what is the definition of computation?

[Alberto G. Corona]

Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.
So everything is a computation. That is a useless definition. because
it embrace everything.

Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego
pieces? No, my dear legologist.

What about this definition? Computation is whatever that reduces
entropy. In information terms, in the human context, computation is
whatever that reduces uncertainty producing useful information and
thus, in the environment of human society, a computer program is used
ultimately to get that information and reduce entropy, that is to
increase order in society, or at least for the human that uses it.

A simulation is an special case of the latter.

So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do
at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social
and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that
are not computations: almost everything else.


--
Alberto.

[LizR]

A process which transforms information? Ultimately, digital computation comes down to the NAND operation, I'm told, which means it's a lot of "bit twiddling" which ultimately transforms one lots of bits into another. I guess versions with non-binary data (like DNA I assume?) can be reduced in principle to binary...

Not sure about the entropy definition. Since nothing reduces entropy globally, I assume you mean only locally... Or at the cosmic scale? The expansion of the universe supposedly reduces entropy, or makes more states available to matter at least (I think it increases the maximum available entropy, as per Beckenstein, rather than reducing it).

Well, life does that, I guess, temporarily...

--
Alberto.

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[Richard Ruquist]

The notion that computation produces information contradicts the notion that information is conserved

made famous by the black hole paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

"The evolution of the wave function is determined by a unitary operator, and unitarity implies that information is conserved in the quantum sense. This is the strictest form of determinism."

I wonder how that jives with MWI? Richard

[Alberto G. Corona]

Liz, Richard:

I´m not talking about global reduction of entropy neither of the
universe neither a star, planet of black hole, but a local decrease of
entropy at the cost of a (bigger) increase of entropy in the
surroundings, so that the global entropy grows.

I mean local. A computation becomes whatever that permit the pumping
of entropy from inwards to outwards and thus maintain the integrity of
the entity that computes to do further computations. That is the
definition of life in physical terms. so that life and computation are
entangled in some way. The byproduct of this activity is an increase
of entropy of the surroundings. No thermodynamical or any other
physical law is violated.

Within this definition, a computer alone does not perform computations
a man that uses the computer to calculate his VAT declaration is
performing a computation, because doing so the man has the information
to deal with entropy increase produced by law enforcers. The
semaphore system in a city perform computations when considering the
system as the city as a whole. for the same reason. but also any
living being computes as well.

There hasn´t to be digital. analogic, chemical computations, for
example, hormone levels can be part of a computation. Neurons are not
digital. the activation potentials are not quantized to certains
discrete levels. Digital computation, for example in DNA
encoding-decoding or in the case of digital computers are good for
storing and communicating information for a long time against
environmental noise. Shannon law demonstrate why it is so. there is
nothing magic about digital. But when noise is not a concern,
analogical paths of chemical reactions with protein catalizers perform
fine computations. More often than not, computation is
analogic-digital. Living beings do it so. But also human systems, a
car with a man inside, keeps entropy so there is a analogico-digital
computation going on.

So computation in this sense means not only computation as such but
also perception or data input -or information intake- and a proper
response (as result of the computation) in the physical world that
keeps the internal entropy.

2014/1/20, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com>:

--
Alberto.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume
Church's thesis.

> So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be
emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is,
conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy
Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be
computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is
not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

> That is a useless definition. because
> it embrace everything.

For a mathematician, the computable is only a very tiny part of the
truth.

>
> Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego
> pieces? No, my dear legologist.

Not veything can be emulated by a computer. few things actually in
usual math. Some constructivist reduces math so that everything
becomes computable, but even there, few agree.
In Brouwer intuitionist analysis he uses the axiom "all function are
continuous" or "all functions are computable", but this is very
special approach, and not well suited to study computationalism (which
becomes trivial somehow there).

>
> What about this definition? Computation is whatever that reduces
> entropy.

It will not work, because all computation can be done in a way which
does not change the entropy at all. See Landauer, Zurek, etc.

Only erasing information change entropy, and you don't need to erase
information to compute.

> In information terms, in the human context, computation is
> whatever that reduces uncertainty producing useful information and
> thus, in the environment of human society, a computer program is used
> ultimately to get that information and reduce entropy, that is to
> increase order in society, or at least for the human that uses it.

The UD generates uncertainty (from inside).

>
> A simulation is an special case of the latter.
>
> So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do
> at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social
> and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that
> are not computations: almost everything else.

That is the case with the definition you started above, and which is
the one used by theoretical computer scientist.

Bruno


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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Jan 2014, at 05:22, Richard Ruquist wrote:

The notion that computation produces information contradicts the notion that information is conserved

made famous by the black hole paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

"The evolution of the wave function is determined by a unitary operator, and unitarity implies that information is conserved in the quantum sense. This is the strictest form of determinism."

I wonder how that jives with MWI? Richard

It means that you survive, from your 1p view, even if falling in a black hole. I doubt it could be a pleasant experience, though.

We will have to do a lot of work to prevent the human falling in a black hole, when the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide. Hot gas and Black Hole, we should avoid them. 

Bruno

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

[Alberto G. Corona]

It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
capable of maintaining his internal structure. Math do not compute.
Computers do not compute, Books do not compute. Is people that compute
with the help of them. Bruno marchall invoking church thesis to
convince us flooding the list with comp theory talking about non
computability does compute too . as well as any living being.

That definition of computation is more restrictive and wider that the
traditional one. Is more restrictive for obvious reasons. It is wider
because it depart from the legomania of digitalism. Moreover it is an
operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all
that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and
sociology) within a wider physical framework.

2014/1/21, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>:

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--

Alberto.

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume Church's thesis.

So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is, conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a useless definition. because
it embrace everything.

For a mathematician, the computable is only a very tiny part of the truth.

Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego
pieces? No, my dear legologist.

Not veything can be emulated by a computer. few things actually in usual math. Some constructivist reduces math so that everything becomes computable, but even there, few agree.

Like the guys from Erlangen and Lorenzen. I gave myself some time with this, until I decided it was just prohibition/denial: "We just all pretend that weird stuff does not exist. Only not-weird stuff is real because we have clarity", is what I remember... I am still amazed by how popular and how much support this seemed to get. Difficult to stay open and build understanding of these approaches for me. PGC

 

In Brouwer intuitionist analysis he uses the axiom "all function are continuous" or "all functions are computable", but this is very special approach, and not well suited to study computationalism (which becomes trivial somehow there).

What about this definition? Computation is whatever that reduces
entropy.

It will not work, because all computation can be done in a way which does not change the entropy at all. See Landauer, Zurek, etc.

Only erasing information change entropy, and you don't need to erase information to compute.

In information terms, in the human context, computation is
whatever that reduces uncertainty producing useful information and
thus, in the environment of human society, a computer program is used
ultimately to get that information and reduce entropy, that is to
increase order in society, or at least for the human that uses it.

The UD generates uncertainty (from inside).

A simulation is an special case of the latter.

So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do
at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social
and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that
are not computations: almost everything else.

That is the case with the definition you started above, and which is the one used by theoretical computer scientist.

Bruno


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

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Jan 2014, at 17:45, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume Church's thesis.

So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is, conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a useless definition. because
it embrace everything.

For a mathematician, the computable is only a very tiny part of the truth.

Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego
pieces? No, my dear legologist.

Not veything can be emulated by a computer. few things actually in usual math. Some constructivist reduces math so that everything becomes computable, but even there, few agree.

Like the guys from Erlangen and Lorenzen. I gave myself some time with this, until I decided it was just prohibition/denial: "We just all pretend that weird stuff does not exist. Only not-weird stuff is real because we have clarity", is what I remember...

It is a nice way to look at this.

I am still amazed by how popular and how much support this seemed to get. Difficult to stay open and build understanding of these approaches for me. PGC

I think it is a form of solipsism, and Brouwer was openly solipsist. Intuitionism is almost the logic of the first person, which is solipsist about its own mental space. It is the logic of the guy who think he is "really" in W, and not in M, which is correct from the 1p view, (well, in W), but non communicable, as his doppelganger in M will confirmed. 

But this shows that intuitionism and solipsism have some interest in psychology. I agree yet, that they become empty and non sensical when they are transformed in theory of everything. We can't deny the others, despite that notion is not constructive.

Bruno

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:45, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
> distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
> I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

But nobody has found such a definition. Physical computation are only
recognized as computation in machine that we can build, from subset of
physical laws, to implement the mathematical definition.

Then it is a theorem that we cannot recognize something as being a
computation, even in the arithmetical reality. We can build one and
recognize those we built, or we can bet that some process computes,
like when saying "yes" to a doctor. But there is no general means to
see if something is a computation or not, and this will depends in
part of we look at it.

Computability is a notion discovered in math. It is related to the key
discovery of Turing (also some others) of the universal (Turing)
machine.

You can defend naturalism, or physicalism, and you have the right to
believe in a primitive physical universe. I am agnostic, and I have to
be, if only because we have not yet decided between Plato and
Aristotle. We are very ignorant, notably on the mind-body question.

