Natural vs. Artificial

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Recently I have listened to a nice talk about the search of
extraterrestrial intelligence

http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2013/03/the-starivore-hypothesis.html

The author has mentioned two fallacies (slides 6 and 7)

Artificiality-of-the-gaps

and

Naturality-of-the-gaps

However, I was unable to understand his difference between artificial
and natural. It might be this is a good chance to look from another
perspective on an ASCII string that has no meaning for John Clark. Could
we find the difference between natural and artificial if we say that a
term "free will" is meaningless?

Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/03/natural-vs-artificial.html

[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
> Recently I have listened to a nice talk about the search of extraterrestrial
> intelligence
>
> http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2013/03/the-starivore-hypothesis.html
>
> The author has mentioned two fallacies (slides 6 and 7)
>
> Artificiality-of-the-gaps
>
> and
>
> Naturality-of-the-gaps
>
> However, I was unable to understand his difference between artificial and
> natural.

I believe he just means "generated by an intelligent biological
entity" vs "generated directly by nature". UFOs, the New York City and
burritos are artificial in this sense, while Clouds, the Grand Canyon
and apples are not.

He's then specifically alluding to the fallacy of assuming that
extra-terrestrial intelligent entities would be sufficiently similar
to us for us to notice them (an old but interesting debate).

Telmo.

> It might be this is a good chance to look from another perspective
> on an ASCII string that has no meaning for John Clark. Could we find the
> difference between natural and artificial if we say that a term "free will"
> is meaningless?
>
> Evgenii
> --
> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/03/natural-vs-artificial.html
>

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[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 13.05.2013 17:41 Telmo Menezes said the following:

> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>
> wrote:
>> Recently I have listened to a nice talk about the search of
>> extraterrestrial intelligence
>>
>> http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2013/03/the-starivore-hypothesis.html
>>
>>
>>
The author has mentioned two fallacies (slides 6 and 7)
>>
>> Artificiality-of-the-gaps
>>
>> and
>>
>> Naturality-of-the-gaps
>>
>> However, I was unable to understand his difference between
>> artificial and natural.
>
> I believe he just means "generated by an intelligent biological
> entity" vs "generated directly by nature". UFOs, the New York City
> and burritos are artificial in this sense, while Clouds, the Grand
> Canyon and apples are not.
>
> He's then specifically alluding to the fallacy of assuming that
> extra-terrestrial intelligent entities would be sufficiently similar
> to us for us to notice them (an old but interesting debate).

Yes, but my point was to take this just as a starting point to ask
ourselves how we distinguish what is artificial and what is natural.

The author failed to make definitions for artificial and natural. Could
you define these terms?

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 May 2013, at 18:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> On 13.05.2013 17:41 Telmo Menezes said the following:
>> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru>
>> wrote:
>>> Recently I have listened to a nice talk about the search of
>>> extraterrestrial intelligence
>>>
>>> http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2013/03/the-starivore-hypothesis.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
> The author has mentioned two fallacies (slides 6 and 7)
>>>
>>> Artificiality-of-the-gaps
>>>
>>> and
>>>
>>> Naturality-of-the-gaps
>>>
>>> However, I was unable to understand his difference between
>>> artificial and natural.
>>
>> I believe he just means "generated by an intelligent biological
>> entity" vs "generated directly by nature". UFOs, the New York City
>> and burritos are artificial in this sense, while Clouds, the Grand
>> Canyon and apples are not.
>>
>> He's then specifically alluding to the fallacy of assuming that
>> extra-terrestrial intelligent entities would be sufficiently similar
>> to us for us to notice them (an old but interesting debate).
>
> Yes, but my point was to take this just as a starting point to ask
> ourselves how we distinguish what is artificial and what is natural.
>
> The author failed to make definitions for artificial and natural.
> Could you define these terms?

The difference between natural and artificial is ... artificial.

And thus it is natural ... for creatures which are developing some ego.
"artificial" is a human indexical. Even with comp, we are part of
nature. I think.

Bruno

>
> Evgenii
>
>> Telmo.
>>
>>> It might be this is a good chance to look from another perspective
>>> on an ASCII string that has no meaning for John Clark. Could we
>>> find the difference between natural and artificial if we say that a
>>> term "free will" is meaningless?
>>>
>>> Evgenii --
>>> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/03/natural-vs-artificial.html
>>>
>>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
>>> Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Telmo Menezes]

Yes, I agree with this.

