On 08 Aug 2009, at 05:20, ronaldheld wrote:
>
> As a formally trained Physicist, what do I accept?
It depends of many things. Most physicists and non physicists take
more or less for granted an Aristotelian picture of reality.
Now, if you are willing to believe that you can survive classical
teleportation, you may have to prepare yourself to be open to a
different picture, where 3-reality is (say) elementary arithmetic, and
1-realities are dreams by universal machine/number(s). This is new,
apparently, so this is something that you have to understand by
yourself, by studying UDA, for example. You have to be open to the
idea of taking the notion of person, subjective memories,
consciousness, etc. seriously into account.
Tell me if you say "yes" to the doctor, and I can show you what sort
of reality you will be confront with.
> that Physics is
> well represented mathematically?
I know mathematicians who have heart palpitations when seeing the math
of physicists :) They don't put just mind under the rug, they put many
infinities there too! But I am unfair because they do that in an more
and more elegant way...
Actually physicians have literally created new interesting branch in
math. This is a new phenomenon.
But I am not sure Physics, as a whole, can be said well represented
mathematically in any global way. Some theories are more lucky than
others. GR and QM are not yet well integrated, and comp does not
really help in this regard, up to now.
Some like Tegmark and Schmidhuber seem to believe that the physical
world could be a mathematical structure, or a computation, but I argue
that if comp is true, the relation is more complex. In a sense physics
sums up the whole of math in any of its part, and eventually, physical
reality is defined by the border of the ignorance of all possible
universal machines.
> That the Multiverse is composed of
> mathematical structures some of which represent physical laws? Or
> something else?
Assuming comp, the physical world(s) emerge(s) from first person
filterings on infinite set of (arithmetical) computations.
Comp predict that if there is a notion of first person plural, then it
defines a common level below which "we" can "detect" the parallel
histories. This gives a first person plural indeterminacy, which
prevents solipsism.
What is your opinion on quantum mechanics? With comp, the quantum
facts, by alluding indirectly, but clearly, on the superposition of
the ambient computations, or just by its sharable and measurable
indeterminacy, confirms comp and this in a way which protect us from
solipsism. Have you read Everett, or Deutsch? They are the physicists
beginning to realize the self-multiplication that comp predicts "quasi-
trivially" (UDA).
Universal machines cannot know which histories they go through and
perhaps share (partially) with others, among a very big, yet
definable, set.
I have few doubts that we share a very long story.
Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental? I doubt it.
Bruno
>
> Ronald
>
> On Aug 6, 10:23 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> Colin Hales wrote:
>>
>>> Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>> Colin Hales wrote:
>>
>>>>> Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>>>>> Colin Hales wrote:
>>
>>>>>>> Man this is a tin of worms! I have just done a 30 page detailed
>>>>>>> refutation of computationalism.
>>>>>>> It's going through peer review at the moment.
>>
>>>>>>> The basic problem that most people fall foul of is the
>>>>>>> conflation of
>>>>>>> 'physics-as-computation' with the type of computation that is
>>>>>>> being
>>>>>>> carried out in a Turing machine (a standard computer). In the
>>>>>>> paper I
>>>>>>> drew an artificial distinction between them. I called the
>>>>>>> former NATURAL
>>>>>>> COMPUTATION (NC) and the latter ARTIFICIAL COMPUTATION (AC).
>>>>>>> The idea is
>>>>>>> that if COMP is true then there is no distinction between AC
>>>>>>> and NC. The
>>>>>>> distinction should fail.
>>
>>>>>>> I found one an one only situation/place where AC and NC part
>>>>>>> company.
>>>>>>> Call this situation X.
>>
>>>>>>> If COMP is false in this one place X it is false as a general
>>>>>>> claim. I
>>>>>>> also found 02 downstream (consequential) failures that
>>>>>>> ultimately get
>>>>>>> their truth-basis from X, so they are a little weaker as formal
>>>>>>> arguments against COMP.
>>
>>>>>>> *FACT*: Humans make propositions that are fundamentally of an
>>>>>>> informal
>>>>>>> nature. That is, the utterances of a human can be inconsistent
>>>>>>> and form
>>>>>>> an fundamentally incomplete set (we don't 'know everything').
