Against Physics

[Rex Allen]

Against Physics

Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my
conclusion:

So the world that I perceive seems pretty orderly.  When I drive to
work, it's always where I expect it to be.  The people are always the
same.  I pick up where I left off on the previous day, and life
generally proceeds in an orderly and predictable way.  Even when
something unexpected happens, I can generally trace back along a chain
of cause and effect and determine why it happened, and understand both
why I didn't expect it and why I probably could have.

In my experience thus far, there have been no "Alice in Wonderland"
style white rabbits that suddenly appear in a totally inexplicable
way, make a few cryptic remarks while checking their pocket watch, and
then scurry off.

Why do I never see such white rabbits?

Well, at first glance, something like physicalism seems like the
obvious choice to explain my reality's perceived order - to explain
both what I experience AND what I *don't* experience.  The world is
reducible to fundamental particles (waves, strings, whatever) which
have certain properties (mass, velocity, spin, charge, etc) that
determine how they interact, and it all adds up to what I see.

In this view, what I see is ultimately determined by the starting
conditions of the universe, plus the physical laws that govern the
interaction of the fundamental elements of the universe, applied over
how-many-ever billions of years.  While no explanation is given for
the initial conditions, or why the fundamental laws of physics are
what they are, if you get past that then from a cause-and-effect stand
point physicalism offers a pretty solid explanation for why my world
is orderly and predictable, and why I don't see white rabbits.

And in the form of functionalism/computationalism + evolution it even
offers a pretty good foundation for explaining the existence and
mechanism of human behavior and ability.

But physicalism has a major drawback:  It doesn't obviously explain
the experience of consciousness that goes with human behavior and
ability.  Particles, waves, mass, spin, velocity...no matter how you
add them up, there doesn't seem to be any way to get conscious
experience.

Which is a problem, since consciousness is the portal through which we
access everything else.  My conscious experience is what I know.  I
"know" of other things only when they force themselves (or are forced)
into my conscious awareness.

So, physicalism does explain why we see, what we see, and why we don't
see white rabbits.  But it doesn't seem to explain the conscious
experience OF seeing what we see.

Further, by positing an independently existing and well ordered
external universe to explain our orderly perceptions, we have just
pushed the question back one level.  The new questions are, why does
this external universe exist and why is it so orderly?  BUT, this
initially seems justified by the fact that physicalism explains how it
is possible for us to make correct predictions.

BUT, actually it explains nothing.

Nothing has been explained because we are PART of the system that we
are trying to explain by appealing to physicalism.  If the order and
predictability of our experiences are due to the initial conditions of
the universe and the laws of physics, then we inhabit a universe whose
entire future, including our existence and all of our activities and
experiences, is fixed.  Frozen in place by unbreakable causal
chains.

Effectively (and maybe actually), the entire future of the universe
can be seen as existing simultaneously with its beginning.  We could
just as well say that the entire past, present, and future came into
being at one instant, and we are just experiencing our portion of it
in slices.

But there is no "explanation" here.  This "block universe" just IS.
It just exists.  It came into being for no reason, for no purpose,
with no meaning.  It exists in the form that it does, and there is no
answer to the question "why?".  We are part of that universe, existing
entirely within it and contained by it.  Therefore we also just
exist.  For no reason, for no purpose, with no meaning, our future
history also frozen in place by causal chains.  What is true for the
universe as a whole is true for it's contents.

Any explanation we derive is purely local to our particular
viewpoint.  In reality there is no explanation.  Explanations are as
subjective as experience.  Of course this doesn't mean that I get to
pick my preferred explanations, BUT I don't get to pick my experiences
either.

To try an make what I'm saying more clear:  let's imagine a real
block.  Say, a block of speckled granite.  Now let's consider two
adjacent specks of white and gray.  Why are they adjacent?  What
caused them to be adjacent?  Well, if we consider this block of
granite within the context of our universe, then we can say that there
is a reason in that context as to why they are adjacent.  There is an
explanation, which has to do with the laws of physics and the
contingent details of the geologic history of the area where this
block of granite was formed (which is in turn derived from the
contingent details of the initial state of our entire universe).

BUT if we take this block of granite to be something that just exists,
uncaused and unique, like our universe, then there can be no
explanation.  The two specks are just adjacent.  That's it.  No
further explanation is possible.  The block of granite just exists as
it is and that's the way it is.  We CAN say something like, "there's a
vein of white and a vein of gray in this block, and those two specks
exist at the boundary of the veins and so they are adjacent", BUT
while this sounds like an explanation, it really is just a statement
of observed fact.  It doesn't "explain" anything.  And even this
observation is made from "outside" the block, an option not available
with our universe.

If some sort of conscious intelligence exists within speck patterns of
the 2-D slices of the granite block (2-D because we've lost a
dimension on our example...the third spatial dimension of the block
will be time for these speck-beings), then who knows whether they will
even be conscious of being made from specs of granite and of existing
within this granite block with it's grey and white veins.  Maybe the
speck-patterns that they are formed from will be such that their
experience is of living in a 3+1 dimensional world such as ours.  But
regardless, there can be no explanation as to why their experiences
are what they are.  Their experiences will be as uncaused as the
existence of the block whose speckled nature gives rise to those
experiences.

So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
our conscious experience just exists.  Why are my perceptions orderly
and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
experience exists uncaused.


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen314@... wrote:

> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
> our conscious experience just exists.  Why are my perceptions orderly
> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
> experience exists uncaused.



This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism.

I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power.

A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each  
other.

A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest.

A  power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like  
all power)).

Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can  
measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live,  
and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science  
suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science  
"automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to  
other possible universal machines. Then theoretical computer science  
can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its  
reason, purpose and power. This explains the mind, but we get the  
problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the  
physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and  
white noises. Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self-
differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if  
we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an  
unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws  
from computer science and logic alone. But now that explanation can be  
tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates  
we don't have to abandon rationalism.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Brent Meeker-2]

rexallen314@... wrote:
> Against Physics
>
> Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my
> conclusion:
...
> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
> our conscious experience just exists.  

If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage.

Brent

>Why are my perceptions orderly
> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
> experience exists uncaused.

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:
>
> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage.

If that's what the future held for me, then that's exactly what I
would do.   Otherwise, I wouldn't do that, since it wouldn't be in my
future.

Your advice is beneficial only to those who receive it and benefit
from it.  Please keep this in mind in the future, if that is what is
in your future.


On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:

>
> rexallen314@... wrote:
>> Against Physics
>>
>> Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my
>> conclusion:
> ...
>> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
>> our conscious experience just exists.
>
> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage.
>
> Brent
>
>>Why are my perceptions orderly
>> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
>> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
>> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
>> experience exists uncaused.
>
> >
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

Brent,

BTW, this was intended as a (mostly) sincere response to your point.


On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:55 AM, Rex Allen<rexallen314@...> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:
>>
>> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage.
>
> If that's what the future held for me, then that's exactly what I
> would do.   Otherwise, I wouldn't do that, since it wouldn't be in my
> future.
>
> Your advice is beneficial only to those who receive it and benefit
> from it.  Please keep this in mind in the future, if that is what is
> in your future.
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:
>>
>> rexallen314@... wrote:
>>> Against Physics
>>>
>>> Let me go through my full chain of reasoning here, before I draw my
>>> conclusion:
>> ...
>>> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
>>> our conscious experience just exists.
>>
>> If you suffer epileptic seizures seeing a neurosurgeon may offer considerable advantage.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>>Why are my perceptions orderly
>>> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
>>> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
>>> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
>>> experience exists uncaused.
>>
>> >>
>>
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...> wrote:

>
>
> On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen314@... wrote:
>
>> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
>> our conscious experience just exists.  Why are my perceptions orderly
>> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
>> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
>> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
>> experience exists uncaused.
>
>
>
> This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism.

Ha!  Well, maybe.  What is the flaw that you see in my reasoning?

I think that both the argument and conclusion are rational, just not intuitive.


So earlier you asked this:

> By the way, what is the status of your theory with respect to comp?

Which in part prompted this new thread.

So I think that one of the things that we can be conscious of is a
descriptive theory referred to as "comp" that attempts to map the
contents of our "conscious experience over time" to
mathematically/logically defined "machines".

And, I will not be surprised if you or someone else is ultimately
successful in doing so.  But while this would be interesting, I don't
think that it means anything deeper.  All that it will mean is "look,
here's an interesting way of representing the contents of your
conscious experience over time".