The distinction is useful to simply qualify something as being the
product of human engineering (as in "Artificial Intelligence"). The
search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can never
be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer space is
"natural" or "artificial". Or can we?

Telmo.

> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Evgenii
>>
>>> Telmo.
>>>
>>>> It might be this is a good chance to look from another perspective
>>>> on an ASCII string that has no meaning for John Clark. Could we
>>>> find the difference between natural and artificial if we say that a
>>>> term "free will" is meaningless?
>>>>
>>>> Evgenii --
>>>> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/03/natural-vs-artificial.html
>>>>
>>>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
>>>> Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this
>>>> group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
>>>> everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this
>>>> group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this
>>>> group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For
>>>> more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Everything List" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
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>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>
>>
>

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

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 11:01 Telmo Menezes said the following:

> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 13 May 2013, at 18:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>

...

>>> The author failed to make definitions for artificial and natural.
>>> Could you define these terms?
>>
>>
>> The difference between natural and artificial is ... artificial.
>>
>> And thus it is natural ... for creatures which are developing some
>> ego. "artificial" is a human indexical. Even with comp, we are part
>> of nature. I think.
>
> Yes, I agree with this.
>
> The distinction is useful to simply qualify something as being the
> product of human engineering (as in "Artificial Intelligence"). The

Well, if we cannot define artificial vs. natural, then the question
actually remains. Are computers for example artificial products or natural?

> search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
> uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
> intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
> spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can never
> be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer space is
> "natural" or "artificial".

This means that this kind of research is just a way to throw taxpayers
money out. Hence, to be consistent, the government funding of search for
extraterrestrial intelligence should be banned.

Evgenii

[Telmo Menezes]

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
> On 14.05.2013 11:01 Telmo Menezes said the following:
>
>> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 13 May 2013, at 18:29, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>
>
> ...
>
>
>>>> The author failed to make definitions for artificial and natural.
>>>> Could you define these terms?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The difference between natural and artificial is ... artificial.
>>>
>>> And thus it is natural ... for creatures which are developing some
>>> ego. "artificial" is a human indexical. Even with comp, we are part
>>> of nature. I think.
>>
>>
>> Yes, I agree with this.
>>
>> The distinction is useful to simply qualify something as being the
>> product of human engineering (as in "Artificial Intelligence"). The
>
>
> Well, if we cannot define artificial vs. natural, then the question actually
> remains. Are computers for example artificial products or natural?

I guess an answer that would make sense to me would be: "both".

I think artificial is a useful concept, but just that. Natural is a
bit silly because, obviously, everything is a part of nature. So you
can have the artificial / non-artificial distinction, which is already
implicit in "intelligence" vs. "artificial intelligence" or "sugar"
vs. "artificial sweetener".

The opposite of natural would be unnatural (?). For example, a neon
blue cat the size of Europe is unnatural (as far as we know).

>
>> search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
>> uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
>> intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
>> spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can never
>> be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer space is
>> "natural" or "artificial".
>
>
> This means that this kind of research is just a way to throw taxpayers money
> out.
> Hence, to be consistent, the government funding of search for
> extraterrestrial intelligence should be banned.

I don't think that follows. SETI is looking for ETs which are similar
enough to us to be detected by looking for stuff we're familiar with.
That seems like a reasonable goal to me.

Telmo.

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 13:39 Telmo Menezes said the following:

No, I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial. So
a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that are just
natural and where the term artificial is not applicable? If yes, what is
the difference in your view between things that

1) Natural

2) Natural and artificial

>>
>>> search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
>>> uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
>>> intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
>>> spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can
>>> never be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer
>>> space is "natural" or "artificial".
>>
>>
>> This means that this kind of research is just a way to throw
>> taxpayers money out. Hence, to be consistent, the government
>> funding of search for extraterrestrial intelligence should be
>> banned.
>
> I don't think that follows. SETI is looking for ETs which are
> similar enough to us to be detected by looking for stuff we're
> familiar with. That seems like a reasonable goal to me.
>

Well, if scientists cannot say what is the difference between natural
and artificial, then it is unclear what they are doing. In this case, in
my view, the goal is ill-defined.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable? If
> yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>
> 1) Natural
>
> 2) Natural and artificial

For the human, the distinction is:

Natural = not man made.
Artificial = man made

So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc. are
natural.

If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
humans have no special status. If you are dualist and anthropomorphic,
then you can absolutize the distinction (but this seems ad hoc to me).

A fly might consider that termites' nest are quite artificial
buildings, for example.

