Qualia and mathematics
Pierz
doubt that an arithmetical ontology can ever really give a
satisfactory explanation of qualia. It seems to me that imputing
qualia to calculations (indeed consciousness at all, thought that may
be the same thing) adds something that is not given by, or derivable
from, any mathematical axiom. Surely this is illegitimate from a
mathematical point of view. Every mathematical statement can only be
made in terms of numbers and operators, so to talk about *qualities*
arising out of numbers is not mathematics so much as numerology or
qabbala.
Here of course is where people start to invoke the wonderfully protean
notion of ‘emergent properties’. Perhaps qualia emerge when a
calculation becomes deep enough.Perhaps consciousness emerges from a
complicated enough arrangement of neurons. But I’ll venture an axiom
of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
property of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,
that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
invoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brain
has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all.
In the same way, I can’t see how qualia can emerge from arithmetic,
unless the rudiments of qualia are present in the natural numbers or
the operations of addition and mutiplication. And yet it seems to me
they can’t be, because the only properties that belong to arithmetic
are those leant to them by the axioms that define them. Indeed
arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more. Matter may in
principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness. Yet mathematics
is only what it is defined to be. Certainly it contains many mysteries
emergent properties, but all these properties arise logically from its
axioms and thus cannot include qualia.
I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
ascribes qualities to numbers. A ‘2’ in one’s birthdate indicates
creativity (or something), a ‘4’ material ambition and so on. Because
the emergent properties of numbers can indeed be deeply amazing and
wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a natural human
tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the imagination
into them. But if these qualities really do inhere in numbers and are
not put there purely by our projection, then numbers must be more than
their definitions. We must posit the numbers as something that
projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not purely
mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that define an
arithmetic. This then can no longer be described as a mathematical
ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism. And because
something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens the way for
all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be proved from
the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the mathematical
variety, but more of the variety that cries out for Mr Occam’s shaving
apparatus.
acw
> As I continue to ponder the UDA, I keep coming back to a niggling
> doubt that an arithmetical ontology can ever really give a
> satisfactory explanation of qualia. It seems to me that imputing
> qualia to calculations (indeed consciousness at all, thought that may
> be the same thing) adds something that is not given by, or derivable
> from, any mathematical axiom. Surely this is illegitimate from a
> mathematical point of view. Every mathematical statement can only be
> made in terms of numbers and operators, so to talk about *qualities*
> arising out of numbers is not mathematics so much as numerology or
> qabbala.
>
> Here of course is where people start to invoke the wonderfully protean
> calculation becomes deep enough.Perhaps consciousness emerges from a
> of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
> is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
> that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
> physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
> volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
> has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
> the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all.
>
> unless the rudiments of qualia are present in the natural numbers or
> the operations of addition and mutiplication. And yet it seems to me
> are those leant to them by the axioms that define them. Indeed
> arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more. Matter may in
> principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
> suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness. Yet mathematics
> is only what it is defined to be. Certainly it contains many mysteries
> emergent properties, but all these properties arise logically from its
> axioms and thus cannot include qualia.
>
> I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
> creativity (or something), a �4� material ambition and so on. Because
> the emergent properties of numbers can indeed be deeply amazing and
> wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a natural human
> tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the imagination
> into them. But if these qualities really do inhere in numbers and are
> not put there purely by our projection, then numbers must be more than
> their definitions. We must posit the numbers as something that
> projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not purely
> mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that define an
> arithmetic. This then can no longer be described as a mathematical
> ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism. And because
> something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens the way for
> all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be proved from
> the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the mathematical
> apparatus.
>
Why would any structure give rise to qualia? We think some structure
(for example our brain, or the abstract computation or arithmetical
truth/structure representing it) does and we communicate it to others in
a "3p" way. The options here are to either say qualia exists and our
internal beliefs (which also have 'physical' correlates) are correct, or
that it doesn't and we're all delusional, although in the second case,
the belief is self-defeating because the 3p world is inferred through
the 1p view. It makes logical sense that a structure which has such
beliefs as ourselves could have the same qualia (or a digital
substitution of our brain), but this is *unprovable*.
If you don't eliminate qualia away, do you think the principle described
here makes sense? http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html
If we don't attribute consciousness to some structures or just 'how a
computation feels from the inside' then we're forced to believe that
consciousness is a very fickle thing.
As for arithmetic/numbers - Peano Arithmetic is strong enough to
describe computation which is enough to describe just about any finite
structure/process (although potentially unbounded in time) and our own
thought processes are such processes if neuroscience is to be believed.
Arithmetic itself can admit many interpretation and axioms tell you what
'arithmetic' isn't and what theorems must follow, not what it is - can
you explain to me what a number is without appealing to a model or
interpretation? Arithmetical realism merely states that arithmetical
propositions have a truth value, or that the standard model of
arithmetic exists.
If you think that isn't enough, I don't see what else could be enough
without positing some form of magic in the physics, but that forces us
to believe consciousness is very fickle. Attributing consciousness to
(undefinable) arithmetical truth appears to me like a better theory than
attributing it to some uncomputable God-of-the-gaps physical magic , if
one has to believe in consciousness (as a side note, the set of
arithmetical truths is also uncomputable and undefinable within
arithmetic itself). If you must use Occam, the only thing that you can
shave would be your own consciousness, which I think is overreaching,
although some philosophers do just that (like Dennett), if you use Occam
and accept consciousness and that you admit a digital substitution, an
arithmetical ontology is one of the simplest solutions.
Pierz
'>arithmetic' isn't and what theorems must follow, not what it is
a certain point, but everything falters on a certain circularity at
some point. With maths we don't have to ask what it is beyond what it
is defined as being, and my argument is that adding qualia into it is
adding something outside its own internal logic, when maths is, purely
and entirely, exactly that logic.
>can you explain to me what a number is without appealing to a model or
>interpretation?
>(undefinable) arithmetical truth appears to me like a better theory than
>attributing it to some uncomputable God-of-the-gaps physical magic
based on incomplete scientific theories/knowledge. We aren't arguing
about God but about consciousness. Also, there's an ambiguity to what
you mean by 'uncomputable' here. We are talking about qualia which one
can't describe as uncomputable in a mathematical sense, but perhaps
better as 'unmathematical', not subject to mathematical treatment at
all. Qualia are 'uncomputable' in this sense also in an arithmetical
ontology in that nobody could ever 'predict' a quale, just as nobody
can ever describe one, except by fallible analogies. As for the
'magic' in the physics, the magic is *somewhere*, like it or not.
There is no explanation in mathematics for why numbers should have a
quality of feeling built into them. I don't like material
epiphenomenalism either, and increasingly I am finding Bruno's movie
graph argument convincing, but more as an argument against comp than
as proof that mind is a property of arithmetic.
>although some philosophers do just that (like Dennett),
only tell zombies by their philosophy, and that clearly therefore
Dennet is a philosophical zombie...
>and that you admit a digital substitution
is that the consciousness is inside the circuits - be it their logical
or their physical arrangement. Near death experiences are an argument
against that proposition. (I say that knowing full well I'm about to
get stomped by the materialists for it.) Another thought that makes me
wonder about computationalism is the experience of pure consciousness
that many people in deep meditation have reported - a state of mind
without computation, if real, would constitute an experiential
refutation of comp. I have experienced something like this myself,
alas not as a result of years of meditation, but when I passed out at
the chemist with the flu while waiting for a prescription! It was so
terribly disappointing to return to the 'thousand shocks that flesh is
heir to'. This does not make me a secret or not-so-secret theist BTW.
Unfortunately that whole ridiculously simplistic debate has blinded
us to the infinite possible ways the world might be in between having
been created by a guy with a beard and being a meaningless tornado of
particles of stuff.
On Jan 26, 11:08 pm, acw <a...@lavabit.com> wrote:
> On 1/26/2012 08:19, Pierz wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > As I continue to ponder the UDA, I keep coming back to a niggling
> > doubt that an arithmetical ontology can ever really give a
> > satisfactory explanation of qualia. It seems to me that imputing
> > qualia to calculations (indeed consciousness at all, thought that may
> > be the same thing) adds something that is not given by, or derivable
> > from, any mathematical axiom. Surely this is illegitimate from a
> > mathematical point of view. Every mathematical statement can only be
> > made in terms of numbers and operators, so to talk about *qualities*
> > arising out of numbers is not mathematics so much as numerology or
> > qabbala.
>
> > Here of course is where people start to invoke the wonderfully protean
> > are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
> > is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
> > physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
> > volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
> > the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all.
>
> > the operations of addition and mutiplication. And yet it seems to me
> > arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more. Matter may in
> > principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
> > suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness. Yet mathematics
> > is only what it is defined to be. Certainly it contains many mysteries
> > emergent properties, but all these properties arise logically from its
> > axioms and thus cannot include qualia.
>
> > I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
> > creativity (or something), a 4 material ambition and so on. Because
> > wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a natural human
> > tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the imagination
> > into them. But if these qualities really do inhere in numbers and are
> > not put there purely by our projection, then numbers must be more than
> > their definitions. We must posit the numbers as something that
> > projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not purely
> > mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that define an
> > arithmetic. This then can no longer be described as a mathematical
> > ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism. And because
> > something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens the way for
> > all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be proved from
> > the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the mathematical
>
> Why would any structure give rise to qualia? We think some structure
> (for example our brain, or the abstract computation or arithmetical
> truth/structure representing it) does and we communicate it to others in
> a "3p" way. The options here are to either say qualia exists and our
> internal beliefs (which also have 'physical' correlates) are correct, or
> that it doesn't and we're all delusional, although in the second case,
> the belief is self-defeating because the 3p world is inferred through
> the 1p view. It makes logical sense that a structure which has such
> beliefs as ourselves could have the same qualia (or a digital
> substitution of our brain), but this is *unprovable*.