It would just be a way of representing what "is".  By which I mean:
It would just be a way of representing conscious experience.


>
> I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power.
>
> A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each
> other.

This doesn't sound like a "reason" to me.  It sounds like an
observation, along the lines of "adjacent gray and white veins exist
within this block of granite" (from my original post).


>
> A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest.

This purpose would only exist as part of someone's conscious
experience.  The desire for truth and/or satisfaction are things that
only exist in the context of conscious experience.


>
> A  power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like
> all power)).

I'm not sure what you mean by this.


>
> Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can
> measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live,
> and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science
> suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science
> "automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to
> other possible universal machines.

So our machineness precedes our conscious experience?  Machines are
more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
representing conscious experience?


> Then theoretical computer science
> can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its
> reason, purpose and power.

I don't see that it explains anything.  Though it may be a
useful/enjoyable way of thinking about the contents of our conscious
experience.


> This explains the mind, but we get the
> problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the
> physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and
> white noises.

So it seems to me that you aren't explaining the fact that we have
experiences.  It seems to me that you are focused entirely on finding
a way of generating mathematical/logical representations of what you
and I experience that doesn't also generate representations of strange
white-rabbit experiences.


> Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self-
> differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if
> we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an
> unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws
> from computer science and logic alone.

The physical laws can't be explained except in terms of other
unexplained laws, as mentioned in my previous post.

Though, I'd say that physical laws can't be explained because they
only exist in our perceptions, which are themselves uncaused and
therefore unexplainable.


> But now that explanation can be
> tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates
> we don't have to abandon rationalism.

I think the rational conclusion from what we perceive is that
conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused.

You are saying that consciousness is NOT fundamental, and thus it IS
caused.  By...numbers?

I think that you are mistaking representation for causation.  Even if
numbers exist in some platonic sense, and can be related in a way that
can be seen as mirroring, representing, or even predicting my
conscious experience...I think that all this shows is that math/logic
is a really flexible tool for representing processes, relationships,
patterns, etc.

As far as the significance of accurate predictions, I refer you back
to the last paragraph of my original post.  You read the part about
the granite block, right?  Though, I do need to find some more
succinct way of stating that point that doesn't require the setup of
all the preceding paragraphs.

Hmmmm.

ALSO, this discussion between Sean Carroll and Mark Trodden was great,
and I think goes with my original post pretty well, especially the
last third of their discussion.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21709

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Aug 2009, at 08:41, Rex Allen wrote:

>
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...>  
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen314@... wrote:
>>
>>> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
>>> our conscious experience just exists.  Why are my perceptions  
>>> orderly
>>> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
>>> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true  
>>> whether
>>> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
>>> experience exists uncaused.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism.
>
>
> Ha!  Well, maybe.  What is the flaw that you see in my reasoning?
>
> I think that both the argument and conclusion are rational, just not  
> intuitive.

I don't see the theory. What do you ask us to agree on, if only for  
the sake of the argument.
In the conclusion I don't understand the last sentence, which seems to  
me a proposition for abandoning theorizing in that field.

>
>
>
> So earlier you asked this:
>
>> By the way, what is the status of your theory with respect to comp?
>
> Which in part prompted this new thread.
>
> So I think that one of the things that we can be conscious of is a
> descriptive theory referred to as "comp" that attempts to map the
> contents of our "conscious experience over time" to
> mathematically/logically defined "machines".

No, comp is a "theology" in which you believe that you can survive a  
concrete artificial brain/body transplants.
comp does not attempt this, it presupposes a level where it can be  
done. Among the first consequences appears the fact that such an  
attempt provably necessitates an act of faith.

>
>
> And, I will not be surprised if you or someone else is ultimately
> successful in doing so.

Being successful here means only being able to explain (physical)  
observations. It is already successful in explaining the existence of  
sensations, and in situating quanta with respect to qualia.


> But while this would be interesting, I don't
> think that it means anything deeper.  All that it will mean is "look,
> here's an interesting way of representing the contents of your
> conscious experience over time".

Not at all, the comp theory, thanks to its Church Thesis part, and  
some mathematical logic, is particularly cautious in distinguishing  
the representation and the represented, and what will and will not  
depend on the choice of representations. By definition of comp we bet  
that there is a digital representation correct with respect to the  
most probable local universal number, or computation, but the comp  
theory, which is just computer science/number theory/mathematical  
logic will still take the many nuances into account.
For example: it is a theorem, not depending of the choice of any  
representation that all universal machines have to have a local  
representation to develop a third person notion.


>
>
> It would just be a way of representing what "is".  By which I mean:
> It would just be a way of representing conscious experience.

Comp explains, or if you prefer, the Löbian machine can already  
explains, about simpler Löbian machines, why those simpler machine  
cannot represent their notions of truth and consciousness.  
Consciousness of machine M is not representable by machine M.
Comp provides a theory of consciousness, and this theory prevents us  
to represent our consciousness, except by betting on a sufficiently  
low level description and making an act of faith. A Löbian machine, I  
recall, is a universal machine which can prove (in technical weak  
sense) that she is universal. Most known Löbian machine are Peano  
Arithmetic and Zermelo Frankel Set Theory.

>
>
>
>>
>> I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power.
>>
>> A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each
>> other.
>
> This doesn't sound like a "reason" to me.  It sounds like an
> observation, along the lines of "adjacent gray and white veins exist
> within this block of granite" (from my original post).

It is a theorem in arithmetic. It is a reason, in the sense that if  
you agree with some axioms of arithmetic, you can agree that those  
universal numbers exist, and contemplate a sequence of unexpected  
facts about them.


>
>
>
>>
>> A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest.
>
> This purpose would only exist as part of someone's conscious
> experience.  The desire for truth and/or satisfaction are things that
> only exist in the context of conscious experience.

OK. No problem.


>
>
>
>>
>> A  power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like
>> all power)).
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Hmm... I refer often to another result by Gödel, or similar discovered  
by Blum and others in computer science, that universal machine/number  
are infinity accelerable, and that lobian machine can shorten  
arbitrarily the length of infinities of theorems. Consciousness can be  
related by the inference of self-consistency, and it makes the machine  
able to add that consistency as new belief leading to a new machine  
provably more powerful, in its communicating or proving abilities, in  
the length or speed of proofs, and the same occur for its anticipating  
abilities, by a theorem of Royer.
Consciousness has probably developed with the relatively self-moving  
entities for letting them anticipate their neighborhoods more and more  
quickly. Comp explain both the role of consciousness and the reason  
why we cannot really defined it or capture the notion in any formal  
theory. Consciousness escapes representation, but feed on  
representations.

>
>
>
>>
>> Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can
>> measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live,
>> and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science
>> suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science
>> "automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to
>> other possible universal machines.
>
> So our machineness precedes our conscious experience?

Assuming comp:
 From the third person sharable ontology you are right. First the  
numbers, then consciousness.
 From the first person point of view it is the contrary. First  
consciousness, then the numbers.
Both view, although contradictories, fit well with what a Löbian  
machine can already explain about itself.
(and fit well with Plotinus amanation/conversion transform


> Machines are
> more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
> representing conscious experience?

Machines/numbers cannot represent conscious experiences. They may live  
them, assuming comp.
They can represent piece of computation, but, those are not  
computation, they are representation of computation. No consciousness  
there. It is a key point to get UDA-8 (the movie graph, MGA).

>
>
>
>> Then theoretical computer science
>> can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its
>> reason, purpose and power.
>
> I don't see that it explains anything.

?

It explains why machine can feel consciousness uncaused, like if they  
could remember in a first person way their belongness to arithmetic.  
Lobian machine can explain a "strangely similar" for simpler or  
actually any "definably correct by definition" Löbian machine. They  
can study themselves and explore their ignorance space.

> Though it may be a
> useful/enjoyable way of thinking about the contents of our conscious
> experience.
>
>
>> This explains the mind, but we get the
>> problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the
>> physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and
>> white noises.
>
> So it seems to me that you aren't explaining the fact that we have
> experiences.

I think this is what comp explain the best, thanks to the (rather  
incredible) discovery of the universal machine(s), and then by the  
work of Gödel, Löb, Solovay, for those universal machines which know  
their are universal.


>  It seems to me that you are focused entirely on finding
> a way of generating mathematical/logical representations of what you
> and I experience that doesn't also generate representations of strange
> white-rabbit experiences.