Artificial is an indexical, like "now", "here" or "yesterday", or
"modern", or "contemporary", etc. The meaning depends on the person
using the word and his/her relative position.

For a quite advanced alien, silicon computers and atomic bombs might
be considered as natural products on certain type of planets, for a
different example.

What do you think if humans receives this message from the stars, with
A, B, C, D, ... being token easy to identified and differentiate as
physical signals:

ABACAADAABACAAADABAAACAAAADAABAACAAAADAAAABAAAACAAAAAAAADFBACADAAAGAACAAAAAAD
etc.

Can you guess the intent? Can you guess what F and G are for? What
would you think if we get such a message (probably longer) coming from
far away?

Bruno

>
>
>>>
>>>> search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
>>>> uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
>>>> intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
>>>> spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can
>>>> never be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer
>>>> space is "natural" or "artificial".
>>>
>>>
>>> This means that this kind of research is just a way to throw
>>> taxpayers money out. Hence, to be consistent, the government
>>> funding of search for extraterrestrial intelligence should be
>>> banned.
>>
>> I don't think that follows. SETI is looking for ETs which are
>> similar enough to us to be detected by looking for stuff we're
>> familiar with. That seems like a reasonable goal to me.
>>
>
> Well, if scientists cannot say what is the difference between
> natural and artificial, then it is unclear what they are doing. In
> this case, in my view, the goal is ill-defined.
>
> Evgenii
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
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> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> .

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:

>
> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
>> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
>> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
>> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable?
>> If yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>>
>> 1) Natural
>>
>> 2) Natural and artificial
>
> For the human, the distinction is:
>
> Natural = not man made. Artificial = man made
>
> So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
> artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc. are
> natural.
>
> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
> humans have no special status. If you are dualist and
> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but this
> seems ad hoc to me).

This means that a scientific answer to this question is impossible. One
has just to take a position, or in other words, make his/her bet.

> A fly might consider that termites' nest are quite artificial
> buildings, for example.
>
> Artificial is an indexical, like "now", "here" or "yesterday", or
> "modern", or "contemporary", etc. The meaning depends on the person
> using the word and his/her relative position.
>
> For a quite advanced alien, silicon computers and atomic bombs might
> be considered as natural products on certain type of planets, for a
> different example.
>
> What do you think if humans receives this message from the stars,
> with A, B, C, D, ... being token easy to identified and differentiate
> as physical signals:
>
> ABACAADAABACAAADABAAACAAAADAABAACAAAADAAAABAAAACAAAAAAAADFBACADAAAGAACAAAAAAD
>
>
> etc.
>
> Can you guess the intent? Can you guess what F and G are for? What
> would you think if we get such a message (probably longer) coming
> from far away?

I do not know. Right now there is discussion at biosemiotics list on
what is sign. For example, let us consider a mating courtship between birds

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG7l7bp4t4
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkshIwdw7DY
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zJhlr016VU

In the last case, a male bird catches a fish and gives it to the bride.
Could we consider a fish as a sign in this case?

I do not know what happens under comp but I personally see no
possibility to find signs under physicalism. Hence currently I follow
people who preach Peircean metaphysics of the sign.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>
>> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
>>> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
>>> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable?
>>> If yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>>>
>>> 1) Natural
>>>
>>> 2) Natural and artificial
>>
>> For the human, the distinction is:
>>
>> Natural = not man made. Artificial = man made
>>
>> So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
>> artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc. are
>> natural.
>>
>> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
>> humans have no special status. If you are dualist and
>> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but this
>> seems ad hoc to me).
>
> This means that a scientific answer to this question is impossible.
> One has just to take a position, or in other words, make his/her bet.

No, there is a scientific answer, assuming comp.

And the scientific answer is that this is a private concern between
you and your shaman or doctor. It is *your* choice.

OK.
I think that with comp you can interpret the sign as the elements of
recursively enumerable set (of numbers, or whatever), with their
intensional meaning defined by the (universal numbers) supporting them
(context). Signs are interesting, they live near the syntax/semantic
fixed points. They plausibly speed up computations. But I have not
studied Peirce, like I would say ... I give time to Plato and Plotinus
(and Descartes, and the Taoists notably Lie Ze, and Lewis Carroll,
Alan Watts, ...).

About the fish you should ask the bride. I think it is a sign.