I do not defend computationalism. I just show that IF we assume it,
then we get a constructive and testable platonic theology, which
explains physics. And I have done a piece of the derivation and tested
it.

If you are right on metaphysical naturalism, with a real ontological
universe, then comp is wrong. That is all what I say.

>
> Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
> capable of maintaining his internal structure.

I can accept this as a putative truth about a notion of physical
computation, but this has not yet been defined. "reducing entropy" was
a good try, less wrong than "quantum computation" (despite here Turing
universality is verifiable), but it does not work as nature can
compute without dissipating energy (indeed quantum computers requite
that).



> Math do not compute.

That does not make a lot of sense.



> Computers do not compute,

Only computers compute. That's almost tautological.
For example universal computers compute anything computable.

I often use the word "computer" in the sense of the french
"ordinateur", which means all purpose computer or universal computer.


> Books do not compute.

We agree on this!

> Is people that compute
> with the help of them.

That makes sense, if only because the Turing machine describe very
well how a person compute with pencil and paper, going through
different state of mind. Yes, people can compute, but computer compute
too, with the standard mathematical definition.

> Bruno marchall invoking church thesis to
> convince us flooding the list with comp theory

Well, many people agree with the comp axioms, and are interested in
thinking on the conceptual consequences. Then Church thesis is rather
important to understand the generality of the notion.

> talking about non
> computability does compute too .

I don't understand the sentence.

> as well as any living being.
>
> That definition of computation is more restrictive and wider that the
> traditional one. Is more restrictive for obvious reasons. It is wider
> because it depart from the legomania of digitalism.

But that is the essence of computation. Then it is a beautiful miracle
in AUDA (but implicit in the UDA) that the first person appears not to
be computable or even nameable from her first person point of view.
In fact S4Grz exists by an arithmetical tour de force. It is a formal
logic of the non-formalizable. It explains why, from the 1p view, we
cannot avoid the depart from the legomania of digitalism.
But comp explains the why and the how.

> Moreover it is an
> operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all
> that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and
> sociology) within a wider physical framework.

May be. You did not provide a definition of physical computation. Nor
of "physical", which might help a skeptic like me. The only one you
gave was "reducing entropy". But it does not work. It might work for
life perhaps. It is certainly an interesting idea. But it is not
"computation". You can't change definition at will, or we are talking
about different things. The mathematical notion of computation is NOT
controversial. The physical notion of computation is not even
existing, and most attempts are controversial.

Bruno

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[LizR]

On 21 January 2014 17:22, Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:

The notion that computation produces information contradicts the notion that information is conserved

I suggested that computation transforms information, not produces it. Most logical operations lose information (NAND does, reducing two inputs to one output, and all (non-reversible) computation can be done with NAND gates I believe).

What a computation does is make explicit information that was implicit in the input, generally throwing away some of it in the process.

[LizR]

On 21 January 2014 22:44, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Liz, Richard:

I´m not talking about global reduction of entropy neither of the
universe neither a star, planet of black hole, but a local decrease of
entropy at the cost of a (bigger) increase of entropy in the
surroundings, so that the global entropy grows.

That seems fine to me. I would think most processes associated with life do this (digestion, for example) ... ?

[Craig Weinberg]

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Computation is not consciousness or sensation. It has no qualities of its own, and a computer would be just as happy producing Mandelbrot sets as noise, just as abacus beads are just as happy in a pattern that we might find meaningful versus one which seems random.

Thanks,
Craig

[LizR]

On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Sorry to be dense but what is "the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies" ?

Computation is not consciousness or sensation. It has no qualities of its own, and a computer would be just as happy producing Mandelbrot sets as noise, just as abacus beads are just as happy in a pattern that we might find meaningful versus one which seems random.

I'm not sure if you are trying to imply something about the nature of the brain and consciousness here, or not. Presumably brain cells "would be just as happy" recognising granny or solving equations - that is, brain cells take in signals from other brain cells, and if the sum of these exceeds some threshold, they send out a signal of their own. This seems fairly similar to what NAND gates do inside a computer. (Or what the cogs in a difference engine do, or the floating weights in the Olympia computer do, etc.)

So one could equally well say, "what brain cells do is not consciousness or sensation". Yes presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a brain, manage to produce consciousness and sensation, and apparently they do this through a process that is at least somewhat similar to what the logic gates inside computers do.

So, to clarify, are you claiming that consciousness cannot be produced by computation, or just making the observation that the process of computation is not the same thing as consciousness or sensation, much as my brain isn't the same thing as my thoughts?

[LizR]

Addendum

Sorry a wee typo. I meant "Yet presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a brain..." 

[Craig Weinberg]

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:08:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Sorry to be dense but what is "the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies" ?

Computation is not consciousness or sensation. It has no qualities of its own, and a computer would be just as happy producing Mandelbrot sets as noise, just as abacus beads are just as happy in a pattern that we might find meaningful versus one which seems random.

I'm not sure if you are trying to imply something about the nature of the brain and consciousness here, or not. Presumably brain cells "would be just as happy" recognising granny or solving equations - that is, brain cells take in signals from other brain cells, and if the sum of these exceeds some threshold, they send out a signal of their own. This seems fairly similar to what NAND gates do inside a computer. (Or what the cogs in a difference engine do, or the floating weights in the Olympia computer do, etc.)

So one could equally well say, "what brain cells do is not consciousness or sensation".

Yes, although what we think brain cells are is based only on the measurements and descriptions that we have derived from our body's view of other instrument's views.

 

Yes presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a brain, manage to produce consciousness and sensation, and apparently they do this through a process that is at least somewhat similar to what the logic gates inside computers do.

I would not presume that. Brain cells are never lumped together into a brain, they reproduce themselves from a single zygote splitting apart. They don't produce consciousness, they already are consciousness on the microbiotic scale (relative to our own). I don't think that consciousness is not produced, it is attenuated from the Totality.
 

So, to clarify, are you claiming that consciousness cannot be produced by computation,

Yes.
 

or just making the observation that the process of computation is not the same thing as consciousness or sensation, much as my brain isn't the same thing as my thoughts?

Consciousness uses computation to offload that which is too monotonous to find meaningful any longer. That is the function of computation, automation, and mechanism in all cases: To remove or displace the necessity for consciousness. What is the opposite of automatic? Manual. What is manual? By hand - intentional, personal, aware.

See what I mean?

Thanks,
Craig

[Craig Weinberg]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 5:10:34 AM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

Addendum

Sorry a wee typo. I meant "Yet presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a brain..." 

It bugs me that you can't edit after posting on here. I guess every forum has its irritating features.
 

[Craig Weinberg]

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:08:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Sorry to be dense but what is "the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies" ?

I think that it's a reflection of the Totality as seen from a hypothetical exterior. If you look at a crowd of people from a the top of a building, you can count them, you can count the number of times someone joins the crowd, you can count the rate that the crowd grows, you can count the rate that growth grows, etc. It's derivative abstraction that can be made useful in prediction and control of things that behave like crowds. If you want to know something about the individuals in the crowd, computation is much less relevant. You have to break them down into symbolic categories that act like uniform data objects...which they are not.
 

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Alberto,

  I disagree, but like the direction of your thinking.

On Monday, January 20, 2014 3:17:16 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote:

Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.
So everything is a computation. That is a useless definition. because
it embrace everything.

Not everything. It would embrace the category of emulations, simulations, representations and all other information related aspects of the universe. It is not necessary for this Category to be identified with the physical world. Yes, it must be related to the physical but that relation can be a morphism to another Category: that of physical objects, forces, thermodynamics, energy, etc. Two Categories, side by side, separate yet related. If we remove the possibility of distinguishing the members of the Categories they collapse into singletons and then, and only then, are Identical.

 

 Everything is legoland because everything can be emulated using lego
pieces? No, my dear legologist.

What about this definition? Computation is whatever that reduces
entropy. In information terms, in the human context, computation is
whatever that reduces uncertainty producing useful information and
thus, in the environment of human society, a computer program is used
ultimately to get that information and reduce entropy, that is to
increase order in society, or at least for the human that uses it.

Not correct. Computations that generate output that is identical to their input exist. I would say that computations are *any* form of transformation of information, including transformations that are automorphisms.

 

A simulation is an special case of the latter.

So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do
at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social
and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that
are not computations: almost everything else.

We are using a very narrow definition of computations and thus miss the computations that physical processes outside of our CPUs and GPUs are performing. If the functions of an Isolated physical system are such that the transformations they induce in/on their cover space (?) of representations are a simulation of the physical system, what obtains? A one to one map of the system that co-evolves with it. When we consider physical systems interacting with each other, could they additionally have partial emulations of each other within their "self-simulations"?

--
Alberto.

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear LizR,

On Monday, January 20, 2014 10:04:38 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

A process which transforms information?

Any! Define information as the distinction between a pair of things that makes a difference to a third. The "third" is the witness, it gives us a notion of 3p...