I reduce the mind-body into a body problem.

What I say is just: oh look, if brain works like machine then we have  
to justify the appearance of physical laws by numbers only". This is  
UDA. And then I add, "oh look thanks to Gödel, Löb and Solovay we can  
already chat with the Lobian machine, and ask her opinion, and she can  
already explain some feature of physics, up to now confirmed by  
Quantum Mechanics.

>
>
>
>> Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self-
>> differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if
>> we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an
>> unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws
>> from computer science and logic alone.
>
> The physical laws can't be explained except in terms of other
> unexplained laws, as mentioned in my previous post.

Of course. Without theory (axioms) we cannot explain anything. But  
here the unexplained laws are just succession, addition, and  
multiplication. Without them or equivalent, we just cannot get them.

Any one believing that the concept of prime number makes sense,  
already believe in the theory. With comp, we can say that the theory  
of everything is already taught in high school, although not presented  
in that way, of course.




>
>
> Though, I'd say that physical laws can't be explained because they
> only exist in our perceptions,


Comp forces us to (re)define physics as what is first person  
observable by ALL universal machine.
Physics loses its status of fundamental science, but is elevated as  
sharable laws of arithmetic ("seen from inside").
All the rest is contingent geographies.




> which are themselves uncaused and
> therefore unexplainable.

They are uncaused "physically", but comp explains their logic-
arithmetical origin, which is beyond time and space. Indeed time and  
space appears as inside first person psycho-theo-bio-logical category  
(a place where people can easily fight on voacabularies).
Consciousness is a mathematical phenomenon, a fixed point of self-
doubting, an elementary belief in a reality if not the reality of the  
doubter.


>
>
>
>> But now that explanation can be
>> tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates
>> we don't have to abandon rationalism.
>
> I think the rational conclusion from what we perceive is that
> conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused.

Comp can make the conscious experience much more fundamental than the  
Aristotelian materialist usually think, yet consciousness is  
arithmetically "caused". It is an attribute of universal machine (in  
an even weaker sense than usual) related to their ideal self-
consistency. It generates the belief in a reality, and the infinities  
of corrections which ensue.


>
>
> You are saying that consciousness is NOT fundamental, and thus it IS
> caused.  By...numbers?

Together with succession, addition and multiplication. In classical  
logic.


>
>
> I think that you are mistaking representation for causation.

I don't think so at all. On the contrary, I even distinguish a  
computation and a representation of a computation, like I distinguish  
numbers and their relation with representations of numbers and  
representations of their relations. It is where mathematical logicians  
have an advantage, because such distinction is the key to comprehend  
most results in logic.
I know some have still problem with this in step 7 and 8, and that's  
why I propose a few math and logic.



> Even if
> numbers exist in some platonic sense, and can be related in a way that
> can be seen as mirroring, representing, or even predicting my
> conscious experience...I think that all this shows is that math/logic
> is a really flexible tool for representing processes, relationships,
> patterns, etc.

I am afraid you underestimate mathematical logic. I would defined it  
here as the science of the relation between realities and their  
possible representations. Comp makes possible to, exploit this to put  
many light on the hard problem of consciousness. It explains there is  
a an unbridgeable personal third person gap, and how the first person  
can bridge it, yet.

>
>
> As far as the significance of accurate predictions, I refer you back
> to the last paragraph of my original post.  You read the part about
> the granite block, right?  Though, I do need to find some more
> succinct way of stating that point that doesn't require the setup of
> all the preceding paragraphs.
>
> Hmmmm.
>
> ALSO, this discussion between Sean Carroll and Mark Trodden was great,
> and I think goes with my original post pretty well, especially the
> last third of their discussion.
>
> http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21709

I did not see the relation with consciousness. Physicsts, thanks to  
Everett and decoherence explains rather well the disappearance of the  
observable white rabbits, and this in a elegant way (phases  
randomization of waves of coherent interactions), this may explain why  
apparently we live in a quantum universal machine. My point is just  
that if you "say yes to the digital medication", then we have to  
justify that quantum universal machine from a sum on all classical  
computations.

Bit from qubit, is already understood,
I say comp gives an inverse, Qubit from bit, and that its main  
usefulness is that the inverse is enriched by its distinction between  
the sharable quanta and its incommunicable qualia extension. This is  
AUDA where the modalities are given by two mathematical theories of  
self-reference G and G*.

Assuming comp you can no more invoke quantum fluctuations, you have to  
derive them from universal specification. That works not too bad.

I don't like the idea to consider matter as fundamental, 'cause I want  
an explanation there.
I don't like the idea to put consciousness as fundamental, ' cause I  
want an explanation, there too.

I like numbers and their relations as fundamental, because many  
persons can share them, and tshare heir beliefs on them, and yet  
numbers and their relation have been discovered to lead to  
uncomputable richness. Besides, betting on comp makes me bet that I  
am , well not really one of them, but (one of them) multiplied by  
infinities.

Comp invites to study theoretical computer science.

And computer can already shows us the infinite complex border of a  
simple universal thing, like an iterated enlargement of the Mandelbrot  
Set:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C95kKDH-ecc&feature=channel_page

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[david.nyman]

On 9 Aug, 07:41, Rex Allen <rexallen...@...> wrote:

Rex, just a few general points on your posts.  The various 'existence'
arguments I've been putting forward recently are intended precisely to
show how our first-person world of meaning and intention is embedded
in a more general environment that is congruent with, rather than
alien to, these self-evident features.  What of course is striking
about your proposals is that in reality nobody behaves as though they
believe this sort of thing: which is not of course to say that this
makes it uninteresting.  In fact exactly the opposite: the very fact
that the world according to physics presents itself in this chilling
way makes challenging its assumptions all the more urgent.

Hence my attempts to pump intuitions about the source of the presence,
self-access and self-motivation inherent in the ontologically real, as
contrasted with the provisional and fundamentally epistemological
status of the theoretical constructions of physics.  By ontologically
real I mean of course what is self-evident in the form of the
ontological first person.  And in fact it really doesn't take that
much intuitive tweaking to achieve this, whether applied to the
putative primitive entities of physics, comp, or any other schema.
Essentially the intuition is that these primitives reduce in the final
analysis to the self-encounter of a primary, self-evident continuum:
i.e. a primitive self-relativisation that collapses both perception
(primitive self-access) and intention (primitive self-action)  Such a
self-relativising duality of continuousness and discreteness is
indispensable to any personal account of 'owned' experience and
action, via the inheritance of such ownership from the primitive
context.  From this it can naturally follow that whatever is perceived
is MY perception, whatever is done is MY action, and whatever is
determined is MY determination.

The key to seeing this is a simple appeal to the reductio ad
absurdum.  Just assume the opposite (as the dogma asserts) and - pouf!
- the very appearance and sensation of anything whatsoever is
irretrievably lost.   And it turns out that this assuming of the
opposite is quite unjustified by the facts.  It is merely the dogmatic
adoption of the externalised 'view from nowhere' - a useful heuristic
in context - as a universal alethiometer.   Of course, these basic
concepts find historic kinship with Vedantic and Buddhist insights,
and in the Western tradition via Plotinus, Kant, et al - and even in
the world-views of practising physicists such as Schroedinger and
Eddington..

I wonder if I can encourage you to take a break from contemplating the
block universe 'out there' and meditate on the intrinsic inwardness
that lies all around us?

