Consciousness is information?

[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 26, 2:01 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@...> wrote:
> I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily
> abandoned/ignored.  Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal
> measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly
> outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs.

The ordered and sensible OM's may be vastly outnumbered, but they are
there.  And thus if you assume that everything happens, they will
happen, and that explains your current experience of an ordered and
sensible reality.  I don't see the problem.

Again, I'm lead to this conclusion by the line of reasoning mentioned
in my previous posts.  I didn't start with this assumption and then
try to come up with supporting evidence.

It is a strange conclusion, but it seems to me that any theory that
explains conscious experience is going to have to be strange.  I think
this one is only slightly odder than Bruno's.  And it's not really
much odder than MWI, or the implications of an infinite universe
(e.g., infinite Kellys), or of infinite time (e.g., poincare
recurrence, boltzmann brains).  Or strange compared to thinking about
where a material universe could have come from, what proceeded it,
what caused it, what underlies it, etc.  That we exist at all is
pretty strange I think.


> Though I ever only have one
> OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a
> non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post
> should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted
> equally.

If all possible OMs are real, then you will have successfully
completed all possible posts.  So, where's the problem?  You are one
of the Jason's who successfully completed a post.  Where does your
experience depart from what the theory predicts?

You can only experience one path through life.  One reality per
customer.  The reality that you are experiencing HAD to be experienced
by someone, this is mandatory in my theory.  Using the fact that you
ARE in fact experiencing it to try to disprove my theory I think is
not a valid option.

My theory does make one definite prediction, and so is (first person)
falsifiable.  It predicts that there is always a next moment.  Always
another conscious experience.

So, if you die and that's it, just oblivion...then I was wrong.  Oops.

So, we just have to wait...we will have our answer soon enough!



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[Jason Resch-2]

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Kelly <harmonk00@...> wrote:

>
> On Apr 26, 2:01 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@...> wrote:
>> I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily
>> abandoned/ignored.  Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal
>> measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly
>> outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs.
>
> The ordered and sensible OM's may be vastly outnumbered, but they are
> there.  And thus if you assume that everything happens, they will
> happen, and that explains your current experience of an ordered and
> sensible reality.  I don't see the problem.
>
> Again, I'm lead to this conclusion by the line of reasoning mentioned
> in my previous posts.  I didn't start with this assumption and then
> try to come up with supporting evidence.
>
> It is a strange conclusion, but it seems to me that any theory that
> explains conscious experience is going to have to be strange.  I think
> this one is only slightly odder than Bruno's.  And it's not really
> much odder than MWI, or the implications of an infinite universe
> (e.g., infinite Kellys), or of infinite time (e.g., poincare
> recurrence, boltzmann brains).  Or strange compared to thinking about
> where a material universe could have come from, what proceeded it,
> what caused it, what underlies it, etc.  That we exist at all is
> pretty strange I think.
>
>
>> Though I ever only have one
>> OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a
>> non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post
>> should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted
>> equally.
>
> If all possible OMs are real, then you will have successfully
> completed all possible posts.  So, where's the problem?  You are one
> of the Jason's who successfully completed a post.  Where does your
> experience depart from what the theory predicts?
>
> You can only experience one path through life.  One reality per
> customer.  The reality that you are experiencing HAD to be experienced
> by someone, this is mandatory in my theory.  Using the fact that you
> ARE in fact experiencing it to try to disprove my theory I think is
> not a valid option.
>
> My theory does make one definite prediction, and so is (first person)
> falsifiable.  It predicts that there is always a next moment.  Always
> another conscious experience.
>
> So, if you die and that's it, just oblivion...then I was wrong.  Oops.
>
> So, we just have to wait...we will have our answer soon enough!
>
>

I understand that all possible experiences by definition are
experienced, and that rare experiences, however rare they may be, will
still be experienced.  In fact I used that same argument with Russell
Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were
then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans.

However, in your theory you explain that there are always "next
moments" to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next
experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered?  If you
say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences
so greatly outnumber the ordered?

If your theory is true, then certainly there are observers who
experience every moment as sensible, yet I would liken those to a
branch of the multiverse where every time an experimenter measures the
quantum state of any particle, it comes out the same, in that branch
perhaps they never develop the field of quantum mechanics, but how
long into the future would you expect that illusion to hold?  Perhaps
in your theory "next" and "previous" OMs aren't really connected, only
the illusion of such a connection?

Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp?

http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx/wiki/index.php?title=ASSA
http://everythingwiki.gcn.cx/wiki/index.php?title=RSSA

Or perhaps something different entirely?

Jason

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Jason Resch <jasonresch@...>
wrote:
>
> In fact I used that same argument with Russell
> Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were
> then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans.

Did you win or lose that argument?

I've heard that line of reasoning before also.  Doesn't it also
conclude that we're living in the last days?  If there are more
conscious beings in the future than in the present, then we should
expect to live there and not here, so there must not be more conscious
beings in the future?  And also it predicts that there are no
significant number of (conscious) aliens?  Because if there were, we
should expect to be one of them and not a human?

Sounds like over-use of a good idea.  In this case it ignores all
other available information to just focus only on one narrow
statistic.  Why should we ignore everything else we know and only
credit this single argument from probability?  Surely, after studying
ants and humans, the knowledge that we gain has to alter our initial
expectations, right?  But that isn't taken into account here (at least
not in your one line description of the discussion...ha!).