Yeah, the "correct" signs, for a male spider is a matter of mating or
be eaten:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-nmeYirsvA

Bruno

[meekerdb]

On 5/14/2013 12:29 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
>> On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>>
>>> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
>>>> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
>>>> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable?
>>>> If yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>>>>
>>>> 1) Natural
>>>>
>>>> 2) Natural and artificial
>>>
>>> For the human, the distinction is:
>>>
>>> Natural = not man made. Artificial = man made
>>>
>>> So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
>>> artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc. are
>>> natural.
>>>
>>> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
>>> humans have no special status.

They have the special status of being humans.

>>> If you are dualist and
>>> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but this
>>> seems ad hoc to me).

I don't see what is has to do with dualism. If you can distinguish "humans" from
"not-humans" then you can distinguish "made by humans" from "not made by humans". It's as
scientific as any concept: table, chair, tiger, star, amoeba,...

Brent
"Remember, you are unique, just like everybody else."
--- Lily Tomlin

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 May 2013, at 21:45, meekerdb wrote:

> On 5/14/2013 12:29 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>>>
>>>> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
>>>>> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
>>>>> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable?
>>>>> If yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) Natural
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) Natural and artificial
>>>>
>>>> For the human, the distinction is:
>>>>
>>>> Natural = not man made. Artificial = man made
>>>>
>>>> So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
>>>> artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc.
>>>> are
>>>> natural.
>>>>
>>>> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
>>>> humans have no special status.
>
> They have the special status of being humans.

Sure, like termites have the special status of being termites.

>
>>>> If you are dualist and
>>>> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but this
>>>> seems ad hoc to me).
>
> I don't see what is has to do with dualism. If you can distinguish
> "humans" from "not-humans" then you can distinguish "made by humans"
> from "not made by humans". It's as scientific as any concept:
> table, chair, tiger, star, amoeba,...

If you can distinguish "termites" from "not-termites" then you can
distinguish "made by termites" from "not made by termites".

All I say is that "artificial" is relative to the choice of a
particular animal among the animal. The humans. Us.

Bruno

>
> Brent
> "Remember, you are unique, just like everybody else."
> --- Lily Tomlin
>

[meekerdb]

On 5/14/2013 1:18 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 14 May 2013, at 21:45, meekerdb wrote:
>
>> On 5/14/2013 12:29 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am interested in the difference between natural and artificial.
>>>>>> So a computer both natural and artificial. Do you know things that
>>>>>> are just natural and where the term artificial is not applicable?
>>>>>> If yes, what is the difference in your view between things that
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) Natural
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2) Natural and artificial
>>>>>
>>>>> For the human, the distinction is:
>>>>>
>>>>> Natural = not man made. Artificial = man made
>>>>>
>>>>> So TV, castles, churches, planes, computers, houses, etc. are
>>>>> artificial, and clouds, volcano, sea, fishes, comets, stars, etc. are
>>>>> natural.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial, because
>>>>> humans have no special status.
>>
>> They have the special status of being humans.
>
> Sure, like termites have the special status of being termites.

And we could define a word "termiticial" to denote things made by termites. So what's the
problem?

>
>
>>
>>>>> If you are dualist and
>>>>> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but this
>>>>> seems ad hoc to me).
>>
>> I don't see what is has to do with dualism. If you can distinguish "humans" from
>> "not-humans" then you can distinguish "made by humans" from "not made by humans". It's
>> as scientific as any concept: table, chair, tiger, star, amoeba,...
>
>
> If you can distinguish "termites" from "not-termites" then you can distinguish "made by
> termites" from "not made by termites".
>
> All I say is that "artificial" is relative to the choice of a particular animal among
> the animal. The humans. Us.

So it doesn't have anything to do with dualism.

Brent

[John Mikes]

Beautiful, Bruno.

If I may add: I would call "NATURAL" also :ARTIFICIAL, because the way WE look at Nature is the way WE LOOK AT NATURE. Would you include that into artificial, too? 

JOhn M 

 

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 21:45 meekerdb said the following:

> On 5/14/2013 12:29 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> On 14.05.2013 16:51 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>>>
>>>> On 14 May 2013, at 15:33, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>>

...

>>>> If you are monist, that distinction is quite artificial,
>>>> because humans have no special status.
>
> They have the special status of being humans.
>
>>>> If you are dualist and anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize
>>>> the distinction (but this seems ad hoc to me).
>
> I don't see what is has to do with dualism. If you can distinguish
> "humans" from "not-humans" then you can distinguish "made by humans"
> from "not made by humans". It's as scientific as any concept:
> table, chair, tiger, star, amoeba,...

What is a scientific difference between "humans" and "not-humans"? How
would you define it?