David

> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Bruno Marchal<marc...@...> wrote:
>
> > On 08 Aug 2009, at 22:44, rexallen...@... wrote:
>
> >> So physicalism in fact offers no advantage over just asserting that
> >> our conscious experience just exists.  Why are my perceptions orderly
> >> and why are my predictions about what will happen next usually
> >> correct?  Because that's just the way it is...and this is true whether
> >> you posit an external universe or just conclude that conscious
> >> experience exists uncaused.
>
> > This is not against physicalism, it is again rationalism.
>
> Ha!  Well, maybe.  What is the flaw that you see in my reasoning?
>
> I think that both the argument and conclusion are rational, just not intuitive.
>
> So earlier you asked this:
>
> > By the way, what is the status of your theory with respect to comp?
>
> Which in part prompted this new thread.
>
> So I think that one of the things that we can be conscious of is a
> descriptive theory referred to as "comp" that attempts to map the
> contents of our "conscious experience over time" to
> mathematically/logically defined "machines".
>
> And, I will not be surprised if you or someone else is ultimately
> successful in doing so.  But while this would be interesting, I don't
> think that it means anything deeper.  All that it will mean is "look,
> here's an interesting way of representing the contents of your
> conscious experience over time".
>
> It would just be a way of representing what "is".  By which I mean:
> It would just be a way of representing conscious experience.
>
>
>
> > I would say that consciousness has a reason, a purpose, and a power.
>
> > A reason: the many universal numbers and the way they reflect each
> > other.
>
> This doesn't sound like a "reason" to me.  It sounds like an
> observation, along the lines of "adjacent gray and white veins exist
> within this block of granite" (from my original post).
>
>
>
> > A purpose: truth quest, satisfaction quest.
>
> This purpose would only exist as part of someone's conscious
> experience.  The desire for truth and/or satisfaction are things that
> only exist in the context of conscious experience.
>
>
>
> > A  power: relative self-acceleration (can lead to catastrophes, (like
> > all power)).
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.
>
>
>
> > Physicists explain by finding elegant laws relating the quanta we can
> > measure, but fail indeed linking those quanta to the qualia we live,
> > and fail saying where those quanta comes from. But computer science
> > suggest a solution, we are universal machine mirroring doing science
> > "automatically" betting on "big picture" all the time, relatively to
> > other possible universal machines.
>
> So our machineness precedes our conscious experience?  Machines are
> more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
> representing conscious experience?
>
> > Then theoretical computer science
> > can explain why we feel consciousness unexplainable and explain its
> > reason, purpose and power.
>
> I don't see that it explains anything.  Though it may be a
> useful/enjoyable way of thinking about the contents of our conscious
> experience.
>
> > This explains the mind, but we get the
> > problem of justifying the computability and the existence of the
> > physical laws from a vast set of computations. The white rabbits and
> > white noises.
>
> So it seems to me that you aren't explaining the fact that we have
> experiences.  It seems to me that you are focused entirely on finding
> a way of generating mathematical/logical representations of what you
> and I experience that doesn't also generate representations of strange
> white-rabbit experiences.
>
> > Those universal machine are self-multiplying and self-
> > differencing infinitely often in arithmetic. This is a big price: if
> > we are machine (a theory which explains consciousness as an
> > unconscious bet on a reality), we have to explain the physical laws
> > from computer science and logic alone.
>
> The physical laws can't be explained except in terms of other
> unexplained laws, as mentioned in my previous post.
>
> Though, I'd say that physical laws can't be explained because they
> only exist in our perceptions, which are themselves uncaused and
> therefore unexplainable.
>
> > But now that explanation can be
> > tested in nature, making that theory refutable. And this illustrates
> > we don't have to abandon rationalism.
>
> I think the rational conclusion from what we perceive is that
> conscious experience is fundamental and uncaused.
>
> You are saying that consciousness is NOT fundamental, and thus it IS
> caused.  By...numbers?
>
> I think that you are mistaking representation for causation.  Even if
> numbers exist in some platonic sense, and can be related in a way that
> can be seen as mirroring, representing, or even predicting my
> conscious experience...I think that all this shows is that math/logic
> is a really flexible tool for representing processes, relationships,
> patterns, etc.
>
> As far as the significance of accurate predictions, I refer you back
> to the last paragraph of my original post.  You read the part about
> the granite block, right?  Though, I do need to find some more
> succinct way of stating that point that doesn't require the setup of
> all the preceding paragraphs.
>
> Hmmmm.
>
> ALSO, this discussion between Sean Carroll and Mark Trodden was great,
> and I think goes with my original post pretty well, especially the
> last third of their discussion.
>
> http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21709

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...> wrote:
>
> I don't see the theory. What do you ask us to agree on, if only for
> the sake of the argument.

So, while the contents of my experience...the things that I'm
conscious OF are complex and structured, my conscious experience of
these things is singular and indivisible.

As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
itself is uncaused and fundamental.

Given that conscious experience is uncaused, it can't be explained in
terms of other things, like quarks and electromagnetism or numbers and
arithmetic.

Uncaused things can't be explained.  They just are.

So what causes the complexity and structure of the things that I am
conscious of?  Nothing.  That's just the way my experience is.

No explanation can be given for uncaused fundamental events or
entities.  And further, no meaningful explanation can be given for
events or entities that are themselves *wholly* caused by uncaused
events.  These things just are.

So let's say a closed system of entities comes into being uncaused.
Any properties that the individual components of this system have are
also uncaused, and the ways that the components interact are uncaused
as well.  This system is a universe unto itself.

So I am saying that no matter how this system evolves, no aspect of
the system can ever be given a meaningful explanation.  The
meaningless of it's initial state means that all subsequent states are
equally meaningless in an absolute sense.  All that we can do is
describe what the system does.  But description is not explanation.
Further, even if the system seems predictable, there is no reason to
think that it will continue in it's predicitablity.  And neither is
there any reason to think that it won't continue it's predictable
pattern.  The system follows it's own "uncaused" rules, which we may
be able to guess at, but which we cannot know, due to the system's
fundamentally uncaused nature.

I think this is more obvious if you look at the system as a "block
universe", where time is treated as a sort of spatial dimension, and
so all states of the system exist simultaneously, like my previous
example of the block of granite.  Why does state B follow state A?
Why is slice B adjacent to slice A?  Because that's just the way this
uncaused system is.

Looking for meaning in the system is like looking for hidden messages
in randomly generated character strings.  You may find them, but the
messages can not have any real meaning, no matter how meaningful they
look.


> In the conclusion I don't understand the last sentence, which seems to
> me a proposition for abandoning theorizing in that field.

Well, the search for a theoretical model that is fully consistent what
what we consciously observed is still a reasonable goal in terms of
challenging intellectual endeavor.  And if that's what your future
conscious experiences hold for you, then that's what you will do (no
free will here).


>> Machines are
>> more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
>> representing conscious experience?
>
> Machines/numbers cannot represent conscious experiences.

You are correct, I misspoke.  I should have said "machines are just a
way of representing the CONTENTS of conscious experience."


> Comp can make the conscious experience much more fundamental than the
> Aristotelian materialist usually think, yet consciousness is
> arithmetically "caused". It is an attribute of universal machine (in
> an even weaker sense than usual) related to their ideal self-
> consistency. It generates the belief in a reality, and the infinities
> of corrections which ensue.

To me this has as much of an "explanatory gap" as materialism.
Consciousness is caused by arithmetical relationships?  Why would this
be?  Why would arithmetical relationships result in conscious
experience?

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:35 PM, David Nyman<david.nyman@...> wrote
>
> What of course is striking
> about your proposals is that in reality nobody behaves as though they
> believe this sort of thing: which is not of course to say that this
> makes it uninteresting.

You speak as if though we have a choice as to how we behave!  This I
can't see at all.

Whether our behavior is caused subatomic particles or arithmetic, or
is completely uncaused, there is no room for libertarian free will.


> I wonder if I can encourage you to take a break from contemplating the
> block universe 'out there' and meditate on the intrinsic inwardness
> that lies all around us?

Well, I'm just using the block universe as a way of trying to make my
point more clear.

My point being that consciousness is fundamental and uncaused.

My secondary point being that even if consciousness is NOT
fundamental, then it is STILL ultimately uncaused if it results from
any system that is itself uncaused...

My tertiary point being that if we have no evidence which points one
way or the other between consciousness being fundamental or not, the
default position would seem to be that it is fundamental.

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[david.nyman]

2009/8/11 Rex Allen <rexallen314@...>:

> You speak as if though we have a choice as to how we behave!  This I
> can't see at all.
>
> Whether our behavior is caused subatomic particles or arithmetic, or
> is completely uncaused, there is no room for libertarian free will.


Whether will is free, and whether it is mine, are different issues.
Complete freedom of will involves a contradiction - randomness is not
choice, and choice always entails constraints.  Indeed it is ironical
that when we are most self-willed we often say how 'determined' we
feel.  Freedom of will consists in my not being prevented from doing
whatsoever I am capable of, and this is something that evolves.  For
example, today I am both capable of, and not prevented from, being in
New York tomorrow; 100 years ago I would not have had such capability,
and hence no freedom in this matter.