I think the problem with Russell's ant argument stems from trying to
use "a priori" reasoning in an "a posteriori" situation.  There is
extra information available that he isn't taking into consideration.

Probably the same applies to the Doomsday argument and aliens.  There
is extra information available that isn't being taking into account by
SSA.  Pure SSA type reasoning only applies when there is no extra
information available on which to base your conclusion, I think.


> However, in your theory you explain that there are always "next
> moments" to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next
> experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered?  If you
> say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences
> so greatly outnumber the ordered?

I have no choice in the matter.  Some of me are going to bet random.
Some of me are going to bet ordered.  When you come to a fork in the
road, take it.

Really and truely, I think the best rule of thumb is to bet the way
that leaves you looking LEAST FOOLISH if you're wrong.  Usually
that'll be "ordered".


> Perhaps in your theory "next" and "previous" OMs aren't really
> connected, only the illusion of such a connection?

Right, that's exactly what I'm saying.


> Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp?
> Or perhaps something different entirely?

I guess something different entirely.  I'm saying that the only rule
is: "Everything happens.  And sometimes, by sheer coincidence, it
makes sense."


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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 26, 12:47 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:

>
> No, I think you're missing my point.  Consider your analogy of fitting
> together images to make a complete picture.  You present this as a
> spatial representation of the sequential flow of consciousness.  Now
> suppose your spatial elements have zero extent - they are "spatial
> instants", i.e. points.  What fits them together?
>
>
> It appears to me that you are implicitly supposing that information in
> the brain (say in it's structure) can be associated with an instant of
> consciousness and hence allow it's position in the "complete picture" to
> be determined.  But it would not be a legitimate move to use information
> that was not in the instant itself.  And that's what I find implausible,
> that there is significant information content in a conscious interval of
> infinitesimal duration.

So, we have two things represented by a puzzle piece.

1)  The contents of an instant of consciousness...which is the "image
fragment" on the surface of the piece.

2)  How that instant of consciousness relates to the instants that
preceeded it and follow it...which is the piece's position within the
larger picture


And you have two seperate questions about information and conscious
states.

A) What information is responsible for a conscious state

B)  What information is IN a conscious state.

And I think your questions focus on 2 and B.

So, as for 2...there is no actual relationship between the instants.
They fit together based solely on the first person subjective feeling
of flow, which undoubtedly involves some sort of short term memory.
Part of the feeling of an instant is how it is related to the previous
instant.

As for B, I'm not sure this matters, as it's really a seperate
question from A.  So I am saying consciousness is information, but I'm
not saying it's the information that describes the particular things
that you're conscious OF at any given instant.

If I write down the details of what I'm conscious of AT this moment,
that information isn't the information that caused my conscious
experience OF that moment.

Conscious experience is tied to A.  Not B.

B has no special significance.  I'm not sure what it even really means
to talk about the information in a conscious state.  How much
information is in the feeling of anger?  How many bits describe the
subjective experience of seeing red?


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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 26, 11:40 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@...> wrote:
>
> The question is; what are their relative probability measure? What can
> I expect.

Any expectations you have are unfounded.  The problem of induction
applies.

Any probabilities arrived at empirically are suspect, they will
continue to hold for some Brunos but not for all...

But there's really not a better option that I can think of, so we
might as well stick with our expectations and probabilities.

Not that we have a choice, since free will is an illusion also...


> Without giving me a measure, it is like your theory predicts
> everything.

Right, it does basically predict everything.  Except an end to
experience.  There is no sweet, sweet release of death if I'm right.
There will be no final rest in the comforting embrace of oblivion.
Only the endless grind of a weary existence.


>This is contradicted by the fact.

How so?  What fact?  You know for certain that you are the only
Bruno?  You know for certain that there aren't parallel realities
containing Brunos with different experiences?  How did you come by
this fact?

Is it a fact, or just a belief?


> If I want coffee now, I
> know all to well I have to do something for that. Sorry but I cannot
> wait for a white rabbit bringing me my cup of coffee.

God helps those who help themselves.  However, some Brunos are more
fortunate with respect to helpful rabbits than other Brunos.  Stay
optimisitic.


> > I say that every possible event is perceived to happen, and so nothing
> > is more or less rare than anything else.
>
> It has to be at least in the relative way, if not your theory predicts
> all happenings, even in practice, but the facts contradict this.

Again, what facts?  If everything was happening in alternate versions
of reality, how would you detect this?  What facts do you possess that
rule this out?