 

Ultimately, digital computation comes down to the NAND operation, I'm told, which means it's a lot of "bit twiddling" which ultimately transforms one lots of bits into another. I guess versions with non-binary data (like DNA I assume?) can be reduced in principle to binary...

We could reduce everything to binary, but we would be very inefficient and might be making what are actually computable (with a wider definition of computable) into intractable ones. (Where did that idea come from, Stephen asks himself... Maybe P=NP after all...)

Not sure about the entropy definition. Since nothing reduces entropy globally, I assume you mean only locally... Or at the cosmic scale? The expansion of the universe supposedly reduces entropy, or makes more states available to matter at least (I think it increases the maximum available entropy, as per Beckenstein, rather than reducing it).

There is an analogue of Thermodynamics within the computational vision: Encryption and decryption operations are not exactly invertible. A one time pad encryption, done correctly, transforms text into noise -randomness, making it the analogue of entropy. So we say that for closed computations noise, increases of is constant.

 

Well, life does that, I guess, temporarily...

Indeed! 

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear yanniru,

  It is deterministic in the mathematical sense if determinism is some form of bijective map between a domain and a range. But we cannot access the content of the domain nor of the range. Laplace's Demon can't read it off. Resent debate on the topic of the Black Hole Firewall gets into detail on this. It seems that our current physics ideas are not quite up to the task of analysis of what is going on. This happens when we consider multiple observers and their mutual communications of their observations.

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Alberto,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 4:44:18 AM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote:

Liz, Richard:

I´m not talking about global reduction of entropy neither of the
universe neither a star, planet of black hole, but a local decrease of
entropy at the cost of a (bigger) increase of entropy in the
surroundings, so that the global entropy grows.

 I mean local.  A computation becomes whatever that permit the pumping
of entropy from inwards to outwards and thus maintain the integrity of
the entity that computes to do further computations. That is the
definition of life in physical terms. so that life and computation are
entangled in some way. The byproduct of this activity is an increase
of entropy of the surroundings. No thermodynamical or any other
physical law is violated.

Like a refrigerator....

 

Within this definition, a computer alone does not perform computations
 a man that uses the computer to calculate his VAT declaration is
performing a computation, because doing so the man has the information
to deal with  entropy increase produced by law enforcers. The
semaphore system in a city perform computations when considering the
system as the city as a whole. for the same reason. but also any
living being computes as well.

Right! Beware of thinking in terms of isolated objects! 

There hasn´t to  be digital. analogic, chemical computations, for
example, hormone levels can be part of a computation. Neurons are not
digital. the activation potentials are not quantized to certains
discrete levels.  Digital computation, for example in DNA
encoding-decoding or in the case of digital computers are good for
storing and communicating information for a long time against
environmental noise.  Shannon law demonstrate why it is so. there is
nothing magic about digital. But when noise is not a concern,
analogical paths of chemical reactions with protein catalizers perform
fine computations. More often than not, computation is
analogic-digital. Living beings do it so. But also human systems, a
car with a man inside, keeps entropy so there is a analogico-digital
computation going on.

So computation in this sense means not only computation as such but
also perception or data input -or information intake- and a proper
response (as result of the computation) in the physical world that
keeps the internal entropy.

Right on! 

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:51:14 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume  
Church's thesis.



> So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be  
emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is,  
conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy  
Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be  
computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is  
not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a theorem that takes certain axioms as true... We can build theories with other axioms... I wish to escape the prison of the Tennenbaum Theorem!

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Jan 2014, at 20:05, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:51:14 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume  
Church's thesis.



> So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be  
emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is,  
conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy  
Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be  
computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is  
not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a theorem that takes certain axioms as true... We can build theories with other axioms...

Always. But that would made sense only if you provide the other axioms. 

I wish to escape the prison of the Tennenbaum Theorem!

This looks non sensical to me. But even if there were some sense here, I remind you that I gave you two days ago, a constructive proof of the existence of non computable functions, based on a constructive diagonalization procedure (unlike the one by Cantor), (and Church's thesis).

Just that with Cantor's result, it is more easy. 

Bruno

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[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 22 Jan 2014, at 20:05, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:51:14 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume  
Church's thesis.



> So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be  
emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is,  
conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy  
Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be  
computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is  
not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a theorem that takes certain axioms as true... We can build theories with other axioms...

 

Always. But that would made sense only if you provide the other axioms. 

Axioms like the anti- foundation axiom, finite versions of the axiom of choice, axioms that imply alternatives to the Cantor continuum hypothesis, etc.

      We can design our theories toward some goal. This could be said to be cheating and assuming what one wishes to proof, but I submit that canonical logical has done this all along. For example the use of the foundation axiom to prevent self-containing sets - which prevent self-reference...

I wish to escape the prison of the Tennenbaum Theorem!

This looks non sensical to me. But even if there were some sense here, I remind you that I gave you two days ago, a constructive proof of the existence of non computable functions, based on a constructive diagonalization procedure (unlike the one by Cantor), (and Church's thesis).

Just that with Cantor's result, it is more easy. 

It is becoming clear that going with what is "easy" is a problem. Nature does not obey our wishes of convenience. It is she who we must obey and modify our assumptions so that our models and theories match empirical data.

Maybe I am falling victim to a wish, maybe not, but the Tennenbaum's theorem's prohibition of no countable nonstandard model of Peano arithmetic (PA), and thus no recursive functions for computation makes some assumptions.

For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennenbaum's_theorem

"A structure  in the language of PA is recursive if there are recursive functions + and × from  to , a recursive two-place relation < on , and distinguished constants  such that

where  indicates isomorphism and  is the set of (standard) natural numbers. Because the isomorphism must be a bijection, every recursive model is countable. There are many nonisomorphic countable nonstandard models of PA."

Why must this isomorphism always a bijection?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism#Isomorphism_vs._bijective_morphism

"...there are concrete categories in which bijective morphisms are not necessarily isomorphisms (such as the category of topological spaces), and there are categories in which each object admits an underlying set but in which isomorphisms need not be bijective (such as the homotopy category of CW-complexes)."

  The Stone duality that I am considering for a solution to the mind-body problem is a subset of the greater Physical things-Representations duality. You start with AR which, I claim, is equivalent to an axiom that only representations (in the form of Arithmetic) exist. You then use the fact that representations can be of themselves, via the Godel numbering or equivalent schema, to work out a brilliant result that shows that the physical world can not be an ontological primitive. But it has an open problem: What is an Arithmetic Body?

  If an Arithmetic body is a topological space that is the Stone dual of the logical algebra of the computations and there are many mutually irreducible (via the non-isomorphism of countable nonstandard models of PA) "bodies". These "bodies" can share a set of functions (Hamiltonians?) that have a morphism into the countable recursive functions. ISTM that will allow us to obtain the Church Thesis as a special case. We can also get much more and possibly address questions of interaction and concurrency that cannot even be stated in the definition of a Turing Machine.

 Assuming that the Integers and Arithmetic are all that exist is a gilded prison for our minds.

Free your mind!

 

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[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:11:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:45, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
> distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
> I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

But nobody has found such a definition. Physical computation are only  
recognized as computation in machine that we can build, from subset of  
physical laws, to implement the mathematical definition.

Why not? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to recognize that  the class of Physical systems have related a class of Representations: all of the possible measurement data of a physical system. We can examine the measurement data and generate simulations of the physical system in order to predict its behavior. We call this Physics.

 

Then it is a theorem that we cannot recognize something as being a  
computation, even in the arithmetical reality.

Sure, but that assumes that one is dealing with an infinite set. The set of measurable data of a physical system is not infinite.

 

We can build one and  
recognize those we built, or we can bet that some process computes,  
like when saying "yes" to a doctor. But there is no general means to  
see if something is a computation or not, and this will depends in  
part of we look at it.

This remark seems to have an interesting implication: that if I examine some string of code that might happen to be a simulation of a physical system, I will not be able to know which physical system it is. We get universality of computation this way?

 

Computability is a notion discovered in math. It is related to the key  
discovery of Turing (also some others) of the universal (Turing)  
machine.

But this universality comes with a great price. It abstracts away time and space and all the rest of our local reality.

 

You can defend naturalism, or physicalism, and you have the right to  
believe in a primitive physical universe. I am agnostic, and I have to  
be, if only because we have not yet decided between Plato and  
Aristotle. We are very ignorant, notably on the mind-body question.

Umm, your agnosticism does not seem very strong. You defend AR very strongly. I have offered you a sketch of a solution to the mind-body problem and you vigorously attack it with demands for formalism that I cannot write. 

   What if both Plato and Aristotle are wrong?

 

I do not defend computationalism. I just show that IF we assume it,  
then we get a constructive and testable platonic theology, which  
explains physics. And I have done a piece of the derivation and tested  
it.

It does not take much to show examples of your defend, Bruno. You are lying to yourself in claiming "I do not defend computationalism." You will not consider any alternative.

 

If you are right on metaphysical naturalism, with a real ontological  
universe, then comp is wrong. That is all what I say.

