What is computing?

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Philip Thrift

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Jun 7, 2019, 2:22:37 PM6/7/19
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On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 6 Jun 2019, at 19:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[... stuff on libertarianism]

I'm reminded of Bruno's theory that everything is computation…

Just to be exact. My working hypothesis is “Indexical Digital Mechanism”. It is “YD + CT” to sum it all.

My contribution is a theorem: which says that if we assume Mechanism, it is undecidable if there is more than the additive and multiplicative structure of the natural numbers, or Turing equivalent.

But most things are not computation. The mixing of the codes of the total computable functions and the strictly partial one IS NOT computable, yet “arithmetically real” and this will have a role in the “first person indeterminacy” measure problem.

If Mechanism is true, very few things are computable, or even deducible in powerful theory. Both consciousness and matter are typically not computable, yet absolutely real, for all Lôbian machines, from their phenomenological perspective.

Every is numbers, or computations, which means we can limit the arithmetical reality to the sigma_1 sentences eventually, but that means only that the fundamental ontology is very simple. The interesting things, including god, consciousness and matter all get their meaning and laws from the phenomenological perspective.

So, to say that with mechanism, that 'everything is computation’ is a bit misleading, as the phenomenologically apprehensible things will all be non computable, and yet are *real*, as we all know.

For consciousness you need only to agree that it is

True,
Knowable,
Indubitable,
(Immediate),

And

Non-definable,
Non Rationally believable

Together with the invariance for some digital transformation at some description level.




and so everything must be explainable in terms of computation.

In terms of addition and multiplication, you can understand where consciousness come from, why it differentiates, and the transfinite paths it get involved into, and why Reality is beyond the computable, yet partially computable, partially and locally manageable, partially observable, partially and locally inductively inferable. Etc.

Even just the arithmetical reality is far beyond the computable, but from inside, the sigma_1 (ultra-mini-tniy part of that reality) is already bigger than we could hope to formalise in ZF or ZF + Large cardinal. 

Digital mechanism, well understood (meaning with understand the quasi direct link between the Church-Turing thesis and incompleteness, (which I have explained many times, but I can do it again), is constructively antireductionist theory. The Löb-Gödelian machines, those who obeys to the probability/consistency laws of Solovays (cf G and G*) can defeat any complete theory anyone could conceive about them.

Only numbers at the ontological level, OK, but the crazily interesting things appears at the phenomenological levels, where things are no more very computable at all.

Bruno



Today is the last day of UCNC 2019.


What the conference is about can be summed up as

    What is computing
    if the CT thesis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis ] is false?
    

@philipthrift

Bruno Marchal

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Jun 9, 2019, 11:11:37 AM6/9/19
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If CT is false, it means that we miss some human computable operation on the natural numbers that a Turing machine, or a combinator, (…)  cannot imitate. 

In that case, two things are possible: 

1) that the new operation is still a mathematical operation, like an oracle à-la Turing, in which case we might still have a purely mathematical theory of computations, we might get a new notion of universal machine, stronger in abilities than any Turing machine, and we would keep the “measure problem” formulation of the mind-body (1p/3p, 1pp/3p) problem, but enlarged on more rich part of arithmetic/mathematics. Instead of sigma_1 completeness, we would be pi_1 complete, or perhaps complete on the analytical hierarchy, or perhaps not (many things remains possible, some in relation with “older” notion of computability, some totally new. There are no evidences for such human ability. 

2) much more speculative would be that the new operation is not amenable to mathematics at all. It would be like a way to compute a function   from N to N, needing consciousness for example. A zombie would be unable to imitate the computation. That is highly speculative, and bad scientific play: as it assumes the complicated in absence of evidences. Note that the first person experience is of that kind, by the indeterminacy on its histories, but that does not lead to computable function (the first person indeterminacy on the histories below the substitution level is not computable, albeit it could obeys precise statistical laws).

The evidence for CT is strong, and, Imo, it should be provable that CT is equivalent with the belief that second order arithmetic make sense, or just that the notion of standard natural numbers is well understood, or that the notion of “finite” is well understood.

The main evidences for CT are that all attempts to define the computable functions from N to N  leads to the same class of total and partial computable functions (from N to N), and then the “Miracle of Gödel”, that is, the fact that the set of partial computable functions is closed for Cantor “transcendental” diagonalisation technique, which brings down the willing of universality on most epistemic-like predicate, like provability, definability, etc.

Such closure property remains correct for the relativized theory, with oracles, and the “machine’s theology” is valid for large class of relativised notion of computability.It is what makes possible to apply the general theory to the machines embedded in their “cones” of computations (there infinitely many “past” and “futures” steps in the universal dovetailing on all computations. 

The finite and the infinite have deep relations, related to the relation between the computable and the non computable. Universal machines exploit their creativity on the frontiers between the computable and the non computable. The flux of consciousness is not solely related to the computations, but to where the person survives, all the modes of the self structured the space of accessible and relatively stable histories..