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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Jason Resch <jasonresch@...>
> wrote:
>  
>> In fact I used that same argument with Russell
>> Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were
>> then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans.
>>    
>
> Did you win or lose that argument?
>
> I've heard that line of reasoning before also.  Doesn't it also
> conclude that we're living in the last days?  If there are more
> conscious beings in the future than in the present, then we should
> expect to live there and not here, so there must not be more conscious
> beings in the future?  And also it predicts that there are no
> significant number of (conscious) aliens?  Because if there were, we
> should expect to be one of them and not a human?
>
> Sounds like over-use of a good idea.  In this case it ignores all
> other available information to just focus only on one narrow
> statistic.  Why should we ignore everything else we know and only
> credit this single argument from probability?  Surely, after studying
> ants and humans, the knowledge that we gain has to alter our initial
> expectations, right?  But that isn't taken into account here (at least
> not in your one line description of the discussion...ha!).
>
> I think the problem with Russell's ant argument stems from trying to
> use "a priori" reasoning in an "a posteriori" situation.  There is
> extra information available that he isn't taking into consideration.
>
> Probably the same applies to the Doomsday argument and aliens.  There
> is extra information available that isn't being taking into account by
> SSA.  Pure SSA type reasoning only applies when there is no extra
> information available on which to base your conclusion, I think.
>
>
>  
>> However, in your theory you explain that there are always "next
>> moments" to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next
>> experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered?  If you
>> say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences
>> so greatly outnumber the ordered?
>>    
>
> I have no choice in the matter.  Some of me are going to bet random.
> Some of me are going to bet ordered.  When you come to a fork in the
> road, take it.
>
> Really and truely, I think the best rule of thumb is to bet the way
> that leaves you looking LEAST FOOLISH if you're wrong.  Usually
> that'll be "ordered".
>
>
>  
>> Perhaps in your theory "next" and "previous" OMs aren't really
>> connected, only the illusion of such a connection?
>>    
>
> Right, that's exactly what I'm saying.
>
>
>  
>> Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp?
>> Or perhaps something different entirely?
>>    
>
> I guess something different entirely.  I'm saying that the only rule
> is: "Everything happens.  And sometimes, by sheer coincidence, it
> makes sense."

An untestable theory.  But that's OK since if it's true it's also useless.

Brent


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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 27, 2:27 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>
> An untestable theory.  But that's OK since if it's true it's also useless.

Ha!  True, true.  But it being true AND useless would have a certain
aesthetic/poetic appeal.  Which makes me even more inclined to think
that this is the way things are.

Of course, if it's true, then everything is useless.

But really no more so than it was before.  "Usefulness" is an
overrated concept.


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[Jason Resch-2]

Kelly,

Your position as you have described it sounds a lot like ASSA only
without taking measure into consideration.  I am curious if you
believe there is any merit to counting OMs or not.  Meaning, if I have
two computers and set them up to run simulations of the same mind, are
there two minds or one?

Let's say I devised an evil simulation in which a mind suffers
horribly and is tortured, and I set the simulation to run each day,
and at the end of the day reset the simulation to the initial state,
such that after the first day, no new information or computations take
place, but they are repeated.  If given the choice, would you unplug
the computer to stop the suffering of the mind in the computer, or
having already been simulated once would you consider it
futile/meaningless to stop it.

If the number of implementations of minds does not matter and if all
experiences already exist, then would it not be meaningless to do
anything?  All actions, whatever the consequence would be rendered
neutral, having already happened somewhere.  If no act of good or evil
matter this philosophy leads to utter fatalism.

I don't consider something happening with 100% probability to be
mutually exclusive with happening more than once.  The question is
whether or not that makes any difference to the observer(s?).

Jason

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Kelly <harmonk00@...> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Jason Resch <jasonresch@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> In fact I used that same argument with Russell
>> Standish when he said that ants aren't conscious because if they were
>> then we should expect to be experiencing life as ants and not humans.
>
> Did you win or lose that argument?
>
> I've heard that line of reasoning before also.  Doesn't it also
> conclude that we're living in the last days?  If there are more
> conscious beings in the future than in the present, then we should
> expect to live there and not here, so there must not be more conscious
> beings in the future?  And also it predicts that there are no
> significant number of (conscious) aliens?  Because if there were, we
> should expect to be one of them and not a human?
>
> Sounds like over-use of a good idea.  In this case it ignores all
> other available information to just focus only on one narrow
> statistic.  Why should we ignore everything else we know and only
> credit this single argument from probability?  Surely, after studying
> ants and humans, the knowledge that we gain has to alter our initial
> expectations, right?  But that isn't taken into account here (at least
> not in your one line description of the discussion...ha!).
>
> I think the problem with Russell's ant argument stems from trying to
> use "a priori" reasoning in an "a posteriori" situation.  There is
> extra information available that he isn't taking into consideration.
>
> Probably the same applies to the Doomsday argument and aliens.  There
> is extra information available that isn't being taking into account by
> SSA.  Pure SSA type reasoning only applies when there is no extra
> information available on which to base your conclusion, I think.
>
>
>> However, in your theory you explain that there are always "next
>> moments" to be experienced, if you were to wager on your next
>> experience would you guess that it will be random or ordered?  If you
>> say ordered, is that not a contradiction when the random experiences
>> so greatly outnumber the ordered?
>
> I have no choice in the matter.  Some of me are going to bet random.
> Some of me are going to bet ordered.  When you come to a fork in the
> road, take it.
>
> Really and truely, I think the best rule of thumb is to bet the way
> that leaves you looking LEAST FOOLISH if you're wrong.  Usually
> that'll be "ordered".
>
>
>> Perhaps in your theory "next" and "previous" OMs aren't really
>> connected, only the illusion of such a connection?
>
> Right, that's exactly what I'm saying.
>
>
>> Would you say you belong to the ASSA or RSSA camp?
>> Or perhaps something different entirely?
>
> I guess something different entirely.  I'm saying that the only rule
> is: "Everything happens.  And sometimes, by sheer coincidence, it
> makes sense."
>
>
> >
>

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/4/27 Jason Resch <jasonresch@...>:

> I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily
> abandoned/ignored.  Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal
> measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly
> outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs.  Though I ever only have one
> OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a
> non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post
> should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted
> equally.