Pfft, that is a false dichotomy. It is not necessary to assume ontological primitives that have some set of properties to the exclusion of others. You hold onto this dichotomy because it is your tool to defend AR.

>
> Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
> capable of maintaining his internal structure.

I can accept this as a putative truth about a notion of physical  
computation, but this has not yet been defined.

Why do we need a well founded definition? I offer a non-well founded definition: Computation is any transformation of Information. Information does not need to be of physical systems; it can be of representational systems: like you favored Sigmas and PA.

 

"reducing entropy" was  
a good try, less wrong than "quantum computation" (despite here Turing  
universality is verifiable), but it does not work as nature can  
compute without dissipating energy (indeed quantum computers requite  
that).

Where do you get that rubbish idea? Quantum computation has been proven to require resources if it is to be evaluated. Sure, the evolution of the phase is Unitary, but this holds for QM systems in isolation. The only real example of such is the Universe itself. We get the Wheeler-Dewitt equation with its vanishing of time.

> Math do not compute.

That does not make a lot of sense.

Math performs no actions on its own. 

The existence of my desktop computer is obvious to me....

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Craig,

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:19:54 AM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:08:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Sorry to be dense but what is "the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies" ?

I think that it's a reflection of the Totality as seen from a hypothetical exterior. If you look at a crowd of people from a the top of a building, you can count them, you can count the number of times someone joins the crowd, you can count the rate that the crowd grows, you can count the rate that growth grows, etc. It's derivative abstraction that can be made useful in prediction and control of things that behave like crowds. If you want to know something about the individuals in the crowd, computation is much less relevant. You have to break them down into symbolic categories that act like uniform data objects...which they are not.

Ah, how easy is it to mistake the Map for the Territory.

[Craig Weinberg]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 5:17:25 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Craig,

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:19:54 AM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:08:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

On 22 January 2014 15:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Computation is the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies. The effectiveness of computation derives from its metaphorical application to material bodies, which can, through physical properties, be manipulated to deliver results which satisfy our expectations.

Sorry to be dense but what is "the nested, recursive enumeration of uniform symbolic bodies" ?

I think that it's a reflection of the Totality as seen from a hypothetical exterior. If you look at a crowd of people from a the top of a building, you can count them, you can count the number of times someone joins the crowd, you can count the rate that the crowd grows, you can count the rate that growth grows, etc. It's derivative abstraction that can be made useful in prediction and control of things that behave like crowds. If you want to know something about the individuals in the crowd, computation is much less relevant. You have to break them down into symbolic categories that act like uniform data objects...which they are not.

Ah, how easy is it to mistake the Map for the Territory.

For sure. They are almost equal...except that the Map both doesn't need a territory and is meaningless without one, whereas a territory has more meaning with maps but exists independently of them as well. Of course, in my view, the only true territory is sense experience itself.

[LizR]

On 23 January 2014 03:13, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

Consciousness uses computation to offload that which is too monotonous to find meaningful any longer. That is the function of computation, automation, and mechanism in all cases: To remove or displace the necessity for consciousness. What is the opposite of automatic? Manual. What is manual? By hand - intentional, personal, aware.

See what I mean?

Yes, and it's an interesting viewpoint (and more "far out" than I expected!) 

[LizR]

On 23 January 2014 03:13, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 5:10:34 AM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

Addendum

Sorry a wee typo. I meant "Yet presumably brain cells, when lumped together into a brain..." 

It bugs me that you can't edit after posting on here. I guess every forum has its irritating features.

Yes. I tend to his "submit" then read through... 

[John Mikes]

No matter how I try to slice it,  the 'opinions' about computation seem to be restricted to a reductionist view of mathematical base - maybe including some physical terms (entropy? information as 'bit' etc.) as well. 

No wonder, the List-members are hooked in these domains. 

I started out with the Latin word-origin:  "cum" + "putare" -  to THINK WITH... or TOGETHER. to put 2 (or more) ideas together and derive some solution of more than a single line. Of course it can be exploited in math-terms as well and if somebody is anchored in the physical terms, such will surface sooner, or later. 

Which s=does not mean that the 'concept' of a computation is restricted to such utilitarianism. 

I was hoping that some "free" minds  may pick up my more extended idea and respond in kind.

No such chance.

The learned members repeat their usual wordings - no matter what. 

Stephen started a fresh initiative:

...Not everything. It would embrace the category of emulations, simulations, representations and all other information related aspects of the universe. It is not necessary for this Category to be identified with the physical world....

but fell back soon, continuing

...Yes, it must be related to the physical but that relation can be a morphism to another Category: that of physical objects, forces, thermodynamics, energy, etc....

I almost cried Heureka!.

Those figments are useful aslong as they serve their purpose - to some extent. Not as a 'Brunoish theology' of them all. Just compare our world (?) viewed today with that of how it was viewed millennia ago. Or with the view before 'entropy' was started to expand beyond the 2nd law's natural processes. 

Or before QM?  

Who dares to draw conclusions FOREVER? how we will look at the world during the next millennium? 

As I expressed several times: I appreciate the results of OUR (conventional - reductionst) sciences and technology, but it is an "almost" true wisdom. 

John Mikes

--

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear John,

  Thank you for trying to parse my gobbletygok!  Watch the Donald Hoffman talk, then think about what your saying. 

http://youtu.be/dqDP34a-epI

Are you following my argument that we need a dual pair of Categories, not just one?

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Jan 2014, at 22:42, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 22 Jan 2014, at 20:05, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:51:14 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2014, at 21:17, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> Computation is understood as whatever made by a digital computer or
> something that can be emulated (or aproximated) by a digital computer.

OK. That's a good definition, and it is correct if ... we assume  
Church's thesis.



> So everything is a computation.

Goddam! Why. Even just about what is true in arithmetic cannot be  
emulated by any computer.

I am afraid you might not really grasp what a computer is,  
conceptually. See my answer to stephen yesterday, which shows wahy  
Church thesis entails that most attribute of *machines* cannot be  
computed by a machine.

Or think about Cantor theorem. The set of functions from N top N is  
not enumerable, yet the set of *computable* functions is enumerable.

That is a theorem that takes certain axioms as true... We can build theories with other axioms...

 

Always. But that would made sense only if you provide the other axioms. 

I wrote this.

Axioms like the anti- foundation axiom, finite versions of the axiom of choice, axioms that imply alternatives to the Cantor continuum hypothesis, etc.

I didn't write this.

      We can design our theories toward some goal.

To solve some problem. yes.

This could be said to be cheating and assuming what one wishes to proof, but I submit that canonical logical has done this all along. For example the use of the foundation axiom to prevent self-containing sets - which prevent self-reference...

The Gödel self-reference can be done with or without foundation or anti-foundation axiom. 

Anyway, set theory is not assumed at all in the comp TOE.

I wish to escape the prison of the Tennenbaum Theorem!

This looks non sensical to me. But even if there were some sense here, I remind you that I gave you two days ago, a constructive proof of the existence of non computable functions, based on a constructive diagonalization procedure (unlike the one by Cantor), (and Church's thesis).

Just that with Cantor's result, it is more easy. 

It is becoming clear that going with what is "easy" is a problem.

So reread my less easy proof, in that case. We can do it in elementary arithmetic.

Nature does not obey our wishes of convenience.

Nature is not assumed, nor its absence.

It is she who we must obey and modify our assumptions so that our models and theories match empirical data.

Maybe I am falling victim to a wish, maybe not, but the Tennenbaum's theorem's prohibition of no countable nonstandard model of Peano arithmetic (PA), and thus no recursive functions for computation makes some assumptions.

For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennenbaum's_theorem

"A structure  in the language of PA is recursive if there are recursive functions + and × from  to , a recursive two-place relation < on , and distinguished constants  such that

where  indicates isomorphism and  is the set of (standard) natural numbers. Because the isomorphism must be a bijection, every recursive model is countable. There are many nonisomorphic countable nonstandard models of PA."

Why must this isomorphism always a bijection?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism#Isomorphism_vs._bijective_morphism

"...there are concrete categories in which bijective morphisms are not necessarily isomorphisms (such as the category of topological spaces), and there are categories in which each object admits an underlying set but in which isomorphisms need not be bijective (such as the homotopy category of CW-complexes)."

  The Stone duality that I am considering for a solution to the mind-body problem is a subset of the greater Physical things-Representations duality. You start with AR which, I claim, is equivalent to an axiom that only representations (in the form of Arithmetic) exist.

This is nonsense. the belief that 2+2=4 does not entail only representations in the form of Arithmetic exist.

The hypostases contradicts this immediately. The 1p is not representable in arithmetic, for example.

You then use the fact that representations can be of themselves, via the Godel numbering or equivalent schema, to work out a brilliant result that shows that the physical world can not be an ontological primitive. But it has an open problem: What is an Arithmetic Body?

Yes, what is it? That notion does not make sense at all. What we call a "physical body" does not exist. There are only "bodies perception" which comes from the FPI, and admits substitution level, and thus can be locally approximated (comp). Only my relative state of mind is encoded.

