However I recently re-read it and I can assure you that the treatment of conscious experience in the manner described is both extensive and central to the theme of the novel. Hoyle went out of the way to emphasise that he took his "heuristic" seriously as a scientist, as his former student John Gribbin fully attested. Julian Barbour also acknowledges Hoyle's priority in the notion of subjectivity as captured by time capsules, an essentially equivalent notion.

 

​> ​

Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment.

​

Well yes, but all that's really saying is that we have a subjective feeling of time and space, but we already knew that.

It goes well beyond that, as the narrative is at pains to set out. Hoyle's physicist protagonist invites the other main character to place himself in the subjective position represented by any of the pigeon holes, in any order. Then he asks him to explain what he thinks his subjective experience would be. His response (the guy is very quick on the uptake) is that his experience would appear to be perfectly normally​ sequenced from a psycho-historical point of view, despite random ordering from an external perspective. He also immediately grasps that any number of apparently individualised perspectives could be "interleaved" in this manner whilst retaining psycho-historical continuity for each.

As I remember it Hoyle talked about events (that is to say a time and a place) being in pigeon holes in no particular order and consciousness is like a light

​flashing​

 on

​a sequence of

pigeon hole i

​n a very particular ​

order. The set of pigeon holes you have to work with is the same as the set I have,  the thing that makes you different than me is

​that ​

the sequence of light flashes illuminating those pigeon holes is different for you and me.

Yes, more or less. Hoyle's explicit conceptual point is that a single common agent could be occupying all these perceptual positions, in whatever extrinsic order, and the net subjective result would be as if you, me or any other notionally sentient entities were experiencing completely separated​ and sequenced personal histories. But this is just what one would expect, for example, of any computational device capable of compartmentalising one program's states from another's. Hence it establishes the distinction I mentioned between the notion of synchronization as publicly established with respect to a common clock and that of subjective simultaneity.

Or to put it another way

​,​

the difference between you and me is information. So if the information on how my mind operates is put into a computer and then my body is destroyed my consciousness does not stop, if two phonographs are synchronized and playing the same

​ 

symphony and you destroy one machine, the music does not stop.

​ ​

The fundamental question you have to ask yourself is; are we, our subjective existence, more like bricks or symphonies?    

Actually Hoyle's analogy would have been better if he put thoughts in those pigeon holes rather than events because you don't have thoughts you are thoughts.  

Subjectively, yes, I agree. But Hoyle actually makes this point explicitly.

​>​

 each 1-view is occupied serially and exclusively by the single agent: i.e. *at one time and in one place*. Hence in that sense only a single 1-view can possibly represent me *at that one time and that one place*.

​I see no reason that must me true. Suppose all your life you had 2 brains in your head not one, the 2 brains were identical and always received identical information from your senses so they always agreed on how to operate your body. So perfect was the agreement that neither brain suspected the existence of the other. And then one day one of those brains was instantaneously stopped, what would be the result?  Obviously a outside observer would notice no change in your behavior so objectively there would be no difference, and no thoughts would be interrupted so there would be no subjective change either. If stopping that brain makes no objective difference and it makes no subjective difference then it's safe to say it just makes no difference.

I agree. But this is surely an example of what I say above: i.e. here we have a single view representing my subjective situation at one time and in one place. A difference which as you rightly say makes no difference is generally agreed to be no difference, isn't that so? In any case, even should we come up with an intelligible notion, unlike what you propose, for some species of perceptual orientation that differed significantly from my specification above (e.g. a single subjective view encompassing two times in two places??) I doubt that either of us would wish to cite it as typical of human experience.

Also I don't think it makes much sense in saying your consciousness occupies a unique space. When you think about The 

Eiffel Tower

​ 

is your subjectivity in

​France​

 or is it in a bone box sitting on your shoulders?

Again I agree. Hoyle's notion bears only on the subjective situation of his solipsistic and highly amnesic multiple personality and makes no stipulation as to physical location. He merely requires that subjective spatiotemporal location be consistent with physics understood in a broadly Everettian manner. In any case it's not meant as more than a possibly enlightening guide to thought. What is proposed is a particular conception of multiple subjective instances, whether conceived as mine, yours or those of a third party​. It invites us to accept in principle the idea of our continued subjective existence in multiple versions (i.e. essentially consistent with the Everett interpretation) whilst equally appreciating that subjective compartmentalisation will generally make it appear as if we continue in only a single one of those versions. At the same time, and I personally think this is rather neat, it stops us from having to think in terms of the "simultaneous" though different conscious experiences of those "other versions", which generally strikes us as psychologically problematic. It achieves this by replacing the notion of "simultaneity" in this context by that of synchronization with respect to any suitable publicly sharable clock.

