Consciousness is information?

[Kelly Harmon]

What is the advantage of assigning consciousness to computational
processes (e.g. UDA), as opposed to just assigning it to the
information that is produced by computational processes?

For example, to take Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness" paper,
if you just say that the consciousness is found in the information
represented by the arrangement of the empty or full water troughs,
then that basically removes the problem he is pointing out.

Similarly, associated consciousness only with information seems to
resolve problems with random processes interfering with the causal
structure of physically implemented computations which then, despite
having the causal chain interrupted, would still seem to produce
consciousness.  (more on the irrelevance of causality:
http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/irrelevance-of-causality.html)

Bruno Marchal has mentioned this in his movie graph argument, where a
cosmic ray interrupts a logical operation in a transistor on a
computer that is running a brain simulation, but due to good fortune
the result of the operation is still correct despite the break in the
causal chain that produced the answer.

Conscious being associated with information would also seem to address
the problems with Davidson's "swampman" scenario, and the related
quantum swampman scenario (http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/
2009/03/quantum-swampman.html).

So, many different programs can produce the same information, using
many different algorithms, optimizations, shortcuts, etc.  But if all
of these programs all accurately simulate the same brain, then they
should produce the same conscious experience, regardless of the
various implementation details.

The most obvious thing that all such programs would have in common is
that they work with the same information...the state of the brain at
each given time slice.  Even if this state is stored in different
forms by each of the various programs, there must always be a mapping
between those various storage formats, as well as a mapping back to
the original brain whose activity is being simulated.

Therefore, it seems better to me to say:  Consciousness is
information, not the processes that produce the information.

What are the drawbacks of this view when contrasted with
computationalism?


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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly wrote:

> What is the advantage of assigning consciousness to computational
> processes (e.g. UDA), as opposed to just assigning it to the
> information that is produced by computational processes?
>
> For example, to take Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness" paper,
> if you just say that the consciousness is found in the information
> represented by the arrangement of the empty or full water troughs,
> then that basically removes the problem he is pointing out.
>
> Similarly, associated consciousness only with information seems to
> resolve problems with random processes interfering with the causal
> structure of physically implemented computations which then, despite
> having the causal chain interrupted, would still seem to produce
> consciousness.  (more on the irrelevance of causality:
> http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/irrelevance-of-causality.html)
>
> Bruno Marchal has mentioned this in his movie graph argument, where a
> cosmic ray interrupts a logical operation in a transistor on a
> computer that is running a brain simulation, but due to good fortune
> the result of the operation is still correct despite the break in the
> causal chain that produced the answer.
>
> Conscious being associated with information would also seem to address
> the problems with Davidson's "swampman" scenario, and the related
> quantum swampman scenario (http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/
> 2009/03/quantum-swampman.html).
>
> So, many different programs can produce the same information, using
> many different algorithms, optimizations, shortcuts, etc.  But if all
> of these programs all accurately simulate the same brain, then they
> should produce the same conscious experience, regardless of the
> various implementation details.
>
> The most obvious thing that all such programs would have in common is
> that they work with the same information...the state of the brain at
> each given time slice.  Even if this state is stored in different
> forms by each of the various programs, there must always be a mapping
> between those various storage formats, as well as a mapping back to
> the original brain whose activity is being simulated.
>
> Therefore, it seems better to me to say:  Consciousness is
> information, not the processes that produce the information.
>
> What are the drawbacks of this view when contrasted with
> computationalism?

The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential
aspect of consciousness.  If consciousness is identified with
information then it is atemporal.  There are attempts to overcome this
objection by assuming a discretized consciousness and identifying
sequence with a partial ordering by similarity or content, but I find
them unconvincing because when you chop consciousness into "moments"
then the "moments" have very little content and it's not clear that it
is enough to define a sequence.  It seems you have allow each "moment"
to have small duration - and then you're back to process.  Or instead of
expanding consciousness in the time direction, you could get enough
information by expanding in the "orthogonal" direction - i.e. including
unconscious things like information stored in memory but not being
recalled (at the moment).  But then you've slipped physics in.

Brent


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[Jason Resch-2]

I think in regards to conscious, you can't have one without the other.
 Both information and computation are needed, as the computation
imparts meaning to the information, and the information accumulates
meaning making each computation and its result more meaningful.

If I sent you an arbitrary binary string, it would have no meaning
unless you either knew in advance how to interpret it or how it was
produced.  Either interpretation or understanding of how it was
produced can be described with computer programs, but without that
foreknowledge the binary string is meaningless because there would be
an infinite number of ways to interpret that string.

To understand how information "accumulates" through successive a
computations, consider how today's most common processors can only
consider 32-bit numbers at a time, yet like any Turing machine they
are nonetheless capable of performing any computation, including those
involving numbers much larger than can be expressed in 32-bits.

Consider what the neurons do (at least artificial ones), essentially
they only multiply and add (multiply the strength of a received signal
by the connection strength, then sum the received signals to determine
if they met the threshold to fire).  At a low level the additions
might correspond to the intensity of one color for one pixel in a
visual field, say the brightness of red.  Another neuron might then
sum the intensities of red, green, and blue colors to arrive at a
color for that pixel, while another one aggregates a collection of
those results into a field of colors.  Finally this field of colors
might be processed by an object identification part of the neural
network to identify objects.  Whether or not an object is identified
as a cat or a dog, might ultimately be determined by the firing of
just one neuron, yet at every stage the same basic computation is done
(multiplication and addition).  The only difference is the consequence
of the computation at each stage; how it is ultimately interpreted by
the next level.

So the question comes down to where does the consciousness lie: during
the computation of information, the computed result, or in the
computations upon the computed results.  Maybe it requires a loop of
such hierarchies as Douglas Hofstadter suggests.  I don't have an
answer but it is something I too wonder about.

Jason

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 12:47 AM, Kelly <harmonk00@...> wrote:

>
> What is the advantage of assigning consciousness to computational
> processes (e.g. UDA), as opposed to just assigning it to the
> information that is produced by computational processes?
>
> For example, to take Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness" paper,
> if you just say that the consciousness is found in the information
> represented by the arrangement of the empty or full water troughs,
> then that basically removes the problem he is pointing out.
>
> Similarly, associated consciousness only with information seems to
> resolve problems with random processes interfering with the causal
> structure of physically implemented computations which then, despite
> having the causal chain interrupted, would still seem to produce
> consciousness.  (more on the irrelevance of causality:
> http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/irrelevance-of-causality.html)
>
> Bruno Marchal has mentioned this in his movie graph argument, where a
> cosmic ray interrupts a logical operation in a transistor on a
> computer that is running a brain simulation, but due to good fortune
> the result of the operation is still correct despite the break in the
> causal chain that produced the answer.
>
> Conscious being associated with information would also seem to address
> the problems with Davidson's "swampman" scenario, and the related
> quantum swampman scenario (http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/
> 2009/03/quantum-swampman.html).
>
> So, many different programs can produce the same information, using
> many different algorithms, optimizations, shortcuts, etc.  But if all
> of these programs all accurately simulate the same brain, then they
> should produce the same conscious experience, regardless of the
> various implementation details.
>
> The most obvious thing that all such programs would have in common is
> that they work with the same information...the state of the brain at
> each given time slice.  Even if this state is stored in different
> forms by each of the various programs, there must always be a mapping
> between those various storage formats, as well as a mapping back to
> the original brain whose activity is being simulated.
>
> Therefore, it seems better to me to say:  Consciousness is
> information, not the processes that produce the information.
>
> What are the drawbacks of this view when contrasted with
> computationalism?
>
>
> >
>