  If an Arithmetic body is a topological space that is the Stone dual of the logical algebra of the computations and there are many mutually irreducible (via the non-isomorphism of countable nonstandard models of PA) "bodies". These "bodies" can share a set of functions (Hamiltonians?) that have a morphism into the countable recursive functions. ISTM that will allow us to obtain the Church Thesis as a special case. We can also get much more and possibly address questions of interaction and concurrency that cannot even be stated in the definition of a Turing Machine.

 Assuming that the Integers and Arithmetic are all that exist is a gilded prison for our minds.

I can't make sense of this. Sorry.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Jan 2014, at 23:16, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:11:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:45, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
> distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
> I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

But nobody has found such a definition. Physical computation are only  
recognized as computation in machine that we can build, from subset of  
physical laws, to implement the mathematical definition.

Why not? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to recognize that  the class of Physical systems have related a class of Representations: all of the possible measurement data of a physical system. We can examine the measurement data and generate simulations of the physical system in order to predict its behavior. We call this Physics.

I don't see how this could make sense. But if it did, why don't you use it and provide that definition of "physical computation"?

 

Then it is a theorem that we cannot recognize something as being a  
computation, even in the arithmetical reality.

Sure, but that assumes that one is dealing with an infinite set. The set of measurable data of a physical system is not infinite.

In which theory? As long as we don't have the theory we can't say. I assume comp, and I show the TOE does not have to axiom anything infinite. Elementary arithmetic don't assume infinite set.

 

We can build one and  
recognize those we built, or we can bet that some process computes,  
like when saying "yes" to a doctor. But there is no general means to  
see if something is a computation or not, and this will depends in  
part of we look at it.

This remark seems to have an interesting implication: that if I examine some string of code that might happen to be a simulation of a physical system, I will not be able to know which physical system it is. We get universality of computation this way?

 

Computability is a notion discovered in math. It is related to the key  
discovery of Turing (also some others) of the universal (Turing)  
machine.

But this universality comes with a great price. It abstracts away time and space and all the rest of our local reality.

But we have discovered it, and it does not abstract space and time away, it explains the persistent illusion with all possible details. It says only that adding an axiom at that level cannot work.

 

You can defend naturalism, or physicalism, and you have the right to  
believe in a primitive physical universe. I am agnostic, and I have to  
be, if only because we have not yet decided between Plato and  
Aristotle. We are very ignorant, notably on the mind-body question.

Umm, your agnosticism does not seem very strong. You defend AR very strongly.

No. I debunk invalid argument against it, with some vigor, perhaps. 

And yes, I do tend to believe that 17 is prime.

I have offered you a sketch of a solution to the mind-body problem and you vigorously attack it with demands for formalism that I cannot write. 

Only because you are using your informal and unclear ideas to criticize the UDA's consequence.

   What if both Plato and Aristotle are wrong?

What if you are wrong?

 

I do not defend computationalism. I just show that IF we assume it,  
then we get a constructive and testable platonic theology, which  
explains physics. And I have done a piece of the derivation and tested  
it.

It does not take much to show examples of your defend, Bruno. You are lying to yourself in claiming "I do not defend computationalism." You will not consider any alternative.

I thought you defend computationalism also. 

My case is different. I am agnostic on computationalism. But I study its consequences. it is my job.

And, actually, I don't see any other way to even just conceive an alternative.

 

If you are right on metaphysical naturalism, with a real ontological  
universe, then comp is wrong. That is all what I say.

Pfft, that is a false dichotomy.

Then UDA is flawed.

It is not necessary to assume ontological primitives that have some set of properties to the exclusion of others.

Then your ontology is amorphous. Nothing can emerge from it, without magic.

You hold onto this dichotomy because it is your tool to defend AR.

I need indeed that 2+2=4.

>
> Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
> capable of maintaining his internal structure.

I can accept this as a putative truth about a notion of physical  
computation, but this has not yet been defined.

Why do we need a well founded definition?

We don't. 

I offer a non-well founded definition: Computation is any transformation of Information. Information does not need to be of physical systems; it can be of representational systems: like you favored Sigmas and PA.

You can't change the definition. Create a new concept if you want, but computation, or the weaker notion of computability that I need, is well defined by Church thesis. 

 

"reducing entropy" was  
a good try, less wrong than "quantum computation" (despite here Turing  
universality is verifiable), but it does not work as nature can  
compute without dissipating energy (indeed quantum computers requite  
that).

Where do you get that rubbish idea?

If a quantum computer dissipates energy, the entanglement will propagate from the environment, and the quantum information will be lost. It has been shown (by Landauer and zurel, that only erasing information needs energy, and logicians knows since some work by Hao Wang, in the 1950, (I think) that universal computability can be obtained with machine which never erase memory.

(You are Insulting. I take it that you have no argument).

Quantum computation has been proven to require resources if it is to be evaluated.

Locally. because you need to cut. But read and paste does not require it. 

Sure, the evolution of the phase is Unitary, but this holds for QM systems in isolation. The only real example of such is the Universe itself.

Which would be enough.

We get the Wheeler-Dewitt equation with its vanishing of time.

This go in the comp direction, although a lot of work remains to have a clearer view on this.

> Math do not compute.

That does not make a lot of sense.

Math performs no actions on its own. 

OK. Math is not even something that we can defined in math.

> Moreover it is an
> operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all
> that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and
> sociology) within a wider physical framework.

May be. You did not provide a definition of physical computation. Nor  
of "physical", which might help a skeptic like me. The only one you  
gave was "reducing entropy". But it does not work. It might work for  
life perhaps. It is certainly an interesting idea. But it is not  
"computation". You can't change definition at will, or we are talking  
about different things. The mathematical notion of computation is NOT  
controversial. The physical notion of computation is not even  
existing, and most attempts are controversial.

The existence of my desktop computer is obvious to me....

OK. But that "obviousness" is the mystery we can explain in the comp theory. "obvious" is 1p, and treated in the "& p" hypostases.

Bruno

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

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 4:22 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 22 Jan 2014, at 23:16, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:11:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:45, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
> distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
> I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

But nobody has found such a definition. Physical computation are only  
recognized as computation in machine that we can build, from subset of  
physical laws, to implement the mathematical definition.

Why not? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to recognize that  the class of Physical systems have related a class of Representations: all of the possible measurement data of a physical system. We can examine the measurement data and generate simulations of the physical system in order to predict its behavior. We call this Physics.

I don't see how this could make sense. But if it did, why don't you use it and provide that definition of "physical computation"?

A computation is any transformation of information. Information is any distinction between two things that makes a difference to a third. 

What happens when the ability to make distinctions vanishes?

 

Then it is a theorem that we cannot recognize something as being a  
computation, even in the arithmetical reality.

Sure, but that assumes that one is dealing with an infinite set. The set of measurable data of a physical system is not infinite.

In which theory? As long as we don't have the theory we can't say. I assume comp, and I show the TOE does not have to axiom anything infinite. Elementary arithmetic don't assume infinite set.

Elementary Arithmetic does not assume the Integers, implicitly? Take the empty set, put it in a set, put the result in a set, repeat infinitely. Infinity.

 

We can build one and  
recognize those we built, or we can bet that some process computes,  
like when saying "yes" to a doctor. But there is no general means to  
see if something is a computation or not, and this will depends in  
part of we look at it.

This remark seems to have an interesting implication: that if I examine some string of code that might happen to be a simulation of a physical system, I will not be able to know which physical system it is. We get universality of computation this way?

 

Computability is a notion discovered in math. It is related to the key  
discovery of Turing (also some others) of the universal (Turing)  
machine.

But this universality comes with a great price. It abstracts away time and space and all the rest of our local reality.

But we have discovered it, and it does not abstract space and time away, it explains the persistent illusion with all possible details. It says only that adding an axiom at that level cannot work.

Nature does not need axioms. Donald Hoffman has changed my thinking.

 

You can defend naturalism, or physicalism, and you have the right to  
believe in a primitive physical universe. I am agnostic, and I have to  
be, if only because we have not yet decided between Plato and  
Aristotle. We are very ignorant, notably on the mind-body question.

Umm, your agnosticism does not seem very strong. You defend AR very strongly.

No. I debunk invalid argument against it, with some vigor, perhaps. 

And yes, I do tend to believe that 17 is prime.

I get that, you defend viridity. Nature does not. Nature evolves.

 

I have offered you a sketch of a solution to the mind-body problem and you vigorously attack it with demands for formalism that I cannot write. 

Only because you are using your informal and unclear ideas to criticize the UDA's consequence.

Umm, no. I criticize its assumptions: e.g. That numbers can exist independent of that which they reference.

   What if both Plato and Aristotle are wrong?

What if you are wrong?

I am wrong. I try to correct the errors.

 

I do not defend computationalism. I just show that IF we assume it,  
then we get a constructive and testable platonic theology, which  
explains physics. And I have done a piece of the derivation and tested  
it.

It does not take much to show examples of your defend, Bruno. You are lying to yourself in claiming "I do not defend computationalism." You will not consider any alternative.

I thought you defend computationalism also. 