>
> If you don't eliminate qualia away, do you think the principle described
acw
If qualia doesn't correspond to a structure's properties, then we should
observe inconsistencies between what we observed and what we do. Yet, we
don't observe any of that. Which is why consciousness/qualia/'what it's
like to be some structure' as internal truth makes sense to me. If you
reject having a digital substitution, you either have to appeal to the
brain having some concrete infinities in its implementation, or you have
to say that there are some inconsistencies. To put it in another way,
where in the piece-by-piece digital substitution thought experiment (the
one I linked) do you think consciousness or qualia changes? Does it
suddenly disappear when you replace one neuron? Is it's fading, yet the
behavior never changes while the person reports having vivid and
complete qualia)? What about those people with digital implants(for
example, for hearing), do you think they are now p.zombies? I'd rather
bet on what seems more likely to me, but you're free to bet on less
likely hypotheses.
As for "Near Death Experiences" or various altered states of
consciousness, I don't see how that shows COMP wrong: those people were
conscious during them. I would even say that altered states of
consciousness merely means that the class of possible experiences is
very large. I had a fairly vivid lucid dream last night, yet I don't
take that as proof against COMP, I take that as proof that conscious
experience can be quite varied, and the more unusual (as opposed to the
usual awake state) the state is, the more unusual the nature of the
qualia can be. If after drinking or ingesting some mind-altering
substance, you have some unusual qualia, I'd say that at least partially
points to your local brain's 'physical' (or arithmetical or
computational or ...) state being capable of being directly affected by
its environment - again, points towards functionalism of some form, not
against it.
Bruno Marchal
On 26 Jan 2012, at 07:19, Pierz wrote:
> As I continue to ponder the UDA, I keep coming back to a niggling
> doubt that an arithmetical ontology can ever really give a
> satisfactory explanation of qualia.
Of course the comp warning here is a bit "diabolical". Comp predicts
that consciousness and qualia can't satisfy completely the self-
observing machine. More below.
> It seems to me that imputing
> qualia to calculations (indeed consciousness at all, thought that may
> be the same thing) adds something that is not given by, or derivable
> from, any mathematical axiom. Surely this is illegitimate from a
> mathematical point of view. Every mathematical statement can only be
> made in terms of numbers and operators, so to talk about *qualities*
> arising out of numbers is not mathematics so much as numerology or
> qabbala.
No, it is modal logic, although model theory does that too. It is
basically the *magic* of computer science. relatively to a universal
number, a number can denote infinite things, like the program
factorial denotes the set {(0,0),(1,1),(2,2),(3,6),(4,24),(5,120), ...}.
Nobody can define consciousness and qualia, but many can agree on
statements about them, and in that way we can even communicate or
study what machine can say about any predicate verifying those
properties.
>
> Here of course is where people start to invoke the wonderfully protean
> notion of ‘emergent properties’. Perhaps qualia emerge when a
> calculation becomes deep enough.Perhaps consciousness emerges from a
> complicated enough arrangement of neurons.
Consciousness, as bet in a reality emerges as theorems in arithmetic.
They emerge like the prime numbers emerges. They follow logically,
from any non logical axioms defining a universal machine. UDA
justifies why it has to so, and AUDA shows how to make this
verifiable, with the definitions of knowledge on which most people
already agree.
> But I’ll venture an axiom
> of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system.
I agree with that in the logical sense. that is why I don't need more
than arithmetic for the universal realm.
> There
> is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
> property of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,
> that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
> physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
> volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
> invoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brain
> has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
> the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all.
>
Because the notion of matter prevent the progress. What arithmetic
explains is why universal numbers can develop a many-dream-world
interpretation of arithmetic justifying their local predictive
theories. Then for consciousness, we can explain why the predictive
theories can't address the question, for consciousness is related to
the big picture behind the observable surface. Numbers too find truth
that they can't relate to any numbers, or numbers relations.
> In the same way, I can’t see how qualia can emerge from arithmetic,
> unless the rudiments of qualia are present in the natural numbers or
> the operations of addition and mutiplication.
Rudiment of qualia would explains qualia away. They are intrinsically
more complex. A qualia needs two universal numbers (the hero and the
local environment(s) which executes the hero (in the computer science
sense, or in the UD). It needs the "hero" to refers automatically to
high level representation of itself and the environment, etc. Then the
qualia will be defined (and shown to exist) as truth felt as directly
available, and locally invariants, yet non communicable, and applying
to a person without description (the 1-person). "Feeling" being
something like "known as true in all my locally directly accessible
environments".
> And yet it seems to me
> they can’t be, because the only properties that belong to arithmetic
> are those leant to them by the axioms that define them.
Not at all. Arithmetical truth is far bigger than anything you can
derive from any (effective) theory. Theories are not PI_1 complete,
Arithmetical truth is PI_n complete for each n. It is very big.
> Indeed
> arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more.
Gödel's incompleteness theorem refutes this.
> Matter may in
> principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
> suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness. Yet mathematics
> is only what it is defined to be. Certainly it contains many mysteries
> emergent properties, but all these properties arise logically from its
> axioms and thus cannot include qualia.
It is here that you are wrong. Even if we limit ourselves to
arithmetical truth, it extends terribly what machines can justify.
>
> I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
> ascribes qualities to numbers. A ‘2’ in one’s birthdate indicates
> creativity (or something), a ‘4’ material ambition and so on. Because
> the emergent properties of numbers can indeed be deeply amazing and
> wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a natural human
> tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the imagination
> into them.
No. Some bet on mechanism to justify the non sensicalness of the
notion of zombie, or the hope that he or his children might travel on
mars in 4 minutes, or just empirically by the absence of relevant non
Turing-emulability of biological phenomenon.
Unlike putting consciousness in matter (an unknown into an unknown),
comp explains consciousness with intuitively related concept, like
self-reference, non definability theorem, perceptible incompleteness,
etc.
And if you look at the Mandelbrot set, a little bit everywhere, you
can hardly miss the unreasonable resemblances with nature, from
lightening to embryogenesis given evidence that its rational part
might be a compact universal dovetailer, or creative set (in Post
sense).
> But if these qualities really do inhere in numbers and are
> not put there purely by our projection, then numbers must be more than
> their definitions. We must posit the numbers as something that
> projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not purely
> mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that define an
> arithmetic.
Like arithmetical truth. I think acw explained already.
> This then can no longer be described as a mathematical
> ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism.
It is what you get in the case where brain are natural machines.
> And because
> something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens the way for
> all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be proved from
> the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the mathematical
> variety, but more of the variety that cries out for Mr Occam’s shaving
> apparatus.
No government can prevent numbers from dreaming. Although they might
try <sigh>.
You can't apply Occam on dreams.
They exist epistemologically once you have enough finite things.
Feel free to suggest a non-comp theory. Note that even just the
showing of *one* such theory is everything but easy. Somehow you have
to study computability, and UDA, to construct a non Turing emulable
entity, whose experience is not recoverable in any first person sense.
Better to test comp on nature, so as to have a chance at least to get
an evidence against comp, or against the classical theory of knowledge.
Bruno
Craig Weinberg
> of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
> is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
> property of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,
> that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
> physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
> volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
> invoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brain
> has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
> the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all.
people are missing. When I press this issue, I generally get a lot of
promissory materialism - 'Science Will Provide'. There is no amount of
ping pong balls that will suddenly begin to think it is a turtle.
Anything interesting that comes out of quantities and arrangements has
to be potentially there from the beginning, and that means physical
qualities which we know as matter and energy (or body and mind in
first person).
> In the same way, I can’t see how qualia can emerge from arithmetic,
> unless the rudiments of qualia are present in the natural numbers or
> the operations of addition and mutiplication. And yet it seems to me
> they can’t be, because the only properties that belong to arithmetic
> are those leant to them by the axioms that define them. Indeed
> arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more.
numbers, depending on the context.
> Matter may in
> principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
> suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness.
manipulating our brain directly with electromagnetism or surgery. That
suggests that matter is important in a non-trivial and highly specific
way. There is no reason I can think of to assume that all matter does
not have some sensorimotive properties.
> I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
> ascribes qualities to numbers. A ‘2’ in one’s birthdate indicates
> creativity (or something), a ‘4’ material ambition and so on. Because
> the emergent properties of numbers can indeed be deeply amazing and
> wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a natural human
> tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the imagination
> into them.
imagination and the psyche itself. Potentially more useful and
interesting than the properties of physics or arithmetic. Numerology
and other divinatory systems can, if they are understood figuratively
rather than literally, shed light on the 'who' and the 'why' aspects
of the universe that make the 'what' and 'how' meaningful.
> But if these qualities really do inhere in numbers and are
> not put there purely by our projection, then numbers must be more than
> their definitions.
fiction, it is just a level of semantic projection which we as humans
happen to be able to access. Does 1 imply independence, isolation,
first, top, only, etc? Yes, why not? Does 4 imply order and
practicality? Well, have you ever been in a building that uses seven
sided doors and windows? There is meaning there. It's not just
fictional, it's rooted in observation just as science is.
> We must posit the numbers as something that
> projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not purely
> mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that define an
> arithmetic. This then can no longer be described as a mathematical
> ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism. And because
> something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens the way for
> all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be proved from
> the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the mathematical
> variety, but more of the variety that cries out for Mr Occam’s shaving
> apparatus.
metaphysical explanation that makes the physical universe redundant
and illogical. Why not start with what we know? Consciousness and it's
relation with the brain and body are understandable when we stop
looking for the mystery and accept that our lives are part of the
universe in their native form. Once we do that, we have only to accept
that our cells and molecules also have lives that exist in their
native form but that form is not accessible to us directly as discrete
experiences, rather it is rolled into our own experience as rich
qualia.