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/4/20 Kelly <harmonk00@...>:

>
> What is the advantage of assigning consciousness to computational
> processes (e.g. UDA), as opposed to just assigning it to the
> information that is produced by computational processes?
>
> For example, to take Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness" paper,
> if you just say that the consciousness is found in the information
> represented by the arrangement of the empty or full water troughs,
> then that basically removes the problem he is pointing out.
>
> Similarly, associated consciousness only with information seems to
> resolve problems with random processes interfering with the causal
> structure of physically implemented computations which then, despite
> having the causal chain interrupted, would still seem to produce
> consciousness.  (more on the irrelevance of causality:
> http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/irrelevance-of-causality.html)
>
> Bruno Marchal has mentioned this in his movie graph argument, where a
> cosmic ray interrupts a logical operation in a transistor on a
> computer that is running a brain simulation, but due to good fortune
> the result of the operation is still correct despite the break in the
> causal chain that produced the answer.
>
> Conscious being associated with information would also seem to address
> the problems with Davidson's "swampman" scenario, and the related
> quantum swampman scenario (http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/
> 2009/03/quantum-swampman.html).
>
> So, many different programs can produce the same information, using
> many different algorithms, optimizations, shortcuts, etc.  But if all
> of these programs all accurately simulate the same brain, then they
> should produce the same conscious experience, regardless of the
> various implementation details.
>
> The most obvious thing that all such programs would have in common is
> that they work with the same information...the state of the brain at
> each given time slice.  Even if this state is stored in different
> forms by each of the various programs, there must always be a mapping
> between those various storage formats, as well as a mapping back to
> the original brain whose activity is being simulated.
>
> Therefore, it seems better to me to say:  Consciousness is
> information, not the processes that produce the information.
>
> What are the drawbacks of this view when contrasted with
> computationalism?

The drawback is that any physical system (which could be mapped onto
any information or any computation) would be conscious. This is only a
drawback if you believe, I guess as a matter of faith, that it is
false.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Jason Resch wrote:

> I think in regards to conscious, you can't have one without the other.
>  Both information and computation are needed, as the computation
> imparts meaning to the information, and the information accumulates
> meaning making each computation and its result more meaningful.
>
> If I sent you an arbitrary binary string, it would have no meaning
> unless you either knew in advance how to interpret it or how it was
> produced.  Either interpretation or understanding of how it was
> produced can be described with computer programs, but without that
> foreknowledge the binary string is meaningless because there would be
> an infinite number of ways to interpret that string.
>
> To understand how information "accumulates" through successive a
> computations, consider how today's most common processors can only
> consider 32-bit numbers at a time, yet like any Turing machine they
> are nonetheless capable of performing any computation, including those
> involving numbers much larger than can be expressed in 32-bits.
>
> Consider what the neurons do (at least artificial ones), essentially
> they only multiply and add (multiply the strength of a received signal
> by the connection strength, then sum the received signals to determine
> if they met the threshold to fire).  At a low level the additions
> might correspond to the intensity of one color for one pixel in a
> visual field, say the brightness of red.  Another neuron might then
> sum the intensities of red, green, and blue colors to arrive at a
> color for that pixel, while another one aggregates a collection of
> those results into a field of colors.  Finally this field of colors
> might be processed by an object identification part of the neural
> network to identify objects.  Whether or not an object is identified
> as a cat or a dog, might ultimately be determined by the firing of
> just one neuron, yet at every stage the same basic computation is done
> (multiplication and addition).  The only difference is the consequence
> of the computation at each stage; how it is ultimately interpreted by
> the next level.
>
> So the question comes down to where does the consciousness lie: during
> the computation of information, the computed result, or in the
> computations upon the computed results.  Maybe it requires a loop of
> such hierarchies as Douglas Hofstadter suggests.  I don't have an
> answer but it is something I too wonder about.
>
> Jason
>  

I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action.  That's why
it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something that
is just the manipulation of strings.  People tend to say the meaning is
in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can have
different interpretations.  But what constitutes interpretation?  I
think it is interaction with the world.  If you say, "What's a cat?"  
and I point and say, "That."  then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
wrongly if I point to a dog).

Brent



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[Jesse Mazer]

Some parts of this message have been removed. Learn more about Nabble's security policy.

Brent Meeker wrote:
> I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action. That's why
> it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something that
> is just the manipulation of strings. People tend to say the meaning is
> in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can have
> different interpretations. But what constitutes interpretation? I
> think it is interaction with the world. If you say, "What's a cat?"
> and I point and say, "That." then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
> wrongly if I point to a dog).
>

Well, suppose you have an A.I. computer program that's running a robot body--if you say "what's a cat" and the robot looks at a cat and points at it, and more generally interacts with the world and uses language in a way that suggests humanlike intelligence, do you grant that it probably has consciousness and that its statements have meaning? If so, suppose take the same program and let it run a simulated body in a simulated world, and when some other simulated fellow asks it "what's a cat", it now points at a simulated cat in this world. Has your opinion about the consciousness/meaning-creation of this program changed because it's only taking actions in a simulated world rather than our "real" world?

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Apr 2009, at 14:50, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
> Jason Resch wrote:
>> I think in regards to conscious, you can't have one without the  
>> other.
>> Both information and computation are needed, as the computation
>> imparts meaning to the information, and the information accumulates
>> meaning making each computation and its result more meaningful.
>>
>> If I sent you an arbitrary binary string, it would have no meaning
>> unless you either knew in advance how to interpret it or how it was
>> produced.  Either interpretation or understanding of how it was
>> produced can be described with computer programs, but without that
>> foreknowledge the binary string is meaningless because there would be
>> an infinite number of ways to interpret that string.
>>
>> To understand how information "accumulates" through successive a
>> computations, consider how today's most common processors can only
>> consider 32-bit numbers at a time, yet like any Turing machine they
>> are nonetheless capable of performing any computation, including  
>> those
>> involving numbers much larger than can be expressed in 32-bits.
>>
>> Consider what the neurons do (at least artificial ones), essentially
>> they only multiply and add (multiply the strength of a received  
>> signal
>> by the connection strength, then sum the received signals to  
>> determine
>> if they met the threshold to fire).  At a low level the additions
>> might correspond to the intensity of one color for one pixel in a
>> visual field, say the brightness of red.  Another neuron might then
>> sum the intensities of red, green, and blue colors to arrive at a
>> color for that pixel, while another one aggregates a collection of
>> those results into a field of colors.  Finally this field of colors
>> might be processed by an object identification part of the neural
>> network to identify objects.  Whether or not an object is identified
>> as a cat or a dog, might ultimately be determined by the firing of
>> just one neuron, yet at every stage the same basic computation is  
>> done
>> (multiplication and addition).  The only difference is the  
>> consequence
>> of the computation at each stage; how it is ultimately interpreted by
>> the next level.
>>
>> So the question comes down to where does the consciousness lie:  
>> during
>> the computation of information, the computed result, or in the
>> computations upon the computed results.  Maybe it requires a loop of
>> such hierarchies as Douglas Hofstadter suggests.  I don't have an
>> answer but it is something I too wonder about.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>
> I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action.  That's why
> it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something  
> that
> is just the manipulation of strings.  People tend to say the meaning  
> is
> in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can  
> have
> different interpretations.  But what constitutes interpretation?  I
> think it is interaction with the world.  If you say, "What's a cat?"
> and I point and say, "That."  then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
> wrongly if I point to a dog).

