Re: The role of logic, & planning ...

From: Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat May 5 07:18:08 2001

Russell Standish wrote:

>Ah! You mean the problem of consciousness (or more exactly, the problem
>of having a theory of conscsiousness). Yes - I'm well aware of this
>problem, and unlike some, I don't believe it is a non-problem.

OK. I prefer to call it the mind-body problem. That reminds us that
there is both a mind problem *and* a body problem.
Now I do have a theory of mind with comp: mainly given by the discourse
of the self-referential sound UTMs, and its guardian angel: G and G*
The body is less obvious, but translating the UDA in arithmetic, this
gives Z1 and Z1* for physical experiment and experiences.
Open problem are: is Z1* completely axiomatisable? Does Z1* give
the entire Birkhof von Neuman quantum logic. Does Z1* "violates" Bell
inequality, is there a unique representation of Z1* in term of subspaces
of Hilbert space, etc.



>In Occam's razor, I don't just ignore this problem, I sweep it under
>the rug. At some stage I have said "Theories of Consciousness have
>bogged down in a quagmire". I think I must have just said it, as I
>cannot find it written in any publications. Perhaps I want to distance
>myself somewhat from the mud-slinging going on.


If treasures were not hidden in the mud, they would not be treasures :-)


>Without providing a theory, or even a
>definition of what consciousness is, in the paper I assume 3
>propositions to be true about consciousness:
>
>i) It is capable of universal computation (in order to interpret)
>ii) It experiences time (in order to compute)
>iii) It "projects" out actual events from the set of potential events.

i) is ambiguous. And doubtful for most crisp interpretation I try.
For exemple I believe cats are conscious. Cats are capable of universal
computation only in a very large sense. Still I appreciate, but dangerous
because most people will derive that animal are not conscious.

ii) needs a definition of time. You will see how time emerges in my
approach. It is linked to consciousness, and basicaly I would agree,
although the subject of experience is a person and not consciousness,
which is a qualitative state of that person experiencing time.

iii) is a correct description of the appearances.

> [...]

>The reason I say this is that while homo sapiens is capable of
>universal computation, it is not its primary modus operandi, hence I
>would be surprised if the prior distribution of descriptions was given
>by a universal computer.

I don't see the relation with the prior distribution. I guess I miss
something here.

>One can criticse my work on 3
>grounds:
>
>i) My conclusions do not follow logically from this basis
>ii) That there are additional hidden assumptions needed, that I've not made
>clear or precise
>iii) That one or more of the above assumptions are false

>[...]

>I'm am therefore, far more interested in errors of logic or
>omission. It would seem that you would develop a criticism along the
>lines of ii) - hidden assumptions, however I've yet to see these spelt
>out (or perhaps they have, just I haven't understood it because of
>language barriers).


In fact I'm not sure what exactly are your assumptions. Are you talking
on the assumptions about consciousness?

I have still the feeling that you attach observers to universes.
You don't postulate comp, do you?

Bruno
Received on Sat May 05 2001 - 07:18:08 PDT