My case is different. I am agnostic on computationalism. But I study its consequences. it is my job.

And, actually, I don't see any other way to even just conceive an alternative.

That is a problem: You cannot imagine an alternative. Your mind is closed. :_(

 

If you are right on metaphysical naturalism, with a real ontological  
universe, then comp is wrong. That is all what I say.

Pfft, that is a false dichotomy.

Then UDA is flawed.

It is not necessary to assume ontological primitives that have some set of properties to the exclusion of others.

Then your ontology is amorphous. Nothing can emerge from it, without magic.

Magic is when Numbers can exist and have nothing to represent.

You hold onto this dichotomy because it is your tool to defend AR.

I need indeed that 2+2=4.

>
> Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
> capable of maintaining his internal structure.

I can accept this as a putative truth about a notion of physical  
computation, but this has not yet been defined.

Why do we need a well founded definition?

We don't. 

I offer a non-well founded definition: Computation is any transformation of Information. Information does not need to be of physical systems; it can be of representational systems: like you favored Sigmas and PA.

You can't change the definition. Create a new concept if you want, but computation, or the weaker notion of computability that I need, is well defined by Church thesis. 

 

"reducing entropy" was  
a good try, less wrong than "quantum computation" (despite here Turing  
universality is verifiable), but it does not work as nature can  
compute without dissipating energy (indeed quantum computers requite  
that).

Where do you get that rubbish idea?

If a quantum computer dissipates energy, the entanglement will propagate from the environment, and the quantum information will be lost. It has been shown (by Landauer and zurel, that only erasing information needs energy, and logicians knows since some work by Hao Wang, in the 1950, (I think) that universal computability can be obtained with machine which never erase memory.

(You are Insulting. I take it that you have no argument).

Wrong! You are assuming an a priori existing infinite resource: memory.

Quantum computation has been proven to require resources if it is to be evaluated.

Locally. because you need to cut. But read and paste does not require it. 

Only if there is infinite memory available.

Sure, the evolution of the phase is Unitary, but this holds for QM systems in isolation. The only real example of such is the Universe itself.

Which would be enough.

Good!

We get the Wheeler-Dewitt equation with its vanishing of time.

This go in the comp direction, although a lot of work remains to have a clearer view on this.

I use the isomorphism between the unitary evolution of the wavefunction and a computation.

> Math do not compute.

That does not make a lot of sense.

Math performs no actions on its own. 

OK. Math is not even something that we can defined in math.

No self-reference?

> Moreover it is an
> operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all
> that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and
> sociology) within a wider physical framework.

May be. You did not provide a definition of physical computation. Nor  
of "physical", which might help a skeptic like me. The only one you  
gave was "reducing entropy". But it does not work. It might work for  
life perhaps. It is certainly an interesting idea. But it is not  
"computation". You can't change definition at will, or we are talking  
about different things. The mathematical notion of computation is NOT  
controversial. The physical notion of computation is not even  
existing, and most attempts are controversial.

The existence of my desktop computer is obvious to me....

OK. But that "obviousness" is the mystery we can explain in the comp theory. "obvious" is 1p, and treated in the "& p" hypostases.

Umm, OK.

 

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[Craig Weinberg]

I usually try to start from 'outside of the box's box'.

[Stephen Paul King]

Laws of form

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 Jan 2014, at 13:34, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 4:22 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 22 Jan 2014, at 23:16, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 1:11:16 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:45, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> It is a phisical definition of computation in the physical world, to
> distinguish what physical phenomena are computations and what are not.
> I don´t care about mathematical oddities.

But nobody has found such a definition. Physical computation are only  
recognized as computation in machine that we can build, from subset of  
physical laws, to implement the mathematical definition.

Why not? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to recognize that  the class of Physical systems have related a class of Representations: all of the possible measurement data of a physical system. We can examine the measurement data and generate simulations of the physical system in order to predict its behavior. We call this Physics.

I don't see how this could make sense. But if it did, why don't you use it and provide that definition of "physical computation"?

A computation is any transformation of information.

That is not the standard definition. 

Information is any distinction between two things that makes a difference to a third. 

What happens when the ability to make distinctions vanishes?

We become quite retarted, I guess. I do agree with the importance of being able to do distinction. It is basically Brouwer's first axiom for consciousness, actually the ability to distinguish 1 from 0, if I remember well.

 

Then it is a theorem that we cannot recognize something as being a  
computation, even in the arithmetical reality.

Sure, but that assumes that one is dealing with an infinite set. The set of measurable data of a physical system is not infinite.

In which theory? As long as we don't have the theory we can't say. I assume comp, and I show the TOE does not have to axiom anything infinite. Elementary arithmetic don't assume infinite set.

Elementary Arithmetic does not assume the Integers, implicitly? Take the empty set, put it in a set, put the result in a set,

Or add one, again and again. This provides only finite numbers, or sets.

repeat infinitely.

Oh! Well yes, but here you assume infinity, and I said that I don't do that.

Infinity.

... because you repeat your operation infinitely. To do this at the base level, you need to explicitly assume an axiom of infinity (like in the usual set theories).

 

We can build one and  
recognize those we built, or we can bet that some process computes,  
like when saying "yes" to a doctor. But there is no general means to  
see if something is a computation or not, and this will depends in  
part of we look at it.

This remark seems to have an interesting implication: that if I examine some string of code that might happen to be a simulation of a physical system, I will not be able to know which physical system it is. We get universality of computation this way?

 

Computability is a notion discovered in math. It is related to the key  
discovery of Turing (also some others) of the universal (Turing)  
machine.

But this universality comes with a great price. It abstracts away time and space and all the rest of our local reality.

But we have discovered it, and it does not abstract space and time away, it explains the persistent illusion with all possible details. It says only that adding an axiom at that level cannot work.

Nature does not need axioms. Donald Hoffman has changed my thinking.

And I cannot use the notion of "nature". I am not sure what you mean by nature does not need axioms. I am not sure nature needs anything, nor even that it exists at the ontological level.

 

You can defend naturalism, or physicalism, and you have the right to  
believe in a primitive physical universe. I am agnostic, and I have to  
be, if only because we have not yet decided between Plato and  
Aristotle. We are very ignorant, notably on the mind-body question.

Umm, your agnosticism does not seem very strong. You defend AR very strongly.

No. I debunk invalid argument against it, with some vigor, perhaps. 

And yes, I do tend to believe that 17 is prime.

I get that, you defend viridity. Nature does not. Nature evolves.

In the Aristotelian theology. My point is only that this is not compatible with comp, unless you add some magic.

 

I have offered you a sketch of a solution to the mind-body problem and you vigorously attack it with demands for formalism that I cannot write. 

Only because you are using your informal and unclear ideas to criticize the UDA's consequence.

Umm, no. I criticize its assumptions: e.g. That numbers can exist independent of that which they reference.

If you mean that numbers -> the existence of the moon, and of the many things which can be observed, then I agree. But the numbers are simpler conceptually than those things referenced. So I prefer to explain the moon by that dependence on numbers, instead of explaining the numbers by using the moon.

   What if both Plato and Aristotle are wrong?

What if you are wrong?

I am wrong. I try to correct the errors.

Good. It is the same for Plato and Aristotle.

 

I do not defend computationalism. I just show that IF we assume it,  
then we get a constructive and testable platonic theology, which  
explains physics. And I have done a piece of the derivation and tested  
it.

It does not take much to show examples of your defend, Bruno. You are lying to yourself in claiming "I do not defend computationalism." You will not consider any alternative.

I thought you defend computationalism also. 

My case is different. I am agnostic on computationalism. But I study its consequences. it is my job.

And, actually, I don't see any other way to even just conceive an alternative.

That is a problem: You cannot imagine an alternative.

I just said that I can.

I said that I can conceive an alternative to comp,  but only by studying comp. 

It is common that people *pretend* to defend a non-comp theory, but they have not study comp, and actually build their attack of comp, almost exactly following the comp first person notion provided by the Theatetus. There is a sense in which the third hypostase (alias the first person, S4Grz, Bp & p, ...) can be said to have a non-comp discourse.

Your mind is closed. :_(

 

If you are right on metaphysical naturalism, with a real ontological  
universe, then comp is wrong. That is all what I say.

Pfft, that is a false dichotomy.

Then UDA is flawed.

It is not necessary to assume ontological primitives that have some set of properties to the exclusion of others.

Then your ontology is amorphous. Nothing can emerge from it, without magic.

Magic is when Numbers can exist and have nothing to represent.

So you have no model for RA or PA? 

I think you go to much on the meta-level. 

Are you telling me that you disagree with 2+2=4?

Also, how could numbers even appear from an amorphous existence in which nothing can be distinguished?

You are losing me.

You hold onto this dichotomy because it is your tool to defend AR.

I need indeed that 2+2=4.

>
> Computation in this sense is a manifestation of teleological entities
> capable of maintaining his internal structure.

I can accept this as a putative truth about a notion of physical  
computation, but this has not yet been defined.

Why do we need a well founded definition?

We don't. 