Bruno

PS I have given more than three mathematical definition of computation and computable, the last one was by using the combinators. I might give another one soon and explains a relation between combinators, arithmetic, and computer science.




    

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Philip Thrift

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Jun 9, 2019, 4:00:05 PM6/9/19
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Close to 2) above is  what is called "intrinsic computing":

A layered architecture based on intrinsic computing of physical systems avoids objections to a computationalism in the form of symbol manipulation.


The Architecture of Mind as a Network of Networks of Natural Computational Processes
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic



It wouldn't be fair to say it's (completely) non-mathematical. It's a different mathematics perhaps that is more morphological and topological in nature. The key is that intrinsic computing is not reducible to Turing computing (but it has nothing to do with oracles in the hyperarithmetical sense). It is phenomenological computing (the hole in science left by Galileo - Galileo's Error:
Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, Philip Goff).

Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic (above) and Robert Prentner* are two intrinsic computing people.

* Consciousness and Topologically Structured Phenomenal Spaces
Robert Prentner


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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 11, 2019, 1:42:30 AM6/11/19
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I know her, and appreciate her work, but it is not even close to violate CT, Imo. 



It wouldn't be fair to say it's (completely) non-mathematical. It's a different mathematics perhaps that is more morphological and topological in nature. The key is that intrinsic computing is not reducible to Turing computing (but it has nothing to do with oracles in the hyperarithmetical sense). It is phenomenological computing (the hole in science left by Galileo - Galileo's Error:
Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, Philip Goff).

Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic (above) and Robert Prentner* are two intrinsic computing people.

* Consciousness and Topologically Structured Phenomenal Spaces
Robert Prentner

This makes sense for many applications, but using this in metaphysics would beg the question of mechanism. The phenomenal space brought by the first person modes ([]p & p, []p & <>t & p) have topological semantics justifying some statements in such papers. They are right phenomenologically, but like often, people have a tendencies to wish the phenomenology being directly instantiated in *some* primitive matter, but that is like vitalism when you grasp that arithmetic imposes non computational phenomenologies.

Bruno





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Philip Thrift

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Jun 11, 2019, 2:57:09 AM6/11/19
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It is argued that, on the lower levels of information processing in the brain,finite automata or Turing machines may still be adequate models, while, on the higher levels of whole-brain information processing, natural computing models are necessary.


Now that "Turing machines may still be adequate models" at lower-level processing, but "natural computing models" are necessary" for higher-level processing seems to violate CT to me.

Unless you are saying that there's a class of non-Turing-machine (non-TM) models that are included in CT.


arithmetic imposes non computational phenomenologies

That may be (at least approximately) true (where "non-computational" I take means "non-TM-computational", and "imposes"I takes means "denotes". 

So is arithmetic non-CT? Doesn't that mean that arithmetic violates CT?

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Telmo Menezes

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Jun 11, 2019, 5:09:32 AM6/11/19
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On Fri, Jun 7, 2019, at 20:22, Philip Thrift wrote:


On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 6 Jun 2019, at 19:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[... stuff on libertarianism]

I'm reminded of Bruno's theory that everything is computation…

Just to be exact. My working hypothesis is “Indexical Digital Mechanism”. It is “YD + CT” to sum it all.

My contribution is a theorem: which says that if we assume Mechanism, it is undecidable if there is more than the additive and multiplicative structure of the natural numbers, or Turing equivalent.

But most things are not computation. The mixing of the codes of the total computable functions and the strictly partial one IS NOT computable, yet “arithmetically real” and this will have a role in the “first person indeterminacy” measure problem.

If Mechanism is true, very few things are computable, or even deducible in powerful theory. Both consciousness and matter are typically not computable, yet absolutely real, for all Lôbian machines, from their phenomenological perspective.

Every is numbers, or computations, which means we can limit the arithmetical reality to the sigma_1 sentences eventually, but that means only that the fundamental ontology is very simple. The interesting things, including god, consciousness and matter all get their meaning and laws from the phenomenological perspective.

So, to say that with mechanism, that 'everything is computation’ is a bit misleading, as the phenomenologically apprehensible things will all be non computable, and yet are *real*, as we all know.

For consciousness you need only to agree that it is

True,
Knowable,
Indubitable,
(Immediate),

And

Non-definable,
Non Rationally believable

Wait, this last one is new!
What do you mean by "non rationally believable"? Isn't this contradictory with "indubitable"?

Telmo.


Together with the invariance for some digital transformation at some description level.




and so everything must be explainable in terms of computation.

In terms of addition and multiplication, you can understand where consciousness come from, why it differentiates, and the transfinite paths it get involved into, and why Reality is beyond the computable, yet partially computable, partially and locally manageable, partially observable, partially and locally inductively inferable. Etc.

Even just the arithmetical reality is far beyond the computable, but from inside, the sigma_1 (ultra-mini-tniy part of that reality) is already bigger than we could hope to formalise in ZF or ZF + Large cardinal. 