A computation is a sequence of numbers (or of strings, or of  
combinators, etc.) as resulting by an interpretation. For such an  
interpretation, you don't need a "world", only an "interpreter" that  
is a universal system, like elementary arithmetic for example. If you  
invoke a world you will run in the usual "physical supervenience"  
trouble. If you abstract from the interpreter you run into the  
confusion between a computation and a description of a computation. It  
is useful to fix once and for all the universal system. Then a  
computation can then be defined by a sequence of numbers, but there is  
a implicit universal system behind. The concept of information could  
be a little too much quantitative and static in this setting, and  
plays probably a bigger role in the notion of the content of specific  
consciousness experiences.
The key notion to define "computation" if the notion of Universal  
system or machine.

Bruno


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




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[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Apr 2009, at 14:14, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2009/4/20 Kelly <harmonk00@...>:
>>
>> What is the advantage of assigning consciousness to computational
>> processes (e.g. UDA), as opposed to just assigning it to the
>> information that is produced by computational processes?
>>
>> For example, to take Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness" paper,
>> if you just say that the consciousness is found in the information
>> represented by the arrangement of the empty or full water troughs,
>> then that basically removes the problem he is pointing out.
>>
>> Similarly, associated consciousness only with information seems to
>> resolve problems with random processes interfering with the causal
>> structure of physically implemented computations which then, despite
>> having the causal chain interrupted, would still seem to produce
>> consciousness.  (more on the irrelevance of causality:
>> http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/irrelevance-of-causality.html)
>>
>> Bruno Marchal has mentioned this in his movie graph argument, where a
>> cosmic ray interrupts a logical operation in a transistor on a
>> computer that is running a brain simulation, but due to good fortune
>> the result of the operation is still correct despite the break in the
>> causal chain that produced the answer.
>>
>> Conscious being associated with information would also seem to  
>> address
>> the problems with Davidson's "swampman" scenario, and the related
>> quantum swampman scenario (http://platonicmindscape.blogspot.com/
>> 2009/03/quantum-swampman.html).
>>
>> So, many different programs can produce the same information, using
>> many different algorithms, optimizations, shortcuts, etc.  But if all
>> of these programs all accurately simulate the same brain, then they
>> should produce the same conscious experience, regardless of the
>> various implementation details.
>>
>> The most obvious thing that all such programs would have in common is
>> that they work with the same information...the state of the brain at
>> each given time slice.  Even if this state is stored in different
>> forms by each of the various programs, there must always be a mapping
>> between those various storage formats, as well as a mapping back to
>> the original brain whose activity is being simulated.
>>
>> Therefore, it seems better to me to say:  Consciousness is
>> information, not the processes that produce the information.
>>
>> What are the drawbacks of this view when contrasted with
>> computationalism?
>
> The drawback is that any physical system (which could be mapped onto
> any information or any computation) would be conscious. This is only a
> drawback if you believe, I guess as a matter of faith, that it is
> false.

I would say that the drawback is that consciousness is not  
information, although the idea that we can be conscious *of* something  
is obviously related to information management.
The UDA is supposed to show that, having said yes to the doctor, we  
have to define the notion of physical system from the notion of  
computation, only having such a definition at hands,  can we see if  
any physical system implements any computations, which I doubt (except  
in some trivial senses).
Also, consciousness is a first person attribute (indeed the  
paradigmatic first person attribute). As such I can associate my  
consciousness only to the infinity of computations, in arithmetic,  
going trough my state. The physical has to emerge from the statistical  
probability interference among all computations, going through my  
(current) states that are indiscernible from my point of view.
Why such interference takes the form of wave interference is still a  
(technical) open problem.

Bruno


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




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[Brent Meeker-2]

Jesse Mazer wrote:

> Brent Meeker wrote:
> > I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action. That's why
> > it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something
> that
> > is just the manipulation of strings. People tend to say the meaning is
> > in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can
> have
> > different interpretations. But what constitutes interpretation? I
> > think it is interaction with the world. If you say, "What's a cat?"
> > and I point and say, "That." then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
> > wrongly if I point to a dog).
> >
>
> Well, suppose you have an A.I. computer program that's running a robot
> body--if you say "what's a cat" and the robot looks at a cat and
> points at it, and more generally interacts with the world and uses
> language in a way that suggests humanlike intelligence, do you grant
> that it probably has consciousness and that its statements have
> meaning? If so, suppose take the same program and let it run a
> simulated body in a simulated world, and when some other simulated
> fellow asks it "what's a cat", it now points at a simulated cat in
> this world. Has your opinion about the consciousness/meaning-creation
> of this program changed because it's only taking actions in a
> simulated world rather than our "real" world?

No, I would agree that the robot is conscious.  For the simulated world
I think the answer is a little more complicated.  Of course the
simulated robot is conscious relative to the simulated world, but as
Stathis pointed out, that the program is simulating a robot and a cat is
a consequence of our mapping of the program onto our world.  There are
many possible mappings so the program might also be a simulation of this
email exchange in our world. All it takes is a different mapping. So I
would say the simulated robots consciousness is relative to the
simulated world, which in turn takes its meaning from us (and might well
have other "meanings").  In general we rely on the programmer to tell us
the interpretation in terms of our world.

Brent

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Bruno Marchal wrote:

> On 20 Apr 2009, at 14:50, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>  
>> Jason Resch wrote:
>>    
>>> I think in regards to conscious, you can't have one without the  
>>> other.
>>> Both information and computation are needed, as the computation
>>> imparts meaning to the information, and the information accumulates
>>> meaning making each computation and its result more meaningful.
>>>
>>> If I sent you an arbitrary binary string, it would have no meaning
>>> unless you either knew in advance how to interpret it or how it was
>>> produced.  Either interpretation or understanding of how it was
>>> produced can be described with computer programs, but without that
>>> foreknowledge the binary string is meaningless because there would be
>>> an infinite number of ways to interpret that string.
>>>
>>> To understand how information "accumulates" through successive a
>>> computations, consider how today's most common processors can only
>>> consider 32-bit numbers at a time, yet like any Turing machine they
>>> are nonetheless capable of performing any computation, including  
>>> those
>>> involving numbers much larger than can be expressed in 32-bits.
>>>
>>> Consider what the neurons do (at least artificial ones), essentially
>>> they only multiply and add (multiply the strength of a received  
>>> signal
>>> by the connection strength, then sum the received signals to  
>>> determine
>>> if they met the threshold to fire).  At a low level the additions
>>> might correspond to the intensity of one color for one pixel in a
>>> visual field, say the brightness of red.  Another neuron might then
>>> sum the intensities of red, green, and blue colors to arrive at a
>>> color for that pixel, while another one aggregates a collection of
>>> those results into a field of colors.  Finally this field of colors
>>> might be processed by an object identification part of the neural
>>> network to identify objects.  Whether or not an object is identified
>>> as a cat or a dog, might ultimately be determined by the firing of
>>> just one neuron, yet at every stage the same basic computation is  
>>> done
>>> (multiplication and addition).  The only difference is the  
>>> consequence
>>> of the computation at each stage; how it is ultimately interpreted by
>>> the next level.
>>>
>>> So the question comes down to where does the consciousness lie:  
>>> during
>>> the computation of information, the computed result, or in the
>>> computations upon the computed results.  Maybe it requires a loop of
>>> such hierarchies as Douglas Hofstadter suggests.  I don't have an
>>> answer but it is something I too wonder about.
>>>
>>> Jason
>>>
>>>      
>> I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action.  That's why
>> it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something  
>> that
>> is just the manipulation of strings.  People tend to say the meaning  
>> is
>> in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can  
>> have
>> different interpretations.  But what constitutes interpretation?  I
>> think it is interaction with the world.  If you say, "What's a cat?"
>> and I point and say, "That."  then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
>> wrongly if I point to a dog).
>>    
>
> A computation is a sequence of numbers (or of strings, or of  
> combinators, etc.) as resulting by an interpretation. For such an  
> interpretation, you don't need a "world", only an "interpreter" that  
> is a universal system, like elementary arithmetic for example.

