On 03/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
BM: BTW I have discovered that the book edited by Martin Davis "The
undecidable" has been republished in 2004 by Dover.
DN: I've just ordered it from Amazon.
BM: Many Sc. fiction book go through such experience, and the book "Mind's
I" (ed. by Hofstadter and Dennett) contains relevant thought (but miss my
favorite sc. fi. book, the
"SIMULACRON III" by Daniel Galouye). Mind'I eyes missed the first person
comp indeterminacy and the subsequent reversal.
DN: Yes, science fiction did stimulate some of my speculations, and I found
Minds's I frustrating for just the reasons you give.
> This seemed somehow to entail the
> emergence of finitude from the not-finite, which seemed weirdly
> right.
BM: ? (comp presupposes the natural numbers. Indeed they constitute the
absolutely unsolvable mysteries).
DN: Yes, I know. One might say that (at least the human understanding of)
mathematics is cast as a kind of figure-ground relation between finite and
not-finite, but this is more poetical than technical, and hence need not
detain us. You propose the natural numbers and their relations as a
necessary point of departure for comp, and show that this leads to
unexpected results. My own thought was that analysis of the semantics of
whole and part leads to a fundamentally self-relative epistemology and
ontology, and this can also lead to unexpected results. But this is
non-technical and largely intuitive hand-waving on my part.
> Anyway, it would be the histories that differed, not the
> 'self'.
BM: This could depend on choice of vocabulary. If you define the self by
what is consistent, or better sound, and invariant in all comp histories,
you will get the arithmetical hypostases.
DN: Here I intended 'self' in the primary or 0-person sense. 1-person
would be attached to the histories, and hence the arithmetical hypostases
would pick out sound and invariant features of 1-personal histories.
Consciousness would then be associated with the relation of the 0-self to
such features of itself. In a sense this equates to a sort of all-embracing
'solipsism' - but a solipsism of the All.
> The histories would break the symmetry of the self into
> differentiated sub-selves that would be 'I' with respect to their own
> private environments.
BM: Hopefully. That is what is under the course of verification. Again,
accepting the positive integers makes such symmetry breaking easy to
understand.
DN: Yes, this is how I understand comp with respect to the semantics of
self-relation I've been using.
> But since these
> 'entities' could only be self-defined emergents of the original self-
> relativisation, everything was in fact 'outside-less' and continued to
> exist uniquely or monistically as a network of self-relation.
BM: .. itself emerging from the additive/multiplicative number relations.
The self itself is what computer science and provability logic explains
the better.
DN: Yes, in the comp frame the numbers and their relations would be the
basis of what I've been calling sense and action (i.e. self-relation in its
1 and 3-person aspects).
> Depending on whether the participatory or 'objective' perspective was
> adopted, self-relation could apparently decompose into 'sense' or
> 'action' narratives, but such decomposition was in fact illusory, or
> perspective-dependent. Self-relation in fact remained singular or
> decomposable in nature
BM: This is fuzzy. I can agree but I have more than one interpretation.
It's hard not being more technical here.
DN: I'm sorry, I missed out a 'non'! I should have said "self-relation in
fact remained non-decomposable". By 'non-decomposable' I mean that the
terms 'sense' and 'action' should be understood as observer effects in a
self-relative frame. So epistemologically they are decomposable, but
ontologically they aren't. To avoid further confusion, I see that in the
comp frame 'self-relation' can indeed be 'decomposed' into different numbers
and their relations, but that these are not further decomposable. I would
have no problem with this.
> Consequently, if
> physics is held to be fundamental to consciousness, and consciousness
> is an observer effect, then such observers must be fully describable
> by physical relationships, not functional ones, and the appropriate
> substitution level is physical duplication, to some level of
> tolerance.
BM: OK, but this is explicitly what cannot be done in the comp frame. A
good thing given that "physical" can hardly be defined by the product
of observation.
DN: Yes. I'm sorry if it wasn't absolutely clear that my point in this
section of the argument was precisely to give a reductio of the materialist
position on functionalism or computationalism. So of course I'm claiming
that it can't be done. I assume then that you agree with my line of
argument?
> By contrast, if the reality of parts and relationships is to be
> considered fundamentally numerical,
BM: The main first half of my work consists in showing that comp does not
give a choice in those matter.