Digital mechanism, well understood (meaning with understand the quasi direct link between the Church-Turing thesis and incompleteness, (which I have explained many times, but I can do it again), is constructively antireductionist theory. The Löb-Gödelian machines, those who obeys to the probability/consistency laws of Solovays (cf G and G*) can defeat any complete theory anyone could conceive about them.

Only numbers at the ontological level, OK, but the crazily interesting things appears at the phenomenological levels, where things are no more very computable at all.

Bruno



Today is the last day of UCNC 2019.


What the conference is about can be summed up as

    What is computing
    if the CT thesis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis ] is false?
    

@philipthrift


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Cosmin Visan

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Jun 11, 2019, 5:18:15 PM6/11/19
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Computing = empty concept.

Philip Thrift

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Jun 11, 2019, 5:34:00 PM6/11/19
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On Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 4:18:15 PM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Computing = empty concept.

Did you ever write (and run) programs?

What could be more fun?

(aside from sex)

@philipthrift 

howardmarks

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Jun 11, 2019, 5:39:50 PM6/11/19
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Prove it's fake news.... put up or shut up.


On 6/11/2019 4:18 PM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:
Computing = empty concept.
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Terren Suydam

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Jun 11, 2019, 5:44:28 PM6/11/19
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Is this empty?

image.png

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 11, 2019, 6:07:02 PM6/11/19
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I work as a software developer, if, then, get, set.

This is a game that I made in university just4fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt8LFl7t2oE

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 11, 2019, 6:21:37 PM6/11/19
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And also a song that I made, why not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8_n-Ljl8MU

Philip Thrift

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Jun 12, 2019, 1:11:32 AM6/12/19
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So then computing is not empty.

Consciousness itself is intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) computing.

@philipthrift

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 12, 2019, 2:25:20 AM6/12/19
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Of course is empty since it doesn't mean anything. As John Searle said it: you can let a pen fall from a height and you can consider it to calculate x = x0 + yt + gt^2/2. So is just words play, you can say about anything you want that it "computes". Of course, besides consciousness.

Philip Thrift

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Jun 12, 2019, 3:02:13 AM6/12/19
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But that is extrinsic, not intrinsic computing.

Real computing is both.


e.g.
An intrinsic program of brain development
Sarah Webb



@philipthroft

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 12, 2019, 3:06:55 AM6/12/19
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Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Philip Thrift

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Jun 12, 2019, 5:50:47 AM6/12/19
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On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 2:06:55 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Point out a place where consciousness exists, and there is no brain there.

@philipthrift

 

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 12, 2019, 6:06:27 AM6/12/19
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The consciousness that we are familiar with always seems to be accompanied by the quale of "brain". But notice here that dogs and monkeys and ants are consciousnesses that don't feel themselves accompanied by the quale of "brain". Only we seem to have discovered this. But exactly as they don't know about "brain", we might also be missing other big aspects of consciousness. Some more advanced aliens might know that they are always associated with the "center of the galaxy" for example. Also, take into account cases of telepathy: when 2 consciousnesses unify into a telepathy, in what brain does that shared state of consciousness resides ? Also, what about precognitions ? Is a precognition located in your present brain or in your future you brain ?

Philip Thrift

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Jun 12, 2019, 6:22:42 AM6/12/19
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On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 5:06:27 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
The consciousness that we are familiar with always seems to be accompanied by the quale of "brain". But notice here that dogs and monkeys and ants are consciousnesses that don't feel themselves accompanied by the quale of "brain". Only we seem to have discovered this. But exactly as they don't know about "brain", we might also be missing other big aspects of consciousness. Some more advanced aliens might know that they are always associated with the "center of the galaxy" for example. Also, take into account cases of telepathy: when 2 consciousnesses unify into a telepathy, in what brain does that shared state of consciousness resides ? Also, what about precognitions ? Is a precognition located in your present brain or in your future you brain ?



If you don't believe in locations of space+time (4d), then how do you go from one place to another? What does a map mean to you?

I just wanted to know if there are 4d locations where there is consciousness and 4d locations where there is not.

What is present in the 4d locations where there is consciousness? 

Maybe a bug is there. 


@philipthrift

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 12, 2019, 6:25:26 AM6/12/19
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How do you go in dreams from one place to another ? Simple: you just change the qualia of space. Of course, probably the waking-state world indeed is a world shared by other consciousnesses, so space motion might have another explanation than in dreams.

Philip Thrift

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Jun 12, 2019, 8:45:55 AM6/12/19
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On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 5:25:26 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
How do you go in dreams from one place to another ? Simple: you just change the qualia of space. Of course, probably the waking-state world indeed is a world shared by other consciousnesses, so space motion might have another explanation than in dreams.


Even if spacetime locations are qualia, apparently consciousnesses are attached to (qualia) brains.

I have this morning a distinct memory of a dream I actually had last night: I was talking to a doctor I had a couple of years ago for a minor surgery. He appeared conscious in my dream. I don't dream of consciousnesses not attached to brains/bodies, even if they are all qualia.

