Consciousness is information?

[Lennart Nilsson-2]

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This looks interesting. Has it been noticed here?

 

The Invariant Set Hypothesis: A New Geometric Framework for the Foundations of Quantum Theory and the Role Played by Gravity

Authors: T.N.Palmer

(Submitted on 5 Dec 2008 (v1), last revised 17 Feb 2009 (this version, v3))

Abstract: The Invariant Set Hypothesis proposes that states of physical reality belong to, and are governed by, a non-computable fractal subset I of state space, invariant under the action of some subordinate deterministic causal dynamics D. The Invariant Set Hypothesis is motivated by key results in nonlinear dynamical-systems theory, and black-hole thermodynamics. The elements of a reformulation of quantum theory are developed using two key properties of I: sparseness and self-similarity. Sparseness is used to relate counterfactual states to points not on I thus providing a basis for understanding the essential contextuality of quantum physics. Self similarity is used to relate the quantum state to oscillating coarse-grain probability mixtures based on fractal partitions of I, thus providing the basis for understanding the notion of quantum coherence. Combining these, an entirely analysis is given of the standard "mysteries" of quantum theory: superposition, nonlocality, measurement, emergence of classicality, the ontology of uncertainty and so on. It is proposed that gravity plays a key role in generating the fractal geometry of I. Since quantum theory does not itself recognise the existence of such a state-space geometry, the results here suggest that attempts to formulate unified theories of physics within a quantum theoretic framework are misguided; rather, a successful quantum theory of gravity should unify the causal non-euclidean geometry of space time with the atemporal fractal geometry of state space.

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1148

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Jesse,

On 15 May 2009, at 06:32, Jesse Mazer wrote:

>Maudlin shows that you can reduce almost arbitrarily the amount of physical activity for running any computation, and keep their computational genuineness through the use of inert material. So the isomorphism you introduce vanish on the original Olympia (Pre-olympia).

>Olympia *is*  "Pre-Olympia" + Klara (the inert (for the computation PI) machinery needed for the counterfactuals) OK? Olympia run the computation PI.

But what do you mean when you say the isomorphism vanishes? Do you mean that the causal structure of pre-Olympia would *not* be isomorphic to the causal structure of the original Turing machine that pre-Olympia was supposed to imitate (according to the definition of causal structure in terms of logical relations between propositions about the system's state at different moments)?

Yes. When I assume physical supervenience, for the benefit of the refutation. Olympia, relatively to me, implements Alice (or PI), Pre-Olypia does not. I would say yes to a doctor if he gives me an Olympia brain, no if he gives me pre-Olympia! That is what I mean by the vansihing of the "causal" isomorphism. Of course my goal, when I say yes to the doctor, is to preserve my consciousness, and my ability to manifest it in the "normal" (most probable) histories. My consciousness is already in "plato heaven", so what I need "here" are the right dispositional devices.

If so, that would mean that regular Olympia (pre-Olympia + Klara) wouldn't have a causal structure isomorphic to the Turing machine either, since I was defining causal structure solely in terms of propositions about events that *do* occur in the system's history, meaning the extra counterfactual conditions provided by Klara are irrelevant to Olympia's causal structure, so Olympia's causal structure would be the same as pre-Olympia's.

Right. But Maudlin manages to show that Olympia can have an empty causal structure, and that you have to say yes to the doctor when he proposes to substitute your brain by nothing. Personally I conceive propositions only in a net of related propositions by theories or models. The causal structure is mainly given by axioms and inference or computation rules, or by a (mathematical) semantics (model). You can't separate a proposition from other propositions like you can't separate a number from the other numbers.

I guess you would say that the movie-graph (the movie of the filmed active boolean graph corresponding to Alice's dream) would vehiculate Alice's dream. I can agree if you call the causal structure the computation corresponding to the local events lending to that graph, but then you have abandon the "real time" physical supervenience thesis already (or comp).

It is a very subtle and complex point here, we can go back on this later.

If that's the case, why can't we postulate that consciousness supervenes on causal structure, since causal structure is after all part of the physical world?

The point is that you can realize any computation with any causal structure in that sense. Maudlin's construction explains well that the Klaras, or the *material* for the counterfactuals are a read herring as far as giving a role in the logical relations describing a computation. And not just the material one! Any choice of a particular universal system cannot work, you have to take them all. You can then choose the simplest one (+ and *) to retrieve those who define observable realities from the point of view of universal machines.

In fact one could say that physics is *only* concerned with "causality" in the sense of lawlike relations between propositions about observations, since the laws of physics tell us nothing about what particles or fields or wavefunctions "really are", only about how they interact with one another and how they can be used to predict the outcomes measurements. So if we say consciousness supervenes on causal structure, then Olympia would not qualify as an instantiation of the observer-moments that the original Turing machine instantiated, in much the same way that a lookup table wouldn't qualify. 

I don't see that at all. Olympia is just a "crazy" implementation of an algorithm, but it is correct on all inputs. Its resemblance with a look-up table is local, finite, and does not change Olympia's semantics. If such a change makes a change, I would no more say yes to a doctor. My consciousness would depend on the nature of the implementation.

I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a sort of "zombie",

Look-up table contains the counterfactuals. I am not sure that a giant look-up up table can be considered as a zombie. The problem is that such a look-up table would be gigantic and hard to address. Also, its origin, relatively to me, would need a strange "history". But if that exist I could say yes to a doctor providing me with that lookup table. Very practical: let us look what I am answering to Jesse today :)

since after all the way you'd create a lookup table for a given algorithmic mind would be to run a huge series of actual simulations of that mind with all possible inputs, creating a huge archive of "recordings" so that later if anyone supplies the lookup table with a given input, the table just looks up the recording of the occasion in which the original simulated mind was supplied with that exact input in the past, and plays it back. Why should merely replaying a recording of something that happened to a simulated observer in the past contribute to the measure of that observer-moment? I don't believe that playing a videotape of me being happy or sad in the past will increase the measure of happy or sad observer-moments involving me, after all.

Unless in some story you survive during a period. The problem of the lookup table is that to manage the counterfactual it has to run all your future as well. The problem comes from the physical supervenience only. You try to select one notion of causality, when with comp consciousness supervene on all notion of all relatively probable notions of causality.

And Olympia seems to be somewhat similar to a lookup table in that the only way to construct "her" would be to have already run the regular Turing machine program that she is supposed to emulate, so that you know in advance the order that the Turing machine's read/write head visits different cells, and then you can rearrange the positions of those cells so Olympia will visit them in the correct order just by going from one cell to the next in line over and over again.

So: why can't the idea of consciousness supervening on causal structure be a possible strategy for avoiding the problem you talk about in step 8 of your UDA argument (if I am understanding it correctly), namely the idea that even if there was a physical universe it wouldn't be able to tell us anything about the measure of different computations? If we talk about the causal structure of a given computation, why can't we look at how frequently sets of physical events with an isomorphic causal structure occur in the physical universe, and derive a measure on physical implementations of computations in this way?

Because any consciousness will be attached to any "causal structure" in your sense. Your propositional interpretation of the causal structure needs the counterfactuals and all the conditional theorems in the theories which defines your "true and probable" theorem. If you want to singularize consciousness through the choice of a particular machine, this one will have to be actually infinite. 

Not that I personally would favor this approach to a philosophical "theory of everything", but would you say it isn't even a coherent possibility?

I don't think so, for the reason allude above. 

Are you saying that a notion similar to my definition of "causal structure" is already made use of in the areas of mathematics you're talking about, or when you say "the history of a particular Turing machine computation" are you talking about something unrelated to my definition of the computation's causal structure?

You should give a more precise definition of what you mean by "causal structure". If you postulate a physical world (or any particular universal machine) and define causality the truth of some propositions (theorems, conjecture) I can follow you only insofar that you realize we have to justify the "physicals laws from an average based on that". 

I also wonder if anything similar to this notion of causal structure could be found in category theory, since in some layman's summaries I've read that category theory defines mathematics in a purely relational way, where any mathematical object (or proposition?) is defined entirely in its relationships to other objects.

You are right. Category provides genuine information about those things. But it is an investment, and it is a bit labyrinthine. Also, in computer-land, most objects are only partially defined, and it is hard to just find the "good" morphism in between objects. The very fact that you mention category theory, which has nothing physical per se, for your causal structure, makes me think that you don't take too much seriously that such causality has to be based on a notion of substance, or primary matter. That's all what the movie-graph try to convey.