Craig
Russell Standish
> of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
What about gliders emerging from the rules of Game of Life? There are
no primitive form gliders in the transition table, nor in static cells
of the grid.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Craig Weinberg
> On Jan 26, 1:19 am, Pierz <pier...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> > are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
>
> What about gliders emerging from the rules of Game of Life? There are
> no primitive form gliders in the transition table, nor in static cells
> of the grid.
cells. The interpretation that there is a visual pattern gliding is
only our perception of it. It's Beta movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_movement
Craig
acw
nothing in the universe, except transitions of states (unless a time
continuum (as in real numbers) is assumed, but that's a very strong
assumption). (One can also apply a form of MGA with this assumption
(+the digital subst. one) to show that consciousness has to be something
more "abstract" than merely matter.)
It doesn't change the fact that either a human or an AI capable of some
types of pattern recognition would form the internal beliefs that there
is a glider moving in a particular direction. This belief would even be
strengthened if you increase the resolution of your digital array/grid
by enough, have some high-level stable emergent patterns in it and only
allow "sensing" (either by an external party or something embedded in
it) in an inexact, potentially randomized way (such as only being able
to sense an average of the block, for example, if trying to access an
NxN-sized block, you'd only be able to access a quantized average, and
the offsets being sensed would be randomized slightly) - they would even
prefer to work with a continuum because there's no easy way of
establishing a precise resolution or sensing at that low level, but
regardless of how sensing (indirectly accessing data) is done, emergent
digital movement patterns would look like (continuous) movement to the
observer.
Also, it would not be very wise to assume humans are capable of sensing
such a magical continuum directly (even if it existed), the evidence
that says that humans' sense visual information through their eyes: when
a photon hits a photoreceptor cell, that *binary* piece of information
is transmitted through neurons connected to that cell and so on
throughout the visual system(...->V1->...->V4->IT->...) and eventually
up to the prefrontal cortex. Neurons are also rather slow, they can only
spike about once per 5ms (~200Hz), although they rarely do so often.
(Note that I'm not saying that conscious experience is only the current
brain state in a single universe with only one timeline and nothing
more, in COMP, the (infinite amount of) counterfactuals are also
important, for example for selecting the next state, or for "splits" and
"mergers").
Russell Standish
Exactly. It is an emergent phenomenon that is not "present in in
primitive form in the parts of the system". All emergent phenomena are
in the "eye of the beholder", but that doesn't make them less real.
Unless you're saying the gliders don't exist at all, but that doesn't
appear to be the case here, as why would you label a non-existent
phenomenon "beta movement".
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Craig Weinberg
> There is nothing on the display except transitions of pixels. There is
> nothing in the universe, except transitions of states
the universe. If you understand that pixels are generated by equipment
we have designed specifically to generate optical perceptions for
ourselves, then it is no surprise that it exploits our visual
perception. To say that there is nothing in the universe except the
transitions of states is a generalization presumably based on quantum
theory, but there is nothing in quantum theory which explains how
states scale up qualitatively so it doesn't apply to anything except
quantum. If you're talking about 'states' in some other sense, then
it's not much more explanatory than saying there is nothing except for
things doing things.
What I'm talking about is something different. We don't have to guess
what the pixels of Conway's game of life are doing because, we are the
ones who are displaying the game in an animated sequences. The game
could be displayed as a single pixel instead and be no different to
the computer.
>(unless a time
> continuum (as in real numbers) is assumed, but that's a very strong
> assumption). (One can also apply a form of MGA with this assumption
> (+the digital subst. one) to show that consciousness has to be something
> more "abstract" than merely matter.)
>
> It doesn't change the fact that either a human or an AI capable of some
> types of pattern recognition would form the internal beliefs that there
> is a glider moving in a particular direction.
arrayed in a matrix. It doesn't even need to run the game, it can just
load each frame of the game in memory and not have any 'internal
beliefs' about gliders moving.
> regardless of how sensing (indirectly accessing data) is done, emergent
> digital movement patterns would look like (continuous) movement to the
> observer.
indirectly experienced sense. Data supervenes on sense, but not all
sense is data (you can have feelings that you don't understand or even
be sure that you have them). I'm not sure why you say that continuous
movement patterns emerge to the observer, that is factually incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia
>
> Also, it would not be very wise to assume humans are capable of sensing
> such a magical continuum directly (even if it existed), the evidence
> that says that humans' sense visual information through their eyes:
and does inform us but it is not information. Perception is primitive.
It's the sensorimotive view of electromagnetism. It is not a message
about an event, it is the event.
> when
> a photon hits a photoreceptor cell, that *binary* piece of information
> is transmitted through neurons connected to that cell and so on
> throughout the visual system(...->V1->...->V4->IT->...) and eventually
> up to the prefrontal cortex.
perception itself. The prefrontal cortex is no more or less likely to
generate visual awareness than the retina cells or neurons or
molecules themselves.
The 1p experience of vision is not dependent upon external photons (we
can dream and visualize) and it is not solipsistic either (our
perceptions of the world are generally reliable). If I had to make a
copy of the universe from scratch, I would need to know that what
vision is all about is feeling that you are looking out through your
eyes at a world of illuminated and illuminating objects. Vision is a
channel of sensitivity for the human being as a whole, and it has as
more to do with our psychological immersion in the narrative of our
biography than it does photons and microbiology. That biology,
chemistry, or physics does not explain this at all is not a small
problem, it is an enormous deal breaker.
My solution is that both views are correct on their own terms in their
own sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view over
the other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,
which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is not just
a mechanism which pushes information around from one place to another,
each place is a living organism which actively contributes to the top
level experience - it isn't a passive system.
> Neurons are also rather slow, they can only
> spike about once per 5ms (~200Hz), although they rarely do so often.
> (Note that I'm not saying that conscious experience is only the current
> brain state in a single universe with only one timeline and nothing
> more, in COMP, the (infinite amount of) counterfactuals are also
> important, for example for selecting the next state, or for "splits" and
> "mergers").
it doesn't matter because our universe is not an electronic measuring
instrument. It makes sense to us just fine at it's native anthropic
rate of change (except for the technologies we have designed to defeat
that sense).
Craig
acw
> On Jan 26, 9:32 pm, acw<a...@lavabit.com> wrote:
>
>> There is nothing on the display except transitions of pixels. There is
>> nothing in the universe, except transitions of states
>
> Only if you assume that our experience of the universe is not part of
> the universe. If you understand that pixels are generated by equipment
> we have designed specifically to generate optical perceptions for
> ourselves, then it is no surprise that it exploits our visual
> perception. To say that there is nothing in the universe except the
> transitions of states is a generalization presumably based on quantum
> theory, but there is nothing in quantum theory which explains how
> states scale up qualitatively so it doesn't apply to anything except
> quantum. If you're talking about 'states' in some other sense, then
> it's not much more explanatory than saying there is nothing except for
> things doing things.
>
initial guess (maybe wrong), it seems similar to some form of
panpsychism directly over matter. Such theories are testable and
falsifiable, although only in the 1p sense. A thing that should be worth
keeping in mind is that whatever our experience is, it has to be
consistent with our structure (or, if we admit, our computational
equivalent) - it might be more than it, but it cannot be less than it.
We wouldn't see in color if our eyes' photoreceptor cells didn't absorb
overlapping ranges of light wavelengths and then processed it throughout
the visual system (in some parts, in not-so-general ways, while in
others, in more general ways). The structures that we are greatly limit
the nature of our possible qualia. Your theory would have to at least
take structural properties into account or likely risk being shown wrong
in experiments that would be possible in the more distant future (of
course, since all such experiments discuss the 1p, you can always reject
them, because you can only vouch for your own 1p experiences and you
seem to be inclined to disbelieve any computational equivalents merely
on the ground that you refuse to assign qualia to abstract structures).
As for 'the universe', in COMP - the universe is a matter of
epistemology (machine's beliefs), and all that is, is just arithmetical
truth reflecting on itself (so with a very relaxed definition of
'universe', there's really nothing that isn't part of it; but with the
classical definition, it's not something ontologically primitive, but an
emergent shared belief).
> What I'm talking about is something different. We don't have to guess
> what the pixels of Conway's game of life are doing because, we are the
> ones who are displaying the game in an animated sequences. The game
> could be displayed as a single pixel instead and be no different to
> the computer.
I have no idea how a randomly chosen computation will evolve over time,
except in cases where one carefully designed the computation to be very
predictable, but even then we can be surprised. Your view of computation
seems to be that it's just something people write to try to model some
process or to achieve some particular behavior - that's the local
engineer view. In practice computation is unpredictable, unless we can
rigorously prove what it can do, and it's also trivially easy to make
machines which we cannot know a damn thing about what they will do
without running them for enough steps. After seeing how some computation
behaves over time, we may form some beliefs about it by induction, but
unless we can prove that it will only behave in some particular way, we
can still be surprised by it. Computation can do a lot of things, and we
should explore its limits and possibilities!
>
>> (unless a time
>> continuum (as in real numbers) is assumed, but that's a very strong
>> assumption). (One can also apply a form of MGA with this assumption
>> (+the digital subst. one) to show that consciousness has to be something
>> more "abstract" than merely matter.)
>>
>> It doesn't change the fact that either a human or an AI capable of some
>> types of pattern recognition would form the internal beliefs that there
>> is a glider moving in a particular direction.
