Re: Why Does Anything Exist?

[spudb...@aol.com]

I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

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On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Jason Resch <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:37 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 3/9/2021 12:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:57 AM Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

What was there before there was nothing?

I don't believe reality was ever a state of absolute nothingness. Rather, there are things that exist necessarily: logical laws, truth, properties of numbers, etc. Some of these truths and number relations concern and define all computational histories, and the appearance of a physical reality is a result of these computations creating consciousness observers. See: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#A_Story_of_Creation

But you're casually confounding different sense of "exist".  Logical laws, number, etc are derivative on language.  They don't "exist" physically.  The logicians meaning of exist is just to satisfy a predicate.  Any sensible discussion of "exist"needs to start with recognizing it has several different meanings.

Hi Brent,

You are right there are various senses of the word "exists".

I dedicate a section specifically to this issue, and define three types, or modes of existence: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Three_Modes_of_Existence

Jason

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.

[John Clark]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 6:45 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

There's only one thing it could be running on, the laws of physics. 

 John K Clark   See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021, 5:45 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

I agree that thought is in a sense, more fundamental (existing prior to) the observed. Of course the next question is what explains the origin of this thought? This is the answer I now tell myself (I welcome revisions/improvements):

If one accepts the independent existence of mathematical truths, like "2 + 2 = 4" then, due to Turing universal equations, one must also accept truths like "The 1,829,735th step of program #789 contains a bit string "01011101".

We can keep going, and extend this to say, programs that describe computable physical worlds, and relate the bit strings representing those generated states to facts about these computable realities

It therefore becomes a mathematically provable fact that "there exists a universal equation that includes an encoding of this very e-mail, written by a computational version of a person just like me, who exists as part of a computed physical reality which looks just like our observable universe."

So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

Jason

---

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Jason Resch <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:37 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 3/9/2021 12:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:57 AM Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

What was there before there was nothing?

I don't believe reality was ever a state of absolute nothingness. Rather, there are things that exist necessarily: logical laws, truth, properties of numbers, etc. Some of these truths and number relations concern and define all computational histories, and the appearance of a physical reality is a result of these computations creating consciousness observers. See: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#A_Story_of_Creation

But you're casually confounding different sense of "exist".  Logical laws, number, etc are derivative on language.  They don't "exist" physically.  The logicians meaning of exist is just to satisfy a predicate.  Any sensible discussion of "exist"needs to start with recognizing it has several different meanings.

Hi Brent,

You are right there are various senses of the word "exists".

I dedicate a section specifically to this issue, and define three types, or modes of existence: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Three_Modes_of_Existence

Jason

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.

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Mar 2021, at 00:45, spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

IF you are willing to bet, like Darwin did implicitly, that life is Turing emulable, so that for example, you can survive with an artificial digital brain (and there are evidences for this, if only the success of Darwin’s type of explanation in biology),

Then, the “Great program” are given any Universal Turing Machinery. More precisely, any Model (in the sense of Logician) of any Turing-complete theory would do the work. As the elementary arithmetic that we all learn in primary school is a universal machinery, we need only to believe in the truth of 2+2=4 & Co.

Now, you might ask where does that arithmetical reality come from?

Answer: any other universal machinery can explain this. You can derive the Robinson Axioms of Arithmetic from the simple theory of combinators, which has only two axioms Kxy = x, and Sxyz = xz(yz) together with three simple identity axioms(*). I did it explicitly on this forum (search “combinators”). 

So, all we need is to assume one Universal machinery, whichever you want.

Now, you might ask where does that “first” universal machinery comes from?

Answer: It is impossible to derive a universal machinery from something which is not already a universal machinery. So, a universal machinery is a needed to even just define the notion of machine and machinery.

(In case people have forgotten: a universal machinery is given by all programs in some Turing universal system, or the partial computable functions associates with those programs, the phi_i. A universal machine/number is a number u such that

phi_u(x, y) = phi_x(y). u is called the computer, x is called the program, and y is called the data. (x, y) is supposed to be a number (coding the two numbers x and y).

Note that when you have a universal number, you can define a universal machinery associated with it, and all universal machinery contains (infinitely many) universal numbers.

Once we assume/believe/bet-on Indexical Digital Mechanism (yes doctor + the Church Turing thesis), physics is reduced to a statistics on all (relative) computations going through our computational mental states, and that statistics is given by the modal logic of the “observable” variant of Gödel’s beweisbar predicate. 

A believer in an ontological physical universe must abandon Mechanism, or abandon rationality.