When you say "that approach", are you talking specifically about looking at isomorphisms between 1) logical relations among propositions about arithmetic, and 2) logical relations among propositions about the history of a Turing machine computation?

Always proposition about numbers.  (or combinators, etc.). Remember that we can translate the logical metamathematics in term of relations between numbers.

Or were you saying that UDA takes an approach that is similar in some broader fashion?

UDA was originally just an argument to explain that the mind-body problem is not yet solved, and that assuming comp, it can be pertially reduce in the problem of justifying physics from computer science/number theory. What you ask me could depend of what you mean by "causal structure". Should such a structure defined in term of physics or in term of logic+number (or logic+combinators, etc.).

since I'm suggesting some kind of absolute measure on all causal structures, and if you identify particular causal structures with OMs that would correspond to the ASSA, but you have said that your approach only uses the RSSA.

>There is no absolute measure on all "causal structures" , still less on OM, right! I would ba an ants or a bacteria in two seconds!

I guess it would depend on how the measure was defined.

Sure. that is what I like with comp, the measure is immediately relative and indexically defined. that is why we can, and are forced, to use the logic of self-reference at some point.

It might not just be in terms of the numerical frequency that a given causal structure appears in the world, but also in terms of things like how many other causal structures "remember" that causal structure in some sense (contain detailed information about it). That could perhaps give a measure which was biased towards more complex causal structures like human minds even though ants are much more common numerically.

You are right. It is a reason for being a bit skeptical about "absolute measure" here.

Well, I didn't mean to sugest that your ideas are vague, only that my own notions of a connection between causal structure and measure were rather ill-defined...

OK.  I would be pleased if you try to define causal structure, or just tell me if it is based on physics. Even accepting the primacy of physics, it is a complex notion. Comp get rid of it, or "relegate" it at the higher epistemological level, like consciousness, responsibility, free will, etc. The proposition that machine x on y will output z, can be defined entirely in term of addition and multiplication of numbers, with the usual logic. Even much less thanks to Matiyazevitch.

there'd be a lot more math I'd need to learn if I wanted to seriously try to develop these ideas, or to really understand the details of your own ideas. By the way, do you have a bibliography somewhere of books you think someone could use to self-teach themselves enough math to understand the details of your AUDA argument?

I think that Günther has put some biblio in the everything list documentation (look for AUDA). Two excellent books are the Boolos, Burgess and Jeffrey book, and the book by Epstein and Carnielli. They give the most genuine, with respect to UDA-7 and AUDA, balance of logic and theoretical computer science.

For AUDA and the logic of self-reference, Boolos 1979, Boolos 1993, and Smorynski 1985 are very good. Or look at the reference of my french thesis:

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/lillethesis/these/node79.html#SECTION001300000000000000000

On Gödel and Mechanism: Webb 1980 is the best published book.

I must go; no time for adding typo errors today!

Best,

Bruno

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

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[Stephen Paul King-2]

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Hi Bruno,

----- Original Message -----

From: marchal@...

To: everything-list@...

Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:35 AM

Subject: Re: 3-PoV from 1 PoV?

Hi Stephen,

On 13 May 2009, at 22:20, Stephen Paul King wrote:

snip

 

   

    By relagating the notion of implementation, to Robinson Arithmatic, etc., one only moves the problem further away from the focus of how even the appearence of change, dynamics, etc. obtain. The basic idea that you propose, while wonderfully sophisticated and nuanced, is in essense no different from that of Bishop Berkeley or Plato; it simply does not answer the basic question:

 

            Where does the appearence of change obtain from primitives that by definition do not allow for its existence?

[BM]

Because you can define in arithmetic, using only addition and multiplication symbols, and logic,  the notion of computation, or of pieces of computation, like you can define provability (by PA, by ZF, or by any effective theory) already in the very weak (yet Turing universal) Robinson Arithmetic.

 

 

[SPK]

 

    Ok, Robinson Arithmatic is " ... or Q, is a finitely axiomatized fragment of Peano arithmetic (PA). ...Q is essentially PA without the axiom schema of induction. Even though Q is much weaker than PA, it is still incomplete in the sense of Gödel." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_arithmetic_Q

 

    It does not tell me where the assumption of implementation of the addition and multiplication obtain. Just because one can define X does not mean that one has produced X; unless we are assuming that the act of defining a representational system is co-creative of its objects. Are we to consider that an object, physical or platonic, is one and the same as its representations?

 

    Oh, I forgot, it has been proposed that a book containing a symbolic representation of Einstein's Brain is equal/equivalent to Einstein's Mind. OK! ... Moving on.

[BM]

You can entirely define in arithmetic statements of the kind "The machine x on input y has not yet stop after z steps". The notion of "time" used  here through the notion of computational steps can be deined entirely from the notion of natural numbers successor (which can be taken as primitive or defined through addition and multiplication).

 

[SPK]

 

    Ok, time (pun intended!) for a thought experiment. I go the Library of Babel and pull out the "Einstein's Brain" and bring it home with me.

 

    I sit down and ask it: "what are your latest thoughts on the nature of Unified Fields?". How long am I going to wait before I realize that I will never get an answer?

 

    You might say:"Stephen, you are going about it all wrong! You have to first create a well-formed question in the language of "Eintein's Brain" and then look up the appropriate responce inthe book."

 

    I answer, "Ah, So "Einstein's Brain" can answer my question after all; it can only sit there on the table until I opening and use my own computational implementation to get my answer."

 

    So where is "Einstein's Mind"? Nowhere...

 

 

    What is it that distinguishes a random sequence of scratches on a plane of sand from the sequence of symbols of the equation representing the Grand Unified Theory of Everything? Well, one person might say: " I can read the one that is an equation..."  Meaningfullness necessitates a subject to whom meaning obtains. Computational states, symbolic scratches or patterns of concurrent neuron firings or distributions of voltage potentials, mean something because their existance is such that situations would be different otherwise for some system other than that of the states, scratches, patterns, etc..

    Remember the notion of Causation?

 

    X is the Cause of Y if and only if X would not occur without the occurence of Y. David Deutsch defines it more pointedly: "...an event X causes an event Y in our universe if both X and Y occur in our universe, but in most variants of our universe in which X does not happen, Y does not happen either." The trouble is that unless there exists a unique measure on the "space" where in events are coded in the Universe of possible statements or sentences of Robinson Arithmatic, it is undecidable if X happens or Y happens because one can not distinguish between actual computational steps that would generate a means to distinguish X from Y or strings that code some other computational string. Remember how Goedel numbering works... Only if the number of possible statements that can be coded with the same string are computationally isomorphic (generate the same output per input) can one obtain a means to distinguish X from Y, but if we require this it will be no longer possible to code any variants of our universe. Variants would not be allowed. Without the possibility of variants, how does one obtain a notion of contrafactuality?

 

    To claim that the ordering of natural numbers from the notion of succession allow for us to obtain a coherent notion of the ordering of events time is fine, but only if there is one and only one possible successor per any given number. The notion of Causation, inherent in the notion of "time" requires there to be more than one possible successor or else there would be no notion of "variants", ala Deutsch's statement above or any contrafactuals. In a Mathematical Set, one can is not free to have uniqueness or excluded middle rules apply only when convinient for the theorists. Axioms and Rules are Universal or Nothing.

    The identification of Time as a "dimension", usually represented as the Real number line does not allow for anything like the variants that we obtain in QM theory.  As a matter of fact, events prior to the specification of 1) a basis and 2) a specific experimental condition exists as quantities that have a complex number value. Complex numbers DO NOT have a natural ordering. Thus the notion of Time as a Real number Lines is Not an a priori defined notion, it is strictly a posteriori and thus not available as a means to assing successional overing to events.

   

 

 

[BM]

If you prefer, I could tell you that in arithmetic we have a very notion of time: the natural number sequence. Then we can define in arithmetic the notion of computation, and the notion of next step for a computation made by such or such machine. And from that, we can explain how the subjective appearance of physical times and spaces occur.