So this leaves us free (in the common guise of Hoyle's wandering clerk and his pigeon holes) to occupy imaginatively each of these perspectives at the appropriate points in the serialisation without being disturbed by thoughts of the "simultaneous" experiences of our "other selves"​. And moreover should we be unable to avoid a suspicion that, given these considerations, even those others we regard as "not ourselves" are likewise not simultaneously conscious in this selfsame moment, we would do well to reflect that no possible public investigation could determine that they were. Indeed this stricture extends as far as any public examination of our very own brains!

Anyway, that's the reason I thought a reminder of Hoyle's idea at this juncture might be helpful. I hope it may be.

David

  John K Clark    

 

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[Brent Meeker]

That I don't understand.  Who is wandering and why does there need to be a wanderer or an agent.  Isn't the moving light the indicator of experience being realized? But why does it need to be "realized".  If it's a thought or experience it doesn't need "realizing".  If it's not, how does indicating it with a light make any difference?

Brent

without being disturbed by thoughts of the "simultaneous" experiences of our "other selves"​. And moreover should we be unable to avoid a suspicion that, given these considerations, even those others we regard as "not ourselves" are likewise not simultaneously conscious in this selfsame moment, we would do well to reflect that no possible public investigation could determine that they were. Indeed this stricture extends as far as any public examination of our very own brains!

Anyway, that's the reason I thought a reminder of Hoyle's idea at this juncture might be helpful. I hope it may be.

David

  John K Clark    

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Apr 2017, at 19:09, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

​Sure, but I believe the idea is that after the metaphorical "selection" (i.e. not a real process - more below) of any given 1-view, the "agent" finds itself immediately 1-relativised to a particular psychological history. Hence ISTM that, from each 1-view, relative predictions would be the same as in the usual comp situation. Of course, there is always the issue of differential measure over the entire class of 1-views. Hoyle's heuristic imposes a quasi-frequency interpretation of probability for any finite segment of the serialisation and, in terms of histories, we do indeed find ourselves (at least psychologically) bounded within some quasi-finite segment. So I imagine Hoyle would want us to think in terms of the "most probable" continuations being selected more frequently, whether these are considered absolutely pre-selection, or relatively post. Of course the agent is bound to "encounter" 1-views of lower probability, but then this is ultimately a matter to be resolved in the struggle between consistent remembering (hardly ever) and inconsistent forgetting (almost always). One could say that the former are perhaps analogous to the in-phase, least-action part of Feynman's path integral approach and the latter with the out-of-phase part.

That looks nice. So now, I ask to you, and to everybody a question, which is important, and still open although I do have some opinion/hint.

You are in Helsinki, and you are scanned and annihilate as usual, and (3p)-duplicate in three exemplars: one is reconstituted in W and two in Moscow. You are told before, in Helsinki, that in Moscow, the two exemplaries are in the exact same state and environment, and that this will  last forever (they will never 1p differentiate). The question is asked when you are still in Helsinki. What is P(W) and P(M) ?

Then, I ask the same question, but in Helsinki we are told that some differentiation will occur between the two copies in Moscow, at some later time.

Bruno

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[David Nyman]

The wanderer was just Hoyle's narrative device to bring out the subjectively self-ordering aspect of the pigeon holes, as distinct from any extrinsic order which you might have imagined being placed on them. You may recall that Schrödinger also said something ​along the lines of experience being "in a certain sense" a single whole, but not one that could be "surveyed in a single glance". Hoyle's image is meant to convey something of that sort; a kind of imaginative dynamic serialisation of Schrödinger's "glances". I wouldn't struggle to put it all into too literal a frame though. I've just found that thinking about the thing in Hoyle's way can help to shed intuitive light on some of the puzzles we discuss here, as I've suggested.

David

[David Nyman]

On 20 Apr 2017 8:05 a.m., "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 19:09, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

​Sure, but I believe the idea is that after the metaphorical "selection" (i.e. not a real process - more below) of any given 1-view, the "agent" finds itself immediately 1-relativised to a particular psychological history. Hence ISTM that, from each 1-view, relative predictions would be the same as in the usual comp situation. Of course, there is always the issue of differential measure over the entire class of 1-views. Hoyle's heuristic imposes a quasi-frequency interpretation of probability for any finite segment of the serialisation and, in terms of histories, we do indeed find ourselves (at least psychologically) bounded within some quasi-finite segment. So I imagine Hoyle would want us to think in terms of the "most probable" continuations being selected more frequently, whether these are considered absolutely pre-selection, or relatively post. Of course the agent is bound to "encounter" 1-views of lower probability, but then this is ultimately a matter to be resolved in the struggle between consistent remembering (hardly ever) and inconsistent forgetting (almost always). One could say that the former are perhaps analogous to the in-phase, least-action part of Feynman's path integral approach and the latter with the out-of-phase part.

That looks nice. So now, I ask to you, and to everybody a question, which is important, and still open although I do have some opinion/hint.