DN: As indeed follows from my reductio. Or rather more generally, what
follows is that 'physical' relations themselves must emerge from a deeper
self-relation if any kind of 'functionalism' is to be coherent as an
explanation for consciousness.
> Nonetheless, if the observer decomposition continues to be
> regarded as 'functional' with respect to the physical one,
BM; This is unclear, I'm afraid.
DN: IOW, this proposes the case where the observer 'decomposition' or
interpretation can't simply be superimposed on the physical one.
> they remain
> in some deep sense orthogonal - i.e. the 'functionalism' is that of
> 'imaginary parts' and 'imaginary relations' with respect to the
> physical description.
BM: ?
DN: That is, they are considered as being based on different 'parts' in
different 'relations'.
> It follows that there may be no final way of
> 'de-crypting' any unambiguous observer structure from the physical
> description alone. We would then be left unavoidably with an
> 'objectively' unknowable and unprovable imputation of consciousness to
> any physically-defined structure. So be it.
BM: ?
DN: That is, we might have no unambiguous way of correlating the two
narratives, given that they would be based on different 'parts' in different
'relations'.
> But it might then be
> questioned how observer and physical narratives could somehow
> 'converge' on a common or consistent environmental interface as a
> result of any form of co-evolution. Such a notion would seem to imply
> that equivalent selection effects could be operating on both
> environments despite their orthogonal orientation. It is not
> immediately apparent why this should be so.
BM: As far as I understand, this is *the* problem. It seems insoluble
untill you take into account explicitly the incompleteness phenomenon
which put high constraint of what sound machines can believe, bet,
observe, feel ... (that what the hypostases are all about).
DN: This seems crucial. So the hypostases are in this sense a theory of
the co-evolution of physics and consciousness, or at least the basis for
one. But is there as yet a way to see how such correlation might be
designed or engineered, as opposed to evolving or being cloned? IOW, a
basis for saying yes to the doctor that isn't just a wild gamble. Is there
a way for grandma to follow these arguments? Maybe the roadmap?
> consciousness is
> consequently not 'functional' with respect to the physical
> description, but in some real sense isomorphic or analogic.
BM: Hmmm ... there is a fixed point ... I am not sure this helps here ....
DN: It would be wonderful if it did help, because this is a sticking point
at the moment in my comprehension.
> However, I can't at this point see whether such
> alternatives can be resolved purely theoretically, or whether they are
> fundamentally empirical issues.
BM: I think I have make progress in that direction. BTW you can consult my
last SIENA paper "A Purely Arithmetical Interpretation, yet empirically
falsifiable, of Plotinus' theory of Matter".
DN: I've read it, and must study it further. But, sorry to mention the
roadmap again, is there any way to help the interested enquirer, still
unsure of the technicalities, more generally to jump-start their
intuitions? I can see that consciousness and physics need to be integrated
on a common foundation if comp is to go through. But that this doesn't
immediately suggest any obvious direction in which to look for a new
intuition of how this might run. There may simply be no non-technical way
to proceed from this point, but it would be wonderful if you could suggest
one!
David
>
>
> Le 02-juil.-07, à 18:12, David Nyman a écrit :
>
> >
> > After very kindly concurring with bits of my recent posts, Bruno
> > nonetheless quite reasonably questioned whether I followed his way of
> > proceeding. Having read the UDA carefully, I would say that in a
> > 'grandmotherly' way I do, although not remotely at his technical
> > level.
>
>
> Concerning the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA) a subtle
> prerequisite is Church Thesis, if only to understand the relation with
> arithmetical realism and also to understand the term "Universal" in the
> UD. Coming back from Siena I am not sure "Church thesis" is well
> understood today.
> BTW I have discovered that the book edited by Martin Davis "The
> undecidable" has been republished in 2004 by Dover. This is really the
> comp basic bible. It contains the readable original paper by Godel,
> Church, Kleene, Rosser, and, above all the incredible anticipation by
> Post. Actually Post did even anticipate my thesis, that is the
> platonistic reversal physics/number-computer-science. To be sure he
> adds a footnote (footnote 118) saying he changed his mind ... I think I
> will write a paper just on that footnote ....