>
> Yes, it does. A computer gets no benefit at all from seeing the pixels
> arrayed in a matrix. It doesn't even need to run the game, it can just
> load each frame of the game in memory and not have any 'internal
> beliefs' about gliders moving.
>
Benefit? I only considered a form of narrow AI which is capable of
recognizing patterns in its sense data without doing anything about
them, but merely classifying it and possibly doing some inferences from
them. Both of this is possible using various current AI research.
However, if we're talking about "benefit" here, I invite you to think
about what 'emotions', 'urges' and 'goals' are - we have a
reward/emotional system and its behavior isn't undefined, it can be
reasoned about, not only that, one can model structures like it
computationally: imagine a virtual world with virtual physics with
virtual entities living in it, some entities might be programmed to
replicate themselves and acquire resources to do so or merely to
survive, they might even have social interactions which result in
various emotional responses within their virtual society. One of the
best explanations for emotions that I've ever seen was given by a
researcher that was trying to build such emotional machines, he did it
by programming his agents with simpler urges and the emotions were an
emergent property of the system:
http://agi-school.org/2009/dr-joscha-bach-understanding-motivation-emotion-and-mental-representation
http://agi-school.org/2009/dr-joscha-bach-understanding-motivation-emotion-and-mental-representation-2
http://agi-school.org/2009/dr-joscha-bach-the-micropsi-architecture
http://www.cognitive-ai.com/
>> regardless of how sensing (indirectly accessing data) is done, emergent
>> digital movement patterns would look like (continuous) movement to the
>> observer.
>
> I don't think that sensing is indirect accessed data, data is
> indirectly experienced sense. Data supervenes on sense, but not all
> sense is data (you can have feelings that you don't understand or even
> be sure that you have them).
>
It is indirect in the example that I gave because there is an objective
state that we can compute, but none of the agents have any direct access
to it - only to approximations of it - if the agent is external, he is
limited to how he can access by the interface, if the agent is itself
part of the structure, then the limitation lies within itself - sort of
like how we are part of the environment and thus we cannot know exactly
what the environment's granularity is (if one exists, and it's not a
continuum or merely some sort of rational geometry or many other
possibilities).
> I'm not sure why you say that continuous
> movement patterns emerge to the observer, that is factually incorrect.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia
Most people tend to feel their conscious experience being continuous,
regardless of if it really is so, we do however notice large
discontinuities, like if we slept or got knocked out. Of course most
bets are off if neuropsychological disorders are involved.
>>
>> Also, it would not be very wise to assume humans are capable of sensing
>> such a magical continuum directly (even if it existed), the evidence
>> that says that humans' sense visual information through their eyes:
>
> I don't think that what humans sense visually is information. It can
> and does inform us but it is not information. Perception is primitive.
> It's the sensorimotive view of electromagnetism. It is not a message
> about an event, it is the event.
>
I'm not sure how to understand that. Try writing a paper on your theory
and see if it's testable or verifiable in any way?
A small sidenote: a few years ago I've considered various consciousness
theories and various possible ontologies. Some of them, especially some
of the panpsychic kinds sure sound amazing and simple - they may even
lead to some religious experiences in some, but if you think about what
expectations to derive from them, or in general, what predictions or how
to test them, they tend to either fall short or worse, lead to
inconsistent beliefs when faced by even simple thought experiments (such
as the Fading qualia one). COMP on the other hand, offers very solid
testable predictions and doesn't fail most though experiments or
observational data that you can put it through (at least so far). I wish
other consciousness theories were as solid, understandable and testable
as COMP.
>> when
>> a photon hits a photoreceptor cell, that *binary* piece of information
>> is transmitted through neurons connected to that cell and so on
>> throughout the visual system(...->V1->...->V4->IT->...) and eventually
>> up to the prefrontal cortex.
>
> That's a 3p view. It doesn't explain the only important part -
> perception itself. The prefrontal cortex is no more or less likely to
> generate visual awareness than the retina cells or neurons or
> molecules themselves.
>
In COMP, you can blame the whole system for the awareness, however you
can blame the structure of the visual system for the way colors are
differentiated - it places great constraints on what the color qualia
can be - certainly not only black and white (given proper
functioning/structure).
> The 1p experience of vision is not dependent upon external photons (we
> can dream and visualize) and it is not solipsistic either (our
> perceptions of the world are generally reliable). If I had to make a
> copy of the universe from scratch, I would need to know that what
> vision is all about is feeling that you are looking out through your
> eyes at a world of illuminated and illuminating objects. Vision is a
> channel of sensitivity for the human being as a whole, and it has as
> more to do with our psychological immersion in the narrative of our
> biography than it does photons and microbiology. That biology,
> chemistry, or physics does not explain this at all is not a small
> problem, it is an enormous deal breaker.
>
You're right that our internal beliefs do affect how we perceive things.
It's not biology's or chemistry's job to explain that to you. Emergent
properties from the brain's structure should explain those parts to you.
Cognitive sciences as well as some related fields do aim to solve such
problems. It's like asking why an atom doesn't explain the computations
involved in processing this email. Different emergent structures at
different levels, sure one arises from the other, but in many cases, one
level can be fully abstracted from the other level.
> My solution is that both views are correct on their own terms in their
> own sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view over
> the other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,
> which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is not just
> a mechanism which pushes information around from one place to another,
> each place is a living organism which actively contributes to the top
> level experience - it isn't a passive system.
>
Living organisms - replicators, are fine things, but I don't see why
must one confuse replicators with perception. Perception can exist by
itself merely on the virtue of passing information around and processing
it. Replicators can also exist due similar reasons, but on a different
level.
>> Neurons are also rather slow, they can only
>> spike about once per 5ms (~200Hz), although they rarely do so often.
>> (Note that I'm not saying that conscious experience is only the current
>> brain state in a single universe with only one timeline and nothing
>> more, in COMP, the (infinite amount of) counterfactuals are also
>> important, for example for selecting the next state, or for "splits" and
>> "mergers").
>
> Yes, organisms are slower than electronic measuring instruments, but
> it doesn't matter because our universe is not an electronic measuring
> instrument. It makes sense to us just fine at it's native anthropic
> rate of change (except for the technologies we have designed to defeat
> that sense).
Sure, the speed is not the most important thing, except when it leads to
us wanting some things to be faster and with our current biological
bodies, we cannot make them go faster or slower, we can only build
faster and faster devices, but we'll eventually hit the limit (we're
nearly there already). With COMP, this is even a greater problem
locally: if you get a digital brain (sometime in the not too near
future), some neuromorphic hardware is predicted to be a few orders of
magnitude faster(such as some 1000-4000 times our current rate), which
would mean that if someone wanted to function at realtime speed, they
might experience some insanely slow Internet speeds, for anything that
isn't locally accessible (for example, between US and Europe or Asia),
which mind lead to certain negative social effects (such as groups of
SIMs(Substrate Independent Minds) that prefer running at realtime speed
congregating and locally accessible hubs as opposed to the much slower
Internet). However, such a problem is only locally relevant (here in
this Universe, on this Earth), and is solvable if one is fine with
slowing themselves down relatively to some other program, and a system
can be designed which allows unbounded speedup (I did write more on this
in my other thread).
>
> Craig
>
Craig Weinberg
> On 1/27/2012 05:55, Craig Weinberg wrote:> On Jan 26, 9:32 pm, acw<a...@lavabit.com> wrote:
>
> >> There is nothing on the display except transitions of pixels. There is
> >> nothing in the universe, except transitions of states
>
> > Only if you assume that our experience of the universe is not part of
> > the universe. If you understand that pixels are generated by equipment
> > we have designed specifically to generate optical perceptions for
> > ourselves, then it is no surprise that it exploits our visual
> > perception. To say that there is nothing in the universe except the
> > transitions of states is a generalization presumably based on quantum
> > theory, but there is nothing in quantum theory which explains how
> > states scale up qualitatively so it doesn't apply to anything except
> > quantum. If you're talking about 'states' in some other sense, then
> > it's not much more explanatory than saying there is nothing except for
> > things doing things.
>
> I'm not entirely sure what your theory is,
> but if I had to make an
> initial guess (maybe wrong), it seems similar to some form of
> panpsychism directly over matter.
like experiences. My hypothesis can be categorized as
panexperientialism because I do think that all forces and fields are
figurative externalizations of processes which literally occur within
and through 'matter'. Matter is in turn diffracted pieces of the
primordial singularity. It's confusing for us because we assume that
motion and time are exterior conditions, by if my view is accurate,
then all time and energy is literally interior to the observer as an
experience. What I think is that matter and experience are two
symmetrical but anomalous ontologies - two sides of the same coin, so
that our qualia and content of experience is descended from
accumulated sense experience of our constituent organism, not
manufactured by their bodies, cells, molecules, interactions. The two
both opposite expressions (a what & how of matter and space and a who
& why of experience or energy and time) of the underlying sense that
binds them to the singularity (where & when).
> Such theories are testable and
> falsifiable, although only in the 1p sense. A thing that should be worth
> keeping in mind is that whatever our experience is, it has to be
> consistent with our structure (or, if we admit, our computational
> equivalent) - it might be more than it, but it cannot be less than it.
> We wouldn't see in color if our eyes' photoreceptor cells didn't absorb
> overlapping ranges of light wavelengths and then processed it throughout
> the visual system (in some parts, in not-so-general ways, while in
> others, in more general ways). The structures that we are greatly limit
> the nature of our possible qualia.
our access to qualia, but not the form. Synesthesia, blindsight, and
anosognosia show clearly that at the human level at least, sensory
content is not tied to the nature of mechanism. We can taste color
instead of see it, or know vision without seeing. This is not to say
that we aren't limited by being a human being, of course we are, but
our body is as much a vehicle for our experience as much as our
experience is a filtered through our body. Indeed the brain makes no
sense as anything other than a sensorimotive amplifier/condenser.