One remark that could be made about this oft-stated assertion is that
you don't *know* you have maintained a series of non-random OM's
orderly enough and long enough to compose this post. All you can be
certain about is your present OM, and it may be the only OM in all the
universes, anywhere or ever. In ot


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/4/28 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...>:

> 2009/4/27 Jason Resch <jasonresch@...>:
>
>> I am not sure that the measure problem can be so easily
>> abandoned/ignored.  Assuming every Observer Moment had has an equal
>> measure, then the random/white-noise filled OMs should vastly
>> outnumber the ordered and sensible OMs.  Though I ever only have one
>> OM to go by, the fact I was able to maintain a
>> non-random/non-white-noise filled OMs long enough to compose this post
>> should serve as some level of evidence that all OMs are not weighted
>> equally.
>
> One remark that could be made about this oft-stated assertion is that
> you don't *know* you have maintained a series of non-random OM's
> orderly enough and long enough to compose this post. All you can be
> certain about is your present OM, and it may be the only OM in all the
> universes, anywhere or ever. In ot

[Oops, didn't finish!]

In other words, it's impossible to know anything about other OM's from
within your own OM, except from a godlike stance outside the
multiverse. But this doesn't stop us drawing conclusions from the
(perhaps untrue) assumption that there are many OM's and the present
one is sampled randomly from them.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly wrote:

> On Apr 27, 2:27 am, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>  
>> An untestable theory.  But that's OK since if it's true it's also useless.
>>    
>
> Ha!  True, true.  But it being true AND useless would have a certain
> aesthetic/poetic appeal.  Which makes me even more inclined to think
> that this is the way things are.
>
> Of course, if it's true, then everything is useless.
>
> But really no more so than it was before.  "Usefulness" is an
> overrated concept.
>
>  

It's strictly equivalent to another older theory, "Whatever will be,
will be."

Brent

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Apr 2009, at 06:40, Kelly wrote:

>
> On Apr 26, 12:47 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>>
>> No, I think you're missing my point.  Consider your analogy of  
>> fitting
>> together images to make a complete picture.  You present this as a
>> spatial representation of the sequential flow of consciousness.  Now
>> suppose your spatial elements have zero extent - they are "spatial
>> instants", i.e. points.  What fits them together?
>>
>>
>> It appears to me that you are implicitly supposing that information  
>> in
>> the brain (say in it's structure) can be associated with an instant  
>> of
>> consciousness and hence allow it's position in the "complete  
>> picture" to
>> be determined.  But it would not be a legitimate move to use  
>> information
>> that was not in the instant itself.  And that's what I find  
>> implausible,
>> that there is significant information content in a conscious  
>> interval of
>> infinitesimal duration.
>
>
> So, we have two things represented by a puzzle piece.
>
> 1)  The contents of an instant of consciousness...which is the "image
> fragment" on the surface of the piece.
>
> 2)  How that instant of consciousness relates to the instants that
> preceeded it and follow it...which is the piece's position within the
> larger picture
>
>
> And you have two seperate questions about information and conscious
> states.
>
> A) What information is responsible for a conscious state
>
> B)  What information is IN a conscious state.
>
> And I think your questions focus on 2 and B.
>
> So, as for 2...there is no actual relationship between the instants.
> They fit together based solely on the first person subjective feeling
> of flow, which undoubtedly involves some sort of short term memory.
> Part of the feeling of an instant is how it is related to the previous
> instant.
>
> As for B, I'm not sure this matters, as it's really a seperate
> question from A.  So I am saying consciousness is information, but I'm
> not saying it's the information that describes the particular things
> that you're conscious OF at any given instant.
>
> If I write down the details of what I'm conscious of AT this moment,
> that information isn't the information that caused my conscious
> experience OF that moment.
>
> Conscious experience is tied to A.  Not B.
>
> B has no special significance.  I'm not sure what it even really means
> to talk about the information in a conscious state.  How much
> information is in the feeling of anger?  How many bits describe the
> subjective experience of seeing red?

The interesting, informative, thing consists in relating A and B.  
This is my taste. I expect from a "theory of everything" to explain  
the miracle  making me felt to succeed regularly to make a cup of  
coffee when I am in the state of dreaming or wanting or expecting ...  
a cup of coffee, and not only the coffee occurs but soon after,  
regularly, I smell it, I drink it, I enjoy it.  How good dreams  
happen, how bad dreams happen, how can I play the game in a way which  
satisfy most good willing universal machines. I need a theory which  
should be correct on what universal machine can do and think  
relatively to their most stable and probable dreams ... I am a long  
term researcher, but a practical one though.

All theories are hypothetical, but some theories (questions). I just  
propose the comp question to nature. From your post I can guess you  
stop at the step 3 of the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA).
So you have indeed the necessity to abandon comp to maintain your form  
of immaterialist platonism, but then you lose the tool for questioning  
nature. It almost look like choosing a theory because it does not even  
address the question ?