However, 'free' or not, the willing can still be *ours*.  The standard
view of physics is that things are causally closed 'out there', and
this seems to rule out that such causation can in any sense be 'owned'
by us.  This is the view that I think is mistaken, precisely because
it is contradicted by our very experience.  And far from being
'illusory', this is the most cogent reason possible to doubt such a
view.  Illusions, it should be recalled, are not incorrect
perceptions; the perceptions are correct, even if the object of
perception is other than we imagine.  And here it is precisely the
ownership self-evidently present to us that requires explanation.

Such an explanation entails that ownership be intrinsic to the whole
of existence, and thus that every "I" is a point-of-view of that
whole, not an isolated soul.

> Well, I'm just using the block universe as a way of trying to make my
> point more clear.
>
> My point being that consciousness is fundamental and uncaused.
>
> My secondary point being that even if consciousness is NOT
> fundamental, then it is STILL ultimately uncaused if it results from
> any system that is itself uncaused...
>
> My tertiary point being that if we have no evidence which points one
> way or the other between consciousness being fundamental or not, the
> default position would seem to be that it is fundamental.

Well of course any regress must stop somewhere, and in this sense
everything is fundamentally uncaused (unless one subscribes to the
magic power of arithmetical truth to pluck up reality by its
hair-roots).  But beyond this, causation still retains a vital sense
in the inter-relation of the essential features of existence.  To be
willing to say nothing on this strikes us more or less dumb, and I
don't think this aspect is what Wittgenstein had in mind in his famous
dictum.

As to whether consciousness is fundamental, there I am in sympathy,
although as you know by now I put a slightly different slant on it by
seeking to show that existence itself is in effect equivalent to what
we call consciousness.  The reason I do this is to eliminate any need
to invoke something like panpsychism as an adjunct to physicalism - in
my view this is tantamount to dualism, with all the incoherencies that
entails.  I don't believe that this is arbitrary in the least: the
notion of a species of 'existence' conceived as totally devoid of
self-access, such as that usually assumed to be implied by physics, is
self-annihilating.  IOW it is an 'existence' that nobody would ever
know about, thus falling victim to Occam's razor in the most egregious
degree.  So on this basis, we may assert two axioms:

1) Existence simply IS a self-causing self-accessing continuity
2) All phenomena appear as self-relativisations of 1)

From these axioms, we can build a subsidiary notion of causation which
achieves 'closure' step-by-step through the indivisibility of
self-cause and self-access.  My contention is that any causal schema
must have these features even to begin to account for our presence in
the context of what we observe.  Having questioned Bruno pretty
closely I now feel reasonably convinced that he takes COMP to fulfil
these criteria via the self-reflecting, self-relating characteristics
of the number realm.  This is not at all to say that COMP is thereby
true; only that it isn't obviously false on this basis.

Standard physicalism, on the other hand, by banishing self-access from
its fundamental notions of causal adequacy (though arrogating the
right to whisk a mysteriously powerless ghost of it back later by
sleight of intuition) is clearly false (incomplete is the more politic
term).  The reason this isn't more widely understood rests of course
on the prestige of science, the authority of which has reached the
point where we're apparently willing to take seriously the absurdity
that the universe is a sterile pointless farago that could as well
play out in the absence of all experience.

BTW Rex, your recent presence on the list has been welcome and
thought-provoking.  It would be interesting to know a little about the
background you bring to your thinking.

David



~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
>  This message is part of the topic "Against Physics" in the Google Group "Everything List"
> for which you requested email updates.
> To stop receiving email updates for this topic, please visit the topic
> at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/62db6d02732f6725
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Aug 2009, at 07:13, Rex Allen wrote:

>
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...>  
> wrote:
>>
>> I don't see the theory. What do you ask us to agree on, if only for
>> the sake of the argument.
>
> So, while the contents of my experience...the things that I'm
> conscious OF are complex and structured, my conscious experience of
> these things is singular and indivisible.

I can be OK with this.


>
>
> As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
> itself is uncaused and fundamental.

This has no meaning for me. It is like saying "don't ask".
Also, what do your theory say about accepting or not an artificial  
brain?

More generally, how do you see the relation between brain and  
conscience?

>
>
> Given that conscious experience is uncaused, it can't be explained in
> terms of other things, like quarks and electromagnetism or numbers and
> arithmetic.

But quarck and electromanetism have been unified, and can be explain  
from more primitive things (group theory, invariance, etc.).

Natural numbers are the rare object which we cannot derive from  
anything simpler. And natural numbers + addition and multiplication  
can explain why it has to be like that. This is indeed an argument for  
accepting numbers, or theories as rich as numbers,  as giving the  
simplest primitive elements.

And since Skolem, Gödel, etc. we know that arithmetical truth is  
*big*. Bigger that what any machine can really explore, but machine  
can dream about it, and get genuine big picture of it.

>
>
> Uncaused things can't be explained.  They just are.
>
> So what causes the complexity and structure of the things that I am
> conscious of?  Nothing.  That's just the way my experience is.

? I can't accept this, because I am interested in the how and why of  
complexity of things and happenings.


>
>
> No explanation can be given for uncaused fundamental events or
> entities.

But what are your assumptions about those entities? You theory does  
look like what the guardian G* tells to the "enlightened machine" G:  
you will not prove your consistency. But the machine can prove that IF  
she is consistent, then G* is right about that. So, on one level, I  
understand why you say so, and at another level I explain why you say  
so.

"understanding" is a complex notion. Theories are not build to  
understand, but to get a coherent (hopefully correct) picture.

> And further, no meaningful explanation can be given for
> events or entities that are themselves *wholly* caused by uncaused
> events.  These things just are.
>
> So let's say a closed system of entities comes into being uncaused.
> Any properties that the individual components of this system have are
> also uncaused, and the ways that the components interact are uncaused
> as well.  This system is a universe unto itself.
>
> So I am saying that no matter how this system evolves, no aspect of
> the system can ever be given a meaningful explanation.

You put something which cannot be explained in the hat.
You get something which cannot be explained in the hat.



> The
> meaningless of it's initial state means that all subsequent states are
> equally meaningless in an absolute sense.  All that we can do is
> describe what the system does.  But description is not explanation.

OK.

>
> Further, even if the system seems predictable, there is no reason to
> think that it will continue in it's predicitablity.  And neither is
> there any reason to think that it won't continue it's predictable
> pattern.  The system follows it's own "uncaused" rules, which we may
> be able to guess at, but which we cannot know, due to the system's
> fundamentally uncaused nature.
>
> I think this is more obvious if you look at the system as a "block
> universe", where time is treated as a sort of spatial dimension, and
> so all states of the system exist simultaneously, like my previous
> example of the block of granite.  Why does state B follow state A?
> Why is slice B adjacent to slice A?  Because that's just the way this
> uncaused system is.

It is big amorphous blob. Weird theory. I don't see the relation with  
the universe, nor even with consciousness.

>
>
> Looking for meaning in the system is like looking for hidden messages
> in randomly generated character strings.  You may find them, but the
> messages can not have any real meaning, no matter how meaningful they
> look.
>
>
>> In the conclusion I don't understand the last sentence, which seems  
>> to
>> me a proposition for abandoning theorizing in that field.
>
> Well, the search for a theoretical model that is fully consistent what
> what we consciously observed is still a reasonable goal in terms of
> challenging intellectual endeavor.  And if that's what your future
> conscious experiences hold for you, then that's what you will do (no
> free will here).

Free will is an oxymoron. "Free" will makes sense for numbers.

>
>
>
>>> Machines are
>>> more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
>>> representing conscious experience?
>>
>> Machines/numbers cannot represent conscious experiences.
>
> You are correct, I misspoke.  I should have said "machines are just a
> way of representing the CONTENTS of conscious experience."

OK. relatively to other universal numbers.

>
>
>
>> Comp can make the conscious experience much more fundamental than the
>> Aristotelian materialist usually think, yet consciousness is
>> arithmetically "caused". It is an attribute of universal machine (in
>> an even weaker sense than usual) related to their ideal self-
>> consistency. It generates the belief in a reality, and the infinities
>> of corrections which ensue.
>
> To me this has as much of an "explanatory gap" as materialism.

Except that comp explains where the gap originates from. Better, it  
gives it a geometry and its relation with the appearances, making the  
theory testable.



>
> Consciousness is caused by arithmetical relationships?  Why would this
> be?


Any rational agent (be it a god or a machine) can understand that once  
we accept a material physical artificial digital brain, then it has to  
be like that. This is in part due to the fact that if the brain act  
digitally, its functioning is entirely equivalent with relation  
between numbers. It is part of computer science. (This is eaxctly what  
I explain now in the seventh thread).