> Your theory would have to at least
> take structural properties into account or likely risk being shown wrong
> in experiments that would be possible in the more distant future (of
> course, since all such experiments discuss the 1p, you can always reject
> them, because you can only vouch for your own 1p experiences and you
> seem to be inclined to disbelieve any computational equivalents merely
> on the ground that you refuse to assign qualia to abstract structures).
done in the distant future, but it would involve connecting the brain
directly to other organisms brains. Not very appetizing, but
ultimately probable the only way to know for sure. If we studied brain
conjoined twins, we might be able to grow a universal port in our
brain that could be used to join other brains remotely. From there
there could be a neuron port that can connect to other cells, and
finally a molecular port. That's the only strategy I've dreamed up so
far.
I used to believe in computational equivalents, but that was before I
discovered the idea of sense. Now I see that counting is all about
internalizing and controlling the sense derived from exterior solid
objects. It is a particular channel of cognitive sense which is
precisely powerful because it is least like mushy, figurative,
multivalent feelings. Computation is like the glass exoskeleton or
crust of sensorimotivation. In a sense, it is an indirect version of
the molecular port I was talking about, because it projects our
thinking into the discrete, literal, a-signifying levels of that which
is most public, exterior, and distantly scaled (microcosm and
cosmology).
> As for 'the universe', in COMP - the universe is a matter of
> epistemology (machine's beliefs), and all that is, is just arithmetical
> truth reflecting on itself (so with a very relaxed definition of
> 'universe', there's really nothing that isn't part of it; but with the
> classical definition, it's not something ontologically primitive, but an
> emergent shared belief).
belief is not emergent, but rather ontologically primitive. Arithmetic
truth is a sensemaking experience, but sensemaking experiences are not
all arithmetic. There is nothing in the universe that is not a sense
or sense making experience. All 3p is redirected 1p but there is no 3p
without 1p. Sense is primordial.
>
> > What I'm talking about is something different. We don't have to guess
> > what the pixels of Conway's game of life are doing because, we are the
> > ones who are displaying the game in an animated sequences. The game
> > could be displayed as a single pixel instead and be no different to
> > the computer.
>
> I have no idea how a randomly chosen computation will evolve over time,
> except in cases where one carefully designed the computation to be very
> predictable, but even then we can be surprised. Your view of computation
> seems to be that it's just something people write to try to model some
> process or to achieve some particular behavior - that's the local
> engineer view. In practice computation is unpredictable, unless we can
> rigorously prove what it can do, and it's also trivially easy to make
> machines which we cannot know a damn thing about what they will do
> without running them for enough steps. After seeing how some computation
> behaves over time, we may form some beliefs about it by induction, but
> unless we can prove that it will only behave in some particular way, we
> can still be surprised by it. Computation can do a lot of things, and we
> should explore its limits and possibilities!
practical way of exploring it in fact. I understand how we can be
surprised by the computation, but what I am saying is that the
computer is always surprised by the computation, even while it is
doing it. It doesn't know anything about anything except completing
circuits. It's like handing out a set of colored cards for a blind
crowd to hold up on cue. They perform the function, and you can see
what you expect or be surprised by the resulting mosaic, but the card
holders can't ever understand what the mosaic is.
I understand that completely, but it relies on conflating some
functions of emotions with the experience of them. Reward and
punishment only works if there is qualia which is innately rewarding
or punishing to begin with. No AI has that capacity. It is not
possible to reward or punish a computer. It's not necessary since they
have no autonomy (avoiding 'Free Will' for John Clark's sake) to begin
with. All we have to do is script rules into their mechanism. Some
parents would like to be able to do that I'm sure, but of course it
doesn't work that way for people. No matter how compelling and
coercive the brainwashing, some humans are always going to try to hack
it and escape. When a computer hacks it's programming and escapes, we
will know about it, but I'm not worried about that. What is far more
worrisome and real is that the externalization of our sense of
computation (the glass exoskeleton) will be taken for literal truth,
and our culture will be evacuated of all qualities except for
enumeration. This is already happening. This is the crisis of the
19-21st centuries. Money is computation. WalMart parking lot is the
cathedral of the god of empty progress.
>
> >> regardless of how sensing (indirectly accessing data) is done, emergent
> >> digital movement patterns would look like (continuous) movement to the
> >> observer.
>
> > I don't think that sensing is indirect accessed data, data is
> > indirectly experienced sense. Data supervenes on sense, but not all
> > sense is data (you can have feelings that you don't understand or even
> > be sure that you have them).
>
> It is indirect in the example that I gave because there is an objective
> state that we can compute, but none of the agents have any direct access
> to it - only to approximations of it - if the agent is external, he is
> limited to how he can access by the interface, if the agent is itself
> part of the structure, then the limitation lies within itself - sort of
> like how we are part of the environment and thus we cannot know exactly
> what the environment's granularity is (if one exists, and it's not a
> continuum or merely some sort of rational geometry or many other
> possibilities).
fine granularity, but that doesn't mean that the sense of that
granularity isn't entangled in our experience in an iconic way.
>
> > I'm not sure why you say that continuous
> > movement patterns emerge to the observer, that is factually incorrect.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia
> Most people tend to feel their conscious experience being continuous,
> regardless of if it really is so, we do however notice large
> discontinuities, like if we slept or got knocked out. Of course most
> bets are off if neuropsychological disorders are involved.
of consciousness, especially neuropsychological disorders. What good
is a theory of 21st century adult males of European descent with a
predilection for intellectual debate? The extremes are what inform us
the most. I don't think there is a such thing as 'regardless of it
really is so' when it comes to consciousness. What we feel our
conscious experience to be is actually what it feels like. No external
measurement can change that. We notice discontinuities because our
sense extends much deeper than conscious experience. We can tell if
we've been sleeping even without any external cues.
>
>
>
> >> Also, it would not be very wise to assume humans are capable of sensing
> >> such a magical continuum directly (even if it existed), the evidence
> >> that says that humans' sense visual information through their eyes:
>
> > I don't think that what humans sense visually is information. It can
> > and does inform us but it is not information. Perception is primitive.
> > It's the sensorimotive view of electromagnetism. It is not a message
> > about an event, it is the event.
>
> I'm not sure how to understand that. Try writing a paper on your theory
> and see if it's testable or verifiable in any way?
awareness can be altered directly by transcranial magnetic
stimulation. Without evoking some kind of homonculus array in the
brain converting the magnetic changes into 'information' in some
undisclosed metaphysical never never land (which would of course by
the only place anyone has ever been to personally), then we are left
to accept that the changes in the brain and the changes in our feeling
are two different views of the same thing. I would love to collaborate
with someone who is qualified academically or professionally to write
a paper, but unfortunately that's not my department. It seems like I'm
up on the crows nest pointing to the new world. The rest is up to
everyone else how to explore it.
>
> A small sidenote: a few years ago I've considered various consciousness
> theories and various possible ontologies. Some of them, especially some
> of the panpsychic kinds sure sound amazing and simple - they may even
> lead to some religious experiences in some, but if you think about what
> expectations to derive from them, or in general, what predictions or how
> to test them, they tend to either fall short or worse, lead to
> inconsistent beliefs when faced by even simple thought experiments (such
> as the Fading qualia one).
from mechanism. If you turn it around, it's equally absurd. If you
accept that fading qualia is impossible then you also accept that
Pinocchio's transformation is inevitable. The thing that is missing is
that qualia is not tied to it's opposite (quantum, mechanism, physics)
it's that both sides of the universe are tied to the where and when
between them. They overlap but otherwise they develop in diametrically
opposed way - with both sides influencing each other, just as
ingredients influence a chef and cooking influences what ingredients
are sold. It's a virtuous cycle where experienced significance
accumulates though time by burning matter across space as entropy.
It's this: http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-6e13c63ae0561f4fee41492d92b52097
> COMP on the other hand, offers very solid
> testable predictions and doesn't fail most though experiments or
> observational data that you can put it through (at least so far). I wish
> other consciousness theories were as solid, understandable and testable
> as COMP.
prove itself. The joke is on us if we believe that our lives are not
real but numbers are. This is survival 101. It's an IQ test. If we
privilege our mechanistic, testable, solid, logical sense over our
natural, solipsistic, anthropic sense, then we will become more and
more insignificant, and Dennet's denial of subjectivity will draw
closer and closer to self-fulfilling prophesy. The thing about
authentic subjectivity, it is has a choice. We don't have to believe
in indirect proof about ourselves because our direct experience is all
the proof anyone could ever have or need. We are already real, we
don't need some electronic caliper to tell us how real.
>
> >> when
> >> a photon hits a photoreceptor cell, that *binary* piece of information
> >> is transmitted through neurons connected to that cell and so on
> >> throughout the visual system(...->V1->...->V4->IT->...) and eventually
> >> up to the prefrontal cortex.
>
> > That's a 3p view. It doesn't explain the only important part -
> > perception itself. The prefrontal cortex is no more or less likely to
> > generate visual awareness than the retina cells or neurons or
> > molecules themselves.
>
> In COMP, you can blame the whole system for the awareness, however you
> can blame the structure of the visual system for the way colors are
> differentiated - it places great constraints on what the color qualia
> can be - certainly not only black and white (given proper
> functioning/structure).
number of possible distinctions is, and even their relationships to
each other as you say, part of the visual system's structure, but it
has nothing to do with the content of what actually is distinguished.