I got the "many-world” aspect of physics from this in the 1970, and it took 30 years to get quantum logic for the observable, and quantum intuitionist logic for the sensible.

I recall you the 8 modes of self-reference imposed by incompleteness. P represents sigma_1 arithmetical proposition. 

p (truth)

[]p (justifiable) (splits in two along G*/G)

[]p & p (knowable)

[]p & <>t (observable) (splits in two along G*/G)

[]p & <>t & p (sensible) (splits in two along G*/G)

G* proves them all equivalent, but G cannot prove any of those equivalences. It means that the machine sees the same truth, but from 8 very different perspective obeying 8 very different mathematics.

Bruno

(*) the full basic theory of combinators is:

RULES:

1) If x = y and x = z, then y = z

2) If x = y then xz = yz

3) If x = y then zx = zy

AXIOMS:

4) Kxy = x

5) Sxyz = xz(yz)

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On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 Jason Resch <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:37 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On 3/9/2021 12:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 12:57 AM Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

What was there before there was nothing?

I don't believe reality was ever a state of absolute nothingness. Rather, there are things that exist necessarily: logical laws, truth, properties of numbers, etc. Some of these truths and number relations concern and define all computational histories, and the appearance of a physical reality is a result of these computations creating consciousness observers. See: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#A_Story_of_Creation

But you're casually confounding different sense of "exist".  Logical laws, number, etc are derivative on language.  They don't "exist" physically.  The logicians meaning of exist is just to satisfy a predicate.  Any sensible discussion of "exist"needs to start with recognizing it has several different meanings.

Hi Brent,

You are right there are various senses of the word "exists".

I dedicate a section specifically to this issue, and define three types, or modes of existence: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/#Three_Modes_of_Existence

Jason

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.

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Mar 2021, at 13:05, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 6:45 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

There's only one thing it could be running on, the laws of physics. 

This cannot work.

Years ago, I would have said “this cannot work unless you defend an ultra-finitist (and fictionalist) theory of machine, but eventually I have shown that even such a weird conception of machine cannot help to escape the necessity to reduce physics to a finitist (but non ultrafinitist) theory of mind. 

When we assume Mechanism, we can no more invoke an ontological commitment richer than “very elementary arithmetic”. The Aristotelian God (Matter, with a big M to say that it is not reducible to simpler) cannot exist, in fact cannot make any sense.

Bruno

 John K Clark   See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Mar 2021, at 14:08, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021, 5:45 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I kind of side with Canadian philosopher John Leslie, as well as British astronomer, James Jeans on this question. Both Leslie and Jeans see the cosmos as a Great Thought. I formalize their conjectures as a Great Program. One may ask, running on what?

I agree that thought is in a sense, more fundamental (existing prior to) the observed. Of course the next question is what explains the origin of this thought? This is the answer I now tell myself (I welcome revisions/improvements):

If one accepts the independent existence of mathematical truths, like "2 + 2 = 4" then, due to Turing universal equations, one must also accept truths like "The 1,829,735th step of program #789 contains a bit string "01011101".

We can keep going, and extend this to say, programs that describe computable physical worlds, and relate the bit strings representing those generated states to facts about these computable realities

It therefore becomes a mathematically provable fact that "there exists a universal equation that includes an encoding of this very e-mail, written by a computational version of a person just like me, who exists as part of a computed physical reality which looks just like our observable universe."

So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

Indeed :)

Bruno

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUg5zZT%2BnX2oWtTOobPBnx_C_vOLQ%3D7-6rsnOTm1VZX6BA%40mail.gmail.com.

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 8:09 AM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

But if I think 2+2 = 5 then thoughts still exist, but without the laws of physics a Turing machine can't exist, and without a Turing Machines thoughts, even incorrect thoughts produced by faulty programming, can't exist. 

[Telmo Menezes]

Am Do, 11. Mär 2021, um 18:05, schrieb John Clark:

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 8:09 AM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

But if I think 2+2 = 5 then thoughts still exist,

Which goes to show that just by adding the two words "I think" to an interesting statement you can turn it into an uninteresting statement.

but without the laws of physics a Turing machine can't exist,

The laws of physics are a human construct. Mathematically different sets of laws can fit the same experimental results and produce the same results. I guess what you actually mean is: "without physics a Turing machine can't exist". If you mean a physical instance of the machine, then you are trivially correct. Of course, Turing's point was not to provide instructions on how to construct a very inefficient computational device. His point was to formalize the very idea of computation.

So, if your claim is actually "without physics computation cannot exist", then you are just betting on one brute fact to build reality upon instead of another. Maybe you are correct, but I don't know if you are and neither do you.