Evgenii

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 23:45 John Mikes said the following:

> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 3:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
>>

...

>> * The difference between natural and artificial is ... artificial.

>>
>> And thus it is natural ... for creatures which are developing some ego.
>> "artificial" is a human indexical. Even with comp, we are part of nature.
>> I think.
>>

>> Bruno*

>
>
> Beautiful, Bruno.
> If I may add: I would call "NATURAL" also :ARTIFICIAL, because the way WE
> look at Nature is the way WE LOOK AT NATURE. Would you include that into
> artificial, too?
> JOhn M

An interesting point, John. Thank you. Evgenii

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 14.05.2013 21:29 Bruno Marchal said the following:

>
> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

>> In the last case, a male bird catches a fish and gives it to the
>> bride. Could we consider a fish as a sign in this case?
>>
>> I do not know what happens under comp but I personally see no
>> possibility to find signs under physicalism. Hence currently I follow
>> people who preach Peircean metaphysics of the sign.
>
> OK.
> I think that with comp you can interpret the sign as the elements of
> recursively enumerable set (of numbers, or whatever), with their
> intensional meaning defined by the (universal numbers) supporting them
> (context). Signs are interesting, they live near the syntax/semantic
> fixed points. They plausibly speed up computations. But I have not
> studied Peirce, like I would say ... I give time to Plato and Plotinus
> (and Descartes, and the Taoists notably Lie Ze, and Lewis Carroll, Alan
> Watts, ...).

A nice definition of a sign. Do you have some more written in this
respect? I would like to understand it.

> About the fish you should ask the bride. I think it is a sign.
>
> Yeah, the "correct" signs, for a male spider is a matter of mating or be
> eaten:

What is the difference in comp between a fish and a human being?

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 May 2013, at 22:26, meekerdb wrote:

> On 5/14/2013 1:18 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> On 14 May 2013, at 21:45, meekerdb wrote:
>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>> They have the special status of being humans.
>>
>> Sure, like termites have the special status of being termites.
>
> And we could define a word "termiticial" to denote things made by
> termites. So what's the problem?

There is no problem. I am just saying "artificial" is an indexical. It
refers to human implicitly.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>>> If you are dualist and
>>>>>> anthropomorphic, then you can absolutize the distinction (but
>>>>>> this
>>>>>> seems ad hoc to me).
>>>
>>> I don't see what is has to do with dualism. If you can
>>> distinguish "humans" from "not-humans" then you can distinguish
>>> "made by humans" from "not made by humans". It's as scientific as
>>> any concept: table, chair, tiger, star, amoeba,...
>>
>>
>> If you can distinguish "termites" from "not-termites" then you can
>> distinguish "made by termites" from "not made by termites".
>>
>> All I say is that "artificial" is relative to the choice of a
>> particular animal among the animal. The humans. Us.
>
> So it doesn't have anything to do with dualism.

I was saying that it is so for someone which absolutizes the
difference natural/artificial, like if it was not an indexical. In
that case it singles out the human perspective from all others, and
that entails a dualism or a duality between the human perspective and
the others.

Bruno


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

[Bruno Marchal]

Thanks John.

If I may add: I would call "NATURAL" also :ARTIFICIAL, because the way WE look at Nature is the way WE LOOK AT NATURE. Would you include that into artificial, too? 

Absolutely. Like if God made the world, the world is a God- artifice. 

Bruno

JOhn M 

 

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 15 May 2013, at 09:08, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> On 14.05.2013 21:29 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>
>> On 14 May 2013, at 19:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>> In the last case, a male bird catches a fish and gives it to the
>>> bride. Could we consider a fish as a sign in this case?
>>>
>>> I do not know what happens under comp but I personally see no
>>> possibility to find signs under physicalism. Hence currently I
>>> follow
>>> people who preach Peircean metaphysics of the sign.
>>
>> OK.
>> I think that with comp you can interpret the sign as the elements of
>> recursively enumerable set (of numbers, or whatever), with their
>> intensional meaning defined by the (universal numbers) supporting
>> them
>> (context). Signs are interesting, they live near the syntax/semantic
>> fixed points. They plausibly speed up computations. But I have not
>> studied Peirce, like I would say ... I give time to Plato and
>> Plotinus
>> (and Descartes, and the Taoists notably Lie Ze, and Lewis Carroll,
>> Alan
>> Watts, ...).
>
> A nice definition of a sign. Do you have some more written in this
> respect? I would like to understand it.