>>>>>>> The
>>>>>>> quintessential definition of a scientist is a 'correctable
>>>>>>> liar'. When a
>>>>>>> hypothesis is uttered it has the status indistinguishable of a
>>>>>>> lie.
>>>>>>> Humans can participate in the universe in ways which can
>>>>>>> (apparently)
>>>>>>> violate any law of nature. Humans must be able to 'violate'
>>>>>>> laws of
>>>>>>> nature in the process of accessing new/novel formal systems to
>>>>>>> describe
>>>>>>> the unknown natural world. Look at the world. It is not hard
>>>>>>> to see how
>>>>>>> humans exemplify an informal system. All over the world are
>>>>>>> quite normal
>>>>>>> (non-pathologically affected) humans with the same sensory
>>>>>>> systems and
>>>>>>> mental capacities. Yet all manner of ignorance and fervently
>>>>>>> held
>>>>>>> contradictory belief systems are ‘rationally’ adopted.
>>>>>>> ===================
>>>>>>> COMP fails when:
>>>>>>> a) You assume COMP is true and build an artificial (AC/computer)
>>>>>>> scientist <Sa> and expect <Sa> to be able to carry out authentic
>>>>>>> original science on the a-priori unknown....identically to
>>>>>>> humans. To do
>>>>>>> this you use a human-originated formal model (law of nature)
>>>>>>> ts to do
>>>>>>> this.... your computer 'computes ts, you EMBODY the computer
>>>>>>> in a
>>>>>>> suitable robotic form and then expect it to do science like
>>>>>>> humans. If
>>>>>>> COMP is true then the human scientist and the robot scientist
>>>>>>> should be
>>>>>>> indistinguishable.
>>
>>>>>>> b) You then discover that it is a fundamental impossibility
>>>>>>> that <Sa> be
>>>>>>> able to debate/propose that COMP is a law of nature.
>>
>>>>>>> c) Humans can debate/propose that COMP is a law of nature.
>>
>>>>>>> BECAUSE: (b) <> (c) they are distinguishable. NC and AC are
>>>>>>> different
>>>>>>> THEREFORE: ts cannot be the 'law of nature' for a scientist.
>>>>>>> THEREFORE: COMP is false in the special case of (b)
>>>>>>> THEREFORE: COMP is false as a general claim.
>>
>>>>>>> (b) is not a claim of truth or falsehood. It is a claim that
>>>>>>> the very
>>>>>>> idea of <Sa> ever proposing COMP (= doubting that COMP is
>>>>>>> true) is
>>>>>>> impossible. This is because it is a formal system trying, with
>>>>>>> a fixed,
>>>>>>> formal set of rules (even self modifying according to yet more
>>>>>>> rules) to
>>>>>>> construct statements that are the product of an informal
>>>>>>> system (a human
>>>>>>> scientist). The very idea of this is a contradiction in terms.
>>
>>>>>> I don't see it. I can write a simple computer program that
>>>>>> constructs statements which
>>>>>> are a subset of those produced by humans (or any other
>>>>>> system). Bruno's UD produces *all*
>>>>>> such statements. So where's the contradiction?
>>
>>>>> Yes you can generate all such statements. /But then what*/*so
>>>>> what?
>>>>> /*
>>>>> *Please re-read the scenario....This situation is very very
>>>>> specific:
>>
>>>>> 1) Embodied situated robot scientist <Sa> is doing science on the
>>>>> 'natural world'.
>>
>>>>> 2) As a COMP artificial scientist <Sa>, you are software. A formal
>>>>> system *ts* computes you.
>>
>>>>> 3) All you ever do is categorise patterns and cross-correlate
>>>>> patterns
>>>>> in massive streams of numbers that arrive from your '/robot
>>>>> scientist
>>>>> suit/'.
>>
>>>>> 4) <Sa> is a SCIENTIST. The entirety of the existence of <Sa>
>>>>> involves
>>>>> dealing with streams of numbers that are the result of an
>>>>> encounter with
>>>>> the radically unknown, which <Sa> is trying to find a 'universal
>>>>> abstraction' for = 'a law of nature'.