>
> > The 1p experience of vision is not dependent upon external photons (we
> > can dream and visualize) and it is not solipsistic either (our
> > perceptions of the world are generally reliable). If I had to make a
> > copy of the universe from scratch, I would need to know that what
> > vision is all about is feeling that you are looking out through your
> > eyes at a world of illuminated and illuminating objects. Vision is a
> > channel of sensitivity for the human being as a whole, and it has as
> > more to do with our psychological immersion in the narrative of our
> > biography than it does photons and microbiology. That biology,
> > chemistry, or physics does not explain this at all is not a small
> > problem, it is an enormous deal breaker.
>
> You're right that our internal beliefs do affect how we perceive things.
> It's not biology's or chemistry's job to explain that to you. Emergent
> properties from the brain's structure should explain those parts to you.
> Cognitive sciences as well as some related fields do aim to solve such
> problems. It's like asking why an atom doesn't explain the computations
> involved in processing this email. Different emergent structures at
> different levels, sure one arises from the other, but in many cases, one
> level can be fully abstracted from the other level.
coherence. I will quote what Pierz wrote again here because it says it
all:
"But I’ll venture an axiom
are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
property of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,
that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
invoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brain
has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all. "
>
> > own sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view over
> > the other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,
> > which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is not just
> > a mechanism which pushes information around from one place to another,
> > each place is a living organism which actively contributes to the top
> > level experience - it isn't a passive system.
>
> Living organisms - replicators,
organisms feel alive and avoid death. Replication does not necessitate
feeling alive.
> are fine things, but I don't see why
> must one confuse replicators with perception. Perception can exist by
> itself merely on the virtue of passing information around and processing
> it. Replicators can also exist due similar reasons, but on a different
> level.
living organisms who are informed by their experience. There is no
independent disembodied 'information' out there. There detection and
response, sense and motive of physical wholes.
>
> >> Neurons are also rather slow, they can only
> >> spike about once per 5ms (~200Hz), although they rarely do so often.
> >> (Note that I'm not saying that conscious experience is only the current
> >> brain state in a single universe with only one timeline and nothing
> >> more, in COMP, the (infinite amount of) counterfactuals are also
> >> important, for example for selecting the next state, or for "splits" and
> >> "mergers").
>
> > Yes, organisms are slower than electronic measuring instruments, but
> > it doesn't matter because our universe is not an electronic measuring
> > instrument. It makes sense to us just fine at it's native anthropic
> > rate of change (except for the technologies we have designed to defeat
> > that sense).
>
> Sure, the speed is not the most important thing, except when it leads to
> us wanting some things to be faster and with our current biological
> bodies, we cannot make them go faster or slower, we can only build
> faster and faster devices, but we'll eventually hit the limit (we're
> nearly there already). With COMP, this is even a greater problem
> locally: if you get a digital brain (sometime in the not too near
> future)
digital.
>, some neuromorphic hardware is predicted to be a few orders of
> magnitude faster(such as some 1000-4000 times our current rate), which
> would mean that if someone wanted to function at realtime speed, they
> might experience some insanely slow Internet speeds, for anything that
> isn't locally accessible (for example, between US and Europe or Asia),
> which mind lead to certain negative social effects (such as groups of
> SIMs(Substrate Independent Minds) that prefer running at realtime speed
> congregating and locally accessible hubs as opposed to the much slower
> Internet). However, such a problem is only locally relevant (here in
> this Universe, on this Earth), and is solvable if one is fine with
> slowing themselves down relatively to some other program, and a system
> can be designed which allows unbounded speedup (I did write more on this
> in my other thread).
already are) with neuromorphic devices, but ultimately we need our own
brain tissue to live in. We, unfortunately cannot be digitized, we can
only be analogized through impersonation.
Craig
Bruno Marchal
But many things about numbers are not arithmetical. Arithmetical truth
is not arithmetical. Machine's knowledge can be proved to be non
arithmetical.
If you want, arithmetic is enough rich for having a bigger reality
than anything we can describe in 3p terms.
> There is nothing in the universe
The term universe is ambiguous.
You confuse proving p, which can be explained in arithmetic, and
"proving p & p is true", which can happen to be true for a machine,
but escapes necessarily its language.
The same for consciousness. It cannot be explained in *any* third
person terms. But it can be proved that self-observing machine cannot
avoid the discovery of many things concerning them which are beyond
language.
Pierz, Craig, I disagree. Consciousness can be explained as a non 3p
describable fixed point when machine's observe themselves. This
provides a key role to consciousness, including the ability to develop
meanings, to speed decisions, to make decision in absence of
information, etc.
Consciousness is not explainable in term of any parts of something,
but as an invariant in universal self-transformation.
If you accept the classical theory of knowledge, then Peano Arithmetic
is already conscious.
>
>>
>>> My solution is that both views are correct on their own terms in
>>> their
>>> own sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view over
>>> the other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,
>>> which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is not
>>> just
>>> a mechanism which pushes information around from one place to
>>> another,
>>> each place is a living organism which actively contributes to the
>>> top
>>> level experience - it isn't a passive system.
>>
>> Living organisms - replicators,
>
> Life replicates, but replication does not define life. Living
> organisms feel alive and avoid death. Replication does not necessitate
> feeling alive.
I am OK with this. Yet, replication + while-loop might be enough.
>
>> are fine things, but I don't see why
>> must one confuse replicators with perception. Perception can exist by
>> itself merely on the virtue of passing information around and
>> processing
>> it. Replicators can also exist due similar reasons, but on a
>> different
>> level.
>
> Perception has never existed 'by itself'. Perception only occurs in
> living organisms who are informed by their experience.
The whole point is to explain terms like "living", "conscious", etc.
You take them as primitive, so are escaping the issue.
> There is no
> independent disembodied 'information' out there. There detection and
> response, sense and motive of physical wholes.
Same for "physical" (and that's not obvious!).
If you survive with a digital brain, then consciousness is necessarily
not digital.
A brain is not a maker of consciousness. It is only a stable pattern
making it possible (or more probable) that a person can manifest
itself relatively to some universal number(s).
Keep in mind that comp makes materialism wrong. The big picture is
completely different. I think that you confuse comp, with its
Aristotelian version where computations seems to be incarnated by
physical primitive materials. Comp + materialism leads to person-
nihilism, so it is important to understand that comp should not be
assumed together with materialism (even weak).
>
>> , some neuromorphic hardware is predicted to be a few orders of
>> magnitude faster(such as some 1000-4000 times our current rate),
>> which
>> would mean that if someone wanted to function at realtime speed, they
>> might experience some insanely slow Internet speeds, for anything
>> that
>> isn't locally accessible (for example, between US and Europe or
>> Asia),
>> which mind lead to certain negative social effects (such as groups of
>> SIMs(Substrate Independent Minds) that prefer running at realtime
>> speed
>> congregating and locally accessible hubs as opposed to the much
>> slower
>> Internet). However, such a problem is only locally relevant (here in
>> this Universe, on this Earth), and is solvable if one is fine with
>> slowing themselves down relatively to some other program, and a
>> system
>> can be designed which allows unbounded speedup (I did write more on
>> this
>> in my other thread).
>
> We are able to extend and augment our neurological capacities (we
> already are) with neuromorphic devices, but ultimately we need our own
> brain tissue to live in.
Why? What does that mean?
> We, unfortunately cannot be digitized,
You don't know that. But you don't derive it either from what you
assume (which to be franc remains unclear)
.
I think that you have a reductionist conception of machine, which was
perhaps defensible before Gödel 1931 and Turing discovery of the
universal machine, but is no more defensible after.
Bruno
> we can
> only be analogized through impersonation.
>
> Craig
>
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>
meekerdb
>
> Pierz, Craig, I disagree. Consciousness can be explained as a non 3p describable fixed
> point when machine's observe themselves.
Why is this not 3p describable? Your explanation of it seems to imply a description.
Brent
Pierz
On Jan 27, 9:52 am, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:
> On Jan 26, 1:19 am, Pierz <pier...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> > are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
>
> What about gliders emerging from the rules of Game of Life? There are
> no primitive form gliders in the transition table, nor in static cells
> of the grid.
form pumps in heart cells either (well, maybe there are in the
cellular mechanism, but that is not the point), but pumps are
completely explainable in terms of the properties of the parts, and
there is no mystery whatsoever in going from the one to the other. On
the other hand, nobody has logically connected qualia to the
properties of matter. Of course, complex behaviour in an organism
(including intelligent behaviour) can be seen as an emergent property
of nerve cells and muscles etc, but only in the 3p sense. There is no
line of explanation from 3p to 1p. As for 'gliders', now I'd really be
impressed if actual gliders emerged from a computer program, but the
fact that patterned arrangements of pixels resembling gliders emerge
hardly blows my world apart. The emergence of this type of phenomena
may be unexpected at first, in the sense that the glider wasn't
deliberately programmed to appear, but 'emerged' out of secondary
implications of the program, but, as we used to say in high school,
'whoopie-do'. That hardly constitutes a refutation of my axiom,
because the emergence can easily be traced back to the properties of
programs, computers, screens, etc.
You say below that 'all emergent phenomena are in the eye of the
beholder but that doesn't make them less real', or words to that
effect. Sure - if by emergent phenomena you mean complex patterns that
appear out of iterative processes of a simple system. Nobody is saying
they aren't real. But the crucial point relates to consciousness. Not
complex, intelligent behaviour. Consciousness. So the problem is where
the 'beholder' appears, not anything in his or her eye. By eliding the
distinction between consciousness and intelligent behaviour - or
between 1p and 3p perspectives - you can of course reduce
'consciousness' to an emergent phenomenon, and that seems to be all
anyone who seeks to explain away qualia has ever done. The same
sleight of hand tricked up in a variety of guises, but amounting
always to the same manoeuvre.