[SPK

   

    That would make sense only if we could show how numeric succession, which is a form of "x is less than y, thus y succeds x", is equivalent in all situations for sequential stepping in a computational string. If we have to allow for some form of process for our notion to be coherent then we have not eliminated some primitive form of change from our theory; we have merely pushed it into a corner and hope that no one notices. Again, we can not derive any form of change from a system that does not allow for its existence.

[BM]
UDA explains why we have to proceed that way, and AUDA explains how we can do, and actually, it has been done concretely. Of course the extraction of physics is technically demanding. I should test on new machine the quantum tautologies (and some people are trying recently to do so, we will see). Up to now quantum mechanics confirms the comp self-referential statistics.

You should keep in mind that, due to incompleteness, from the point of view of the machine, although Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dp, Bp &Dp & p, all define the same extensional provability notion (G* knows that), they differ intensionally for the machine, and, for the machine they obeys quite different logic. The incompleteness nuances forces the arithmetical reality to *appear* very differently "from inside". The Theatetical knower Bp & p, for example, gives a knowledge operator, and can be used to explain why machine can know many things, but also why they can not define knowledge, why the first person knower has really no name, etc. The logic of Bp & Dp & p gives a logic of qualia, or perceptive fields, etc.

Don't hesitate to ask question. Normally UDA is much simpler to understand than AUDA. I will reexplain the step seven to Kim, soon or later.

 

[SPK]

       

        I would like to better understand tyhe notion of a Theatetical Knower. Could you link to a discussion of it?

   

Bruno

Time is an illusion, but the illusion of time is not an illusion. 

It is a theorem that all self-referentially correct machines are confronted with such an illusion, and they make precise discourses about them. UDA forbids to take such arithmetical machine as mere zombie, or you have to abandon the comp hypothesis.

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

 

 

[SPK]

 

    I do not wish for any one to abandon Comp, I wish only to show that it is a key fragment in a larger system. We can easily show how "static" systems emerge from dynamics ones. The converse is difficult at best. When we assume that "Becoming" is fundamental, "Being" is show to be identical to the automorphisms. A change in a system that leaves it invariant is identical to a non-change, but to neglect the fact that a change is possible is to nullify the entire notion of meaningfullness.

 

Onward!

 

Stephen

 

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[Alberto G. Corona]

No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running
on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets
selected, replicated and selected again.

In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and
philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of
consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps
an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is
very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others
members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in
memory for consciousness processing.  This is a part of our moral
sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment.
Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can
discover the motivations of others.

The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in
order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start
to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own
record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a
sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself
(this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module
evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of
some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module
attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the
brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the
way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves
as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind.

The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This
explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why
we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too
much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the
situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is
made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower
level modules take care of our actions


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[Kelly Harmon]

I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness.  AKA,
the "easy problems" of consciousness.  The question of how human
behavior is produced.

My question was what is the source of "phenomenal" consciousness.
What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order
for conscious experience to exist?  So my question isn't HOW human
behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic
processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective
"first person" conscious experience.  The "hard problem".  Qualia.

I wasn't asking "how is it that we do the things we do", or, "how did
this come about", but instead "given that we do these things, why is
there a subjective experience associated with doing them."

So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of
whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in
the same way as a real human mind.  If a simulation would be, then
what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical
systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of
consciousness?



On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona <agocorona@...> wrote:

>
> No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
> handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
> driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running
> on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets
> selected, replicated and selected again.
>
> In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and
> philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of
> consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps
> an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is
> very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others
> members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in
> memory for consciousness processing.  This is a part of our moral
> sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment.
> Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can
> discover the motivations of others.
>
> The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in
> order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start
> to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own
> record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a
> sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself
> (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module
> evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of
> some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module
> attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the
> brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the
> way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves
> as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind.
>
> The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This
> explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why
> we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too
> much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the
> situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
> travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is
> made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower
> level modules take care of our actions
>
>
> >
>

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[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Stephen,

    Ok, Robinson Arithmatic is " ... or Q, is a finitely axiomatized fragment of Peano arithmetic (PA). ...Q is essentially PA without the axiom schema of induction. Even though Q is much weaker than PA, it is still incomplete in the sense of Gödel." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_arithmetic_Q

 

    It does not tell me where the assumption of implementation of the addition and multiplication obtain.

I don't use the assumption of implementation of the addition and multiplication. I use only the fact that some relations among numbers are true or false. You could as well ask a physical realist in what he implements the physical laws ...

Just because one can define X does not mean that one has produced X; unless we are assuming that the act of defining a representational system is co-creative of its objects.

I think you are confusing numbers and their representations. Arithmetical truth is independent of the representation used for numbers.

Are we to consider that an object, physical or platonic, is one and the same as its representations?

Of course not. And that is why I don't need, at the ontological level, any representation. Of course I need some to talk with you, but that's different.

 

    Oh, I forgot, it has been proposed that a book containing a symbolic representation of Einstein's Brain is equal/equivalent to Einstein's Mind. OK! ... Moving on.

Where? In the book Mind's I, Hofstadter just argues that if comp is true then you can converse with Einstein through the manipulation of a book describing (at the right level) the brain of Einstein at some moment. To proceed we have to be careful in all those little nuances. The devil is in the details.

[BM]

You can entirely define in arithmetic statements of the kind "The machine x on input y has not yet stop after z steps". The notion of "time" used  here through the notion of computational steps can be deined entirely from the notion of natural numbers successor (which can be taken as primitive or defined through addition and multiplication).

 

[SPK]

 

    Ok, time (pun intended!) for a thought experiment. I go the Library of Babel and pull out the "Einstein's Brain" and bring it home with me.

 

    I sit down and ask it: "what are your latest thoughts on the nature of Unified Fields?". How long am I going to wait before I realize that I will never get an answer?

 

    You might say:"Stephen, you are going about it all wrong! You have to first create a well-formed question in the language of "Eintein's Brain" and then look up the appropriate responce inthe book."

 

    I answer, "Ah, So "Einstein's Brain" can answer my question after all; it can only sit there on the table until I opening and use my own computational implementation to get my answer."

Of course, if you want that Einstein answers relatively to you, you have to implement it relatively to you. Either with a Mac, or a PC, or an IBM, or with your hands, whatever. Come on Stephen ...

 

    So where is "Einstein's Mind"? Nowhere...

The 3-OMs of Einstein are distributed in the whole of Arithmetic (assuming comp this is quasi trivial to show, yet tedious. The 1-OMs of Einstein appears from inside arithmetic (only Einstein knows them) and their relative statistics are defined by a relative measure (which has to exist or comp is false) pertaining on the 2^aleph_zero computations going through its states. Ask any precise question on this if you have any difficulties.

 

 

    What is it that distinguishes a random sequence of scratches on a plane of sand from the sequence of symbols of the equation representing the Grand Unified Theory of Everything? Well, one person might say: " I can read the one that is an equation..."  Meaningfullness necessitates a subject to whom meaning obtains.

Sure.

Computational states, symbolic scratches or patterns of concurrent neuron firings or distributions of voltage potentials, mean something because their existance is such that situations would be different otherwise for some system other than that of the states, scratches, patterns, etc..

Sure. 

    Remember the notion of Causation?

There are plenty notion of causation derivable from inside arithmetic when you assume comp. Most would collapse to classical logic if the incompleteness did not exist. But machines are incomplete and reflect that incompleteness. This entails not only causation, but also responsibility and I would even argue it implies a form of strong, but partial, (free)-will.

 

    X is the Cause of Y if and only if X would not occur without the occurence of Y. David Deutsch defines it more pointedly: "...an event X causes an event Y in our universe if both X and Y occur in our universe, but in most variants of our universe in which X does not happen, Y does not happen either." The trouble is that unless there exists a unique measure on the "space" where in events are coded in the Universe of possible statements or sentences of Robinson Arithmatic, it is undecidable if X happens or Y happens because one can not distinguish between actual computational steps that would generate a means to distinguish X from Y or strings that code some other computational string.

Could you explain? This is not clear too me.

Remember how Goedel numbering works... Only if the number of possible statements that can be coded with the same string are computationally isomorphic (generate the same output per input) can one obtain a means to distinguish X from Y, but if we require this it will be no longer possible to code any variants of our universe. Variants would not be allowed. Without the possibility of variants, how does one obtain a notion of contrafactuality?