Telmo

and without a Turing Machines thoughts, even incorrect thoughts produced by faulty programming, can't exist. 

John K Clark   See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Mar 2021, at 19:05, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 8:09 AM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

But if I think 2+2 = 5 then thoughts still exist,

That is ambiguous. Strictly speaking if 2+2=5, I am the pope, and in fact everything becomes provable, so unicorn exist, even square circles.

So it is true that thought exists, but anything exist in that case, making that existence vacuously true.

but without the laws of physics a Turing machine can't exist,

That is false. PA proves the existence of all Turing machine. You identify a mathematical notion with its representation in a physical theory. 

Those are different concepts. 

I prefer (for good reason) to not assume an ontological physical reality at the start, which is implicit in your remark here.

Bruno

and without a Turing Machines thoughts, even incorrect thoughts produced by faulty programming, can't exist. 

John K Clark   See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Mar 2021, at 20:20, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:

Am Do, 11. Mär 2021, um 18:05, schrieb John Clark:

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 8:09 AM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So if 2+2=4, then thoughts exist.

But if I think 2+2 = 5 then thoughts still exist,

Which goes to show that just by adding the two words "I think" to an interesting statement you can turn it into an uninteresting statement.

but without the laws of physics a Turing machine can't exist,

The laws of physics are a human construct. Mathematically different sets of laws can fit the same experimental results and produce the same results. I guess what you actually mean is: "without physics a Turing machine can't exist". If you mean a physical instance of the machine, then you are trivially correct. Of course, Turing's point was not to provide instructions on how to construct a very inefficient computational device. His point was to formalize the very idea of computation.

So, if your claim is actually "without physics computation cannot exist", then you are just betting on one brute fact to build reality upon instead of another. Maybe you are correct, but I don't know if you are and neither do you.

Since Aristotle, or perhaps since the Church imposed the theology of Aristotle (the belief in some primary matter or physical universe), a lot of people confuse the many evidences that we have for the existence of a physical reality with evidences that the physical reality would be the fundamental Reality. 

Of course, Aristotle reacted to Plato, who was aware that there were no evidence for a physical reality which would be primary, and actually that there are some evidences that the fundamental reality is not physical, but rather number theoretical or even musical (like with Pythagorus), or “ideal”, like with his own “world of ideas” (the Noùs). 

The existence of a primary physical universe is an hypothesis absent from any physical theoiries. It is in fact a very strong metaphysical commitment.

Now, even if there was such a primary universe, it would remain true that all computations are run in a tiny part of the arithmetical reality, like it would remain true that there is no biggest prime number. Those existence are not a priori related, despite eventually Digital Mechanism has to, and does, relate them through machine’s canonical psychology/theology/metaphysics.

Bruno

Telmo

and without a Turing Machines thoughts, even incorrect thoughts produced by faulty programming, can't exist. 

John K Clark   See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

 

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 2:20 PM Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:

>>without the laws of physics a Turing machine can't exist,

> The laws of physics are a human construct.

No. Humans are a law of physics construct.  

> Mathematically different sets of laws can fit the same experimental results and produce the same results.

Yes. And that's because mathematics is a language, and you can say the exact same thing in many different ways.  

 

> I guess what you actually mean is: "without physics a Turing machine can't exist".

Yes.

> If you mean a physical instance of the machine, then you are trivially correct.

I mean you need physics to DO anything, and a Turing Machine needs to DO things. A description of a Turing machine in a book, no matter how detailed, cannot make a single calculation or do anything else either; and a description of a cow in a book can not produce milk no matter how many organic chemical formulas are included in the book. 

 

> Of course, Turing's point was not to provide instructions on how to construct a very inefficient computational device. His point was to formalize the very idea of computation.

Touring wasn't suggesting that a practical way to make a computer was with a long string of tape with nothing but ones and zeros on it, but he wanted to make a hypothetical computer as simple as possible to get at the bare essentials, and he found that to get down to the core understanding of computation you've got to talk about something physical; that is to say he had to talk about getting things done and the only way things can get done is by making use of the laws of physics. And so Turing  came up with something that we now call a Turing Machine.

> So, if your claim is actually "without physics computation cannot exist", then you are just betting on one brute fact to build reality upon instead of another. Maybe you are correct,

I'd say my odds of being correct are pretty damn good considering the fact that nobody is ever observed a computation being made without making use of the laws of physics, and nobody has ever even proposed a theory about a computation could be made without making use of the laws of physics.