Bruno, you have strong (and likable) arguments from *your* point of view. I
would like to say *"NO"* to the doctor, because a digital brain is but a
reduction, from all that what I seek as whatever 'nature' (the world?) can
provide. I don't know what, I call it 'analogue' - beyond those tools
available to our limited mind as humans. I HOPE for more. Numbers represent
one plane in this dream (for me). This is what you feel as a "critical tone"
in my texts. I try to cope, because it is better than the total vagueness
what I am in.
Let me interject into your text below, starting the paragraphs with 'MJ':
Tnanks for the reply
John
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> John,
>
> On 25 Dec 2008, at 14:46, John Mikes wrote:
>
> Bruno et al.:
>
> I don't feel comfortable with the view "reality *OF* something". Reality
> IMO is the
> unfathomable existence (whatever that may be) and *WE - machines, mind,*you
> name it are having access to portions that we interpret (realize?) in ways
> *we can.*
> This portion (part, view, ensemble, whatever) is our *perceived reality *which
> may
> be 'physical', 'numbers', 'faith', what *WE deem (our) REALITY.*
>
>
>
> Scientists know that a theory is always intrinsically hypothetical, and
> probably wrong. Making it precise makes it possible to be *shown* wrong, and
> so we can abandon it, partially or completely, but so we learn.
>
>
>
>
> Within such we may accept certain items as *"real"*, what does not make
> them
> *THE REALITY* only accepted aspects in our perception.
>
>
>
>
>
> *THE REALITY* is what we search. Nobody here pretend to know it in any
> public way. THE REALITY is what we postulate theories about.
> Then I propose an argument that IF we say yes to the doctor, that is, IF
> there is a level of self-description such that a digital substitution
> preserves my identity feeling and my consciousness THEN numbers (or
> combinators, ...) have to be enough at the ontological level. The rest can
> be described as internal gluing epistomologies, the lawful "many dreams".
> This is going in *your* direction, it seems to me.
>
> MEC is not reductionist because it attribute consciousness to relative
> sequences of numbers. It attributes personhood to sufficiently
> introspective self-transforming machine. It points to the fact that we can
> already listen to their opinions in some (precise) sense.
>
'JM':
Accordingly: a 'digital' substitution is part of the totality, can serve my
feeling, (I add to it the rest) and consciousness, this elusive and mant
ways identified noumenon came up in my trend to generalize its potential
appearances to the simplest and widest-spread meaning came down to
"acknowledgement of and response to information" (info - not the 'bit',
which still has to be assigned as representing some meaning, - but to a
discernible difference (to what?) in the relationships within the reality.
The reality is IMO not something we 'seek to search', because we have access
to only a part of it and the total is unknowable. Consequently: ontology
makes sense only about something we MAY know in its entirety, NOT the
unknowable <reality>. So I scrap ontology for now.
We have a clash of opinion here:
In my vocabulary MEC *IS indeed *reductionistic, reduced to the 'one plain'
of numbers in *"reality"* which I imagine richer than imaginable within our
human mind. Numbers are humanly thinkable.
I question that the 'numbers' plane is 'sufficiently introspective' if 'we
can already listen to their opinions.
> The TOE may be pertinent to the 'reality', from the view of that
> particular 'theory'
> - in the case of this list: physical-mathematical aspects.
>
>
> ? Are we not conversing on consciousness, persons and the mind body
> problem? Is there no an attempt emphasize computer science and logic?
>
'JM':
I am still in limbo with 'mind', consciousness I touched in the preceding
par., 'person' is open if I read the (partially) teleported nightmares, and
"body" is definitely a term of the physical world.
I still wonder if a 'person' is the body, the mind(set) a combination of
them, or a separate item?
>
>
> John, when you say that we must take into account the fact that our
> theories are biased by the fact that they are our own theories, you are
> right. But then, this is a theorem in the theory MEC, where we can
> mathematically begin to study the degree of bias of possible self-observing
> machines.
>
> I, and the universal machine, agrees often with what you are saying, John,
> but I rarely understand the critical tone, like if the existence of a bias
> should discourage the search for theories. (It should discourage only
> the velleity of certainties there. If that is your point, I agree).
>
'JM':
I don't believe in ascertaining the "degree of bias" in something we know
only partially. Not even ANY bias in something not yet learned. What I
accept is the 'conditional': "if...", which eliminates the bias (as I
started with a 'no' to the doctor). What you feel as 'critical' is rather my
ignorance
cutting out an agreeing tone. I don't even know a "yes", not only a "no".
>
> And then, there is a frequent confusion between "realm" and theories. MEC
> is not really a theory, it is more a bridge between realms. To say yes to
> the doctor, and to realize afterward that the fundamental TOE is "number
> theory" is just a change of realms (physics/arithmetic,
> psychology/arithmetic). This is because, after Gödel, we know that we cannot
> capture all the truth about the numbers in a definitive theory.
> Once we take into account the MEC hypothesis, or just the intensional
> (coding) property of numbers the mess among the numbers become almost
> transparent, and it is the merit of Gödel to show it to be necessary. Once
> we define addition and multiplication numbers begin to reflect each other,
> and they can defeat all theories wanting to be definitive about them,. This
> is a fact reflected by the universal machine alone.
>
> The universal machine(s) defeat(s) all complete (total) theories about it
> or them. Already. (that's an attractive feature for me).
>
'JM': hiere I can put an astounding agreement, with a wish to learn more
about these marvels.
I call 'reductionism' the view of a limited part (model as I call it) of the
totality, maybe 'all of we know, or can imagine' from the unlimited
possibilities. I don't use it pejoratively. This is the way how we can think
(or understand) in our restricted capabilities. I try to step further - but
so far I am in the vagueness of inadequate words and unspecifiable ideas. I
do appreciate your way: to stay in a 'numbers' segment (plane?) and adjust
words to talk about it. I dream.
>
> After the discovery of the Universal Machine, the Mechanist hypothesis, or
> even just the "strong AI" thesis, is not a reductionism, it is
> an openness of our mind toward a peculiar Unknown which invites itself to
> our table.
>
>
> Bruno
>
> 'JM'
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>> *To:* everything-list.domain.name.hidden
>> *Sent:* Monday, December 22, 2008 11:11 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: Reality
>>
>> M.A.,
>>
>> On 20 Dec 2008, at 15:21, M.A. wrote:
>>
>> *Bruno,*
>> * Does the term "reality" have any meaning in MEC?*
>> *
>> m.a.*
>>
>> What makes you think the term "reality" has no meaning in MEC?
>>
>> Even physical reality keeps its main practical meaning, except it becomes
>> emerging from a deeper reality (the reality of the relation among numbers).
>>
>> Why would you say "yes" to a doctor if you don't believe in a reality?
>>
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Dec 28 2008 - 16:34:02 PST