I'm afraid you will have to revise your comp basic, if you allow me to be frank. Up to now, the real (mathematical) problem with comp is that it allows too much variants, including many consistent but unsound variants like the white rabbits. And we have the counterfactuals, where any particular physical activity miss them ... In comp fact and counterfacts are relative notions, and all exist, in the usual sense that prime number exist. And then we can explain how very different and layered notions of existence emerge from that.

Don't confuse platonia before Gödel and after Gödel: we know now that in Platonia everything move and shit happens. But we (the old Löbian machine) do have partial control on our probable realities. We partially define them in a sense.

 

    To claim that the ordering of natural numbers from the notion of succession allow for us to obtain a coherent notion of the ordering of events time is fine, but only if there is one and only one possible successor per any given number.

This is used to measure only the "time" of the UD works, not possible internal times of its "subcomputations", and still less subjective times of entities, etc. Any decidable predicate pertaining on the proof of sentence of the shape "ExP(x)" with P decidable would have work for the UD-time. In complexity theory this is called a Blum Measure. It has nothing to do neither with physical times nor with subjective duration, which emerge statistically and from an inside epistemological machine point of view. Like in Borgess the UD generates a labyrinthine web of times.

Symmetries and relatively broken symmetries, in many (too much a priori yet) directions.

The notion of Causation, inherent in the notion of "time" requires there to be more than one possible successor or else there would be no notion of "variants", ala Deutsch's statement above or any contrafactuals. In a Mathematical Set, one can is not free to have uniqueness or excluded middle rules apply only when convinient for the theorists. Axioms and Rules are Universal or Nothing.

    The identification of Time as a "dimension", usually represented as the Real number line does not allow for anything like the variants that we obtain in QM theory.

You are a bit unfair here. All your critics bears on QM as on COMP (which if my work is correct are really equivalent). The UD already execute all evolution of all Heisenberg matrices or Schroedinger Wave. It even dovetails on its real and complex approximations. My point is that this is not enough to solve the body problem, we have to explain why such matrices, and exactly which one, wins the histories measure competition.

 As a matter of fact, events prior to the specification of 1) a basis and 2) a specific experimental condition exists as quantities that have a complex number value.

We cannot invoke QM, before we have justify it. You are changing the topic. The point is that with classical comp we have to justify the quantum, even as a first person plural sharable qualia ...

We have to explain why the time is illusion, and why the illusion of time is NOT an illusion.

Complex numbers DO NOT have a natural ordering. Thus the notion of Time as a Real number Lines is Not an a priori defined notion, it is strictly a posteriori and thus not available as a means to assing successional overing to events.

I can agree, but I don't see the relevance here.

   

 

 

[BM]

If you prefer, I could tell you that in arithmetic we have a very notion of time: the natural number sequence. Then we can define in arithmetic the notion of computation, and the notion of next step for a computation made by such or such machine. And from that, we can explain how the subjective appearance of physical times and spaces occur.

[SPK

   

    That would make sense only if we could show how numeric succession, which is a form of "x is less than y, thus y succeds x", is equivalent in all situations for sequential stepping in a computational string. If we have to allow for some form of process for our notion to be coherent then we have not eliminated some primitive form of change from our theory; we have merely pushed it into a corner and hope that no one notices. Again, we can not derive any form of change from a system that does not allow for its existence.

Computer science can provide an infinity of counter-examples here. Of course, from the point of view of the ontology, there is no change, but from the point of view of the observer we can justify the dynamics. many physicist agree on this. Not Prigogine, nor those who want to make time primitive, but then my argument is that they should say no to the doctor. That's all. I am not saying they are wrong.

        I would like to better understand tyhe notion of a Theaetetical Knower. Could you link to a discussion of it?

The best discussion is the original Theaetetus by Plato. Myles Burnyeat  wrote a nice book "The Theaetetus of Plato".  It is the idea of defining knowledge by true belief, or by true and justified belief, and variations of this type.

    I do not wish for any one to abandon Comp, I wish only to show that it is a key fragment in a larger system.

Then you should point on what exactly you don't follow in UDA, because the whole point of UDA is that comp (yes doctor + Church thesis) does not allow for more than comp. The mind body problem in the cognitive/physical science is reduced to the body problem in number theory/combinator/computer science. 

We can easily show how "static" systems emerge from dynamics ones. The converse is difficult at best.

No, it is simple. really. What *is* difficult is to derive the appearance of particles ... without too much white rabbits. The appearance of first person time *is* already explained (in a sense), like the appearance of many worlds, and many times indeed. 

When we assume that "Becoming" is fundamental,

If you assume this, either UDA is incorrect or you are yourself an actual infinite. You should say no to the doctor. You cannot keep comp, and make time or becoming fundamental at the ontological level. You can make it fundamental at the epistemological level.  I could agree that Becoming is fundamental from the inside points of view. UDA does not conclude by "matter does not exist": it concludes that "substantial matter" has to be replaced by "a measure on computational histories". The comp hypothesis is made testable, or better the degree of falsity of comp can be measured in the dialog with nature. Up to now, nature fits well with the comp "internal universal machine facts". 

I can understand the shock you can have when grasping how the usual ontology is transformed with comp. What is admittedly "diabolical" with comp is that comp predicts that universal machine cannot believe that they are machine, but they can bet and reason to learn the consequence of comp. But with reasonable definition the machine cannot believe it and still less know it. She can reason with and from it. She can bet it, like with those who try artificial hypo-campus on rats ...

"Being" is show to be identical to the automorphisms. A change in a system that leaves it invariant is identical to a non-change, but to neglect the fact that a change is possible is to nullify the entire notion of meaningfulness.

Many change are possible ... from inside. It is the same with any block interpretation of physics. You are almost arguing that if the laws does not change themselves, then no change will ever occur. 

I am not proposing a theory, Stephen, I show an argument showing that if we say yes to the doctor, then we have to change the current paradigm, because it does not work  or it eliminates person, consciousness and meaningfulness. 

The difference between the betting-on-comp approach and the physicist one, is that it starts from the person. It disallows person and consciousness elimination. It works very well apparently, it can save the appearance of space and time ... and it save consciousness and meaningfullness, even sort of "gods" in the process. OK, the ontology seems so little and unattractive 

at first sight, but the point if that comp leads to this or similar. Comp defines a realm, and is not a theories per se. The arithmetical hypostases are derived theories from the comp hyp. After Gödel we have good reason (comp) to know that we will never have a complete theory about either numbers, and machines.

What I have done, or try to do, is to show that the comp hyp transforms the mind body problem into the body problem. The mind part is the easiest part, because it is, assuming comp, "just" computer science (and computer's computer sciences), or number theory thanks to Godel-Matiyasevitch translations/embedding. The body part is difficult and counterintuitive, but it is mainly reduce to a problem of relative measure on computationnal histories, as seen from internal point of views (which, in AUDA, are translated in term of intensional variant of the self-reference logics). 

If you keep comp in the cognitive science, you have to accept the consequences it has everywhere (physics, theology, whatever).

I follow Deutsch dicto: it is only by taking our theory seriously that we can find them false, and correct them or abandon them. If you have a problem with UDA, don't hesitate to let me know where and why. UDA1-6 is judged easy. UDA-7 is falsely easy (you need a few amount of computer science to not been abuse by the apparent easyness). UDA-8 is notoriously difficult. 

And AUDA is easy ... relatively to mathematical logic, and even a bit of quantum mechanics to have a sort of concrete illustration of the comp weirdness (alas QM is still even more weirder than it has been possible to prove for comp ...).

I hope this helps, but to play serious, you really should investigate each step of UDA. In all case; me or you (or both) will learn in that process.

Bruno

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

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly Harmon wrote:

> I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness.  AKA,
> the "easy problems" of consciousness.  The question of how human
> behavior is produced.
>
> My question was what is the source of "phenomenal" consciousness.
> What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order
> for conscious experience to exist?  So my question isn't HOW human
> behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic
> processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective
> "first person" conscious experience.  The "hard problem".  Qualia.
>
> I wasn't asking "how is it that we do the things we do", or, "how did
> this come about", but instead "given that we do these things, why is
> there a subjective experience associated with doing them."

Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be
conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie?

