Abram Demski wrote:
> Bruno,
>
> Thanks for the references.
You are welcome.
>
> ps- it is final exam crunch time, so I haven't been checking email so
> much as usual... I may get around to more detailed replies et cetera
> this weekend or next week.
With pleasure.
Best,
Bruno
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 07 Dec 2008, at 06:19, Abram Demski wrote:
>>
>> Bruno,
>>
>> Yes, I think there is a big difference between making an argument
>> more
>> detailed and making it more understandable. They can go together or
>> be
>> opposed. So a version of the argument targeted at my complaint might
>> not be good at all pedagogically...
>>
>> I would be pleased if you can give me a version of MAT or MEC to
>> which
>>
>> the argument does not apply. For example, the argument applies to
>> most
>>
>> transfinite variant of MEC. It does not apply when some "magic" is
>>
>> introduced in MAT, and MAT is hard to define in a way to exclude that
>>
>> magic. If you can help, I thank you in advance.
>>
>> My particular brand of "magic" appears to be a requirement of
>> counterfactual/causal structure that reflects the
>> counterfactual/causal structure of (abstract) computation.
>>
>> Sometimes I think I should first explain what a "computation" is. I
>> take it
>> in the sense of theoretical computer science, a computation is
>> always define
>> relatively to a universal computation from outside, and an infinity
>> of
>> universal computations from inside. This asks for a bit of computer
>> science.
>> But there is not really "abstract computation", there are always
>> relative
>> computation (both with comp and Everett QM). They are always concrete
>> relatively to the universal machine which execute them. The
>> starting point
>> in no important (for our fundamental concerns), you can take number
>> with
>> addition and multiplication, or lambda terms with abstraction and
>> application.
>>
>>
>>
>> Stathis has
>> pointed out some possible ways to show such ideas incoherent (which I
>> am not completely skeptical of, despite my arguments).
>>
>> I appreciate.
>>
>>
>> Since this type
>> of theory is the type that matches my personal intuition, MGA will
>> feel empty to me until such alternatives are explicitly dealt a
>> killing blow (after which the rest is obvious, since I intuitively
>> feel the contradiction in versions of COMP+MAT that don't require
>> counterfactuals).
>>
>> Understanding UD(1...7) could perhaps help you to figure out what
>> happens
>> when we abandon the physical supervenience thesis, and embrace what
>> remains,
>> if keeping comp, that is the comp supervenience. It will explain
>> how the
>> physical laws have to emerge and why we believe (quasi-correctly)
>> in brains.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Of course, as you say, you'd be in a hard spot if you were required
>> to
>> deal with every various intuition that anybody had... but, for what
>> it's worth, that is mine.
>>
>>
>> I respect your intuition and appreciate the kind attitude. My
>> feeling is
>> that if front of very hard problems we have to be open to the fact
>> that we
>> could be surprised and that truth could be counterintuitive. The
>> incompleteness phenomena, from Godel and Lob, are surprising and
>> counterintuitive, and in the empirical world the SWE, whatever
>> interpretation we find more plausible, is always rather
>> counterintuitive
>> too.
>> I interpret the "self-referentially correct scientist M" by the
>> logic of
>> Godel's provability predicates beweisbar_M. But the intuitive
>> knower, the
>> first person, is modelled (or defined) by the Theatetus trick: the
>> machine M
>> knows p in case "beweisbar_M('p') and p". Although extensionally
>> equivalent,
>> their are intensionally different. They prove the same arithmetical
>> propositions, but they obey different logics. This is enough for
>> showing
>> that the first person associated with the self-referentially correct
>> scientist will already disbelieve the comp hypothesis or find it very
>> doubtful. We are near a paradox: the correct machine cannot know or
>> believe
>> their are machine. No doubt comp will appear counterintuitive for
>> them. I
>> know it is a sort of trap/ the solution consists in admitting that
>> comp
>> needs a strong act of faith, and I try to put light on the
>> consequences for
>> a machine, when she makes the bet.
>>
>> The best reference on the self-reference logics are
>> Boolos, G. (1979). The unprovability of consistency. Cambridge
>> University
>> Press, London.Boolos, G. (1993). The Logic of Provability. Cambridge
>> University Press, Cambridge.Smoryński, P. (1985). Self-Reference
>> and Modal
>> Logic. Springer Verlag, New York.Smullyan, R. (1987). Forever
>> Undecided.
>> Knopf, New York.
>>
>> The last one is a recreative book, not so simple, and rather quick
>> in the
>> "heart of the matter" chapter. Smullyan wrote many lovely books,
>> recreative
>> and technical on that theme.
>> The bible, imo, is Martin Davis book "The undecidable" which
>> contains some
>> of the original papers by Gödel, Church, Kleene, Post and indeed
>> the most
>> key starting points of the parts of theoretical computer science we
>> are
>> confonted to. It has been reedited by Dover.
>> Bruno
>> Other references here:
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/lillethesis/these/node79.html#SECTION001300000000000000000
>>
>> --Abram
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Le 05-déc.-08, à 22:11, Abram Demski a écrit :
>>
>>
>> Bruno,
>>
>> Perhaps all I am saying is that you need to state more explicitly the
>>
>> assumptions about the connection between 1st and 3rd person, in both
>>
>> MEC and MAT. Simply taking them to be the general ideas that you take
>>
>> them to be does not obviously justify the argument.