Bruno

Bruno


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




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[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Apr 2009, at 07:24, Kelly wrote:

>
>
> On Apr 26, 11:40 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@...> wrote:
>>
>> The question is; what are their relative probability measure? What  
>> can
>> I expect.
>
> Any expectations you have are unfounded.  The problem of induction
> applies.

There is no problem of induction. There is a problem of induction only  
for those who believe that science can prove a fact about reality.  
There are only worst, bad, good and better theories, but all theories  
are hypothetical belief. from the baby theory according to which he  
has parents, to the existence of moons, suns and bosons, theories are  
hypothetical, and their interpretations preserve the "hypotheticalness".
A scientist never say "I know".  (and this I think is the way Popper  
solved the "unduction problem". But it appears only to those who want  
their theory to be true ... by authority.

>
>
> Any probabilities arrived at empirically are suspect, they will
> continue to hold for some Brunos but not for all...


Sure. I will ask a bank to lend me huge amount of money, I promise  
them to reimburse when I will win ten times the big lottery in a row.


>
>
> But there's really not a better option that I can think of, so we
> might as well stick with our expectations and probabilities.
>
> Not that we have a choice, since free will is an illusion also...


Free will does not exist for those who live to work.
Free will does exist for those who work to live. If not, they are  
exploited? From universal they are forced to be particular. that's how  
souls falls and englue themselves, they loss their free will. Now work  
no war can make you free. You are, and can remain by resistance and  
vigilance.
In the normal worlds.



>
>
>
>> Without giving me a measure, it is like your theory predicts
>> everything.
>
> Right, it does basically predict everything.


Logicians call such theories inconsistent.



> Except an end to
> experience.  There is no sweet, sweet release of death if I'm right.
> There will be no final rest in the comforting embrace of oblivion.
> Only the endless grind of a weary existence.


That is true. But no theories can predict this. Er... well, no  
consistent theories can predict this. Inconsistent theories can prove  
we are immortal indeed.

>
>
>
>> This is contradicted by the fact.
>
> How so?  What fact?  You know for certain that you are the only
> Bruno?  You know for certain that there aren't parallel realities
> containing Brunos with different experiences?  How did you come by
> this fact?
>
> Is it a fact, or just a belief?

Come on Kelly, you know my favorite postulate assume all computational  
histories (Robinson arithmetic) so I have no doubt there is a  
continuum of Bruno, even densely distributed between any two points of  
the M sets), all englued in their history and soon or later quite  
different, as different as Kelly and Bruno in short time, as different  
as Bruno and the amoeba on longer time ...

The question is just this. I want coffee. How is it that I can realize  
the dream "drinking of cup of coffee". I am good willing. I have try  
your theory this morning. At first it works. It was a real and big  
pleasure to await for the white rabbit bringing my cup of coffee in my  
bed, where I could stay longer. But  after two hours i was a bit  
missing something, and I ask myself: why did I bet I would necessarily  
be the Bruno in the White rabbit world instead of I seems (at least)  
the usual normal (and a bit sadder) world where in most circumstances  
I have to use my free will, my free time, my free action, my (not so  
free) coffee and this up to the point I bring the warm product to my  
mouth.






>
>
>
>> If I want coffee now, I
>> know all to well I have to do something for that. Sorry but I cannot
>> wait for a white rabbit bringing me my cup of coffee.
>
> God helps those who help themselves.


Ah! This is indeed in the "guardian angel" theory of the machine M, on  
the machine M.

But of course the machine M, if she wants to remain scientific, or  
just self-referentially correct, should say instead:

If God exists, then God helps those (universal machines) which help  
themselves.

Plato's "truth" helps in the limit That why god is good, in Plato.




> However, some Brunos are more
> fortunate with respect to helpful rabbits than other Brunos.  Stay
> optimisitic.


I tell you. I will not try the white rabbit method of realizing the  
experience of drinking coffee no more, in the morning.

OK, I admit I do it everyday implictly in the evening, it is perfect  
how the white rabbit seems to understand I don't want a cup of coffee,  
he never bring me coffee at that time. Is that an evidence that I am  
in a world with white rabbits?

>
>
>
>>> I say that every possible event is perceived to happen, and so  
>>> nothing
>>> is more or less rare than anything else.
>>
>> It has to be at least in the relative way, if not your theory  
>> predicts
>> all happenings, even in practice, but the facts contradict this.
>
> Again, what facts?  If everything was happening in alternate versions
> of reality, how would you detect this?  What facts do you possess that
> rule this out?

? I don't rule out the whole structure of possibilities, and I defend  
the idea that actuality is possibility from inside. I include type of  
relative or conditionnal possibilities. Indeed I explain that once you  
assume comp, you have to take into account the interference of  
histories due to your personal finite level of distinguishability  
among a continuum of histories.

Mathematics illustrates that immaterial beings, like numbers and  
digital machines, obeys laws. Of course you can contemplate the  
picture, not trying to use it. I like very much poetry and many arts.
Actually to use the comp physics to measure the mass of the Higgs  
(Brout Englert)  Boson would be like using String Theory to prepare a  
pizza, but comp gives a global coherent picture, and it gives a frame  
where the "laws of physics" can emerge from.
Nobody can be sure it is true, but once you say yes to the doctor,  
then if your survive,  you are under its play.

