2009/7/28 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
> You could say, for
> example, at any point "to go further you would need a deeper grasp of
> x, but for now, it has this or that role or function in the overall
> story" - or something like that. I'd be very grateful - and
> attentive.
>
> I think that you have already understood that this will just lead back to an
> unsolved mind-body problem.
But might it not, nonetheless, help to improve the mind-body
intuitions? Let's see.
> Let me define two notions of first person indeterminacies.
> There is the local one, when your current state is duplicated relatively to
> earth, or me (say) . This is done in the first sixth steps of the UD
> reasoning.
> From some of your post I can suspect that there is something perhaps still
> unclear there.
> In the Washington/Moscow duplication, the *you* arriving in Moscow (resp.
> Washington) provably cannot understand why he is the one arriving in Moscow
> (Washington). It is the same question as the one you asked me: "why am I me
> and not my brother". It is trivial, with comp. No program can predict which
> backup, among two, will be the one being re-instantiated, relatively to its
> most probable history/computation.
Actually, I do follow the first six steps of the UD reasoning; my own
'beam me up, Scotty' reasoning had led me to similar conclusions. So,
no problem with this. But I do have trouble grasping what is, I
think, a different aspect of the observer moment, and I'll try to
state it as clearly as I can. When I imagine an infinity of OMs, as
it were, co-existing in some atemporal sense, I find I still can't
satisfactorily answer the question: why am "I" experiencing JUST this
one? I don't mean of course, why does this experience possess just
*these* characteristics - this is always determined by the structure
of the OM, as per the UD steps. The issue, rather, is that "I" is
essentially a global referent that fundamentally applies only to the
whole, and that the 'part' or 'little me' is thus nothing but the
*viewpoint* of the whole at a given moment
So under this assumption the real question is: why is the *whole* at
this moment seemingly limited to ONLY this view rather than any - or
indeed all - of the available co-existing alternatives? And in the
light of an infinity of co-existing OMs, I can't answer this, because
such a co-existing whole should presumably co-presently see (i.e.
'be') ALL points of view 'at once'. AFAICS, notions of measure do not
suffice to resolve this.
However I have a wacky intuition: despite the platonic criterion of
co-existence, 1-person experience of the temporal dynamism (i.e.
sequentiality) of the part - i.e. each OM - might reasonably persuade
us that sequentiality should also possess, in some ineliminable sense,
a role in the whole. Consequently, under this assumption, could the
UD (to reify it only to this degree) be conceived for this purpose to
be 'sequentially resolving' each 'OM-programme-step'? Indeed my
understanding is that this dovetailed sequentiality is actually a key
conceptual element of COMP. In this sense - and in this sense only -
could the UD therefore be thought of as temporally instantiating that
OM *uniquely* at each step on behalf of the whole COMP-multiverse, and
thus bringing into focus - in effect - its *unique* point of view?
> Then there is the global first person indeterminacy, which appears at step
> 7, although it is "definitely there" with the step 8. It is the
> indeterminacy of your immediate subjective future "in front" of a never
> ending universal dovetailing. At that step, assuming (or not with step 8) a
> concrete universal dovetailing in the universe (or in arithmetic) you should
> understand that you are duplicated " at each instant", so that your future
> subjective instant is determined by an infinity of computations: all those
> (existing in the U dovetailing) going through your actual states. So, in
> order to attach your mind to a physical appearance, you have to justify the
> physical appearances from an infinite set of computational histories. OK?
Yes, I understand as I've said above that I am duplicated at each
instant (what I used to think of as being 'teleported into the
future'). However, I must press you on your use of the expression
'going through your actual states'. I think you mean:
1) Your 'actual state' corresponds to some OM (i.e. the one you 'find'
yourself in).
2) The UD entails that an infinity of prior and posterior states is
implied by your finding yourself in *this* OM - i.e. they 'go through'
this state.
3) Hence the physical appearances you discover in this OM must depend
on (i.e. be justified by) the totality of these states.
4) It follows therefore that any association of your mind - as the
collection of these states - can be correlated only with the
*totality* of physical appearances derived from this collection.
Is this right?
> The physical reality can no more be just a mathematical structure among
> others. There may or may not exist such a structure, but in any case this
> structure or quasi-structure has to result from the statistical
> "interference" of an infinity of computations.
Implied by 3) above.
> AUDA illustrates the consistency of such an idea, and provides a technical
> way to extract already the logic of the observable events. But AUDA is far
> more demanding in logico-mathematical technicalities.
You said it!
> AUDA is UDA, where the "yes doctor" is replaced by a "direct" interview of a
> correct self-introspecting universal machine.
> Somehow, what I am saying in AUDA is that, thanks to the work of Gödel, Löb,
> Solovay, etc., we can already have a talk with the universal machine and ask
> her opinion, and what "her" physics looks like.
Now, the 'yes doctor' is an act of faith. But how much further will
we be able to rely on the machine's opinions on what her physics looks
like? Enough to take the leap with certainty, or is there always some
irresolvable doubt? (I think the answer is yes, because the
substitution level remains always below the level of introspection.)
> Then it is a rather technical point to show that by adding non computational
> power to such a universal machine will not change the AUDA interview, unless
> you bring necessarily vague ad hoc "non comp" feature build for changing the
> interview.
So what is consequential on this? Do you mean that in this case the
machine can still derive consistent (though incomplete) opinions on
her physics and therefore make reasonable bets on her duplicability?