>
> So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of
> whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in
> the same way as a real human mind.  If a simulation would be, then
> what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical
> systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of
> consciousness?

The information processing?

Brent

>
>
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona <agocorona@...> wrote:
>> No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
>> handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
>> driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running
>> on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets
>> selected, replicated and selected again.
>>
>> In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and
>> philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of
>> consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps
>> an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is
>> very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others
>> members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in
>> memory for consciousness processing.  This is a part of our moral
>> sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment.
>> Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can
>> discover the motivations of others.
>>
>> The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in
>> order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start
>> to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own
>> record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a
>> sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself
>> (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module
>> evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of
>> some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module
>> attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the
>> brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the
>> way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves
>> as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind.
>>
>> The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This
>> explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why
>> we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too
>> much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the
>> situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
>> travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is
>> made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower
>> level modules take care of our actions
>>
>>
>
> >
>

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[Alberto G. Corona]

The hard problem may be unsolvable, but I think it would be much more
unsolvable if we don´t fix the easy problem, isn´t? With a clear idea
of the easy problem it is possible to infer something about the hard
problem:

For example, the latter is a product of the former, because we
perceive things that have (or had) relevance in evolutionary terms.
Second, the unitary nature of perception match well with the
evolutionary explanation "My inner self is a private reconstruction,
for fitness purposes, of how others see me, as an unit of perception
and purpose, not as a set of processors, motors and sensors, although,
analytically, we are so". Third, the machinery of this constructed
inner self sometimes take control (i.e. we feel ourselves capable of
free will) whenever our acts would impact of the image that others may
have of ourselves.

If these conclusions are all in the easy lever, I think that we have
solved a few of moral and perceptual problems that have puzzled
philosophers and scientists for centuries. Relabeling them as "easy
problems" the instant after an evolutionary explanation of them has
been aired is preposterous.

Therefore I think that I answer your question: it´s not only
information; It´s about a certain kind of information and their own
processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is
not known; that’s true, and it´s good from my point of view, because,
for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other,
reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a
bit frustrating.


On May 16, 8:39 pm, Kelly Harmon <harmon...@...> wrote:

> I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness.  AKA,
> the "easy problems" of consciousness.  The question of how human
> behavior is produced.
>
> My question was what is the source of "phenomenal" consciousness.
> What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order
> for conscious experience to exist?  So my question isn't HOW human
> behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic
> processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective
> "first person" conscious experience.  The "hard problem".  Qualia.
>
> I wasn't asking "how is it that we do the things we do", or, "how did
> this come about", but instead "given that we do these things, why is
> there a subjective experience associated with doing them."
>
> So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of
> whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in
> the same way as a real human mind.  If a simulation would be, then
> what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical
> systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of
> consciousness?
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona <agocor...@...> wrote:
>
> > No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
> > handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
> > driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running
> > on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets
> > selected, replicated and selected again.
>
> > In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and
> > philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of
> > consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps
> > an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is
> > very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others
> > members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in
> > memory for consciousness processing.  This is a part of our moral
> > sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment.
> > Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can
> > discover the motivations of others.
>
> > The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in
> > order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start
> > to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own
> > record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a
> > sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself
> > (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module
> > evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of
> > some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module
> > attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the
> > brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the
> > way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves
> > as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind.
>
> > The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This
> > explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why
> > we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too
> > much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the
> > situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
> > travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is
> > made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower
> > level modules take care of our actions

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[John Mikes]

Let me please insert my remarks into this remarkable chain of thoughts below (my inserts in bold)

John M

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:03 AM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:

Kelly Harmon wrote:
> I think your discussing the functional aspects of consciousness.  AKA,
> the "easy problems" of consciousness.  The question of how human
> behavior is produced.

 

I believe it is a 'forced artifact' to separate any aspect of a complex image from the entire 'unit' we like to call 'conscious behavior'. In our (analytical) view we regard the 'activity' as separate from the initiation and the process resulting from it through decision(?) AND the assumed maintaining of the function.

>
> My question was what is the source of "phenomenal" consciousness.
> What is the absolute minimum requirement which must be met in order
> for conscious experience to exist?  So my question isn't HOW human
> behavior is produced, but instead I'm asking why the mechanistic
> processes that produce human behavior are accompanied by subjective
> "first person" conscious experience.  The "hard problem".  Qualia.

 

We are 'human' concentrated and slanted in our views.

Extending it not only to other 'conscious' animals, but to phenomena in the so (mis)called 'inanimate' - and reversing our logical habit (see below to Brent) brings up different questions so far not much discussed. The 'hard problem' is a separation in the totality of the phenomenon  -

[from its physical/physiological observation within our so far outlined  figment of viewing the 'physical world' separately and its reduced, conventional ('scientific')  explanations] - 

 into assuming (some) undisclosed other aspects of the same complex. From 'quantized' into some 'qualia'.

>
> I wasn't asking "how is it that we do the things we do", or, "how did
> this come about", but instead "given that we do these things, why is
> there a subjective experience associated with doing them."

 

And we should exactly ask what you "wasn't" asking.

 

Brent: Meeker:
Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be
conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie?

 

Once we consider the totality of the phenomenon and do not separate aspects of th complexity, the "zombie" becomes a meaningless artifact of the primitive ways our thinking evolved.

Kelly:
>
> So none of the things you reference are relevant to the question of
> whether a computer simulation of a human mind would be conscious in
> the same way as a real human mind.  If a simulation would be, then
> what are the properties that those to two very dissimilar physical
> systems have in common that would explain this mutual experience of
> consciousness?

 

A fitting computer simulation would include ALL aspects involved - call it mind AND body, 'physically' observable 'activity' and 'consciousness as cause' -- but alas, no such thing so far. Our embryonic machine with its binary algorithms, driven by a switched on (electrically induced) primitive mechanism can do just that much, within the known segments designed 'in'.

What we may call 'qualia' is waiting for some analogue comp, working simultaneously on all aspects of the phenomena involved (IMO not practical, since there cannot be a limit drawn in the interrelated totality, beyond which relations may be irrelevant).

 

Brent:
The information processing?

 

Does that mean a homunculus, that 'processes' the (again separated) aspect of 'information' into a format that fits our image of the aspectwise formulated items?

What I question is the 'initiation' and 'maintenance' of what we call the occurrence of phenomena. We do imagine a 'functioning' world where everything just does occur, observed by itself and in no connection to the rest of the world.

I am looking for 'relations' that 'influence' each other into aspects we consider as 'different' (from what?) and call such relational interconnectedness the world.

We are far from knowing it all, even further from any 'true' understanding so we fabricted in our epistemic enrichment over the millennia  a stepwise approach to 'explain' the miracles.

Learning of acknowledged(?) relational aspects (call it decisionmaking?) and realization of ramifications upon such (call it process, function, activity) is the basis of our (now still reductionistic) physical  worldview. 

Please excuse my hasty writing in premature ideas I could not detail out or even justify using inadequate old words that should be relaced by a fitting vocabulry. ((Alberto (below) even mentions 'memory' - that could as well be a re-visiting of relations in the a-temporal totality view we coordinate as a time - space physics)). 

Brent

John M

>
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 3:22 AM, Alberto G.Corona <agocorona@...> wrote:
>> No. Consciousness is not information. It is an additional process that
>> handles its own generated information. I you don´t recognize the
>> driving mechanism towards order in the universe, you will be running
>> on empty. This driving mechanism is natural selection. Things gets
>> selected, replicated and selected again.
>>
>> In the case of humans, time ago the evolutionary psychologists and
>> philosophers (Dennet etc) discovered the evolutionary nature of
>> consciousness, that is double: For social animals, consciousness keeps
>> an actualized image of how the others see ourselves. This ability is
>> very important in order to plan future actions with/towards others
>> members. A memory of past actions, favors and offenses are kept in
>> memory for consciousness processing.  This is a part of our moral
>> sense, that is, our navigation device in the social environment.
>> Additionally, by reflection on ourselves, the consciousness module can
>> discover the motivations of others.
>>
>> The evolutionary steps for the emergence of consciousness are: 1) in
>> order to optimize the outcome of collaboration, a social animal start
>> to look the others as unique individuals, and memorize their own
>> record of actions. 2) Because the others do 1, the animal develop a
>> sense of itself and record how each one of the others see himself
>> (this is adaptive because 1). 3) This primitive conscious module
>> evolved in 2 starts to inspect first and lately, even take control of
>> some action with a deep social load. 4) The conscious module
>> attributes to an individual moral self every action triggered by the
>> brain, even if it driven by low instincts, just because that´s is the
>> way the others see himself as individual. That´s why we feel ourselves
>> as unique individuals and with an indivisible Cartesian mind.
>>
>> The consciousness ability is fairly recent in evolutionary terms. This
>> explain its inefficient and sequential nature. This and 3 explains why
>> we feel anxiety in some social situations: the cognitive load is too
>> much for the conscious module when he tries to take control of the
>> situation when self image it at a stake. This also explain why when we
>> travel we feel a kind of liberation: because the conscious module is
>> made irrelevant outside our social circle, so our more efficient lower
>> level modules take care of our actions
>>

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:03 AM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:
>
> Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be
> conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie?