Bruno

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




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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly wrote:

> On Apr 26, 12:47 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke...@...> wrote:
>  
>> No, I think you're missing my point.  Consider your analogy of fitting
>> together images to make a complete picture.  You present this as a
>> spatial representation of the sequential flow of consciousness.  Now
>> suppose your spatial elements have zero extent - they are "spatial
>> instants", i.e. points.  What fits them together?
>>
>>
>> It appears to me that you are implicitly supposing that information in
>> the brain (say in it's structure) can be associated with an instant of
>> consciousness and hence allow it's position in the "complete picture" to
>> be determined.  But it would not be a legitimate move to use information
>> that was not in the instant itself.  And that's what I find implausible,
>> that there is significant information content in a conscious interval of
>> infinitesimal duration.
>>    
>
>
> So, we have two things represented by a puzzle piece.
>
> 1)  The contents of an instant of consciousness...which is the "image
> fragment" on the surface of the piece.
>
> 2)  How that instant of consciousness relates to the instants that
> preceeded it and follow it...which is the piece's position within the
> larger picture
>
>
> And you have two seperate questions about information and conscious
> states.
>
> A) What information is responsible for a conscious state
>
> B)  What information is IN a conscious state.
>
> And I think your questions focus on 2 and B.
>
> So, as for 2...there is no actual relationship between the instants.
> They fit together based solely on the first person subjective feeling
> of flow, which undoubtedly involves some sort of short term memory.
> Part of the feeling of an instant is how it is related to the previous
> instant.
>  

Are you thinking of something like a linked list in which each state, in
it's inherent information, has a pointer to a previous (or future)
state.  And the existence of this link constitutes the "feeling of flow"?

The idea of involving short term memory would be more conventional, but
I think it also entails allowing that conscious states have some
duration in time, or form a continuum.

> As for B, I'm not sure this matters, as it's really a seperate
> question from A.  So I am saying consciousness is information, but I'm
> not saying it's the information that describes the particular things
> that you're conscious OF at any given instant.
>
> If I write down the details of what I'm conscious of AT this moment,
> that information isn't the information that caused my conscious
> experience OF that moment.
>
> Conscious experience is tied to A.  Not B.
>
> B has no special significance.  I'm not sure what it even really means
> to talk about the information in a conscious state.  How much
> information is in the feeling of anger?  How many bits describe the
> subjective experience of seeing red?
>  

My problem exactly.  But if we are no longer talking about information
IN a conscious state, but rather information responsible for the
conscious state then we have introduced the possibility of a whole
physics (a brain, a world) that may be responsible for many things, only
one of which is consciousness.  In particular, it may be responsible for
limiting the conscious states and for fitting them together in succession.

Brent

>
> >
>
>  


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[Stathis Papaioannou-2]

2009/4/28 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> Sure. I will ask a bank to lend me huge amount of money, I promise
> them to reimburse when I will win ten times the big lottery in a row.

Not so far fetched, really.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[John Mikes]

Stathis,

I think Bruno is not realistic enough. Here is a better story - a solution to understand the situation:

---------

The Financial Crisis Explained

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin . In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar.
Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed.
Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.
One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager of the bank -- subsequently, of course,  fired due his negativity -- decides that the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by
the drinkers at Heidi's bar.
However they cannot pay back the debts.
Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.
DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95%. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.
The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities are faced with a new situation.
Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.
The bank is saved by the government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.
The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied against the non-drinkers.
   
Finally an explanation I understand ...

JohnM

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@...> wrote:

2009/4/28 Bruno Marchal <marchal@...>:

> Sure. I will ask a bank to lend me huge amount of money, I promise
> them to reimburse when I will win ten times the big lottery in a row.

Not so far fetched, really.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 27, 12:23 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@...> wrote:
>
> So you have indeed the necessity to abandon comp to maintain your form
> of immaterialist platonism, but then you lose the tool for questioning
> nature. It almost look like choosing a theory because it does not even
> address the question ?

Okay, going back to basics.  It seems to me that there are two
questions:

A) The problem of explaining WHAT we perceive
B) The problem of explaining THAT we perceive

The first issue is addressed by the third-person process of physics,
and of just generally trying make sense of what we perceive as we go
through the daily grind of life.  Everybody has a grasp of this issue,
because you're faced with it everyday as soon as you wake up in the
morning, "what's going on here???".

The second issue is obviously the more subtle first-person problem of
consciousness.

But, for A, the fact that we are able to come up with rational-seeming
explanations for what we experience, and that there seems to us to be
an orderly pattern to what we perceive, doesn't answer the deeper
question of the ultimate nature of this external world that we are
observing.  Here we get into issues of scientific/structural realism.
In other words, what do our scientific theories really mean?  (http://
plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/)

But I don't think we can assign any real meaning to what we observe
until we have an acceptable understanding of the first person
subjective experience by which we make our observations.

So the question of consciousness is more fundamental than the
questions of physics.  We can come up with scientific theories to
explain our observations, but since we don't know what an observation
really is, this can only get us so far in really understanding what's
going on with reality.  Until we have a foundation in place,
everything built above is speculative.  To rely on physics as your
foundation is "with more than Baron Münchhausen’s audacity, to pull
oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of
nothingness."