You are in Helsinki, and you are scanned and annihilate as usual, and (3p)-duplicate in three exemplars: one is reconstituted in W and two in Moscow. You are told before, in Helsinki, that in Moscow, the two exemplaries are in the exact same state and environment, and that this will  last forever (they will never 1p differentiate). The question is asked when you are still in Helsinki. What is P(W) and P(M) ?

Then, I ask the same question, but in Helsinki we are told that some differentiation will occur between the two copies in Moscow, at some later time.

You mean what is the effective differential measure of the states representing P and M, and should any subsequent question of the divergence or otherwise of the two examplars of M affect our view of this? Good question. Not sure. I'm tempted to answer, in terms of Hoyle, that a larger measure of any​ particular class of pigeon holes should always increase the "probability" of encountering exemplars of that class in any given finite traversal of the serialisation. So in that case from a Bayesian perspective I ought to say that P(M) is twice P(W). What's your view?

David

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Apr 2017, at 09:23, David Nyman wrote:

On 20 Apr 2017 8:05 a.m., "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 19:09, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

​Sure, but I believe the idea is that after the metaphorical "selection" (i.e. not a real process - more below) of any given 1-view, the "agent" finds itself immediately 1-relativised to a particular psychological history. Hence ISTM that, from each 1-view, relative predictions would be the same as in the usual comp situation. Of course, there is always the issue of differential measure over the entire class of 1-views. Hoyle's heuristic imposes a quasi-frequency interpretation of probability for any finite segment of the serialisation and, in terms of histories, we do indeed find ourselves (at least psychologically) bounded within some quasi-finite segment. So I imagine Hoyle would want us to think in terms of the "most probable" continuations being selected more frequently, whether these are considered absolutely pre-selection, or relatively post. Of course the agent is bound to "encounter" 1-views of lower probability, but then this is ultimately a matter to be resolved in the struggle between consistent remembering (hardly ever) and inconsistent forgetting (almost always). One could say that the former are perhaps analogous to the in-phase, least-action part of Feynman's path integral approach and the latter with the out-of-phase part.

That looks nice. So now, I ask to you, and to everybody a question, which is important, and still open although I do have some opinion/hint.

You are in Helsinki, and you are scanned and annihilate as usual, and (3p)-duplicate in three exemplars: one is reconstituted in W and two in Moscow. You are told before, in Helsinki, that in Moscow, the two exemplaries are in the exact same state and environment, and that this will  last forever (they will never 1p differentiate). The question is asked when you are still in Helsinki. What is P(W) and P(M) ?

Then, I ask the same question, but in Helsinki we are told that some differentiation will occur between the two copies in Moscow, at some later time.

You mean what is the effective differential measure of the states representing P and M, and should any subsequent question of the divergence or otherwise of the two examplars of M affect our view of this? Good question. Not sure. I'm tempted to answer, in terms of Hoyle, that a larger measure of any​ particular class of pigeon holes should always increase the "probability" of encountering exemplars of that class in any given finite traversal of the serialisation. So in that case from a Bayesian perspective I ought to say that P(M) is twice P(W). What's your view?

My view is that the measure is on the distinguishable first person views sequences. So it is P(W) = P(M) = 1/2 in the first case where we are told in Helsinki that the copies in M remains forever similar (assuming this possible, which it can be in virtual rendering of that duplication, say), and it is P(W) = P(M) = 1/3 in the case the experiences of the M-reconstituted persons diverge, even if it diverges only after a long time, by the Y = II rules. A bifurcation in the future is, subjectively equivalent to a duplication in the path. (This answers also a question raised by John Clark in his recent comment to you, and I think we have discussed this also with respect to the unionist/fusionist problem raised by Bostrom, a long time ago). The probabilities are plausibly not on 3p-states or 1p-observer moments, but on distinguishable 1p-histories (memories of sequences of 1p-observer moments). 

Bruno

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[David Nyman]

On 20 Apr 2017 10:08 a.m., "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 20 Apr 2017, at 09:23, David Nyman wrote:

On 20 Apr 2017 8:05 a.m., "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 19:09, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Apr 2017, at 12:56, David Nyman wrote:

On 19 April 2017 at 08:24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

John has never write one clear post refuting the step-3 which would make it possible to answer by one post. There is no need for this, as the answer is in the publications, which makes clear the 1-3 distinction, so the ambiguity that John dreams for cannot occur.

​I've often wondered whether Hoyle's heuristic could be a way of short-cutting this dispute. Hoyle gives us a way to think about every subjective moment as if it occurred within the 1-view of a common agent. Essentially the heuristic invites us to think of all subjective experiences, aka observer moments, as a single logical serialisation in which relative spatial and temporal orientation is internal to each moment. In comp terms this conceptual agent might perhaps be the virgin (unprogrammed) machine, on the basis that all such machines are effectively computationally equivalent.