You put scare quotes around "interpreter".  I don't see how arithmetic
is an interpreter - isn't it an interpretation (of Peano's axioms)? And
how does arithmetic avoid the problem of arbitrarily many mappings, as
raised by Stathis?

Brent



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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>
> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential
> aspect of consciousness.  If consciousness is identified with
> information then it is atemporal.
>

Time is just the dimension of experience.  But experience is an
internal "psychological" concept, not an external concept.  Therefore
"time" is also an internal feature of subjective experience, not
necessarily an external feature of objective reality.

So it seems to me that we have have no direct access to the physical
world.  Information about the physical world is conveyed to us via our
senses.  BUT, we don't even have direct conscious access to our
sensory data.  All of that sensory data is instead apparently heavily
processed by various neural subsystems and "feature detectors", the
outputs of which are then reintegrated into a simplified mental model
of reality, and THAT is what we are actually aware of.  That mental
model is what we think of as "the real world".  So it seems to me
that, even accepting physicalism, we can already think of ourselves as
living in a virtual world of abstract information.

The same is true of time.  We experience time only because we
represent that experience internally as part of our simplified model
of the world.  If there is an external time, it could be altered in
many ways, but our internal representation (and experience) of time
will remain unchanged.   Time derives from Consciousness.  Not vice
versa.  Time IS an aspect of consciousness...and thus doesn't exist
seperately from conscious experience.

And also you can go back to the computer simulation idea and think
about various scenarios.  If you and your environment were simulated
on a fast computer or a slow computer...you wouldn't be able to tell
the difference. If the computer ran for a while, then the simulation
data was saved and the computer turned off, then a year later the
computer and the simulation were restarted where they left off, you
would have no way to detect that a year had passed in "external"
time.  To you in the simulation, it would be as though nothing had
happened, because the computer simulation would pick up on the same
exact calculation where it had left off.  There was no interruption in
your experience of time.

I agree that experience and consciousness requires changes of state,
but I don't agree that it must be change with respect to an external
physical "time" dimension.  The best analogy that I have heard is that
if you have a non-horizontal line, it's Y value changes with respect
to the X axis.  So some piece of information (the Y value) "changes"
with respect to another set of values (the X axis).  But there is no
time involved in this type of change.

Your experience of the X axis will depend on how you represent the X
axis internally in your model of reality.  Maybe you will experience
the X axis spatially...maybe you will experience it chronologically,
maybe you will experience it some other way entirely.  Your experience
of it depends entirely on how it is represented internally in the
information that produces your conscious experience.

I think that the Sherlock Holmes approach is the correct one for
investigating and explaining the nature of consciousness and reality:
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth."

I come to the conclusion that consciousness is information by way of
process of elimination.  I can think of experiments or scenarios where
you can do away with everything except information and still get
behavior that seems conscious and which therefore I assume is actually
conscious. Information is the only common factor in all situations
where consciousness seems to be in evidence.  And really, it doesn't
seem that counter-intuitive to me that information is ultimately what
makes me what I am.

So, I agree with David Chalmers that the idea that some (all?)
information is conscious in some way is a fundamental aspect of
information, and not really reducible to more fundamental descriptions
or processes. Which again makes sense...how can you get more
fundamental than "information"?


On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:

>
> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential
> aspect of consciousness.  If consciousness is identified with
> information then it is atemporal.  There are attempts to overcome this
> objection by assuming a discretized consciousness and identifying
> sequence with a partial ordering by similarity or content, but I find
> them unconvincing because when you chop consciousness into "moments"
> then the "moments" have very little content and it's not clear that it
> is enough to define a sequence.  It seems you have allow each "moment"
> to have small duration - and then you're back to process.  Or instead of
> expanding consciousness in the time direction, you could get enough
> information by expanding in the "orthogonal" direction - i.e. including
> unconscious things like information stored in memory but not being
> recalled (at the moment).  But then you've slipped physics in.
>
> Brent- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 20, 8:14 am, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@...> wrote:
>
> The drawback is that any physical system (which could be mapped onto
> any information or any computation) would be conscious. This is only a
> drawback if you believe, I guess as a matter of faith, that it is
> false.

Right, the "Putnam mapping" thing.  And the related idea that with the
correct "one-time pad" you can extract any information from any
source.  And the whole "rock implementing every finate state automata"
thing.

Given that information is so ubiquitious, I think it's best to just
bite the bullet and go with th idea that information exists
independently of any physical substrate, and without needing a source,
(as in some variation of platonic realism).  But, if you combine this
with the idea that consciousness is information, and take this as your
fundamental basis of reality, then there really are no other
questions. Everything else follows I think.

This does lead one to conclude that most conscious observers see
chaotic and nonsensical realities, because most possible information
patterns are random-ish and chaotic. BUT, so be it. We have examples
of such conscious observers right here in every day life. People with
schizophrenia, dementia, hallucinations, etc. All of these conditions
are caused by disruptions in the information represented by the brain.
Which is why I think that even starting with the assumption of
physicalism, you're still lead back to idealism.

And of course, you have experience of nonsensical realities yourself,
when you dream. I would say the worlds we encounter in our dreams are
just as real (or unreal) as the world we see when we are awake, BUT we
don't spend much time there, and when we wake our memories of the
dream worlds fade and lose intensity. So we give them subordinate
status.

I would say that every possible conscious observer exists in a reality
of their own perceptions. And every perceivable reality (both hellish
and heavenly) IS perceived by every observer capable of perceiving it.
And the reason for this is that the information for these perceptions
exists in a platonic sense.



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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 20, 3:27 am, Jason Resch <jasonre...@...> wrote:
> If I sent you an arbitrary binary string, it would have no meaning
> unless you either knew in advance how to interpret it or how it was
> produced.  Either interpretation or understanding of how it was
> produced can be described with computer programs, but without that
> foreknowledge the binary string is meaningless because there would be
> an infinite number of ways to interpret that string.

It seems to me that the particular causal structure of a computer
running a simulation is an "implementation detail" of that particular
computer's architecture, and that any physical system that produces
outputs that can be mapped to a conscious human brain will produce
consciousness in the same way that the human brain does. Only the
outputs matter. Which is to say that only the information matters.

Being able to follow the causal chain of the computer running the
simulation is important in being able to interpret the outputs of the
simulation, and also is important to being able to have confidence
that the simulation is actually running correctly, AND is also
important in terms of knowing how to feed inputs into the simulation
(assuming that the simulated consciousness isn't living in a simulated
world which provides the inputs).

So causality is critical to us in viewing, interpretting, and
interacting with the simulation.

However, while causal chains are useful/necessary for working with and
interpretting output from physically implemented computers, I don't
see that they are essential for producing first person consciousness
experience, which doesn't require third person interpretation.

A random physical system (say a dust cloud) could "accidently" have
the right internal structure so as to be equivalent to a conscious
human brain over some period of time (http://
schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2009/01/dust-hypothesis.html).  But,
that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to go looking at dust clouds
to find interesting simulations of conscious entities.  This would be
like converting data from a radioactive decay counter into ASCII and
scanning the resulting character stream looking for a new blockbuster
novel.  If you live long enough and never give up, you'll eventually
find your novel, BUT it's not at all an efficient way of going about
the task.