Unfortunately, it is all in french, notably in "Conscience et
Mécanisme". There I call the modal expression "~Bx", the Wittgenstein
principle, and Bx -> ~x", the lao-tse-Watts principle, notably because
Alan Watts explains it well in "the wisdom of insecurity". "~B x" says
that there is something which cannot be said, and "Bx -> ~x" says that
there is something which when said, becomes false. x = false is a
trivial solution, but for (correct) machines, x = Dt is a non trivial
solution, brought by incompleteness. It makes consistency already
obeying some "theological" principles.
Then it is interesting to see that Lie-Tse appears to be more correct
on some "theological" point than Lao-tse or Chouang-Tse, when the x is
intepreted by consistency (Dt = ~Bf).

>
>> About the fish you should ask the bride. I think it is a sign.
>>
>> Yeah, the "correct" signs, for a male spider is a matter of mating
>> or be
>> eaten:
>
> What is the difference in comp between a fish and a human being?

It might be the same persons, but with different histories, like the M-
man, and the W-man n the WM-duplication. Of course the "duplication"
occurred a long time ago. The fish is the staying-in-the-sea-man, and
the human is going-out-of-the-sea-and-going-to-the-moon-man. I would
say.

[meekerdb]

What difference does it make? Why do you have this obsession with definition of words?
Are you going to try to prove a theorem about humans?

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 15.05.2013 21:02 meekerdb said the following:

My question was not about strict definitions. My goal was better to
understand the difference physical vs. mental. I believe that most
people on this list state that

1) mental is physical

and that to this end there is no ambiguity. Now let us assume 1) and
based on this find the difference between natural and artificial. Could
you find that difference assuming 1)?

Evgenii

[meekerdb]

I haven't seen anyone state that. I'm not even sure what it means. Does it mean a thought
is something that kicks back if you kick it?

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 16.05.2013 08:22 meekerdb said the following:

A quick search in the archives find a message

https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/43038189fd3b4c44

that in my view implies "mental is physical":

"I disagree since there are experiments (e.g. healing prayer, NDE tests)
that could have provided evidence for these extra-physical phenomena.
By their null result they provide evidence against them."

I might be wrong and it might be interesting to look the archives
through more carefully. Well, this was my impression that "mental is
physical" was expressed quite often here.

What is the meaning of "mental is physical", I do not know. This would
be exactly the goal to understand such a statement better. The comparison

1) mental vs. physical

with

2) natural. vs. artificial

could probably help.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

Never heard this on this list. What would that mean? I don't see that
in the link you sent to Brent.

Bruno

>
> and that to this end there is no ambiguity. Now let us assume 1) and
> based on this find the difference between natural and artificial.
> Could you find that difference assuming 1)?
>
> Evgenii
>

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 16.05.2013 15:50 Bruno Marchal said the following:

This could mean for example:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

�The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the
universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the
condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don�t deny that the
world might contain many items that at first glance don�t seem physical
� items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature.
But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are
either physical or supervene on the physical.�

Evgenii

[meekerdb]

In this context "extra-physical" meant supernatural; and I agree that it is hard to say
exactly what is meant by supernatural. Generally it seems to mean something that is
contrary to physical theory and has emotional and ethical significance for people.

>
> I might be wrong and it might be interesting to look the archives through more
> carefully. Well, this was my impression that "mental is physical" was expressed quite
> often here.

What is expressed often here is that the mental, i.e. thoughts, supervene on physical
processes. This is implicit in saying "yes" to the doctor since that is betting that the
doctor can provide physical processes on which your consciousness will supervene.

>
> What is the meaning of "mental is physical", I do not know. This would be exactly the
> goal to understand such a statement better.

Why not just understand it is not true.

> The comparison
>
> 1) mental vs. physical
>
> with
>
> 2) natural. vs. artificial
>
> could probably help.

Comparison on what measure?

Brent

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 16.05.2013 18:22 meekerdb said the following:

> On 5/16/2013 12:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

...

>>
>> I might be wrong and it might be interesting to look the archives
>> through more carefully. Well, this was my impression that "mental
>> is physical" was expressed quite often here.
>
> What is expressed often here is that the mental, i.e. thoughts,
> supervene on physical processes. This is implicit in saying "yes"
> to the doctor since that is betting that the doctor can provide
> physical processes on which your consciousness will supervene.
>
>>
>> What is the meaning of "mental is physical", I do not know. This
>> would be exactly the goal to understand such a statement better.
>
> Why not just understand it is not true.

Let me put is this way. Let us assume that

> mental, i.e. thoughts,
> supervene on physical processes.