I think that somewhere there would have to be a conscious experience
associated with the production of the behavior, THOUGH the conscious
experience might not supervene onto the system producing the behavior
in an obvious way.

Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused
by physical systems.  I think that sometimes physical systems assume
configurations that "shadow", or represent, our conscious experience.
But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience.

So a computer simulation of a human brain that thinks it's at the
beach would be an example.  The computer running the simulation
assumes a sequence of configurations that could be interpreted as
representing the mental processes of a person enjoying a day at the
beach.  But I can't see any reason why a bunch of electrons moving
through copper and silicon in a particular way would "cause" that
subjective experience of surf and sand.

And for similar reasons I don't see why a human brain would either,
even if it was actually at the beach, given that it is also just
electrons and protons and neutrons.moving in specific ways.

It doesn't seem plausible to me that it is the act of being
represented in some way by a physical system that produces conscious
experience.

Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system
going through a sequence of these representations is what produces
human behavior.

>
> The information processing?
>

Well, I would say information processing, but it seems to me that many
different "processes" could produce the same information.  And I would
not expect a change in "process" or algorithm to produce a different
subjective experience if the information that was being
processed/output remained the same.

So for this reason I go with "consciousness is information", not
"consciousness is information processing".

Processes just describe ways that different information states CAN be
connected, or related, or transformed.  But I don't think that
consciousness resides in those processes.

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Alberto G.Corona <agocorona@...> wrote:
>
> Therefore I think that I answer your question: it´s not only
> information; It´s about a certain kind of information and their own
> processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is
> not known; that’s true, and it´s good from my point of view, because,
> for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other,
> reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a
> bit frustrating.
>

Given that we don't have an understanding of the subjective process by
which we experience the world, I think we should be skeptical about
the nature of WHAT we experience.

All that I can really conclude is that my experience of reality is one
of the set of all possible experiences.

But I'm reasonably convinced that our experience of reality is all
there is to reality.  All possible experiencers are actual to
themselves.

If you accept that a computer simulation of a human brain is
theoretically possible (which I think you should given your
functionalist views), and you then accept that such a simulation would
be conscious in the same way as a real human is conscious, and then
you start pondering WHY that would be, I think my point above is a
(the?) logical conclusion.

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:07 AM, John Mikes <jamikes@...> wrote:

>
> A fitting computer simulation would include ALL aspects involved - call it
> mind AND body, 'physically' observable 'activity' and 'consciousness as
> cause' -- but alas, no such thing so far. Our embryonic machine with its
> binary algorithms, driven by a switched on (electrically induced) primitive
> mechanism can do just that much, within the known segments designed 'in'.
> What we may call 'qualia' is waiting for some analogue comp, working
> simultaneously on all aspects of the phenomena involved (IMO not practical,
> since there cannot be a limit drawn in the interrelated totality, beyond
> which relations may be irrelevant).
>

So you're saying that it's not possible, even in principle, to
simulate a human brain on a digital computer?  But that it would be
possible on a massively parallel analog computer?  What "extra
something" do you think an analog computer provides that isn't
available from a digital computer?  Why would it be necessary to run
all of the calculations in parallel?


> 'consciousness as cause'

You are saying that consciousness has a causal role, that is
additional to the causal structure found in non-conscious physical
systems?  What leads you to this conclusion?

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Jesse Mazer <lasermazer@...> wrote:

>
> I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just a
> sort of "zombie", since after all the way you'd create a lookup table for a
> given algorithmic mind would be to run a huge series of actual simulations
> of that mind with all possible inputs, creating a huge archive of
> "recordings" so that later if anyone supplies the lookup table with a given
> input, the table just looks up the recording of the occasion in which the
> original simulated mind was supplied with that exact input in the past, and
> plays it back. Why should merely replaying a recording of something that
> happened to a simulated observer in the past contribute to the measure of
> that observer-moment? I don't believe that playing a videotape of me being
> happy or sad in the past will increase the measure of happy or sad
> observer-moments involving me, after all. And Olympia seems to be somewhat
> similar to a lookup table in that the only way to construct "her" would be
> to have already run the regular Turing machine program that she is supposed
> to emulate, so that you know in advance the order that the Turing machine's
> read/write head visits different cells, and then you can rearrange the
> positions of those cells so Olympia will visit them in the correct order
> just by going from one cell to the next in line over and over again.
>

What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer
simulation of a brain?  So actual calculations for the rest of the
brain's neurons are performed, but this single neuron just does
lookups into a table of pre-calculated outputs.  Would consciousness
still be produced in this case?

What if you then re-ran the simulation with 10 neurons doing lookups,
but calculations still being executed for the rest of the simulated
brain?  Still consciousness is produced?

What if 10% of the neurons are implemented using lookup tables?  50%?
90%?  How about all except 1 neuron is implemented via lookup tables,
but that 1 neuron's outputs are still calculated from inputs?

At what point does the simulation become a zombie?

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly Harmon wrote:

> On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:03 AM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:
>  
>> Do you suppose that something could behave just as humans do yet not be
>> conscious, i.e. could there be a philosophical zombie?
>>    
>
> I think that somewhere there would have to be a conscious experience
> associated with the production of the behavior, THOUGH the conscious
> experience might not supervene onto the system producing the behavior
> in an obvious way.
>
> Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused
> by physical systems.  I think that sometimes physical systems assume
> configurations that "shadow", or represent, our conscious experience.
> But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience.
>  

So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale,
we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that
were caused by mental events?).

> So a computer simulation of a human brain that thinks it's at the
> beach would be an example.  The computer running the simulation
> assumes a sequence of configurations that could be interpreted as
> representing the mental processes of a person enjoying a day at the
> beach.  But I can't see any reason why a bunch of electrons moving
> through copper and silicon in a particular way would "cause" that
> subjective experience of surf and sand.
>
> And for similar reasons I don't see why a human brain would either,
> even if it was actually at the beach, given that it is also just
> electrons and protons and neutrons.moving in specific ways.
>  

You're aware of course that the same things were said about the
physio/chemical bases of life.

> It doesn't seem plausible to me that it is the act of being
> represented in some way by a physical system that produces conscious
> experience.
>
> Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system
> going through a sequence of these representations is what produces
> human behavior.

So you're saying that a sequence of physical representations is enough
to produce behavior.  And there must be conscious experience associated
with behavior.  That seems to me to imply that physical representations
are enough to produce consciousness.  But then you say that doesn't seem
plausible to you.

Brent


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[Kelly Harmon]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:

>
>> Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused
>> by physical systems.  I think that sometimes physical systems assume
>> configurations that "shadow", or represent, our conscious experience.
>> But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience.
>>
>
> So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale,
> we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that
> were caused by mental events?).
>

No, no, no.  I'm not saying that at all.  Ultimately I'm saying that
if there is a physical world, it's irrelevant to consciousness.
Consciousness is information.  Physical systems can be interpreted as
representing, or "storing", information, but that act of "storage"
isn't what gives rise to conscious experience.