> If a universal machine bet that God create earth and heaven in
> six days and that she is not duplicable, well, it becomes hard to even argue
> if the AUDA physics will change or not.
And what is consequential on this? Do you mean that her view of her
physics has become such that neither she (by fiat) nor we (per theory)
can make reasonable bets on her duplicability?
> Hope this "heroic failure" can help the grandma a little bit,
Yes, it helps when we go more slowly and step by step, so that the
ignoramus can keep up.
David
>
> On 28 Jul 2009, at 02:56, David Nyman wrote:
>
> 2009/7/27 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> Actually, the real axiom is a self-duplicability principle. According
>
> to the duplicability, you will have the whole of AUDA remaining
>
> correct and even complete, at the propositional level, for many
>
> "gods" (non emulable entities). The theology of the machine van be
>
> lifted to almost all "self-duplicable" entities (but the proofs get
>
> more complex). It applies to most of the "gods" I mentioned in some
>
> post. You have to go very near the big unnameable for getting rid of
>
> the completeness of G/G* propositional theology. This was seen by
>
> Solovay (with other terms).
>
> Or you have to postulate we are much less than universal machine,
>
> which is just "obviously false", imo.
>
> This is a weakness, it means we can only test a very general
>
> principle. Most gods have similar physical realities, they have the
>
> same observable. Physics become a very strong invariant, it is stable
>
> for many non recursive permutations. But it is real hard math to
>
> handle all this material.
>
> Actually, comp itself has a huge spectrum according to the choice of
>
> substitution level. Transfinite weakenings of the notion of
>
> substitution level can help to extend most comp consequence on those
>
> weakenings. But this could be only of academical interest, I don't know.
>
> I am not sure I would say "yes" to a doctor who does propose me an
>
> actual infinite brains.
>
> Actually, I find much of the above VERY hard to follow except in a
> vague way.
>
> The problem is that the negation of COMP is a very vague and multiple
> notion.
> All what I say is that most of the consequence of COMP remains true for most
> precise technical weakening of the comp hyp.
> Unless you weaken so much comp that you lost the self-duplicability
> property: you say no to all possible doctors.
>
>
>
> Would it be possible, as an accompaniment of your
> step-by-step exposition of the UD in detail, to also give a
> step-by-step storyline of the above, but with the absolutely
> irreducible minimum of reliance on the deeper (i.e. very hard for
> ingnorami like me to access) technicalities. You could say, for
> example, at any point "to go further you would need a deeper grasp of
> x, but for now, it has this or that role or function in the overall
> story" - or something like that. I'd be very grateful - and
> attentive.
>
> I think that you have already understood that this will just lead back to an
> unsolved mind-body problem.
>
>
>
> We talked in the past of a grandmother version or roadmap - do you
> recall? I've got a feeling that you sometimes wonder if you may let
> us - or yourself - down by *not* going into all the detail all the
> time, but the problem - at least for me - is that my memory isn't
> retentive enough to retain the pivotal elements of the narrative
> whilst we charge off on the next - no doubt essential - safari into
> the logical-mathematical jungle. But could we try grandma's version
> again? Even heroic failure would teach us something.
>
> Let me define two notions of first person indeterminacies.
> There is the local one, when your current state is duplicated relatively to
> earth, or me (say) . This is done in the first sixth steps of the UD
> reasoning.
> From some of your post I can suspect that there is something perhaps still
> unclear there.
> In the Washington/Moscow duplication, the *you* arriving in Moscow (resp.
> Washington) provably cannot understand why he is the one arriving in Moscow
> (Washington). It is the same question as the one you asked me: "why am I me
> and not my brother". It is trivial, with comp. No program can predict which
> backup, among two, will be the one being re-instantiated, relatively to its
> most probable history/computation.
>
> Then there is the global first person indeterminacy, which appears at step
> 7, although it is "definitely there" with the step 8. It is the
> indeterminacy of your immediate subjective future "in front" of a never
> ending universal dovetailing. At that step, assuming (or not with step 8) a
> concrete universal dovetailing in the universe (or in arithmetic) you should
> understand that you are duplicated " at each instant", so that your future
> subjective instant is determined by an infinity of computations: all those
> (existing in the U dovetailing) going through your actual states. So, in
> order to attach your mind to a physical appearance, you have to justify the
> physical appearances from an infinite set of computational histories. OK?
> The physical reality can no more be just a mathematical structure among
> others. There may or may not exist such a structure, but in any case this
> structure or quasi-structure has to result from the statistical
> "interference" of an infinity of computations.
> AUDA illustrates the consistency of such an idea, and provides a technical
> way to extract already the logic of the observable events. But AUDA is far
> more demanding in logico-mathematical technicalities.
> AUDA is UDA, where the "yes doctor" is replaced by a "direct" interview of a
> correct self-introspecting universal machine.
> Somehow, what I am saying in AUDA is that, thanks to the work of Gödel, Löb,
> Solovay, etc., we can already have a talk with the universal machine and ask
> her opinion, and what "her" physics looks like.
> Then it is a rather technical point to show that by adding non computational
> power to such a universal machine will not change the AUDA interview, unless
> you bring necessarily vague ad hoc "non comp" feature build for changing the
> interview. If a universal machine bet that God create earth and heaven in
> six days and that she is not duplicable, well, it becomes hard to even argue
> if the AUDA physics will change or not.
> Hope this "heroic failure" can help the grandma a little bit,
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Jul 28 2009 - 12:38:03 PDT