>>
>>
>> I don't see why nor how. The first person notions are defined in the
>>
>> three first steps of the UDA. Wait I come back on this in the
>>
>> discussion with Kim perhaps. In AUDA I define the first person by the
>>
>> "knower", and I use the classical definition proposed by Theaetetus
>> in
>>
>> the Theaetetus of Plato. Keep in mind that you arrived when I was
>>
>> explaining the real last step of an already long argument.
>>
>> Of course you may be right, and I would really appreciate any
>>
>> improvements. But making things more precise could also be a red
>>
>> herring sometimes, or be very confusing pedagogically, like with the
>>
>> easy 1004 fallacy which can obviously crop here.
>>
>> When I defended the thesis in France, it was already a work resulting
>>
>> from 30 years of discussions with open minded physicists, engineers,
>>
>> philosophers and mathematicians, and I have learned that what seems
>>
>> obvious for one of them is not for the others.
>>
>> I don't think there is anything controversial in my work. I got
>>
>> academical problems in Brussels for not having find an original
>> result
>>
>> (but then I think they did not read the work). Pedagogical
>> difficulties
>>
>> stem from the intrinsical difficulty of the mind body problem, and
>> from
>>
>> the technical abyss between logicians and physicists to cite only
>> them.
>>
>> It is more easy to collide two protons at the speed of light (minus
>>
>> epsilon) than to arrange an appointment between mathematical
>> logicians
>>
>> and mathematical physicists (except perhaps nowadays on quantum
>>
>> computing issues thankfully).
>>
>>
>>
>> Furthermore, stating the assumptions more clearly will make it more
>>
>> clear where the contradiction is coming from, and thus which versions
>>
>> of MEC and MAT the argument applies to.
>>
>> I would be pleased if you can give me a version of MAT or MEC to
>> which
>>
>> the argument does not apply. For example, the argument applies to
>> most
>>
>> transfinite variant of MEC. It does not apply when some "magic" is
>>
>> introduced in MAT, and MAT is hard to define in a way to exclude that
>>
>> magic. If you can help, I thank you in advance.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>> --Abram
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 04 Dec 2008, at 15:58, Abram Demski wrote:
>>
>>
>> PS Abram. I think I will have to meditate a bit longer on your
>>
>> (difficult) post. You may have a point (hopefully only pedagogical
>>
>> :)
>>
>> A little bit more commentary may be in order then... I think my point
>>
>> may be halfway between pedagogical and serious...
>>
>> What I am saying is that people will come to the argument with some
>>
>> vague idea of which computations (or which physical entities) they
>>
>> pick out as "conscious". They will compare this to the various
>>
>> hypotheses that come along during the argument-- MAT, MEC, MAT + MEC,
>>
>> "Lucky Alice is conscious", "Lucky Alice is not conscious", et
>>
>> cetera... These notions are necessarily 3rd-person in nature. It
>>
>> seems
>>
>> like there is a problem there. Your argument is designed to talk
>>
>> about
>>
>> 1st-person phenomena.
>>
>> The whole problem consists, assuming hypotheses, in relating 1-views
>>
>> with 3-views.
>>
>> In UDA, the 1-views are approximated by 1-discourses (personal diary
>>
>> notes, memories in the brain, ...). But I do rely on the minimal
>>
>> intuition needed to give sense to the willingness of saying "yes"
>> to a
>>
>> digitalist surgeon, and the believe in a comp survival, or a belief
>> in
>>
>> the unchanged feeling of "my" consciousness in such annihilation-
>>
>> (re)creation experiences.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> If a 1st-person-perspective is a sort of structure (computational
>>
>> and/or physical), what type of structure is it?
>>
>> The surprise will be: there are none. The 1-views of a machine will
>>
>> appears to be already not expressible by the machine. The first and
>>
>> third God have no name. Think about Tarski theorem in the comp
>>
>> context. A sound machine cannot define the whole notion of "truth
>>
>> about me".
>>
>>
>> If we define it in
>>
>> terms of behavior only, then a recording is fine.
>>
>> We certainly avoid the trap of behaviorism. You can see this as a
>>
>> weakness, or as the full strong originality of comp, as I define it.
>>
>> We give some sense, albeit undefined, to the word "consciousness"
>>
>> apart from any behavior. But to reason we have to assume some
>> relation
>>
>> between consciousness and possible discourses (by machines).
>>
>>
>> If we define it in
>>
>> terms of inner workings, then a recording is probably not fine, but
>>
>> we
>>
>> introduce "magical" dependence on things that shouldn't matter to
>>
>> us... ie, we should not care if we are interacting with a perfectly
>>
>> orchestrated recording, so long as to us the result is the same.
>>
>> It seems like this is independent of the differences between
>>
>> pure-comp / comp+mat.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is not yet quite clear for me. Perhaps, if you are patient
>>
>> enough, you will be able to clarify this along the UDA reasoning
>> which
>>
>> I will do slowly with Kim. The key point will be the understanding of
>>
>> the ultimate conclusion: exactly like Everett can be said to justify
>>
>> correctly the phenomenal collapse of the wave, if comp is assumed, we
>>
>> have to justify in a similar way the wave itself. Assuming comp, we
>>
>> put ourself in a position where we have to explain why numbers
>>
>> develops stable and coherent belief in both mind and matter. We can
>>
>> presuppose neither matter, nor mind eventually, except our own
>>
>> consciousness, although even consciousness will eventually be reduced
>>
>> into our "believe in numbers".
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>
>
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Wed Dec 10 2008 - 09:17:35 PST