@philipthrift

Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:39:27 AM6/13/19
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On 11 Jun 2019, at 11:09, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:



On Fri, Jun 7, 2019, at 20:22, Philip Thrift wrote:


On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 6 Jun 2019, at 19:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[... stuff on libertarianism]

I'm reminded of Bruno's theory that everything is computation…

Just to be exact. My working hypothesis is “Indexical Digital Mechanism”. It is “YD + CT” to sum it all.

My contribution is a theorem: which says that if we assume Mechanism, it is undecidable if there is more than the additive and multiplicative structure of the natural numbers, or Turing equivalent.

But most things are not computation. The mixing of the codes of the total computable functions and the strictly partial one IS NOT computable, yet “arithmetically real” and this will have a role in the “first person indeterminacy” measure problem.

If Mechanism is true, very few things are computable, or even deducible in powerful theory. Both consciousness and matter are typically not computable, yet absolutely real, for all Lôbian machines, from their phenomenological perspective.

Every is numbers, or computations, which means we can limit the arithmetical reality to the sigma_1 sentences eventually, but that means only that the fundamental ontology is very simple. The interesting things, including god, consciousness and matter all get their meaning and laws from the phenomenological perspective.

So, to say that with mechanism, that 'everything is computation’ is a bit misleading, as the phenomenologically apprehensible things will all be non computable, and yet are *real*, as we all know.

For consciousness you need only to agree that it is

True,
Knowable,
Indubitable,
(Immediate),

And

Non-definable,
Non Rationally believable

Wait, this last one is new!

I use sometimes “non rationally believable” for non provable. Usually I use “non believable”, but I am usually in a context where I made clear I talk about self-referentially correct machine, which are rational in the sense that their believability is close for the usual first order logical rules, and that they have few simple beliefs, like 2+2=4 or KKK = K, etc.



What do you mean by "non rationally believable"? Isn't this contradictory with "indubitable”?

Not for consciousness. The indubitability is a first person person experience.

Believable is modelled by Gödel’s bewesibar (the one modality which obeys to G and G*), but the indubitability is on the first person level: it is modelled by ([]p & p)’s logic, i.e. S4Grz. That one find its self-consistency obvious.

OK?

Bruno




Telmo.


Together with the invariance for some digital transformation at some description level.




and so everything must be explainable in terms of computation.

In terms of addition and multiplication, you can understand where consciousness come from, why it differentiates, and the transfinite paths it get involved into, and why Reality is beyond the computable, yet partially computable, partially and locally manageable, partially observable, partially and locally inductively inferable. Etc.

Even just the arithmetical reality is far beyond the computable, but from inside, the sigma_1 (ultra-mini-tniy part of that reality) is already bigger than we could hope to formalise in ZF or ZF + Large cardinal. 

Digital mechanism, well understood (meaning with understand the quasi direct link between the Church-Turing thesis and incompleteness, (which I have explained many times, but I can do it again), is constructively antireductionist theory. The Löb-Gödelian machines, those who obeys to the probability/consistency laws of Solovays (cf G and G*) can defeat any complete theory anyone could conceive about them.

Only numbers at the ontological level, OK, but the crazily interesting things appears at the phenomenological levels, where things are no more very computable at all.

Bruno



Today is the last day of UCNC 2019.


What the conference is about can be summed up as

    What is computing
    if the CT thesis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis ] is false?
    

@philipthrift


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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:44:22 AM6/13/19
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On 11 Jun 2019, at 23:18, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Computing = empty concept.

I would say the exact contrary. It is an open concept. The math needed to define a computation, which is no more than “very elementary arithmetic” is automatically essentially undecidable. It means that all theories fail to get the whole truth, and that we are warn of infinitely many surprises.

You might think arguing, also, because it is very gross to say that computing is an empty concept when there are thousand of papers each day on the subject. Also,without computing, you would not been able to send your post on this list. You are using a machine doing computing all the times. So what you say looks very weird.

Bruno




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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:46:40 AM6/13/19
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On 12 Jun 2019, at 07:11, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



So then computing is not empty.

Consciousness itself is intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) computing.

I agree. Now, computer science shows many intrinsic notions emerges from computing notions. Some are provably not amenable top any theory or any third person description at all, and consciousness is one of them, but not the only one, as truth and reality are others.

Bruno 




@philipthrift

On Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 5:07:02 PM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
I work as a software developer, if, then, get, set.

This is a game that I made in university just4fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt8LFl7t2oE

On Wednesday, 12 June 2019 00:34:00 UTC+3, Philip Thrift wrote:


On Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 4:18:15 PM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Computing = empty concept.

Did you ever write (and run) programs?

What could be more fun?

(aside from sex)

@philipthrift 

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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:49:20 AM6/13/19
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On 12 Jun 2019, at 08:25, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Of course is empty since it doesn't mean anything. As John Searle said it: you can let a pen fall from a height and you can consider it to calculate x = x0 + yt + gt^2/2.

That is typically not a computation, which is a digital notion. You might say that it is a analog or natural computations, but then Searles' critics on digital computationalism works through on that very notion too, and that is why Searles needs its metaphysical naturalism.

