On 08/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> I don't understand how you could go automatically from a postulate to
> something real. That can happens, but here the comp hyp puts non
> trivial restrictions: when that happens, we cannot be sure it happens.
Hmm.... Well, if you 'postulate' that something gives rise to
something RITSIAR, then I guess you're postulating that it partakes in
that reality to some ineliminable degree. Perhaps you'd rather not
use the term. Sometimes in your dialogues with Peter you referred to
the 'truth' of 1+1=2, rather than its 'reality'. But then again you
call your scheme arithmetical realism, not just arithmetical truth.
What precisely is at stake here?
> AR is just the common idea that the elementary arithmetic taught in
> high school is not crackpot.
OK, but if it culminates in my being RITSIAR, isn't it just a little
bit real in that sense? But I'm not sure I want to die on this
battlefield!
> Note that (with comp) there is no need to postulate any form of
> primitive causality (beyond the material implication and the modus
> ponens deduction rule). All notion of causality, from the physical laws
> to the human responsibility, are captured by higher order logical
> modalities.
Isn't this because you begin by arguing from necessity (i.e.
arithmetical necessity)? I've often felt that this was the nub of
Peter's difference with you, in that he was putting the contingentist
position. And that position assumes some sort of self-caused, or
given situation as primitive.
> Again I think you have a right intuition, although that "symmetry
> breaking" is or should be a fourth hypostase phenomenon (not a
> zeroth-one).
In the sense that the primary existence of the One is
non-differentiated, it could be said to be symmetrical. Thereafter,
any differentiation breaks that symmetry, no? Actually, ISTM that the
primary reflexive existence of the One, and its spontaneous breaking
of symmetry, are equally 'primitive' or given. IOW neither admits of
'explanation', but together they drive all subsequent
conceptualisation of 'one', 'many', and their relations. ISTM that AR
approaches such issues from the direction of the 'necessary truth' of
arithmetical reasoning.
> The One differentiates ? I can be ok with the image or analogy, but
> strictly speaking the One is static, even more static, in some sense,
> than the Second (the "Divine Intellect" (G*). The One is just above or
> beside time or space categories.
I must be more precise. AFAICS, the dynamic notion of differentiation
can't be justified until the reflexive emergence of the 1-person.
I've modified my position on Torgny's game in my last reply to him
because of this. So my reference to 'differentiation' above is a
structural or static sense of the term.
> > as the basis for all subsequent categorisation whatsoever, except the
> > original - and unique - ontic category of self-relative existence.
>
> I hope you make yourself precise enough because you enjoy to be made
> even more precise! There is no notion of self at the zero person point
> of view. Self appears with self-referential machines. Those belongs to
> the "Nous", the Intellect, the second hypostase.
> (This could be seen as a detail ...)
Here I don't mean *a self* in the sense of a person, but 'self-' in
the sense of reflexive. I'm stressing independent 'self-relative' or
reflexive existence, especially in my points to Torgny, as distinct
from 'dependent' existence relative to 'something else'. "I", or my
chair, exist relative to the One: our RITSIAR depends on the
self-differentiation of One into many. But the One exists
reflexively, or independently, relative only to itself.
Actually, this is the main point I've been trying to make in various
ways since I first posted to the list. It doesn't equate to an
Aristotelian notion of the 'material'; rather it tries to avoid the
many confusions that arise from *not* understanding 'existence' - in
any sense other than the metaphorical - as ultimately a reflexive
notion.
> All right. But I would say that the differentiated One is already the
> Intellect. I can keep your nomenclature for a while.
It may indeed be the Intellect, in the sense of a superposition of all
knowledge. But it takes ignorance to crystallise out all the little
'knowers' and their tiny scraps of 'knowledge'. To be all knowledge
is not yet to be a knower.
> Well the passage from a "intellect self" to a knower is the (subtle)
> passage from the intellect to the soul (from the second hypostase (or
> third person!) to the third hypostase (the unameable first person, the
> Brouwer-Post-Bergsonian "builder" of time).
Yes indeed. And I'm interested to know if there is any move in the
comp frame that *necessitates* the 'builder' of time, or whether this
must simply be assumed in the face of its manifest contingency in our
own case. ISTM - and this is what I've conceded to Torgny - that the
soul or 1-person is characterised precisely by such temporal
discrimination, and that consciousness must be dynamically 'enacted',
not merely some passive or static structure that one would merely 'be
like'. So it may seem possible to conceive of a zombie-universe which
is, in all non-1-personal aspects, 'exactly like ours', but whose
reflexivity is merely 'static'. To equate such stasis with 1-personal
consciousness would seem paradoxical to me. So it's not that zombies
aren't 'like' anything, it's rather that they don't *do* anything.
> There is an absolute common part, even if they are appreciated
> differently according to the hypostasis/point-of-view. I would say.