>
> --
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
> Principal, High Performance Coders
Craig Weinberg
>
> >> As for 'the universe', in COMP - the universe is a matter of
> >> epistemology (machine's beliefs), and all that is, is just
> >> arithmetical
> >> truth reflecting on itself (so with a very relaxed definition of
> >> 'universe', there's really nothing that isn't part of it; but with
> >> the
> >> classical definition, it's not something ontologically primitive,
> >> but an
> >> emergent shared belief).
>
> > Right. All I'm doing is taking it a step further and saying that the
> > belief is not emergent, but rather ontologically primitive. Arithmetic
> > truth is a sensemaking experience, but sensemaking experiences are not
> > all arithmetic.
>
> But many things about numbers are not arithmetical. Arithmetical truth
> is not arithmetical. Machine's knowledge can be proved to be non
> arithmetical.
> If you want, arithmetic is enough rich for having a bigger reality
> than anything we can describe in 3p terms.
sensemaking experiences. It doesn't matter whether they are arithmetic
or not, as long as they can possibly be detected or made sense of in
any way, even by inference, deduction, emergence, etc, they are still
sense. Not all sense is arithmetic or related to arithmetic in some
way though. Sense can be gestural or intuitive.
>
> > There is nothing in the universe
>
> The term universe is ambiguous.
>
> > My hypothesis explains why that is the case. Comp is too stupid not to
> > prove itself. The joke is on us if we believe that our lives are not
> > real but numbers are. This is survival 101. It's an IQ test. If we
> > privilege our mechanistic, testable, solid, logical sense over our
> > natural, solipsistic, anthropic sense, then we will become more and
> > more insignificant, and Dennet's denial of subjectivity will draw
> > closer and closer to self-fulfilling prophesy. The thing about
> > authentic subjectivity, it is has a choice. We don't have to believe
> > in indirect proof about ourselves because our direct experience is all
> > the proof anyone could ever have or need. We are already real, we
> > don't need some electronic caliper to tell us how real.
>
> You confuse proving p, which can be explained in arithmetic, and
> "proving p & p is true", which can happen to be true for a machine,
> but escapes necessarily its language.
> The same for consciousness. It cannot be explained in *any* third
> person terms. But it can be proved that self-observing machine cannot
> avoid the discovery of many things concerning them which are beyond
> language.
about reality. I have no reason to believe that a machine can observe
itself in anything more than a trivial sense. It is not a conscious
experience, I would guess that it is something like an accounting of
unaccounted-for function terminations. Proximal boundaries. A
silhouette of the self offering no interiority but an extrapolation of
incomplete 3p data. That isn't consciousness.
>
> > "But I’ll venture an axiom
> > of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system that
> > are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. There
> > is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergent
> > property of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,
> > that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -
> > physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,
> > volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobody
> > invoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brain
> > has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension of
> > the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all. "
>
> Pierz, Craig, I disagree. Consciousness can be explained as a non 3p
> describable fixed point when machine's observe themselves. This
> provides a key role to consciousness, including the ability to develop
> meanings, to speed decisions, to make decision in absence of
> information, etc.
has nothing to do with consciousness and qualia per se. A sleep walker
can navigate to the kitchen for a snack without being conscious.
Consciousness does nothing to speed decisions, it would only cost
processing overhead and add nothing to the efficiency of unconscious
adaptation.
> Consciousness is not explainable in term of any parts of something,
> but as an invariant in universal self-transformation.
> If you accept the classical theory of knowledge, then Peano Arithmetic
> is already conscious.
consciousness? Anything that is conscious can also be unconscious. Can
Peano Arithmetic be unconscious too?
>
>
>
> >>> My solution is that both views are correct on their own terms in
> >>> their
> >>> own sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view over
> >>> the other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,
> >>> which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is not
> >>> just
> >>> a mechanism which pushes information around from one place to
> >>> another,
> >>> each place is a living organism which actively contributes to the
> >>> top
> >>> level experience - it isn't a passive system.
>
> >> Living organisms - replicators,
>
> > Life replicates, but replication does not define life. Living
> > organisms feel alive and avoid death. Replication does not necessitate
> > feeling alive.
>
> I am OK with this. Yet, replication + while-loop might be enough.
>
>
>
> >> are fine things, but I don't see why
> >> must one confuse replicators with perception. Perception can exist by
> >> itself merely on the virtue of passing information around and
> >> processing
> >> it. Replicators can also exist due similar reasons, but on a
> >> different
> >> level.
>
> > Perception has never existed 'by itself'. Perception only occurs in
> > living organisms who are informed by their experience.
>
> The whole point is to explain terms like "living", "conscious", etc.
> You take them as primitive, so are escaping the issue.
>
> > There is no
> > independent disembodied 'information' out there. There detection and
> > response, sense and motive of physical wholes.
>
> Same for "physical" (and that's not obvious!).
still exist? Where would information be though?
Why have a vulnerable concentration of this pattern in the head? Our
skeleton would make a much safer place four a person to manifest
itself relatively to some universal number.
> Keep in mind that comp makes materialism wrong.
wrong, I have a problem with experience being reduced to non
experience or non sense.
> The big picture is
> completely different. I think that you confuse comp, with its
> Aristotelian version where computations seems to be incarnated by
> physical primitive materials. Comp + materialism leads to person-
> nihilism, so it is important to understand that comp should not be
> assumed together with materialism (even weak).
modern investment banking. There is no material, in fact it strangles
the life out of all materials, eviscerating culture and architecture,
all in the name of consolidating digitally abstracted control of
control. This is machine intelligence. The idea of unexperienced
ownership as an end unto itself, forever concentrating data and
exporting debt.
>
>
>
> >> , some neuromorphic hardware is predicted to be a few orders of
> >> magnitude faster(such as some 1000-4000 times our current rate),
> >> which
> >> would mean that if someone wanted to function at realtime speed, they
> >> might experience some insanely slow Internet speeds, for anything
> >> that
> >> isn't locally accessible (for example, between US and Europe or
> >> Asia),
> >> which mind lead to certain negative social effects (such as groups of
> >> SIMs(Substrate Independent Minds) that prefer running at realtime
> >> speed
> >> congregating and locally accessible hubs as opposed to the much
> >> slower
> >> Internet). However, such a problem is only locally relevant (here in
> >> this Universe, on this Earth), and is solvable if one is fine with
> >> slowing themselves down relatively to some other program, and a
> >> system
> >> can be designed which allows unbounded speedup (I did write more on
> >> this
> >> in my other thread).
>
> > We are able to extend and augment our neurological capacities (we
> > already are) with neuromorphic devices, but ultimately we need our own
> > brain tissue to live in.
>
> Why? What does that mean?
simulated anymore than water or fire can be simulated. Human
consciousness exists nowhere but through a human brain.
>
> > We, unfortunately cannot be digitized,
>
> You don't know that. But you don't derive it either from what you
> assume (which to be franc remains unclear)
whole. You cannot export the selfness into another form, because the
self has no form, it's only experiential content through the interior
of a living brain.
> .
> I think that you have a reductionist conception of machine, which was
> perhaps defensible before Gödel 1931 and Turing discovery of the
> universal machine, but is no more defensible after.
started with with that. I read Gödel, Escher, Bach around 1980 I
think. Even though I couldn't get too much into the math, I was quite
happy with the implications of it. For the next 25 years I believed
that the universe was made of 'patterns' - pretty close to what your
view is. It's only been in the last 7 years that I have found a better
idea. My hypothesis is post-Gödelian symmetry.
Craig
Bruno Marchal
On 27 Jan 2012, at 21:02, meekerdb wrote:
> On 1/27/2012 9:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Pierz, Craig, I disagree. Consciousness can be explained as a non
>> 3p describable fixed point when machine's observe themselves.
>
> Why is this not 3p describable? Your explanation of it seems to
> imply a description.
Yes, but the explanation is not consciousness itself.
In the UDA, you are supposed to know what consciousness is. You are
asked to believe that your consciousness remains invariant for a
functional digital substitution.
In the AUDA, consciousness is not mentioned. It is handled indirectly
via knowledge, which is defined via an appeal to truth, which (by
Tarski theorem) is not definable by the mechanical entity under
consideration.
In B'"1+1=2" & 1+1=2, the "1+1 = 2" is a description, but 1+1=2 is
not. It is true fact, and as such cannot be described. We cannot
translate True("1+1=2") in arithmetic. We can do it at some meta-
level, when we study a simpler machine than us, that we believe to be
correct, like PA. But then we can see that neither PA, nor any correct
machine can do this for *itself*.
Consciousness, knowledge, truth, are concept which does not admit
formal definition; when they encompass ourselves.
Bruno
>
> Brent
>
>
>> This provides a key role to consciousness, including the ability to
>> develop meanings, to speed decisions, to make decision in absence
>> of information, etc.
>> Consciousness is not explainable in term of any parts of something,
>> but as an invariant in universal self-transformation.
>> If you accept the classical theory of knowledge, then Peano
>> Arithmetic is already conscious.
>
Evgenii Rudnyi
> As I continue to ponder the UDA, I keep coming back to a niggling
> doubt that an arithmetical ontology can ever really give a
> satisfactory explanation of qualia. It seems to me that imputing
> qualia to calculations (indeed consciousness at all, thought that
> may be the same thing) adds something that is not given by, or
> derivable from, any mathematical axiom. Surely this is illegitimate
> from a mathematical point of view. Every mathematical statement can
> only be made in terms of numbers and operators, so to talk about
> *qualities* arising out of numbers is not mathematics so much as
> numerology or qabbala.
>
> Here of course is where people start to invoke the wonderfully
> a calculation becomes deep enough.Perhaps consciousness emerges from
> axiom of my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system
> that are not present in primitive form in the parts of that system.