> Why would arithmetical relationships result in conscious
> experience?


Because arithmetical relationship described the theology and the  
science of self-observing machine. No machine can know as such its own  
theology, but machine can get the theological science about simpler  
machine, and then lift its logic on themselves (so they can remain  
consistent in the process), and escape locally the incompleteness.

I am not saying that truth is like that, but that if you say yes to a  
doctor and survive the graft, then it has to be like that.

Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Brent Meeker-2]

Rex Allen wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...> wrote:
>  
>> I don't see the theory. What do you ask us to agree on, if only for
>> the sake of the argument.
>>    
>
> So, while the contents of my experience...the things that I'm
> conscious OF are complex and structured, my conscious experience of
> these things is singular and indivisible.
>
> As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
> itself is uncaused and fundamental.
>
> Given that conscious experience is uncaused, it can't be explained in
> terms of other things, like quarks and electromagnetism or numbers and
> arithmetic.
>
> Uncaused things can't be explained.  They just are.
>  

Didn't anyone ever explain arithmetic or geometry to you?  Not every
explanation needs to be a causal one.   And being uncaused doesn't
prevent explanation - for example decay of an unstable nucleus is
uncaused, i.e. it is random, but it is still explained by quantum mechanics.

I think you point is better made by observing that an explanation must
be of something less known in terms of something better known.  Since
nothing can be better known than our own subjective experience, it
cannot be explained.

I'm not sure I buy that, but I understand it.

Brent

> So what causes the complexity and structure of the things that I am
> conscious of?  Nothing.  That's just the way my experience is.
>
> No explanation can be given for uncaused fundamental events or
> entities.  And further, no meaningful explanation can be given for
> events or entities that are themselves *wholly* caused by uncaused
> events.  These things just are.
>
> So let's say a closed system of entities comes into being uncaused.
> Any properties that the individual components of this system have are
> also uncaused, and the ways that the components interact are uncaused
> as well.  This system is a universe unto itself.
>
> So I am saying that no matter how this system evolves, no aspect of
> the system can ever be given a meaningful explanation.  

Now you've introduced another term "meaningful" explanation.  If one can
understand it, it must be meaningful.

> The
> meaningless of it's initial state means that all subsequent states are
> equally meaningless in an absolute sense.  All that we can do is
> describe what the system does.  But description is not explanation.
>  

It can be if it's a description of something you don't understand in
terms of something you do.

> Further, even if the system seems predictable, there is no reason to
> think that it will continue in it's predicitablity.  

If it has been predictable in the past, that is a reason to think it
will be predictable in the future.  That's virtuous circularity.

> And neither is
> there any reason to think that it won't continue it's predictable
> pattern.  The system follows it's own "uncaused" rules, which we may
> be able to guess at, but which we cannot know, due to the system's
> fundamentally uncaused nature.
>  
You seem to take the position that because knowledge isn't certain no
knowledge is possible.

> I think this is more obvious if you look at the system as a "block
> universe", where time is treated as a sort of spatial dimension, and
> so all states of the system exist simultaneously, like my previous
> example of the block of granite.  Why does state B follow state A?
> Why is slice B adjacent to slice A?  Because that's just the way this
> uncaused system is.
>  
The block universe is model we use for thinking about some problems.  
It's not a good one for thinking about whether to have a cup of coffee.

> Looking for meaning in the system is like looking for hidden messages
> in randomly generated character strings.  You may find them, but the
> messages can not have any real meaning, no matter how meaningful they
> look.
>
>
>  
>> In the conclusion I don't understand the last sentence, which seems to
>> me a proposition for abandoning theorizing in that field.
>>    
>
> Well, the search for a theoretical model that is fully consistent what
> what we consciously observed is still a reasonable goal in terms of
> challenging intellectual endeavor.  And if that's what your future
> conscious experiences hold for you, then that's what you will do (no
> free will here).
>
>
>  
>>> Machines are
>>> more fundamental than consciousness?  Or machines are just a way of
>>> representing conscious experience?
>>>      
>> Machines/numbers cannot represent conscious experiences.
>>    
>
> You are correct, I misspoke.  I should have said "machines are just a
> way of representing the CONTENTS of conscious experience."
>
>
>  
>> Comp can make the conscious experience much more fundamental than the
>> Aristotelian materialist usually think, yet consciousness is
>> arithmetically "caused". It is an attribute of universal machine (in
>> an even weaker sense than usual) related to their ideal self-
>> consistency. It generates the belief in a reality, and the infinities
>> of corrections which ensue.
>>    
>
> To me this has as much of an "explanatory gap" as materialism.
> Consciousness is caused by arithmetical relationships?  Why would this
> be?  Why would arithmetical relationships result in conscious
> experience?

Good question.

Brent

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[russell standish-2]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:02:03PM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:
> Didn't anyone ever explain arithmetic or geometry to you?  Not every
> explanation needs to be a causal one.   And being uncaused doesn't
> prevent explanation - for example decay of an unstable nucleus is
> uncaused, i.e. it is random, but it is still explained by quantum mechanics.
>

Thank you for that comment! Sometimes I feel like I'm alone in the
wilderness with only people who believe all explanations must be
causal for company.

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 hpcoder@...
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

I owe Bruno and Brent a response also...it's in the works!


David:

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:38 AM, David Nyman<david.nyman@...> wrote:
>
> The standard view of physics is that things are causally closed
> 'out there', and this seems to rule out that such causation can
> in any sense be 'owned' by us.

Exactly.  This is a good way of putting it.  In this case our choices
would be 'owned' by the physical universe as whole.  Not just the bits
of matter that had some causal influence on the choice, but also the
physical laws by which that causal influence was transmitted.


> Illusions, it should be recalled, are not incorrect
> perceptions; the perceptions are correct, even if the object of
> perception is other than we imagine.  And here it is precisely the
> ownership self-evidently present to us that requires explanation.

I agree with this also.  I think.  The feeling of free will is a type
of qualia.  There's something that it's like to be in pain.  There's
something that it's like to make a decision.

BUT I don't think this "free will" issue is a particularly crucial
point.  I could say more about it, but it seems like a tangent.  Not
entirely unrelated, but not central either.  So I'll move on.


> My contention is that any causal schema
> must have these features even to begin to account for our presence in
> the context of what we observe.

Causality.  Causality.  Causalty.  Hmmm.

So really I am arguing against causal explanations.  I think this the
core of my current argument.  The feeling that something is happening
*NOW* is just another example of qualia I think.  The certainty of
feeling that *that* caused *this*...more qualia.

Causality doesn't get you anywhere, because it doesn't start cleanly.
This is why I keep bringing up "uncaused" beginnings.  If *this*
happened because of *that*, then why did *that* happen?  You can't get
to the start of it in a way that makes sense.

If you have the starting conditions (which are uncaused) and the laws
that govern the evolution of the system (also uncaused), then the rest
is basically a given, right?  A mere formality.  Anything that follows
was implicit within the starting conditions and the governing laws.

Every step in the evolution of the system can be seen as existing
simultaneously with it's beginning.  And as such the entire system
JUST EXISTS.  Uncaused.  Acausal.  Fundamental.

If you exist within such a system, your entire experience exists as a
result of the starting conditions and governing laws, and exists
simultaneously with the system's beginning and all it's subsequent
states.  Again, there is no answer to any question of "why" in
reference to the system.  The system just is the way it is.  It's
starting conditions are axiomatic, it's governing rules are
inferential, it's results are tautological.


> The reason this isn't more widely understood rests of course
> on the prestige of science, the authority of which has reached the
> point where we're apparently willing to take seriously the absurdity
> that the universe is a sterile pointless farago that could as well
> play out in the absence of all experience.

I agree.  A lot of inconvenient questions seem to have gotten swept
under the rug.

So as I've mentioned, it seems to me that science's role is to
construct theoretical models that accurately match what we have
observed.  That's it.  Nothing more, nothing less.  But obviously
they've had great success with this, thus their authority.  But, as I
mentioned above, it is what it is.  Things will play out the way they
play out.  Tautology.


> BTW Rex, your recent presence on the list has been welcome and
> thought-provoking.

Ah!  Thanks, glad to hear it!


> It would be interesting to know a little about the
> background you bring to your thinking.