I offer a non-well founded definition: Computation is any transformation of Information. Information does not need to be of physical systems; it can be of representational systems: like you favored Sigmas and PA.

You can't change the definition. Create a new concept if you want, but computation, or the weaker notion of computability that I need, is well defined by Church thesis. 

 

"reducing entropy" was  
a good try, less wrong than "quantum computation" (despite here Turing  
universality is verifiable), but it does not work as nature can  
compute without dissipating energy (indeed quantum computers requite  
that).

Where do you get that rubbish idea?

If a quantum computer dissipates energy, the entanglement will propagate from the environment, and the quantum information will be lost. It has been shown (by Landauer and zurel, that only erasing information needs energy, and logicians knows since some work by Hao Wang, in the 1950, (I think) that universal computability can be obtained with machine which never erase memory.

(You are Insulting. I take it that you have no argument).

Wrong! You are assuming an a priori existing infinite resource: memory.

No. in UDA's step 0, I assume that we can survive with a body-machine, and Church thesis.

At that stage we are agnostic on ontological infinities. 

Of course we have to make sense of 0, 1, 2, 3, ...

In AUDA, we assume no more than 

0 ≠ s(x)

s(x) = s(y) -> x = y

x+0 = x

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

x*0=0

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

Then we add only definitions, in that language, using only those laws. That is we do not assume infinity.

Comp appears to be finitist. Infinity appears in the mind of the numbers.

We can believe in 0, and in 1, and in 2, and in 3, etc, without ever believing in {0, 1, 2, ...}.

Quantum computation has been proven to require resources if it is to be evaluated.

Locally. because you need to cut. But read and paste does not require it. 

Only if there is infinite memory available.

The result of Landauer-Zurek is valid in a finite universe.

Sure, the evolution of the phase is Unitary, but this holds for QM systems in isolation. The only real example of such is the Universe itself.

Which would be enough.

Good!

We get the Wheeler-Dewitt equation with its vanishing of time.

This go in the comp direction, although a lot of work remains to have a clearer view on this.

I use the isomorphism between the unitary evolution of the wavefunction and a computation.

Which isomorphism?

If you define the unitary evolution on some digital lattice, you get an example of computation. But that does not help me to see your "isomorphism".

> Math do not compute.

That does not make a lot of sense.

Math performs no actions on its own. 

OK. Math is not even something that we can defined in math.

No self-reference?

No 3p self-references, because you need a body or a Gödel number (name, description, etc.) and math has none, like already arithmetical truth has none.

1p self-reference? I don't know. We can certainly not get it by the Theaetetus' method, as math has no name such that we can define a believer associated to it. "math" is similar to "god" here.

> Moreover it is an
> operational definition closer to everyday reality and includes all
> that is traditionally called computer science and biology (and
> sociology) within a wider physical framework.

May be. You did not provide a definition of physical computation. Nor  
of "physical", which might help a skeptic like me. The only one you  
gave was "reducing entropy". But it does not work. It might work for  
life perhaps. It is certainly an interesting idea. But it is not  
"computation". You can't change definition at will, or we are talking  
about different things. The mathematical notion of computation is NOT  
controversial. The physical notion of computation is not even  
existing, and most attempts are controversial.

The existence of my desktop computer is obvious to me....

OK. But that "obviousness" is the mystery we can explain in the comp theory. "obvious" is 1p, and treated in the "& p" hypostases.

Umm, OK.

Umm, OK.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

I agree with Liz, and Craig, here. It is an interesting idea. Not new, though. But I don't find the reference. I just remember that some people at IRIDIA works on this (in the frame of research in AI).

The typical example was based on "driving". The young driver is hyperconscious on all his decisions all the time, and the more older driver, drive unconsciously, may be solving puzzle in his head, until the motor breaks, and suddenly his consciousness was back. 

As such example implies, consciousness did never disappear, and most people, including me, consider that the idea defended by Craig here go more around a theory of attention and focus, than of consciousness per se, but this is of course debatable.

When Craig says that consciousness offload that which is too mechanical to be meaningful reminds well the hardness of the consciousness problem; if everything is mechanical in the brain what is the need of consciousness. It reminds also to me the reflexion/comprehension principles in set theory, and often alluded for a definition of the numbers or even all Cantor ordinals.

You are supposed to comprehend what you see (comprehension), and to add to the universe what you have just understood (reflexion). I love to do that with the kids. 

At the start there is nothing. You comprehend (= you put a potatoes around it, or just "{" and "}", as we cannot draw here:

So comprehend nothing, and reflecting it in the universe (which was empty at the start) gives

{ }

OK?

But now you see that, and that is not nothing. So you comprehend it---it gives {{ }}, and you add it to the universe, getting

{ }  {{ }}

And now you see that, comprehend it, ---that gives {{ } {{ }}), and you add it in the universe, getting

{}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }})

At some points the kids says that they are bored, and got the point, which means that they know how to continue, and have a good idea of the universe. It looks like the sequel is *mechanical*.

But then "creativity" (in in sense close to Post, of jumping out of the picture) is brought by the next "comprehension". Indeed you can, and have to say, once the kids get the "mechanic" of the progression, and believe that the universe is given by

{}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...

You have to say that you see now {}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ..., and comprehension means that you have to encircle it, that is the universe is {  {}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   }, but then reflexion strikes again, getting

{}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   {  {}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   }

And then the next steps:

{}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   {  {}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   }    {{}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   {  {}  {{ }}  {{ } {{ }}) ...   }    }

Etc.

Etc?

That "etc" cannot be mechanical, as it it is, by comprehension and reflexion it miss the next ordinal. This is a nice way to "generate" the ordinal, and with Church thesis, using Kleene recursion theorem, there is a sense to say that we, and the machine, can give unambiguous computable names to those ordinal up to the first non computably definable ordinal omega_1^CK (CK for Church and Kleene).

Note that omega_1^CK is still enumerable (but not Recursively enumerable), and actually much smaller that aleph_1, the first non enumerable ordinal.

Where Craig might be wrong or not enough precise (to invalidate comp), is in believing that a machine can only name a computable ordinal. 

But machine, like us can climb such sequences, get bored, and do the limit, which here recurs and recurs, in less and less mechanical way, so to speak. And, we, like machines, can only provide non ambiguous name to the computable ordinal, which explains in fact the difficulty we can met with notion like all ordinals, or all cardinals.

But this highlights some non computable aspect in the phenomenon of attention and focus, which was to be expected with a "non computable-by itself" first person associated to the machine (by Theaetetus).

I usually try to start from 'outside of the box's box'.

Good idea. And Stephen mention the laws of form, which Kauffman exploits to make nice drawing of the reflection comprehension. In fact Kauffman depict a braid picture of the sequence above, below omega. I might try to draw it, but you can get it by putting a filament bended in one place, and then adding a same filament, with the same bending, just on the top, slightly shifted, and repeat. then you can interpret some over crossing by {, and  undercrossing by }, and it gives you the sequence from above.

Bruno

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

[John Mikes]

Dear Stephen, 

I am at a loss when I want to decipher meaning from machine-talk. My excellent old musical hearing deteriorated to shambles: I 'hear', but to decipher the meaning I need the harmonics what I can get (not alwys) from natural voice talking. Is there some 'readable' to explain Donald Hoffman's talk? 

I could not follow your position, but I think a broader sense may include subchapters in the same unit. 

Deduction upon mental input may include mathematical computations and physical deductions as well. 

My agnosticism is SPREAD-wise, not restricting: I find as applicable MORE than within reductionistic science. ("Infinite complexity" of unknown qualia). 

I feel 'my' agnosticism is not ignorance-based, ignorance comes as a contrary: I MAY find it believeable that there is much much more (and different) from what we hold as 'possible' in our human wisdom - and all that may have some impact on what we think is the sole (and entire?) "world" (our model). 

John M

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear John,

  Thank you for that critique! It helps. As to Hoffman's ideas:

try: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/interface.pdf

[Alberto G. Corona]

2014/1/22, Stephen Paul King <step...@charter.net>:

Yes. there are computations that produce that. and computations that
produce disorder in the real world. For example, a cruise missile.

But... as long as the are though or they are build or they are used,
the goal is to create some kind of order by the mind that defines,
uses or build it.

These computations at last produce certain desired order. Either are
made for you to convince me about how meaningles is my definition or
to kill terrorists in an enemy country etc. Ultimately the desired
outcome is reduction of uncertainty and entropy around the designer.

. It is a metaphisical position if you like. If you like, I can call
"essence of computation" instead of "computation" as such. or
alternatively "the self sustained process for which the computation is
_ever_ made for"

> of information, including transformations that are automorphisms.
>
>
>>
>> A simulation is an special case of the latter.
>>
>> So there are things that are computations: what the living beings do
>> at the chemical, physiological or nervous levels (and rational, social
>> and technological level in case of humans) . But there are things that
>> are not computations: almost everything else.
>>
>
> We are using a very narrow definition of computations and thus miss the
> computations that physical processes outside of our CPUs and GPUs are
> performing. If the functions of an Isolated physical system are such that
> the transformations they induce in/on their cover space (?) of
> representations are a simulation of the physical system, what obtains? A
> one to one map of the system that co-evolves with it. When we consider
> physical systems interacting with each other, could they additionally have
> partial emulations of each other within their "self-simulations"?
>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Alberto.
>>
>

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Alberto.