Bruno

So is just words play, you can say about anything you want that it "computes". Of course, besides consciousness.

On Wednesday, 12 June 2019 08:11:32 UTC+3, Philip Thrift wrote:


So then computing is not empty.

Consciousness itself is intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) computing.

@philipthrift

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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:51:21 AM6/13/19
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On 12 Jun 2019, at 09:06, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

I agree. More precisely “brains do not exist ontologically”, they are local phenomenological numbers experiences. But at least, mechanism explains where consciousness comes from, and why it differentiate on “physical histories”.

Bruno




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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 13, 2019, 8:53:40 AM6/13/19
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Consciousness does not belong to a category of object having a place, like 2+2=4. The idea of physical place is dreamed by the relative numbers, to be short. This makes sense only if the computational histories ahem the right relative measure, and thanks to the material modes obeying some quantum logic, this makes sense … up to now.

Bruno




@philipthrift

 

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Philip Thrift

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Jun 13, 2019, 9:31:10 AM6/13/19
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On Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 7:53:40 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jun 2019, at 11:50, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 2:06:55 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Point out a place where consciousness exists, and there is no brain there.

Consciousness does not belong to a category of object having a place, like 2+2=4. The idea of physical place is dreamed by the relative numbers, to be short. This makes sense only if the computational histories ahem the right relative measure, and thanks to the material modes obeying some quantum logic, this makes sense … up to now.

Bruno



I know I can specify where my consciousness is, via an address on Google or even narrowed down perhaps to GPS coordinates of a 3d box that my head is in.

Where other's consciousnesses are I guess are traveling through space via astral projection.

@philipthrift

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 13, 2019, 2:07:05 PM6/13/19
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Working software developers don't do "computing". They just do get-set. mail.getMessage(), mail.setMessage("Wow! Super-duper computing!");

Bruno Marchal

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Jun 14, 2019, 5:08:53 AM6/14/19
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On 13 Jun 2019, at 15:31, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 7:53:40 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jun 2019, at 11:50, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 2:06:55 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Point out a place where consciousness exists, and there is no brain there.

Consciousness does not belong to a category of object having a place, like 2+2=4. The idea of physical place is dreamed by the relative numbers, to be short. This makes sense only if the computational histories ahem the right relative measure, and thanks to the material modes obeying some quantum logic, this makes sense … up to now.

Bruno



I know I can specify where my consciousness is, via an address on Google or even narrowed down perhaps to GPS coordinates of a 3d box that my head is in.

What if some physical process in some far away galaxy emulate you, exactly in the states you are living right now? 

Then, eventually, a notion like “self-location” is “dreamed” by universal number in virtue of their arithmetical relations, and this in infinitely many computations. The “many world” spect of quantum mechanics is well explained (up to now) with that self-multiplication intrinsic to arithmetic (or any Turing equivalent reality).





Where other's consciousnesses are I guess are traveling through space via astral projection.


With mechanism, planets, stars, atoms and galaxies belongs more plausibly to the “head” of the universal numbers.

Bruno


@philipthrift

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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 14, 2019, 5:10:31 AM6/14/19
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On 13 Jun 2019, at 20:07, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Working software developers don't do "computing”.

Only computers do computing. Programming a computer is not “computing” per se, although it is something which emerges from computations in arithmetic when we assume the mechanist hypothesis. 

Bruno


They just do get-set. mail.getMessage(), mail.setMessage("Wow! Super-duper computing!");

On Thursday, 13 June 2019 15:44:22 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Also,without computing, you would not been able to send your post on this list. You are using a machine doing computing all the times. So what you say looks very weird.

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Philip Thrift

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Jun 14, 2019, 5:36:10 AM6/14/19
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On Friday, June 14, 2019 at 4:08:53 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 13 Jun 2019, at 15:31, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 7:53:40 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jun 2019, at 11:50, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 2:06:55 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Point out a place where consciousness exists, and there is no brain there.

Consciousness does not belong to a category of object having a place, like 2+2=4. The idea of physical place is dreamed by the relative numbers, to be short. This makes sense only if the computational histories ahem the right relative measure, and thanks to the material modes obeying some quantum logic, this makes sense … up to now.

Bruno



I know I can specify where my consciousness is, via an address on Google or even narrowed down perhaps to GPS coordinates of a 3d box that my head is in.

What if some physical process in some far away galaxy emulate you, exactly in the states you are living right now? 

Then, eventually, a notion like “self-location” is “dreamed” by universal number in virtue of their arithmetical relations, and this in infinitely many computations. The “many world” spect of quantum mechanics is well explained (up to now) with that self-multiplication intrinsic to arithmetic (or any Turing equivalent reality).





Where other's consciousnesses are I guess are traveling through space via astral projection.


With mechanism, planets, stars, atoms and galaxies belongs more plausibly to the “head” of the universal numbers.

Bruno


That there could be a (approximately-enough)  "Phil" molecule-for-molecule copy out there is a heady thought.