Well, I have a BS in computer systems engineering, and 2 years of
graduate school in the same, though I never quite got around to
finishing my thesis, so no MSCSEG degree to show for my efforts.  And
I've been a computer programmer for 15 years, in various
areas...mainly cartography, communications, business accounting
software, web development, and gaming.

So not to go into too much detail, but probably the key moments in the
development of my philosophical world view were:

1)  Realizing that deterministic classical physics meant no
libertarian free will when I was 21 years old or so, about 2 minutes
before a professor wrote on the chalk board in big letters "NO FREE
WILL".  For those 2 minutes though, I was really thunderstruck.  I
thought "Holy crap, this is incredible!  Am I the first person to
realize this???"   So I spent the next 9 years or so trying to come to
grips with the implications of that, which was hard, because I really
wanted to take full credit for all the great things I'd done.  But,
then as my 30th birthday came and went, I decided maybe I didn't have
that many great things to take credit for after all, so screw free
will.  Who needs it anyway.

2)  My introduction to functionalism and computationalism and some of
the related issues like the strange implications of multiple
realizeability via Hans Moravec's book "Robot: Mere Machine to
Transcendent Mind" in the late 1990s.  This gave me something to think
about in my spare time for several years.

3)  AND, most recently, about 18 months ago, when I finally got around
to reading David Chalmers' paper "Facing Up to the Problem of
Consciousness".  I'd heard a little about the "hard problem" of
consciousness prior to that, and I was familiar with the basic issues,
but I didn't fully understand until that moment.  It wasn't quite the
shock that my free will "discovery" had been, but it was still a
moment of revelation, where one second I didn't see the problem at
all, and the next second I couldn't believe that I had failed to see
it for so long.

Since then I've put a lot more time into trying to understand what it
all means.  And I'm leaning towards concluding that it doesn't "mean"
anything.  It just is.  Which is a strange conclusion to come to after
18 months of pretty intense thought...

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[david.nyman]

2009/8/13 Rex Allen <rexallen314@...>:

> Causality.  Causality.  Causalty.  Hmmm.
>
> So really I am arguing against causal explanations.  I think this the
> core of my current argument.  The feeling that something is happening
> *NOW* is just another example of qualia I think.  The certainty of
> feeling that *that* caused *this*...more qualia.
>
> Causality doesn't get you anywhere, because it doesn't start cleanly.
> This is why I keep bringing up "uncaused" beginnings.  If *this*
> happened because of *that*, then why did *that* happen?  You can't get
> to the start of it in a way that makes sense.

I think there's the all-too-present risk of getting hung up on
vocabulary here.  Perhaps the sense of 'causal' you're having a
problem with is summed up in Wittgenstein's (other ) well-known
dictum: "Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery".  The
sense in which I've been using it focuses on 'how', not 'that', which
at least leaves us something to say.

> 1)  Realizing that deterministic classical physics meant no
> libertarian free will when I was 21 years old or so, about 2 minutes
> before a professor wrote on the chalk board in big letters "NO FREE
> WILL".  For those 2 minutes though, I was really thunderstruck.  I
> thought "Holy crap, this is incredible!  Am I the first person to
> realize this???"   So I spent the next 9 years or so trying to come to
> grips with the implications of that, which was hard, because I really
> wanted to take full credit for all the great things I'd done.  But,
> then as my 30th birthday came and went, I decided maybe I didn't have
> that many great things to take credit for after all, so screw free
> will.  Who needs it anyway.

Indeed.  It doesn't get that much better after thirty either.  But as
we've said, the real insight only comes when we see *whose* will we're
talking about.  What we choose is ours; that part we can be sure of -
the freedom bit is more of an exploration.  But as they say, the sign
of maturity is taking ownership.  And exploring can be fun.

> 2)  My introduction to functionalism and computationalism and some of
> the related issues like the strange implications of multiple
> realizeability via Hans Moravec's book "Robot: Mere Machine to
> Transcendent Mind" in the late 1990s.  This gave me something to think
> about in my spare time for several years.

Fascinating stuff.  You've no doubt perused the ongoing and recent
discussion of this stuff here and elsewhere.  Bruno's work sheds real
light on this, I believe.  Again, if the 'ownership' issues aren't
faced head-on: confusion and paradox.

> 3)  AND, most recently, about 18 months ago, when I finally got around
> to reading David Chalmers' paper "Facing Up to the Problem of
> Consciousness".  I'd heard a little about the "hard problem" of
> consciousness prior to that, and I was familiar with the basic issues,
> but I didn't fully understand until that moment.  It wasn't quite the
> shock that my free will "discovery" had been, but it was still a
> moment of revelation, where one second I didn't see the problem at
> all, and the next second I couldn't believe that I had failed to see
> it for so long.

Yes, Chalmers' work has been a great stimulus, although in the end I
think he finks out.  He doesn't seem to get that the whole zombie
thing is caused by his dogmatic assumption of the 'causal closure' of
physics.  He's still mesmerised by an epistemology he takes to have
been incontrovertibly established as the unique ontological substrate
("Theory of Everything" - what a great slogan!)  Or rather he seems to
glimpse the problem - and what the fix is - but in the end he backs
away into yet another version of epiphenomenal psycho-physical
parallelism.  This is what I mean by paradox and confusion.

> Since then I've put a lot more time into trying to understand what it
> all means.  And I'm leaning towards concluding that it doesn't "mean"
> anything.  It just is.  Which is a strange conclusion to come to after
> 18 months of pretty intense thought...

Yes, it can seem that it doesn't mean anything.  But *you* mean
something, don't you?  Hang on though - just who is this 'you' anyway?
 Didn't we conclude earlier on that 'you'  - your point of view, your
experience, your intentions, your very 'self' - are just on loan from
'it'?   Mightn't that suggest that 'it' has rights of possession on
anything of  'yours'?  Hmm...

Still sure it doesn't mean anything?

David

>
> >
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...> wrote:
>>
>> As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
>> itself is uncaused and fundamental.
>
> This has no meaning for me. It is like saying "don't ask".

Hmmmmm.  You don't at all see what I'm trying to say?

Okay, how about this:  Reality is tautological.

So if our conscious experience is caused by a rule-following system,
based on a sequence of determinisitc transforms applied to an initial
state...and this is true of both physicalism and your theory I
think...then our conscious experience just is what it is.  Tautology.
Everything that follows was implicit in the setup.

And there's no obvious reason that the "unpacked" version, where what
follows is made *explicit*, shouldn't be considered as a whole - with
the beginning, middle, and end states seen as existing simultaneously
and timelessly.  This makes the view that "it just is what it is" even
more obvious.


> Also, what do your theory say about accepting or not an artificial
> brain?

IF consciousness is caused, then whether you accept or not is a
forgone conclusion, implicit in the initial setup (initial state +
transformation rules) of the system that caused your conscious
experience.  So there is no real choice to "accept or decline".  Only
the conscious experience of a choice.

If consciousness is UNCAUSED and fundamental, then...same answer.
There is no real choice to "accept or decline".  Only the conscious
experience of a choice.


> More generally, how do you see the relation between brain and
> conscience?

Brains only exist as something that we consciously perceive.

I'm sure that my brain can be viewed as representing the contents of
my experience.  And I'm sure that a computer program could also be
written that would represent the contents of my conscious experience
and whose representational state would evolve as the program ran so
that it continued to match the contents of my experience over time.
But this would not mean that the program was conscious, or that my
brain is the source of my consciousness.

The living brain and the executing computer program both just
represent the contents of my conscious experience, in the same way
that a map represents the actual terrain.


>> Uncaused things can't be explained.  They just are.
>>
>> So what causes the complexity and structure of the things that I am
>> conscious of?  Nothing.  That's just the way my experience is.
>
> ? I can't accept this, because I am interested in the how and why of
> complexity of things and happenings.

So you can look for patterns in what you observe, and interesting ways
to represent what you have observed in the past.  But this is as far
as you can go I think.  For the reasons outlined above.  Your
observations just are what they are.  There's no real explanation for
them...only pseudo-explanations.


>> No explanation can be given for uncaused fundamental events or
>> entities.
>
> But what are your assumptions about those entities? You theory does
> look like what the guardian G* tells to the "enlightened machine" G:
> you will not prove your consistency. But the machine can prove that IF
> she is consistent, then G* is right about that. So, on one level, I
> understand why you say so, and at another level I explain why you say
> so.