Does mental has its own casual power as in strong emergence?

>> The comparison
>>
>> 1) mental vs. physical
>>
>> with
>>
>> 2) natural. vs. artificial
>>
>> could probably help.
>
> Comparison on what measure?

On casual power of mental.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 16 May 2013, at 19:07, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

> On 16.05.2013 18:22 meekerdb said the following:
>> On 5/16/2013 12:41 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>>
>>> I might be wrong and it might be interesting to look the archives
>>> through more carefully. Well, this was my impression that "mental
>>> is physical" was expressed quite often here.
>>
>> What is expressed often here is that the mental, i.e. thoughts,
>> supervene on physical processes. This is implicit in saying "yes"
>> to the doctor since that is betting that the doctor can provide
>> physical processes on which your consciousness will supervene.
>>
>>>
>>> What is the meaning of "mental is physical", I do not know. This
>>> would be exactly the goal to understand such a statement better.
>>
>> Why not just understand it is not true.
>
> Let me put is this way. Let us assume that
>
> > mental, i.e. thoughts,
> > supervene on physical processes.
>
> Does mental has its own casual power as in strong emergence?

Assuming comp, and assuming there is no flaw in the UDA, we know that
the physical laws supervene on machine's psychology, which supervenes
on elementary arithmetic. Would you say that the physical has no
"causal power" of its own?
I would say it has very plausibly such power, and likewise, the fact
that human consciousness supervenes on physical computers, does not
cast any shadow of doubts on the causal power of human consciousness.
To believe the contrary means that there is a confusion of level made
somewhere. A low universal machine's work can support an high level
universal machine capable of changing itself completely, and
independently of the nature of the low level computation. So the
mental has its own "causal power" and is working fine in its own
realm. Is it strong emergence? I am not sure, as I have read
inconsistent definition of this notion, quite similar to the
inconsistent definition often given for free-will.

>
>>> The comparison
>>>
>>> 1) mental vs. physical
>>>
>>> with
>>>
>>> 2) natural. vs. artificial
>>>
>>> could probably help.
>>
>> Comparison on what measure?
>
> On casual power of mental.

Without mental power, there would be no "Mona Lisa", nor atomic bombs.
Those things happen when many layers of universality are at play and
reflect themselves and others.
Arithmetic and other non physical things have already "causal power".
Indeed, already exploited by the physical in some way.
Now the term "cause" is itself complex to define, and is a higher
notion itself, and is sometimes ambiguous, so I might miss your point.

[Bruno Marchal]

> “The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the

> universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the

> condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don’t deny that
> the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem
> physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or

> social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the

> day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.”


The UDA shows that physicalism is incompatible with computationalism.
To make mental and physical identifiable, you need to put string
infinities on both matter and mind. Although this is logically
possible (assuming NON-comp), I have never seen such attempts in the
literature. Most physicalist defends comp (more or less explicitly)
and are thus inconsistent.

With comp, we are back to Plato. The physical is only how the border
of the arithmetical, viewed from inside-modality, appears. Physics is
made into a branch of arithmetic, through machine's psychology or
theology. This is testable, and already tested as we found, when we do
the math, that such a border has already a quantum logic, and we have
already an arithmetical quantization of a physical reality, etc. The
physical is thus a tiny, but crucial and unavoidable, part of the
mental of the machines.

Bruno


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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 May 2013, at 11:01, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

> Yes, I agree with this.
>
> The distinction is useful to simply qualify something as being the
> product of human engineering (as in "Artificial Intelligence"). The

> search for ETs, interestingly, forces the distinction into an
> uncomfortable territory, because it's now "the product of some
> intelligence's engineering". We have no way of knowing the full
> spectrum of possibilities for alternative biologies, so we can never
> be sure if, for example, a signal we receive from outer space is

> "natural" or "artificial". Or can we?


The Belgian police got that message from the star (according to a test
they made to recruit policemen, 40 years ago!):

I send it to FOAR so that Liz can train her brain for the slow but
sure return to math :)

A, B, C, D, ... are conventional names for recognizable physical
signals in the message we got. Can you decode it? It is the inverse of
cryptography. The idea is that such a message can be understood by any
patient enough (Löbian) entity having a small amount of inference
ability.

Here is the message:

ABACAADABAACAAADAABAAACAAAAADAAAABACAAAAADAABAACAAAADAAABAACAAAAADAABACAAAD
AAAAABAAAAACAAAAAAAAAADEBACADAAAABECAAAADEBECEDAFAAACAAADAAFAAACAAAAAAD
Etc.