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[Brent Meeker-2]

I don't disagree with any of your examples and ideas below.  I agree
that consciousness deals with models of the world (assuming there is a
world).  I agree that time is just sequence (I referred to the
"sequential aspect of consciousness).   But ISTM that each of  your
examples implicitly or even explicitly depends on a process, over and
above the information:

"...sensory data is instead apparently heavily *processed*..."

"...we *represent* that experience internally..."

"... and still get *behavior*..."

Brent



Kelly wrote:

> On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>  
>> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential
>> aspect of consciousness.  If consciousness is identified with
>> information then it is atemporal.
>>
>>    
>
> Time is just the dimension of experience.  But experience is an
> internal "psychological" concept, not an external concept.  Therefore
> "time" is also an internal feature of subjective experience, not
> necessarily an external feature of objective reality.
>
> So it seems to me that we have have no direct access to the physical
> world.  Information about the physical world is conveyed to us via our
> senses.  BUT, we don't even have direct conscious access to our
> sensory data.  All of that sensory data is instead apparently heavily
> processed by various neural subsystems and "feature detectors", the
> outputs of which are then reintegrated into a simplified mental model
> of reality, and THAT is what we are actually aware of.  That mental
> model is what we think of as "the real world".  So it seems to me
> that, even accepting physicalism, we can already think of ourselves as
> living in a virtual world of abstract information.
>
> The same is true of time.  We experience time only because we
> represent that experience internally as part of our simplified model
> of the world.  If there is an external time, it could be altered in
> many ways, but our internal representation (and experience) of time
> will remain unchanged.   Time derives from Consciousness.  Not vice
> versa.  Time IS an aspect of consciousness...and thus doesn't exist
> seperately from conscious experience.
>
> And also you can go back to the computer simulation idea and think
> about various scenarios.  If you and your environment were simulated
> on a fast computer or a slow computer...you wouldn't be able to tell
> the difference. If the computer ran for a while, then the simulation
> data was saved and the computer turned off, then a year later the
> computer and the simulation were restarted where they left off, you
> would have no way to detect that a year had passed in "external"
> time.  To you in the simulation, it would be as though nothing had
> happened, because the computer simulation would pick up on the same
> exact calculation where it had left off.  There was no interruption in
> your experience of time.
>
> I agree that experience and consciousness requires changes of state,
> but I don't agree that it must be change with respect to an external
> physical "time" dimension.  The best analogy that I have heard is that
> if you have a non-horizontal line, it's Y value changes with respect
> to the X axis.  So some piece of information (the Y value) "changes"
> with respect to another set of values (the X axis).  But there is no
> time involved in this type of change.
>
> Your experience of the X axis will depend on how you represent the X
> axis internally in your model of reality.  Maybe you will experience
> the X axis spatially...maybe you will experience it chronologically,
> maybe you will experience it some other way entirely.  Your experience
> of it depends entirely on how it is represented internally in the
> information that produces your conscious experience.
>
> I think that the Sherlock Holmes approach is the correct one for
> investigating and explaining the nature of consciousness and reality:
> "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
> improbable, must be the truth."
>
> I come to the conclusion that consciousness is information by way of
> process of elimination.  I can think of experiments or scenarios where
> you can do away with everything except information and still get
> behavior that seems conscious and which therefore I assume is actually
> conscious. Information is the only common factor in all situations
> where consciousness seems to be in evidence.  And really, it doesn't
> seem that counter-intuitive to me that information is ultimately what
> makes me what I am.
>
> So, I agree with David Chalmers that the idea that some (all?)
> information is conscious in some way is a fundamental aspect of
> information, and not really reducible to more fundamental descriptions
> or processes. Which again makes sense...how can you get more
> fundamental than "information"?
>
>
> On Apr 20, 2:04 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>  
>> The main difficulty I see is that it fails to explain the sequential
>> aspect of consciousness.  If consciousness is identified with
>> information then it is atemporal.  There are attempts to overcome this
>> objection by assuming a discretized consciousness and identifying
>> sequence with a partial ordering by similarity or content, but I find
>> them unconvincing because when you chop consciousness into "moments"
>> then the "moments" have very little content and it's not clear that it
>> is enough to define a sequence.  It seems you have allow each "moment"
>> to have small duration - and then you're back to process.  Or instead of
>> expanding consciousness in the time direction, you could get enough
>> information by expanding in the "orthogonal" direction - i.e. including
>> unconscious things like information stored in memory but not being
>> recalled (at the moment).  But then you've slipped physics in.
>>
>> Brent- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>>    
> >
>
>  

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[John Mikes]

Jesse, I always appreciated your posts as considerate, logical and most professional. Now I a not so sure...

Brent mixed up a bit the concepts, even stirring in interpretation into meaning, you speak about "our real world" - a joke. All because both of you are infected with a physicalistic-computerminded thinking, product of our XX.c. aberration by too much epistemic enrichment without the necessary base to use it properly. The old Greeks had it easy: with that minuscule 'knowledge-base' they had it was just dandy to use their pure logic - what is tarnished in today's thinking when a preschooler knows more about the universe than a Greek sage did. Not that I would vouch for the trueness of our knowledge, it is "interpreted" perceived reality, with lots of explanatory artifacts (figments) to match the 'equations'.

 

Let me épater le bourgois: there is no such thing as meaning we put it out by our ways of thinking. Vocabularies are not God-given(!). Loaded words are real. Diverse meanings are context-dependent. Information is also not an 'existing thing', it is something we absorb from relations that reach our cognizance. Context dependent again. Now what is thei mysterious context? it is our setup in our perceived reality what we apply in a certain case. Again our doing.

Not two minds(?) work identically in ALL respects (this caution is for Bruno, who may (I don't know) posit that anybody (with a mathematically inclined mind would work similarly with numbers, I amnot sure). So if you identify a dog as a cat, it is your meaning - not mine.

 

I agreed with Brent that meaning is based on action - I was in the mindset of considering everything as 'action' until the question arose: what triggers such action, what provides the necessities to it (I don't know what to call energy) and the ways it proceeds? so what we see is what we supposed/assumed. Is that your "real world"?

I THINK we are part of an existence all interconnected in ways about which we have no idea, but explain it to the ever actual level of our epistemic cognitive inventory. There are relations that may be viewed in diverse aspects and the change of our views is interpreted in our physics impeded thinking as movement, action, change, function, etc.

It is hard to separate our figments from our own thinking: we think in them. KNOW we don't. Our perception is limited and we cannot include the totality (I think thinking in numbers is also only an aspect to try so).

It is comfortable to stay within our capbilites - we are not ready to accept that all we know is a fraction that fits our assumptions.

 

Sorry, I am far from expressing myself clearly, and that is not only a language problem. Human language - maybe.

 

John M

 

PS. My version of consciousness (universal): the course of responding to information (that is: in the above described sense). ANY. JM

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Jesse Mazer <lasermazer@...> wrote:

Brent Meeker wrote:
> I think "meaning" ultimately must be grounded in action. That's why
> it's hard to see where the meaning lies in a computation, something that
> is just the manipulation of strings. People tend to say the meaning is
> in the interpretation, noting that the same string of 1s and 0s can have
> different interpretations. But what constitutes interpretation? I
> think it is interaction with the world. If you say, "What's a cat?"
> and I point and say, "That." then I've interpreted "cat" (perhaps
> wrongly if I point to a dog).
>

Well, suppose you have an A.I. computer program that's running a robot body--if you say "what's a cat" and the robot looks at a cat and points at it, and more generally interacts with the world and uses language in a way that suggests humanlike intelligence, do you grant that it probably has consciousness and that its statements have meaning? If so, suppose take the same program and let it run a simulated body in a simulated world, and when some other simulated fellow asks it "what's a cat", it now points at a simulated cat in this world. Has your opinion about the consciousness/meaning-creation of this program changed because it's only taking actions in a simulated world rather than our "real" world?