> There is nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the
> heart cells, that property is a logical extension of the properties
> of the parts - physical properties such as elasticity, electrical
> conductivity, volume and so on that belong to the individual cells.
> the brain has yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural
> extension of the known properties of brain cells - or indeed of
> matter at all.
Let my quote Jeffrey Gray (Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard
Problem, p. 33) on biology and physics.
"In very general terms, biology makes use of two types of concept:
physicochemical laws and feedback mechanisms. The latter include both
the feedback operative in natural selection, in which the controlled
variables that determine survival are nowhere explicitly represented
within the system; and servomechanisms, in which there is a specific
locus of representation capable of reporting the values of the
controlled variables to other system components and to other systems.
The relationship between physicochemical laws and cybernetic mechanisms
in the biological perspective on biology poses no deep problems. It
consist in a kind of a contract: providing cybernetics respects the laws
of physics and chemistry, its principles may be used to construct any
kind of feedback system that serves a purpose. Behaviour as such does
not appear to require for its explanation any principles additional to
these."
Roughly speaking Gray's statement is
Biology = Physics + Feedback mechanisms
Yet even at this stage (just at a level of bacteria, I guess there is no
qualia yet) it is unclear to me whether physics includes cybernetics
laws or they emerge/supervene. What is your opinion to this end?
I wanted to discuss this issue in another thread
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/a4b4e1546e0d03df
but at the present the discussion is limited to the question of
information is basic physical property (Information is the Entropy) or not.
Evgenii
>
> In the same way, I can�t see how qualia can emerge from arithmetic,
> unless the rudiments of qualia are present in the natural numbers or
> the operations of addition and mutiplication. And yet it seems to me
> they can�t be, because the only properties that belong to arithmetic
> are those leant to them by the axioms that define them. Indeed
> arithmetic *is* exactly those axioms and nothing more. Matter may in
> principle contain untold, undiscovered mysterious properties which I
> suppose might include the rudiments of consciousness. Yet
> mathematics is only what it is defined to be. Certainly it contains
> many mysteries emergent properties, but all these properties arise
> logically from its axioms and thus cannot include qualia.
>
> I call the idea that it can numerology because numerology also
> ascribes qualities to numbers. A �2� in one�s birthdate indicates
> creativity (or something), a �4� material ambition and so on.
> Because the emergent properties of numbers can indeed be deeply
> amazing and wonderful - Mandelbrot sets and so on - there is a
> natural human tendency to mystify them, to project properties of the
> imagination into them. But if these qualities really do inhere in
> numbers and are not put there purely by our projection, then numbers
> must be more than their definitions. We must posit the numbers as
> something that projects out of a supraordinate reality that is not
> purely mathematical - ie, not merely composed of the axioms that
> define an arithmetic. This then can no longer be described as a
> mathematical ontology, but rather a kind of numerical mysticism. And
> because something extrinsic to the axioms has been added, it opens
> the way for all kinds of other unicorns and fairies that can never be
> proved from the maths alone. This is unprovability not of the
> mathematical variety, but more of the variety that cries out for Mr
> Occam�s shaving apparatus.
>
Bruno Marchal
Not everyone. The approach based on both UDA and self-reference gives
a tremendous importance to the 1p and 3p distinction.
> The same
> sleight of hand tricked up in a variety of guises, but amounting
> always to the same manoeuvre.
You might have to look closer.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
On Jan 27, 12:20 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:But many things about numbers are not arithmetical. Arithmetical truthis not arithmetical. Machine's knowledge can be proved to be nonarithmetical.If you want, arithmetic is enough rich for having a bigger realitythan anything we can describe in 3p terms.
But all arithmetic truths, knowledge, beliefs, etc are all still
sensemaking experiences. It doesn't matter whether they are arithmetic
or not, as long as they can possibly be detected or made sense of in
any way, even by inference, deduction, emergence, etc, they are still
sense. Not all sense is arithmetic or related to arithmetic in some
way though. Sense can be gestural or intuitive.
There is nothing in the universeThe term universe is ambiguous.
Only in theory. I use it in a literal, absolutist way.
You confuse proving p, which can be explained in arithmetic, and"proving p & p is true", which can happen to be true for a machine,but escapes necessarily its language.The same for consciousness. It cannot be explained in *any* thirdperson terms. But it can be proved that self-observing machine cannotavoid the discovery of many things concerning them which are beyondlanguage.
I think that are confusing p with a reality rather than a logical idea
about reality.
I have no reason to believe that a machine can observe
itself in anything more than a trivial sense.
It is not a conscious
experience, I would guess that it is something like an accounting of
unaccounted-for function terminations. Proximal boundaries. A
silhouette of the self offering no interiority but an extrapolation of
incomplete 3p data. That isn't consciousness.
"But I’ll venture an axiomof my own here: no properties can emerge from a complex system thatare not present in primitive form in the parts of that system. Thereis nothing mystical about emergent properties. When the emergentproperty of ‘pumping blood’ arises out of collections of heart cells,that property is a logical extension of the properties of the parts -physical properties such as elasticity, electrical conductivity,volume and so on that belong to the individual cells. But nobodyinvoking ‘emergent properties’ to explain consciousness in the brainhas yet explained how consciousness arises as a natural extension ofthe known properties of brain cells - or indeed of matter at all. "Pierz, Craig, I disagree. Consciousness can be explained as a non 3pdescribable fixed point when machine's observe themselves. Thisprovides a key role to consciousness, including the ability to developmeanings, to speed decisions, to make decision in absence ofinformation, etc.
I disagree. It provides a key role to the function of agency but it
has nothing to do with consciousness and qualia per se. A sleep walker
can navigate to the kitchen for a snack without being conscious.
Consciousness does nothing to speed decisions, it would only cost
processing overhead
and add nothing to the efficiency of unconscious
adaptation.
Consciousness is not explainable in term of any parts of something,but as an invariant in universal self-transformation.If you accept the classical theory of knowledge, then Peano Arithmeticis already conscious.
Why and how does universal self-transformation equate to
consciousness?
Anything that is conscious can also be unconscious. Can
Peano Arithmetic be unconscious too?
My solution is that both views are correct on their own terms intheirown sense and that we should not arbitrarily privilege one view overthe other. Our vision is human vision. It is based on retina vision,which is based on cellular and molecular visual sense. It is notjusta mechanism which pushes information around from one place toanother,each place is a living organism which actively contributes to thetoplevel experience - it isn't a passive system.Living organisms - replicators,Life replicates, but replication does not define life. Livingorganisms feel alive and avoid death. Replication does not necessitatefeeling alive.I am OK with this. Yet, replication + while-loop might be enough.
Should we mourn the untying of our shoelaces each time?
are fine things, but I don't see whymust one confuse replicators with perception. Perception can exist byitself merely on the virtue of passing information around andprocessingit. Replicators can also exist due similar reasons, but on adifferentlevel.Perception has never existed 'by itself'. Perception only occurs inliving organisms who are informed by their experience.The whole point is to explain terms like "living", "conscious", etc.You take them as primitive, so are escaping the issue.
They aren't primitive, the symmetry is primitive.
There is noindependent disembodied 'information' out there. There detection andresponse, sense and motive of physical wholes.Same for "physical" (and that's not obvious!).
Do you doubt that if all life were exterminated that planets would
still exist? Where would information be though?
Sorry, but I think it's never going to happen. Consciousness is notdigital.If you survive with a digital brain, then consciousness is necessarilynot digital.A brain is not a maker of consciousness. It is only a stable patternmaking it possible (or more probable) that a person can manifestitself relatively to some universal number(s).
Why not just use adipose tissue instead? That's a more stable pattern.
Why have a vulnerable concentration of this pattern in the head? Our
skeleton would make a much safer place four a person to manifest
itself relatively to some universal number.
Keep in mind that comp makes materialism wrong.
That's not why it's wrong. I have no problem with materialism being
wrong, I have a problem with experience being reduced to non
experience or non sense.
The big picture iscompletely different. I think that you confuse comp, with itsAristotelian version where computations seems to be incarnated byphysical primitive materials. Comp + materialism leads to person-nihilism, so it is important to understand that comp should not beassumed together with materialism (even weak).
I don't think that I am confusing it. Comp is perfectly illustrated as
modern investment banking. There is no material, in fact it strangles
the life out of all materials, eviscerating culture and architecture,
all in the name of consolidating digitally abstracted control of
control. This is machine intelligence. The idea of unexperienced
ownership as an end unto itself, forever concentrating data and
exporting debt.
We are able to extend and augment our neurological capacities (wealready are) with neuromorphic devices, but ultimately we need our ownbrain tissue to live in.Why? What does that mean?
It means that without our brain, there is no we.
We cannot be
simulated anymore than water or fire can be simulated.
Human
consciousness exists nowhere but through a human brain.
We, unfortunately cannot be digitized,You don't know that. But you don't derive it either from what youassume (which to be franc remains unclear)
I do derive it, because the brain and the self are two parts of a
whole. You cannot export the selfness into another form, because the
self has no form, it's only experiential content through the interior
of a living brain.
.I think that you have a reductionist conception of machine, which wasperhaps defensible before Gödel 1931 and Turing discovery of theuniversal machine, but is no more defensible after.
I know that you think that, but you don't take into account that I
started with with that. I read Gödel, Escher, Bach around 1980 I
think. Even though I couldn't get too much into the math, I was quite
happy with the implications of it. For the next 25 years I believed
that the universe was made of 'patterns' - pretty close to what your
view is.
It's only been in the last 7 years that I have found a better
idea. My hypothesis is post-Gödelian symmetry.