The original text was much longer. What do you think we should think
if ever we receive such a message from the sky?

It is not regular nor periodic, and it is highly redundant. From this
you can bet it is an interesting message, but it could still be
"natural", like the DNA code which is also non periodic and contains
redundancy. So you can bet already that it is the result of a deep
program (natural or artificial, alien?). Can you see the meaning of A,
B, C, D, E, F.

Can you find a natural sequel to that string? I get that message when
doing my first year on math study. Most student were able to decipher
it, and to prolongate it into a message capable of explaining the
location of the star from which the aliens have sent it in our galaxy,
and much more (I will not say as to not give the answer).

A hint: a student did not succeed, but admits it was rather simple,
when his little 10 years old brother decoded it. It is a problem whose
difficulty relies in its simplicity, for some people.

What would we reasonably conclude if we were really getting a message
like that?

We can argue if such a message defines a universal language or not.

Can such a message be "natural"? Here by "natural" I mean "not done by
a self-aware creature".

Bruno

>
> Telmo.
>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Evgenii
>>>
>>>> Telmo.
>>>>
>>>>> It might be this is a good chance to look from another perspective
>>>>> on an ASCII string that has no meaning for John Clark. Could we
>>>>> find the difference between natural and artificial if we say
>>>>> that a
>>>>> term "free will" is meaningless?
>>>>>
>>>>> Evgenii --
>>>>> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/03/natural-vs-artificial.html
>>>>>

>>>>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
>>>>> Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this
>>>>> group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
>>>>> everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this
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>>>>> group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For

>>>>> more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>

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>>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
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[Russell Standish]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 11:24:30AM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> A, B, C, D, ... are conventional names for recognizable physical
> signals in the message we got. Can you decode it? It is the inverse
> of cryptography. The idea is that such a message can be understood

> by any patient enough (L�bian) entity having a small amount of

> inference ability.
>
> Here is the message:
>
> ABACAADABAACAAADAABAAACAAAAADAAAABACAAAAADAABAACAAAADAAABAACAAAAADAABACAAAD
> AAAAABAAAAACAAAAAAAAAADEBACADAAAABECAAAADEBECEDAFAAACAAADAAFAAACAAAAAAD
> Etc.
>

Obviously, the As spell out a series of integers

11212323541522432521355{10}1144413236

If you set B=+ and C==, and D=; the first part of the message decodes
as

1+1=2;1+2=3;2+3=5;4+1=5;2+2=4;3+2=5;2+1=3;5+5=10;

then we have

E+1=1;
4+E=4;
E+E=E;

so E=0

then

1F3=3;
2F3=6;

so F=*

and so on...

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 May 2013, at 11:58, Russell Standish wrote:

> On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 11:24:30AM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> A, B, C, D, ... are conventional names for recognizable physical
>> signals in the message we got. Can you decode it? It is the inverse
>> of cryptography. The idea is that such a message can be understood

>> by any patient enough (Löbian) entity having a small amount of

>> inference ability.
>>
>> Here is the message:
>>
>> ABACAADABAACAAADAABAAACAAAAADAAAABACAAAAADAABAACAAAADAAABAACAAAAADAABACAAAD
>> AAAAABAAAAACAAAAAAAAAADEBACADAAAABECAAAADEBECEDAFAAACAAADAAFAAACAAAAAAD
>> Etc.
>>
>
> Obviously, the As spell out a series of integers
>
> 11212323541522432521355{10}1144413236
>
> If you set B=+ and C==, and D=; the first part of the message decodes
> as
>
> 1+1=2;1+2=3;2+3=5;4+1=5;2+2=4;3+2=5;2+1=3;5+5=10;
>
> then we have
>
> E+1=1;
> 4+E=4;
> E+E=E;
>
> so E=0
>
> then
>
> 1F3=3;
> 2F3=6;
>
> so F=*
>
> and so on...

OK nice. Then you can imagine that we can continue in this way, up to
define PI, circles, ellipses, planetary systems, wave, colors, stars,
and eventually explains the place from where the message has been sent.
Long and tedious exercise: pursue the message up to explain machine's
theology!

For an arithmetical realist, it makes sense to say that such a message
is a universal self-decoding message, capable to be understood by any
"rich enough" (in cognitive ability) entity.

I guess that you agree that if we receive such a message, then we can
reasonably bet that it has been sent by "self-aware" entities. OK?

Did humans sent such a message? Why not?

Bruno

>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>