Re: Some thoughts from Grandma

From: David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:09:40 -0000

On Jul 6, 2:56 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:

> 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.

Doesn't this strike you as perhaps consistent with what I've been
saying about self-relation, or reflexive existence? IOW, quanta - as
they appear to *us* (how else?) - exist reflexively. Comp, like any
'TOE', is a "gods' eye view", and I've been trying to convince Torgny
that we shouldn't fool ourselves into mistaking such conceptions for
modes of existing. We may nonetheless ask - with great care - "what
might the consequences be if our situation were - in some (tricky)
sense - to look like this from a gods' eye view?" But this is a
(tricky, tricky) mode of enquiry, not a mode of existing.

'The One' is also a mode of enquiry (no less tricky, of course): it
seems to suggest that the mode of existing of both the qualia and the
quanta may be ineliminably reflexive: the splintering of a singular
process of self-reflexion. Self: because there is no other;
reflexion: because there is no other relation.

David

PS - It occurs to me that 'tricky' - which just happens to be the way
these things strike me - seems quite consonant with the sort of
'reality gambles' that you (and Fuchs) propose.

> Le 05-juil.-07, à 17:31, David Nyman a écrit :
>
> > On 05/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > BM: OK. I would insist that the "comp project" (extract physics from
> > comp)
> > is really just a comp obligation. This is what is supposed to be shown
> > by the UDA (+ MOVIE-GRAPH). Are you OK with this. It *is*
> > counterintuitive.
>
> > DN: I believe so - it's what the reductio ad absurdum of the
> > 'physical' computation in the 'grandma' post was meant to show.
>
> This was not so clear, but OK.
>
> > My version of the 'comp obligation' would then run as follows.
> > Essentially, if comp and number relations are held to be 'real in the
> > sense that I am real',
>
> 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).
>
> > then to use Plato's metaphor, it is numbers that represent the forms
> > outside the cave.
>
> OK, but not only (there are also the relations between numbers, the
> relation between the relations between the numbers, etc.)
>
> > If that's so, then physics is represented by the shadows the
> > observers see on the wall of the cave. This is what I mean by
> > 'independent' existence in my current dialogue with Torgny: i.e the
> > 'arithmetical realism' of numbers and their relations in the comp
> > frame equates to their 'independence' or self-relativity. And the
> > existence of 'arithmetical observers' then derives from subsequent
> > processes of 'individuation' intrinsic to such fundamental
> > self-relation. Actually, I find the equation of existence with
> > self-relativity highly intuitive.
>
> 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).
>
>
>
> > BM: Then, the interview of the universal machine is "just" a way to
> > do the
> > extraction of physics in a constructive way. It is really the
> > subtleties of the incompleteness phenomena which makes this interview
> > highly non trivial.
>
> > DN: This is the technical part. But at this stage grandma has some
> > feeling for how both classical and QM narratives should be what we
> > expect to emerge from constructing physics in this way.
>
> I am not sure how could grandma have a feeling about that, except if
> grandma get Church Thesis and the UDA.
>
>
>
>
>
> > BM: There is no direct (still less one-one) correlation between the
> > mental and the physical,
> > that is the physical supervenience thesis is incompatible with the
> > comp hyp. [A quale of a pain] felt at time t in place x, is not a
> > product of the physical activity of a machine, at time t in place x.
> > Rather, it is the whole quale of [a pain felt at time t in place x]
> > which is associated
> > with an (immaterial and necessarily unknown) computational state,
> > itself related to its normal consistent computational continuations.
>
> > <snip>
>
> > Comp makes the "yes doctor" a gamble, necessarily. That is: assuming
> > the "theory comp" you have to understand that, by saying yes to the
> > doctor, you are gambling on a level of substitution. At the same time
> > you make a "gamble" on the theory comp itself. There is double gamble
> > here. Now, the first gamble, IF DONE AT THE RIGHT COMP SUBSTITUTION
> > LEVEL, is comp-equivalent with the natural gamble everybody do when
> > going to sleep, or just when waiting a nanosecond. In some sense
> > "nature" do that gamble in our place all the time ... But this is