>
>
>
>
> > But I had been doing thought experiments of a somewhat similar
> > nature literally for decades, based on questions like "why am I me and
> > not you?" or "how do I know that me now is the same as me 5 minutes
> > ago?" or "is the person who gets out of the transporter the same
> > person as the one who began the journey?" For some time, faced
> > largely with incomprehension or disinterest, and seeing hardly
> > anything remotely like this referred to in print, I despaired of
> > finding others who believed these questions were anything but
> > irrelevant or crazy. But gradually these topics seemed to emerge into
> > discussion from a variety of directions, and now I've found a
> > community of similarly crazy people on the Internet.
>
>
> Actually those typical comp or mechanist thought experiences
> (reasonings) exist since humans use tools. Reference are in the biblios
> of "conscience et mécanisme". Many Sc. fiction book go through such
> experience, and the book "Mind's I" (ed. by Hofstadter and Dennett)
> contains relevant thought (but miss my favorite sc. fi. book, the
> "SIMULACRON III" by Daniel Galouye).
> Mind'I eyes missed the first person comp indeterminacy and the
> subsequent reversal.
>
>
>
> >
> > The conclusion I had come to is broadly summarised in my recent
> > posts. It seemed to me that the 'transporter' questions could only be
> > resolved if I thought in terms of my being incorporated in some unique
> > or 'global' pre-differentiated manner, which nonetheless
> > multifariously self-localised by differentiation of structures that
> > embodied distinct 'histories'.
>
>
> I would say that, once we accept comp, the only problem which remains
> is the "white rabbit problem", that is: the problem of isolating from
> computer science the measure on the relative computational histories
> capable of justifying the apparent normality of the observable laws.
>
>
>
> > This seemed somehow to entail the
> > emergence of finitude from the not-finite, which seemed weirdly
> > right.
>
>
> ? (comp presupposes the natural numbers. Indeed they constitute the
> absolutely unsolvable mysteries).
>
>
>
> > Anyway, it would be the histories that differed, not the
> > 'self'.
>
>
> This could depend on choice of vocabulary. If you define the self by
> what is consistent, or better sound, and invariant in all comp
> histories, you will get the arithmetical hypostases.
>
>
>
>
> > The histories would break the symmetry of the self into
> > differentiated sub-selves that would be 'I' with respect to their own
> > private environments.
>
>
> Hopefully. That is what is under the course of verification. Again,
> accepting the positive integers makes such symmetry breaking easy to
> understand. The real mystery (partially solved though) is in the
> understanding of the physical initial apparent symmetry.
>
>
>
> > These environments, being participatory, could
> > only be shared with other such sub-selves by signalling', and the sum
> > total of shareable signals, re-embodied, would be the 'objective' or
> > 'outside' physical description of the situation.
>
> Hopefully again. This would correspond to the first
> person plural notion, as far as some part of the comp indeterminacy is
> sharable (like the quantum reality seems to confirm).
>
>
>
> > But since these
> > 'entities' could only be self-defined emergents of the original self-
> > relativisation, everything was in fact 'outside-less' and continued to
> > exist uniquely or monistically as a network of self-relation.
>
>
> ... itself emerging from the additive/multiplicative number relations.
> The self itself is what computer science and provability logic explains
> the better.
>
>
> > Depending on whether the participatory or 'objective' perspective was
> > adopted, self-relation could apparently decompose into 'sense' or
> > 'action' narratives, but such decomposition was in fact illusory, or
> > perspective-dependent. Self-relation in fact remained singular or
> > decomposable in nature
>
> This is fuzzy. I can agree but I have more than one interpretation.
> It's hard not being more technical here.
>
>
> >
> > Having said this, I can now perhaps contextualise more clearly my
> > concern about functionalism. Functionalism is the doctrine that
> > consciousness is a function of the relationship between parts.
>
> Hmmm... I would say that this is the old, pre-comp, physicalist account
> of functionalism. With comp, and with the fact that consciousness is a
> typical first person notion, it is not clear if we can describe
> consciousness by any local relation between part. Consciousness (but
> also matter) is necessarily related to "all histories". Only the
> possible third person discourse can be locally related to describable
> relations between describable parts.
>
>
>
> > This
> > entails that, discounting eliminativism, consciousness must be
> > actualised by such relations,
>
> by an infinity of them. This should follow from the UDA.