>>
>>>>> 5) There is no 'out there in an environment' for <Sa>. There is
>>>>> only an
>>>>> abstraction (a category called) "out there". You cannot project
>>>>> any kind
>>>>> of human 'experience' into <Sa>. REASON: If COMP is true, then
>>>>> computation (of abstract symbol manipulation of formal *ts*) is
>>>>> all COMP
>>>>> <Sa> needs to be a scientist. <Sa> can only be imagined as
>>>>> operating 'in
>>>>> the dark'.(I spent a whole section on ensuring this spurious
>>>>> projection
>>>>> does not occur in the reader of my paper!)
>>
>>>>> 6) *ts* has been assumed possible by assuming COMP is true.
>>
>>>>> 7) The paper is a reductio ad absurdum proof that COMP is false.
>>
>>>>> 8) The contradiction that I use is that the human and the COMP
>>>>> scientist
>>>>> are different (when if COMP is true they should be the same). The
>>>>> difference is that a human can postulate COMP is true and be
>>>>> WRONG. _The
>>>>> COMP-Sa cannot do this_....because it can never know when it is
>>>>> wrong!
>>>>> Humans are an INFORMAL system. Informal systems can break rules.
>>
>>>>> Broken rules do NOT come labeled as broken.
>>>>> Faked authentic rules do not come labeled as forgeries.
>>
>>>>> <Sa> cannot cope with either. The aberrant behaviour of <Sa> is
>>>>> not that
>>>>> it can't in-principle deal with it. _It's that there is not way
>>>>> of <sa>
>>>>> knowing that it is a possibility_. If you try and 'fix it' by
>>>>> pre-programming what all forgeries or broken rule look
>>>>> like....well you
>>>>> can see that is just plain never gonna work.
>>
>>>>> Get it?
>>
>>>> Nope. It's just an assertion that informal systems can do
>>>> something formal systems can't
>>>> - which as lawyers say is a fact not in evidence.
>>
>>>> Brent
>>
>>> Eh?
>>> I wrote a whole para in my original post labelled FACT.
>>> *
>>> What planet do you live on?*
>>
>>> On the planet I live on It is not hard to see how humans exemplify
>>> an
>>> informal system. All over the world are quite normal (non-
>>> pathologically
>>> affected) humans with the same sensory systems and mental
>>> capacities.
>>> Yet all manner of ignorance and fervently held contradictory belief
>>> systems are ‘rationally’ adopted. That very same brain material,
>>> with a
>>> bit of added evidential rigor, becomes a scientist.
>>> Scientists are rationally WRONG in completely free, correctable ways
>>> that a formal system cannot match. The formal system can be equally
>>> wrong....but it CANNOT correct itself like a human. When you try
>>> and get
>>> a formal (Turing) machine to behave as per (specifically) a human
>>> scientist _you fail_ for that reason.
>>
>>> 1) You have a planet load of evidence of an informal system (human
>>> scientists)
>>> 2) You have COMP being true critically dependent on a formal system
>>> being able to do what humans do.
>>> 3) It can't do 01 very specific thing... be WRONG in the way a
>>> human can
>>> (in the specific fashion cited)
>>
>> That's the point in question. It's seems to me a formal system can
>> be wrong and it can
>> discover it is wrong just like anybody else by receiving new
>> information. Are you
>> assuming the AI is a closed formal system, while allowing that
>> humans scientists are open?
>> What exactly is your definition of an informal system? How can you
>> know whether a given
>> system is informal or just hasn't been formalized?
>>
>>
>>
>>> I didn't "assert", I "measured".
>>
>>> "fact not in evidence" be damned! Open your eyes.
>>
>> My eyes are open. Try writing without the caps key - shouting
>> doesn't help.
>>
>> Brent
>> "If the facts are against you, pound on the law.
>> If the law is against you, pound on the facts.
>> If they're both against you, pound on the table."
>> -- lawyering maxim, from Chris Savage- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Sat Aug 08 2009 - 20:01:53 PDT