Dear Brian,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Scurfield" <brian.scurfield.domain.name.hidden>
To: <Fabric-of-Reality.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:36 AM
Subject: RE: Everything Physical is Based on Consciousness
> Stephen wrote:
>
>> The perpetual question I have (about the epiphenomena problem that
>> any form of Idealism has), regarding this notion of a Platonic
>> Reality, is that IF all possible Forms of existence *exist* a priori
>> - "from the beginning" - what necessitates any form of 1st person
>> experience of a world that "evolves", has an irreversible arrow of
>> time, etc.
>>
>> It seems to me that Plato's Ideal is the ultimate case of a system
>> in thermodynamic equilibrium, and as such exhibits no change of any
>> kind, per definition. What then is the origin of, at least, the
>> illusion of change? How can Becoming derive from pure Being?
> [Brian]
> These, of course, are very good questions, and ones whose answers
> require a lot of hand-waving. In defense of Platonic Reality, I could
> retort that the questions can just as saliently be directed at the
> physical block Multiverse. As Charles frequently notes, the Block
> universe is inescapable unless you have an infinite number of time
> dimensions.
[SPK]
This idea about an infinite time dimensions seems inevitable if we take
the bitstring idea seriously, especially when these bitstrings are such that
they can be run in strictly series or parallel ways. But I would like to
point out that such processes are the exception and not the rule in the
"real" world.
Think of the process of constructing a house, there are many different
work crews specializing in one aspect of home construction or another, each
trying to do their jobs. As anyone that has been in this industry would
know, the hardest part of planning is in getting all of the crews scheduled
so that they do not conflict or are left waiting on some other crew to start
or finish. If we are going to take the computationalist claims seriously,
then we must demand that they include concurrency problems in their models.
;-)
BTW, I have mentioned before that there are serious problems with the
"block universe" idea, one of them is this concurrency problem. While
quantum mechanics, ignoring the collapse postulate, is strictly
deterministic, the existence of canonical conjugacy between observable
quantities, such as position and momentum, (exemplified by the Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle) prevents us from even constructing a space-time
manifold where each and every event can be one-to-one and onto mapped to
others.
Simply put, it is impossible to define the position and momenta
quantities of particles or waves on a slice of space-time (a "Cauchy
hypersurface") such that any thing resembling a classical manifold obtains;
it simply is impossible. The best we can do is to break the manifold up into
little pieces, attach distributions of quantities to them and then try to
stitch them together.
> [SPK]
>> Additionally, how do we justify the assumption that the mere a
>> priori existence of Turing Machines does not necessitate some means
>> to "implement" the TMs? It is one thing to claim that software can
>> run on any suitable hardware, it is altogether something else to
>> claim that "hardware" doesn't exist!
> [Brian]
> I share your feelings on this. Bruno's reply would, I think, go along
> the lines of: a TM and its computational history are just
> relationships among integers. Those relationships, just like any other
> mathematical relationships, need no hardware. When we discover a
> mathematical relationship and write it down, does it then become real?
> Possibly I am talking out of my hat here.
[SPK]
I hope that you are not just defining "realness" to be "only those
aspect of existence that can be represented by some physical means,
reversible or not". I would argue that this definition misses the mark since
it is easily shown that unless two more observers can agree upon , say, a
representation of a mathematical relationship, we have no way to know that
the scratches in the sand are no more than random marks left by grazing
birds. ;-)
Reality is a 3rd person aspect, it is that which we can all agree upon.
Putting it into Anthropic terms, it is that which is both consistent and
necessary for our existence as observers and is capable of being faithfully
communicated. I seem to have put the cart before the horse in my response to
your statement above but is it intentional, I am trying to point out that
any relationship has to include some means for it to have a meaning in order
for us to even try to claim that that relationship is "real".