>
>
> > and that if such parts were to be
> > considered 'ultimately' to be physical,
>
>
> I think this has no meaning in the comp frame. The physical is what
> glues the (lobian) personal experience. This includes an infinity of
> "linear stories" capable of multiplying themselves by "tensor product"
> of independent computational histories. But I have not yet isolate this
> tensor structure, to be sure. If it does not exist, comp is false.
> Cosmology could be related to the depth and other Church-Turing like
> complexity notions.
>
>
>
> > then the relevant relations
> > could only be physical relations. If this were so, the actual or
> > realised relationships existent in a physical structure would be
> > exhausted by its physical description, and the ascription of a super-
> > added set of 'computational' relationships would merely be
> > metaphorical and hence not real enough to be "I". Consequently, if
> > physics is held to be fundamental to consciousness, and consciousness
> > is an observer effect, then such observers must be fully describable
> > by physical relationships, not functional ones, and the appropriate
> > substitution level is physical duplication, to some level of
> > tolerance.
>
> OK, but this is explicitly what cannot be done in the comp frame. A
> good thing given that "physical" can hardly be defined by the product
> of observation.
>
>
> >
> > By contrast, if the reality of parts and relationships is to be
> > considered fundamentally numerical,
>
> The main first half of my work consists in showing that comp does not
> give a choice in those matter.
>
>
>
> > then consciousness and physics
> > could indeed be derived functionally or computationally from this kit
> > of parts and their relations. From this perspective, the physical
> > structure of the body and the observational structure of the mind
> > could be held to emerge
>
> ... should emerge, ok.
>
>
>
> > respectively from 'action' and 'sense'
> > decompositions of the fundamental self-relative nature of number-
> > relations.
>
> OK.
>
>
> > Nonetheless, if the observer decomposition continues to be
> > regarded as 'functional' with respect to the physical one,
>
> This is unclear, I'm afraid.
>
>
>
> > they remain
> > in some deep sense orthogonal - i.e. the 'functionalism' is that of
> > 'imaginary parts' and 'imaginary relations' with respect to the
> > physical description.
>
> ?
>
>
> > It follows that there may be no final way of
> > 'de-crypting' any unambiguous observer structure from the physical
> > description alone. We would then be left unavoidably with an
> > 'objectively' unknowable and unprovable imputation of consciousness to
> > any physically-defined structure. So be it.
>
> ?
>
>
>
> > But it might then be
> > questioned how observer and physical narratives could somehow
> > 'converge' on a common or consistent environmental interface as a
> > result of any form of co-evolution. Such a notion would seem to imply
> > that equivalent selection effects could be operating on both
> > environments despite their orthogonal orientation. It is not
> > immediately apparent why this should be so.
>
> As far as I understand, this is *the* problem. It seems insoluble
> untill you take into account explicitly the incompleteness phenomenon
> which put high constraint of what sound machines can believe, bet,
> observe, feel ... (that what the hypostases are all about).
>
>
> >
> > It may consequently offer some theoretical advantages to suppose that
> > a single evolutionary path is followed as a consequence of one-to-one
> > reciprocity at some level between sense and action components of a
> > primitively self-relative narrative, and that consciousness is
> > consequently not 'functional' with respect to the physical
> > description, but in some real sense isomorphic or analogic.
>
> Hmmm ... there is a fixed point ... I am not sure this helps here ....
>
>
> > This
> > would not, ISTM, be to postulate any fundamental 'material' substrate,
> > but rather to be saying something about the way a 'neutral'
> > fundamentally self-relative process could 'decompose' into apparently
> > reciprocal components as a consequence of the embodiment of
> > observation. However, I can't at this point see whether such
> > alternatives can be resolved purely theoretically, or whether they are
> > fundamentally empirical issues.
> >
> > Grandma
>
> I think I have make progress in that direction. BTW you can consult my
> last SIENA paper "A Purely Arithmetical Interpretation, yet empirically
> falsifiable, of Plotinus' theory of Matter". Click on the title here:
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications.html
>
> or click just on
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf
>
> Hope this can help, feel free to comment. (They are also some typo
> error in some formula).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Jul 03 2007 - 10:04:32 PDT