[Bruno Marchal]

A cruise missile is not a computation.
Provably so when assuming computationalism. It is not a computation,
nor the result of a computation (but it is related to a measure on all
computations).

I think it is preferable to use the standard definitions for the no
controversial notions. the notion of computation is based on the
mathematical discovery of the universal systems, languages and
(mathematical and digital) machines. Computation theory and
computability theory are standard branches of computer science.

Well, to be sure, the notion of computation is more complex than the
notion of computability, but it is easy to get in all case precise
definitions which are coherent with what we know about universal
systems.

Bruno

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

[Alberto G. Corona]

I mean the computer in a cruise missile is a computation , the sensors
and the actuators. I also don`t want to steal your precious
"computation" concept. I just resigned. I call it now "self sustained
processes" that compute. Although for me that expression is a
redundancy.

I would have you a little more in my side if I say that the physical
reality is a computation by God in order to create the order of
reality, but for you that is not enough. For you, God
undistinguisable from the computation, and the computation produces
whathever disorder possible, order among them. That is nonsense for
me. That is a sacrifice of nonsense to pay in the altar of Simplicity,
that you happily pay in the hope to find something that will eliminate
that nonsense.

Don´t count on me for that. Don't waste your time trying to convert me
to your computationalist faith.

I say that yours is a faith and not an hypothesis because you extract
vital conclusions from it. For example "Marihuana is good because it
permits the access to alternative computations-dreams". Itsn't so?

(It is not a rethorical question. it is not an "accusation". I just ask)

2014/1/24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>:

--
Alberto.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 24 Jan 2014, at 12:38, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

> I mean the computer in a cruise missile is a computation , the sensors
> and the actuators. I also don`t want to steal your precious
> "computation" concept. I just resigned. I call it now "self sustained
> processes" that compute. Although for me that expression is a
> redundancy.
>
> I would have you a little more in my side if I say that the physical
> reality is a computation by God in order to create the order of
> reality, but for you that is not enough.

It is enough. Look at the Plotinus paper. God is the "Arithmetical
truth".

When we use the standard notion of computation (discovered by Emil
Post, Alan Turing, Alonzo, Church, Andrzei Markov, etc.) it is easy to
justify that such a "God" is responsible for the existence of all
computations. Note, though, that it is only a tiny fraction of God
which can be said to compute. God, the arithmetical truth, do much more.

> For you, God
> undistinguisable from the computation,

What?

On the contrary. I insist all the time that Arithmetical Truth is way
beyond the computable realm.

The computable realm is just one drop in the ocean of the arithmetical
truth.

> and the computation produces
> whathever disorder possible, order among them.

A priori those notions are not related. There are theorems which
invite to look at some relation, like the fact that there are
universal machine which computations are reversible and they don't
dissipate energy.

> That is nonsense for
> me.

Physical order is NOT brought by a computation, in the
computationalist theory. It is brought by the First Person
Indeterminacy (FPI) on all computations. Some computation can play
roles there, but it is a complex matter. I just formulate the problem
and show how to solve it without eliminating the true but non provable
part (suggesting, or offering, a theory of qualia, notably, extending
the quanta, which are testable).

> That is a sacrifice of nonsense to pay in the altar of Simplicity,
> that you happily pay in the hope to find something that will eliminate
> that nonsense.

I am a logician. I just show that the hypothesis that the brain can be
emulated by a digital universal machine has consequences in biology,
psychology, physics, theology, etc. All the consequences are testable,
and most of them arguably already "observed".

My initial goal was to refute comp, but that's how I discover that the
machines defend themselves very well on that question. Yet the
consequences were considered as non-sense (like "many world"), and
well, my understanding of QM makes me think that comp is not yet
refuted.

>
> Don´t count on me for that. Don't waste your time trying to convert me
> to your computationalist faith.

That is unfair, as I insist also all the time that comp is my working
hypothesis. I have never said that I believe in comp. I am a
mathematician. I just prove that comp implies a series of propositions.

I don't say "ys" to the doctor, nor "no". I am agnostic on comp, like
a scientist should be on any theory.

The observation of the world makes me think that comp is plausible,
yes, especially at the light of Gödel theorem, and of quantum
mechanics. But that's all.

My initial inspiration for comp came from The Molecular Biology of the
Gene (Watson).

>
> I say that yours is a faith and not an hypothesis because you extract
> vital conclusions from it.

?

> For example "Marihuana is good because it
> permits the access to alternative computations-dreams". Itsn't so?

You are a bit non serious here. I have never concluded anything of
that kind from computationalism.

Marijuana is good because it is a better medication than the most
common one for at least 2000 diseases, according to experts in the
field, but this has nothing to do with comp.

Then I allude sometimes about salvia divinorum, for which your remark
makes much more sense (but still not as a consequence of comp). It is
normal that altering consciousness products or methods can provide
information on consciousness.

>
> (It is not a rethorical question. it is not an "accusation". I just
> ask)

Marijuana makes things cool and a bit psychedelic.
To dissociate completely and "visit other realities" Salvia is more
efficacious. Also the experience last between 4 and 8 minutes, when
cannabis or wine inebriate you for about two to four hours.

But the results are more easily sharable when doing math and logic.

Normally.

Bruno

[LizR]

On 25 January 2014 00:17, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

A cruise missile is not a computation.

Accroding to comp it is, at least, the result of computations - isn't it? :-)

But generally I would consider a cruise missile to be, if anything other than itself, a message. One I would "return to sender" if possible.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 Jan 2014, at 00:03, LizR wrote:

On 25 January 2014 00:17, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

A cruise missile is not a computation.

Accroding to comp it is, at least, the result of computations - isn't it? :-)

Not in the sense of the computation stopping and given a result.

Yes, in the sense that the "apparent primitive matter" results from the FPI on all computations. But that, by itself is not a computation.

But generally I would consider a cruise missile to be, if anything other than itself, a message. One I would "return to sender" if possible.

LOL.  But that's not easy. We prefer to bet on antimissile, usually.

Bruno

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

[Alberto G. Corona]

2014-01-24 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

You are a bit non serious here. I have never concluded anything of that kind from computationalism.

Marijuana is good because it is a better medication than the most common one for at least 2000 diseases, according to experts in the field, but this has nothing to do with comp.

Then I allude sometimes about salvia divinorum, for which your remark makes much more sense (but still not as a consequence of comp). It is normal that altering consciousness products or methods can provide information on consciousness.

So inplicitly you  are agreeing with what I told. You would never accept it however. 

 But don´t worry.  That is not bad. It is simply human. To use the desired conclussion as an starting axiom is natural. I do not talk about your professional work or your conscious thinking, in which you are correct, but about the influence of you hipothesis  in the spontaneous thinking about what is true in apparently unrelated questions where the conscious does not fire the "caution, it is only an hipothesis!" warning. 

Most of the thinking is unconscious. That´s why we wake-up with a solution for a problem after sleeping. That is an example of how  the individual good (desired outcomes at least) establish what is true. 

2014/1/24, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>:

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Jan 2014, at 13:16, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

2014-01-24 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

You are a bit non serious here. I have never concluded anything of that kind from computationalism.

Marijuana is good because it is a better medication than the most common one for at least 2000 diseases, according to experts in the field, but this has nothing to do with comp.

Then I allude sometimes about salvia divinorum, for which your remark makes much more sense (but still not as a consequence of comp). It is normal that altering consciousness products or methods can provide information on consciousness.

So inplicitly you  are agreeing with what I told. You would never accept it however. 

Accept what? 

 But don´t worry.  That is not bad. It is simply human. To use the desired conclussion

Which desired conclusion. You talk like if I was doing philosophy.

as an starting axiom is natural.

Well, I desire that 1+1 = 2. You might say that. But I have no desire that comp is true. Nor that it is false. I don't really care. In both case we face something extra-ordinary.

I do not talk about your professional work or your conscious thinking, in which you are correct, but about the influence of you hipothesis  in the spontaneous thinking about what is true in apparently unrelated questions where the conscious does not fire the "caution, it is only an hipothesis!" warning. 

You lost me. Not sure what you are saying. I don't use comp to justify the use of coffee or tea in the morning. same with any other psychotropic products.

Most of the thinking is unconscious. That´s why we wake-up with a solution for a problem after sleeping. That is an example of how  the individual good (desired outcomes at least) establish what is true. 

Which good, which truth?

As a scientist, I never invoke truth, except of course when I use the concept of truth in the subject matter, which is the bread of the logicians' work. But we will never pretend that this or that statement is true.

I intuit some misunderstanding, but you are not enough clear so that I can point of which precisely.

Bruno

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[Richard Ruquist]

Comp works whether you are conscious or unconscious, if it works at all.