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Apr 2009, at 17:41, Brent Meeker wrote:



>>
>> A computation is a sequence of numbers (or of strings, or of
>> combinators, etc.) as resulting by an interpretation. For such an
>> interpretation, you don't need a "world", only an "interpreter" that
>> is a universal system, like elementary arithmetic for example.
>
> You put scare quotes around "interpreter".


Just because it is not a human interpreter, but a programming language  
interpreter. I use the term in the computer science sense.



>  I don't see how arithmetic
> is an interpreter - isn't it an interpretation (of Peano's axioms)?


Usually I use "Arithmetic" for the (usual) standard interpretation (in  
the human sense) of arithmetic. By arithmetic I was thinking of a  
formal system such as the formal system Robinson Arithmetic (or Peano  
Arithmetic depending on the context).

It is not so easy to show that Robinson Arithmetic is a Turing  
Universal interpreter, but it is standardly done in most good textbook  
in mathematical logic(*). It is no more extraordinary that the Turing  
universality of the SK combinators, or the universality of the  
Conway's game of life, or the universality of any little universal  
system.




> And
> how does arithmetic avoid the problem of arbitrarily many mappings, as
> raised by Stathis?


Once you accept the computationalist hypothesis, not only that problem  
is not avoided but the problems of the existence of both physical laws  
and consciousness is entirely reduced to it, or to the digital version  
(UD) version of that problem. The collection of all computations is a  
well defined computational object, already existing or defined by a  
tiny part of Arithmetical Truth, and not depending on the choice of  
the initial basic formal system.

The mapping are well defined though. The way Putnam, Mallah, Chalmers  
and others put that problem just makes no sense with comp, given that  
they postulated some primitively material or substantial universe  
which does not makes any sense (as I have argued already). Then they  
confuse a computation with a description of a computation. Sometimes  
they use also the idea that real numbers occurs actually in nature  
which just add confusion. Now I usually don't insist on that, because,  
even if such mapping would make sense, it just add computational  
histories in the universal dovetailing, or in Arithmetic, and this  
does not change the measure problem. The only important fact here is  
that with comp, the digitalness makes the measure problem well  
defined: none mappings are arbitrary: either there is a computation or  
there is no computation.
For example, with numbers and succession (but without addition and  
multiplication) there is no universal computation, even if there is a  
sense to say there is all description of computations there. A  
counting algorithm does not constitute a universal dovetailing. Now,  
numbers + addition + multiplication, gives universal computations and  
thus all computations with its typical super-redundancy, and the  
measure problem makes sense. Ontologically we need no more.  
Epistemologically we need *much* more, we need something so big that  
even with the whole "Cantor Paradise" or the whole "Plato Heaven" at  
our disposition we will not even been able to name what we need (and  
that is how comp prevents first person reductionism or eliminativism,  
and how it makes theology needing a scientific endeavor). (with  
science = hypothetical axiomatics).

I agree with Kelly that we don't need a notion of causality, but we  
need computations (Shannon information measures only a degree of  
surprise, and consciousness is more general than being surprised, and  
I agree with you that information is a statical notion). But the  
notion of computations needs the logical relations existing among  
numbers, although other basic finite entities can be used in the place  
of numbers. In all case, the computations exists through the logical  
relations among those finite entities.

We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a  
universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B.  
This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of  
view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the  
probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account  
*all* computations going from A to B, and thus you have to take into  
account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A  
into B. Most of them are indiscernible by "you" because they differ  
below "your" substitution level.


(*)
- Richard Epstein and Walter Carnielli, Computability, computable  
Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Wadsworth &  
Brooks/Cole Mathematics series, Pacific Grove, California, 1989.
- Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey, Computability and Logic, Cambridge  
University Press, Fourth edition, 2002.

Bruno

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




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[Brent Meeker-2]

Bruno Marchal wrote:

> On 20 Apr 2009, at 17:41, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
>  
>>> A computation is a sequence of numbers (or of strings, or of
>>> combinators, etc.) as resulting by an interpretation. For such an
>>> interpretation, you don't need a "world", only an "interpreter" that
>>> is a universal system, like elementary arithmetic for example.
>>>      
>> You put scare quotes around "interpreter".
>>    
>
>
> Just because it is not a human interpreter, but a programming language  
> interpreter. I use the term in the computer science sense.
>
>
>
>  
>>  I don't see how arithmetic
>> is an interpreter - isn't it an interpretation (of Peano's axioms)?
>>    
>
>
> Usually I use "Arithmetic" for the (usual) standard interpretation (in  
> the human sense) of arithmetic. By arithmetic I was thinking of a  
> formal system such as the formal system Robinson Arithmetic (or Peano  
> Arithmetic depending on the context).
>
> It is not so easy to show that Robinson Arithmetic is a Turing  
> Universal interpreter, but it is standardly done in most good textbook  
> in mathematical logic(*). It is no more extraordinary that the Turing  
> universality of the SK combinators, or the universality of the  
> Conway's game of life, or the universality of any little universal  
> system.
>
>
>
>
>  
>> And
>> how does arithmetic avoid the problem of arbitrarily many mappings, as
>> raised by Stathis?
>>    
>
>
> Once you accept the computationalist hypothesis, not only that problem  
> is not avoided but the problems of the existence of both physical laws  
> and consciousness is entirely reduced to it, or to the digital version  
> (UD) version of that problem. The collection of all computations is a  
> well defined computational object, already existing or defined by a  
> tiny part of Arithmetical Truth, and not depending on the choice of  
> the initial basic formal system.
>
> The mapping are well defined though. The way Putnam, Mallah, Chalmers  
> and others put that problem just makes no sense with comp, given that  
> they postulated some primitively material or substantial universe  
> which does not makes any sense (as I have argued already). Then they  
> confuse a computation with a description of a computation. Sometimes  
> they use also the idea that real numbers occurs actually in nature  
> which just add confusion. Now I usually don't insist on that, because,  
> even if such mapping would make sense, it just add computational  
> histories in the universal dovetailing, or in Arithmetic, and this  
> does not change the measure problem. The only important fact here is  
> that with comp, the digitalness makes the measure problem well  
> defined: none mappings are arbitrary: either there is a computation or  
> there is no computation.
> For example, with numbers and succession (but without addition and  
> multiplication) there is no universal computation, even if there is a  
> sense to say there is all description of computations there. A  
> counting algorithm does not constitute a universal dovetailing. Now,  
> numbers + addition + multiplication, gives universal computations and  
> thus all computations with its typical super-redundancy, and the  
> measure problem makes sense. Ontologically we need no more.  
> Epistemologically we need *much* more, we need something so big that  
> even with the whole "Cantor Paradise" or the whole "Plato Heaven" at  
> our disposition we will not even been able to name what we need (and  
> that is how comp prevents first person reductionism or eliminativism,  
> and how it makes theology needing a scientific endeavor). (with  
> science = hypothetical axiomatics).
>
> I agree with Kelly that we don't need a notion of causality, but we  
> need computations (Shannon information measures only a degree of  
> surprise, and consciousness is more general than being surprised, and  
> I agree with you that information is a statical notion). But the  
> notion of computations needs the logical relations existing among  
> numbers, although other basic finite entities can be used in the place  
> of numbers. In all case, the computations exists through the logical  
> relations among those finite entities.
>
> We could say that a state A access to a state B if there is a  
> universal machine (a universal number relation) transforming A into B.  
> This works at the ontological level, or for the third person point of  
> view. But if A is a consciousness related state, then to evaluate the  
> probability of personal access to B, you have to take into account  
> *all* computations going from A to B,

The question was whether information was enough, or whether something
else is needed for consciousness.  I think that sequence is needed,
which we experience as the passage of time.  When you speak of
computations "going from A to B" do you suppose that this provides the
sequence?  In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily
computed in the same order  as they are experienced or is the order
something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like
Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order without
changing the experience they instantiate).