My point is that to claim that numbers and relationships between then
exists a priori to any means of associating "meaningfulness" to them is
self-stultifying, especially claims that reduce those to whom
"meaningfulness" matters the most namely "observers. By reducing observers
to mere relationships between numbers and the appearance of change to some
kind of transitivity implicit in these relationships (such as the well
ordering of the Reals) fails when we consider QM, because any casual reader
of a QM test will tell you that observables, prior to the specification of a
particular means to make a measurement and the actual implementation of the
measurement, have a complex value. Complex numbers, as we know, do not have
a well order; where then are we to find a source for the illusion of time?
Something actually has to move and change, and as I have railed before
in many polemics, so why not drop the pretension that physicality is merely
epiphenomena and consider the mere possibility, even if for the sake of
discussion here, that the physical world and all manner of material process
has the same ontological status as Mathematical relationships. In so doing
we might not need to resort to so much hand-waving. ;-)
> [SPK]
>> Just because all possible TMs *could* get some measure of runtime,
>> since we are assuming from the beginning that there exists some form
>> of hardware, does not mean that they can all be implemented. The
>> most notorious case are TMs that ask the question "Do I halt?"...
> [Brian]
> A TM that asks "Do I halt" may get a definite answer because it is
> only one algorithm - the algorithm of that TM - that is under
> consideration. The problem is that we cannot write a TM to decide
> whether *any* given TM will halt. No such TM exists, so of course it
> will never be implemented.
[SPK]
Let us consider exactly what it would mean for one TM to communicate
with another. It is there, I argue, that the any kind of Ideal monism
collapses into mere world play! Unless a TM has some means to cause some
causally meaningful change in another TM, is it even possible to consider
inter-TM communication? If so, I would truly like to know! One might argue
that the physical world is necessary if only to act as an interface between
one TM and another!
See:
http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/publ/2000-interface.htm
> [SPK]
>> We need to be very careful that we are not assuming infinite
>> resources for our TMs to run on, the computationalist equivalent of
>> a Perpetual Motion Machine. We need to seriously consider that even
>> our Holiest of TMs > is subservient to Thermodynamic laws. Have we
>> learned nothing from the Maxwell Demon?
> [Brian]
> My justification for the statement that all possible TM's will get
> some runtime comes from the Turing Principle which predicts that a
> universal computer will be realized, and possibly realized in all
> universes. So there is no bound to the number of computations that
> will be performed in this universe and others. Hence all possible TMs
> will be implemented, even if some of those don't get implemented until
> near the end of the universe.
[SPK]
But exactly what does "will be realized mean" if there is no "hardware"
that equal ontological status with the universal computer software, e.g. the
bitstrings or numebrs themselves?
> [SPK]
>> Regarding sim virtual worlds, It can be easily argued that, given
>> sufficient computational resources, the differences that can be
>> found, noticed, measure or know by any 1st person means of
>> distinguishing virtual worlds from "real" worlds vanish.
> [Brian]
> Yes, indeed.
[SPK]
Does this principle have a name?
> [SPK]
>> We need to be very careful that we are not elevating our internally
>> generated abstraction of being able to "peek into the world from the
>> outside" and yet be independent of it into a postulate.
> [Brian]
> I agree. And I think what is missing in Bruno's stuff is some theory
> of what an observer is. That's what sets the whole thing alight.