But here we hit a problem because the process that we use to explain
objective data doesn't work when applied to subjective experience.
There is a discontinuity.  The third-person perceived reality vs.
first-person experienced reality.  The latter apparently can't be
explained in terms of the former.  But without an explanation for the
latter, I don't see how any meaning can be attached to the former.

And I think that is for this reason that I don't get hung up on the
"white rabbit" problem.  Arguments based on the probability of finding
yourself in this state or that state are fine if all other things are
equal, and that's the only information you have to reason with.  But I
don't think that we're in that situation.

So I start with the assumption of physicalism and then say that based
on that assumption, a computer simulation should be conscious, and
then from there I find reasons to think that consciousness doesn't
depend on physicalism.  To me, the most likely alternate explanation
seems to be that consciousness depends on information.  However, I am
relying on some of my thought experiments that assumed physicalism as
support for my conclusion of "informationalism".

But I think the discontinuity between first and third person
experience is another important clue, because I think that this break
will be noticeable to all rational conscious entities in all possible
worlds (even chaotic, irrational worlds).  They should all notice a
difference in kind between what is observed (no matter how crazy it
is), and the subjective experience of making the observation.

Further, let's say that I am a rational observer in a world where
changes to brain structure do not appear to cause changes to behavior
or subjective experience.  Physicalism wouldn't have much appeal in
this world.  Rather, dualism would seem to have a clear edge as the
default explanation.  But it might be even easier to make the leap to
platonism in such a world, as presumably Plato's "ideal forms" might
be even more appealing.  So in such a world you wouldn't get to
platonism by way of thinking about computer simulations of brains
(since brain activity isn't correlated with behavior), but I think you
would still get there.

The question is, what kind of world NOT lead you to Platonism?  I
think only a world that didn't have first person experience.


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[Brent Meeker-2]

Kelly wrote:

> On Apr 27, 12:23 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@...> wrote:
>  
>> So you have indeed the necessity to abandon comp to maintain your form
>> of immaterialist platonism, but then you lose the tool for questioning
>> nature. It almost look like choosing a theory because it does not even
>> address the question ?
>>    
>
> Okay, going back to basics.  It seems to me that there are two
> questions:
>
> A) The problem of explaining WHAT we perceive
> B) The problem of explaining THAT we perceive
>
> The first issue is addressed by the third-person process of physics,
> and of just generally trying make sense of what we perceive as we go
> through the daily grind of life.  Everybody has a grasp of this issue,
> because you're faced with it everyday as soon as you wake up in the
> morning, "what's going on here???".
>
> The second issue is obviously the more subtle first-person problem of
> consciousness.
>
> But, for A, the fact that we are able to come up with rational-seeming
> explanations for what we experience, and that there seems to us to be
> an orderly pattern to what we perceive, doesn't answer the deeper
> question of the ultimate nature of this external world that we are
> observing.  Here we get into issues of scientific/structural realism.
> In other words, what do our scientific theories really mean?  (http://
> plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/)
>
> But I don't think we can assign any real meaning to what we observe
> until we have an acceptable understanding of the first person
> subjective experience by which we make our observations.
>
> So the question of consciousness is more fundamental than the
> questions of physics.  We can come up with scientific theories to
> explain our observations, but since we don't know what an observation
> really is, this can only get us so far in really understanding what's
> going on with reality.  Until we have a foundation in place,
> everything built above is speculative.  To rely on physics as your
> foundation is "with more than Baron Münchhausen’s audacity, to pull
> oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of
> nothingness."
>
> But here we hit a problem because the process that we use to explain
> objective data doesn't work when applied to subjective experience.
> There is a discontinuity.  The third-person perceived reality vs.
> first-person experienced reality.  The latter apparently can't be
> explained in terms of the former.  

But appearances can change.  At one it was apparent that life could not
be explained in terms of chemistry and physics.  What constitutes an
explanation is rather flexible.  If we could make robots that acted in
every respect like conscious human beings and we could directly induce
any given conscious thought into anyone's brain, would you still say we
didn't understand subjective experience?  I know we might still feel
there was a category gap, but people felt that about life too.  I think
after some time we'd stop worrying about it and decide it was a
non-question.

> But without an explanation for the
> latter, I don't see how any meaning can be attached to the former.
>  

Bruno seems to find that getting a cup of coffee in the morning is good
because of the subjective pleasure that follows.

> And I think that is for this reason that I don't get hung up on the
> "white rabbit" problem.  Arguments based on the probability of finding
> yourself in this state or that state are fine if all other things are
> equal, and that's the only information you have to reason with.  But I
> don't think that we're in that situation.
>
> So I start with the assumption of physicalism and then say that based
> on that assumption, a computer simulation should be conscious, and
> then from there I find reasons to think that consciousness doesn't
> depend on physicalism.  To me, the most likely alternate explanation
> seems to be that consciousness depends on information.  

But why did you feel justified in dispensing with the process
implemented by the computer?   Did you consider the information in a
stack of punch cards to be conscious?