A related question in my mind has to do with reversibility.  
Computations in general are not reversible: Turing machines erase
symbols. You can't infer the factors from the product.  But QM (without
collapse) is unitary and reversible in principle (though not in practice
because of statistical and light-speed reasons).  So my question is, are
the computations of the UD reversible?

> and thus you have to take into  
> account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A  
> into B. Most of them are indiscernible by "you" because they differ  
> below "your" substitution level.
>  

Does the UD have to complete the infinitely many computations from A to
B, i.e. we must think of these computations as being complete in Plationia?

Brent

>
> (*)
> - Richard Epstein and Walter Carnielli, Computability, computable  
> Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Wadsworth &  
> Brooks/Cole Mathematics series, Pacific Grove, California, 1989.
> - Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey, Computability and Logic, Cambridge  
> University Press, Fourth edition, 2002.
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>  

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Apr 2009, at 18:59, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> The question was whether information was enough, or whether something
> else is needed for consciousness.  I think that sequence is needed,
> which we experience as the passage of time.  When you speak of
> computations "going from A to B" do you suppose that this provides the
> sequence?

Not really. Subjective time, be it first person or first person plural  
(and thus "physical")  relies on all computations made by the UD, and  
the taking into account it is "self-referential".




> In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily
> computed in the same order

Your first person next instant depends on an infinity of computations  
made by the UD. The time step of the UD is relevant, because it  
determines the whole UD structure, but it is not related in any direct  
way with "time". We can conjecture than the more our substitution is  
low, the more *time* looks like a computation being independent of us:  
so relation of order can be made through indiscernible computation  
equivalence class. I mean there are relation between states of  
consciousness and computational history, but our consciousness  
evolution is not related directly to one computational sequence.


> as they are experienced or is the order
> something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like
> Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order  
> without
> changing the experience they instantiate).

Consciousness is related to the sheaf of computations going through  
that states. A computational state is a state of a computing  
(mathematical) machine when doing a computation. The machine has to be  
"runned" or "executed" relatively to a universal machine. You need the  
Peano or Robinson axiom to define such states and sequences of states.  
You can shuffled them if you want, and somehow the UD does shuffle  
them by its dovetailing procedure, but this will not change the  
arithmetical facts that those states belong or not too such or such  
computational histories. And consciousness relies on those  
computational facts (and information play important role there, but  
not up to identify consciousness and information. (I think  
consciousness is more a filtering of information, somehow).

>
>
> A related question in my mind has to do with reversibility.
> Computations in general are not reversible: Turing machines erase
> symbols. You can't infer the factors from the product.  But QM  
> (without
> collapse) is unitary and reversible in principle (though not in  
> practice
> because of statistical and light-speed reasons).  So my question is,  
> are
> the computations of the UD reversible?

I have still a residual doubt that a quantum computer makes sense  
mathematically, but if that exists, then there exist a reversible  
universal dovetailing.

>
>
>> and thus you have to take into
>> account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A
>> into B. Most of them are indiscernible by "you" because they differ
>> below "your" substitution level.
>>
>
> Does the UD have to complete the infinitely many computations from A  
> to
> B, i.e. we must think of these computations as being complete in  
> Plationia?

Yes. Our first person expectations relies on the whole completion of  
the UD, due to the non awareness of the dovetailing delay. But it is  
easier to describe the working of the UD by a program executed in  
time, than by an infinite set of arithmetical relations already true  
in "Platonia".

If you accept comp, you accept that your "brain state" is accessed an  
infinity of times by the UD through an infinity of computations. The  
world you are observing is a sort of mean of all those computations,  
from your point of view. But the "running of the UD" is just a  
picturesque way to describe an infinite set of arithmetical relations.  
 From inside it is just a logical consequence that it looks analytical  
and physical. Obvioulsy a lot of work has to be done to see if all  
this will lead to a refutation of comp, or to a "theory of everything".

Bruno

>> (*)
>> - Richard Epstein and Walter Carnielli, Computability, computable
>> Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Wadsworth &
>> Brooks/Cole Mathematics series, Pacific Grove, California, 1989.
>> - Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey, Computability and Logic, Cambridge
>> University Press, Fourth edition, 2002.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> >

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




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[Brent Meeker-2]

Bruno Marchal wrote:

> On 21 Apr 2009, at 18:59, Brent Meeker wrote:
>  
>> The question was whether information was enough, or whether something
>> else is needed for consciousness.  I think that sequence is needed,
>> which we experience as the passage of time.  When you speak of
>> computations "going from A to B" do you suppose that this provides the
>> sequence?
>>    
>
> Not really. Subjective time, be it first person or first person plural  
> (and thus "physical")  relies on all computations made by the UD, and  
> the taking into account it is "self-referential".
>
>
>
>
>  
>> In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily
>> computed in the same order
>>    
>
> Your first person next instant depends on an infinity of computations  
> made by the UD. The time step of the UD is relevant, because it  
> determines the whole UD structure, but it is not related in any direct  
> way with "time". We can conjecture than the more our substitution is  
> low, the more *time* looks like a computation being independent of us:  
> so relation of order can be made through indiscernible computation  
> equivalence class. I mean there are relation between states of  
> consciousness and computational history, but our consciousness  
> evolution is not related directly to one computational sequence.
>
>
>  
>> as they are experienced or is the order
>> something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like
>> Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order  
>> without
>> changing the experience they instantiate).
>>    
>
> Consciousness is related to the sheaf of computations going through  
> that states. A computational state is a state of a computing  
> (mathematical) machine when doing a computation. The machine has to be  
> "runned" or "executed" relatively to a universal machine. You need the  
> Peano or Robinson axiom to define such states and sequences of states.  
> You can shuffled them if you want, and somehow the UD does shuffle  
> them by its dovetailing procedure, but this will not change the  
> arithmetical facts that those states belong or not too such or such  
> computational histories.

I understand that the UD computes all different histories so they are
interleaved.  But each particular computation consists of an ordered set
of states.  These states can belong to more than one sequence of
conscious experience.  But the question is whether the order of the
states in the computation is always the same as their order in any
sequence of conscious experience in which they appear? For example, if
there is a computation of states A, B, and C then is that a possible
sequence in consciousness?  In general there will be another, different
computation that computes the states in the order A, C, B, so is that
too a possible sequence in consciousness?  Or is the experienced
sequence in consciousness the same - determined by some intrinsic to the
states?

> And consciousness relies on those  
> computational facts (and information play important role there, but  
> not up to identify consciousness and information. (I think  
> consciousness is more a filtering of information, somehow).
>
>
>
>  
>> A related question in my mind has to do with reversibility.
>> Computations in general are not reversible: Turing machines erase
>> symbols. You can't infer the factors from the product.  But QM  
>> (without
>> collapse) is unitary and reversible in principle (though not in  
>> practice
>> because of statistical and light-speed reasons).  So my question is,  
>> are
>> the computations of the UD reversible?
>>    
>
> I have still a residual doubt that a quantum computer makes sense  
> mathematically, but if that exists, then there exist a reversible  
> universal dovetailing.
>
>  

I don't understand that remark.  Universal dovetailing is a completely
abstract mathematical construct. It exists in Platonia.  So how can the
existence of a reversible (i.e. information preserving) UD depend on
quantum computers?