Exactly. With comp you have to fix one universal base to name all the other number/program/machine, and their relative states relatively to the universal numbers which implements them. The universal numbers are what define the relative computations. A computation is only a sequence of elementary local deformation, and once a universal sequence of phi_i is given, they are parametrised by four numbers some u, and its own sequence of phi_u(i,j)^s = phi_i(j)^s (the sth step of the computation by u of the program i on the input j). 

But Hoyle heuristic does not seem to solve the "prediction" problem, for each 1p-views there is an infinity of universal competing universal numbers (and thus computations) below the substitution level (and worst: it is impossible for the 1p to know its substitution level).

​Sure, but I believe the idea is that after the metaphorical "selection" (i.e. not a real process - more below) of any given 1-view, the "agent" finds itself immediately 1-relativised to a particular psychological history. Hence ISTM that, from each 1-view, relative predictions would be the same as in the usual comp situation. Of course, there is always the issue of differential measure over the entire class of 1-views. Hoyle's heuristic imposes a quasi-frequency interpretation of probability for any finite segment of the serialisation and, in terms of histories, we do indeed find ourselves (at least psychologically) bounded within some quasi-finite segment. So I imagine Hoyle would want us to think in terms of the "most probable" continuations being selected more frequently, whether these are considered absolutely pre-selection, or relatively post. Of course the agent is bound to "encounter" 1-views of lower probability, but then this is ultimately a matter to be resolved in the struggle between consistent remembering (hardly ever) and inconsistent forgetting (almost always). One could say that the former are perhaps analogous to the in-phase, least-action part of Feynman's path integral approach and the latter with the out-of-phase part.

That looks nice. So now, I ask to you, and to everybody a question, which is important, and still open although I do have some opinion/hint.

You are in Helsinki, and you are scanned and annihilate as usual, and (3p)-duplicate in three exemplars: one is reconstituted in W and two in Moscow. You are told before, in Helsinki, that in Moscow, the two exemplaries are in the exact same state and environment, and that this will  last forever (they will never 1p differentiate). The question is asked when you are still in Helsinki. What is P(W) and P(M) ?

Then, I ask the same question, but in Helsinki we are told that some differentiation will occur between the two copies in Moscow, at some later time.

You mean what is the effective differential measure of the states representing P and M, and should any subsequent question of the divergence or otherwise of the two examplars of M affect our view of this? Good question. Not sure. I'm tempted to answer, in terms of Hoyle, that a larger measure of any​ particular class of pigeon holes should always increase the "probability" of encountering exemplars of that class in any given finite traversal of the serialisation. So in that case from a Bayesian perspective I ought to say that P(M) is twice P(W). What's your view?

My view is that the measure is on the distinguishable first person views sequences. So it is P(W) = P(M) = 1/2 in the first case where we are told in Helsinki that the copies in M remains forever similar (assuming this possible, which it can be in virtual rendering of that duplication, say), and it is P(W) = P(M) = 1/3 in the case the experiences of the M-reconstituted persons diverge, even if it diverges only after a long time, by the Y = II rules. A bifurcation in the future is, subjectively equivalent to a duplication in the path.

Could some future bifurcation, perhaps long delayed, really be regarded as affecting a duplication question at some earlier, not-yet-differentiated juncture? Interesting question.

(This answers also a question raised by John Clark in his recent comment to you, and I think we have discussed this also with respect to the unionist/fusionist problem raised by Bostrom, a long time ago).

My point to John was just that his proposition would have no material impact for the restriction I proposed on a plausible 1-view, from the human perspective at least. My response was agnostic on the question of measure.

The

probabilities are plausibly not on 3p-states or 1p-observer moments, but on distinguishable 1p-histories (memories of sequences of 1p-observer moments). 

Yeah, this is a tricky one without a single "right" answer of course. Hoyle's pigeon hole notion seems to encourage us to think in a Bayesian way about both absolute and relative measures of classes of observer moments. In an Everettian context, we are encouraged to conceive more probable immediate continuations as being represented in larger measure in the evolving relative wave function - i.e. with respect to the Born rule. Indeed this is necessary to give any meaning to the notion of probability in a context where every possible continuation is conceived as being represented in some measure. And this would appear to apply over spectra of continuations that may be distinguishable in some limit but are not so very different.

So again one should perhaps rationally predict any of such similar continuations as more or less equally probable and hence summing to a higher total measure ​as a class. Hence we should rationally expect typically to encounter continuations of this general sort. So what does this mean for actually indistinguishable continuations (whatever we can take that to mean in principle)? Still unsure, but I can't completely shift the intuition that you couldn't expect to clone even indistinguishable continuations indefinitely without rationally impacting the prediction scenario. Could you?

David