> However, I am
> relying on some of my thought experiments that assumed physicalism as
> support for my conclusion of "informationalism".
>
> But I think the discontinuity between first and third person
> experience is another important clue, because I think that this break
> will be noticeable to all rational conscious entities in all possible
> worlds (even chaotic, irrational worlds).  They should all notice a
> difference in kind between what is observed (no matter how crazy it
> is), and the subjective experience of making the observation.
>
> Further, let's say that I am a rational observer in a world where
> changes to brain structure do not appear to cause changes to behavior
> or subjective experience.  Physicalism wouldn't have much appeal in
> this world.  Rather, dualism would seem to have a clear edge as the
> default explanation.  

But we seem to be in a contrary world in which structure and process
determines subjective experience.  Maybe that's the kind of world that
would NOT lead you to Platonism.

Brent

> But it might be even easier to make the leap to
> platonism in such a world, as presumably Plato's "ideal forms" might
> be even more appealing.  So in such a world you wouldn't get to
> platonism by way of thinking about computer simulations of brains
> (since brain activity isn't correlated with behavior), but I think you
> would still get there.
>
> The question is, what kind of world NOT lead you to Platonism?  I
> think only a world that didn't have first person experience.
>
>
> >
>
>  

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[Kelly Harmon]

On Apr 27, 3:08 am, Jason Resch <jasonre...@...> wrote:
>
> Your position as you have described it sounds a lot like ASSA only
> without taking measure into consideration.  I am curious if you
> believe there is any merit to counting OMs or not.  Meaning, if I have
> two computers and set them up to run simulations of the same mind, are
> there two minds or one?

If the simulations are identical, then there is only one mind, which
exists in Platonia.  The information in the computer simulation is
just a "shadow" of the actual platonic information.  In reality, there
is no objectively existing computer running a simulation.  There is
just your perception of this.

So, ultimately, I think there's no merit in counting OMs.  Every OM
exists once, and only once, and they exist along a continuum where by
every variation is realized.  Certain types of variation from one
instant to the next results in the subjective experience of the flow
of time.  Variations "perpendicular" to this results in the subjective
feel of different personal identities.

See my previous reply to Bruno today for further details on white
rabbits.


> Let's say I devised an evil simulation in which a mind suffers
> horribly and is tortured, and I set the simulation to run each day,
> and at the end of the day reset the simulation to the initial state,
> such that after the first day, no new information or computations take
> place, but they are repeated.  If given the choice, would you unplug
> the computer to stop the suffering of the mind in the computer, or
> having already been simulated once would you consider it
> futile/meaningless to stop it.

I would consider it futile or meaningless to stop it.  Even if I
stopped you from running it the first time, even that would be
meaningless, because the horribly suffering mind actually exists in
Platonia, not in your computer simulation.  Your feeling of having
"caused" their suffering is an illusion.

BUT, if there was no cost to me, I'd probably go ahead and stop you,
just in case I'm wrong.


> If the number of implementations of minds does not matter and if all
> experiences already exist, then would it not be meaningless to do
> anything?

Everything is meaningless.  BUT, as it turns out, I have no choice in
the matter.  My will is not free.  Even if I'd like to just say,
"screw it, none of this matters, I quit", I still get up every day and
go to work.  Why?  Because I am not the master of my fate.  I am not
the captain of my soul.  This lack of real choice (i.e., free will) is
already clear from physicalism, but even more so with a version
platonism where all possible experiences must be realized.

But really I think we lost "meaningfulness" before we even got to
platonism.


> All actions, whatever the consequence would be rendered
> neutral, having already happened somewhere.  If no act of good or evil
> matter this philosophy leads to utter fatalism.

Correct.  Though, utter fatalism is not necessarily as bad as it
sounds.  It just takes a little getting used to.


> I don't consider something happening with 100% probability to be
> mutually exclusive with happening more than once.  The question is
> whether or not that makes any difference to the observer(s?).

I don't think it makes any difference to the observers if, from your
perspective something happens to them 1000 times.  What matters to
them is how many times it happens to them from their perspective.  I
don't think that you having the experience of running your identical
torture simulation 1000 times has any significance whatsoever for the
entities being tortured.

There SEEMS to be a relationship between the observer moments, but in
fact there is not.  In this respect it's kind of like the subjective
experience of the flow of time.

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[Brent Meeker-2]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> 2009/4/25 Brent Meeker <meekerdb@...>:
>
>  
>> But is it the information in consciousness and is it discrete?  If you
>> include the information that is in the brain, but not in consciousness,
>> I can buy the concept of relating states by similarity of content.  Or
>> if you suppose a continuum of states that would provide a sequence. It
>> is only when you postulate discrete states containing only the contents
>> of instants of conscious thought, that I find difficulty.
>>    
>
> I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the information in most
> physical processes, but not consciousness, can be discrete? I would
> have said just the opposite: that even if it turns out that physics is
> continuous and time is real, it would still be possible to chop up
> consciousness into discrete parts (albeit of finite duration) and
> there would still be continuity.

I could buy that if the finite duration was long enough that the content
of the conscious interval was sufficient to order the intervals.  
Otherwise you'd need some extrinsic variable to order them (e.g physical
time, brain states).

> In fact, I can't imagine how
> consciousness could possibly be discontinuous if this was done, for
> where would the information that tells you you've been chopped up
> reside?

In Bruno's Washington/Moscow thought experiment that information isn't
in your consciousness, although it's available via third persons. My
view of the experiment is that you would lose a bit of consciousness,
that you can't slice consciousness arbitrarily finely in time.

Brent

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