@philipthrift


Telmo Menezes

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Jun 14, 2019, 5:58:39 AM6/14/19
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On Thu, Jun 13, 2019, at 14:39, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 11 Jun 2019, at 11:09, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.net> wrote:



On Fri, Jun 7, 2019, at 20:22, Philip Thrift wrote:


On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 6 Jun 2019, at 19:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[... stuff on libertarianism]

I'm reminded of Bruno's theory that everything is computation…

Just to be exact. My working hypothesis is “Indexical Digital Mechanism”. It is “YD + CT” to sum it all.

My contribution is a theorem: which says that if we assume Mechanism, it is undecidable if there is more than the additive and multiplicative structure of the natural numbers, or Turing equivalent.

But most things are not computation. The mixing of the codes of the total computable functions and the strictly partial one IS NOT computable, yet “arithmetically real” and this will have a role in the “first person indeterminacy” measure problem.

If Mechanism is true, very few things are computable, or even deducible in powerful theory. Both consciousness and matter are typically not computable, yet absolutely real, for all Lôbian machines, from their phenomenological perspective.

Every is numbers, or computations, which means we can limit the arithmetical reality to the sigma_1 sentences eventually, but that means only that the fundamental ontology is very simple. The interesting things, including god, consciousness and matter all get their meaning and laws from the phenomenological perspective.

So, to say that with mechanism, that 'everything is computation’ is a bit misleading, as the phenomenologically apprehensible things will all be non computable, and yet are *real*, as we all know.

For consciousness you need only to agree that it is

True,
Knowable,
Indubitable,
(Immediate),

And

Non-definable,
Non Rationally believable

Wait, this last one is new!

I use sometimes “non rationally believable” for non provable. Usually I use “non believable”, but I am usually in a context where I made clear I talk about self-referentially correct machine, which are rational in the sense that their believability is close for the usual first order logical rules, and that they have few simple beliefs, like 2+2=4 or KKK = K, etc.

Ok.
Couldn't you then say that consciousness is definable as the thing that has all the above properties (removing non-definable)?




What do you mean by "non rationally believable"? Isn't this contradictory with "indubitable”?

Not for consciousness. The indubitability is a first person person experience.

Believable is modelled by Gödel’s bewesibar (the one modality which obeys to G and G*), but the indubitability is on the first person level: it is modelled by ([]p & p)’s logic, i.e. S4Grz. That one find its self-consistency obvious.

OK?

Ok, but wouldn't it then be more clear to say "non-provable" in all contexts?

Telmo.

Cosmin Visan

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Jun 14, 2019, 6:00:07 AM6/14/19
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Computers don't exist. "Computers" is just an idea in consciousness.

Bruno Marchal

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Jun 15, 2019, 4:46:54 AM6/15/19
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Very elementary arithmetic, or the Universal Dovetailer, emulates all computations, even ridiculous things like an emulation of the Heisenberg matrices of our cluster of galaxies at the place level with 10^(10^100), or any (big) number, of decimals.
Now, this can be shown to have a measure nul, very plausibly, compared to all other simulation of our histories, but those things exists “out there”, by which I mean: in the arithmetical reality. “Out there” cannot mean “in a physical universe” once we assume Digital Mechanism.

Bruno





@philipthrift



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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 15, 2019, 4:58:19 AM6/15/19
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Not really, because this definition use the notion of arithmetical truth, or of knowledge, which cannot be defined internally. The definition are necessarily “meta-definition” and belongs to those attribute which cannot be internalised by any machine. But a rich machine can define it for a simpler machine than itself, like we can defined the notion of arithmetical truth in analysis, of course we cannot define “analytical truth” in analysis, but we have to trust it anyway.
That is the main lesson of incompleteness. Our trust in arithmetic relies on our non definable intuition of it. We can build transfinite approximation of those notion, but some of them can only be internally understood by experiencing them. Consciousness is among them, but the arithmetical truth also, when assuming mechanism.








What do you mean by "non rationally believable"? Isn't this contradictory with "indubitable”?

Not for consciousness. The indubitability is a first person person experience.

Believable is modelled by Gödel’s bewesibar (the one modality which obeys to G and G*), but the indubitability is on the first person level: it is modelled by ([]p & p)’s logic, i.e. S4Grz. That one find its self-consistency obvious.

OK?

Ok, but wouldn't it then be more clear to say "non-provable" in all contexts?

Maybe. I am not sure. The problem is that most people believe that “provable(p) implies p”, which makes it into a knowledge notion. To avoid repeating Gödel’s incompleteness all the time, I prefer to use “rational belief” instead of “proof”, because most people have not swallow completely that provability has a logic of belief, and not of knowledge. It is incompleteness which enforce the “belief” interpretation of the provability predicate. It forces us to keep in mind that our theories might be inconsistent.