Then the absolute common part would be the shared 'absolute reality'?
> Hmmm.... The fact is that any sound universal machine which introspects
> itself/herself(?) enough will discover eventually that this
> self-ignorance is productive, creative in some sense. It can be
> considered as bright, white, flashing. It is big, and looking twice it
> is soon even much bigger ... and structured ...
Yes, because without darkness as well as light there is no contrast.
> > You're right, we must distinguish zombies. The kind I have in mind
> > are the kind that Torgny proposes, where 'everything is the same' as
> > for a human, except that 'there's nothing it is like' to be such a
> > person. My key point is that this must become incoherent in the face
> > of self-relativity.
>
> I am afraid that IF you were right here, this would mean that you are
> either an unsound machine, or that you are not a machine at all.
> The assertion of inexistence of absolute zombie à-la Torgny belongs
> (most probably) to G* minus G, I mean to the true but unprovable
> sentences of the machine. I don't see how we could contradict
> effectively Torgny's self-zombie proposition. It does not mean that it
> is not interesting to try or search for consequence of such
> propositions, and Torgny's game(?) is fun (in our context).
Yes, I've shifted my position, as I've said above, because of the
apparent lack of an alternative to simply assuming dynamic
discrimination as characteristic of the 1-personal. So a
Torgny-zombie would be merely structurally self-reflexive, and hence
not *enact* any conscious states 1-personally. In the comp frame,
would such 'personal stasis' nullify any 'justification' for zombie
'beliefs' etc?
AFAICS there is no possibility of accessing such a zombie from our
situation in the 'A-Universe'. Ex hypothesi it is characteristic of a
'B-Universe': i.e. one in which, despite its 'structural' similarity,
1-personal temporal discrimination - 'for some reason' - doesn't
occur. Consequently, 'conversations' between zombies would be a
matter of records in the zombie universe, inaccessible to us. Could
inter-zombie 'justification' or 'belief' make any sense merely in
terms of such static descriptions?
> If you accept, with Torgny, the idea that the "1+1=2" statement (and
> all consequence of Robinson arithmetic ,sorry John Mikes!) has a truth
> value not depending on you, then the many Gols follows at once.
Yes, in the sense of 'all possible universes', but the question is:
what states is GoL capable of generating? If it evolves to be
'exactly like' the A-Universe, then its equivalent denizens will be
conscious, surely.
> > I leave it for you to judge whether - if a
> > machine can report just as we do on what it's like to be itself, with
> > exactly the same self-relative justification - it can then remain
> > coherent to claim that 'it's not like anything' to be that machine.
>
>
> I miss the line (sorry).
Sorry, too confusing. I meant only the Occamish imputation of the
same conscious states in the presence of the same conditions.
However, as I've said, if we're imagining 'another One' (in the sense
that no such state of affairs is Occamishly believable with respect to
'this One'), it could perhaps be that the 'same conditions' in that
case do not hold and the 1-person somehow does not emerge actively and
hence consciously.
> > How we would judge its 'justification' and 'honesty' is an interesting
> > question. For example, if a machine was a Huge Lookup Table, it might
> > be able to pass the test, but neither honestly nor justifiably, in my
> > terms.
>
> This is unfortunately a difficult point. Except for "relative
> probabilistic matter" it does not really matter which algorithm is
> used, or even if an algorithm is used. What matter, in UD* for example,
> is the set of possible execution of possible algorithms.
May we then have no prejudices with respect to the means of production
of the machines's statements about itself?
> Hmmm.... Dangerous move. I would not say that "I" am acting when my
> brain operates. This could lead to 1-3 person confusion, imo.
I didn't intend that. You asked me if neural processing was
'behaviour'. We seem to agree that 'behaviour' is a 1-personal notion
(i.e. dynamism emerges 1-personally). So, seen in that light, neural
processing is dynamic or behavioural. That's all.
David
>
>
> Le 06-juil.-07, à 19:24, David Nyman a écrit :
>
> >
> > On 06/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> >
> >> I am not sure that numbers are real in the sense that "I am real",
> >> unless you are talking of the third person "I". Then "you" are as real
> >> as your (unknown) Godel-number.
> >> In general, when people use the word "I" they refer to their first
> >> person, or to first person plural feature of their "physical" body. It
> >> is a unexpected (by me) discovery that quanta belongs to that sharable
> >> first person view (making the comp-QM a bit more psychological than
> >> some Many-Worlder would perhaps appreciate. So that Fuch-Pauli could
> >> be
> >> right ... (if you know the work of Fuchs).
> >
> > What I meant was something looser, a tautology perhaps. That is,
> > whatever we postulate as giving rise to our personal 'reality' must
> > thereby be 'real' in just this sense: it 'underpins' that reality.