>
> You're aware of course that the same things were said about the
> physio/chemical bases of life.
>

You mentioned that point before, as I recall.  Dennett made a similar
argument against Chalmers, to which Chalmers had what I thought was an
effective response:

-------
http://consc.net/papers/moving.html

Perhaps the most common strategy for a type-A materialist is to
deflate the "hard problem" by using analogies to other domains, where
talk of such a problem would be misguided. Thus Dennett imagines a
vitalist arguing about the hard problem of "life", or a neuroscientist
arguing about the hard problem of "perception". Similarly, Paul
Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth century philosopher worrying
about the hard problem of "light", and Patricia Churchland brings up
an analogy involving "heat". In all these cases, we are to suppose,
someone might once have thought that more needed explaining than
structure and function; but in each case, science has proved them
wrong. So perhaps the argument about consciousness is no better.

This sort of argument cannot bear much weight, however. Pointing out
that analogous arguments do not work in other domains is no news: the
whole point of anti-reductionist arguments about consciousness is that
there is a disanalogy between the problem of consciousness and
problems in other domains. As for the claim that analogous arguments
in such domains might once have been plausible, this strikes me as
something of a convenient myth: in the other domains, it is more or
less obvious that structure and function are what need explaining, at
least once any experiential aspects are left aside, and one would be
hard pressed to find a substantial body of people who ever argued
otherwise.

When it comes to the problem of life, for example, it is just obvious
that what needs explaining is structure and function: How does a
living system self-organize? How does it adapt to its environment? How
does it reproduce? Even the vitalists recognized this central point:
their driving question was always "How could a mere physical system
perform these complex functions?", not "Why are these functions
accompanied by life?" It is no accident that Dennett's version of a
vitalist is "imaginary". There is no distinct "hard problem" of life,
and there never was one, even for vitalists.

In general, when faced with the challenge "explain X", we need to ask:
what are the phenomena in the vicinity of X that need explaining, and
how might we explain them? In the case of life, what cries out for
explanation are such phenomena as reproduction, adaptation,
metabolism, self-sustenance, and so on: all complex functions. There
is not even a plausible candidate for a further sort of property of
life that needs explaining (leaving aside consciousness itself), and
indeed there never was. In the case of consciousness, on the other
hand, the manifest phenomena that need explaining are such things as
discrimination, reportability, integration (the functions), and
experience. So this analogy does not even get off the ground.

------

>> Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system
>> going through a sequence of these representations is what produces
>> human behavior.
>
> So you're saying that a sequence of physical representations is enough
> to produce behavior.

Right, observed behavior.  What I'm saying here is that it seems
obvious to me that mechanistic computation is sufficient to explain
observed human behavior.  If that was the only thing that needed
explaining, we'd be done.  Mission accomplished.

BUT...there's subjective experience that also needs explained, and
this is actually the first question that needs answered.  All other
answers are suspect until subjective experience has been explained.


> And there must be conscious experience associated
> with behavior.

Well, here's where it gets tricky.  Conscious experience is associated
with information.  But how information is tied to physical systems is
a different question.  Any physical systems can be interpreted as
representing all sorts of things (again, back to Putnam and Searle,
one-time pads, Maudlin's Olympia example, Bruno's movie graph
argument, rocks implementing every FSA, Stathis's birds and trees, and
triviality attacks on functionalism).

> That seems to me to imply that physical representations
> are enough to produce consciousness.

The problem is that physical "representations" are everywhere.  The
problem is coming up with a non-arbitrary way of deciding when a
physical system represents something that's conscious and when it
doesn't.

Physical systems are too representationally promiscuous!

Which leads me to abandon physicalism/materialism for idealism.

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly Harmon wrote:

> On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...> wrote:
>  
>>> Generally I don't think that what we experience is necessarily caused
>>> by physical systems.  I think that sometimes physical systems assume
>>> configurations that "shadow", or represent, our conscious experience.
>>> But they don't CAUSE our conscious experience.
>>>
>>>      
>> So if we could track the functions of the brain at a fine enough scale,
>> we'd see physical events that didn't have physical causes (ones that
>> were caused by mental events?).
>>
>>    
>
> No, no, no.  I'm not saying that at all.  Ultimately I'm saying that
> if there is a physical world, it's irrelevant to consciousness.
> Consciousness is information.  Physical systems can be interpreted as
> representing, or "storing", information, but that act of "storage"
> isn't what gives rise to conscious experience.
>
>  
>> You're aware of course that the same things were said about the
>> physio/chemical bases of life.
>>
>>    
>
> You mentioned that point before, as I recall.  Dennett made a similar
> argument against Chalmers, to which Chalmers had what I thought was an
> effective response:
>
> -------
> http://consc.net/papers/moving.html
>
> Perhaps the most common strategy for a type-A materialist is to
> deflate the "hard problem" by using analogies to other domains, where
> talk of such a problem would be misguided. Thus Dennett imagines a
> vitalist arguing about the hard problem of "life", or a neuroscientist
> arguing about the hard problem of "perception". Similarly, Paul
> Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth century philosopher worrying
> about the hard problem of "light", and Patricia Churchland brings up
> an analogy involving "heat". In all these cases, we are to suppose,
> someone might once have thought that more needed explaining than
> structure and function; but in each case, science has proved them
> wrong. So perhaps the argument about consciousness is no better.
>
> This sort of argument cannot bear much weight, however. Pointing out
> that analogous arguments do not work in other domains is no news: the
> whole point of anti-reductionist arguments about consciousness is that
> there is a disanalogy between the problem of consciousness and
> problems in other domains. As for the claim that analogous arguments
> in such domains might once have been plausible, this strikes me as
> something of a convenient myth: in the other domains, it is more or
> less obvious that structure and function are what need explaining, at
> least once any experiential aspects are left aside, and one would be
> hard pressed to find a substantial body of people who ever argued
> otherwise.
>
> When it comes to the problem of life, for example, it is just obvious
> that what needs explaining is structure and function: How does a
> living system self-organize? How does it adapt to its environment? How
> does it reproduce? Even the vitalists recognized this central point:
> their driving question was always "How could a mere physical system
> perform these complex functions?", not "Why are these functions
> accompanied by life?" It is no accident that Dennett's version of a
> vitalist is "imaginary". There is no distinct "hard problem" of life,
> and there never was one, even for vitalists.
>
> In general, when faced with the challenge "explain X", we need to ask:
> what are the phenomena in the vicinity of X that need explaining, and
> how might we explain them? In the case of life, what cries out for
> explanation are such phenomena as reproduction, adaptation,
> metabolism, self-sustenance, and so on: all complex functions. There
> is not even a plausible candidate for a further sort of property of
> life that needs explaining (leaving aside consciousness itself), and
> indeed there never was. In the case of consciousness, on the other
> hand, the manifest phenomena that need explaining are such things as
> discrimination, reportability, integration (the functions), and
> experience. So this analogy does not even get off the ground.
>
> ------
>  

On the contrary, I think it does.  First, I think Chalmers idea that
vitalists recognized that all that needed explaining was structure and
function is revisionist history.  They were looking for the animating
spirit.  It is in hind sight, having found the function and structure,
that we've realized that was all the explanation available.  And I
expect the same thing will happen with consciousness. We will eventually
be able to make robots that behave as humans do and we will infer, from
their behavior, that they are conscious.  And we, being their designers,
will be able to analyze them and say, "Here's what makes R2D2 have
conscious experiences of visual perception and here's what makes 3CPO
have self awareness relative to humans."  We will find that there are
many different kinds of "conscious" and we will be able to invent new
ones.  We will never "solve" Chalmers hard problem, we'll just realize
it's a non-question.

>  
>>> Though it DOES seem plausible/obvious to me that a physical system
>>> going through a sequence of these representations is what produces
>>> human behavior.
>>>      
>> So you're saying that a sequence of physical representations is enough
>> to produce behavior.
>>    
>
> Right, observed behavior.  What I'm saying here is that it seems
> obvious to me that mechanistic computation is sufficient to explain
> observed human behavior.  If that was the only thing that needed
> explaining, we'd be done.  Mission accomplished.
>
> BUT...there's subjective experience that also needs explained, and
> this is actually the first question that needs answered.  All other
> answers are suspect until subjective experience has been explained.
>
>
>  
>> And there must be conscious experience associated
>> with behavior.
>>    
>
> Well, here's where it gets tricky.  Conscious experience is associated
> with information.  