So I lean towards the idea that only our conscious experiences are
"real".  Things obviously exist as contents of conscious experiences.
I don't have any assumptions about them.  They just are what they are,
because the conscious experience that "contains" them is what it is.
Tautology.

I *think* I'm leaning towards saying that a lot of this stuff about
"knowing" is just a type of qualia.  But I'm not sure.  I'm still
thinking that part out.


> "understanding" is a complex notion. Theories are not build to
> understand, but to get a coherent (hopefully correct) picture.

So I think it's reasonable to speak as though quarks and electrons are
real, if that helps the process of developing mathematical/narrative
models that fit our observations.  There are *useful fictions*, and
then there's what actually is.  Quarks and electrons are useful
fictions.  Conscious experience is what actually is.


>> I think this is more obvious if you look at the system as a "block
>> universe", where time is treated as a sort of spatial dimension, and
>> so all states of the system exist simultaneously, like my previous
>> example of the block of granite.  Why does state B follow state A?
>> Why is slice B adjacent to slice A?  Because that's just the way this
>> uncaused system is.
>
> It is big amorphous blob. Weird theory. I don't see the relation with
> the universe, nor even with consciousness.

So I'm saying that IF physicalism is true, then our universe is just
like that.  If physicalism is true then how else could it be?  And if
this physical universe is what causes our conscious experience, then
our conscious experience is just like that.

>> Why would arithmetical relationships result in conscious
>> experience?
>
> Because arithmetical relationship described the theology and the
> science of self-observing machine. No machine can know as such its own
> theology, but machine can get the theological science about simpler
> machine, and then lift its logic on themselves (so they can remain
> consistent in the process), and escape locally the incompleteness.
>
> I am not saying that truth is like that, but that if you say yes to a
> doctor and survive the graft, then it has to be like that.

So I can (sort of) see how a logical machine might symbolically
represent reality in this way.  BUT, this doesn't answer the question
of why there should be a conscious experience associated with the
machine symbolically representing reality this way.

Does it?

--

To put it slightly differently, the machine might be in a state that
could be 3rd-person interpreted as the machine representing reality
this way.  BUT, this doesn't answer the question of why there should
be a conscious experience associated with the machine being in this
state.

Does it?

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Brent Meeker-2]

Rex Allen wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal@...> wrote:
>  
>>> As such, I feel that it is reasonable to say that conscious experience
>>> itself is uncaused and fundamental.
>>>      
>> This has no meaning for me. It is like saying "don't ask".
>>    
>
> Hmmmmm.  You don't at all see what I'm trying to say?
>
> Okay, how about this:  Reality is tautological.
>
> So if our conscious experience is caused by a rule-following system,
> based on a sequence of determinisitc transforms applied to an initial
> state...and this is true of both physicalism and your theory I
> think...then our conscious experience just is what it is.  Tautology.
> Everything that follows was implicit in the setup.
>
> And there's no obvious reason that the "unpacked" version, where what
> follows is made *explicit*, shouldn't be considered as a whole - with
> the beginning, middle, and end states seen as existing simultaneously
> and timelessly.  This makes the view that "it just is what it is" even
> more obvious.
>
>
>  
>> Also, what do your theory say about accepting or not an artificial
>> brain?
>>    
>
> IF consciousness is caused, then whether you accept or not is a
> forgone conclusion, implicit in the initial setup (initial state +
> transformation rules) of the system that caused your conscious
> experience.  So there is no real choice to "accept or decline".  Only
> the conscious experience of a choice.
>
> If consciousness is UNCAUSED and fundamental, then...same answer.
> There is no real choice to "accept or decline".  Only the conscious
> experience of a choice.
>
>
>  
>> More generally, how do you see the relation between brain and
>> conscience?
>>    
>
> Brains only exist as something that we consciously perceive.
>
> I'm sure that my brain can be viewed as representing the contents of
> my experience.  And I'm sure that a computer program could also be
> written that would represent the contents of my conscious experience
> and whose representational state would evolve as the program ran so
> that it continued to match the contents of my experience over time.
> But this would not mean that the program was conscious, or that my
> brain is the source of my consciousness.
>
> The living brain and the executing computer program both just
> represent the contents of my conscious experience, in the same way
> that a map represents the actual terrain.
>  

When you set fire to a map the land doesn't burn.

Brent

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 3:21 AM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:
>>
>> The living brain and the executing computer program both just
>> represent the contents of my conscious experience, in the same way
>> that a map represents the actual terrain.
>
> When you set fire to a map the land doesn't burn.
>

If you set fire to the computer running the simulation of my brain and
it's virtual environment, would my conscious experience burn?

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

[Rex Allen]

Brent,

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Brent Meeker<meekerdb@...> wrote:
>> Uncaused things can't be explained.  They just are.
>
> Didn't anyone ever explain arithmetic or geometry to you?  Not every
> explanation needs to be a causal one.

Well, I think that's what I'm saying.  Causal explanations are not
really explanations, because you can never trace the causal chain back
to it's ultimate source.  Or if you do, the ultimate source is itself
uncaused.  So, if you rephrase the answer in terms of ultimate causes,
you end up inserting either "unknown" or "uncaused" everywhere.

So causal explanations are subjective...only meaningful within a
limited context.  Going back to my granite block example:

Let's consider two adjacent specks of white and gray found within a
block of granite.  Why are they adjacent?  What caused them to be
adjacent?  Well, if we consider this block of granite within the
context of our universe, then we can say that there is a reason in
that context as to why they are adjacent.  There is an explanation,
which has to do with the laws of physics and the contingent details of
the geologic history of the area where this block of granite was
formed (which is in turn derived from the contingent details of the
initial state of our entire universe).

BUT if we take an identical block of granite to be something that just
exists uncaused, like our universe, then there can be no explanation.
The two specks are just adjacent.  That's it.  No further explanation
is possible.

So in the first case, the geologic explanation makes sense in a local
subjective way, but not in an absolute way, because the universe that
provides the context for the geologic explanation has no reason behind
its initial state or it's governing laws of physics.  The universe
just is the way it is.  Therefore, ultimately the block of granite
just is the way it is.


> And being uncaused doesn't
> prevent explanation - for example decay of an unstable nucleus is
> uncaused, i.e. it is random, but it is still explained by quantum mechanics.

So you can explain it within the context of the laws of our universe,
but this just raises the question of why the laws of our universe are
what they are.

Ultimately your answer is:  unstable nuclei decay because that's what
unstable nuclei do.  Tautology.


> I think you point is better made by observing that an explanation must
> be of something less known in terms of something better known.  Since
> nothing can be better known than our own subjective experience, it
> cannot be explained.

Well, that is pretty good.  I'll file it away for future use.  Thanks!


>> So I am saying that no matter how this system evolves, no aspect of
>> the system can ever be given a meaningful explanation.
>
> Now you've introduced another term "meaningful" explanation.  If one can
> understand it, it must be meaningful.

So when people find hidden messages in the Old Testament using the
"Bible Code", these are meaningful messages?  Really?

If something means something to me...that's subjective.  It means
something TO ME.  I have a conscious experience of finding that thing
meaningful.  There's something that it's like to find it meaningful.
Qualia.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this point, but...I think it means
something.  To me.  Ha!


>> And neither is
>> there any reason to think that it won't continue it's predictable
>> pattern.  The system follows it's own "uncaused" rules, which we may
>> be able to guess at, but which we cannot know, due to the system's
>> fundamentally uncaused nature.
>>
> You seem to take the position that because knowledge isn't certain no
> knowledge is possible.

Well, no.  That's not what I'm saying.  I'm saying that the conscious
experience of knowing is somehow more fundamental and important than
what is known.

If conscious experience is uncaused and acausal, then in some sense
knowledge is irrelevant.  Your uncaused experience could be of
believing that you "know" something which is actually false (e.g.,
that 121 is prime).

If conscious experience is caused, then knowledge is...still
irrelevant.  But for a different reason...in this case what you *can*
know is determined by those external causes.  You could be caused to
believe that you *know" something which is actually false (e.g., that
121 is prime).  But if you then trace the causal chain back, you will
never find what ultimately caused you to be wrong...when you phrase
your answer in terms of the ultimate causes, it will just be "I was
wrong because that's the way the universe is".

Do you see what I'm getting at with all of this "uncaused" stuff, and
the equivalence between an uncaused universe and just an isolated
uncaused conscious experience?  At all?  Anyone?

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@...
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe@...
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---