>
>
>
> I don't understand how you could go automatically from a postulate to
> something real. That can happens, but here the comp hyp puts non
> trivial restrictions: when that happens, we cannot be sure it happens.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I
> > recall your various debates with Peter on this issue, and whatever
> > else was at issue, I just felt that at least implicitly this must be
> > entailed by the 'realism' part of AR.
>
>
>
> AR is just the common idea that the elementary arithmetic taught in
> high school is not crackpot.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> OK, but not only (there are also the relations between numbers, the
> >> relation between the relations between the numbers, etc.)
> >
> > You are more precise (and correct!)
> >
> >> OK. (Technically it is not obvious how to define in arithmetic such
> >> self-relation: the basic tool is given by the recursion or fixed point
> >> theorems).
> >
> > My basic notion of self-relative existence equates I think to
> > Plotinus' One as you describe it in the Sienna paper. I postulate it
> > to stand for 'existence' independent of other causality.
>
>
>
>
> Note that (with comp) there is no need to postulate any form of
> primitive causality (beyond the material implication and the modus
> ponens deduction rule). All notion of causality, from the physical laws
> to the human responsibility, are captured by higher order logical
> modalities.
>
>
>
>
>
> > I see the big
> > One as 'self-differentiating' through spontaneous symmetry breaking,
>
>
>
> Again I think you have a right intuition, although that "symmetry
> breaking" is or should be a fourth hypostase phenomenon (not a
> zeroth-one).
> The One differentiates ? I can be ok with the image or analogy, but
> strictly speaking the One is static, even more static, in some sense,
> than the Second (the "Divine Intellect" (G*). The One is just above or
> beside time or space categories.
>
>
>
>
>
> > as the basis for all subsequent categorisation whatsoever, except the
> > original - and unique - ontic category of self-relative existence.
>
>
>
> I hope you make yourself precise enough because you enjoy to be made
> even more precise! There is no notion of self at the zero person point
> of view. Self appears with self-referential machines. Those belongs to
> the "Nous", the Intellect, the second hypostase.
> (This could be seen as a detail ...)
>
>
>
>
>
> > This entails that all such subsequent categorisation is in some
> > fundamental sense epistemic: i.e. how the One 'gets to know' itself.
>
>
>
> Exact (assuming comp, etc.)
>
>
>
>
> > So I agree with Plotinus that the One can't be said to 'know' anything
> > without such differentiation.
>
>
>
> All right. But I would say that the differentiated One is already the
> Intellect. I can keep your nomenclature for a while.
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> I am not sure how could grandma have a feeling about that, except if
> >> grandma get Church Thesis and the UDA.
> >
> > Well, I'm working on the technicalities. But the 'feeling' comes from
> > what I've said above. If all categories of 'process' or 'structure'
> > are epistemic - i.e. forms of self-relative 'coming to know' -
>
>
>
> Well the passage from a "intellect self" to a knower is the (subtle)
> passage from the intellect to the soul (from the second hypostase (or
> third person!) to the third hypostase (the unameable first person, the
> Brouwer-Post-Bergsonian "builder" of time).
>
>
>
>
>
> > this
> > entails that everything arises as an interpretation from a 'point of
> > view'.
>
>
>
> You are quick but OK.
>
>
>
>
> > So what is revealed in any given context and - at least as
> > importantly - what is obscured, must then be characteristic of that
> > specific point of view, in no sense 'absolute reality' (whatever that
> > could mean).
>
>
>
> There is an absolute common part, even if they are appreciated
> differently according to the hypostasis/point-of-view. I would say.
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> The point is just that physics appears as a sort of
> >> sum on your lobian ignorance.
> >
> > I think this is what I mean by 'obscured'.
>
>
>
> Hmmm.... The fact is that any sound universal machine which introspects
> itself/herself(?) enough will discover eventually that this
> self-ignorance is productive, creative in some sense. It can be
> considered as bright, white, flashing. It is big, and looking twice it
> is soon even much bigger ... and structured ...
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> As I said this is a point where I would like to disagree with the
> >> lobian machine. The fact is that even the lobian machine warns us on
> >> the possibility of zombie. Certainly the current artificial cops on
> >> the
> >> road are zombie. Tomorrow we will be able to build artificial skin for
> >> androids capable of making us believe they are normal humans citizens,
> >> ... We should distinguish "local zombie" which are capable to fail you
> >> during some finite time, and "theoretical global zombie" which are
> >> capable to fail you, in principle, for ever (like Torgny try to make
> >> us
> >> believe he belongs too: nobody can prove him wrong).
> >
> > You're right, we must distinguish zombies. The kind I have in mind
> > are the kind that Torgny proposes, where 'everything is the same' as
> > for a human, except that 'there's nothing it is like' to be such a
> > person. My key point is that this must become incoherent in the face
> > of self-relativity.