Bruno



Philip Thrift

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Jun 15, 2019, 5:00:49 AM6/15/19
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On Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 3:46:54 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 14 Jun 2019, at 11:36, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Friday, June 14, 2019 at 4:08:53 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 13 Jun 2019, at 15:31, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 7:53:40 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jun 2019, at 11:50, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 2:06:55 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Point out a place where consciousness exists, and there is no brain there.

Consciousness does not belong to a category of object having a place, like 2+2=4. The idea of physical place is dreamed by the relative numbers, to be short. This makes sense only if the computational histories ahem the right relative measure, and thanks to the material modes obeying some quantum logic, this makes sense … up to now.

Bruno



I know I can specify where my consciousness is, via an address on Google or even narrowed down perhaps to GPS coordinates of a 3d box that my head is in.

What if some physical process in some far away galaxy emulate you, exactly in the states you are living right now? 

Then, eventually, a notion like “self-location” is “dreamed” by universal number in virtue of their arithmetical relations, and this in infinitely many computations. The “many world” spect of quantum mechanics is well explained (up to now) with that self-multiplication intrinsic to arithmetic (or any Turing equivalent reality).





Where other's consciousnesses are I guess are traveling through space via astral projection.


With mechanism, planets, stars, atoms and galaxies belongs more plausibly to the “head” of the universal numbers.

Bruno


That there could be a (approximately-enough)  "Phil" molecule-for-molecule copy out there is a heady thought.

Very elementary arithmetic, or the Universal Dovetailer, emulates all computations, even ridiculous things like an emulation of the Heisenberg matrices of our cluster of galaxies at the place level with 10^(10^100), or any (big) number, of decimals.
Now, this can be shown to have a measure nul, very plausibly, compared to all other simulation of our histories, but those things exists “out there”, by which I mean: in the arithmetical reality. “Out there” cannot mean “in a physical universe” once we assume Digital Mechanism.

Bruno



It still isn't clear what "assume Digital Mechanism" means.

A Digital Mechanism is something that can be modeled by a Turing Machine.

But as you point out, arithmetic, consciousness, matter cannot be modeled by Turing Machine.

@philipthrift 

Bruno Marchal

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Jun 15, 2019, 5:01:43 AM6/15/19
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On 14 Jun 2019, at 12:00, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Computers don't exist. "Computers" is just an idea in consciousness.

Physical computers are idea in consciousness, but that does not made them not existing in some way. 

If not, you are like telling us than the idea in consciousness do not exist.

Now, the non physical computers exist independently of anything. They exist as a consequence of 2+2=4 & Co. RA emulates all computations, and PA already prove that RA emulates all computations.

Bruno





On Friday, 14 June 2019 12:10:31 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Only computers do computing. Programming a computer is not “computing” per se, although it is something which emerges from computations in arithmetic when we assume the mechanist hypothesis.


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Bruno Marchal

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Jun 16, 2019, 10:40:06 AM6/16/19
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On 11 Jun 2019, at 08:57, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 12:42:30 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 9 Jun 2019, at 22:00, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 10:11:37 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 7 Jun 2019, at 20:22, Philip Thrift <cloud...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 6 Jun 2019, at 19:34, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[... stuff on libertarianism]

I'm reminded of Bruno's theory that everything is computation…

Just to be exact. My working hypothesis is “Indexical Digital Mechanism”. It is “YD + CT” to sum it all.

My contribution is a theorem: which says that if we assume Mechanism, it is undecidable if there is more than the additive and multiplicative structure of the natural numbers, or Turing equivalent.

But most things are not computation. The mixing of the codes of the total computable functions and the strictly partial one IS NOT computable, yet “arithmetically real” and this will have a role in the “first person indeterminacy” measure problem.

If Mechanism is true, very few things are computable, or even deducible in powerful theory. Both consciousness and matter are typically not computable, yet absolutely real, for all Lôbian machines, from their phenomenological perspective.

Every is numbers, or computations, which means we can limit the arithmetical reality to the sigma_1 sentences eventually, but that means only that the fundamental ontology is very simple. The interesting things, including god, consciousness and matter all get their meaning and laws from the phenomenological perspective.

So, to say that with mechanism, that 'everything is computation’ is a bit misleading, as the phenomenologically apprehensible things will all be non computable, and yet are *real*, as we all know.

For consciousness you need only to agree that it is

True,
Knowable,
Indubitable,
(Immediate),

And

Non-definable,
Non Rationally believable

Together with the invariance for some digital transformation at some description level.




and so everything must be explainable in terms of computation.

In terms of addition and multiplication, you can understand where consciousness come from, why it differentiates, and the transfinite paths it get involved into, and why Reality is beyond the computable, yet partially computable, partially and locally manageable, partially observable, partially and locally inductively inferable. Etc.

Even just the arithmetical reality is far beyond the computable, but from inside, the sigma_1 (ultra-mini-tniy part of that reality) is already bigger than we could hope to formalise in ZF or ZF + Large cardinal. 

Digital mechanism, well understood (meaning with understand the quasi direct link between the Church-Turing thesis and incompleteness, (which I have explained many times, but I can do it again), is constructively antireductionist theory. The Löb-Gödelian machines, those who obeys to the probability/consistency laws of Solovays (cf G and G*) can defeat any complete theory anyone could conceive about them.