I think that's the point in question.  However, we all agree that
consciousness is associated with, can be identified by, certain
behavior.  So to say that physical systems are too representationally
ambiguous seems to me to beg the question.  It is based on assuming that
consciousness is information and since the physical representation of
information is ambiguous it is inferred that physical representations
aren't enough for consciousness.  But  going back to the basis: Is
behavior ambiguous?  Sure it is - yet we rely in it to identify
consciousness (at least if you don't believe in philosophical
zombies).   I think the significant point is that consciousness is an
attribute of behavior that is relative to an environment.

Brent

> But how information is tied to physical systems is
> a different question.  Any physical systems can be interpreted as
> representing all sorts of things (again, back to Putnam and Searle,
> one-time pads, Maudlin's Olympia example, Bruno's movie graph
> argument, rocks implementing every FSA, Stathis's birds and trees, and
> triviality attacks on functionalism).
>
>  
>> That seems to me to imply that physical representations
>> are enough to produce consciousness.
>>    
>
> The problem is that physical "representations" are everywhere.  The
> problem is coming up with a non-arbitrary way of deciding when a
> physical system represents something that's conscious and when it
> doesn't.
>
> Physical systems are too representationally promiscuous!
>
> Which leads me to abandon physicalism/materialism for idealism.
>
> >
>
>  

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[Bruno Marchal]

Note also that, by being universal machine, our look-up table are
infinite.

Bruno

Le 18-mai-09, à 03:11, Kelly Harmon a écrit :

>
> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Jesse Mazer <lasermazer@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is
>> just a
>> sort of "zombie", since after all the way you'd create a lookup table
>> for a
>> given algorithmic mind would be to run a huge series of actual
>> simulations
>> of that mind with all possible inputs, creating a huge archive of
>> "recordings" so that later if anyone supplies the lookup table with a
>> given
>> input, the table just looks up the recording of the occasion in which
>> the
>> original simulated mind was supplied with that exact input in the
>> past, and
>> plays it back. Why should merely replaying a recording of something
>> that
>> happened to a simulated observer in the past contribute to the
>> measure of
>> that observer-moment? I don't believe that playing a videotape of me
>> being
>> happy or sad in the past will increase the measure of happy or sad
>> observer-moments involving me, after all. And Olympia seems to be
>> somewhat
>> similar to a lookup table in that the only way to construct "her"
>> would be
>> to have already run the regular Turing machine program that she is
>> supposed
>> to emulate, so that you know in advance the order that the Turing
>> machine's
>> read/write head visits different cells, and then you can rearrange the
>> positions of those cells so Olympia will visit them in the correct
>> order
>> just by going from one cell to the next in line over and over again.
>>
>
> What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer
> simulation of a brain?  So actual calculations for the rest of the
> brain's neurons are performed, but this single neuron just does
> lookups into a table of pre-calculated outputs.  Would consciousness
> still be produced in this case?
>
> What if you then re-ran the simulation with 10 neurons doing lookups,
> but calculations still being executed for the rest of the simulated
> brain?  Still consciousness is produced?
>
> What if 10% of the neurons are implemented using lookup tables?  50%?
> 90%?  How about all except 1 neuron is implemented via lookup tables,
> but that 1 neuron's outputs are still calculated from inputs?
>
> At what point does the simulation become a zombie?
>
> >
>

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


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[Bruno Marchal]

Le 17-mai-09, à 12:43, Alberto G.Corona a écrit :

>
> The hard problem may be unsolvable, but I think it would be much more
> unsolvable if we don´t fix the easy problem, isn´t?


I think that the hard problem is more easy to solve than the easy
problem.
Indeed it is a theorem in computer science that an (ideally) correct
universal machine which introspects itself (in the usual mathematical
self-referential (Lobian) sense) will discover (not prove, but still
"produce as true") many non machine-communicable statements.

AUDA gives a thorough precise theory of qualia, which is Popper
refutable, in the (idealist) sense that the quanta appears as
particular type of sharable first person plural qualia. If it appears
false on quanta, we can abandon that theory of qualia too!

What is cute in AUDA, is that it provides an explanation why the "hard
problem of consciousness" has to seem "hard" from the point of view of
the machine. In a sense the hard problem is proved to be unsolvable by
any direct means, but completely "meta-solvable".

It relies mainly on the Gödel points where Penrose and Lucas are wrong:
machine *can* access their own incompleteness theorem through local
self-consistency assumptions.

> With a clear idea
> of the easy problem it is possible to infer something about the hard
> problem:
>
> For example, the latter is a product of the former, because we
> perceive things that have (or had) relevance in evolutionary terms.
> Second, the unitary nature of perception match well with the
> evolutionary explanation "My inner self is a private reconstruction,
> for fitness purposes, of how others see me, as an unit of perception
> and purpose, not as a set of processors, motors and sensors, although,
> analytically, we are so". Third, the machinery of this constructed
> inner self sometimes take control (i.e. we feel ourselves capable of
> free will) whenever our acts would impact of the image that others may
> have of ourselves.
>
> If these conclusions are all in the easy lever, I think that we have
> solved a few of moral and perceptual problems that have puzzled
> philosophers and scientists for centuries. Relabeling them as "easy
> problems" the instant after an evolutionary explanation of them has
> been aired is preposterous.
>
> Therefore I think that I answer your question: it´s not only
> information; It´s about a certain kind of information and their own
> processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is
> not known;

I think we know (assuming comp) the exact nature of that "processor".
It is an immaterial universal machine. The machine does not need to be
Lobian (as some people think). It needs only to be lobian to be able to
develop by its own this very special theory of qualia and quanta.

I agree with your critic of "consciousness = information". This is "not
even wrong", and Kelly should define what he means by "information" so
that we could see what he really means. I suspect Kelly is confusing
"information" and "information content". Information content needs the
(immaterial and atemporal) processing of a universal machine or number.
Not a physical processing, but a processing similar to those in the UD,
or implemented naturally in (a tiny part) of Arithmetic.




>  that’s true, and it´s good from my point of view, because,
> for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other,
> reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a
> bit frustrating.


I can explain in what sense comp is a vaccine against reductionism, but
you have to be familiar with the UD Argument. Even the physics which
appears cannot be reduced, still less the person. Hmm ..., you still
believe we can have both comp and a primitive material universe, isn't
it?

Computationalism leads to a genuine non trivial and refutable solution
of both the hard problem of matter *and* the hard problem of
consciousness. It preserves the necessity of an irreducible gap between
those things (and other things), but it provides a geometry of that
gap, together with an explanation of the mystery feeling. Of course (in
case you have read some of my older post), the geometry of the gap is
provided by the possible modal semantics of the logic G* \minus G, and
its intensional variants, (all this on the Sigma_1 restriction, to take
into account the comp hyp and the Universal Dovetailer in Arithmetic).

The bad news is that the "easy problem" of matter and consciousness,
thorugh comp could as well be as diificult as possible. It remains
possible that only very long computation can lead tp present form of
human mind and matter. Computationalism does not just reverse math and
physics, or theology and physics, it reverse hard and easy ...

Eventually everything is reduced to the (deep) mystery of our
understanding of an assertion like N = {0, 1, 2, ...}.  But, by
accepting that the expression "N = {0, 1, 2, ...}" makes sense,  we can
explain in all detail why this one is absolutely unsolvable. We cannot
explain the elementary "infinity quale".

Bruno

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


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[George Levy]

Kelly Harmon wrote:

What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer
simulation of a brain?
  

Hi Kelly

Zombie arguments involving look up tables are faulty because look up tables are not closed systems. They require someone to fill them up.
To resolve these arguments you need to include the creator of the look up table in the argument. (Inclusion can be across widely different time periods and spacial location)

George

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 4:22 PM, George Levy <glevy@...> wrote:

> Kelly Harmon wrote:
>
> What if you used a lookup table for only a single neuron in a computer
> simulation of a brain?
>
>
> Hi Kelly
>
> Zombie arguments involving look up tables are faulty because look up tables
> are not closed systems. They require someone to fill them up.
> To resolve these arguments you need to include the creator of the look up
> table in the argument. (Inclusion can be across widely different time
> periods and spacial location)
>

Indeed!  I'm not arguing that the use of look-up tables entails
zombie-ism.  I was posing a question in response to Jessie's comment:

>> I don't have a problem with the idea that a giant lookup table is just
>> a sort of "zombie", since after all the way you'd create a lookup table

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