> > somethjng we cannot know, still less assert in any scientific way, and
> > that is why I insist so much on the "theological" aspect of comp. This
> > is important in practice. It really justify that the truth of the "yes
> > doctor" entails the absolute fundamental right to say NO to the
> > doctor. The doctor has to admit he is gambling on a substitution
> > level. If comp is
> > true we cannot be sure on the choice of the subst. level.
>
> > DN: ISTM that a consequence of the above is that the issue of
> > 'substitution level' can in principle be 'gambled' on by cloning, or
> > by evolution (because presumably it has been, even though we can't say
> > how). But by engineering or design??? Would there ever be any
> > justification, in your view, for taking a gamble on being uploaded to
> > an AI program - and if so, on the basis of what theory?
>
> Well, if you are willing to believe in "neurophilosophy", you can bet
> on some high level description. If you bet on Hammerof's theory, you
> have to duplicate the qunatum state of the brain (and this is of
> courese not possible). I don't think we are concerned with those
> practical matter. The point is just that physics appears as a sort of
> sum on your lobian ignorance.
>
> > Essentially, this is what I've been trying to get at. That is:
> > assuming comp, HOW would we go about making a 'sound bet', founded on
> > a specific AI theory, that some AI program instantiated by a
> > 'physical' computer, will equate to the continuity of our own
> > observation?
>
> 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).
>
>
>
> > The second question I have is summarised in my recent posts about
> > 'sense and 'action'.
>
> What you say is interesting, but honestly I am far from extracting
> notion like "action" in the lobian frame. I have no time, nor space,
> just bit of promising algebra confirming the quantum principle.
>
> > Essentially, I've been trying to postulate that the correlation of
> > consciousness and physics is such that the relations between both sets
> > of phenomena are a necessary entailment, not an additional
> > assumption. ISTM that this is essential to avoid all the nonsense
> > about zombies.
>
> 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).
>
> > And not only this, but to show that the reciprocity between experience
> > - e.g. suffering - and behaviour (indeed the whole entailment of
> > 'intentionality') is a necessary consequence of fundamental
> > self-relation (arithmetical relations, in the comp frame).
>
> I am not sure about that. Again you develop your intuition where I am
> force to ask the machine, and I am far away to tackle a notion like
> "behavior", except in very rough way (where a behavior would be defined
> by a generable set of input-outputs).
> Are you considering neural processing as a behavior?
> Are you considering that some platonic and static relations between
> numbers can be seen as behavior?
>
> > Now, my attempt to do this has been to postulate that 'sense' and
> > 'action' are simply observer-related aspects of a non-decomposable
> > fundamental self-relation, which in the comp frame would equate to a
> > set of number-relations. But ISTM that for this to be true, the
> > observer and physical narratives would somehow need to follow an
> > 'identical' or isomorphic trajectory for their invariant relation to
> > emerge in the way that it seems to. Do you think that this idea has
> > any specific sense or relevance in the comp frame?
>
> Given that the physical is defined by the invariant of the observable,
> it would be a pity not having such invariant, but I am a bit prisoner
> of my methodology here. Feel free to pursue your intuitive exploration.
>
>
>
> > BM: Does this help? I assert some propositions without justifying
> > them,
> > because the justification are both already on the list, or in my
> > papers. But, please, don't hesitate to ask for more if interested. From
> > what I understand about your intuition, you are quite close to the
> > "natural first person discourse" of the lobian machine. And the closer
> > you are, the more severe my comments will be on the details, so please
> > indulge my critical way of talking ...
>
> > Yes, absolutely! I feel I'm making progress in resolving some of the
> > ambiguity in my understanding, so be as severe as necessary, cher
> > maitre.
>
> Recall that the nameable lobian master always insist on "I will say a
> stupidity or I could say a stupidity" (is that english?)
>
> :)
>
> Bruno


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Received on Tue Jul 10 2007 - 08:09:48 PDT

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