[SPK]
Finding a consistent theory of an observer is my obsession! ;-) Thus I
am very attentive to ideas that are related to the notion of observers, even
those of Bruno. ;-)
> [SPK]
>> As was discovered
>> in the case of the Maxwell Demon, the very act of observation or,
>> equivalently!, simulation of the "world in a fishbowl" has a
>> thermodynamic "cost associated with it that can not be dispelled by
>> appeals to abstract notions of a Platonia. ;-)
> [Brian]
> Yes, when we run a sim, we out here in the "real" world bear a
> thermodynamic cost. And if we are sim's, someone presumably is bearing
> the cost of us. Thermodynamics doesn't seem to arise in any obvious
> way from maths. I can sort of formulate an answer to this problem, but
> I'll save it because it hasn't been toilet trained yet :)
[SPK]
And that lack of an equivalent to a thermodynamic cost in mathematics
irritates me. There has been some work by Jakko Hintikka, Johan van Benthem
and others that seems to make some strides in alleviating my allergy that
compares the "truth" of a given theorem to a game that pits agents trying to
prove a given statement against agents trying to falsify it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0198243642/qid=1115327279/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-0377837-8574321?v=glance&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521624983/qid=1115327178/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0377837-8574321?v=glance&s=books
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~johan/H-H.pdf
If we combine this game theoretic view with some form of notion of
entropy associated with the activities of the agents we might just discover
that thermodynamics holds sway even in that lofty Platonic realm. ;-)
> [SPK]
>> To put is bluntly, the question [of what Charlie sim should expect
>> to see] is meaningful only if a 3rd person
>> method is available with which to establish falsifiable the content
>> of the virtual world, if one can somehow "unplug" oneself from the
>> Matrix, but even then we have no way of being absolutely sure that
>> the "unplugged world" isn't just another more sophisticated
>> simulacrum. ;-)
> [Brian]
> No, there is no way to unplug oneself from the Matrix. It's platonic
> turtles all the way down.
[SPK]
Sure, I like non-well founded sets. ;-) But nevertheless, there is a
"cost" that must be paid for the act of emulating that takes place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL
>
>> Stepping back from writing this, it is easy to presume that I am
>> merely playing with words and/or being clever, but really: what in
>> the world am I to do with this idea of propping up the totality of
>> my 1st person experience, inconsistent and obstinate as it may be,
>> with the most tenuous of vapors, the mere a priori possibility of a
>> string of ones and zeros that somehow can exactly represent the
>> totality of my life, as if I am just watching a DVD: "This is your
>> Life: Stephen Paul King". Something about this disturbs me in ways
>> that I have a problem even putting into words.
> [Brian]
> Nice polemic! It gives me the heebe-jeebies too! It is profoundly
> disturbing. But if it is really what gives at the most fundamental
> level, then we've got no choice but to swallow the pill. Ultimately,
> I'm sure, we would see its beauty.
[SPK]
Make my Pill a Red one, please. ;-)
http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php
> [SPK]
>> About the idea of nested simulations: It can be easily proven that
>> if one has access to infinite computational resources, there exists
>> TM that code for infinite regress; simulations of machines
>> simulating machines simulating machines, ad infinitum.
> [Brian]
> Yes, I can see that quite easily.
[SPK]
Cool!
>
>> A couple of friends of mine, Paul Hanna and David Woolsey pointed
>> out this some time ago and even helped me work out an algebra of
>> sorts that represent the various aspect that the idea of simulating
>> simulations can manifest. If we assume that only finite resources
>> are available for the "hardware" implementing these simulations it
>> is easy to see that some form of truncation will, inevitably, occur
>> thus solving the "problem" of infinite regress.
> [Brian]
> Also easy to see, but you run foul of the Turing Principle if you
> assume the universe will not perform an infinite number of
> computations in the limit.
[SPK]
No, I run afoul of the assumption that computations can somehow occur
with zero thermodynamic costs! We have banished Perpetual Motion from
science but it still haunts Mathematics!
>
>> One question I have is: Could it be that the reason why we have
>> experiences of a finite universe stem from some underlying finite
>> limit on the ability of one computation to emulate another? If we
>> turn to networks of computers we see all kinds of limiting factors:
>> concurrency, synchronization issues, translation barriers, etc. If
>> we are going to take the Computational paradigm seriously, do not we
>> also have to take all of it, not just the Platonic best parts?
> [Brian]
> Again, I'm going to throw the Turing Principle at you.
[SPK]
And, again, I am going to demand a theory that explains how one Pure
Number can communicate with another! Dovetailers don't pass muster for me!
> [Brian]
> I'm running out of time, so I'll have to end there. I'll try to give
> some answers on the points you raised on Russell's stuff later, but
> that needs some study!
>
[SPK]
Thank you, I appreciate your comments on those points because those are
the ones that I have the least confidence in; they relate to possible
contradictions in my thesis.
Kindest regards,
Stephen
Received on Thu May 05 2005 - 17:44:53 PDT