>
>
>
> I am afraid that IF you were right here, this would mean that you are
> either an unsound machine, or that you are not a machine at all.
> The assertion of inexistence of absolute zombie à-la Torgny belongs
> (most probably) to G* minus G, I mean to the true but unprovable
> sentences of the machine. I don't see how we could contradict
> effectively Torgny's self-zombie proposition. It does not mean that it
> is not interesting to try or search for consequence of such
> propositions, and Torgny's game(?) is fun (in our context).
>
>
>
>
>
> > My reasoning is that a claim for the 'existence'
> > of something like Torgny's B-Universe is implicitly a claim for
> > self-relative existence: i.e. independent of other causality, like the
> > One. When Torgny proposed the Game of Life as an example of 'another
> > universe', I pointed out that GoL clearly doesn't possess independent
> > existence: it's just a part of the A-Universe.
>
>
>
> If you accept, with Torgny, the idea that the "1+1=2" statement (and
> all consequence of Robinson arithmetic ,sorry John Mikes!) has a truth
> value not depending on you, then the many Gols follows at once.
>
>
>
>
> > If one is to postulate
> > a universe suitable for the thought experiment, one must in effect
> > propose 'another One' - i.e. an independently self-relative
> > 'B-Universe'.
>
>
>
> Of course, "another One" is by itself contradictory, for a machine. In
> a sense, there are as many Ones than there is machine, but they share
> almost all relevant structure, once the machine is "rich enough".
>
>
>
>
> >
> > It follows that, given the other assumptions of 'sameness',
> > conversations with machines in such a B-Universe must then proceed
> > exactly as they do in the A-Universe, because they depend on
> > self-relation in the same ways. Now, it may seem that - beyond all
> > relativity - the question still remains of the 'absolute' quality of
> > 'what it's like' to be 'One' in the context of such
> > self-individuation. I leave it for you to judge whether - if a
> > machine can report just as we do on what it's like to be itself, with
> > exactly the same self-relative justification - it can then remain
> > coherent to claim that 'it's not like anything' to be that machine.
>
>
> I miss the line (sorry).
>
>
> >
> >> Before a long time (despite Kurzweyl) we just can do it, even at a
> >> high
> >> level. A brain is *very* complex, for any theory. In the future people
> >> will just bet on the available theory through some Pascal wag.
> >> It is possible that there is some "zombie" gap, and that the first
> >> person having an artificial brain will not be conscious ... (I doubt
> >> this, but apparently the lobian machine say so .... according to the
> >> definition I gave).
> >
> > Yes, I agree. And if the machine can justifiably and honestly pass
> > all examinations of 'what it's like' to be itself, I would be
> > reluctant to accuse it of zombiehood, based on my own criteria above.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> > How we would judge its 'justification' and 'honesty' is an interesting
> > question. For example, if a machine was a Huge Lookup Table, it might
> > be able to pass the test, but neither honestly nor justifiably, in my
> > terms.
>
>
> This is unfortunately a difficult point. Except for "relative
> probabilistic matter" it does not really matter which algorithm is
> used, or even if an algorithm is used. What matter, in UD* for example,
> is the set of possible execution of possible algorithms.
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> Are you considering neural processing as a behavior?
> >> Are you considering that some platonic and static relations between
> >> numbers can be seen as behavior?
> >
> > I'm saying essentially that 1-personal self-relation is
> > 'characteristically' temporal.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>
>
>
> > I have no other justification than an
> > inability to imagine how else it could be differentiated: 'dynamic'
> > self-relation seems to be the defining characteristic of 'qualitative'
> > existence. This seems to be at the heart of 'what it's like' to exist
> > 1-personally: we 'sense' self-relation as 'action'. So 'neural
> > processing' - i.e. as an aspect of the 'physical brain' perceived
> > 1-personally - can be behaviour in this sense.
>
>
> Hmmm.... Dangerous move. I would not say that "I" am acting when my
> brain operates. This could lead to 1-3 person confusion, imo.
>
>
>
>
> > Platonic and static
> > relations between numbers are 0-personal, and - self-relative to the
> > One - this is perhaps structural or eternal. This is why I (and
> > perhaps Plotinus) don't believe that the One 'knows' anything
> > distinctly from the knowers and knowledge created by its own
> > self-differentiation: there has to be emergence at the 1-personal
> > level for an 'act of knowing' to unfold 'in time'.
>
>
> OK.
>
>
>
> >
> >> Recall that the nameable lobian master always insist on "I will say a
> >> stupidity or I could say a stupidity" (is that english?)
> >
> > If I meet the Buddha on the road.....
>
>
> That's the spirit :)
>
>
>
>
> >
> > David
> >
> > ("I will, or may, say something stupid")
>
>
> That's english. Thanks.
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Sun Jul 08 2007 - 13:31:14 PDT