Only numbers at the ontological level, OK, but the crazily interesting things appears at the phenomenological levels, where things are no more very computable at all.

Bruno


Today is the last day of UCNC 2019.


What the conference is about can be summed up as

    What is computing
    if the CT thesis [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis ] is false?


If CT is false, it means that we miss some human computable operation on the natural numbers that a Turing machine, or a combinator, (…)  cannot imitate. 

In that case, two things are possible: 

1) that the new operation is still a mathematical operation, like an oracle à-la Turing, in which case we might still have a purely mathematical theory of computations, we might get a new notion of universal machine, stronger in abilities than any Turing machine, and we would keep the “measure problem” formulation of the mind-body (1p/3p, 1pp/3p) problem, but enlarged on more rich part of arithmetic/mathematics. Instead of sigma_1 completeness, we would be pi_1 complete, or perhaps complete on the analytical hierarchy, or perhaps not (many things remains possible, some in relation with “older” notion of computability, some totally new. There are no evidences for such human ability. 

2) much more speculative would be that the new operation is not amenable to mathematics at all. It would be like a way to compute a function   from N to N, needing consciousness for example. A zombie would be unable to imitate the computation. That is highly speculative, and bad scientific play: as it assumes the complicated in absence of evidences. Note that the first person experience is of that kind, by the indeterminacy on its histories, but that does not lead to computable function (the first person indeterminacy on the histories below the substitution level is not computable, albeit it could obeys precise statistical laws).

The evidence for CT is strong, and, Imo, it should be provable that CT is equivalent with the belief that second order arithmetic make sense, or just that the notion of standard natural numbers is well understood, or that the notion of “finite” is well understood.

The main evidences for CT are that all attempts to define the computable functions from N to N  leads to the same class of total and partial computable functions (from N to N), and then the “Miracle of Gödel”, that is, the fact that the set of partial computable functions is closed for Cantor “transcendental” diagonalisation technique, which brings down the willing of universality on most epistemic-like predicate, like provability, definability, etc.

Such closure property remains correct for the relativized theory, with oracles, and the “machine’s theology” is valid for large class of relativised notion of computability.It is what makes possible to apply the general theory to the machines embedded in their “cones” of computations (there infinitely many “past” and “futures” steps in the universal dovetailing on all computations. 

The finite and the infinite have deep relations, related to the relation between the computable and the non computable. Universal machines exploit their creativity on the frontiers between the computable and the non computable. The flux of consciousness is not solely related to the computations, but to where the person survives, all the modes of the self structured the space of accessible and relatively stable histories..


Bruno

PS I have given more than three mathematical definition of computation and computable, the last one was by using the combinators. I might give another one soon and explains a relation between combinators, arithmetic, and computer science.



Close to 2) above is  what is called "intrinsic computing":

A layered architecture based on intrinsic computing of physical systems avoids objections to a computationalism in the form of symbol manipulation.


The Architecture of Mind as a Network of Networks of Natural Computational Processes
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic



I know her, and appreciate her work, but it is not even close to violate CT, Imo. 



It wouldn't be fair to say it's (completely) non-mathematical. It's a different mathematics perhaps that is more morphological and topological in nature. The key is that intrinsic computing is not reducible to Turing computing (but it has nothing to do with oracles in the hyperarithmetical sense). It is phenomenological computing (the hole in science left by Galileo - Galileo's Error:
Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, Philip Goff).

Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic (above) and Robert Prentner* are two intrinsic computing people.

* Consciousness and Topologically Structured Phenomenal Spaces
Robert Prentner

This makes sense for many applications, but using this in metaphysics would beg the question of mechanism. The phenomenal space brought by the first person modes ([]p & p, []p & <>t & p) have topological semantics justifying some statements in such papers. They are right phenomenologically, but like often, people have a tendencies to wish the phenomenology being directly instantiated in *some* primitive matter, but that is like vitalism when you grasp that arithmetic imposes non computational phenomenologies.

Bruno



 

it is not even close to violate CT, Imo

It is argued that, on the lower levels of information processing in the brain,finite automata or Turing machines may still be adequate models, while, on the higher levels of whole-brain information processing, natural computing models are necessary.


Now that "Turing machines may still be adequate models" at lower-level processing, but "natural computing models" are necessary" for higher-level processing seems to violate CT to me.

Unless you are saying that there's a class of non-Turing-machine (non-TM) models that are included in CT.


arithmetic imposes non computational phenomenologies

That may be (at least approximately) true (where "non-computational" I take means "non-TM-computational", and "imposes"I takes means "denotes". 

So is arithmetic non-CT? Doesn't that mean that arithmetic violates CT?

If you don’t violate thesis at one level, you don’t violate thesis at any level. The soul violate mechanism from its perspective, but mechanism is just the statement that you are a machine at some level. Mechanism explain the non computational attribute of the machine.

Bruno






@philipthrift

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