Re: The Game of Life

From: <GSLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 12:41:43 EST

Bruno, I'll attempt to reply more in detail to your post:

In a message dated 12/20/1999 7:46:37 AM Pacific Standard Time,
marchal.domain.name.hidden writes:

>
> You *do* believe in
> zombies, don't you ? I mean you think that those creatures are
> exactly like us, but that they are unconscious ?

I believe that zombiness just as consciousness is a relative property.

As relative properties they requires an observer and an observee.

Consciousness as a 1st person phenomenon arise when the observer observes
him(her)self -- that is looks at his or her own INTERNAL MODEL. The
observer/ee then falls into a infinite regress in which he or she is
unpredictable to him/herself. Hence comes the illusion of free will and the
"I", "le Moi."

However, it can also be a third person property. In this case, when the
observer is more sophisticated than the observee ( can predict the observee
behavior, then the observee will be perceived to be a zombie.) When the
observee is unpredictable from the point of view of the observer, then the
observee will be perceived as being conscious.

>
> Schmidhuber's, not to talk about Tegmark's, universes, or the little
> simple big
> everything, all that would be full of creatures believing wrongly they
> feel ?
>
> And how could you know you are not among those creatures?
>
> (Of course in the UDA it is an *hypothesis* that those machines are
> (relatively) correct.)
>
> \begin{for the modalist}
> But even without that hypothesis you can also just modelize the
> correcteness
> of the machine by []p -> p, or just by consistency <>T.
> (Jacques Baihache suggests me that I use [] for the modal box and <> for
> the
> diamond.) Remeber that [] and <> are interdefinissable: <>p can be seen
> as an
> abreviation of -[]-p, and []p can be seen as an abreviation of -<>-p)
> Remember that in classical propositional logic -p is equivalent to p->F,
> so that "[]F - >F" is equivalent to -[]F, which is equivalent to <>T.
>
> And let us interview the SRC machine through G and its Guardian Angel G*.
> (SRC = self-referentially-correct)
> Well the machine seems to remain silent on <>T. The Angel tell us the
> machine is correct (G* proves []p -> p), and consistent (G* proves <>T),
> and he did tell us that the machine cannot know it, nor justify it
> (G* proves -[]([]p->p) and G* proves -[]<>T).
> Quite the reverse of you, it seems. The little SRC creature seems a little
> bit wiser about what she know.
> \end{for the modalist}

Sorry Bruno, I have some difficulty understanding this notation. I can't
really give you an informed reply about the above.



> This will not convince you, nor is it intended to convince you. Just to
> tell
> you my opinion and the SRC machine's opinion, and its Guardian Angel's,
> opinion. Which is Jerry's opinion too if I
> understand and interpret him correctly.
>
>
> >The second shift has to do with the action of running the program. Before
> >the
> >computer is started, these creatures in the Life Universe do not exist in
> >our
> >*time*. Their time is frozen - compared to ours - so from our point of
view
>
> >they are not conscious. They are just a bunch of inert bits. When the
> >computer runs, their time becomes like ours and now they appear to be
> >conscious.
>
> "Running" a machine is a modality which makes sense only relatively
> to you. That relative running makes it possible for the machine to
> manifest its consciousness relatively to you. It makes possible
> to entangled and share computationnal histories. But consciousness per se
> is not linked to the dynamical physical activity itself.
>
> >Resolution of this paradox illustrates the relativistic issues in the
> >observation process and in particular the relativistic quality of the
> >1st/3rd
> >person point of view.
>
> I don't understand.
>
>
> >The relativity of information in terms of mutual
> >information as defined by Claude Shannon has deep consequences in physics
> >that, I feel, should be explored. In this context, Hawkings has made a
> major
> >breakthrough in the understanding of black holes by relating entropy to
> >their
> >size.
>
> I agree although I'm not sure to see the relevance here.

I think there are some deep connections between black holes,
information/entropy (as Hawking demonstrated), the characterization of
consciousness in terms of information and Quantum immortality. I have a truly
marvelous hunch for this proposition which this E-mail is too short to
contain. :-)

>
> Perhaps you are correct on all the points in which case comp should
> be wrong (or my reasoning!).
>
> Bruno
>
Received on Tue Dec 21 1999 - 09:43:05 PST