Brent

>
>
>  
>>    
>>> and thus you have to take into
>>> account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A
>>> into B. Most of them are indiscernible by "you" because they differ
>>> below "your" substitution level.
>>>
>>>      
>> Does the UD have to complete the infinitely many computations from A  
>> to
>> B, i.e. we must think of these computations as being complete in  
>> Plationia?
>>    
>
> Yes. Our first person expectations relies on the whole completion of  
> the UD, due to the non awareness of the dovetailing delay. But it is  
> easier to describe the working of the UD by a program executed in  
> time, than by an infinite set of arithmetical relations already true  
> in "Platonia".
>
> If you accept comp, you accept that your "brain state" is accessed an  
> infinity of times by the UD through an infinity of computations. The  
> world you are observing is a sort of mean of all those computations,  
> from your point of view. But the "running of the UD" is just a  
> picturesque way to describe an infinite set of arithmetical relations.  
>  From inside it is just a logical consequence that it looks analytical  
> and physical. Obvioulsy a lot of work has to be done to see if all  
> this will lead to a refutation of comp, or to a "theory of everything".
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>  
>>> (*)
>>> - Richard Epstein and Walter Carnielli, Computability, computable
>>> Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Wadsworth &
>>> Brooks/Cole Mathematics series, Pacific Grove, California, 1989.
>>> - Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey, Computability and Logic, Cambridge
>>> University Press, Fourth edition, 2002.
>>>
>>> Bruno
>>>
>>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>      
>>    
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>  

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[John Mikes]

Bruno,

you made my day when you wrote:

"SOMEHOW" - in:

 "...The machine has to be "runned" or "executed" relatively to a universal machine. You need the Peano or Robinson axiom to define such states and sequences of states.
You can shuffled them if you want, and somehow the UD does shuffle
them by its dovetailing procedure, but this will not change the
arithmetical facts that those states belong or not too such or such
computational histories...."

*

First: my vocablary sais about 'axiom' the reverse of how it is used, it is our artifact invented in order to facilitate the application of our theories IOW: explanations for the phenomena so poorly understood (if anyway). So it is MADE up for exactly the purpose what we evidence by it.

 

Second: UD "shuffles 'them' by the ominous 'somehow', (no idea: how?) but it has to be done for the result we invented as a 'must be'.

 

Third: the 'computational history' snapshots have to come together

(I am not referring to the sequence, rather to the combination between 'earlier' and 'later'  snapshots into a continuum from a discontinuum. That marvel bugs science for at least 250 years since chemical "thinking" started.

A sequence of pictures is no history.

*

Then again: you wrote:

 "...The world you are observing is a sort of mean of all those computations, from your point of view. But the "running of the UD" is just a picturesque way to describe an infinite set of arithmetical relations..."

 

 I am not sure about the "mean" since we are not capable of even noticing 'all of them', not to evaluate the totality for a 'mean' - in my not arithmetic vocabulary: a median "meaning" of them all (nonsense).

Your words may be a flowery (math that is) expression of 'viewing the totality in its entirety' which is just as impossible (for us, today) as to realize your 'infinite set of arithmetical relations'. If I leave out the 'arithmetical' (or substitute it by my meaningfulness) then we came together in 'viewing the totality' in our indiviual wording-ways.

"Relations" is the punctum salience, it is a loose enough term to cover whatever is beyond our present comprehension. When relations look differently (maybe by just our observation from a different aspect?) we translate it into physical terms like change, movement, reaction, process or else, not realizing that WE look at it from different connotations.

Use to that our coordinates (space and time) in the limited view we can muster (I call it: "model") and we arrived at causality of the conventional sciences (and common sense thinking as well).

Indeed it is our personal (mini)-solipsistic perceived reality of OUR world

washed into some common pattern (partially!) by comp or math or else.

By the maze of such covering umbrella we believe in adjusted thinking.

*

Please do not conclude any denial from my part against the 'somehow' topics, the process-function-change manipulations (unknown, as I said),

it is only reference to my ignorance directed in my agnosticism towards made-up explanations of any cultural era (and changing fast).

John M

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal@...> wrote:

On 21 Apr 2009, at 18:59, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> The question was whether information was enough, or whether something
> else is needed for consciousness.  I think that sequence is needed,
> which we experience as the passage of time.  When you speak of
> computations "going from A to B" do you suppose that this provides the
> sequence?

Not really. Subjective time, be it first person or first person plural
(and thus "physical")  relies on all computations made by the UD, and
the taking into account it is "self-referential".

> In other words are the states of consciousness necessarily
> computed in the same order

Your first person next instant depends on an infinity of computations
made by the UD. The time step of the UD is relevant, because it
determines the whole UD structure, but it is not related in any direct
way with "time". We can conjecture than the more our substitution is
low, the more *time* looks like a computation being independent of us:
so relation of order can be made through indiscernible computation
equivalence class. I mean there are relation between states of
consciousness and computational history, but our consciousness
evolution is not related directly to one computational sequence.

> as they are experienced or is the order
> something intrinsic to the information in the states (i.e. like
> Stathis'es observer moments which can be shuffled into any order
> without
> changing the experience they instantiate).

Consciousness is related to the sheaf of computations going through
that states. A computational state is a state of a computing
(mathematical) machine when doing a computation. The machine has to be
"runned" or "executed" relatively to a universal machine. You need the
Peano or Robinson axiom to define such states and sequences of states.
You can shuffled them if you want, and somehow the UD does shuffle
them by its dovetailing procedure, but this will not change the
arithmetical facts that those states belong or not too such or such
computational histories. And consciousness relies on those
computational facts (and information play important role there, but
not up to identify consciousness and information. (I think
consciousness is more a filtering of information, somehow).

>
>
> A related question in my mind has to do with reversibility.
> Computations in general are not reversible: Turing machines erase
> symbols. You can't infer the factors from the product.  But QM
> (without
> collapse) is unitary and reversible in principle (though not in
> practice
> because of statistical and light-speed reasons).  So my question is,
> are
> the computations of the UD reversible?

I have still a residual doubt that a quantum computer makes sense
mathematically, but if that exists, then there exist a reversible
universal dovetailing.

>
>
>> and thus you have to take into
>> account the infinitely many universal number relations transforming A
>> into B. Most of them are indiscernible by "you" because they differ
>> below "your" substitution level.
>>
>
> Does the UD have to complete the infinitely many computations from A
> to
> B, i.e. we must think of these computations as being complete in
> Plationia?

Yes. Our first person expectations relies on the whole completion of
the UD, due to the non awareness of the dovetailing delay. But it is
easier to describe the working of the UD by a program executed in
time, than by an infinite set of arithmetical relations already true
in "Platonia".

If you accept comp, you accept that your "brain state" is accessed an
infinity of times by the UD through an infinity of computations. The
world you are observing is a sort of mean of all those computations,
from your point of view. But the "running of the UD" is just a
picturesque way to describe an infinite set of arithmetical relations.
 From inside it is just a logical consequence that it looks analytical
and physical. Obvioulsy a lot of work has to be done to see if all
this will lead to a refutation of comp, or to a "theory of everything".

Bruno

>> (*)
>> - Richard Epstein and Walter Carnielli, Computability, computable
>> Functions, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Wadsworth &
>> Brooks/Cole Mathematics series, Pacific Grove, California, 1989.
>> - Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey, Computability and Logic, Cambridge
>> University Press, Fourth edition, 2002.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> >

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

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