From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 00:21:11 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 18:21:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wednesday, November 30, 2016, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Nov 30, 2016 6:55 AM, "Jason Resch" > wrote: > > > > Are you familiar with: > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism ? > > I should have known there'd be a word for it. Thanks! :) > > > Someone earlier stated Bell's Inequality implies we have to give up one > of: locality, determinism, or realism. This list is incomplete, we must > give up one of: locality, determinism, realism, or counterfactual > definiteness. > > > > Counterfactual definiteness means experiments have only one outcome. MWI > gives up counterfactual definiteness and retains locality, determinism and > realism. > > But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed by > the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as well > not exist. > That's not quite what's meant by counterfactual definiteness though. Realism, in QM also implies something different from whether or not something is observable. According to Bohr, only measurements are real. This view dispenses with a reality external from observers. In MWI, the universal wave function is real independent of observers or observation. It is why Einstein asked someone who believed in the Copenhagen Interpretation "Do you really believe the moon only exists when you're looking at it?" In MW, the moon definitely does exist, even when no one is looking at it, so it is a theory that maintains/restores realism to QM. All of Einstein's criticisms of QM, that it abandoned realism, locality, and determinism, are issues that are resolved by MW. I think Einstein would have enthusiastically embraced it, had he lived to see it. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 01:26:03 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:26:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <010b01d24b72$32cff490$986fddb0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:18 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online ?The LIGO gravitational wave detector ?went back online today! It will be about 20% more sensitive than it was before; that's somewhat less than had been hoped but they ran into problems, particularly at the Washington State installation that would have taken time to solve and they decided the delay has been long enough and they need to start receiving astronomical data again. John K Clark It was the right decision to bring them back online, even if they aren?t optimal. Every merger is a one-time event. If we miss it, that?s all there is forever. Excellent, fasten your seatbelts cosmology fans, this is going to be biiiiig fun, a fun time to be alive. It makes up for that bad stomping suffered in the elections three weeks ago. This more than makes up for it. Soon, we get to see if those other signals were a mistake or if everything I thought I understood about the Big Bang is flawed (I hope that?s it.) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 03:08:59 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 22:08:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > Are you familiar with: > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism ? > ?"? > They define free will as freedom to act according to one's motives without > arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions. > ?"? > ?Why the distinction, what difference does it make if the hindrance ? comes from other individuals ?or from the basic laws of physics? Either way my will is throttled, I can't do what I want to do. > > ?> ? > others might say from the agent's own ability to predict it's behavior. > > ?Or rather free will is the inability to make that prediction according to the only definition that is not gibberish. If we always knew what we were going to do we'd feel like a robot. But does even a robot feel like a robot? For a mind to totally understand itself it must form a perfect internal ? ? model of itself. The model must not only describe the rest of the mind in every detail but it must also depict the model itself with a micro model. This micro model must represent the rest of the brain and the micro model itself with a micro micro model. This path leads to an infinite regress. Both the brain and the model must be made up of a finite number of elements. If we are not to lose accuracy the components of the brain must have a one to one correspondence with the elements of the model. But this is impossible because the brain as a whole must have more members than the part that is just the model. ? ? This argument does not hold if the mind is infinite, that is if it has an infinite number of segments. It would be possible to find a one to one correspondence with a proper subset of itself; for example you CAN find a one to one correspondence between the ? ? set of odd integers with the set of all integers. Thus an infinite intellect could predict all its actions without error. ?So ?we are led to the interesting conclusion that we have free will but God, if He exists, does not. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 03:36:28 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 22:36:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed by > the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as well > not exist. > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes exist, then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the part of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. What is this je ne sais quoi that makes the world you see real but collapses all the other worlds predicted by QM into the realm of imagination? There is no physical entity known that is capable of this feat AFAIK. But the other worlds actually *are* measurable - we can calculate from first principles the distribution of outcomes for increasingly more complex quantum systems, and when we probe parts of the distribution in repeated experiments, the predictions tend to agree with outcomes to 7 significant digits or so. So, we can't "see" the alternate worlds but sure we can measure them. There is another wrinkle for the Copenhagen believers - imagine that you can ab initio calculate the distribution of outcomes in an experiment that generates conscious observers with some probability, let's say 1/2. You do the experiment repeatedly, and indeed in 1/2 of the experimental runs you generate observers and verify they are conscious by talking to them. In the other half of experiments you do not generate observers, just inanimate assemblages of matter. As a Copenhagener you believe that your conscious observation of the experiment collapses the wave function, making one of the two possible outcomes real. So by observing a conscious observer you make him real and consign the inanimate outcome to the never-happened not-my-problem heap. By the same token, by observing the inanimate outcome you make it real and consign the conscious observer to the quantum mists. But will the imaginary conscious observers you generate by the dozen in half of your experiments take their ghostly status lying down? What if they insist on making their branch of the wave function real? Who is gonna stop them? They are conscious and predicted by the wave function, not just figments of our imagination. Sure you can't see them but then that's no reason to deny their existence. Only the wave function decides what is potentially real and what is not. If observers sit on both sides of the QM-predicted outcomes, then even a Copenhagener would be forced to admit both outcomes are real. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 03:34:04 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 19:34:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs Message-ID: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> For those who argue that robots do not take away human jobs, here?s some bad news: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/stripper-robot-australia/ spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 04:48:36 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 20:48:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed by >> the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as well >> not exist. > > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes exist, > then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the part > of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you need evidence. > But the other worlds actually *are* measurable - we can calculate from first > principles the distribution of outcomes for increasingly more complex > quantum systems, and when we probe parts of the distribution in repeated > experiments, the predictions tend to agree with outcomes to 7 significant > digits or so. So, we can't "see" the alternate worlds but sure we can > measure them. The correctness of the prediction of the distribution says nothing about whether other worlds (presumably you mean with different distributions) exist. > There is another wrinkle for the Copenhagen believers - imagine that you can > ab initio calculate the distribution of outcomes in an experiment that > generates conscious observers > But will the imaginary conscious observers you generate by the dozen in half > of your experiments take their ghostly status lying down? Yes. They are generated by the experiment; they do not have the ability to retroactively change the result of things before they were generated. (No, there is no "but at the moment of their generation" confusion: first they are generated, then they have a span of consciousness. Consciousness is over a span of time, which like all spans has a beginning and an end - granted, this span may also include interruptions such as sleep.) Therefore their potential post-experimental existence can not change the outcome, so they have no choice but to accept the results. It's like a certain basilisk AI, whose full name some members of this list would feel better if I did not spell out. Hypothetically, it will resurrect (via simulation if necessary) everyone who knew it could exist but failed to devote their efforts to bring about its existence - basically God, with everlasting Heaven for its loyal people and everlasting Hell for any uncooperatives (and not bothering with the unenlightened masses who never heard of it). But that requires that it will exist, and will turn out that way, which is not guaranteed to be the world that we eventually face; the mere possibility does not change this. From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 05:53:47 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 23:53:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed by > >> the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as > well > >> not exist. > > > > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes > exist, > > then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the > part > > of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. > > Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually > exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never > measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you > need evidence. > The other universes are detectable and they do effect our universe, e.g. interference patterns. Furthermore, you must accept the reality of the wave function (and all its branches) in order to explain how quantum computers work. Whether we can directly observe some phenomenon or not is irrelevant, we can't observe the inside of black holes, beyond the cosmological horizon, the future, things outside our light cone, etc., yet we would all agree those things exist. What matters is whether these other universes are predicted to exist and consequences of our best theories. The evidence for these other branches includes all the evidence we have for quantum mechanics. Indefensible mental gymnastics are required to believe in both QM but deny the reality of the wave function and its many histories. Jason > > But the other worlds actually *are* measurable - we can calculate from > first > > principles the distribution of outcomes for increasingly more complex > > quantum systems, and when we probe parts of the distribution in repeated > > experiments, the predictions tend to agree with outcomes to 7 significant > > digits or so. So, we can't "see" the alternate worlds but sure we can > > measure them. > > The correctness of the prediction of the distribution says nothing > about whether other worlds (presumably you mean with different > distributions) exist. > > > There is another wrinkle for the Copenhagen believers - imagine that you > can > > ab initio calculate the distribution of outcomes in an experiment that > > generates conscious observers > > > But will the imaginary conscious observers you generate by the dozen in > half > > of your experiments take their ghostly status lying down? > > Yes. They are generated by the experiment; they do not have the > ability to retroactively change the result of things before they were > generated. (No, there is no "but at the moment of their generation" > confusion: first they are generated, then they have a span of > consciousness. Consciousness is over a span of time, which like all > spans has a beginning and an end - granted, this span may also include > interruptions such as sleep.) Therefore their potential > post-experimental existence can not change the outcome, so they have > no choice but to accept the results. > > It's like a certain basilisk AI, whose full name some members of this > list would feel better if I did not spell out. Hypothetically, it > will resurrect (via simulation if necessary) everyone who knew it > could exist but failed to devote their efforts to bring about its > existence - basically God, with everlasting Heaven for its loyal > people and everlasting Hell for any uncooperatives (and not bothering > with the unenlightened masses who never heard of it). But that > requires that it will exist, and will turn out that way, which is not > guaranteed to be the world that we eventually face; the mere > possibility does not change this. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 08:37:27 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 00:37:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki >> wrote: >> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed >> >> by >> >> the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as >> >> well >> >> not exist. >> > >> > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes >> > exist, >> > then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the >> > part >> > of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. >> >> Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually >> exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never >> measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you >> need evidence. > > The other universes are detectable and they do effect our universe, e.g. > interference patterns. I do not see how interference patterns are necessarily an effect of other universes. They are explained well enough by single-world quantum mechanics. > Furthermore, you must accept the reality of the wave function (and all its > branches) in order to explain how quantum computers work. The wave function works just fine in a single world too. > The evidence for these other branches includes all the evidence we have for > quantum mechanics. Indefensible mental gymnastics are required to believe in > both QM but deny the reality of the wave function and its many histories. They are only indefensible if you take MWI as a postulate. If you do not presuppose MWI, then you might see that things look the same whether there are multiple worlds or just the one. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 12:28:58 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 07:28:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:08 PM, John Clark wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > >> Are you familiar with: >> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism ? >> > > ?"? >> They define free will as freedom to act according to one's motives >> without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions. >> ?"? >> > > ?Why the distinction, what difference does it make if the > hindrance > ? comes from other individuals ?or from the basic laws of physics? Either > way my will is throttled, I can't do what I want to do. > ### If the restriction comes from individuals, your social threat detector module is appropriately activated, and will give you useful guidance on what to do to these individuals. If the hindrance is baked into the basic laws of physics, the social threat detector is useless, instead you have to use the physics module. In the context of this thread it is important, since the physics module does not think about your will, free or not free, it just shuts up and computes. The social module however runs uselessly around in circles trying to do the job of the physics module, wondering how quanta impinge on will. One needs to keep one's modules on a short leash, and make them do only the jobs they were trained for. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 13:33:35 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 08:33:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:34 PM, spike wrote: > > For those who argue that robots do not take away human jobs, here?s some bad > news: > > http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/stripper-robot-australia/ Why the upset over robots taking jobs? It sounds so much to me like complaints about "illegals" taking jobs ..or "refugees" taking jobs. The reason why all these others can take your job is because you cost too much. Sure, upkeep on humans is expensive. Some day (soon?), only the 1% will be able to afford them. So what are we doing to prepare for the future? From pharos at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 14:02:01 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 14:02:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: On 1 December 2016 at 13:33, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Why the upset over robots taking jobs? > It sounds so much to me like complaints about "illegals" taking jobs > ..or "refugees" taking jobs. > > The reason why all these others can take your job is because you cost too much. > > Sure, upkeep on humans is expensive. Some day (soon?), only the 1% > will be able to afford them. > So what are we doing to prepare for the future? I'm practising going back to the good old days when we lived in a hole in the ground and lived off roadkill. But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'. BillK From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 15:23:12 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 09:23:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 2:37 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > >> wrote: > >> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes > wrote: > >> >> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed > >> >> by > >> >> the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as > >> >> well > >> >> not exist. > >> > > >> > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes > >> > exist, > >> > then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the > >> > part > >> > of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. > >> > >> Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually > >> exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never > >> measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you > >> need evidence. > > > > The other universes are detectable and they do effect our universe, e.g. > > interference patterns. > > I do not see how interference patterns are necessarily an effect of > other universes. They are explained well enough by single-world > quantum mechanics. > > Even the single-world quantum mechanics accept that individual particles can be in multiple places at once given the two-slit single photon or single electron experiments. They overcome this by saying the wave function collapses once things get "big enough", but never say how big is too big for the superposition to remain, nor when, why or how the collapse happens. Collapse is an ad hoc kludge to maintain a single universe when the math of the theory (e.g the Schr?dinger Equation) makes it absolutely clear that there are many universes. ?Schr?dinger also had the basic idea of parallel universes shortly before Everett, but he didn't publish it. He mentioned it in a lecture in Dublin, in which he predicted that the audience would think he was crazy. Isn't that a strange assertion coming from a Nobel Prize winner?that he feared being considered crazy for claiming that his equation, the one that he won the Nobel Prize for, might be true.? -- David Deutsch > > Furthermore, you must accept the reality of the wave function (and all > its > > branches) in order to explain how quantum computers work. > > The wave function works just fine in a single world too. > The wave function is a system of many universes, as Feynman said that that a universal wave function: ?must contain amplitudes for all possible worlds depending on all quantummechanical possibilities in the past and thus one is forced to believe in the equal reality of an infinity of possible worlds.? and Stephen Hawking regarded the MWI as ?self-evidently correct?. When the British actor Ken Campbell, asked him ?all these trillions of universes of the multiverse, are they as real as this one seems to be to me?? Hawking answered, ?Yes.... According to Feynman's idea, every possible history [of Ken] is equally real.? The way single-worlders get around this is by saying the wave function doesn't refer to anything real, that it is just a useful calculating device. But how does this non-real "useful calculating device" enable a table-top device to factor semi-prime numbers of millions of digits, when such a calculation would take more time than then the heat death of the universe to run on a conventional computer, even if all matter in the observable universe were turned into computers? > > > The evidence for these other branches includes all the evidence we have > for > > quantum mechanics. Indefensible mental gymnastics are required to > believe in > > both QM but deny the reality of the wave function and its many histories. > > They are only indefensible if you take MWI as a postulate. If you do > not presuppose MWI, then you might see that things look the same > whether there are multiple worlds or just the one. > MW is not a postulate, it is barebones QM. Copenhagen = QM postulates + collapse postulate Many Worlds = QM postulates It is a theory with fewer assumptions, and it explains more. It explains why you get the appearance of collapse, something Copenhagen had to assume. By Occam, it should be preferred, the only reason it isn't is people are uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is bigger than it seems. It's okay, humanity has gone through this before, with the discovery of other planets besides Earth, with the discovery of other stars besides the sun, with the discovery of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. We are just in the middle of a more recent awakening to the idea that reality is bigger than we previously thought. It took 100 years for Copernicus's heliocentric idea to become accepted, it's only been 60 years since Everett. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 15:40:33 2016 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 16:40:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: > Schr?dinger Equation) makes it absolutely clear that there are many universes The Schroedinger equation has nothing to say about gravity. Therefore it CANNOT be the governing equation in the universe, where gravity plays quite a role. On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 2:37 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Jason Resch >> wrote: >> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:48 PM, Adrian Tymes >> wrote: >> >> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki >> >> wrote: >> >> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes >> wrote: >> >> >> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and >> observed >> >> >> by >> >> >> the experimenters. Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as >> >> >> well >> >> >> not exist. >> >> > >> >> > ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes >> >> > exist, >> >> > then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the >> >> > part >> >> > of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't. >> >> >> >> Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually >> >> exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never >> >> measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you >> >> need evidence. >> > >> > The other universes are detectable and they do effect our universe, e.g. >> > interference patterns. >> >> I do not see how interference patterns are necessarily an effect of >> other universes. They are explained well enough by single-world >> quantum mechanics. >> >> > Even the single-world quantum mechanics accept that individual particles > can be in multiple places at once given the two-slit single photon or > single electron experiments. They overcome this by saying the wave function > collapses once things get "big enough", but never say how big is too big > for the superposition to remain, nor when, why or how the collapse happens. > Collapse is an ad hoc kludge to maintain a single universe when the math of > the theory (e.g the Schr?dinger Equation) makes it absolutely clear that > there are many universes. > > ?Schr?dinger also had the basic idea of parallel universes shortly before > Everett, but he didn't publish it. He mentioned it in a lecture in Dublin, > in which he predicted that the audience would think he was crazy. Isn't > that a strange assertion coming from a Nobel Prize winner?that he feared > being considered crazy for claiming that his equation, the one that he won > the Nobel Prize for, might be true.? > -- David Deutsch > > >> > Furthermore, you must accept the reality of the wave function (and all >> its >> > branches) in order to explain how quantum computers work. >> >> The wave function works just fine in a single world too. >> > > The wave function is a system of many universes, as Feynman said that that > a universal wave function: ?must contain amplitudes for all possible worlds > depending on all quantummechanical possibilities in the past and thus one > is forced to believe in the equal reality of an infinity of possible > worlds.? > > and Stephen Hawking regarded the MWI as ?self-evidently correct?. When the > British actor Ken Campbell, asked him ?all these trillions of universes of > the multiverse, are they as real as this one seems to be to me?? Hawking > answered, ?Yes.... According to Feynman's idea, every possible history [of > Ken] is equally real.? > > The way single-worlders get around this is by saying the wave function > doesn't refer to anything real, that it is just a useful calculating > device. But how does this non-real "useful calculating device" enable a > table-top device to factor semi-prime numbers of millions of digits, when > such a calculation would take more time than then the heat death of the > universe to run on a conventional computer, even if all matter in the > observable universe were turned into computers? > > >> >> > The evidence for these other branches includes all the evidence we have >> for >> > quantum mechanics. Indefensible mental gymnastics are required to >> believe in >> > both QM but deny the reality of the wave function and its many >> histories. >> >> They are only indefensible if you take MWI as a postulate. If you do >> not presuppose MWI, then you might see that things look the same >> whether there are multiple worlds or just the one. >> > > MW is not a postulate, it is barebones QM. > Copenhagen = QM postulates + collapse postulate > Many Worlds = QM postulates > > It is a theory with fewer assumptions, and it explains more. It explains > why you get the appearance of collapse, something Copenhagen had to assume. > By Occam, it should be preferred, the only reason it isn't is people are > uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is bigger than it seems. > > It's okay, humanity has gone through this before, with the discovery of > other planets besides Earth, with the discovery of other stars besides the > sun, with the discovery of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. We are > just in the middle of a more recent awakening to the idea that reality is > bigger than we previously thought. It took 100 years for Copernicus's > heliocentric idea to become accepted, it's only been 60 years since Everett. > > Jason > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 15:56:25 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 07:56:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] total recall Message-ID: <029b01d24beb$79143190$6b3c94b0$@att.net> There was a local hummus recall. I had bought some the day before but it wasn?t that brand. It occurred to me that if people signed up, the local grocer could contact everyone who bought any recalled item using bar code tracking. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Thu Dec 1 16:24:42 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 08:24:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality Message-ID: <8284463b2e3388ac908b03a9f5e15b9e.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Jason Resch wrote: Thanks for the link, I will look into it. Jason Resch wrote: My understanding of counterfactual definiteness is that it is very specific type of realism. It is the notion that objects have measurable properties that have a definite value even if measurements are not made. For example, whenever you list your weight on a driver's license application without weighing yourself beforehand, you are assuming a counterfactual definiteness to your weight. Even if you were off by a few pounds, the idea is that if you were to weigh yourself, you would measure a certain weight and that's how much you actually weigh even if you didn't bother weighing yourself. If you give up counterfactual definiteness, it means you don't have a weight when you are not standing on a scale. So I am not sure what you mean by saying that "MWI gives up counterfactual definiteness". My biggest concern with MWI is that it requires the Universal Wave Function to be objectively real, not merely a mathematical abstraction. So if the UWF is objectively real then that means the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space that describes it is objectively real. So where is this gigantic Hilbert space hiding? Why do we only perceive 3+1 dimensions in a multiverse controlled by an infinite dimensional Wave Function? What is the relationship of our percievable space-time to the Universal Wave Function and the Hilbert space in which It dwelleth? Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 16:25:22 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 11:25:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > ?> ? > What is this je ne sais quoi that makes the world you see real but > collapses all the other worlds predicted by QM into the realm of > imagination? > That is indeed the question any ? ? Copenhagener ? ? must answer, and they can't; all they can do is wave their hands around and say stuff about consciousness. The mathematics in Quantum Mechanics says nothing about the Schrodinger ? ? Wave ? ? Equation ? ? collapsing because a conscious being ?made? ? an observation, or collapsing for any other reason for that matter. If the Copenhagen people want to get serious they're going to have to explain exactly what a observation is and develop an ? ? equation for consciousness and show how a interaction between the two equations causes the ? Schrodinger ? ? Wave ? ? to collapse. That's why I like the Many World's Interpretation, it doesn't need to explain what a observation is, nor does it need to explain what consciousness is because neither has anything to do with the theory. Many Worlds says when something changes a conscious observer splits and occupies 2 different universes, but the exact same thing happens to a non-conscious non-observer. Copenhagen says matter that is conscious follows different laws of physics than matter that is not conscious (although they can't explain what those laws are), Many Worlds says it's the same rules for everything. Many Worlds simply assumes that the equations of quantum mechanics mean what they say, and none of them say anything about ? ? Schrodinger's ? ? wave collapsing, that was just tacked on by the Copenhagen people. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbert at mydruthers.com Thu Dec 1 16:37:53 2016 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 08:37:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:26:03 -0800 > From: "spike" > > It was the right decision to bring them back online, even if they > aren?t optimal. Every merger is a one-time event. If we miss it, that?s > all there is forever. > > Excellent, fasten your seatbelts cosmology fans, this is going to be > biiiiig fun, a fun time to be alive. It makes up for that bad stomping > suffered in the elections three weeks ago. This more than makes up for > it. Soon, we get to see if those other signals were a mistake or if > everything I thought I understood about the Big Bang is flawed (I hope > that?s it.) > > spike A friend told me last night he went to a talk at Stanford on LIGO, and the unit of reference was Giga-cubic parsecs/year. Now that's a unit to take your breath away! Chris -- In Just-spring when the world is mudluscious -- E. E. Cummings http://www.ralphlevy.com/quotes/balloon.htm Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com Blog: http://www.pancrit.org http://mydruthers.com From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 16:57:37 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 11:57:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > ?> ? > Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually > ? ? > exists. ?But even more basic than that science is about explanations. ? ?Suppose a theory ?successfully predicts and explains a lot of formally mysterious things that ARE measurable but also predicts some things that can never be measured. Some might say we should reject the entire theory because those unmeasurable predictions haven't been proven correct, but then they haven't been proven to be incorrect either. Many Worlds does explain a lot of puzzling measurements with a minimum of tacked on assumptions, until a better quantum interpretation comes along I think it would be foolish to throw out the entire idea because it makes some predictions that can't be tested. There is reason to think those other worlds might actually exist, although I admit those reasons fall short of a proof, they occupy middle ground between reality and fantasy. As Rod Serling said: ?"? It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. ?"? ? John K Clark? > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 17:41:01 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 11:41:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: <8284463b2e3388ac908b03a9f5e15b9e.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <8284463b2e3388ac908b03a9f5e15b9e.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Jason Resch wrote: > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism ? > [...] > I am a compatibilist when it comes to freewill and determinism.> > > Thanks for the link, I will look into it. > > Jason Resch wrote: > of: locality, determinism, or realism. This list is incomplete, we must > give up one of: locality, determinism, realism, or counterfactual > definiteness. > Counterfactual definiteness means experiments have only one outcome. MWI > gives up counterfactual definiteness and retains locality, determinism and > realism.> > > My understanding of counterfactual definiteness is that it is very > specific type of realism. It is the notion that objects have measurable > properties that have a definite value even if measurements are not made. > > For example, whenever you list your weight on a driver's license > application without weighing yourself beforehand, you are assuming a > counterfactual definiteness to your weight. Even if you were off by a few > pounds, the idea is that if you were to weigh yourself, you would measure > a certain weight and that's how much you actually weigh even if you didn't > bother weighing yourself. > > If you give up counterfactual definiteness, it means you don't have a > weight when you are not standing on a scale. So I am not sure what you > mean by saying that "MWI gives up counterfactual definiteness". > It is giving up the part that only one possible result will be measured for a particular value. I would point you towards this explanation for question 32 from the many worlds FAQ ( http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds.html ): The decomposition into four worlds is forced and unambiguous after communication with the remote system. Until the two observers communicated their results to each other they were each unsplit by each others' measurements, although their own local measurements had split themselves. The splitting is a local process that is causally transmitted from system to system at light or sub-light speeds. (This is a point that Everett stressed about Einstein's remark about the observations of a mouse, in the Copenhagen interpretation, collapsing the wavefunction of the universe. Everett observed that it is the mouse that's split by its observation of the rest of the universe. The rest of the universe is unaffected and unsplit.) When all communication is complete the worlds have finally decomposed or decohered from each other. Each world contains a consistent set of observers, records and electrons, in perfect agreement with the predictions of standard QM. Further observations of the electrons will agree with the earlier ones and so each observer, in each world, can henceforth regard the electron's wavefunction as having collapsed to match the historically recorded, locally observed values. This justifies our operational adoption of the collapse of the wavefunction upon measurement, without having to strain our credibility by believing that it actually happens. To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic. Local measurements split local systems (including observers) in a subjectively random fashion; distant systems are only split when the causally transmitted effects of the local interactions reach them. We have not assumed any non-local FTL effects, yet we have reproduced the standard predictions of QM. So where did Bell and Eberhard go wrong? They thought that all theories that reproduced the standard predictions must be non-local. It has been pointed out by both Albert [A] and Cramer [C] (who both support different interpretations of QM) that Bell and Eberhard had implicity assumed that every possible measurement - even if not performed - would have yielded a *single* definite result. This assumption is called contra-factual definiteness or CFD [S]. What Bell and Eberhard really proved was that every quantum theory must either violate locality *or* CFD. Many-worlds with its multiplicity of results in different worlds violates CFD, of course, and thus can be local. Thus many-worlds is the only local quantum theory in accord with the standard predictions of QM and, so far, with experiment. [A] David Z Albert, _Bohm's Alternative to Quantum Mechanics_ Scientific American (May 1994) [As] Alain Aspect, J Dalibard, G Roger _Experimental test of Bell's inequalities using time-varying analyzers_ Physical Review Letters Vol 49 #25 1804 (1982). [C] John G Cramer _The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics_ Reviews of Modern Physics Vol 58 #3 647-687 (1986) [B] John S Bell: _On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox_ Physics 1 #3 195-200 (1964). [E] Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, Nathan Rosen: _Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?_ Physical Review Vol 41 777-780 (15 May 1935). [S] Henry P Stapp _S-matrix interpretation of quantum-theory_ Physical Review D Vol 3 #6 1303 (1971) There is also this article which seems to cover exactly the subject at hand: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0902.3827.pdf > My biggest concern with MWI is that it requires the Universal Wave Function to be objectively real, not merely a mathematical abstraction. So > if the UWF is objectively real then that means the infinite-dimensional > Hilbert space that describes it is objectively real. So where is this > gigantic Hilbert space hiding? Why do we only perceive 3+1 dimensions in a > multiverse controlled by an infinite dimensional Wave Function? What is > the relationship of our percievable space-time to the Universal Wave > Function and the Hilbert space in which It dwelleth? > The wave function is a standard assumption of all QM theories/interpretations that accurately describes the evolution of any isolated system. The *universal* wave function just treats the entire universe as an isolated system, and applies the regular rules of QM to determine how it evolves. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 17:37:42 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 09:37:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007e01d24bf9$9f447790$ddcd66b0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Chris Hibbert Subject: Re: [ExI] LIGO is back online > >>... Excellent, fasten your seatbelts cosmology fans, this is going to be biiiiig fun, a fun time to be alive. ... spike >...A friend told me last night he went to a talk at Stanford on LIGO, and the unit of reference was Giga-cubic parsecs/year. Now that's a unit to take your breath away! Chris -- Chris cosmology is full of mind-blowing stuff, but consider for a giga cubic parsec. If we want to say the moon (or the sun) appears about a half a degree across, that's close enough to about 1800 seconds of arc and the area comes out to about 3 million square arc seconds (indulge me on the single digit of precision BOTECs por favor.) If you imagine looking through the moon about 300 million light years out there, and imagine a cube of space being blocked out by the moon, that block of space is about a billion cubic parsecs. Better way to say it: if you had a giga-parsec^3 sphere out there about 300 million light years, it could be total eclipsed by the moon. Cool! Since I did these numbers in my head, please check me on order of magnitude at least, or sharpen it to a single digit of precision please, astronomy hipsters. If I did those numbers right, there are skerjillions of cubic megaparsecs everywhere we gaze into the sky. Moral of the story: space is big. Space is waaay big. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 18:01:15 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 10:01:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online References: Message-ID: <009101d24bfc$e911b7e0$bb3527a0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] >...Chris cosmology is full of mind-blowing stuff, but consider for a giga cubic parsec...if you had a giga-parsec^3 sphere out there about 300 million light years, it could be total eclipsed by the moon. Cool! >...Since I did these numbers in my head, please check me on order of magnitude at least, or sharpen it to a single digit of precision please, astronomy hipsters. >...If I did those numbers right, there are skerjillions of cubic megaparsecs everywhere we gaze into the sky. Moral of the story: space is big. Space is waaay big. Spike Eh, I think I missed that distance by a mere 3 orders of magnitude. We would only need to look about 300 thousand light years out past the moon to gaze upon a sphere of volume giga cubic parsecs which could hide behind the moon. Had we looked out my original mental calculation of 300 million light years, that moon-eclipsing sphere would be a billion giga cubic parsecs, or perhaps we could call it an exa-cubic parsec sphere, or a giga giga cubic parsec if we didn't mind risking getting the kids stirred up going around giga giga-ing everything until ya want to swat em. OK so that's why one should always do BOTECs with an actual B of the E. I missed the distance by 3 orders of magnitude and the volume by 9 orders, oy. 300 thousand LY isn't that far away, a tenth of the way to the nearest major galaxy (not counting the dwarfs and local debris.) The volume of the Milky Way (depending on how you count it, such as a sphere out to here and ignore everything outboard of us from the center of the galaxy) would be a couple thousand cubic mega-parsecs. Space is big. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 1 18:07:47 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 10:07:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online References: Message-ID: <009201d24bfd$d3011bc0$79035340$@att.net> Ack, delete all, sheesh, core dump, CTRL ALT delete, damn. I realized I was calculating giga cubic parsecs rather than cubic gigaparsecs. Those are two different things. A cubic giga parsec is a cube a billion parsecs on a side, where a giga cubic parsec cube is a thousand parsecs on a side. So a cubic gigaparsec has a volume of a billion billion giga cubic parsecs. Space is big. spike -----Original Message----- From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2016 10:01 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: RE: [ExI] LIGO is back online -----Original Message----- From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] >...Chris cosmology is full of mind-blowing stuff, but consider for a giga cubic parsec... From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 20:54:58 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 15:54:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 11:37 AM, Chris Hibbert wrote: ?> ? > A friend told me last night he went to a talk at Stanford on LIGO, and the > unit of reference was Giga-cubic parsecs/year. Now that's a unit to take > your breath away! > ?More fun to come! LIGO's observing run is scheduled to last about 6 months and then the next upgrade starts, ? ?but before that, sometime this Spring, ?the Virgo Gravitational Wave detector near Pisa Italy not far from where Galileo did his gravitational experiments should come online. With a detector in Italy and the 2 LIGO ones in Louisiana and Washington State they will be able to triangulate and pinpoint the source of the gravitational wave and know where to point our telescopes and see if there is a optical, radio or X Ray counterpart. And in 2018 the KAGRA detector in Japan should come online and unlike the others it's cooled down to cryogenic temperatures, so it should be the most sensitive of the lot. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tech101 at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 01:29:37 2016 From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 09:29:37 +0800 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: Mandatory high potency non-reversible moral enhancements for the 1% perhaps? Adam On 1 Dec 2016 22:03, "BillK" wrote: > On 1 December 2016 at 13:33, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > Why the upset over robots taking jobs? > > It sounds so much to me like complaints about "illegals" taking jobs > > ..or "refugees" taking jobs. > > > > The reason why all these others can take your job is because you cost > too much. > > > > Sure, upkeep on humans is expensive. Some day (soon?), only the 1% > > will be able to afford them. > > So what are we doing to prepare for the future? > > > I'm practising going back to the good old days when we lived in a hole > in the ground and lived off roadkill. > > But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe > ya'. > > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 02:21:22 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 13:21:22 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On 30 November 2016 at 19:12, Stuart LaForge wrote: Stathis wrote: > and the coffee decision comes out; my washing machine chooses the spin > cycle rather than the wash cycle because its spin cycle-choosing relay > fires and spin cycle comes out.> > > I think you are underselling the brain here. While at the exact moment > that the choice happens, the washing machine's act of decision and your > act share a certain similarity, the processes by which the two reached > those decisions are vastly different. > > The washing machine was following a very simple mechanical program and, > barring unforeseen mechanical failure would have always chosen the spin > cycle at that step of the program. > > Your brain, on the other hand, not only has coffee neurons firing but also > has the tea neurons, soda neurons, beer neurons all firing. Your brain may > or may not have thirst neurons firing, and a whole host of inhibitory > signals firing such as the "it's too hot for coffee" or the "it's too > early for beer" neurons. So all these neurons are firing, and some of > these signals are building each other up while other signals are knocking > them down. > > So you have this competition between sets of cooperating neurons > representing different choices and contraints having a cacophonic tug of > war for the future. Then suddenly in a flash, the decision is made, and a > function in multi-dimensional probability space collapses down to a single > point . . . Coffee. The difference between the brain and washing machine is only one of complexity. The washing machines of the future may be able to analyse the washing load, take into account multiple variables such as the time of the day and the week, the weather, the number of people in the household and their likely activity, and then make a decision on type and timing of wash cycle. This decision may be impossible to predict; as with the brain, you just have to run it and see what happens. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 22:18:48 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 17:18:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 9:02 AM, BillK wrote: > On 1 December 2016 at 13:33, Mike Dougherty wrote: >> So what are we doing to prepare for the future? > > I'm practising going back to the good old days when we lived in a hole > in the ground and lived off roadkill. That's a good life skill, but with all the eco-friendly self-driving cars there isn't likely to be any roadkill. From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 22:38:45 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 17:38:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: <009101d24bfc$e911b7e0$bb3527a0$@att.net> References: <009101d24bfc$e911b7e0$bb3527a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 1:01 PM, spike wrote: > Eh, I think I missed that distance by a mere 3 orders of magnitude. We > would only need to look about 300 thousand light years out past the moon to > gaze upon a sphere of volume giga cubic parsecs which could hide behind the > moon. Had we looked out my original mental calculation of 300 million light > years, that moon-eclipsing sphere would be a billion giga cubic parsecs, or > perhaps we could call it an exa-cubic parsec sphere, or a giga giga cubic > parsec if we didn't mind risking getting the kids stirred up going around > giga giga-ing everything until ya want to swat em. > > OK so that's why one should always do BOTECs with an actual B of the E. I > missed the distance by 3 orders of magnitude and the volume by 9 orders, oy. > > 300 thousand LY isn't that far away, a tenth of the way to the nearest major > galaxy (not counting the dwarfs and local debris.) The volume of the Milky > Way (depending on how you count it, such as a sphere out to here and ignore > everything outboard of us from the center of the galaxy) would be a couple > thousand cubic mega-parsecs. > > Space is big. What would you DO with all that bigness? I imagine filling it with information about all the smallness we have over here... down to every last planck volume of stuff we have inside our heliosphere (for example). I don't know how many bits it takes to describe the salient details of a planck volume. Maybe some of the position information is inherently part of the map, so that the position of a volume inside our heliosphere is exactly translated to a planetary body that is sufficiently far away that it can be "hidden behind" the planck volume it describes. You can probably write a lot of bits on a planetary-sized (or galaxy-sized) object but since you don't have to write much about the actual position, you save a lot of addressing info. I know, this is a version of holograph theory but it's still interesting to think about. From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 22:39:57 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 17:39:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] total recall In-Reply-To: <029b01d24beb$79143190$6b3c94b0$@att.net> References: <029b01d24beb$79143190$6b3c94b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 10:56 AM, spike wrote: > There was a local hummus recall. I had bought some the day before but it > wasn?t that brand. > > It occurred to me that if people signed up, the local grocer could contact > everyone who bought any recalled item using bar code tracking. What's a "local grocer"? :p From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 23:00:02 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 23:00:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2 December 2016 at 22:18, Mike Dougherty wrote: > That's a good life skill, but with all the eco-friendly self-driving > cars there isn't likely to be any roadkill. That's actually quite a difficult / interesting problem that the Google car technicians are worrying about. How big does an object have to be to cause emergency braking? (And risk following cars crashing into you). Can they tell the difference between a big dog and a child? What if animals learn that these cars don't hurt them and sit down in the road? (These animals are crafty). Current thinking seems to be that lizards and mice size will probably still get run over. And nobody wants to run into a moose. But the tech is still developing. So a roadkill stew might still be possible. :) BillK From sjv2006 at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 23:44:57 2016 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 15:44:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Star lifting? https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.08368v1.pdf [image: Inline image 1] On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 12:15 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > I think what we see at Tabby?s star has a simple explanation, and yes, > it is aliens. > > Will try to get a more detailed write up done in the next day or two > and publish it somewhere. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 56657 bytes Desc: not available URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 3 01:20:02 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 20:20:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] LIGO is back online In-Reply-To: References: <009101d24bfc$e911b7e0$bb3527a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 5:38 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: ?>? > I don't know how many bits it takes to > ? > describe the salient details of a planck volume. ? Surprisingly it's the Planck Area that's important not the Planck volume ? as you'd intuitively think? . The ultimate limit on the amount of information that can be ?stuffed? inside a sphere is proportional to the sphere's are ?a? not its volume; ? the formula is I= PI *R^2 *c/G*h*ln2 ? , where R is the radius ?,? c is the speed of light, G is the gravitational constant ?,? h is Planck's constant ? and ln2 is the natural logarithm of 2 (0.69314 ?...). ? Th at works out to 4 Planck Areas (1.6* 10^-69 square meters) to encode one bit of ? information ?.? ?John K Clark? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sat Dec 3 16:05:06 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 17:05:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, December 10, 2016: Program and Speakers Message-ID: Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, December 10, 2016: Program and Speakers The 2016 edition of the Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons will take place in Second Life???Terasem sim???on Saturday, December 10, 2016. There are two main themes: ?Legal Aspects of Futuristic Persons: Cyber-Humans,? and ?A Tribute to the ?Father of Artificial Intelligence,? Marvin Minsky, PhD.? This is a can?t miss event with stellar speakers and content. You are invited!... https://turingchurch.net/terasem-colloquium-in-second-life-december-10-2016-program-and-speakers-280d127788f8 From avant at sollegro.com Sat Dec 3 16:24:10 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 08:24:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? Message-ID: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Jason Resch wrote: When I took college chemistry, I was taught the Copenhagen "shut up and calculate" interpretation of QM. This was back in 90's. One of the things I noticed was my professors were hesitant to discuss anything to do with the implications QM might have for the nature of reality. Because of this, I tended to regard QM as an accurate-as-possible epistemic model of the behavior of entities on the lower limit of what we can, with sensitive instrumentation, measure. I suspected that the wave function itself was a statistical compromise for hidden variables that we just didn't have the ability to detect. Over the years, I have resisted thinking of the wave function as a real entity. To my mind, it simply organized and quantified our ignorance about the system and its degrees of freedom sort of like Boltzmann entropy. In my opinion, to think otherwise would smack of platonism and a dualistic world view. The reason I bring this up is that MWI posits an ontologically real Universal Wave Function that I capitalize because, like the Internet, it is unique. It represents the wave function of every wave-particle in the universe, including those that comprise the observer, entangled into a giant wave function with a possibly infinite number of terms. Infinity sitting somewhere out there in Hilbert space, doling out entire universes to observers who roll the quantum dice. I thought it was a bit much to swallow. On the flip side, I have always admired MWI for its deterministic nature, the fact that it is a better fit with GR, decoherence, etc. So this was all until just yesterday when I found this paper: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n3/full/nphys3233.html For those of you trapped behind a paywall, here is the arxive version: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6213v2.pdf So now apparently we have empirical evidence suggesting the wave function really is real and published in nature, no less. So that rules out about one third of the extant interpretations of QM out there, including Copenhagen. Stuart LaForge From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 3 17:02:07 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 11:02:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Jason Resch wrote: > > theories/interpretations that accurately describes the evolution of any > isolated system. The universal wave function just treats the entire > universe as an isolated system, and applies the regular rules of QM to > determine how it evolves.> > > When I took college chemistry, I was taught the Copenhagen "shut up and > calculate" interpretation of QM. This was back in 90's. One of the things > I noticed was my professors were hesitant to discuss anything to do with > the implications QM might have for the nature of reality. > > Because of this, I tended to regard QM as an accurate-as-possible > epistemic model of the behavior of entities on the lower limit of what we > can, with sensitive instrumentation, measure. I suspected that the wave > function itself was a statistical compromise for hidden variables that we > just didn't have the ability to detect. > > Over the years, I have resisted thinking of the wave function as a real > entity. To my mind, it simply organized and quantified our ignorance about > the system and its degrees of freedom sort of like Boltzmann entropy. In > my opinion, to think otherwise would smack of platonism and a dualistic > world view. > > The reason I bring this up is that MWI posits an ontologically real > Universal Wave Function that I capitalize because, like the Internet, it > is unique. It represents the wave function of every wave-particle in the > universe, including those that comprise the observer, entangled into a > giant wave function with a possibly infinite number of terms. > > Infinity sitting somewhere out there in Hilbert space, doling out entire > universes to observers who roll the quantum dice. I thought it was a bit > much to swallow. On the flip side, I have always admired MWI for its > deterministic nature, the fact that it is a better fit with GR, > decoherence, etc. > > So this was all until just yesterday when I found this paper: > > http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n3/full/nphys3233.html > > For those of you trapped behind a paywall, here is the arxive version: > > https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6213v2.pdf > > So now apparently we have empirical evidence suggesting the wave function > really is real and published in nature, no less. So that rules out about > one third of the extant interpretations of QM out there, including > Copenhagen. > Interesting, thanks for sharing the link. I am reading through it now. Are you familiar with the book Theory of Nothing by Russell Standish? He has a free e-book version available at his site: http://swc2.hccs.edu/kindle/theoryofnothing.pdf What I found most fascinating about it is that he shows how you can derive the mathematics of the wave function and other quantum postulates, from a very simple theory of observation in the context of an infinite reality. This also suggests that "splitting universes" isn't the correct way to view what is happening, but rather the infinite instances of our minds are differentiating as we encounter different information. Bruno Marchal has taken this a step further, and shown that from arithmetical realism, the idea that the integers and their additive and multiplicative relations, are sufficient to explain the appearance of physical reality including quantum mechanics. In a sense, had his theory arrived before quantum mechanics, it would have served as a prediction for the existence of quantum phenomenon: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf Are these ideas Platonist? Surely, but I don't think that is a bad thing, Why should nature be so capricious to only realize a single universe, history, and set of physical laws? If this universe, with its laws can sustain itself, why can't other sound mathematical structures do likewise? I think the block in a lot of people's minds has to do with time. Things in math don't change. But a thorough understanding of special relativity suggests block time, our universe can be viewed as a static 4-dimensional block, with all points in time equally real and always extant. Should this 4-d block be the only such mathematical structure blessed with reality? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 02:30:46 2016 From: col.hales at gmail.com (col.hales at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 13:30:46 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> No?. QM is verified in the eyes of a presupposed observer. It is descriptive (predictive) of nature and nothing ever done allows anyone to claim the universe is ?made? of QM. The hole in the logic is this: QM fails to predict the existence of an observer or depict the mechanism underlying it. This is the massive hole, a blind spot culturally promulgated that will not go away until we recognise the hole as a community. This situation is a vast map/territory confusion. QM is a map, not territory. The universe is made of and so, therefore, are we. It is because we are made of inside a massive collection of it, that originates our capacity to observe. Claiming we/the universe are made of the observed (QM) is a category error that has the whole of physics duped. Whatever is, we observers are observers (a first-person experience called observation) because we are literally _being_ inside a massive collection of it called a universe. We are not observers because we are being a wave function! Is the wave function real? Yes, it?s a real description. No, it?s not what we are made of. The gap between these two things is a scientific account of the (scientific) observer. Which I hasten to add is AKA the science of consciousness. I remain hopeful that I will see the necessary correction made before I fall off the perch. ?? Colin Sent from my Windows 10 phone From: Jason Resch Sent: Sunday, December 4, 2016 4:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Is the wave function real? On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: Jason Resch wrote: When I took college chemistry, I was taught the Copenhagen "shut up and calculate" interpretation of QM. This was back in 90's. One of the things I noticed was my professors were hesitant to discuss anything to do with the implications QM might have for the nature of reality. Because of this, I tended to regard QM as an accurate-as-possible epistemic model of the behavior of entities on the lower limit of what we can, with sensitive instrumentation, measure. I suspected that the wave function itself was a statistical compromise for hidden variables that we just didn't have the ability to detect. Over the years, I have resisted thinking of the wave function as a real entity. To my mind, it simply organized and quantified our ignorance about the system and its degrees of freedom sort of like Boltzmann entropy. In my opinion, to think otherwise would smack of platonism and a dualistic world view. The reason I bring this up is that MWI posits an ontologically real Universal Wave Function that I capitalize because, like the Internet, it is unique. It represents the wave function of every wave-particle in the universe, including those that comprise the observer, entangled into a giant wave function with a possibly infinite number of terms. Infinity sitting somewhere out there in Hilbert space, doling out entire universes to observers who roll the quantum dice. I thought it was a bit much to swallow. On the flip side, I have always admired MWI for its deterministic nature, the fact that it is a better fit with GR, decoherence, etc. So this was all until just yesterday when I found this paper: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n3/full/nphys3233.html For those of you trapped behind a paywall, here is the arxive version: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6213v2.pdf So now apparently we have empirical evidence suggesting the wave function really is real and published in nature, no less. So that rules out about one third of the extant interpretations of QM out there, including Copenhagen. Interesting, thanks for sharing the link. I am reading through it now. Are you familiar with the book Theory of Nothing by Russell Standish? He has a free e-book version available at his site: http://swc2.hccs.edu/kindle/theoryofnothing.pdf What I found most fascinating about it is that he shows how you can derive the mathematics of the wave function and other quantum postulates, from a very simple theory of observation in the context of an infinite reality. This also suggests that "splitting universes" isn't the correct way to view what is happening, but rather the infinite instances of our minds are differentiating as we encounter different information. Bruno Marchal has taken this a step further, and shown that from arithmetical realism, the idea that the integers and their additive and multiplicative relations, are sufficient to explain the appearance of physical reality including quantum mechanics. In a sense, had his theory arrived before quantum mechanics, it would have served as a prediction for the existence of quantum phenomenon:?http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf Are these ideas Platonist? Surely, but I don't think that is a bad thing, Why should nature be so capricious to only realize a single universe, history, and set of physical laws? If this universe, with its laws can sustain itself, why can't other sound mathematical structures do likewise? I think the block in a lot of people's minds has to do with time. Things in math don't change. But a thorough understanding of special relativity suggests block time, our universe can be viewed as a static 4-dimensional block, with all points in time equally real and always extant. Should this 4-d block be the only such mathematical structure blessed with reality? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 16:14:34 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 10:14:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] computer problem? Message-ID: Here is an example of what I get sometimes on a web page. I can right click it and Google will translate it, but I want to know what is going on. This was from the National Weather Service. Any ideas? bill w *These data are preliminary and have not undergone final quality control by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Therefore, these data are subject to revision. Final and certified climate data can be accessed at the NCDC -http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov .*Climatological Report (Daily) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 16:24:44 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 11:24:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] computer problem? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 11:14 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Here is an example of what I get sometimes on a web page. I can right > click it and Google will translate it, but I want to know what is going > on. This was from the National Weather Service. Any ideas? > > bill w > > These data are preliminary and have not undergone final quality control by > the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Therefore, these data are subject > to revision. Final and certified climate data can be accessed at the NCDC - > http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov.Climatological Report (Daily) > I don't see a problem. Are you saying the data was in the wrong language? What is the URL? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 16:45:30 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 08:45:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] computer problem? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 4, 2016, at 8:24 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > >> On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 11:14 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> Here is an example of what I get sometimes on a web page. I can right click it and Google will translate it, but I want to know what is going on. This was from the National Weather Service. Any ideas? >> >> bill w >> >> These data are preliminary and have not undergone final quality control by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Therefore, these data are subject to revision. Final and certified climate data can be accessed at the NCDC -http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov. >> Climatological Report (Daily) >> > I don't see a problem. Are you saying the data was in the wrong language? What is the URL? Could it be 'data are'? That's more British usage than American usage -- 'data is'. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 17:43:55 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 11:43:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] computer problem? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, I see what happened. When I sent the garbage, consisting mainly of deltas, arrows etc.. Gmail translated it before you got it. Here's one url. Everything is OK except what is at the very top in the gray area, which I see as triangles and arrows. http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/code.cgi?Submit=Go&sta=KJAN&state=MS On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Dec 4, 2016, at 8:24 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 11:14 AM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Here is an example of what I get sometimes on a web page. I can right >> click it and Google will translate it, but I want to know what is going >> on. This was from the National Weather Service. Any ideas? >> >> bill w >> >> These data are preliminary and have not undergone final quality control >> by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Therefore, these data are >> subject to revision. Final and certified climate data can be accessed at >> the NCDC -http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov.Climatological Report (Daily) >> > I don't see a problem. Are you saying the data was in the wrong language? > What is the URL? > > > Could it be 'data are'? That's more British usage than American usage -- > 'data is'. > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books via: > http://author.to/DanUst > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 18:32:17 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 13:32:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 9:30 PM, wrote: > ?> ? > QM fails to predict the existence of an observer or depict the mechanism > underlying it. This is the massive hole, a blind spot culturally > promulgated that will not go away until we recognise the hole as a > community. > > ? Unlike Copenhagen the Many World's interpretation has no need to explain what ?an? observer or consciousness is because it has nothing to do with either one; when something changes the universe splits and it makes no difference if that change occurred in conscious matter observing something or in nonconscious matter observing nothing. Some say MWI ? ? posits an ontologically real ? ? Universal Wave Function ? but I think it would be more accurate to say it claims the multiverse is ontologically real ? and the wave function? is a mathematical description of how the multiverse evolves that is useful in making calculations. ?It's in ? Bohm ?'s ? Pilot ?Wave ?Interpretation ?where the wave is real; that interpretation is more intuitive and less weird sounding than the others, but there a 2 big problems with it: 1) Although conceptually simpler it's mathematically more complex, you have to jump through more hoops to make a calculation. Physics is hard enough as it is so nobody wants to add a mathematical layer on top of it that is unnecessary. 2) Nobody has figured out how to get Pilot Waves obey Special Relativity so they only work in low energy stuff where nothing moves very fast. Paul Dirac united Quantum Mechanics with Special Relativity as early as 1928, but he didn't use Pilot Waves. Nobody has yet united Quantum Mechanics with ?General? Relativity ?, we need a quantum theory of gravity but we don't have one.? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 21:26:50 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 13:26:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] computer problem? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 9:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > OK, I see what happened. When I sent the garbage, consisting mainly of > deltas, arrows etc.. Gmail translated it before you got it. > > Here's one url. Everything is OK except what is at the very top in the gray > area, which I see as triangles and arrows. > > http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/code.cgi?Submit=Go&sta=KJAN&state=MS The gray area at the very top? I see a gray-ish image with "Jackson International, Mississippi Aviation Forecast" (along with "Air Sports Net", and "Launch Code" on the left), then a gray bar with menu options: "Home Hang Gliding Hot Air Balloon Paragliding Powered Parachute Powered Paragliding Skydiving Ultralight Weather Aviation Shirts Aviation Photos" I suspect your browser has bad language settings, and/or is defaulting to a font your system can't display. So, try checking language and font settings in your browser. From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 21:43:24 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 13:43:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: Is this the real wave? Is this just what I see? Caught in an entanglement, No escape from reality. ...am I the only one who gets such a vibe from this thread? From col.hales at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 05:38:13 2016 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 16:38:13 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 5:32 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 9:30 PM, wrote: > > >> ?> ? >> QM fails to predict the existence of an observer or depict the >> mechanism underlying it. This is the massive hole, a blind spot culturally >> promulgated that will not go away until we recognise the hole as a >> community. >> >> > ? > Unlike Copenhagen the Many World's interpretation has no need to explain > what > ?an? > observer or consciousness is because it has nothing to do with either one; > when something changes the universe splits and it makes no difference if > that change occurred in conscious matter observing something or in > nonconscious matter observing nothing. Some say MWI > ? ? > posits an ontologically real > ? ? > Universal Wave Function > ? but I think it would be more accurate to say it claims the multiverse is > ontologically real > ? and the wave function? is a mathematical description of how the > multiverse evolves that is useful in making calculations. > > ?It's in ? > Bohm > ?'s ? > Pilot > ?Wave > > ?Interpretation ?where the wave is real; that interpretation is > more intuitive and less weird sounding than the others, but there a 2 big > problems with it: > > > 1) Although conceptually simpler it's mathematically more complex, you > have to jump through more hoops to make a calculation. Physics is hard > enough as it is so nobody wants to add a mathematical layer on top of it > that is unnecessary. > > 2) Nobody has figured out how to get Pilot Waves obey Special Relativity > so they only work in low energy stuff where nothing moves very fast. Paul > Dirac united Quantum Mechanics with Special Relativity as early as 1928, > but he didn't use Pilot Waves. Nobody has yet united > Quantum Mechanics with > ?General? > Relativity > ?, we need a quantum theory of gravity but we don't have one.? > > John K Clark > > > Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all made of it. Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer (scientists) inside it. For discussion, let's say the universe U was made of bricks. Space, atoms, all the crap in the standard model. All made of itty bitty bricks. You, me (observers) and the space we inhabit: *All of it *a gigantic unified collection of behaving, interacting bricks. Somehow through a principle as yet unexamined, when you are bricks inside a collection of bricks, the rest of the bricks *appear* to be what we call space inhabited by a zoo of crap we call a 'standard model' with atoms and neutrinos etc etc. We get to extremely accurately predict the behaviour of these apparent things. But U's not made of it (and especially not the maths that we use). U just *looks like *space, stars, elephants and scientists observing stuff. But it's not. It's all bricks. So here *we* are: (A) Correlating, as an observer) apparent persistent structure within our experiences as observers. We predict how the universe appears from within (all the stuff of traditional descriptive science like QM). It correlates the contents of observation, not bricks! .... when the actual problem is a failure to: B) Describe a unified collection of bricks! .... If you did that then you'd be doing something completely different: Explaining how an observer works. You'd also predict the existence of all the things we observe (QM, space, standard model, elephants, scientists etc etc). A completely different behaviour to (A). There's your map/territory confusion. Right there. (A) confused (B) on a systemic level. One universe, two different descriptions. One of what it's made of, one of how it appears from within. Both (A) and (B) are scientifically evidenced. (A) by observation. (B) by the mere existence of an observer. Scientists have to be evidence of something! They (we) scientifically evidence (B). I can't state it any more clearly. So when I see (A) mistaken for (B) or an attempt to make (A) identical to (B) by decree ..... while denying any responsibility for a scientific observer ... and while simultaneously lamenting the conundrums created by that very behaviour (like reconciling QM/Gravity) .... I wonder if we'll ever escape this trap. Thomas Kuhn tells us that _after_ the solution to this kind of problem emerges, those involved in the original inadequate science were able to see themselves as being the actual problem. And some poor schmuck held up a torch for the solution and met a wall of blindness. This is especially applicable to this issue because it is so big: (i) Science itself is 50% missing. (ii) we have no self-governance that might examine it. (iii) we all learn to be scientists by mimicry (leaving all the presuppositions unexamined). We all think we know what it is to be a scientist when all we actually know is how scientists currently behave (A). I'll put this in my diary as yet another ignored post sent to the wild to achieve nothing. maybe someone out there is listening. I do this from time to time. :-) cheers Colin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbert at mydruthers.com Mon Dec 5 06:24:18 2016 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 22:24:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] giga-parsec^3 Message-ID: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> I wrote giga-parsec^3, and I did mean a cube 1000 parsecs on a side. It still feels big to me. Have you heard the story where some guy in the back of the room at a seminars respond to the idea of a googol as a pretty big number with "most are bigger"? Chris -- It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium. -- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy. Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com Blog: http://www.pancrit.org http://mydruthers.com From atymes at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 07:01:06 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 23:01:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] giga-parsec^3 In-Reply-To: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> References: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Chris Hibbert wrote: > Have you heard the story where some guy in the back of the room at a > seminars respond to the idea of a googol as a pretty big number with "most > are bigger"? Technically that is true, so long as one is only talking positive numbers: even a googol is less than half of infinity, so most of the positive numbers that exist are more than a googol. (If one removes that restriction, the halfway point is zero, and the majority of numbers - all negative numbers, zero, and all positive numbers less than X - are less than any given positive number X.) From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 10:59:13 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 21:59:13 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On 5 December 2016 at 16:38, Colin Hales wrote: Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all > made of it. > Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer > (scientists) inside it. > > For discussion, let's say the universe U was made of bricks. Space, atoms, > all the crap in the standard model. All made of itty bitty bricks. You, me > (observers) and the space we inhabit: *All of it *a gigantic unified > collection of behaving, interacting bricks. Somehow through a principle as > yet unexamined, when you are bricks inside a collection of bricks, the rest > of the bricks *appear* to be what we call space inhabited by a zoo of > crap we call a 'standard model' with atoms and neutrinos etc etc. We get to > extremely accurately predict the behaviour of these apparent things. But > U's not made of it (and especially not the maths that we use). U just *looks > like *space, stars, elephants and scientists observing stuff. But it's > not. It's all bricks. > > So here *we* are: > (A) Correlating, as an observer) apparent persistent structure within our > experiences as observers. We predict how the universe appears from within > (all the stuff of traditional descriptive science like QM). It correlates > the contents of observation, not bricks! > > .... when the actual problem is a failure to: > B) Describe a unified collection of bricks! .... If you did that then > you'd be doing something completely different: Explaining how an observer > works. You'd also predict the existence of all the things we observe (QM, > space, standard model, elephants, scientists etc etc). A completely > different behaviour to (A). > > There's your map/territory confusion. Right there. (A) confused (B) on a > systemic level. One universe, two different descriptions. One of what it's > made of, one of how it appears from within. > > Both (A) and (B) are scientifically evidenced. (A) by observation. (B) by > the mere existence of an observer. Scientists have to be evidence of > something! They (we) scientifically evidence (B). > > I can't state it any more clearly. > > So when I see (A) mistaken for (B) or an attempt to make (A) identical to > (B) by decree ..... while denying any responsibility for a scientific > observer ... and while simultaneously lamenting the conundrums created by > that very behaviour (like reconciling QM/Gravity) .... I wonder if we'll > ever escape this trap. > > Thomas Kuhn tells us that _after_ the solution to this kind of problem > emerges, those involved in the original inadequate science were able to see > themselves as being the actual problem. And some poor schmuck held up a > torch for the solution and met a wall of blindness. This is especially > applicable to this issue because it is so big: > (i) Science itself is 50% missing. > (ii) we have no self-governance that might examine it. > (iii) we all learn to be scientists by mimicry (leaving all the > presuppositions unexamined). We all think we know what it is to be a > scientist when all we actually know is how scientists currently behave (A). > > I'll put this in my diary as yet another ignored post sent to the wild to > achieve nothing. maybe someone out there is listening. I do this from time > to time. :-) > Are you making the distinction between what Kant called the Nouminal (thing-in-itself) and Phenomenal (thing-as-it-appears)? We can never apprehend the thing in itself. It could be that there are no bricks at all - just the appearance of bricks in a simulated world, with simulated observers. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 5 17:12:51 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 09:12:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] robots taking jobs In-Reply-To: References: <016001d24b83$c475a910$4d60fb30$@att.net> Message-ID: <003401d24f1e$18be65f0$4a3b31d0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK .... >...How big does an object have to be to cause emergency braking? (And risk following cars crashing into you). Can they tell the difference between a big dog and a child? What if animals learn that these cars don't hurt them and sit down in the road? (These animals are crafty)... BillK _______________________________________________ Those nifty portable security cameras are getting good enough and cheap enough, perhaps we could work out a system whereby we have those things mounted to every light pole, doing constant image recognition and advising the self-drivers if they need to brake or flatten. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 20:40:23 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 15:40:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 9:30 PM, wrote: > > > > The hole in the logic is this: QM fails to predict the existence of an > observer or depict the mechanism underlying it. This is the massive hole, > a blind spot culturally promulgated that will not go away until we > recognise the hole as a community. > > > ### QM does predict the existence of observers. You can calculate the evolution of quantum systems, and if you have truly humongous computers you should be able to do an ab initio QM model deriving the evolution of life on a planet from the existence of sufficiently large amounts of gravitationally interacting matter and energy. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 21:16:23 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 16:16:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] giga-parsec^3 In-Reply-To: References: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 2:01 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?> ? > all negative numbers, zero, and all positive numbers less > than X - are less than any given positive number X.) > ?And if you take any infinity sharp pin you have around the house and stick it at random into the Real Number Line ?there is a 0% chance it will hit an integer or a rational number or even an irrational number like PI or e that can be approximated to arbitrary precision; instead there is a 100% chance it will hit one of Turing's many many uncomputable numbers. The number you hit can not have a unique name because it cannot be ?uniquely ?specified. Sometimes late at night when I'm staring at the ceiling and can't sleep that makes me wonder if most of the Real Numbers are really real. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 21:58:04 2016 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 16:58:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] giga-parsec^3 In-Reply-To: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> References: <074b89ff-e26b-c5e7-f99e-b8a1556ec60f@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: But when you deal with physical quantity you realize that universe is bounded both above and below. Below you have the Plank Scale and above you have the visible universe. And because of this non integers irrational numbers are just a (somehow useful) abstraction. In physics number should always be in proportion to a useful reference unit. G On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 1:24 AM, Chris Hibbert wrote: > I wrote giga-parsec^3, and I did mean a cube 1000 parsecs on a side. It > still feels big to me. > > Have you heard the story where some guy in the back of the room at a > seminars respond to the idea of a googol as a pretty big number with "most > are bigger"? > > Chris > -- > It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so > easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium. > -- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy. > > Chris Hibbert > hibbert at mydruthers.com > Blog: http://www.pancrit.org > http://mydruthers.com > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 22:43:52 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 17:43:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 Colin Hales wrote: ?> ? > Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all > made of it. > ? ? > Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer > (scientists) inside it. > ?Yes but a quantum interpretation is not necessarily required to explain how that works, the Copenhagen interpretation must but there is no need for Many Worlds to do so. Observation is critical for Copenhagen but what exactly is a "observation" anyway, can a monkey do it, how about a mouse, a cockroach, a bacteria, a photographic plate, a brick wall, an atom? I can't answer any of those questions but as a fan of Many Worlds I don't need to. ? > ?> ? > For discussion, let's say the universe U was made of bricks. Space, atoms, > all the crap in the standard model. All made of itty bitty bricks. You, me > (observers) and the space we inhabit: *All of it *a gigantic unified > collection of behaving, interacting bricks. Somehow through a principle as > yet unexamined, when you are bricks inside a collection of bricks, the rest > of the bricks *appear* to be what we call space inhabited by a zoo of > crap we call a 'standard model' with atoms and neutrinos etc etc. We get to > extremely accurately predict the behaviour of these apparent things. But > U's not made of it (and especially not the maths that we use). U just *looks > like *space, stars, elephants and scientists observing stuff. But it's > not. It's all bricks. > ?The stuff you talk about, s pace ? (and the virtual particles in the vacuum) ?and s tars, elephants ?,? scientists ? etc are all the nouns in the universe, but nouns are not all there is, there are also ?adjectives and verbs. And they are important. Mind is what the brain does and consciousness is what data feel like when it is being processed. ?> ? > So here *we* are: > (A) Correlating, as an observer) apparent persistent structure within our > experiences as observers. We predict how the universe appears from within > (all the stuff of traditional descriptive science like QM). It correlates > the contents of observation, not bricks! > .... when the actual problem is a failure to: > B) Describe a unified collection of bricks! .... If you did that then > you'd be doing something completely different: Explaining how an observer > works. You'd also predict the existence of all the things we observe (QM, > space, standard model, elephants, scientists etc etc). A completely > different behaviour to (A). > ? > There's your map/territory confusion. > ? I'm confused by your confusion. Why isn't the map ? t he territory? Because the map usually lacks detail that the territory has. If my map is so good it has all the information that the territory has then the two would be indistinguishable. > ?> ? > Right there. (A) confused (B) on a systemic level. One universe, two > different descriptions. > ?All theories or philosophies must start with assumptions, and A and B are not different ? ?if you assume the world is realistic.? If you don't assume that, if you say you don't believe the moon exists when nobody is looking at it and other observers don't exist when you're not observing them then I can't prove you wrong, but I can question the sincerity of your belief. ?> ? > Thomas Kuhn tells us that > ? [...]? > > ?I love philosophy but not philosophers because no philosopher has done any philosophy in about 400 years, these days philosophy is done exclusively by scientists and mathematicians. And that includes so called philosophers of science, if Thomas Kuhn ? had this great algorithm for doing good science why didn't he ever use it to do any?? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 00:49:22 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 16:49:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Dec 5, 2016 2:45 PM, "John Clark" wrote: Why isn't the map ? t he territory? Because the map usually lacks detail that the territory has. If my map is so good it has all the information that the territory has then the two would be indistinguishable. Except they would still be two different things. Rearranging the map (and thus making it distinguishable) would not affect the territory. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 00:54:30 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 18:54:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] computer problem solved Message-ID: Thanks to those who tried to help. Going in to Advanced settings in my Chromebook and changing WingDings font to Arial did the job. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 02:07:07 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 21:07:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?>> ? > Why isn't the map > ? t > he territory? Because the map usually lacks detail that the territory has. > If my map is so good it has all the information that the territory has then > the two would be indistinguishable. > > > ?> ? > Except they would still be two different things. > ?How would you differentiate between them? You have 2 helium atoms Alice and Bob, you can tell there are 2 because Alice is here and Bob is over there. But now you cool them both down to almost absolute zero and they become quantum entangled and form a Bose?Einstein Condensate. The 2 atoms are now in the same quantum state, so there are no longer 2 things but only one thing. Now warm things up and the entanglement is destroyed and there are 2 things again, but there is now no way for you to tell, even in theory, which atom is Alice and which atom is Bob. And it's not just you, even Alice and Bob don't know which one they are. > ?>? > Rearranging the map (and thus making it distinguishable) would not affect > the territory. > ?Well yes, change one thing and not the other and 2 identical things are no longer identical. But it works both ways, rearranging the territory would not affect the map. It seems to me that they both behave the same way to perturbations, so what's the difference between them? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 04:47:54 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 20:47:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 6:07 PM, John Clark wrote: > You have 2 helium atoms Alice and > Bob, you can tell there are 2 because Alice is here and Bob is over there. > But now you cool them both down to almost absolute zero and they become > quantum entangled and form a Bose?Einstein Condensate. The 2 atoms are now > in the same quantum state, so there are no longer 2 things but only one > thing. Now warm things up and the entanglement is destroyed and there are 2 > things again, but there is now no way for you to tell, even in theory, which > atom is Alice and which atom is Bob. And it's not just you, even Alice and > Bob don't know which one they are. Or even if they are still Alice and Bob, and have not morphed into Claire and David. >> Rearranging the map (and thus making it distinguishable) would not affect >> the territory. > > Well yes, change one thing and not the other and 2 identical things are no > longer identical. But it works both ways, rearranging the territory would > not affect the map. It seems to me that they both behave the same way to > perturbations, so what's the difference between them? Location, presumably, since 2 things can't occupy the same space at the same time. Until and unless you destroy the property of them being independent things. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 04:53:42 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 23:53:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 9:07 PM, John Clark wrote: > How would you differentiate between them? You have 2 helium atoms Alice and > Bob, you can tell there are 2 because Alice is here and Bob is over there. > But now you cool them both down to almost absolute zero and they become > quantum entangled and form a Bose?Einstein Condensate. The 2 atoms are now > in the same quantum state, so there are no longer 2 things but only one > thing. Now warm things up and the entanglement is destroyed and there are 2 > things again, but there is now no way for you to tell, even in theory, which > atom is Alice and which atom is Bob. And it's not just you, even Alice and > Bob don't know which one they are. > Well yes, change one thing and not the other and 2 identical things are no > longer identical. But it works both ways, rearranging the territory would > not affect the map. It seems to me that they both behave the same way to > perturbations, so what's the difference between them? > You've made this point consistently for a long time. Is this the same idea as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_of_indiscernibles? I feel like this question is a leading to an answer that nobody ever gives. What is the answer? Seriously. I don't want to propose some nonsense that illustrates how little I understand, can you pretend another smart person has presented you this challenge and advance this discussion to its next logical step? ... and in case it comes across that I'm being flippant or sarcastic or any of the other "tone" problems people seem to have with the way I speak (and write) - i'm really just trying to ask you to continue this story you've been telling for the years we've been listening. :) From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 6 04:48:34 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 20:48:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] familiar voice from the past Message-ID: <045201d24f7c$00cab7b0$02602710$@att.net> Hearing him was like being greeted by a dear old friend: http://www.realclearfuture.com/video/2016/07/05/wanderers_a_vision_of_humani tys_expansion_into_the_solar_system.html spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 15:11:00 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 16:11:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Tribute to Marvin Minsky, Saturday, December 10, 2016, in Second Life Message-ID: A Tribute to Marvin Minsky, Saturday, December 10, 2016, in Second Life Come to the Terasem Colloquium in Second Life on Saturday, December 10, to honor the memory of Marvin Minsky (August 9, 1927???January 24, 2016), the ?Father of Artificial Intelligence.? This is a can?t miss event with stellar speakers and content. You are invited! https://turingchurch.net/a-tribute-to-marvin-minsky-saturday-december-10-2016-in-second-life-2a524452686d https://turingchurch.net/terasem-colloquium-in-second-life-december-10-2016-program-and-speakers-280d127788f8 Martine Rothblatt?s talk at the Colloquium will be titled ?How Marvin Minsky Inspired Me To Have a Mindclone Living on An O?Neill Space Habitat.? From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 17:07:23 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 12:07:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 11:53 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > >> ?> ? >> Well yes, change one thing and not the other and 2 identical things are no longer >> identical. But it works both ways, rearranging the territory would >> ? ? >> not affect the map. It seems to me that they both behave the same way to >> perturbations, so what's the difference between them? > > > ?> ? > You've made this point consistently for a long time. Is this the same > idea as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_of_indiscernibles? > ?Yes.? ?It was Leibniz who first got the idea, and he died in 1716.? > ?> ? > I feel like this question is a leading to an answer that nobody ever > ? ? > gives. What is the answer? > ?42 is the ultimate answer but I don't know what the ultimate question is. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 18:25:05 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:25:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <95cd97f197cc308248620687c8654449.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <58437ff5.8c23620a.d2218.9add@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 11:47 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > >> ?>? >> Well yes, change one thing and not the other and 2 identical things are no >> ? ? >> longer identical. But it works both ways, rearranging the territory would >> ? ? >> not affect the map. It seems to me that they both behave the same way to >> ? ? >> perturbations, so what's the difference between them? > > > ?> ? > Location, presumably, since 2 things can't occupy the same space at > ? ? > the same time. ?Actually that isn't always true, it's only true for fermions, like protons neutrons and electrons, particles with half integer spin, they are the only ones that must obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Particles with integer spin, bosons like photons or the Higgs, don't need to obey Pauli and can overlap each other. Although not a fundamental particle a Helium-4 nucleus can under certain circumstances behave like a boson too because it's 2 protons and 2 neutrons spin in opposite directions and cancel out yielding a overall spin of zero, an integer. A neutral Helium-4 atom can sometimes behave like a Boson also because its 2 electrons spin in opposite directions. But for a Bose-Einstein Condensate to form all parts of the atom must be identical, and that can't happen if the external josseling of the atom is larger than the natural smeared out property all particles have due to their wavelike nature. So for Helium-4 to form a Bose-Einstein Condensate ?you have to cool it way way down?. > ?> ? > Until and unless you destroy the property of them > ? ? > being independent things. > Yes ?,? if you don't cool them enough and a ? ? Bose-Einstein Condensate ? ? is not formed ? then ? you do indeed have two ? ? independent things, but 2 things that have the exact same property of obeying the ? ? Pauli Exclusion Principle ?.? ?S? o if you instantly exchanged the 2 things neither you nor the things would notice a difference. ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 20:34:07 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 14:34:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad Message-ID: https://www.hpematter.com/iot-issue/ask-the-futurists-10-bold-predictions-for-2030?jumpid=em_kc671trsz8_AID-510039514 bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 20:59:46 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 20:59:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6 December 2016 at 20:34, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > https://www.hpematter.com/iot-issue/ask-the-futurists-10-bold-predictions-for-2030?jumpid=em_kc671trsz8_AID-510039514 Point 6 says that security for billions of IoT devices will be important. In my opinion it will be a showstopper. At present banks get hacked for millions. If they can't even protect banks then there is no chance that they will be successful in protecting our devices. Every device will be hackable, transmitting our data, listening to conversations, recording through cameras. etc. The only protection will be not to have any of these devices - Luddites Live! BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 21:32:58 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 15:32:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Every new thing starts off badly, including couples getting divorced on their honeymoons. In 190? there were two cars in Indiana. They wrecked. That is, each other. I have no doubt the techs will figure out hacking, if not totally, at least livable. It's livable now, isn't it? The banks aren't closing. Just the cost of doing business. I suspect some of that is inside jobs. If you were the head of a bank's security you could elicit enormous bribes to pass along info about how to hack your bank. Maybe the people at Last Pass could do it. Imagine the damage that could be done if that was hacked. On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 2:59 PM, BillK wrote: > On 6 December 2016 at 20:34, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > https://www.hpematter.com/iot-issue/ask-the-futurists-10- > bold-predictions-for-2030?jumpid=em_kc671trsz8_AID-510039514 > > > > Point 6 says that security for billions of IoT devices will be important. > > In my opinion it will be a showstopper. At present banks get hacked > for millions. If they can't even protect banks then there is no chance > that they will be successful in protecting our devices. Every device > will be hackable, transmitting our data, listening to conversations, > recording through cameras. etc. > > The only protection will be not to have any of these devices - Luddites > Live! > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 6 21:28:27 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:28:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <059f01d25007$af562fe0$0e028fa0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK >...Point 6 says that security for billions of IoT devices will be important. >...In my opinion it will be a showstopper. At present banks get hacked for millions. If they can't even protect banks then there is no chance that they will be successful in protecting our devices. Every device will be hackable, transmitting our data, listening to conversations, recording through cameras. etc. >...The only protection will be not to have any of these devices - Luddites Live! >...BillK _______________________________________________ Well OK but hold that thought a minute. BillK, we know there are some advantages available to being completely open. I set up my banking such that it cannot be accessed online. I filled out the paperwork such that if I want to draw money out of a savings account or transfer anything from a stock fund, etc, I have to go in person to my bank and carry out the transaction, or my bride can do it. I have a checking account that can be accessed, but I don't carry a high balance in there, couple thousand, average, send paychecks over to it, pay bills out of it electronically. So that would manage my risk, ja? I have those new video security cameras on my house, four of them, and a security system, so a break-in is unlikely, even if I am away from home for a while. If I decide nothing else in my life needs to be private, there are big advantages, plenty of them. We can easily imagine a class of people who are perfectly OK with the whole world knowing our current location, our habits, spending and otherwise, with visuals if they want them. We see plenty of people over on FaceBook intentionally telling the world way more than we want to know about their personal affairs. So what of us who don't care who knows what? Since our children are growing up in an era where no one has a reasonable expectation of privacy outside our homes, it is not surprising how accepting that generation has become. My son has no real concept of privacy and doesn't miss it. I don't care much; I know that if I ever go to a hotel room, that anyone might be watching everything I do with sufficient resolution to count the hairs, on my head or anywhere else. But I am not that interesting. My transactions aren't that interesting. So I am good with it. Are you? spike From atymes at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 21:47:36 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:47:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 6, 2016 12:35 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: https://www.hpematter.com/iot-issue/ask-the-futurists-10- bold-predictions-for-2030?jumpid=em_kc671trsz8_AID-510039514 Assuming you wished discussion of the points: 1) No. There may be more driverless cars by 2030, but complete or almost complete elimination of human-driven cars will take decades. Just look at the growing mean time between new cars today, especially among the poor. And first we'd have to get to the point where most people who ate looking for a new car would prefer s driverless one, especially it making economic sense. Mandates for switching to driverless cars can not happen until after that point is reached. 2) Incoherent. It talks about stuff that is already happening, but makes no case for a major switch from how things are now. (Other than agents managing one's schedule - which, again, already happens for some, to the extent tolerated.) 3) Possible, but more because of the proliferation of at-home medical devices than wearable medical devices. 4) The majority of the problem was never technical, but political. Unless there are far fewer taxation-by-banditry governments by 2030, food waste will largely continue. 5) Some will. Some will line pockets. The IoT can free up funds, but it can not dictate how (or how wisely) that money will be spent. 6) Perhaps. But some of them seem pretty totally motivated already. The true question is whether they will - not just could, but will - do significantly more damage per unit time than they do today. 7) They exist today, but they are not practical. This is likely to remain the case, much like how "gorilla arm" thwarted dreams of primarily-large-touchscreen driven interfaces; the closest equivalent that's proven practical is smartphobes or tablets that can be laid flat on a table. (This email is being composed on one, and it is nowhere near as efficient as a normal keyboard would have been.) 8) We already do. It has not resulted in 15 hour work weeks, but in the displacement of those unable or unwilling to learn how to use the new tools. 9) And more evil. As with 4 and 5, the point is more what people will do, not merely what they will be able to do. 10) Not by 2030. That would require advances in usability, implants, and related technologies that people keep writing off or assuming, just like how they keep claiming that turning a vague idea into a solid, (nearly) bugless app usable by most of a target audience is "just a small matter of programming". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 21:50:41 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 21:50:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6 December 2016 at 21:32, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Maybe the people at Last Pass could do it. Imagine the damage that could be > done if that was hacked. Just imagine! LastPass was hacked last year. Quote: Irony alert: Password-storing company is hacked. by Jose Pagliery June 16, 2015: -------------- So the next hack will use a different method......... BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 6 21:46:52 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:46:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <05af01d2500a$41e530c0$c5af9240$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad ? >?In 190? there were two cars in Indiana. They wrecked. That is, each other. This is now considered an urban legend, but if true it is not a surprise to me. Two guys in the same town, first ones with cars, and you know they were most likely guys, and most likely young. They rumble around town, no rules of the road, no firmly established law. What is about to happen here? Of course they will. They could scarcely resist the temptation to race that other guy. Cars in those days had lousy tires, lousy brakes, terrible handling and suspension, just plain crummy everything. Get one going over about 40 MPH on the questionable roads at the time, the endgame is as foreseeable as the sunrise. Note how quickly car racing drove the technology. I am hoping that robot-car racing gets going soon. That will be fun. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 23:38:13 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 17:38:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: <05af01d2500a$41e530c0$c5af9240$@att.net> References: <05af01d2500a$41e530c0$c5af9240$@att.net> Message-ID: In 190? there were two cars in Indiana. They wrecked. That is, each other. This is now considered an urban legend, but if true it is not a surprise to me. spike Well, that may be so, but psychologically it is interesting to me that it keeps going around. That is, people are quick to believe it's not a joke; like you they are not surprised. Surely you have seen lists of happenings and you are to pick the one which actually did happen, and all of them are unlikely at best, but one of them did happen. bill w On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:46 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad > > ? > > > > >?In 190? there were two cars in Indiana. They wrecked. That is, each > other. > > > > > > This is now considered an urban legend, but if true it is not a surprise > to me. Two guys in the same town, first ones with cars, and you know they > were most likely guys, and most likely young. They rumble around town, no > rules of the road, no firmly established law. What is about to happen > here? Of course they will. They could scarcely resist the temptation to > race that other guy. > > > > Cars in those days had lousy tires, lousy brakes, terrible handling and > suspension, just plain crummy everything. Get one going over about 40 MPH > on the questionable roads at the time, the endgame is as foreseeable as the > sunrise. > > > > Note how quickly car racing drove the technology. I am hoping that > robot-car racing gets going soon. That will be fun. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Dec 7 00:20:12 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 00:20:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: <059f01d25007$af562fe0$0e028fa0$@att.net> References: <059f01d25007$af562fe0$0e028fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 6 December 2016 at 21:28, spike wrote: > I have a checking account that can be accessed, but I don't carry a high > balance in there, couple thousand, average, send paychecks over to it, pay > bills out of it electronically. So that would manage my risk, ja? I have > those new video security cameras on my house, four of them, and a security > system, so a break-in is unlikely, even if I am away from home for a while. > If I decide nothing else in my life needs to be private, there are big > advantages, plenty of them. > > We can easily imagine a class of people who are perfectly OK with the whole > world knowing our current location, our habits, spending and otherwise, with > visuals if they want them. We see plenty of people over on FaceBook > intentionally telling the world way more than we want to know about their > personal affairs. So what of us who don't care who knows what? > > Since our children are growing up in an era where no one has a reasonable > expectation of privacy outside our homes, it is not surprising how accepting > that generation has become. My son has no real concept of privacy and > doesn't miss it. I don't care much; I know that if I ever go to a hotel > room, that anyone might be watching everything I do with sufficient > resolution to count the hairs, on my head or anywhere else. But I am not > that interesting. My transactions aren't that interesting. So I am good > with it. Are you? > The trouble with being a non-criminal type is that such people have little idea of the multitude of methods and objectives of devious criminals. Security cameras (if connected to the internet) become a tool for hackers. Access to a bank account (even with little money in it) can be used for identity theft and other financial scams that take place before the account is updated. Not caring about privacy or security just makes you an easy target. The younger generation are sheep waiting to be shorn. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Wed Dec 7 14:56:35 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 09:56:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:59 PM, BillK wrote: > > Point 6 says that security for billions of IoT devices will be important. > > In my opinion it will be a showstopper. At present banks get hacked > for millions. If they can't even protect banks then there is no chance > that they will be successful in protecting our devices. Every device > will be hackable, transmitting our data, listening to conversations, > recording through cameras. etc. > > The only protection will be not to have any of these devices - Luddites > Live! Banks get hacked because they have weak security. Good security isn't hard, but it doesn't happen by accident or by default. IoT devices are a challenge because they're cheap and often not easily patched, if the manufacturer even fixes bugs. I've got some at home, but my home network is pretty secure: Only one system is reachable via externally-initiated connections, and only via two protocols. Hacking my IoT devices isn't impossible--and they could contain malware out-of-the-box--but it's hard enough that most attackers will move on to easier targets. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Dec 7 15:07:13 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 10:07:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 4:50 PM, BillK wrote: > On 6 December 2016 at 21:32, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Maybe the people at Last Pass could do it. Imagine the damage that > could be > > done if that was hacked. > > Just imagine! LastPass was hacked last year. > password-hack/index.html> > Yeah, but because LastPass' security model is reasonable and they don't store master passwords, what the hackers got is less useful than you might think. Sure, if your master password is weak or your password reminder, if you use one, is too helpful, you could be at risk. But people who use a password manager should be sufficiently security-minded to not use either. IMO, you're better off using a good password manager than not using one because the alternative is weak passwords, re-used passwords, forgotten passwords, lost passwords, etc. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 11:50:27 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 12:50:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Cyber-Humans: Woody Barfield in Second Life on Saturday, December 10 Message-ID: Cyber-Humans: Woody Barfield in Second Life on Saturday, December 10 Woody Barfield, the author of ?Cyber-Humans: Our Future with Machines,? will give a talk titled ?The Emerging Law of Cyborgs? at the 2016 Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons in Second Life???Terasem sim???on Saturday, December 10... https://turingchurch.net/cyber-humans-woody-barfield-in-second-life-on-saturday-december-10-d525553bd65d From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 15:21:35 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 09:21:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] math education Message-ID: About which I know nothing. But - I read awhile back that the New Math was a disaster. That was long ago, but are they still teaching that? Then I read that kids should not start with arithmetic, way too hard, but with algebra - or something along that line. Now you may know math but little about math education, but I am asking anyway - just how should math be taught, and when? When I went to college, psychology could not be taken by a freshman. As a psychologist I can tell you that there are some parts of it that can be taught to kids in kindergarten - and should be. Maybe math shares some of that thinking. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 15:43:02 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 07:43:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] math education In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 8, 2016, at 7:21 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > About which I know nothing. But - I read awhile back that the New Math was a disaster. That was long ago, but are they still teaching that? > > Then I read that kids should not start with arithmetic, way too hard, but with algebra - or something along that line. > > Now you may know math but little about math education, but I am asking anyway - just how should math be taught, and when? > > When I went to college, psychology could not be taken by a freshman. As a psychologist I can tell you that there are some parts of it that can be taught to kids in kindergarten - and should be. Maybe math shares some of that thinking. Start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math When I was in high school, I read a book on the New Math. It was already a relic at that time. I thought it wasn't so bad -- teaching things like seeing negative numbers as related to ordered pairs and the like. On his math should be taught, are there any math teachers here who might answer that? My gut reaction is to say some cliche like 'it should be tailored to the student,' but I wonder if there aren't some methods that work well overall. By the way, I've seen with fellow students and relatives that the transition from arithmetic to algebra is hard. Not sure if that because arithmetic is taught first for so many years or just because algebra takes a more brain power -- or the way either is taught. (And I mean in the way these topics are defined in grade school -- not in grad school.;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 8 15:35:03 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 07:35:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] math education In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <030301d25168$a5605c10$f0211430$@att.net> BillW, I need to scamper, but I want to leave you with a thought for when we can discuss it in the near future. Picture in your mind what you asked below. Picture how you were taught math, successfully or otherwise. Were there any computers in the picture? Were there any choices in how to do the curriculum? Were there an array of books from which to choose? Or was there one young lady up front drawing on a chalkboard with about 25 to 30 kids out there, all from very different backgrounds and ability levels? I suspect one teacher, many students, no choices of curriculum. Work thru the book, ja? OK now, my highly esteemed psychologist friend who understands things: what if a class of 30 children had 30 choices of how to learn math, and what if the students were to experiment and find what works best for them? What if the curriculum was completely adaptive, and completely open-ended. Oooohhh wouldn?t that be cool? Wouldn?t that be a dream? We are standing on the threshold of a dream. Some students have crossed it already. My son finished Khan Academy?s differential calculus course yesterday. He and I were racing on the exercises. He was winning about a third of the matches and his accuracy was comparable to mine. He is not yet halfway through fifth grade. Meanwhile, the standard curriculum is available to the students on their classroom computers (they each have one.) My son hacked into the 12th grade standard curriculum for math, took several of the tests, got perfect scores on all of them and found them to be child?s play. Ignoring for the moment that this would be perhaps appropriate considering that he is in the literal sense of the word a ?child? the entire exercise tells us something important. I don?t know what to do. Open and welcome any and all suggestions or counsel. More later, gotta scoot. spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 7:22 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] math education About which I know nothing. But - I read awhile back that the New Math was a disaster. That was long ago, but are they still teaching that? Then I read that kids should not start with arithmetic, way too hard, but with algebra - or something along that line. Now you may know math but little about math education, but I am asking anyway - just how should math be taught, and when? When I went to college, psychology could not be taken by a freshman. As a psychologist I can tell you that there are some parts of it that can be taught to kids in kindergarten - and should be. Maybe math shares some of that thinking. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 18:00:45 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 13:00:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] math education In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 10:21 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > About which I know nothing. But - I read awhile back that the New Math > was a disaster. That was long ago, but are they still teaching that? > Tom Lehrer ? ? gave the best explanation of the New Math that I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA ?John K Clark? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Fri Dec 9 17:00:11 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 18:00:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, tomorrow Saturday 10 Message-ID: Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, tomorrow Saturday 10 The 2016 Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons will take place in Second Life???Terasem sim???TOMORROW, Saturday, December 10, 2016. There are two main themes: ?Legal Aspects of Futuristic Persons: Cyber-Humans,? and ?A Tribute to the ?Father of Artificial Intelligence,? Marvin Minsky, PhD.? This is a can?t miss event with stellar speakers and content. You are invited!... https://turingchurch.net/terasem-colloquium-in-second-life-tomorrow-saturday-10-97f8b37b9f91 From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 00:36:21 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 16:36:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's going to take more effort than I thought to make sense of the weird data we have from Tabby's star. But here is a start. Shame this was not found back in the early 90s when the consequences of nanotechnology and AI were hot topics on this list. They are the lynch pins of the singularity. I might add that for engineering reasons (thermal and speed of light) I disagreed with them on a number of points, in particular on Jupiter brains, and Matrioshka brains. I seem to have been wrong, apologies to Perry Metzger and the shade of Robert Bradbury. If we are looking at a post (local) singularity at Tabby's star, they built something 7 times as wide as Jupiter. My guess is that it's a self-replicating, Google type data center. My concerns about signal delay apparently were not an overriding consideration. Apparently they traded off low temperature operation for latency. Jason Wright thinks the blocking objects are below 65 K, Keith Lofstrom makes a case that solid state computation optimizes below 60 K. Assuming the blinks at KIC 8462852 are from constructed objects crossing the star, the first problem is to figure out a motivation within known physics for building them. I have been concerned with heat sinks in space for close to 40 years. Waste heat concerns are ubiquitous in engineering. Getting the waste heat out is what capped rising clock speeds for microprocessors. If you have a star, especially a hot F type, getting rid of waste heat, especially at low temperature, could induce some very big radiator construction projects. I wrote about heat sinks and clock rates here: https://web.archive.org/web/20121130232045/http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/ If the 22% event is a disk and went right over the solar disk, the orbital velocity would be around 10.5 km/s (which is what Dr. Boyajian estimated) and the orbital radius around 11.5 AU. For that star the velocity puts it at 11-12 AU. Saturn in our solar system is about 9.5 AU. We might see it go by again in about 30 years. The 15% event could be from a much larger object. Assuming a disk, the chord of the disk blocking the star took ten days to cross the star. If it is at roughly the same distance from the star, the chord is about 9 million km long. That would make it about 35 times larger in diameter than the star. Alternately, it could be much smaller and much further out. For half the velocity it would need to be about 45 AU out from the star. It would still be enormous. At that distance we would not see it again for another 260 years. If they are running the radiators at close to liquid He temperature, I don't think we are likely to detect them. I wonder how low a temperature the radiators can go and still be detected? (If they are radiators, of course.). The evidence from the past observations somewhat confirmed by the Kepler data is that the light from this star has dimmed by 15% over the past century. That would mean that 1500 years ago they were still in a dynamic growth phase. To see the blinks from large light blockers, we need to be close to the ecliptic of that system. How far north and south of the ecliptic the objects soaking up the light that comes toward us is unknown, but even a degree or so would still be an awful lot of energy. If what's catching the light is going through a thermal cycle, then they need to either be so far out that the radiators are below 65 K, or they need to be of a kind that radiates the waste heat local north and south away from our line of sight. Conceptual examples that radiate directionally have been designed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Lrj35HcbQ The missing IR flux (WTF) is not consistent with this distance for a natural object in thermal equilibrium, not even a disk. I suspect (if we really are looking at alien megastructures) that they are shorter on materials than they are of energy. The blinks we see at Tabby's star seem to make sense in engineering terms. If you want to maximize the amount of computation, given limited resources (and resources are always limited) then going out from the Sun (or star) is a good idea to get the temperature down. This leads to testable predictions. I am kind of surprised at the size, but it's possible the computational core(s) is/are small but being cooled by a radiator on a size comparable to the star. How small the cores are depends on how fast or slow you want to have the universe run around you. Edge to edge, the 22% dip is a million km in diameter. It would take light 3 second to cross that distance. If the inhabitants are running at human speeds, that's too slow for voice. What on (or rather off) Earth could they be doing with computation on that scale? Well, you know about the simulation hypothesis? That would sop up as much computation as you want. "The Clinic Seed" story worked around the edges of uploading humans into a simulation in the "boiling a frog" mode. Accelerado toward the end has the Vile Offspring generating simulations of everyone who left a written record. Consider that when posting. :-) From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 10 02:44:46 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 18:44:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005401d2528f$5e9d8c30$1bd8a490$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 4:36 PM To: ExI chat list ; Charlie Stross ; Perry E. Metzger ; Hans Moravec Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star It's going to take more effort than I thought to make sense of the weird data we have from Tabby's star. But here is a start.... Accelerando toward the end has the Vile Offspring generating simulations of everyone who left a written record. Consider that when posting. :-) _______________________________________________ Keith I am too awestruck by your post to construct a coherent response. Do let me ponder and try again tomorrow. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 09:32:30 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 09:32:30 +0000 Subject: [ExI] IoT futurists' predictions - not bad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 7 December 2016 at 14:56, Dave Sill wrote: > IoT devices are a challenge because they're cheap and often not easily > patched, if the manufacturer even fixes bugs. I've got some at home, but my > home network is pretty secure: Only one system is reachable via > externally-initiated connections, and only via two protocols. Hacking my IoT > devices isn't impossible--and they could contain malware out-of-the-box--but > it's hard enough that most attackers will move on to easier targets. > The Botnet That Broke the Internet Isn?t Going Away Lily Hay Newman 12.09.16. Quotes: When the botnet named Mirai first appeared in September, it announced its existence with dramatic flair. After flooding a prominent security journalist?s website with traffic from zombie Internet of Things devices, it managed to make much of the internet unavailable for millions of people by overwhelming Dyn, a company that provides a significant portion of the US internet?s backbone. Since then, the number attacks have only increased. Mirai is a type of malware that automatically finds Internet of Things devices to infect and conscripts them into a botnet?a group of computing devices that can be centrally controlled. From there this IoT army can be used to mount distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in which a firehose of junk traffic floods a target?s servers with malicious traffic. In just the past few weeks, Mirai disrupted internet service for more than 900,000 Deutsche Telekom customers in Germany, and infected almost 2,400 TalkTalk routers in the UK. This week, researchers published evidence that 80 models of Sony cameras are vulnerable to a Mirai takeover. One reason Mirai is so difficult to contain is that it lurks on devices, and generally doesn?t noticeably affect their performance. There?s no reason the average user would ever think that their webcam?or more likely, a small business?s?is potentially part of an active botnet. And even if it were, there?s not much they could do about it, having no direct way to interface with the infected product. There are some precautions consumers can take to improve their personal IoT security. By assessing the IoT devices they have in their homes and eliminating superfluous ?smart? products that directly access the internet for no reason, people can reduce their exposure to attack. -------------- Or, easier solution, just don't buy any 'smart' devices that connect to the internet. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 11:56:41 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 06:56:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Keith Henson wrote: It's going to take more effort than I thought to make sense of the > weird data we have from Tabby's star. But here is a start. > ### Have you tried calculating the density of Dyson-sphere building civilizations from the Tabby's star data, assuming they are indicative of an alien civilization? Let's assume that the volume of space the has been searched by our telescopes well enough to detect all Dyson sphere building efforts is a cube 4000 ly on a side, centered at Earth, or 64 billion cubic light years. If this is true, then the expected average density of such Dyson spheres is 1 per 64 billion ly, assuming lack of correlation between Earth and the Tabby aliens. The volume of the Galaxy is 8 trillion cubic light years. Therefore it contains, per calculation above, 125 Dyson spheres in the process of being built, at a speed of about 1/1000 years. The visible universe contains about 100 billion galaxies, so there are roughly 10 trillion Dyson spheres being built every 1000 years. Now, how many Dyson spheres were built in the past 100 million years in our galaxy? Assuming no great changes in the speed of building, the answer is 125 x 10e5, and about 100 000 in our immediate vicinity. Do I make reasonable assumptions? Do we have automatic surveys of star brightness in a cube of 4000 light years on edge centered on Earth? If not, the expected Dyson sphere density would go up by the ratio of surveyed stars to all stars in our neighborhood. Is it correct to assume that our galactic neighborhood and our place in time are average, allowing simple calculation of average Dyson sphere density from our local observation point in time and space? I think yes, by and by. If all of the above is correct, then taking aliens at Tabby's star seriously would require believing that aliens, who built tens of millions of Dyson spheres in our galaxy in the last couple of hundred million years, have failed to manifest in other ways. We failed to notice 100 000 Dyson spheres in our neighborhood? Did we fail to see the multiple Dyson spheres in the surrounding 100 light years, at our doorstep? We found 28 planets (!) in this area and failed to see the Dyson spheres? This strains my credulity. I am willing to take a bet up to $1000 at 10:1 odds against me that in the next year there will be no peer reviewed confirmation of alien activity at Tabby's star, or anywhere else in the universe. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 12:29:11 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 12:29:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 10 December 2016 at 11:56, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > If all of the above is correct, then taking aliens at Tabby's star seriously > would require believing that aliens, who built tens of millions of Dyson > spheres in our galaxy in the last couple of hundred million years, have > failed to manifest in other ways. We failed to notice 100 000 Dyson spheres > in our neighborhood? Did we fail to see the multiple Dyson spheres in the > surrounding 100 light years, at our doorstep? We found 28 planets (!) in > this area and failed to see the Dyson spheres? > > This strains my credulity. I am willing to take a bet up to $1000 at 10:1 > odds against me that in the next year there will be no peer reviewed > confirmation of alien activity at Tabby's star, or anywhere else in the > universe. > I go along with Rafal's suggestion, but for different reasons. I think we are anthropomorphising far too much when we think advanced aliens will be building huge versions of what we have at present. Once nano-tech is achieved, huge just seems silly. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 10 21:45:04 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 13:45:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> OK well tomorrow is here and I still haven't come up with any coherent responses to Keith's post. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK... >...I go along with Rafal's suggestion, but for different reasons. >...I think we are anthropomorphising far too much when we think advanced aliens will be building huge versions of what we have at present. Once nano-tech is achieved, huge just seems silly. >...BillK _______________________________________________ BillK on the contrary sir. Even after advanced nanotech, the new big challenge in life, artificial or otherwise, is heat management. If you start to assume away the kinds of inefficiencies with which we are so familiar and do your calculations based on optimizing entropy reduction as a function of available energy and matter, huge makes sense. Seen from that perspective, thermodynamics makes the silly perfectly logical and inevitable. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 22:23:00 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 17:23:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Has LIGO found new physics ? Message-ID: Yesterday a paper was published hinting that maybe just maybe LIGO has found evidence for new physics, the first ever departure from General Relativity: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1612.00266.pdf String theory says, well...,some string theories say, ? a Black Hole really has 2 event horizons just a few Planck lengths apart, the inner one is like the one Einstein predicted where anything crossing it can never escape, and the outer event horizon where anything crossing will * *probably** be trapped to ?o? but might still escape if the particle enters at just the right angle. Some non-string theories also predict similar event horizons ?,? with a few subtle differences from the String Theory version ?,? in an effort to avoid the Black Hole information paradox and explain Black Hole firewalls. To Gravitational Waves these 2 event horizons would act like mirrors, most ? waves would pass through both but some would start bouncing back and forth between the two ?.? ?Eventually ?the waves would all get out but there would be a delay. The above paper calculates that the echo ?s? should appear at 0.1 seconds, 0.2 seconds and 0.3 seconds ? a fter the primary wave. ? When they looked at the LIGO data for the 3 Black Hole mergers (2 certain and 1 probable) they seemed to find echos after just ? those delays ? (the delay only changes with the log of of the mass, and the mass of all 3 events were roughly the same so the delays would be too). ? The evidence so far for any of this is weak, the sigma is only 2.9 which means if you repeated the experiment 270 times you'd only expect to see the observed results once if it was ?all ? due to random noise ?.? ?Y? ou need 5 sigma to claim a discover and that's one chance in 3.5 million it's just a fluke. A few month ago everybody got excited when the LHC said they may have found a new unexpected particle, and the evidence for it was almost as good ? as LIGO's? , the sigma was 2.1, but as more data came in the entire thing ?just ? disappeared, so caution is warranted. As LIGO collects more data we should be able to confirm or rule out new physics within the next 2 years, less if we're lucky; although the data will probably not be good enough to figure out if a string theory o ?r? a non-string theory fits the results better, but at least we'll know if there is something new ?under the sun ? or not. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 23:14:38 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 23:14:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> Message-ID: On 10 December 2016 at 21:45, spike wrote: > BillK on the contrary sir. Even after advanced nanotech, the new big > challenge in life, artificial or otherwise, is heat management. If you > start to assume away the kinds of inefficiencies with which we are so > familiar and do your calculations based on optimizing entropy reduction as a > function of available energy and matter, huge makes sense. Seen from that > perspective, thermodynamics makes the silly perfectly logical and > inevitable. > We have only had electronic computers for about 50 years and already they are nearing the limits of that phase of computing technology. So what comes after electronics in another 25 years? And then in the third generation in 12 years? (Remember exponential improvements?). Heat management won't be nearly as big a problem as it is with our primitive technology. Future technology won't involve silicon processors glowing red-hot. And that is only one technology. The whole world (and the whole species) will be changing at the same time. Star Trek has limited our vision of future possibilities. Our future could be far, far greater than Star Trek. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 10 23:30:48 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:30:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 3:15 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star On 10 December 2016 at 21:45, spike wrote: >> BillK on the contrary sir. Even after advanced nanotech, the new big > challenge in life, artificial or otherwise, is heat management... > >...We have only had electronic computers for about 50 years and already they are nearing the limits of that phase of computing technology. So what comes after electronics in another 25 years? And then in the third generation in 12 years? (Remember exponential improvements?). Heat management won't be nearly as big a problem as it is with our primitive technology. Future technology won't involve silicon processors glowing red-hot. >...And that is only one technology. The whole world (and the whole species) will be changing at the same time. >...Star Trek has limited our vision of future possibilities. Our future could be far, far greater than Star Trek. >...BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, think end-game. Look at the equations for entropy and work backwards. Assuming energy streaming out from a star in the familiar form. Now imagine matter arranged to its optimal configuration for creating the most information per unit energy that comes out from that star, or most effectively reduces entropy for a given limit of matter and a known flux of energy. Assume all the other engineering problems have been solved. From that perspective, what is that configuration? When I do that exercise, the solutions I get tend toward small bits of matter widely spaced. We will likely be metal limited and heat control is the path to maximum entropy reduction. spike From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 00:07:33 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 19:07:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> Message-ID: Bill--stars are hot. You are talking about a different kind of heat management--preventing electronics from heating up using low-temperature input that gives off heat because of resistance. They could have electronics with zero resistance and still need to make the heat from their energy sources less concentrated, just like we do with something like nuclear power. Spike is talking about preventing things from getting as hot as their high-temperature inputs. And I sort of doubt they extract energy from things that are cold. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 03:27:29 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 22:27:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 4:45 PM, spike wrote: > > > OK well tomorrow is here and I still haven't come up with any coherent > responses to Keith's post. > ### It's been a day, and nobody yet contacted me to make an easy 1000$ by betting 100$ against me... C'mon, guys, it's easy money :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 03:40:00 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 22:40:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Has LIGO found new physics ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 5:23 PM, John Clark wrote: > we'll know if there is something new > ?under the sun ? > or not. > ### Under the Black Sun! It's so cool, gravity wave reflectors, titanic forces, the fabric of reality straining at the seams, and we get to see it all! Once I grow up, I'll send many copies of myself to locations of impending black hole mergers to examine it close up. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 11 05:24:04 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 21:24:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Has LIGO found new physics ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007301d2536e$ca30cef0$5e926cd0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 2:23 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Has LIGO found new physics ? >?Yesterday a paper was published hinting that maybe just maybe LIGO has found evidence for new physics, the first ever departure from General Relativity: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1612.00266.pdf >...some string theories say, a Black Hole really has 2 event horizons just a few Planck lengths apart..John K Clark What we really need are good graphic animations, computer generated video that explains these concepts. I really became a believer after seeing a CG animation put together by Saul Perlmutter. The way to explain the equations is with computer graphics. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 11 05:35:00 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 21:35:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> Message-ID: <007901d25370$517d3b90$f477b2b0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 4:08 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star >?Bill--? Spike is talking about preventing things from getting as hot as their high-temperature inputs? That?s part of it. Heat control is a big deal on satellites, but we have big radiators and lots of cold space everywhere. What if we amped up the amount of computing being done on orbit and had a lot less cold space to radiate the waste heat? Still, we need to shift our point of view. Our perspective is from down here in this gravity well, lots of stored chemical energy everywhere, pleeeeeenty of matter everywhere, more than we can use, but we are hard up for time. Time is money, and we don?t have much of it, temporary beings that we are. Shift: what if we had a steady known constant energy input, no way to borrow more, a complete scarcity of matter and plenty of time? We think in terms of plenty of matter, the ability to convert energy at will and very little time. Now imagine a scenario with constant fixed energy, plenty of time and never enough matter. OK assume away all engineering problems: assume fantasy engineering but reality physics. What does our M-Brain look like now? Mine all look like big diffuse clouds of tiny particles, where we accept latency in exchange for maximal efficiency in scare matter resources. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 06:13:09 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 22:13:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <007901d25370$517d3b90$f477b2b0$@att.net> References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> <007901d25370$517d3b90$f477b2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 9:35 PM, spike wrote: > Shift: what if we had a steady known constant energy input, no way to borrow > more, a complete scarcity of matter and plenty of time? We think in terms > of plenty of matter, the ability to convert energy at will and very little > time. Now imagine a scenario with constant fixed energy, plenty of time and > never enough matter. Plenty of time? Great heaping gobs of time? Dive down into the galactic center, where matter is more abundant. Gravitationally hijack and plunder any convenient systems near our path on the way, y'arr har har har! Still not enough? Eat the whole galaxy, then neighboring galaxies in our local cluster. And if THAT is not enough, find a way to o after other clusters. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 06:26:23 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 01:26:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Colin Hales wrote: > > > Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all > made of it. > Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer > (scientists) inside it. > ### It occurred to me that "conscious" observers (i.e. experiencing qualia) could be qualitatively different from digital simulations of minds, even if their behavior was indistinguishable. Of course we do not know much about the subject, and have to use intuition rather than more explicit knowledge. Let's then examine our intuitions and try to identify boundary conditions under which they might be true. Let's consider a neural network, capable of reading the alphabet, being shown pictures of a letter. Furthermore, this network is built from a very high resolution scan of a human who reads. The fidelity of the simulation is arbitrarily high but it is a digital simulation - one not using quantum phenomena or other forms of analog computation. Let's run this network a hundred times from one starting point, feeding it the same input, for example the letter A. Obviously, it will produce the same output - "I see the letter A". Do we have a human mind there, reading the letter a hundred times? I don't know. The run in a digital computer consists of operations on bitstrings - input, processing, output, all of that can be described by a single finite bitstring. Each of the runs is equivalent to a re-examination of the same bitstring. If the identity of indiscernibles holds, then all the runs are in fact analyzing a single mathematical object. The same pertains to runs simulating a human hit with a baseball bat - all the runs are equivalent to a single bitstring. Is there a human screaming a hundred times in agony in your computer, or is he screaming once, or is it just unfeeling numbers, a digital ghost devoid of qualia? I find it difficult to think that a single mathematical object can experience qualia every time it is examined with the use of a digital computer. Let's continue our experiments. The human simulation will reliably read "A" even if you bit-flip a single simulated molecule in a simulated synapse - the way the human brain is built, you cannot affect a high level quale, such as perceiving a letter, by introducing a small amount of noise below some threshold. The simulated digital mind will be similarly resistant to digital noise introduced at that level. In fact, you could bit-flip every single synapse in the mind, which is equivalent to a brief epileptic seizure, and still get the same reading, slightly delayed. You could generate a large number of specific, non-identical instances of this digital noise and use them to run the network a hundred times. Each of the runs would be the equivalent to a different bitstring, a hundred different mathematical objects. Do we have a human reading "A" or being hit with a bat a hundred times here, or not? I don't know. If all you need to generate consciousness is to calculate a bitstring according to a digital program then yes, there are a hundred instances of a feeling human here. But there is something off here. In the experiment without digital noise, identity of indiscernibles makes it difficult for me to claim there were multiple separate instances of consciousness. How could a single bit flip, completely incapable of changing the reported experience ("I see the letter A"), manage to generate separate instances of consciousness in the experimental runs? My guess here is that digital noise alone cannot trigger separate instances of perceiving qualia in digital computational runs. Such experiments look at the properties of idealized, platonic forms, built of finite numbers of elements. I guess that finite mathematical objects are qualitatively different from our physical reality. On a metaphysical level, I would surmise that observable physics contains mathematical infinities. This is of course just an idle act of faith on my part, not any well-formed type of knowledge. I don't understand infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, so my hunch about our QM world being built of infinities is just pattern-matching, not inference. Let's continue our experiments. We download out simulation into a hundred physical copies of the human brain. Every neuron, every synapse and every atom is in the same corresponding spot in all copies. We show them the letter A by stimulating their optic nerves and all produce the output "I see the letter A". Using our advanced monitoring hardware we verify that the physical noise at the level of individual neurons is similar to the digital noise introduced by out bit flip in the previous experiment. Do we have a hundred humans here thinking separate conscious thoughts? Most of us would say yes. A hundred physically existing human brains, generating the known observable correlates of thinking - EEG patterns, synapse activations, producing verbal output - that's a hundred conscious thoughts experiencing qualia, or else no human is conscious. We have three sets of experiments on similar entities yielding different intuitions about the entities. What has changed between the sets? As I hinted at above, first two sets are reducible to finite bitstrings (i.e. can be completely recorded and predicted by manipulation or properties of finite bitstrings). Whether the third set can be described by finite bitstrings would depend on the ultimate physical nature of reality. If quantum-mechanical physical objects (a bit of a pleonasm, isn't it) are indeed defined by mathematical objects that are not equivalent to finite bitstrings, such as real numbers, uncomputable numbers, or others, then an analog computer such as a human brain or quantum computer would be qualitatively different from a digital computer, in an irreducible way. For any human brain you could produce a digital simulation that over at least some time span would behave identically to the physical instantiation, and even retain an identical high-level information processing structure. If there is an irreducible difference in the mathematical objects underpinning the analog/human and the digital simulation, it might be possible for metaphysical zombies to exist. My argument is not constructed to support dualism in the usual sense, it is not a critique of physicalism, and it goes off at a tangent to the zombie literature I am familiar with. Rather, I am trying to organize my thinking about modal realism. I am definitely a physicalist when it comes to the hard problem of consciousness but then I am also a modal realist when it comes to metaphysics. I do believe that physical existence is a member of the ultimate ensemble of mathematics but then our physical existence may use more complicated mathematics than can fit in our minds. Or our digital computers. I intuit that digital objects exist outside of time, isolated from our time-like reality, like some other platonic mathematical forms. We do not interact with them in the same way as we do with physical objects, we merely examine their existence. But we interact with the mathematical objects that make up our physical reality, flowing through infinities of time-like correlated states, and our consciousness is how higher mathematics feels from the inside. I am modestly inclined to believe it but I am not quite sure. Maybe merely embedding a model of a platonic mathematical object in our physical computers imbues such object with new properties? The mind boggles. On a more practical level, if there are digital p-zombies, it means it's morally OK to shoot NPCs in digital computer games, no matter how life-like are their pleadings. Or perhaps my intuition is wrong, and little programs running reinforcement learning could be tormented souls. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 06:38:05 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 07:38:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] VIDEO: Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, December 10, 2016 Message-ID: VIDEO: Terasem Colloquium in Second Life, December 10, 2016 he 2016 edition of the Terasem Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons was held in Second Life???Terasem sim???on Saturday, December 10, 2016. The Colloquium had two main themes: ?Legal Aspects of Futuristic Persons: Cyber-Humans,? and ?A Tribute to the ?Father of Artificial Intelligence,? Marvin Minsky, PhD.? Watch the full video... https://turingchurch.net/video-terasem-colloquium-in-second-life-december-10-2016-d45e500f5f0 From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 06:53:27 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 01:53:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually > exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never > measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you > need evidence. ### As David Deutsch wrote, science is about explanations. Observation and measurement supported by theory is how you arrive at explanations. Measurements are however not the output of science, explanations are. I'd like to invite you to speculate about the existence of the inside of the Earth. Have you observed it? Presumably, you haven't. Yet, you do believe it exists, don't you? In the proper theoretical framework, it is the perfect explanation for the outside not falling down. Our understanding of the world, and of what exists, is made of successive layers of explanations built from layers of theory-laden (another Deutsch term) observations. We believe in what exists if it explains observations, not if it is observed. If a good explanation implies something exists, then that something exists, until proven otherwise. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 11 06:51:09 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 22:51:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> <007901d25370$517d3b90$f477b2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <000701d2537a$f9882390$ec986ab0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 10:13 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 9:35 PM, spike wrote: >> ... Now imagine a scenario with constant fixed > energy, plenty of time and never enough matter. >...Plenty of time? Great heaping gobs of time? >...Dive down into the galactic center, where matter is more abundant... Adrian Ja, what I meant was the metals. Regardless of where we go in the universe, there is a scarcity of metals, a steady known supply of energy and plenty of time. To use everything optimally, it will tend toward Dyson swarms which are almost transparent I think. Instead of thinking of it as using all available energy (as in the Kardashev's levels) imagine that the goal is to convert energy optimally from the point of view of maximizing computing (creation of low entropy data) given a fixed amount of metal in interplanetary space. Refocus the problem on what would be or could be done with sufficiently large available computing power. We don't really have this kind of application, but imagine for some reason the idea is to find as many Mersenne Primes as possible, or solve chess. Then we need all the available metal and to convert energy optimally for that purpose. I keep getting something that looks like a Dyson swarm or an M-brain, but it isn't tightly packed, because it cannot be: it would overheat. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 18:21:43 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 13:21:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 6:56 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: ?> ? > taking aliens at Tabby's star seriously would require believing that > aliens, who built tens of millions of Dyson spheres in our galaxy in the > last couple of hundred million years, have failed to manifest in other > ways. We failed to notice 100 000 Dyson spheres in our neighborhood? Did we > fail to see the multiple Dyson spheres in the surrounding 100 light years, > at our doorstep? We found 28 planets (!) in this area and failed to see the > Dyson spheres?This strains my credulity. > It strains my credulity too. If ? ? a structure ? ? ET ? ? built ? ? is responsible ? ? for ? ? Tabby's star ? ? odd behavior then the builders must have advanced Nanotechnology, so why is the thing so small? With technology like that ?they? could engineer the entire Galaxy in less than 50 million years even if their space probe ?s? moved no faster than our own ? did in the 1970's? . And although ?certainly ? strange Tabby's star doesn't have the stereotypical signature of a megastructure ? ? like a ? ? Dyson Sphere, the ET theory must be tweaked to fit appearances and that's never a good sign. What about the idea that it ? ? appears the way it does because of a dense bunch of particles in orbit around our own sun between us and ?T? abby's star ? ? in the Kuiper ? ? Belt or Oort Cloud? That would easily explain the lack of infrared radiation. > ?> ? > I am willing to take a bet up to $1000 at 10:1 odds against me that in the > next year there will be no peer reviewed confirmation of alien activity at > Tabby's star, or anywhere else in the universe. > ?There is no way I'd take that bet!? ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 18:50:23 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 13:50:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think that the risk of anthropomorphizing leads to bad assumptions in both the "it is aliens" and "it isn't aliens" directions. It's very difficult to make predictions about what kind of knowledge you *don't* have. Assuming it's post-singularity, words like "civilization", "resources", "thought", even concepts we imagine to be much less mutable like "energy" or "time" lose a vast amount of meaning. Maybe it's an oracle, a clairvoyance or backwards time travel machine, or in a similar vein used for FTL travel or communication. Maybe it's a factory for exotic matter or a dark (to us) matter manipulator. Maybe it's a telephone line to a god. Maybe it's an alien movie theater or a psychoactive drug-esque experience machine. I think it's very likely that at these scales there are needs that we can't conceive of--not energy, material resources, or temperature, but the regulation of an unknown quantity that's extremely important to their "society". Maybe they can move extropy through conduits like we move electricity. Maybe there's a base SI unit that we don't have yet. Maybe they eat Higgs Bosons like caviar. Maybe it's a weapon or invasion deterrent. Maybe it alters the laws of physics in ways we can't imagine in order to perform certain processes. Not that speculation is pointless--we can still try to make hypotheses on what it is or does and who would use such a thing. But to be honest I'd like to think that this insightful group of people can do better than "It's a giant computer". Maybe it's a tautological machine, like one of those boxes that has a hand come out to switch itself off, that only exists to confuse us about what it does because they find it hilarious. Gotta think outside the box. And the box is a tesseract. And outside is kata of the tesseract. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 18:57:26 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 18:57:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> References: <00b001d2532e$ab238b00$016aa100$@att.net> <00ec01d2533d$70a38200$51ea8600$@att.net> Message-ID: On 10 December 2016 at 23:30, spike wrote: > BillK, think end-game. Look at the equations for entropy and work > backwards. Assuming energy streaming out from a star in the familiar form. > Now imagine matter arranged to its optimal configuration for creating the > most information per unit energy that comes out from that star, or most > effectively reduces entropy for a given limit of matter and a known flux of > energy. > > Assume all the other engineering problems have been solved. From that > perspective, what is that configuration? > > When I do that exercise, the solutions I get tend toward small bits of > matter widely spaced. We will likely be metal limited and heat control is > the path to maximum entropy reduction. I doubt that we have reliable enough assumptions to rely on calculations like that. It may be a worst-case calculation. What we can be sure of is that, compared with today, future computing will considerably reduce energy consumption and heat generation. Future techs, (some more speculative than others) all point in the same direction. Memristor, Spintronics, single molecule electronics (nanotechnology), Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (CNTFET), Optical or photonic computing, Quantum computing, etc. Once energy consumption is reduced sufficiently, then negligible energy sources can be utilised. i.e. you may not need to be very near to a sun. Any heat generated may be used, not just radiated away into space. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 11 18:53:02 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 10:53:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000801d253df$cd2a4e80$677eeb80$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark >? What about the idea that it appears the way it does because of a dense bunch of particles in orbit around our own sun between us and abby's star in the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud? That would easily explain the lack of infrared radiation?? John K Clark That one was dismissed early by data showing that stars near Abby?s were not affected. If there is an intervening mass not gravitationally associated with Abby?s star, it was waaay over on her side of the gap rather than ours. spike ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 19:21:17 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 11:21:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### It's been a day, and nobody yet contacted me to make an easy 1000$ by > betting 100$ against me... > C'mon, guys, it's easy money :) For you, yes. I doubt even the most gung-ho mega structure guys would give it a ten percent chance of being aliens. Still, it's worth thinking of tests that could distinguish between something "natural" from constructed heat sink structures. And if aliens are common, then there really needs to be an explanation as to why *none* of them travel. On the other hand, there is a close by M type star, around 900 AU. One of the objections is that this F star has not lived long enough to evolve intelligence. Could we have a case where very old aliens moved over to the F star as it went by? Spike wrote: > BillK, think end-game. Look at the equations for entropy and work > backwards. Assuming energy streaming out from a star in the familiar form. > Now imagine matter arranged to its optimal configuration for creating the > most information per unit energy that comes out from that star, or most > effectively reduces entropy for a given limit of matter and a known flux of > energy. > Assume all the other engineering problems have been solved. From that > perspective, what is that configuration? > When I do that exercise, the solutions I get tend toward small bits of > matter widely spaced. I think you might have left out the time cost of communications. But widely spaced, I agree. These things are on the same scale as a star. Rather than a fog of computronium, consider a flat sheet out at least 10 AU. If the computational nodes are small, what do we use as a heat transfer medium out to the radiator surface? > We will likely be metal limited and heat control is > the path to maximum entropy reduction. Has anyone worked out the optimal temperature for computation? From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 20:30:09 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 12:30:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Chris, these are really good questions. Sorry I don't have good answers. Re Dyson spheres, I don't think you want to waste material by changing it's orbit so we could be looking at spread out former planets. You also have sticky problems with crossing orbits unless you stick to the ecliptic. These kind of patchy Dyson dots would hardly be visible. I am also not sure there is enough material in the solar system to build something that would entirely shut off the star's light, especially when you go out to 10 AU or more to get the temperature down. Many years ago, when he first started comprehending nanotechnology, Eric went off looking for galaxies with a bite out of them behind a wave of life that was using all the energy from their stars. He didn't find any. On the other hand, there is this: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-stars-strange-aliens-contact.html The real mystery remains, if they exist, why don't they travel? Is the attraction of artificial realities a universal trap that keeps *everyone* from sending out probes? It didn't seem right to Anders. I agree with him, discovery of aliens would prompt a difficult reassessment of such thinking. Best wishes, Keith On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Chris Hibbert wrote: > Rafal wrote: >> >> Let's assume that the volume of space the has been searched by our >> telescopes well enough to detect all Dyson sphere building efforts is a >> cube 4000 ly on a side, centered at Earth, or 64 billion cubic light >> years. >> If this is true, then the expected average density of such Dyson spheres >> is >> 1 per 64 billion ly, assuming lack of correlation between Earth and the >> Tabby aliens. > > > It seems we'd need to add an attenuation factor for the fact that we're not > on the plane of the ecliptic for most stars. My guesses would be that we > haven't actually done a consistent survey in all directions equally, and > that only some percentage of stars doing this kind of hypothesized > construction would actually present the kind of dimming we see from Tabby's > star. So the number of stars in our "neighborhood" might be much higher. > > And as for whether there would be expected to be other evidence for > civilizations at this level of technology, occluding your starting star is > something you can do soon after your singularity, presuming you decide > building computronium is an early goal. Regardless of goals, and presuming > that FTL isn't going to make interstellar distances less of a hurdle, it's a > while longer before we see multiple stars going out together. > > Or am I mis-reading Keith's description? Keith does this story you're > spinning imply that the construction is ongoing as we watch? I think the > story about the 15% dimming over the last century means that this is current > construction. If we were seeing objects that had been around for a while, we > might guess that the civilization had been around longer, and (given > astronomical time scales) they should have reached some nearby systems, at > least with their von Neumann probes. > > Do we need a story where civs that have been at this longer have built Dyson > spheres and are hard to detect, and we're only going to see ones that are in > the process of building as we watch? > > Chris > -- > C. J. Cherryh, "Invader", on why we visit very old buildings: > "A sense of age, of profound truths. Respect for something > hands made, that's stood through storms and wars and time. > It persuades us that things we do may last and matter." > > Chris Hibbert > hibbert at mydruthers.com > Blog: http://www.pancrit.org > http://mydruthers.com From sparge at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 21:31:53 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 16:31:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Triple pendulum on a cart Message-ID: This is pretty impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyN-CRNrb3E It's only about a minute. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Dec 11 21:47:57 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 13:47:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Rafal wrote: Maybe the aliens aren't expansionist. If they don't have FTL, then speed of light latency would make interstellar empires unmanageable. And if they cant control their colonies, their offspring might evolve in an unpredictable fashion, essentially speciating, and someday return home to eat their parents. Why breed your own competition? Seems like an existential risk. Rafal wrote: One year is too short a time frame for me to take that bet. Give me 35 years, and I would take your bet. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Sun Dec 11 22:06:31 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 14:06:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: <4fddc8507bc336f8a22612f9131e1ff0.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Keith Henson asked: Yes. Landauer's Principle states that the minimum amount of energy required to flip a bit is Boltzmann's constant times temperature times ln2. So the most energy efficient computation would be done at near absolute zero. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Sun Dec 11 21:25:12 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 13:25:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: Spike wrote: FWIW computational physics corroborates this. The Beckenstein Limit is the maximum amount of information you can pack into a given mass-energy embedded in a given volume of space. It is given by the following formula: I <= K*M*R "I" is the information in bits, M is the mass in kg, R is the radius in meters, and K is a constant that is K = (2*pi*speed of light)/(reduced plank's constant*ln2). So the maximum information content is directly proportional to the product of the entity's mass and linear dimension. By simply dividing both sides of the inequality by the mass you get: I/M <= K*R so the maximum bits per unit mass is directly proportional to the size. Now any computer that saturated the Beckenstein Bound would become a black hole because that's how the limit was derived. But let's call computronium the most information dense matter that doesn't have an event horizon, then for a given mass of it, the bigger it is, the more bits it can store. Then a diffuse computronium "dust" or "foam" would have the highest information storage capacity. I imagine the latency time caused by speed of light delay in communication would set an upper size limit to the computronium "cloud". So the trade off would be memory vs processing speed constrained by space and time respectively. This line of reasoning seems to be independent of heat dissipation at least on the face of it. Stuart LaForge From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 22:47:15 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:47:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Why does everyone think it has to be a computer and not a time machine or exotic matter factory? Or, as I said, a deterrent-type doomsday machine like the Dead Hand--because of the high energy existence of these societies, wars will be very high energy. Maybe they've constructed a star close to the Chandrasekar limit and they turn it into a black hole if they are invaded. It seems ridiculous to me to go into the math of something that we can't really deduce a hyper advanced (relative to us) society is doing. Anthropocentric thinking of a high degree. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 22:49:14 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:49:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And sorry to double post, but can we even be sure it's a star? Can't we conceive of structures that have similar emission profiles? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 11 22:40:40 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 14:40:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003101d253ff$99a9e5a0$ccfdb0e0$@att.net> Excellent thanks Stuart. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2016 1:25 PM To: Exi Chat Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star Spike wrote: >>...Instead of thinking of it as using all available energy (as in the Kardashev's levels) imagine that the goal is to convert energy optimally from the point of view of maximizing computing (creation of low entropy data) given a fixed amount of metal in interplanetary space... >...FWIW computational physics corroborates this. The Beckenstein Limit is the maximum amount of information you can pack into a given mass-energy embedded in a given volume of space. It is given by the following formula: I <= K*M*R ... >...Stuart LaForge Excellent thanks Stuart. Now think of it in terms of an engineering optimization problem. We optimize in favor of something we don't usually worry much about: reducing information entropy as a function of available matter, given a known constant throughput of energy, nearly regardless of space considerations and not worrying much about time constraints. That last part is just odd to mortal beings with our short lives. What if... time really isn't money? What if suddenly metal is money? Energy is what it is, we have all the space we want. Hard to shift out of the old time-is-money paradigm, ja? spike From pharos at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 23:09:01 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 23:09:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11 December 2016 at 22:47, Will Steinberg wrote: > Why does everyone think it has to be a computer and not a time machine or > exotic matter factory? Or, as I said, a deterrent-type doomsday machine > like the Dead Hand--because of the high energy existence of these societies, > wars will be very high energy. Maybe they've constructed a star close to > the Chandrasekar limit and they turn it into a black hole if they are > invaded. > > It seems ridiculous to me to go into the math of something that we can't > really deduce a hyper advanced (relative to us) society is doing. > Anthropocentric thinking of a high degree. > I agree that it seems to be pretty impossible for us to guess what advanced aliens might build. For example, many people seem to find it impossible to accept that aliens wouldn't be expansionist (like us) and want to colonise the galaxy. Therefore advanced aliens don't exist. However, every intelligent species wants to solve problems and investigate their environment, so they will all develop some form of computing. And they will want to maximise this ability. But It may be this path that leads to them not expanding. After all if your computer tech fulfils every need, why do anything else? BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 23:28:36 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 18:28:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 11, 2016 18:10, "BillK" wrote: ...if your computer tech fulfils every need, why do anything else? I mean if you want to broach that--why do anything? I feel like a lot of scientists do everything in their power to avoid thinking about ontology. I suppose it makes people uncomfortable. But it will always boil down to ontology. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 00:16:57 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 19:16:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > ?> ? > The Beckenstein Limit is the > ? > maximum amount of information you can pack into a given mass-energy > ? > embedded in a given volume of space. It is given by the following formula: > I <= K*M*R > "I" is the information in bits, M is the mass in kg, R is the radius in > meters, and K is a constant ? Yes but if we're talking about the maximum about of information that can fit inside a sphere then we already know what M must be in the above formula, it's the amount of matter needed to form a Black Hole of radius R, and the formula for that is ? M= c^2/2G *R ? , ? where G is the gravitation constant and c is the speed of light that is also a constant ?. S tick ?ing? the two formulas together and you get I = (a constant) * R^2. ?So t he maximum information inside a sphere is proportional to the sphere's surface area not its volume. ? So the information isn't really in the sphere it's on the sphere.? It almost make me think that one of our 3 dimensions ?is? phony. John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 00:26:16 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 16:26:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 10:53 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually >> exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never >> measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you >> need evidence. > > > ### As David Deutsch wrote, science is about explanations. Observation and > measurement supported by theory is how you arrive at explanations. > Measurements are however not the output of science, explanations are. > > I'd like to invite you to speculate about the existence of the inside of the > Earth. Have you observed it? Presumably, you haven't. Yet, you do believe it > exists, don't you? In the proper theoretical framework, it is the perfect > explanation for the outside not falling down. While I myself have not observed it, others have - indirectly, but there is nonzero evidence that it exists, and the contrary theory (that the Earth is hollow) is not the case. This is quite distinct from observing beings with soul or free will, as opposed to observing beings who merely think they have free will. From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 12 00:52:15 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 16:52:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009f01d25411$fba5ccd0$f2f16670$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... >...I agree that it seems to be pretty impossible for us to guess what advanced aliens might build. For example, many people seem to find it impossible to accept that aliens wouldn't be expansionist (like us) and want to colonise the galaxy. Therefore advanced aliens don't exist. >...However, every intelligent species wants to solve problems and investigate their environment, so they will all develop some form of computing. And they will want to maximise this ability. But It may be this path that leads to them not expanding. After all if your computer tech fulfils every need, why do anything else? >...BillK _______________________________________________ Ja! What if... there is some really significant math problem, analogous to Riemann's zeta function hypothesis for instance, that eventually occurs to intelligent species other than ours. Since I used that as an example, why not that one? It gets deeper and crazier every time you look at it, well, what Riemann's zeta function just keeps unpacking new goodies the deeper one digs? Think it over for a minute: there is nothing human-specific in the zeta function that any other intelligent species wouldn't discover. I like it best described in terms of the integral: Or if you like summation notation better, my point can be made that way too: Any intelligent species will eventually discover integration and series summation, all that. I can imagine no path to interplanetary space without having discovered both of those concepts. Any intelligent lifeform would discover e, and would discover all the rest of it. My conclusion is that every intelligent spacefaring species of any kind would have to know about Riemann's zeta function, even if they had a different name for it and different symbols, they would find it. Imagine that the species gets into a mode where it focuses everything on that problem. It doesn't care about talking to others and waiting for replies. It uses its available metal and energy to work on this problem, or one of the others. There might be future math problems that cause us to turn inward. Notice there is nothing anthropomorphic in the above conjecture: a problem exists, it has enormous consequences. So. perhaps intelligence species naturally get caught in one or more of them, and don't worry much about fanning out through the galaxy. Perhaps math creates the Fermi filter without actually slaying everything. I hope that's it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2933 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 4243 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image007.png Type: image/png Size: 174 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image008.png Type: image/png Size: 174 bytes Desc: not available URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 01:09:28 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 20:09:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 11, 2016 7:18 PM, "John Clark" wrote: ?So t he maximum information inside a sphere is proportional to the sphere's surface area not its volume. ? So the information isn't really in the sphere it's on the sphere.? It almost make me think that one of our 3 dimensions ?is? phony. Are there opportunities for similar kinds of "this dimension does not matter" thinking? I wonder if our current understanding of fundamental laws have already canceled terms simply because our local spacetime is situated at a special region of a broader equation. Maybe we can't imagine the extra terms because we haven't yet met any phenomenon that aren't explainable by the equations we have... or is that what gravity waves and tabby stars are making us think about? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 02:18:59 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 21:18:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Spike, you're definitely being anthropocentric. You're assuming problems like Riemann Zeta are hard to figure out. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 02:21:11 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 21:21:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As soon as you say "problem" you're making a human value judgment based on psychoevolutionary heuristics based again on ontology. All roads lead to turtles all the way down. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 07:24:59 2016 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 08:24:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > But It may be this path that leads to them not expanding. After all if your computer tech fulfils every need, why do anything else? They'll need more energy, soon. They can't allow some unpredictable evolutions going on in their neighbourhood. Even far away. The Prime Directive is a very stupid idea. On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 3:21 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > As soon as you say "problem" you're making a human value judgment based on > psychoevolutionary heuristics based again on ontology. > > All roads lead to turtles all the way down. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 07:26:05 2016 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 18:26:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: See below ..... On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 5:26 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Colin Hales wrote: >> >> >> Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all >> made of it. >> Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer >> (scientists) inside it. >> > > ### It occurred to me that "conscious" observers (i.e. experiencing > qualia) could be qualitatively different from digital simulations of minds, > even if their behavior was indistinguishable. Of course we do not know much > about the subject, and have to use intuition rather than more explicit > knowledge. Let's then examine our intuitions and try to identify boundary > conditions under which they might be true. > > Let's consider a neural network, capable of reading the alphabet, being > shown pictures of a letter. Furthermore, this network is built from a very > high resolution scan of a human who reads. The fidelity of the simulation > is arbitrarily high but it is a digital simulation - one not using quantum > phenomena or other forms of analog computation. > > Let's run this network a hundred times from one starting point, feeding it > the same input, for example the letter A. Obviously, it will produce the > same output - "I see the letter A". Do we have a human mind there, reading > the letter a hundred times? > > I don't know. The run in a digital computer consists of operations on > bitstrings - input, processing, output, all of that can be described by a > single finite bitstring. Each of the runs is equivalent to a re-examination > of the same bitstring. If the identity of indiscernibles holds, then all > the runs are in fact analyzing a single mathematical object. The same > pertains to runs simulating a human hit with a baseball bat - all the runs > are equivalent to a single bitstring. Is there a human screaming a hundred > times in agony in your computer, or is he screaming once, or is it just > unfeeling numbers, a digital ghost devoid of qualia? > > I find it difficult to think that a single mathematical object can > experience qualia every time it is examined with the use of a digital > computer. > > Let's continue our experiments. The human simulation will reliably read > "A" even if you bit-flip a single simulated molecule in a simulated synapse > - the way the human brain is built, you cannot affect a high level quale, > such as perceiving a letter, by introducing a small amount of noise below > some threshold. The simulated digital mind will be similarly resistant to > digital noise introduced at that level. In fact, you could bit-flip every > single synapse in the mind, which is equivalent to a brief epileptic > seizure, and still get the same reading, slightly delayed. You could > generate a large number of specific, non-identical instances of this > digital noise and use them to run the network a hundred times. Each of the > runs would be the equivalent to a different bitstring, a hundred different > mathematical objects. Do we have a human reading "A" or being hit with a > bat a hundred times here, or not? > > I don't know. If all you need to generate consciousness is to calculate a > bitstring according to a digital program then yes, there are a hundred > instances of a feeling human here. But there is something off here. In the > experiment without digital noise, identity of indiscernibles makes it > difficult for me to claim there were multiple separate instances of > consciousness. How could a single bit flip, completely incapable of > changing the reported experience ("I see the letter A"), manage to generate > separate instances of consciousness in the experimental runs? > > My guess here is that digital noise alone cannot trigger separate > instances of perceiving qualia in digital computational runs. Such > experiments look at the properties of idealized, platonic forms, built of > finite numbers of elements. I guess that finite mathematical objects are > qualitatively different from our physical reality. On a metaphysical level, > I would surmise that observable physics contains mathematical infinities. > This is of course just an idle act of faith on my part, not any well-formed > type of knowledge. I don't understand infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, > so my hunch about our QM world being built of infinities is just > pattern-matching, not inference. > > Let's continue our experiments. We download out simulation into a hundred > physical copies of the human brain. Every neuron, every synapse and every > atom is in the same corresponding spot in all copies. We show them the > letter A by stimulating their optic nerves and all produce the output "I > see the letter A". Using our advanced monitoring hardware we verify that > the physical noise at the level of individual neurons is similar to the > digital noise introduced by out bit flip in the previous experiment. Do we > have a hundred humans here thinking separate conscious thoughts? > > Most of us would say yes. A hundred physically existing human brains, > generating the known observable correlates of thinking - EEG patterns, > synapse activations, producing verbal output - that's a hundred conscious > thoughts experiencing qualia, or else no human is conscious. > > We have three sets of experiments on similar entities yielding different > intuitions about the entities. What has changed between the sets? > > As I hinted at above, first two sets are reducible to finite bitstrings > (i.e. can be completely recorded and predicted by manipulation or > properties of finite bitstrings). Whether the third set can be described by > finite bitstrings would depend on the ultimate physical nature of reality. > If quantum-mechanical physical objects (a bit of a pleonasm, isn't it) are > indeed defined by mathematical objects that are not equivalent to finite > bitstrings, such as real numbers, uncomputable numbers, or others, then an > analog computer such as a human brain or quantum computer would be > qualitatively different from a digital computer, in an irreducible way. > > For any human brain you could produce a digital simulation that over at > least some time span would behave identically to the physical > instantiation, and even retain an identical high-level information > processing structure. If there is an irreducible difference in the > mathematical objects underpinning the analog/human and the digital > simulation, it might be possible for metaphysical zombies to exist. > > My argument is not constructed to support dualism in the usual sense, it > is not a critique of physicalism, and it goes off at a tangent to the > zombie literature I am familiar with. Rather, I am trying to organize my > thinking about modal realism. I am definitely a physicalist when it comes > to the hard problem of consciousness but then I am also a modal realist > when it comes to metaphysics. I do believe that physical existence is a > member of the ultimate ensemble of mathematics but then our physical > existence may use more complicated mathematics than can fit in our minds. > Or our digital computers. > > I intuit that digital objects exist outside of time, isolated from our > time-like reality, like some other platonic mathematical forms. We do not > interact with them in the same way as we do with physical objects, we > merely examine their existence. But we interact with the mathematical > objects that make up our physical reality, flowing through infinities of > time-like correlated states, and our consciousness is how higher > mathematics feels from the inside. I am modestly inclined to believe it but > I am not quite sure. Maybe merely embedding a model of a platonic > mathematical object in our physical computers imbues such object with new > properties? The mind boggles. > > On a more practical level, if there are digital p-zombies, it means it's > morally OK to shoot NPCs in digital computer games, no matter how life-like > are their pleadings. Or perhaps my intuition is wrong, and little programs > running reinforcement learning could be tormented souls. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > ======================= ======================= Hi Rafal, I start by expunging hidden memes in your observations. *HIDDEN MEME 1: That ?ISMS? have any part in this science I am trying to discuss.* That assumption that any characterisation of anything in terms of ?isms? constitutes any kind of scientific claim. I don?t need to. It plays no part in any discussion I have and it goes nowhere. It solves nothing. I can?t/won?t say anything about any kind of ?ism?. Nor do I think doing it says anything useful about the particular problem of the subjective life of any AI instantiation. Sorry. I can?t. I?m not philosophically equipped and I never will be. It?s all irrelevant. Whatever you say about any ism, you can merely change your mind about what the prefix+ism means and defeat it as any kind of science proposition. It?s not science. I don?t care about it. AFTER science makes real AGI (without needing any ?ism? informing any design or testing, as usual) we?ll be able to retrofit some combination of isms that fits the results and even then nobody will be any better off. A whole bunch of philosophers will be able to do the ?told you so? dance. So what? It changes nothing. Philosophy has no authority as science or in it (as a determinant of scientific knowledge). *HIDDEN MEME 2: That the word ?metaphysics? has any part to play in this discussion.* Basically the word metaphysics has been used for 2000 years to create a false position about the scientific accessibility of an underlying reality that gives rise to an observer. It was invented by stone-age thinkers that had no modern physics, neuroscience or computers. The term is used to defeat any attempt at scientific accounts of an underlying reality ?. and that?s basically all bullshit sophistry. You *can* do it. You can study an underlying reality with a computer (humans can?t do it). But it creates a whole new category of epistemic claims and the central evidence basis for it is the prediction of and nature of an observer as a primary requirement. *HIDDEN MEME 3: ? **For any human brain you could produce a digital simulation that over at least some time span would behave identically to the physical instantiation ?.? * This is the bogus belief meme from hell. YES you can produce such a simulation. NO it is not any instance of artificial intelligence. Mistaking the map for the territory right there. As per my original bell?s inequality posting. This is the big one. Mistaking the increasing accuracy of a simulation of X in the eyes of a presupposed observer with an instance of the function of the original modelled thing. Wrong. Bad mistake. This meme has had the entire area of AI beguiled since day 1 of AI. And there is absolutely ZERO natural law that says that a computed model of a thing can be expected to be literally an instance of the thing. For the brain or anything else. ====================================== When I see these memes operating, and I am operating without them, I am rendered unable to say anything! Saying anything at all is tacitly acquiescing to the proposition that they have anything to say about the area I am in when they don?t. Bummer, huh? I don?t mean this to be dismissive! This is a real, huge problem that has a whole science looking away from a solution to a big problem. I for one am angry that this has gone on for so long. It is a unique position in science and it only came about when computers came along and there was a new kind of mistake to be made and we made it and then industrialised it. Returning to your text ?. I have a heap of things to say about the details. But let?s step back and look at the big picture of the science. The ?experiments? you detailed presuppose the memes. In particular MEME 3. Let me show you how a map/territory confusion has trashed the normal science process. Consider the claim: ? MEME3 = A computed model of a natural thing is unconditionally identical in every respect to the natural thing?. That is, in effect, MEME3?s tacit claim about the world. In particular the science of AI. In the case of AI and the brain MEME3 is what everyone has invested in for 75 years. Now it?s spectacularly industrialised with vast computing power while egregiously failing to deliver the equivalent of even the simplest human capacities for autonomous learning by a 2 year old. Let?s set that issue aside and scientifically deal with MEME3?s status as a law of nature. To see if something is a ?law of nature? you have 2 empirical options. (1) Test for the logical consequences of its truth. (2) Test for the logical consequences of its falsehood. *(I)* In (1) we assume MEME3 is true, we build AIcomp as computed models of natural intelligence. We compare and contrast nature and AIcomp. *(II) *In (2) we assume MEME3 is false, we build, instead, artificial versions of the natural original, AIrep, which is not a computer but a bunch of very specific physics impressed on space. We inorganically replicate the physics in space (on new chips). It has an EEG and MEG signature like us. It drives sensory/actuation like ours. We compare and constrast nature and AIrep. (Note: neuromorphic chips DO NOT DO THIS! Sorry, heading off an obvious misdirection) =========== OK. Now at this point I don?t have to claim anything about the truth of MEME3. What I can claim is that *the science is broken. *Evidence? Up until the invention of the computer: a) No scientist in their right mind would ever claim MEME3 true. Computation was done by hand. Automation of computation is only that! b) All scientists had ever done up to this point, to find laws of nature, was test *(II)*! After the invention of the computer, and ONLY in AI, *the only testing ever done has been (I)*. For 75 years non-stop. MEME3 presupposed true. By everyone. So you see I can?t even begin to have a discussion in the terms you require because MEME3 has to stop being presupposed true in order that I can contribute anything at all. All I insist on is that the science be normalised. MEME3 could even be true. My argument still stands. I don?t think MEME3 is true but that is moot. All I have to say is I don?t know if MEME3 is true *and either does anyone else and the testing framework is broken.* I hope you can see my position in this. As you may be aware I am squirrelled away doing AI without computers (and having a helluva time I might add! Amazing). Because of this situation of me not presupposing MEME3 is true, but by simply adopting what was normal science for 3 centuries before electronic computers bamboozled everyone (people that had never actually done any real science, mainly), I find myself unable to usefully engage your writings. There is a bunch of stuff in your writings that I concur with without explanation. Such as ?*beat to death, with a baseball bat any AI done to date (roboticised or not) and that AI won?t notice because all of it has the subjective life of a coma (nothing) and is not actually AI at all. It is merely automation mistaken for AI and actually has zero intelligence. This is because there?s literally none of the intelligence-essential physics of the brain retained in the AI*?. Exiting AI is as dumb as dogshit not because of what it does, but because of its zero intellect in handling novelty. If you test for MEME3 being false and do TEST (II) you can?t assume this to be the case. Which is what I am facing or due to face in the not so distant future. Thanks for the interest ?. J Cheers Colin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 10:07:23 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 21:07:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11 December 2016 at 17:26, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Colin Hales wrote: >> >> >> Whatever the universe is made of, you and I and the rest of it are all >> made of it. >> Whatever the universe is made of, it is capable of creating an observer >> (scientists) inside it. >> > > ### It occurred to me that "conscious" observers (i.e. experiencing > qualia) could be qualitatively different from digital simulations of minds, > even if their behavior was indistinguishable. Of course we do not know much > about the subject, and have to use intuition rather than more explicit > knowledge. Let's then examine our intuitions and try to identify boundary > conditions under which they might be true. > > Let's consider a neural network, capable of reading the alphabet, being > shown pictures of a letter. Furthermore, this network is built from a very > high resolution scan of a human who reads. The fidelity of the simulation > is arbitrarily high but it is a digital simulation - one not using quantum > phenomena or other forms of analog computation. > > Let's run this network a hundred times from one starting point, feeding it > the same input, for example the letter A. Obviously, it will produce the > same output - "I see the letter A". Do we have a human mind there, reading > the letter a hundred times? > > I don't know. The run in a digital computer consists of operations on > bitstrings - input, processing, output, all of that can be described by a > single finite bitstring. Each of the runs is equivalent to a re-examination > of the same bitstring. If the identity of indiscernibles holds, then all > the runs are in fact analyzing a single mathematical object. The same > pertains to runs simulating a human hit with a baseball bat - all the runs > are equivalent to a single bitstring. Is there a human screaming a hundred > times in agony in your computer, or is he screaming once, or is it just > unfeeling numbers, a digital ghost devoid of qualia? > > I find it difficult to think that a single mathematical object can > experience qualia every time it is examined with the use of a digital > computer. > I don't see why this should be a special consideration for digital computers. In a multiverse, if a bilogical brain instantiating an experience is repeated a hundred times, is that a hundred instances of the experience or only one? What about if it is repeated an infinite number of times? > Let's continue our experiments. The human simulation will reliably read > "A" even if you bit-flip a single simulated molecule in a simulated synapse > - the way the human brain is built, you cannot affect a high level quale, > such as perceiving a letter, by introducing a small amount of noise below > some threshold. The simulated digital mind will be similarly resistant to > digital noise introduced at that level. In fact, you could bit-flip every > single synapse in the mind, which is equivalent to a brief epileptic > seizure, and still get the same reading, slightly delayed. You could > generate a large number of specific, non-identical instances of this > digital noise and use them to run the network a hundred times. Each of the > runs would be the equivalent to a different bitstring, a hundred different > mathematical objects. Do we have a human reading "A" or being hit with a > bat a hundred times here, or not? > > I don't know. If all you need to generate consciousness is to calculate a > bitstring according to a digital program then yes, there are a hundred > instances of a feeling human here. But there is something off here. In the > experiment without digital noise, identity of indiscernibles makes it > difficult for me to claim there were multiple separate instances of > consciousness. How could a single bit flip, completely incapable of > changing the reported experience ("I see the letter A"), manage to generate > separate instances of consciousness in the experimental runs? > My guess here is that digital noise alone cannot trigger separate instances > of perceiving qualia in digital computational runs. Such experiments look > at the properties of idealized, platonic forms, built of finite numbers of > elements. I guess that finite mathematical objects are qualitatively > different from our physical reality. On a metaphysical level, I would > surmise that observable physics contains mathematical infinities. This is > of course just an idle act of faith on my part, not any well-formed type of > knowledge. I don't understand infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, so my > hunch about our QM world being built of infinities is just > pattern-matching, not inference. > > Let's continue our experiments. We download out simulation into a hundred > physical copies of the human brain. Every neuron, every synapse and every > atom is in the same corresponding spot in all copies. We show them the > letter A by stimulating their optic nerves and all produce the output "I > see the letter A". Using our advanced monitoring hardware we verify that > the physical noise at the level of individual neurons is similar to the > digital noise introduced by out bit flip in the previous experiment. Do we > have a hundred humans here thinking separate conscious thoughts? > If the hundred copies generate the same experience, whether in biological brains or computers (differing from each other only below a certain threshold), I would say there is only one experience. If my mind at present is being implemented on a hundred machines (brains or computers) running in lockstep, I don't care if all but one of them is shut down, because my consciousness will continue running on the remaining one. In other words, if my mind is implemented on one of a hundred machines running in lockstep, I have no way of knowing which machine it is running on, which machine my last thought ran on, or which machine my next thought will run on. As long as at least one machine keeps running, I'm happy; the other machines are useful only as backups, in case some of them fail. > Most of us would say yes. A hundred physically existing human brains, > generating the known observable correlates of thinking - EEG patterns, > synapse activations, producing verbal output - that's a hundred conscious > thoughts experiencing qualia, or else no human is conscious. > > We have three sets of experiments on similar entities yielding different > intuitions about the entities. What has changed between the sets? > > As I hinted at above, first two sets are reducible to finite bitstrings > (i.e. can be completely recorded and predicted by manipulation or > properties of finite bitstrings). Whether the third set can be described by > finite bitstrings would depend on the ultimate physical nature of reality. > If quantum-mechanical physical objects (a bit of a pleonasm, isn't it) are > indeed defined by mathematical objects that are not equivalent to finite > bitstrings, such as real numbers, uncomputable numbers, or others, then an > analog computer such as a human brain or quantum computer would be > qualitatively different from a digital computer, in an irreducible way. > > For any human brain you could produce a digital simulation that over at > least some time span would behave identically to the physical > instantiation, and even retain an identical high-level information > processing structure. If there is an irreducible difference in the > mathematical objects underpinning the analog/human and the digital > simulation, it might be possible for metaphysical zombies to exist. > Consider what would happen if you replaced a volume of biological neural tissue with artificial neurons, designed to mimic as closely as possible its I/O behaviour. Would the brain as a whole continue to behave the same way? If not, what sort of deficits would you expect? > > My argument is not constructed to support dualism in the usual sense, it > is not a critique of physicalism, and it goes off at a tangent to the > zombie literature I am familiar with. Rather, I am trying to organize my > thinking about modal realism. I am definitely a physicalist when it comes > to the hard problem of consciousness but then I am also a modal realist > when it comes to metaphysics. I do believe that physical existence is a > member of the ultimate ensemble of mathematics but then our physical > existence may use more complicated mathematics than can fit in our minds. > Or our digital computers. > > I intuit that digital objects exist outside of time, isolated from our > time-like reality, like some other platonic mathematical forms. We do not > interact with them in the same way as we do with physical objects, we > merely examine their existence. But we interact with the mathematical > objects that make up our physical reality, flowing through infinities of > time-like correlated states, and our consciousness is how higher > mathematics feels from the inside. I am modestly inclined to believe it but > I am not quite sure. Maybe merely embedding a model of a platonic > mathematical object in our physical computers imbues such object with new > properties? The mind boggles. > > On a more practical level, if there are digital p-zombies, it means it's > morally OK to shoot NPCs in digital computer games, no matter how life-like > are their pleadings. Or perhaps my intuition is wrong, and little programs > running reinforcement learning could be tormented souls. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 10:15:48 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 21:15:48 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 12 December 2016 at 18:26, Colin Hales wrote: > > > *HIDDEN MEME 3: ? **For any human brain you could produce a digital > simulation that over at least some time span would behave identically to > the physical instantiation ?.? * > > This is the bogus belief meme from hell. YES you can produce such a > simulation. NO it is not any instance of artificial intelligence. Mistaking > the map for the territory right there. As per my original bell?s inequality > posting. This is the big one. Mistaking the increasing accuracy of a > simulation of X in the eyes of a presupposed observer with an instance of > the function of the original modelled thing. Wrong. Bad mistake. This meme > has had the entire area of AI beguiled since day 1 of AI. And there is > absolutely ZERO natural law that says that a computed model of a thing can > be expected to be literally an instance of the thing. For the brain or > anything else. > > Could you explain what you mean when you say that YES it is possible to produce a simulation that behaves identically to the physical instantiation over some time span? What would such a simulation at its best be capable of? What jobs could it conceivably do, what jobs could it never do? -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 15:41:02 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 10:41:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: ?> ? > As soon as you say "problem" you're making a human value judgment based on > psychoevolutionary heuristics based again on ontology. > ?So what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with anthropomorphic reasoning because if you don't assume you will have more things in common with ET than you will have with a rock then you're not going to get anywhere. As soon as you offer the theory that Tabby's star's odd behaviour is caused by an alien megastructure you're assuming that ET believes in many things and has a problem (by the way, why did you put that word in quotation marks?). You're assuming ET knows about electromagnetic radiation, and you're assuming ET knows about energy, and you're assuming ET likes energy and feels he (or she or it) has a problem and doesn't have enough of it, and you're assuming ET's solution to that problem is to built a structure around it's star to harvest that electromagnetic energy. And you're also assuming that even though ET knows about electromagnetism and it is the fastest form of communication in the universe ET doesn't use it for communication, which explains the lack of even a hint of a intelligent signal even when we point Green Bank's 328 foot radio telescope directly at Tabby's star ?.? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 15:44:50 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 10:44:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 6:56 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: ?> ? > taking aliens at Tabby's star seriously would require believing that > aliens, who built tens of millions of Dyson spheres in our galaxy in the > last couple of hundred million years, have failed to manifest in other > ways. We failed to notice 100 000 Dyson spheres in our neighborhood? Did we > fail to see the multiple Dyson spheres in the surrounding 100 light years, > at our doorstep? We found 28 planets (!) in this area and failed to see the > Dyson spheres?This strains my credulity. > It strains my credulity too. If ? ? a structure ? ? ET ? ? built ? ? is responsible ? ? for ? ? Tabby's star ? ? odd behavior then the builders must have advanced Nanotechnology, so why is the thing so small? With technology like that ?they? could engineer the entire Galaxy in less than 50 million years even if their space probe ?s? moved no faster than our own ? did in the 1970's? . And although ?certainly ? strange Tabby's star doesn't have the stereotypical signature of a megastructure ? ? like a ? ? Dyson Sphere, the ET theory must be tweaked to fit appearances and that's never a good sign. What about the idea that it ? ? appears the way it does because of a dense bunch of particles in orbit around our own sun between us and ?T? abby's star ? ? in the Kuiper ? ? Belt or Oort Cloud? That would easily explain the lack of infrared radiation. > ?> ? > I am willing to take a bet up to $1000 at 10:1 odds against me that in the > next year there will be no peer reviewed confirmation of alien activity at > Tabby's star, or anywhere else in the universe. > ?There is no way I'd take that bet!? ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 12 15:54:15 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 07:54:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01b401d2548f$fda6cfb0$f8f46f10$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 7:41 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 9:21 PM, Will Steinberg > wrote: ?> ?>?As soon as you say "problem" you're making a human value judgment based on psychoevolutionary heuristics based again on ontology. ?>?So what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with anthropomorphic reasoning because if you don't assume you will have more things in common with ET than you will have with a rock then you're not going to get anywhere? Ja. We could start by thinking of the things that every spacefaring lifeform would have discovered. Humans do not own mathematics, but we are the only species on the planet using it. That in itself is astonishing once you think about it. >?And you're also assuming that even though ET knows about electromagnetism and it is the fastest form of communication in the universe ET doesn't use it for communication, which explains the lack of even a hint of a intelligent signal even when we point Green Bank's 328 foot radio telescope directly at Tabby's star? John K Clark We could perhaps think of all the reasons why a tech-enabled lifeform 400 LY distant would be radio silent. I can come up with some. John we have a lot of work to do on your notion of the information content of a volume of space being a function of the surface area of the sphere. That in itself has some profound consequences. As the sphere scales up, the information content increases as the square while the latency increases linearly. That observation requires deep thought. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 16:33:30 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:33:30 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Animal Mathematics Message-ID: On 12 December 2016 at 15:54, spike wrote: > Humans do not own mathematics, but we are the only species on the planet > using it. That in itself is astonishing once you think about it. > Hey! You're maligning other species! :) How about ----- Bees have chosen the perfect shape for their honeycombs? the hexagon. Dogs do calculus to fetch / catch a ball. Many species do complex navigation, salmon, birds, butterflies...... Beavers build dams Spiders spin webs Chimpanzees can count. In fact, decades of research have provided evidence for the numerical abilities of a number of species, including gorillas, rhesus, capuchin, and squirrel monkeys, lemurs, dolphins, elephants, birds, salamanders and fish. Recently, researchers from Oakland University in Michigan added black bears to the list of the numerically skilled. But the real maths wizards of the animal kingdom are the ants of the Tunisian desert (Cataglyphis fortis). They count both arithmetic and geometry as parts of their mathematical toolkit. When a desert ant leaves its nest in search of food, it has an important task: find its way back home. In almost any other part of the world, the ant can use one of two tricks for finding its way home, visual landmarks or scent trails. The windswept saltpans of Tunisia make it impossible to leave a scent trail, though. And the relatively featureless landscape doesn't provide much in the way of visual landmarks, other than perhaps the odd rock or weed. So evolution endowed the desert ant with a secret weapon: geometry. Armed with its mathematical know-how, the desert ant is able to ?path integrate?. This means, according to ant navigation researchers Martin Muller and Rudiger Wehner, that it "is able to continuously compute its present location from its past trajectory and, as a consequence, to return to the starting point by choosing the direct route rather than retracing its outbound trajectory." How does this work? These desert ants calculate the distance walked by counting steps. Researchers discovered this by strapping stilts made of pig hairs onto the legs of the ants. The ant?s stilts made each individual step longer than it would have otherwise been, making them overestimate the distance home. The ants calculate the direction they walk by calculating the angle of their path relative to the position of the sun, using the same rules of trigonometry that were taught to me in the tenth grade. And what?s more, the ants constantly update their calculations to correct for the sun's march across the sky. All that in a nervous system comprised of as few as 250,000 neurons (compared to the approximately 85 billion neurons in the human). ---------- OK, I'll accept that humans are a bit better at maths. :) BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 17:05:05 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:05:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 4:47 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > > Maybe the aliens aren't expansionist. > ### I take the observation at Tabby's star and calculate the expected number of finished Dyson spheres in our neighborhood, without making any specific assumptions about the aliens. If you see a Dyson sphere being built close to Earth as soon as you build a telescope, it implies that Dyson spheres are common as dirt, regardless of whether the aliens responsible are expansionist or not. ---------------------------- > > One year is too short a time frame for me to take that bet. Give me 35 > years, and I would take your bet. > ### In thirty five years I will be probably frozen at Alcor. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 12 17:07:56 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:07:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <01b401d2548f$fda6cfb0$f8f46f10$@att.net> References: <01b401d2548f$fda6cfb0$f8f46f10$@att.net> Message-ID: <020c01d2549a$48c2abe0$da4803a0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark ? >?John we have a lot of work to do on your notion of the information content of a volume of space being a function of the surface area of the sphere. That in itself has some profound consequences. As the sphere scales up, the information content increases as the square while the latency increases linearly. That observation requires deep thought?spike OK we are ready to do a thought experiment. In marketing, we have a price-point curve where the endpoints are zero: set the price of your product too high, your profit per sale is high but you make nothing because your competitor eats your lunch with a lower price. Set the price too low and you make nada because your profit per sale goes to nothing. Let us do a thought experiment from the point of view of a lifeform which figured out how to get out into space from a deep gravity well, figures out how to do advanced nanotech to make optimal computing devices or anything else it wants to make. Assume away all engineering problems: this thought experiment allows fantasy engineering but not fantasy physical constraints, including known laws of thermodynamics. I anticipate future thought experiments with those conditions, so I propose the term FERP for fantasy engineering, reality physics. Given that, we can create something analogous to a marketing price-point curve where we balance computational energy efficiency with latency in a planetary system. If we gather all the metals available in the system into one big lump, we end up with a sphere perhaps thrice to five times the diameter of the earth. Last I heard, it is still unknown if Jupiter has a rocky core, so there is plenty of uncertainty in this analysis, so let us assume all the metals combined, throwing away the hydrogen and all noble gases but sweeping up all the Oort cloud, asteroid belt, possible rocky cores of gas giants, small debris, ice, dust, everything else here, makes a rocky core 4 earth radii and 200 earth masses to get us to about 1e27kg. This is very clearly not the best arrangement for maximum computing efficiency under any FERP scenario I can imagine: way too much mass is too hot and under too much pressure to compute. OK so let us imagine the other extreme, where all that E26kg of metal is widely separated into a cloud of the smallest practical unit of computing we can imagine. What is that? John? Is there some kind of 4 bit processor with about 32 bits of memory we could imagine as the lower extreme? I would estimate its mass at 1E-23kg, since we would need at least a few hundred atoms I would think to make such a device, even with the most extreme F in our FERP. In that scenario we get about 1E50 processors in orbit, each small enough to be practically useless. With that many processors we need a lot of space, so our latency hit is enormous, particularly considering that processors that small don?t do much. Therefore they would be heavily dependent on communications with the others. So far still ignoring thermodynamic considerations, we have bounded the problem of making optimal use of the metal and energy available in any star system, ja? Our unit of computing is somewhere between 1E27 and 1E-23kg. Oy, that?s a lot of verbiage for bounding an optimal solution somewhere within 50 orders of magnitude. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 17:30:28 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:30:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 5:07 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > I don't see why this should be a special consideration for digital > computers. In a multiverse, if a bilogical brain instantiating an > experience is repeated a hundred times, is that a hundred instances of the > experience or only one? What about if it is repeated an infinite number of > times? > ### A biological brain does not perfectly retrace computational steps. Even if the behavior of precisely copied biological brains is repeatable for some time, the underlying neural activity will vary within milliseconds of starting the run. So, identity of indiscernibles does not apply to the physical process or to the fine informational structure of the runs. Digital computers however can be run with perfect reproducibility, and the underlying information processing can be completely described by a finite bitstring. So, at least the informational aspect of the physical process of digitized computation can be subject to identity of indiscernibles. -------------------------------------- > If the hundred copies generate the same experience, whether in biological > brains or computers (differing from each other only below a certain > threshold), I would say there is only one experience. If my mind at present > is being implemented on a hundred machines (brains or computers) running in > lockstep, I don't care if all but one of them is shut down, because my > consciousness will continue running on the remaining one. In other words, > if my mind is implemented on one of a hundred machines running in lockstep, > I have no way of knowing which machine it is running on, which machine my > last thought ran on, or which machine my next thought will run on. As long > as at least one machine keeps running, I'm happy; the other machines are > useful only as backups, in case some of them fail. > ### What if you see a hundred copies of somebody you love being tortured? Is it the same as seeing only one being tortured? ------------------------------------- > > Consider what would happen if you replaced a volume of biological neural > tissue with artificial neurons, designed to mimic as closely as possible > its I/O behaviour. Would the brain as a whole continue to behave the same > way? If not, what sort of deficits would you expect? > ### The dancing qualia experiment is very interesting but I don't feel it is applicable to this particular problem. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 17:34:56 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:34:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 10:53 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually > >> exists. If you wish to speculate that something that is never > >> measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you > >> need evidence. > > > > > > ### As David Deutsch wrote, science is about explanations. Observation > and > > measurement supported by theory is how you arrive at explanations. > > Measurements are however not the output of science, explanations are. > > > > I'd like to invite you to speculate about the existence of the inside of > the > > Earth. Have you observed it? Presumably, you haven't. Yet, you do > believe it > > exists, don't you? In the proper theoretical framework, it is the perfect > > explanation for the outside not falling down. > > While I myself have not observed it, others have - indirectly, but > there is nonzero evidence that it exists, and the contrary theory > (that the Earth is hollow) is not the case. > ### What do you mean by "nonzero evidence"? Did somebody go down to the middle of the Earth and check? How is the "indirect" evidence about Earth's center qualitatively different from inference about MWI? > > This is quite distinct from observing beings with soul or free will, > as opposed to observing beings who merely think they have free will. > ### We are talking about MWI here, not religion. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 17:39:29 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:39:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:26 AM, Colin Hales wrote: , I find myself unable to usefully engage your writings. > ### Yes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 12 17:38:46 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:38:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <023d01d2549e$976e7450$c64b5cf0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki ? ---------------------------- One year is too short a time frame for me to take that bet. Give me 35 years, and I would take your bet. ### In thirty five years I will be probably frozen at Alcor?Rafal I could imagine setting up long-term bets where the beneficiary is some organization or something likely to outlive our bio-selves. Plenty of us think of our alma mater, but those guys are in good shape, so why not set up bets, somehow put up the money in something which will decide the winner 35 years from now and pay? How would it be done? Suppose I want to make a long term bet with John Clark or Rafal and since I will likely have perished 35 years hence (perhaps not, but good chance I would by then) I want the winnings to go to Alcor. Is there a way to do that now? How about if both players put up some money now and invest it such that it gets 35 yrs of interest or investment growth? Have we finance gurus among us? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 18:18:51 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:18:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 4:47 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? >> Maybe the aliens aren't expansionist. >> > ? They're expansionist enough to take apart an object the size of Jupiter and use the matter in it to build an energy generating structure around an entire star, but apparently not expansionist enough to go one step further! They must have Nanotechnology so why isn't the entire Galaxy engineered? OK so perhaps the Tabby's star ? ? ET's are just shy weirdos, but if we have really found something like a Dyson Sphere so close to ?the ? Earth just by looking at one very small patch of sky then hundreds of thousands or millions of other civilizations in the Galaxy must have that technology too; is every single one of them also a ?shy ? weirdo? On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:05 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: ?> ? > ### In thirty five years I will be probably frozen at Alcor. > ?Me too. John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 19:08:15 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:08:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Dec 12, 2016 9:38 AM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" wrote: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Adrian Tymes com> wrote: > > While I myself have not observed it, others have - indirectly, but > there is nonzero evidence that it exists, and the contrary theory > (that the Earth is hollow) is not the case. > ### What do you mean by "nonzero evidence"? Did somebody go down to the middle of the Earth and check? No, that would be direct evidence. How is the "indirect" evidence about Earth's center qualitatively different from inference about MWI? Because the alternate explanations to MWI aren't testable. It may seem unlikely that all the other worlds don't exist - but there is nothing observable that definitely would or would not be true if it just so happened that, for whatever reason, only the set of quantum choices that happen in the world we wind up in are the ones that happen. (Remember, it seems just as unlikely - to many people who are not on our email list - that God doesn't exist and won't consign them to eternal damnation and torment - after they die and are thus unable to report results to the living - if they don't do what their local priest says, no matter if that priest preaches things in direct contradiction to the book that priest claims lays out the details of what God wants.) Conversely, if the Earth were hollow, echoes of quakes and sonograms would turn out measurably differently than they have, among other experimental data. The Earth being hollow or not is a testable, and much tested, prediction even without directly visiting the Earth's core. This is quite distinct from observing beings with soul or free will, > as opposed to observing beings who merely think they have free will. > ### We are talking about MWI here, not religion. It's philosophy, perhaps. But it isn't science. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 19:28:19 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:28:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Animal Mathematics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, I'll accept that humans are a bit better at maths. :) BillK Our music is a bit more varied too..... Years ago it was proven that some birds could navigate by the stars. Migrating birds were put into a room where the night sky was projected on the ceiling. The projection was rotated (as a variable) to insure that the birds were going by the stars and not the magnetic field or any east/west north/south dimension. (apparently many animals can detect the magnetic field) bill w On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 10:33 AM, BillK wrote: > On 12 December 2016 at 15:54, spike wrote: > > Humans do not own mathematics, but we are the only species on the planet > > using it. That in itself is astonishing once you think about it. > > > > > Hey! You're maligning other species! :) > > How about ----- > > Bees have chosen the perfect shape for their honeycombs? the hexagon. > Dogs do calculus to fetch / catch a ball. > Many species do complex navigation, salmon, birds, butterflies...... > Beavers build dams > Spiders spin webs > Chimpanzees can count. > > In fact, decades of research have provided evidence for the numerical > abilities of a number of species, including gorillas, rhesus, > capuchin, and squirrel monkeys, lemurs, dolphins, elephants, birds, > salamanders and fish. Recently, researchers from Oakland University in > Michigan added black bears to the list of the numerically skilled. But > the real maths wizards of the animal kingdom are the ants of the > Tunisian desert (Cataglyphis fortis). They count both arithmetic and > geometry as parts of their mathematical toolkit. > > When a desert ant leaves its nest in search of food, it has an > important task: find its way back home. In almost any other part of > the world, the ant can use one of two tricks for finding its way home, > visual landmarks or scent trails. The windswept saltpans of Tunisia > make it impossible to leave a scent trail, though. And the relatively > featureless landscape doesn't provide much in the way of visual > landmarks, other than perhaps the odd rock or weed. So evolution > endowed the desert ant with a secret weapon: geometry. Armed with its > mathematical know-how, the desert ant is able to ?path integrate?. > This means, according to ant navigation researchers Martin Muller and > Rudiger Wehner, that it "is able to continuously compute its present > location from its past trajectory and, as a consequence, to return to > the starting point by choosing the direct route rather than retracing > its outbound trajectory." > > How does this work? These desert ants calculate the distance walked by > counting steps. Researchers discovered this by strapping stilts made > of pig hairs onto the legs of the ants. The ant?s stilts made each > individual step longer than it would have otherwise been, making them > overestimate the distance home. The ants calculate the direction they > walk by calculating the angle of their path relative to the position > of the sun, using the same rules of trigonometry that were taught to > me in the tenth grade. And what?s more, the ants constantly update > their calculations to correct for the sun's march across the sky. All > that in a nervous system comprised of as few as 250,000 neurons > (compared to the approximately 85 billion neurons in the human). > ---------- > > OK, I'll accept that humans are a bit better at maths. :) > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 20:51:44 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:51:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stone Age?/was Re: Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 11, 2016, at 11:26 PM, Colin Hales wrote: > HIDDEN MEME 2: That the word ?metaphysics? has any part to play in this discussion. > > Basically the word metaphysics has been used for 2000 years to create a false position about the scientific accessibility of an underlying reality that gives rise to an observer. It was invented by stone-age thinkers that had no modern physics, neuroscience or computers. > The term 'metaphysics' and the idea of there being a unified body of inquiry going under hat term dates to Aristotle and those collating his work. He and his commentators lived in the Iron Age -- long after the Stone Age.* (That is, if we're going to use these ages as of significance. Why's it relevant here? You're using an alphabet basically created in the Iron Age. Would you impugn it and stop using it because of that?) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst * Of course, the Stone Age didn't end everywhere at the same time, but in Ancient Greece when they were writing books on these topics, it was long over -- in the sense that archeologists and historians use the term. In fact, the intervening Bronze Age had also occurred and been over for hundreds of years in the same area. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 23:03:49 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 18:03:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Dec 12, 2016 13:21, "John Clark" wrote: ? They're expansionist enough to take apart an object the size of Jupiter and use the matter in it to build an energy generating structure around an entire star, but apparently not expansionist enough to go one step further! They must have Nanotechnology so why isn't the entire Galaxy engineered? Why shy? I can think of plenty of reasons why this star is the only one around acting weird: Maybe it's a collider that makes exotic matter but it has a potential to meltdown and destroy the galaxy. Maybe the Intergalactic Counsel only allows one thingy per galaxy. Maybe the *laws of physics* only allow one thingy per galaxy, and two would somehow induce each other's destruction. Maybe it's the door to a giant cloaking device that goes around the whole galaxy and hides activity within. Maybe they are VERY expansionist, but it turns out that, at a certain scale, moving matter is a huge waste, and they 'astral project' their consciousness into dark matter. Maybe dark matter constitutes a dual universe to ours, with different laws, in which our universe appears as dark matter, and that universe allows for different activities, and the thingy is the door to THAT. I disagree with the magnitude of similarity that JKC and Spike propose an alien civilization *must* have to ours in terms of motivations, limitations, &c. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 00:14:05 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 18:14:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, *Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?* No. *Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?* No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Hume bill w On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:39 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:26 AM, Colin Hales wrote: > > , I find myself unable to usefully engage your writings. >> > > ### Yes. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 01:16:46 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 20:16:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > In a multiverse any structure, including a brain, will be duplicated to an > arbitrary level of precision. > ### The argument I build is not designed to rely on MWI. I am asking whether digital zombies are possible, using identity of indiscernibles as a part of the argument. ------------------------------- > Moreover, the Bekenstein bound puts an upper limit on the amount of > information that can be contained in a given volume, so both biological > brains and digital computers can only have a finite number of thoughts. > ### Indeed, this could be an important issue. If our analog brains are in fact just digital brains at higher resolution, then there may not be a binary distinction between them but it could be a continuum. Or there might be no real difference but then we still have the counterintuitive situation of having to treat identical mathematical objects as discernible entities. QM gurus are hereby invited to say more about the dimensionality of the QM state space - does it allow for an infinite number of interactions as time goes to infinity? Does a particle in QM become entangled with an infinity of other particles? Does an analog brain's interaction with the world require infinite amounts of information to be specified as time progresses? I know, you actually have the opposite intuition, treating even physically distinct minds as indiscernible, and you treat multiple similar but physically separate minds as equal in value to a single mind. For me this is a very surprising intuition. ------------------------------- > > Yes, it's the same for them so it's the same for me. If the copies start > to diverge, they will then be different individuals with their own distinct > suffering. > ### If you have twin brothers, is torturing both only as bad as torturing one? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 01:24:56 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:24:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 12, 2016, at 4:14 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Hume Which books on metaphysics have you read? Which would you 'commit' 'to the flames'? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 01:42:32 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 20:42:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <020c01d2549a$48c2abe0$da4803a0$@att.net> References: <01b401d2548f$fda6cfb0$f8f46f10$@att.net> <020c01d2549a$48c2abe0$da4803a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:07 PM, spike wrote: ?> ? > If we gather all the metals available in the system into one big lump, we > end up with a sphere perhaps thrice to five times the diameter of the > earth. Last I heard, it is still unknown if Jupiter has a rocky core, so > there is plenty of uncertainty in this analysis, ?I think the consensus is Jupiter does a rocky core and its between 12 and 45 times earth's mass. ? > ?> ? > so let us assume all the metals combined, throwing away the hydrogen and > all noble gases ?H elium would still be useful, you'd want to keep your brain as cool as possible ? because the minimum energy needed for ?anything? to change one bit of information is kT*ln2 where k is Boltzmann's constant and T is the temperature in degrees kelvin of the object doing the computation. ? I suspect that cooling piped would take up more of the volume of a Jupiter Brain than logic processors and memory chips combined, and Helium would be ideal for that. Helium liquefies at 4.2 K but when it gets below 2.17 K it becomes a super-fluid ?called Helium-2 ?that has zero viscosity, provided that the pipe the helium is flowing through does not have a diameter smaller than 10^-9 meters. ?And Helium-2 is also by far the best conductor of heat known, it conducts heat so fast ( ?over 20 meters a second) ? that there are no hot spots in it and thus no bubbles ? to interfere with the free flow of fluid. If you put a bucked of Helium ?-2? ?on a hot plate? ?all of it would remain at the same temperature so you's see no boiling no bubbles, all the vaporization ?would? takes place at the surface. ? It also occurs to me that if you start to run low on structural materials for your mega-structure you might want to consider ice, it's not nearly as strong as carbon nanotubes but it is made of the first and third most abundant elements in the universe. And if ice is just too weak try pykrete, a mixture of 86% ice and 14% wood pulp that is almost as strong as concrete at cold temperatures; and wood pulp is made primarily of Carbon Oxygen and Hydrogen, the sixth third and most abundant elements in the universe. But all of what I think I know what the guts of a Jupiter Brain would look like could turn into bullshit if Quantum Computing turns out to be the real deal. Google claims that within a year it will be able to demonstrate what they call "quantum supremacy" by making a machine that can do something ?, anything,? that even the largest supercomputer can't do, like factoring very large numbers or doing chemistry without ?a ? test tube by simulating molecular structure from first principles ? . If Google can actually do this it would be, to use the favorite word of a certain orange politician, *HUGE*. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/scientists-are-close-building-quantum-computer-can-beat-conventional-one Interesting quote from the above: ?"*?* *We like to joke that once we have a quantum computer, we're going to use it to design the next quantum computer.* ?"? ?If anyone thinks Google has a chance of really pulling this off you'd better sell your Bitcoins!? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 02:13:11 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 21:13:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 Will Steinberg wrote: ?> ? > Maybe the Intergalactic Counsel only allows one thingy per galaxy. ?Maybe, but there are 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy and Kepler only looked at 145,000 of them, and yet we found it. Boy oh boy are we lucky! . ? ?> ? > Maybe the *laws of physics* only allow one thingy per galaxy, and two > would somehow induce each other's destruction. Maybe. And maybe the ? reason the ? ET's on ? Tabby's star ? are so uncommunicative is that they don't exist. ? John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 03:07:37 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:07:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: spike wrote: > OK assume away all engineering problems: assume fantasy engineering but reality physics. > What does our M-Brain look like now? Mine all look like big diffuse clouds of tiny particles, > where we accept latency in exchange for maximal efficiency in scare matter resources. This is the dominate paradigm from the early 90s, enshrined in Stross's Accelerando. My analysis came to the conclusion that waste heat and latency are such huge problems that people never go off planet, but move into into the deep ocean for cooling. There are all sorts of problems with tiny particles out in space. You can see what happens to them from light pressure in a comet tail. But if you want to muster more matter than a planet, then a solid surface which keeps your computing elements stable with respect to each other seems easier to control and cope with waste heat than a tiny particle. Can we put numbers on this? The structures around Tabby's star are the other end of the scale from tine. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 03:08:13 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:08:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > ?> ? > if the Earth were hollow, echoes of quakes and sonograms would turn out > measurably differently than they have ? Yes, and the theory that the Earth is solid explains all those experimental results, and that theory ?that explains it is? not weird ?at all ? which is nice. But if the quantum world behaved in ways that even a child would say ?it? obviously should then our experimental results would be very different from what they actually are. ? ? Many Worlds is far from the only explanation for the discrepancy between intuition and reality, ??( Copenhagen, Pilot Wave, Transactional etc) but every single one of those explanations is weird. Deciding which explanation is least weird is largely a matter of taste. I just happen to feel that Many Worlds ?,? ?although? very weird ?, is? less weird than the alternatives ?, and Copenhagen is the weirdest of all.? ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 03:07:50 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:07:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: spike wrote: > OK assume away all engineering problems: assume fantasy engineering but reality physics. > What does our M-Brain look like now? Mine all look like big diffuse clouds of tiny particles, > where we accept latency in exchange for maximal efficiency in scare matter resources. This is the dominate paradigm from the early 90s, enshrined in Stross's Accelerando. Best wishes, Keith From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 04:33:34 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 15:33:34 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Rafal wrote: On 13 December 2016 at 12:16, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > I know, you actually have the opposite intuition, treating even physically > distinct minds as indiscernible, and you treat multiple similar but > physically separate minds as equal in value to a single mind. For me this > is a very surprising intuition. -- Stathis Papaioannou Here's another way to look at it. Suppose your brain contained identical parallel circuits A and B, tied together at input and output, which could be switched on and off independently of each other. It would be difficult to do with biological tissue due to chaotic internal processes but more straightforward if you consider a digital implant. Obviously, if you switch A and B off together you will lose all the functionality of the circuitry. But if you switch off either A or B, you will notice no change. Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 07:02:19 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 23:02:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 7:08 PM, John Clark > Deciding which explanation is least weird is largely > a matter of taste. I just happen to feel that Many Worlds > , > although > very weird > , is > less weird than the alternatives > , and Copenhagen is the weirdest of all. While others find MWI to be weirder than the alternatives. Meanwhile, the difference between hollow and solid Earth is not weirdness, but that a hollow Earth would not do what it does. Hollow Earth is not a less-weird but equally valid explanation; it is an invalid explanation. This is the difference between MWI vs. its alternatives, and solid Earth vs. hollow Earth: the latter is testable; the former is not. From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 15:17:35 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:17:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <023d01d2549e$976e7450$c64b5cf0$@att.net> References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <023d01d2549e$976e7450$c64b5cf0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:07 PM, spike wrote: ?> ? > If we gather all the metals available in the system into one big lump, we > end up with a sphere perhaps thrice to five times the diameter of the > earth. Last I heard, it is still unknown if Jupiter has a rocky core, so > there is plenty of uncertainty in this analysis, ?I think the consensus is Jupiter does a rocky core and its between 12 and 45 times earth's mass. ? > ?> ? > so let us assume all the metals combined, throwing away the hydrogen and > all noble gases ?H elium would still be useful, you'd want to keep your brain as cool as possible ? because the minimum energy needed for ?anything? to change one bit of information is kT*ln2 where k is Boltzmann's constant and T is the temperature in degrees kelvin of the object doing the computation. ? I suspect that cooling piped would take up more of the volume of a Jupiter Brain than logic processors and memory chips combined, and Helium would be ideal for that. Helium liquefies at 4.2 K but when it gets below 2.17 K it becomes a super-fluid ?called Helium-2 ?that has zero viscosity, provided that the pipe the helium is flowing through does not have a diameter smaller than 10^-9 meters. ?And Helium-2 is also by far the best conductor of heat known, it conducts heat so fast ( ?over 20 meters a second) ? that there are no hot spots in it and thus no bubbles ? to interfere with the free flow of fluid. If you put a bucked of Helium ?-2? ?on a hot plate? ?all of it would remain at the same temperature so you's see no boiling no bubbles, all the vaporization ?would? takes place at the surface. ? It also occurs to me that if you start to run low on structural materials for your mega-structure you might want to consider ice, it's not nearly as strong as carbon nanotubes but it is made of the first and third most abundant elements in the universe. And if ice is just too weak try pykrete, a mixture of 86% ice and 14% wood pulp that is almost as strong as concrete at cold temperatures; and wood pulp is made primarily of Carbon Oxygen and Hydrogen, the sixth third and most abundant elements in the universe. But all of what I think I know what the guts of a Jupiter Brain would look like could turn into bullshit if Quantum Computing turns out to be the real deal. Google claims that within a year it will be able to demonstrate what they call "quantum supremacy" by making a machine that can do something ?, anything,? that even the largest supercomputer can't do, like factoring very large numbers or doing chemistry without ?a ? test tube by simulating molecular structure from first principles ? . If Google can actually do this it would be, to use the favorite word of a certain orange politician, *HUGE*. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/scientists-are- close-building-quantum-computer-can-beat-conventional-one Interesting quote from the above: ?"*?* *We like to joke that once we have a quantum computer, we're going to use it to design the next quantum computer.* ?"? ?If anyone thinks Google has a chance of really pulling this off you'd better sell your Bitcoins!? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 15:37:55 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 10:37:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?> ? > This is the difference between MWI vs. its alternatives, and solidEarth > vs. hollow Earth: the latter is testable; the former is not. > ?Which alternative explanation for the quantum world's weird behavior is more testable than Many? ?Worlds? I don't know of any. The most popular view, the "shut up and calculate" view, doesn't even try to provide an explanation as to why juggling numbers in a certain way predicts the results of experiments, it just says it does. And it does do so correctly so that will work fine if you're only interested in engineering and just want to use quantum mechanics to make a gadget of some sort, but many don't find it philosophically satisfying including me. I'd like to have some understanding of what's going on and not just understand how to manipulate numbers. John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 16:02:15 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 11:02:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > Because the alternate explanations to MWI aren't testable. It may seem > unlikely that all the other worlds don't exist - but there is nothing > observable that definitely would or would not be true if it just so > happened that, for whatever reason, only the set of quantum choices that > happen in the world we wind up in are the ones that happen. > ### So what is the "whatever reason" you are talking about? "Collapse"? Collapse is not testable. It is not a part of the mathematical structure of QM. Why do you want to add something untestable to a self-consistent mathematical theory that correctly predicts experimental results? You can't add an in principle untestable term to an equation and still call it science. New terms are added to improve fit to observations, e.g. the cosmological constant. You don't add terms because it just feels good. --------------------------------------- > > (Remember, it seems just as unlikely - to many people who are not on our > email list - that God doesn't exist and won't consign them to eternal > damnation and torment - after they die and are thus unable to report > results to the living - if they don't do what their local priest says, no > matter if that priest preaches things in direct contradiction to the book > that priest claims lays out the details of what God wants.) > ### You seem to think that taking math seriously (as in accepting MWI) is actually magical thinking and you compare it to religion? Seriously? After adding an "observer" as a term to a basic physical theory? ------------------------------------ > > Conversely, if the Earth were hollow, echoes of quakes and sonograms would > turn out measurably differently than they have, among other experimental > data. The Earth being hollow or not is a testable, and much tested, > prediction even without directly visiting the Earth's core. > ### Not if there was an appropriately structured interface layer between the hollow core and the mantle. Your belief in Earth's iron core is highly theory-laden and with a different theory you could postulate other structures for the Earth. For every inconsistency between theory and observation you can make up a new term in the theory, and voila, you have your testable predictions. Nothing is testable if you are willing to make up ad hoc explanations for data. Just as with QM - if you strongly believe there can only be one branch of reality, you make up "collapse", and everything is hunky-dory. On the other hand, if you know you don't know, and you take your theory seriously, you accept its predictions as true, without tacking on new terms ("collapse") to make it fit your preconceived notions. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 16:13:11 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 11:13:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?> ? > This is the difference between MWI vs. its alternatives, and solidEarth > vs. hollow Earth: the latter is testable; the former is not. > ?Which alternative explanation for the quantum world's weird behavior is more testable than Many? ?Worlds? I don't know of any. The most popular view, the "shut up and calculate" view, doesn't even try to provide an explanation as to why juggling numbers in a certain way predicts the results of experiments, it just says it does. And it does do so correctly so that will work fine if you're only interested in engineering and just want to use quantum mechanics to make a gadget of some sort, but many don't find it philosophically satisfying including me. I'd like to have some understanding of what's going on and not just understand how to manipulate numbers. John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 13 17:00:59 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:00:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: <6c8149b11cb4d3670a4f27e63c44ec44.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <023d01d2549e$976e7450$c64b5cf0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00e401d25562$7ac989b0$705c9d10$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 7:18 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Tabby's star On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:07 PM, spike > wrote: ?> ?>?If we gather all the metals available in the system into one big lump, we end up with a sphere perhaps thrice to five times the diameter of the earth? ? >?I think the consensus is Jupiter does a rocky core and its between 12 and 45 times earth's mass? John K Clark Ja I heard Saturn might have a core as well. I will settle for anything that gets the total rocky mass to anywhere between 1E26 and 1E27, then pick your favorite order of magnitude. My guess is 27 is the right OoM. Step one in any engineering exercise is the bound the problem. Having all the rocky mass together in one lump is one extreme which trades away everything for proximity: latency is minimized. With that solution, it maximizes heat control problem, since every bit that is flipped way down below the surface needs to have the resulting heat hauled all the way up to the surface and radiated away. We can imagine splitting the mass into two closely-orbiting masses, or ten perhaps and see that in exchange for accepting some additional latency, we get more surface area, more access to cold space for radiating heat, less wasted matter which is under too much pressure to make computing material. It is easy enough to imagine a stable orbit with those ten spheres, or a hundred earth-sized spheres orbiting in a plane evenly spaced 3.6 degrees apart at 1 AU, so latency about 30 seconds between them, about half an hour latency between to two nodes opposite the star assuming relayed transmission. Now we can repeat the thought experiment assuming 1000 rocky masses, each with about a Mercury mass, about 3 seconds latency between two adjacent nodes, 10k masses with about a lunar mass each, and so on. With that thought experiment, it quickly becomes clear that (from my understanding of what computronium would be for) the solution assuming FERP is getting better as we divide the masses by ten and multiply their number by one OoM. We can also clearly see there is a logical endgame: at some point the individual nodes get too small. But starting at one big rocky lump and working down is helpful. Starting at dust-sized particles and moving up is more difficult methinks, but I am listening if someone here has the expertise to start imagining a reasonable scenario starting on that end. spike ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 17:44:19 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 11:44:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: MWI explains how quantum computers can work. The other collapse-theories, cannot. Jason On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 1:02 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 7:08 PM, John Clark > > Deciding which explanation is least weird is largely > > a matter of taste. I just happen to feel that Many Worlds > > , > > although > > very weird > > , is > > less weird than the alternatives > > , and Copenhagen is the weirdest of all. > > While others find MWI to be weirder than the alternatives. > > Meanwhile, the difference between hollow and solid Earth is not > weirdness, but that a hollow Earth would not do what it does. Hollow > Earth is not a less-weird but equally valid explanation; it is an > invalid explanation. > > This is the difference between MWI vs. its alternatives, and solid > Earth vs. hollow Earth: the latter is testable; the former is not. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 18:42:50 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 12:42:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Which books on metaphysics have you read? Which would you 'commit' 'to the flames'? Regards, Dan Well, there's the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and many others that I would not bother. What they believe is none of my business. I do draw some of my morality from them but not because the ideas are written there, as if blessed by some god(s). If I were the world dictator I still would burn no books no matter how far out, fanciful, stupid, silly, totally wrong etc. they were. I would not attempt to judge. Or maybe judge but leave alone. Oh I've read a few, not many, and every time I have to ask just what the HELL they are talking about. Of course there is no reference to any kind of data, and speculation about worldly things without data seems endless, as exemplified by the continuing debates over topics in Plato and Socrates that have no use or value to me or to science. They do keep some philosophers in rent money. Dennett is pretty interesting but at the end there are no conclusions, no facts, only idle speculation - cotton candy. I do love to read about moral theories, but that's about how people act in various experimental manipulations and those yield facts and speculative whys. About otherworldly things I have no interest except for scifi. I try to keep concepts without good experimental references out of my head. Psych is bad enough already with instinct, conscious, mind, intuition and lots more in the clinical area (which is not mine, though I have a degree in it too). (Long ago I was a spoilsport in late night dorm arguments because I asked people to define their terms.) If you can come up with some solid data you can use any concept you want to. If not, then don't bother me. It boils down to this: if by metaphysical you mean beyond the physical, then we cannot communicate, since I don't believe that there is anything. Physical monism. bill w On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 7:24 PM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Dec 12, 2016, at 4:14 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for > instance; let us ask, *Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning > quantity or number?* No. *Does it contain any experimental reasoning > concerning matter of fact and existence?* No. Commit it then to the > flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Hume > > > Which books on metaphysics have you read? Which would you 'commit' 'to the > flames'? > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books via: > http://author.to/DanUst > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 13 22:36:47 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 17:36:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: ?> ? > QM gurus are hereby invited to say more about the dimensionality of the QM > state space - does it allow for an infinite number of interactions as time > goes to infinity? ?I'm a pretty poor guru but I will say as its presently constituted QM says there are only a finite number of states that something can be in, however that may (or may not) be due to the fact that quantum theory doesn't include gravity. As it's presently constituted QM can't say what happens in places smaller than the Planck Length of 1.6*10^-35 meters or what changes during times shorter than the Planck Time of 5.4*10^-43 seconds. Maybe QM can't say what happens when things get that small or time gets that short because there is nothing to say about them because space and time are quantized. Or maybe something does happen but QM doesn't know what is is because QM doesn't include gravity. There is no convincing experimental evidence that space or time is or is not grainy, and until we have a theory of everything it's hard to even make an educated guess. ? ?> ? > I know, you actually have the opposite intuition, treating even physically > distinct minds as indiscernible, and you treat multiple similar but > physically separate minds as equal in value to a single mind. For me this > is a very surprising intuition. ?It wouldn't be surprising if you treated mind as an adjective and not a noun. Mind (an adjective) is what a brain (a noun) does; and I'll bet you think it ?intuitively obvious that 2 different racing cars (nouns) are both fast (an adjective). ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Dec 13 23:37:13 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 15:37:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 4:47 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ?Maybe the aliens aren't expansionist. John Clark wrote: I can think of lots of possible reasons all of which are pure speculation. For the record, I estimate the liklihood of aliens around Tabby's star to be only around 5%. That being said, it is important to realize that an absense of evidence is NOT evidence of absense. Unless you are in the vicinity of a black hole, there are more possible futures than there are possible pasts. Granted we listened for primitive radio signals and found none. If you have been following the discussion, then that makes sense. A significant constraint on Dyson-level technology is latency. If I have a latency problem, I would try to compensate for it by using the highest possible bandwidth. Bandwidth is a function of frequency. That's the whole reason that the Internet is built on optical cables instead of radio towers. Have we been looking for visible light or shorter wavelength signals from the star? If my subjective time was CPU speed, I would go crazy trying communicate at MHz bandwidths. It would be like talking rrreeeaaaallllllyyyyyy ssssslllllloooowwwwwwllllllyyyyy. John Clark If Earth can exist, then we probably live in a galactic neighborhood that is hospitable to life. This makes it more likely that aliens would be "close". Also we only observe one technogical civilization. That makes it more likely that there are only two such civilizations rather than "millions". We have observed the star dimming overall by 20% in the last century, but it is 1277 LY away. Which means that if it is a civilization, we are watching its history and not its present. For all we know, it may have already spread to nearby stars and we would not know it for over a millenium. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Wed Dec 14 00:09:16 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 16:09:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel Message-ID: Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: ? John Clark wrote: ? On the contrary, Fermilab found pretty convincing evidence for the existence of a space-time continuum rather than pixelated space-time. They found no pixelation down to 10^-48 meters. That's 13 orders of magnitude *smaller* than the Plank length. That's pretty convincing to me. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/06/137634397/physicists-almost-certain-the-universe-is-not-a-hologram Quote: ----------------------- By examining the polarisation of gamma-ray bursts as they reach Earth, we should be able to detect this graininess, as the polarisation of the photons that arrive here is affected by the spacetime that they travel through. The grains should twist them, changing the direction in which they oscillate so that they arrive with the same polarization. Also, higher energy gamma rays should be twisted more than lower ones. However, the satellite detected no such twisting ? there were no differences in the polarization between different energies found to the accuracy limits of the data, which are 10,000 times better than any previous readings. That means that any quantum grains that exist would have to measure 10^-48 meters or smaller. ---------------------------- Stuart LaForge ? From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 01:40:24 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 20:40:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tabby's star In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 6:37 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > ?> ? > an > ? > absense of evidence is NOT evidence of absense. ?I think ? Carl Sagan ? was great and it is catchy but that really wasn't one of his better quotes.? > ?> ? > Have we been looking for visible light or shorter wavelength signals from > the star? ?O? f course ?,? and they found just what the did in the radio spectrum, nothing. ? ?> ? > If Earth can exist, then we probably live in a galactic neighborhood that > is hospitable to life. ?There? ?is nothing special about our neighborhood, except for a few hundred light years at its very center most of the Galaxy would be as hospitable to life as it is around here. > ?> ? > This makes it more likely that aliens would be > ? > "close". Forger the Galaxy, if there is only one technological civilization ?in the entire Universe you can be certain that one civilization is very very close to you right now. > Also we only observe one technogical civilization. That makes it > more likely that there are only two such civilizations rather than > "millions". > ?We only observed 145,000 stars out of 100,000,000,000 in the Galaxy!? ?> ? > We have observed the star dimming overall by 20% in the last century, but > it is 1277 LY away. Which means that if it is a civilization, we are > watching its history and not its present. For all we know, it may have > already spread to nearby stars and we would not know it for over a > millenium. > ?1277 years is nothing, the Universe is 13,800,000,000 years old. And what about the hundreds of billion of other galaxies we can observe? We know that the Tabby's star ETs like energy a lot because they went to a lot of trouble to capture some, but if energy is so valuable why do the ETs in other Galaxies let all the energy from billions of suns in their Galaxy radiate uselessly into empty space? If ET existed the night shy should look very different from what we see, there should be a Dyson Sphere around every star; no sun should emit visible light, or ultraviolet, or X ray or gamma rays; suns should only emit microwaves and maybe a little far infrared. But that's not what we see. So why doesn't the universe, or at least the galaxy, look like its been engineered? Either ET does not exist or he does but he's a lotus eater. And a lotus eater wouldn't build something around Tabby's star. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Dec 14 02:17:37 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:17:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Megastructure engineering was Re: Tabby's star Message-ID: <39277ee68191b711ab42ef16fa9ee32f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Spike wrote: Yes, Spike, I totally agree. I have been doing calculations to bound the latency issue to help with your project here. Figured out some really cool stuff along the way. Ok so it turns out that there is a lower bound on latency. It is called the Bremermann's Limit. Let's call it B for now. B=c^2/h ~ 1.36E50 bits/kg*sec. It is the maximum possible update rate for a computer memory or in other words the fastest that a collection of bits can change. So B could be considered to be the partial derivative of information (I) with respect to mass (m) and time (t) i.e. B:=dI/dm*dt Integrating by dm and dt gives us: I=B*m*t Now recall from our discussion earlier that the Bekenstein Bound is maximum amount of information (I) that you can stuff into a given amount of radial space (r) . I=K*m*r with K=4*pi^2*c/(h*ln2) Notice we have two expressions for I right now, one dependent on time and the other dependent on space. Let's call one Is and the other It. Setting one I equal to the other I gives us: Is=It or K*m*r=B*m*t. Canceling the mass gives us an expression for the oh let's call it the specific information (I') or bits per unit mass: I':=K*r=B*t. Notice that we can rearrange this equation to give us a radial velocity(v) and it's a constant! v=r/t=B/K Filling in B and K gives us: v=c*ln2/(4*pi^2) or .017558*c which is approximately 5.26364E6 meters per second. Notice this is susbtantially slower than light speed. This has pretty big consequences for network theory. It means that in a 100% optimized network of 100% optimized computers, information changes will propagate faster between nodes than within them. Stuart LaForge There is a maximum radial velocity for the information update within a computer and it's *slower* than light! So let's call the all-the mass-in-one-lump scenario monolithic and the opoosite extreme "dispersive". From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 02:32:44 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 21:32:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?? > ?> ? > On the contrary, Fermilab found pretty convincing evidence for the > existence of a space-time continuum rather than pixelated space-time. They > found no pixelation down to 10^-48 meters. That's 13 orders of magnitude > *smaller* than the Plank length. ?I'm aware of that, I even sent a post to the list about it back in 2011. ? Those results did rule out some older ?ideas about ? quantum gravity that predicted granularity of space, but ?because of certain assumptions made ? it didn't rule out the most popular ideas in String Theory or it's main ?competitor ?Loop Quantum Gravity that said space was quantized at the Plank length. And that was true even 5 years ago when the study was made, even the author of the study, ? Philippe Laurent ?, admits this. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Dec 14 02:27:20 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:27:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Megastructure engineering was Re: Tabby's star In-Reply-To: <39277ee68191b711ab42ef16fa9ee32f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <39277ee68191b711ab42ef16fa9ee32f.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <022101d255b1$98d5da90$ca818fb0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 6:18 PM To: Exi Chat Subject: [ExI] Megastructure engineering was Re: Tabby's star Spike wrote: >... >...Yes, Spike, I totally agree. I have been doing calculations to bound the latency issue to help with your project here. Figured out some really cool stuff along the way. ... Stuart LaForge >...There is a maximum radial velocity for the information update within a computer and it's *slower* than light! >...So let's call the all-the mass-in-one-lump scenario monolithic and the opoosite extreme "dispersive". _______________________________________________ Oh this is cool. Stuart, well done, me lad! spike From atymes at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 05:40:25 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 21:40:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 8:02 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> Because the alternate explanations to MWI aren't testable. It may seem >> unlikely that all the other worlds don't exist - but there is nothing >> observable that definitely would or would not be true if it just so happened >> that, for whatever reason, only the set of quantum choices that happen in >> the world we wind up in are the ones that happen. > > > ### So what is the "whatever reason" you are talking about? On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 7:37 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> This is the difference between MWI vs. its alternatives, and solidEarth >> vs. hollow Earth: the latter is testable; the former is not. > > Which alternative explanation for the quantum world's weird behavior is more > testable than Many > > Worlds? I don't know of any. Okay, are you guys just trolling me now? Those are asinine objections. "For whatever reason" means "I'm not specifying a specific reason here". Given that, I fail to see how, outside of willful ignorance, you could conclude that I am specifying a specific reason that can be talked about. When I say MWI and its alternatives are not testable (as opposed to the difference between solid Earth and hollow Earth, which is testable), I mean that MWI and its alternatives are not testable, not that I propose some alternative to MWI that is testable. You are giving me the strong impression that you refuse to engage in honest debate. We are talking about very nuanced topics here, so if you're just going to assume that I mean something other than the plain meaning of my words, there's no point in continuing. > ### You seem to think that taking math seriously (as in accepting MWI) I say that MWI does not appear to be "taking math seriously". I have yet to see any mathematical proof of MWI. (Which is not to say that one can't take math seriously and also believe MWI, just that these appear to be distinct.) > ### Not if there was an appropriately structured interface layer between the > hollow core and the mantle. Such an interface layer would need matter densities roughly that of a black hole, and as such would be a black hole and suck in the rest of the Earth. It has been directly observed that the outermost layer of the Earth (which would have been sucked in after the rest was) is not a black hole, so that theory seems to be disproven. From atymes at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 05:54:05 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 21:54:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 9:44 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > MWI explains how quantum computers can work. The other collapse-theories, > cannot. This at least acknowledges the objection that I raised, for which I thank you. I grant, and I think you do as well, that there exist quantum computers, with directly observed patterns of input and output, and time taken to do said processing that is shorter than a normal computer. I believe we can further agree that this rules out some of the alternatives to MWI. However, to my knowledge, there exist other alternate theories that can explain this just as well as MWI, which leaves a group of theories including MWI which quantum computers can not distinguish between. This alternate specifically includes that, rather than us landing in one of the multiple co-existing resulting worlds as in MWI, only one such world exists, even if the determinant of which one (e.g., exactly when a given atom decays) is random, similar to MWI's selector of all the prior events that resulted in our present world. (In other words, the reason why a given coin flip went one way or the other, once that flip has already happened and we are looking at a past event, is roughly the same in MWI as in single-world, the only difference being that those other worlds in which the coin flipped the other way or landed on edge - which are undetectable in MWI - don't actually exist.) The distinction may rest on whether the alternatives that I am aware of, you define as "collapse theories" or some other kind of theories (that, while not "collapse theories", are still alternatives to MWI). So, might I ask you to explain how the alternative theories can not explain the observed behavior of quantum computers? From atymes at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 06:03:23 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:03:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Teaching kids philosophy improves their math and literacy scores In-Reply-To: <4395B216-DB23-4260-8E9C-A6247C81F775@gmail.com> References: <4395B216-DB23-4260-8E9C-A6247C81F775@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 6:01 AM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/EEF_Project_Report_PhilosophyForChildren.pdf > > Go to page 10 for what they mean by teaching philosophy. (Note: It is not > memorizing the works of Adler.;) I tried getting at this today, and it 404ed. (I know, my fault for thinking it'd be there a month later...) From pharos at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 08:52:43 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 08:52:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Teaching kids philosophy improves their math and literacy scores In-Reply-To: References: <4395B216-DB23-4260-8E9C-A6247C81F775@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 14 December 2016 at 06:03, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 6:01 AM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/EEF_Project_Report_PhilosophyForChildren.pdf >> >> Go to page 10 for what they mean by teaching philosophy. (Note: It is not >> memorizing the works of Adler.;) > > I tried getting at this today, and it 404ed. (I know, my fault for > thinking it'd be there a month later...) > _______________________________________________ > Try: BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 11:33:27 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:33:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks Message-ID: Code for Everyone Computational thinking needs to be an integral part of modern education?and today I?m excited to be able to launch another contribution to this goal: Wolfram|Alpha Open Code. Every day, millions of students around the world use Wolfram|Alpha to compute answers. With Wolfram|Alpha Open Code they?ll now not just be able to get answers, but also be able to get code that lets them explore further and immediately apply computational thinking. Looks impressive. My trial seemed to be free, with a computation time limit. You can buy a Pro version if you want unlimited time. BillK From jasonresch at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 13:25:40 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 07:25:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 11:54 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 9:44 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > MWI explains how quantum computers can work. The other collapse-theories, > > cannot. > > This at least acknowledges the objection that I raised, for which I thank > you. > > I grant, and I think you do as well, that there exist quantum > computers, with directly observed patterns of input and output, and > time taken to do said processing that is shorter than a normal > computer. I believe we can further agree that this rules out some of > the alternatives to MWI. > Correct, I would say it definitively rules out the alternatives that deny a reality to the wave function. > > However, to my knowledge, there exist other alternate theories that > can explain this just as well as MWI, which leaves a group of theories > including MWI which quantum computers can not distinguish between. > This alternate specifically includes that, rather than us landing in > one of the multiple co-existing resulting worlds as in MWI, only one > such world exists, even if the determinant of which one (e.g., exactly > when a given atom decays) is random, similar to MWI's selector of all > the prior events that resulted in our present world. (In other words, > the reason why a given coin flip went one way or the other, once that > flip has already happened and we are looking at a past event, is > roughly the same in MWI as in single-world, the only difference being > that those other worlds in which the coin flipped the other way or > landed on edge - which are undetectable in MWI - don't actually > exist.) > Given that the existence of quantum computers (I actually got to see one in person a few days ago) asserts the reality of the wave function, the next step to get to MWI is to imagine a future quantum computer that can run a brain emulation. Now we ask, "How many worlds does this simulated mind experience, as the wave function explores all possibilities (before it collapses from our vantage point)?" The answer can't possibly be 1, for we know the wave function is real, and it is in a superposition of many states. You could perhaps argue 0, if you reject the computational theory of mind. Otherwise, I think you must conclude "many". Jason > The distinction may rest on whether the alternatives that I am aware > of, you define as "collapse theories" or some other kind of theories > (that, while not "collapse theories", are still alternatives to MWI). > > So, might I ask you to explain how the alternative theories can not > explain the observed behavior of quantum computers? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 15:15:17 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 10:15:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: ?> ? > QM gurus are hereby invited to say more about the dimensionality of the QM > state space - does it allow for an infinite number of interactions as time > goes to infinity? ?I'm a pretty poor guru but I will say as its presently constituted QM says there are only a finite number of states that something can be in, however that may (or may not) be due to the fact that quantum theory doesn't include gravity. As it's presently constituted QM can't say what happens in places smaller than the Planck Length of 1.6*10^-35 meters or what changes during times shorter than the Planck Time of 5.4*10^-43 seconds. Maybe QM can't say what happens when things get that small or time gets that short because there is nothing to say about them because space and time are quantized. Or maybe something does happen but QM doesn't know what is is because QM doesn't include gravity. There is no convincing experimental evidence that space or time is or is not grainy, and until we have a theory of everything it's hard to even make an educated guess. ? ?> ? > I know, you actually have the opposite intuition, treating even physically > distinct minds as indiscernible, and you treat multiple similar but > physically separate minds as equal in value to a single mind. For me this > is a very surprising intuition. ?It wouldn't be surprising if you treated mind as an adjective and not a noun. Mind (an adjective) is what a brain (a noun) does; and I'll bet you think it ?intuitively obvious that 2 different racing cars (nouns) are both fast (an adjective). And in addition to the question asked in the title of this thread I'd like to ask another, "Do human beings other than me feel?". ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 17:43:22 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:43:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Do human beings other than me feel?". ? John K Clark? Ah yes, the solipsism question arises. The answer, I think, is that you cannot know for sure that others are not puppets or even alive in the sense that you are, so you have to infer. You infer from emotional expressions that are universal (lists of those on web). A grin (not a fake smile, which is detectable) is universally known and accepted as depicting a certain feeling. Other expressions, including body language, for pain, fear and so on are observable data you can infer from rather reliably. But what about all those sex scenes on soap operas? Can these be acted out and not experienced? Yes, but...... It turns out that 'fake it till you make it' has real meaning in the area of emotions. Smiling really does make you happier. Listening to jokes with a pencil held in your teeth prevents smiling and thus prevents some enjoyment that occurs without the pencil (from journal studies). Take that you AI people. If you want an AI to experience feelings, you'll have to provide them a body that reacts the way we do with all the feedback mechanisms from body to brain we have. It's just not enough to mimic the brain activity. Take out part of the loop and you deaden the emotion. (Yes, that applies to botox injections.) To all those mechanists who thought that thinking was just subvocal speech, you could temporarily paralyze the speech centers and see if they could still think. bill w On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 9:15 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > ?> ? >> QM gurus are hereby invited to say more about the dimensionality of the >> QM state space - does it allow for an infinite number of interactions as >> time goes to infinity? > > > ?I'm a pretty poor guru but I will say as its presently constituted QM > says there are only a finite number of states that something can be in, > however that may (or may not) be due to the fact that quantum theory > doesn't include gravity. As it's presently constituted QM can't say what > happens in places smaller than the Planck Length of 1.6*10^-35 meters or > what changes during times shorter than the Planck Time of 5.4*10^-43 > seconds. Maybe QM can't say what happens when things get that small or time > gets that short because there is nothing to say about them because space > and time are quantized. Or maybe something does happen but QM doesn't know > what is is because QM doesn't include gravity. There is no convincing > experimental evidence that space or time is or is not grainy, and until we > have a theory of everything it's hard to even make an educated guess. ? > > > ?> ? >> I know, you actually have the opposite intuition, treating even >> physically distinct minds as indiscernible, and you treat multiple similar >> but physically separate minds as equal in value to a single mind. For me >> this is a very surprising intuition. > > > ?It wouldn't be surprising if you treated mind as an adjective and not a > noun. Mind (an adjective) is what a brain (a noun) does; and I'll bet you > think it ?intuitively obvious that 2 different racing cars (nouns) are > both fast (an adjective). > > And in addition to the question asked in the title of this thread I'd like > to ask another, "Do human beings other than me feel?". > > > ? John K Clark? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 18:12:26 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 12:12:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Teaching kids philosophy improves their math and literacy scores In-Reply-To: References: <4395B216-DB23-4260-8E9C-A6247C81F775@gmail.com> Message-ID: Try: I bought Matthew Lipman's book on Abebooks (man who designed this program). Also availble on Amazonsmile. Will let you know about. bill w On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 2:52 AM, BillK wrote: > On 14 December 2016 at 06:03, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 6:01 AM, Dan TheBookMan > wrote: > >> https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/ > EEF_Project_Report_PhilosophyForChildren.pdf > >> > >> Go to page 10 for what they mean by teaching philosophy. (Note: It is > not > >> memorizing the works of Adler.;) > > > > I tried getting at this today, and it 404ed. (I know, my fault for > > thinking it'd be there a month later...) > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Try: > Publications/Campaigns/Evaluation_Reports/EEF_Project_Report_ > PhilosophyForChildren.pdf> > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 18:16:36 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 12:16:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] math education In-Reply-To: <030301d25168$a5605c10$f0211430$@att.net> References: <030301d25168$a5605c10$f0211430$@att.net> Message-ID: What I am looking for is that readiness of the child's mind for different types of math. Spike, what did your son think about moving from arithmetic to algebra, assuming that he did that? Educators talk about 'reading readiness'. Is there a 'math readiness'? A problem in psychology is that we have no really valid aptitude tests; that is, a test that tells us when a person is ready to start achieving something. So we have achievement tests that are valid, but no way to tell if someone is ready to achieve something without just starting them on it and seeing. The best we can do is IQ tests. What needs to be done is to start some kids on arithmetic, some on algebra (any other suggestions?) and then switch them to the other after learning the first one to some degree. That way we could judge which transition is harder. Lots of other variables you could throw in here, such as age started math; results of achievement tests in other subjects, and so on. Most of you have no more expertise in math education than I do, but maybe remember how hard some new kind of math was for you. More later. bill w On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:35 AM, spike wrote: > > > BillW, > > > > I need to scamper, but I want to leave you with a thought for when we can > discuss it in the near future. > > > > Picture in your mind what you asked below. Picture how you were taught > math, successfully or otherwise. Were there any computers in the picture? > Were there any choices in how to do the curriculum? Were there an array of > books from which to choose? Or was there one young lady up front drawing > on a chalkboard with about 25 to 30 kids out there, all from very different > backgrounds and ability levels? > > > > I suspect one teacher, many students, no choices of curriculum. Work thru > the book, ja? > > > > OK now, my highly esteemed psychologist friend who understands things: > what if a class of 30 children had 30 choices of how to learn math, and > what if the students were to experiment and find what works best for them? > What if the curriculum was completely adaptive, and completely open-ended. > Oooohhh wouldn?t that be cool? Wouldn?t that be a dream? > > > > We are standing on the threshold of a dream. Some students have crossed > it already. My son finished Khan Academy?s differential calculus course > yesterday. He and I were racing on the exercises. He was winning about a > third of the matches and his accuracy was comparable to mine. He is not > yet halfway through fifth grade. > > > > Meanwhile, the standard curriculum is available to the students on their > classroom computers (they each have one.) My son hacked into the 12th > grade standard curriculum for math, took several of the tests, got perfect > scores on all of them and found them to be child?s play. Ignoring for the > moment that this would be perhaps appropriate considering that he is in the > literal sense of the word a ?child? the entire exercise tells us something > important. > > > > I don?t know what to do. Open and welcome any and all suggestions or > counsel. > > > > More later, gotta scoot. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Sent:* Thursday, December 08, 2016 7:22 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* [ExI] math education > > > > About which I know nothing. But - I read awhile back that the New Math > was a disaster. That was long ago, but are they still teaching that? > > > > Then I read that kids should not start with arithmetic, way too hard, but > with algebra - or something along that line. > > > > Now you may know math but little about math education, but I am asking > anyway - just how should math be taught, and when? > > > > When I went to college, psychology could not be taken by a freshman. As a > psychologist I can tell you that there are some parts of it that can be > taught to kids in kindergarten - and should be. Maybe math shares some of > that thinking. > > > > bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 19:05:58 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 12:05:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> > > On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 5:26 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > > wrote: > > I find it difficult to think that a single mathematical object can > experience qualia every time it is examined with the use of a > digital computer. > If you think about what are the physical mechanics in our brain that compose an "experience of qualia", it helps to break it down to a slightly more fundamental level than this. Take, for example, the qualitative nature of elemental redness. To "experience" this, there must be something in the brain that has this quality, which is the redness knowledge we experience. This quality is bound by our brain with other bits of knowledge, some of it qualitative, some of it not, like the additional knowledge of you, having the experience of this redness. The brain produces and binds what it is that has all these diverse qualities together to make up or paint our conscious experience or knowledge of the world. So the qualitative nature or to be more specific, the elemental redness quality is the only important thing to consider in this so called "hard" problem. Everything else is, as Chalmers would say, part of the easy problem. What is it, in our brain, that has this redness quality that can be the qualitative part of our experience of it? Note, that an abstracted word like "red", though it can represent it, does not have a redness quality. One possibility is that the neurotransmitter like glutamate, chemically reacting in a synapse, is what does have this physical redness quality we can experience. A quality like redness, we can experience, must have detectable physical behavior. It could be that glutamate, chemically reacting in the synapse, is what is this redness quality behavior. Currently, even though we know everything about the causes and effects of the chemistry going on in that chemical reaction in the synapse, all this knowledge of its behavior is represented by abstracted information that, like the word red, does not have the same quality. So this causal information could be representing what it is, that is the physical causal properties of redness, but we just don't know how to qualitatively interpret this abstracted knowledge of this physical redness behavior. So, until you know how to qualitatively interpret the abstracted knowledge of everything about the chemistry or physics of redness, you can't know how to qualitatively interpret this abstracted knowledge representing the causal information. We are currently blind to any phenomenal qualities of the chemistry or whatever, in our brain, simply because we don't know how to qualitatively interpreted the abstracted knowledge we receive from our detectors. This is similar to the way Frank Jackson's Mary, the brilliant scientist, can know everything about red, but just not know how to qualitatively interpret all her abstracted knowledge that is only abstractly representing everything about the behavior of redness. The only way for her to know what the abstracted word red qualitatively represents, is for her to walk out of the black and white room, and for the first time, experience physical redness, for herself. Then she can say both that she knows everything about the physical behavior of redness, and she knows how to qualitatively interpret that abstracted knowledge about it, which itself, does not have the redness quality. On 12/14/2016 8:15 AM, John Clark wrote: > > And in addition to the question asked in the title of this thread I'd > like to ask another, "Do human beings other than me feel?". > Yes, as long as you know what it is in your head that has each of the phenomenal qualities that make up all your "feelings", you can "eff the ineffable" and discover, at least on an elemental level, how others feelings compare to your own. For more info on why we are normally blind to qualia in other's minds, and how to "eff the ineffable" in the various week, stronger and strongest forms, see this 15 minute YouTube talk on "Detecting Qualia": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4 Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 22:32:38 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:32:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > Take that you AI people. If you want an AI to experience feelings, you'll > have to provide them a body that reacts the way we do with all the feedback > mechanisms from body to brain we have. > ? Even if ? that's true (and I'm not saying it is) can you think of a reason a virtual body made of ones and zeros wouldn't work as well as a matter body made of protons neutrons and electrons? I can't. Can you think of a reason artificial emotionality would be harder to achieve than artificial intelligence? I can't ? and neither did Evolution. Animals have behaved emotionally for over half a billion years but nature only figured out how to make them really smart about a million years ago. ?Emotion is easy intelligence is hard. ? > > ?> ? > It's just not enough to mimic the brain activity. ?What exactly is the difference between ?brain activity and mimicry of brain activity? How could the two be differentiated subjectively? ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From drxyzzy at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 21:43:57 2016 From: drxyzzy at gmail.com (Hal Snyder) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 15:43:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On a related note, it might be appropriate to mention SageMathCloud https://cloud.sagemath.com as a resource for math & science enthusiasts. I used it for a couple years while taking physics and data science classes from Coursera and edX, and liked it enough that I've been donating my time to the project for the past 7 months. SMC lets you do computing and higher math, including symbolic expressions and units of measure, all from a web browser. It is fully open source, sources on GitHub There are free logins as well as subscription accounts that pay for hosting and ongoing development. Hal Snyder, M.D. On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:33 AM, BillK wrote: > Code for Everyone > > Computational thinking needs to be an integral part of modern > education?and today I?m excited to be able to launch another > contribution to this goal: Wolfram|Alpha Open Code. > > Every day, millions of students around the world use Wolfram|Alpha to > compute answers. With Wolfram|Alpha Open Code they?ll now not just be > able to get answers, but also be able to get code that lets them > explore further and immediately apply computational thinking. > > > > > > Looks impressive. My trial seemed to be free, with a computation time > limit. > You can buy a Pro version if you want unlimited time. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Dec 14 22:41:13 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 14:41:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004901d2565b$7c034f10$7409ed30$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Hal Snyder Subject: Re: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks >?On a related note, it might be appropriate to mention SageMathCloud https://cloud.sagemath.com as a resource for math & science enthusiasts. ? Hal Snyder, M.D. Welcome Hal. Do feel free to tell us something about Hal, or not if you prefer. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 14 22:57:55 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:57:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 2:05 PM, Brent Allsop >> ?>> ? >> "Do human beings other than me feel?". > > > ?> ? > Yes, > ?Well it's no big surprise that other human being say they feel, but I want to know if they really do.? > ?> ? > you can "eff the ineffable" and discover, at least on an elemental level, > how others feelings compare to your own. > ?OK fine, I eff that digital computers feel but human beings don't, except of course for me. Can you prove that my effing ability is inferior to your effing ability?? ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 15 01:30:41 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:30:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? Message-ID: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> When California made its ruling on self-driving cars, it was very controversial because of what wasn't said in the bill. It was designed for self-drivers with steering wheels and brake pedals, so the human could theoretically intervene in case the car started to do something stupid. The law requires a human to be behind the wheel. If there is an accident, it isn't quite clear who is liable, which is what made that law controversial. OK so Uber bought a fleet of these things and started sending them to pick up passengers for hire in San Francisco. This brings up a list of interesting questions. It isn't clear exactly, but as I interpret the news reports, Uber directs a self-driver with an actual human behind the wheel to pick up the passenger. The operator perhaps needs no special skills, such as how to drive, since the car does that task. Is this a fun time to be living, or what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 03:51:31 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 20:51:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> Message-ID: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> On 12/14/2016 3:57 PM, John Clark wrote: > I eff that digital computers feel but human beings don't, except of > course for me. > ? > Hi John, Let me ask you what you think I mean when I talk about a "redness quality"? And would you agree that something in our brain has this quality when we experience it? And would you also agree that an abstracted work like "red" does not have this quality? Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 07:03:46 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 23:03:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? In-Reply-To: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> References: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:30 PM, spike wrote: > OK so Uber bought a fleet of these things and started sending them to pick > up passengers for hire in San Francisco. This brings up a list of > interesting questions. It isn?t clear exactly, but as I interpret the news > reports, Uber directs a self-driver with an actual human behind the wheel to > pick up the passenger. The operator perhaps needs no special skills, such > as how to drive, since the car does that task. Uber claims the humans were all engineers who knew how to drive. The DMV claims it specifically told Uber "no" in advance, and has evidence to back it up. Yet again, Uber's true competitive advantage is shown to be a willingness to flout the law and try to get away with it. From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 07:27:03 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 23:27:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:25 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > Given that the existence of quantum computers (I actually got to see one in > person a few days ago) asserts the reality of the wave function, the next > step to get to MWI is to imagine a future quantum computer that can run a > brain emulation. One might view the human brain as a kind of quantum computer, in this sense. If so, we can use our own experience as a guide. (This also gives us a limit on what that brain emulation can experience, quantum-wise: if we can't experience it - either on our own, or with the aid of technology that is at least theoretically possible - there's no reason to assume an emulated brain could either.) > Now we ask, "How many worlds does this simulated mind > experience, as the wave function explores all possibilities (before it > collapses from our vantage point)?" The answer can't possibly be 1, for we > know the wave function is real, and it is in a superposition of many states. > You could perhaps argue 0, if you reject the computational theory of mind. > Otherwise, I think you must conclude "many". I can experience many simulated worlds myself. Not one hour ago, I was experiencing one that is not our world, via a computer game. That doesn't mean the alternate worlds actually exist (though that supposition has inspired many a tale), just that I can conceive of and think through them. There is also the question of how quantum computers work. As I understand it, they are fed a problem for which there are many possible solutions, all of which could in theory be evaluated by traditional computers in parallel - if you had enough processors. Only one solution is correct, though, and that solution gets weighted positively while the others are weighted negatively. You run this weighting repeatedly - annealing - until the odds of the quantum state representing the single correct solution is very high. But we already have that, kind of, in fluid dynamics. Present a fluid (say, a gallon of water) with a board through which it can only go at one point in one shape, then press the fluid into the board. Even if the fluid is somehow sentient enough to have experiences, it does not experience going through at any other point. But it certainly presses against all the other points on the board at the same time. From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 08:04:24 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 02:04:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:27 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:25 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > Given that the existence of quantum computers (I actually got to see one > in > > person a few days ago) asserts the reality of the wave function, the next > > step to get to MWI is to imagine a future quantum computer that can run a > > brain emulation. > > One might view the human brain as a kind of quantum computer, in this > sense. If so, we can use our own experience as a guide. (This also > gives us a limit on what that brain emulation can experience, > quantum-wise: if we can't experience it - either on our own, or with > the aid of technology that is at least theoretically possible - > there's no reason to assume an emulated brain could either.) > According to MWI we are already in such an experiment. The difficulty is we can't prove there is no collapse from our vantage point. Running an execution of some program on a quantum computer necessitates that there is no collapse from your point of view. If we run a brain simulation and we know there is no collapse, then we know some, possibly exponentially growing, number of divergent emulations of that mind were instantiated in that superposition. > > > Now we ask, "How many worlds does this simulated mind > > experience, as the wave function explores all possibilities (before it > > collapses from our vantage point)?" The answer can't possibly be 1, for > we > > know the wave function is real, and it is in a superposition of many > states. > > You could perhaps argue 0, if you reject the computational theory of > mind. > > Otherwise, I think you must conclude "many". > > I can experience many simulated worlds myself. Not one hour ago, I > was experiencing one that is not our world, via a computer game. That > doesn't mean the alternate worlds actually exist (though that > supposition has inspired many a tale), just that I can conceive of and > think through them. > > There is also the question of how quantum computers work. As I > understand it, they are fed a problem for which there are many > possible solutions, all of which could in theory be evaluated by > traditional computers in parallel - if you had enough processors. > Only one solution is correct, though, and that solution gets weighted > positively while the others are weighted negatively. You run this > weighting repeatedly - annealing - until the odds of the quantum state > representing the single correct solution is very high. > > But we already have that, kind of, in fluid dynamics. Present a fluid > (say, a gallon of water) with a board through which it can only go at > one point in one shape, then press the fluid into the board. Even if > the fluid is somehow sentient enough to have experiences, it does not > experience going through at any other point. But it certainly presses > against all the other points on the board at the same time. The difference between quantum computers and fluid dynamics, is that some large enough problem in fluid dynamics, using this method, will eventually break down as the finite limited number of atoms leads to the fluid becoming discrete atoms/molecules, and this limit is pretty tightly constrained based on the some 10^80 number of atoms in this universe. Quantum computers, using qubits, can for example, factor the product of any two prime numbers so long as the quantum computer has at least twice as many qubits as it takes to represent the number being factored. So a number that is 10,000 bits long could be factored by a quantum computer with 20,000 qubits. However, this quantum computer, which could fit on your tabletop, is effectively exploring 2^10,000 possibilities, more possibilities by far than atoms in the observable universe, and it does so near instantaneously. A classical computer, on the other hand, even if it were so big it used all the atoms in the observable universe and it ran until the heat death of the universe, would likely never find the answer. This is why fact that quantum computers can be built so strongly suggests the existence/reality/and effective causality of vast unseen resources present throughout the (now assuredly very real) wave function. We may not be able to observe other branches of the wave function directly, but their shadows make their presence known to us. Once one accepts the reality of the wave function, all that is required to get to many worlds is to assume yourself as Wigner's Friend (in the thought experiment). Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 08:43:10 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:43:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > The difficulty is we > can't prove there is no collapse from our vantage point. Running an > execution of some program on a quantum computer necessitates that there is > no collapse from your point of view. If we run a brain simulation and we > know there is no collapse, then we know some, possibly exponentially > growing, number of divergent emulations of that mind were instantiated in > that superposition. I don't see how we know that any divergent emulation were instantiated. All we know for sure is that at least one was: the one resulting in the resulting state. We don't know whether any others existed. > The difference between quantum computers and fluid dynamics, is that some > large enough problem in fluid dynamics, using this method, will eventually > break down as the finite limited number of atoms leads to the fluid becoming > discrete atoms/molecules, I think you mean "small enough". For large fluids, even a large number of atoms is still a fluid - but, yes, go small enough and you are indeed dealing with discrete particles rather than a fluid. > and this limit is pretty tightly constrained based > on the some 10^80 number of atoms in this universe. Granted as a practical limit, but the math and general nature of fluid dynamics holds up if we were to introduce 10^90 more atoms. > Quantum computers, using qubits, can for example, factor the product of any > two prime numbers so long as the quantum computer has at least twice as many > qubits as it takes to represent the number being factored. So a number that > is 10,000 bits long could be factored by a quantum computer with 20,000 > qubits. However, this quantum computer, which could fit on your tabletop, is > effectively exploring 2^10,000 possibilities, more possibilities by far than > atoms in the observable universe, and it does so near instantaneously. A > classical computer, on the other hand, even if it were so big it used all > the atoms in the observable universe and it ran until the heat death of the > universe, would likely never find the answer. > > This is why fact that quantum computers can be built so strongly suggests > the existence/reality/and effective causality of vast unseen resources > present throughout the (now assuredly very real) wave function. For certain definitions of "resources", but it doesn't suggest any of those resources exist outside of or necessarily spawn other worlds. > Once one accepts the reality of the > wave function, all that is required to get to many worlds is to assume > yourself as Wigner's Friend (in the thought experiment). As in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner's_friend ? As the article notes, the friend could be in a superimposed state. Another possibility, which I have illustrated before, is that which way the experiment would go was determined at least as early as the last conscious actor performing any action that could influence the experiment (such as the exact timing of putting the cat in the box), even if no such actor knew the outcome yet. From billh at ssec.wisc.edu Thu Dec 15 13:21:40 2016 From: billh at ssec.wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 07:21:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 159, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Spike wrote: > >? On Behalf Of Hal Snyder > Subject: Re: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks > > >?On a related note, it might be appropriate to mention SageMathCloud https://cloud.sagemath.com as a resource for math & science enthusiasts. ? > > Hal Snyder, M.D. > > Welcome Hal. Yes, welcome Hal! > Do feel free to tell us something about Hal, or not if you prefer. I can tell you that Hal is my wife's brother and a very smart guy. > spike Bill p.s., the recent White House OSTP report underestimates the impact of AI: http://ai-initiative.org/white-house-ostp-report-underestimates-impact-ai/ From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 14:05:03 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 09:05:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:51 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: ?> ? > Let me ask you what you think I mean when I talk about a "redness > quality"? > ?Come on Brent, this isn't my ?first day at the rodeo! I am quite familiar with the qualia ? idea and I know the difference between objective and subjective.? ?> ? > And would you also agree that an abstracted work like "red" does not have > this quality? ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an ASCII sequence. ? > ?> ? > And would you agree that something in our brain has this quality when we > experience it? > ?What's with this "our" and "we" stuff? I have a subjective experience when I experience red but I have no proof that you do, in fact I have no proof that you or anybody else have any subjective experiences at all. ? ?If somebody believes that a digital computer ?behaving as if it is conscious is insufficient evidence to conclude that it really is conscious and if he wishes to be consistent in his beliefs then there is no alternative but to embrace solipsism. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From drxyzzy at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 16:03:45 2016 From: drxyzzy at gmail.com (Hal Snyder) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 10:03:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 159, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Bill's endorsement is appreciated & reciprocated. :-) I've been a math prof, physician, and computer scientist. Current interests are complexity, sustainability, cosmology, bioinformatics, and data science. MOOCs changed my life; I've completed over 60 of them to date (listed in my linkedin profile). I believe that in order to avoid collapse, humanity needs to enhance scope and extent of its cognitive skills faster than the rate of growth of self-imposed existential threats. Computers are probably key to that. My work with SMC is an attempt to contribute to the effort of making us collectively smarter. twitter: @haldroid / github: https://github.com/DrXyzzy Spike, is that what you had in mind? Hal On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 7:21 AM, Bill Hibbard wrote: > Spike wrote: > >> >? On Behalf Of Hal Snyder >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Wolfram Alpha for maths geeks >> >> >?On a related note, it might be appropriate to mention SageMathCloud >> https://cloud.sagemath.com as a resource for math & science enthusiasts. >> ? >> >> Hal Snyder, M.D. >> Welcome Hal. >> > > Yes, welcome Hal! > > Do feel free to tell us something about Hal, or not if you prefer. >> > > I can tell you that Hal is my wife's brother > and a very smart guy. > > spike >> > > Bill > > p.s., the recent White House OSTP report > underestimates the impact of AI: > http://ai-initiative.org/white-house-ostp-report-underestimates-impact-ai/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 17:33:25 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 12:33:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:27 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > ?> ? > One might view the human brain as a kind of quantum computer, in this > ? ? > sense. ?There is not one speck of evidence that the human brain uses any sort of quantum process in its information processing. ?> ? > There is also the question of how quantum computers work. As I > ? ? > understand it, they are fed a problem for which there are many > ? ? > possible solutions, all of which could in theory be evaluated by > ? ? > traditional computers in parallel - if you had enough processors. ?To equal a 300 Qbit Quantum Computer you'd need 2^300 processors, and that's larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe. With a little luck Google hopes to have a 49 Qbit Quantum Computer up and running within a year, if so they would achieve quantum supremacy, that means it could solve some problems that are too big for the largest conventional supercomputer?, even the Tianhe-2 in China that needs 24 megawatts to operate. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 15 17:38:53 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 09:38:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? In-Reply-To: References: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> Message-ID: <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> -----Original Message----- >... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 11:04 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] uber is doing what? On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:30 PM, spike wrote: >>... OK so Uber bought a fleet of these things and started sending them to pick up passengers for hire in San Francisco... >...Uber claims the humans were all engineers who knew how to drive. >...The DMV claims it specifically told Uber "no" in advance, and has evidence to back it up. >...Yet again, Uber's true competitive advantage is shown to be a willingness to flout the law and try to get away with it. _______________________________________________ Ja, but whose law is it? The state of California allows self-drivers if it meets their requirements. It looks to me like it does in this case: somebody is covering the liability. Why would Uber need to ask anyone's permission in the first place? spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 17:59:29 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 11:59:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: in fact I have no proof that you or anybody else have any subjective experiences at all. john It may be that your standards of proof are in question, at the least. You seem to be able to believe that only you, out of over 7 billion people, can be conscious, think, feel, and so on. In other words, the most basic of human qualities. I would have to ask you: *what proof do you have that you are this unique?* How likely is this? It is far, far less likely than that others experience things in the external world much like you do. Ask ten million people, excluding the colorblind, to view a red thing. All ten million call it red. What else do you need? bill w On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 8:05 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:51 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > ?> ? >> Let me ask you what you think I mean when I talk about a "redness >> quality"? >> > > ?Come on Brent, this isn't my ?first day at the rodeo! I am quite > familiar with the > qualia > ? idea and I know the difference between objective and subjective.? > > ?> ? >> And would you also agree that an abstracted work like "red" does not >> have this quality? > > > ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an > ASCII sequence. ? > > > >> ?> ? >> And would you agree that something in our brain has this quality when we >> experience it? >> > > ?What's with this "our" and "we" stuff? I have a subjective experience > when I experience red but I have no proof that you do, in fact I have no > proof that you or anybody else have any subjective experiences at all. ? > > ?If somebody believes that a digital computer ?behaving as if it is > conscious is insufficient evidence to conclude that it really is conscious > and if he wishes to be consistent in his beliefs then there is no > alternative but to embrace solipsism. > > John K Clark > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 18:01:46 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 12:01:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? In-Reply-To: <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> References: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> Message-ID: Uber directs a self-driver with an actual human behind the wheel to pick up the passenger. The operator perhaps needs no special skills, such as how to drive, since the car does that task. Is this a fun time to be living, or what? spike If there is a wreck, is the operator liable? bill w On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:38 AM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > >... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes > Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 11:04 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] uber is doing what? > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 5:30 PM, spike wrote: > >>... OK so Uber bought a fleet of these things and started sending them > to pick up passengers for hire in San Francisco... > > >...Uber claims the humans were all engineers who knew how to drive. > > >...The DMV claims it specifically told Uber "no" in advance, and has > evidence to back it up. > > >...Yet again, Uber's true competitive advantage is shown to be a > willingness to flout the law and try to get away with it. > > _______________________________________________ > > Ja, but whose law is it? The state of California allows self-drivers if > it meets their requirements. It looks to me like it does in this case: > somebody is covering the liability. Why would Uber need to ask anyone's > permission in the first place? > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 15 18:05:50 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 10:05:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] moocs. was: extropy-chat Digest, Vol 159, Issue 14 Message-ID: <026001d256fd$decdf580$9c69e080$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Hal Snyder Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2016 8:04 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 159, Issue 14 >?Bill's endorsement is appreciated & reciprocated. :-) >?I've been a math prof, physician, and computer scientist. Current interests are complexity, sustainability, cosmology, bioinformatics, and data science. MOOCs changed my life? >?Spike, is that what you had in mind? >?Hal Ja, sure is Hal, thanks for posting. As soon as I saw you are Bill?s brother in law, I unset your moderator flag, so you can post right on through. Welcome sir. You sound like the kind of poster we like to have here. Regarding MOOCs changing your life, I have had terrific success with them and I agree. This is new day. All along we thought it was going to be brain prosthetics which will give humanity a great leap forward. It might eventually, but I think historians will eventually realize that opportunities opened up by free online education was a bigger advance. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 15 18:15:13 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 10:15:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? In-Reply-To: References: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> Message-ID: <026501d256ff$2e9e4820$8bdad860$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2016 10:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] uber is doing what? >>?Uber directs a self-driver with an actual human behind the wheel to pick up the passenger. The operator perhaps needs no special skills, such as how to drive, since the car does that task. spike >?If there is a wreck, is the operator liable? bill w Ja, sure is. This whole thing brings up some interesting questions. In our society, if anything goes wrong, somebody somewhere is assigned liability for it. This prevents under our current notions of liability the kinds of developments I was hoping to see: a fleet of cars with no steering wheel anyone could call up and have it come, passenger gets in, car takes passenger anywhere, no privacy compromise, no driver to see the local Methodist minister falling down drunk, lower prices since you don?t need to pay for a human?s time, etc, such a deal. But clearly the passenger isn?t liable. Nothing she can do from the back seat with no steering wheel. No human operator. It is a cool scenario, but can?t play out unless there is someone to blame if anything goes wrong, and some deep pockets to pay for it. It is easy enough to foresee some unemployed former taxi driver causing an Uber-bot to create an injury, then suing Uber for a trillion dollars, no more Uber. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 18:35:25 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 11:35:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: John Said: "I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an ASCII sequence." On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 7:05 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:51 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> ?> ? >> And would you also agree that an abstracted work like "red" does not >> have this quality? > > > ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an > ASCII sequence. ? > So you agree that there is a significant qualitative difference between your experience of redness and any abstracted representation of red like an ASCII sequence. In other words, would you agree that it could be that my brain interprets the word "red" as being your greenness experience or something. (i.e. I could have red green inverted qualia from you.) > > >> ?> ? >> And would you agree that something in our brain has this quality when we >> experience it? >> > > ?What's with this "our" and "we" stuff? I have a subjective experience > when I experience red but I have no proof that you do, in fact I have no > proof that you or anybody else have any subjective experiences at all. ? > > ?If somebody believes that a digital computer ?behaving as if it is > conscious is insufficient evidence to conclude that it really is conscious > and if he wishes to be consistent in his beliefs then there is no > alternative but to embrace solipsism. > > Sorry for stating that using "our" and "we". Let me rephrase the question: Do you believe that something in your brain has your redness quality, and could anyone else besides you detect this stuff that has your redness quality while you are experiencing it, with any advanced detection system, and could they, using these same detection systems, do things like distinguish this quality from whatever it is that has your greenness quality when you experience that, instead...? In other words, by making such observations on others, and on themselves, they could tell if someone else has red green inverted qualia from themselves? Brent -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 19:28:10 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 14:28:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 12:59 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?>> ? >> in fact I have no proof that you or anybody else have any subjective >> experiences at all. john > > > ?>? > It may be that your standards of proof are in question, > ?No my standards of proof are fine.? I said I have no proof and I do not, but belief proof and truth are three different things. > ?> ? > You seem to be able to believe that only you, out of over 7 billion > people, can be conscious, think, feel, and so on. > ?No, I do not believe for ?one second that I am the only conscious being in the universe, and I don't think anyone this side of a looney bin believes in solipsism either, except perhaps for some philosophy professors, and even then only when they're lecturing in a classroom. I and every sane person must accept as a axiom of existence that when something behaves as if they are conscious then they are. I must accept that because I could not function if I did not. That's why I firmly believe (but can not prove) that my fellow human beings are conscious when they are taking a Calculus exam but are not conscious when they are asleep or under anesthesia or dead. That is also why I believe (but can not prove) that rocks are not conscious; they just don't behave as if they are. > ?> ? > I would have to ask you: *what proof do you have that you are this > unique?* > ?The same amount of proof that I am not this unique, zilch. > > ?> ? > How likely is this? > ?42.? ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 19:56:33 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 14:56:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: ?>> ? >> ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an >> ASCII sequence. ? >> > > ?> ? > So you agree that there is a significant qualitative difference between > your experience of redness and any abstracted representation of red like an > ASCII sequence. In other words, would you agree that it could be that my > brain interprets the word "red" as being your greenness experience or > something. (i.e. I could have red green inverted qualia from you.) > ?Certainly I agree.? > ?> ? > Do you believe that something in your brain has your redness quality, > ?It would be more accurate to say ? ? something in ?my? ?mind? has ?my? redness quality ?. Mind is what ?the brain does and sometimes my brain does red. > ?> ? > and could anyone else besides you detect this stuff that has your redness > quality while you are experiencing it, with any advanced detection > system, and could they, using these same detection systems, do things like > distinguish this quality from whatever it is that has your greenness > quality when you experience that, instead...? > ? ? > In other words, by making such observations on others, and on themselves, > they could tell if someone else has red green inverted qualia from > themselves? > ?No. They could theoretically tell that I am experiencing the color ?I associate with tomatoes and stoplights and not the color I associate with spinach and golights, but there is no way they could know if my subjective experience of those colors was inverted from their own. I don't know what it would feel like to be a bat and I never will; the only way would be for me to become a bat but then I still wouldn't know because I wouldn't be I anymore, I'd be a bat. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 15 22:36:30 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 14:36:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ovaricicle Message-ID: <001801d25723$d9a7cb50$8cf761f0$@att.net> So this child was sick, had an ovary removed and frozen when she was aged 9, became a mother 15 yrs later: http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/15/former-cancer-kid-puts-ovary-on-ice-just OK cool, now, we can easily imagine that such a procedure could be routine, since ova degrade over the years, and plenty of women just don't hit their stride during their reproductive years. We know we can freeze embryos, but they need to be fertilized. So with this tech, a teenager could get an ovary frozen, then later, even after her normal reproductive years, the ovary could be re-implanted, her own ova extracted, fertilized by a partner chosen after she knows what she is doing, better outcome perhaps. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 23:49:18 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 23:49:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] ovaricicle In-Reply-To: <001801d25723$d9a7cb50$8cf761f0$@att.net> References: <001801d25723$d9a7cb50$8cf761f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 15 December 2016 at 22:36, spike wrote: > > So this child was sick, had an ovary removed and frozen when she was aged 9, > became a mother 15 yrs later: > > http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/15/former-cancer-kid-puts-ovary-on-ice-just > > OK cool, now, we can easily imagine that such a procedure could be routine, > since ova degrade over the years, and plenty of women just don?t hit their > stride during their reproductive years. We know we can freeze embryos, but > they need to be fertilized. So with this tech, a teenager could get an > ovary frozen, then later, even after her normal reproductive years, the > ovary could be re-implanted, her own ova extracted, fertilized by a partner > chosen after she knows what she is doing, better outcome perhaps. > Also in the UK - Babies made from three people approved in UK Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's fertility regulator. The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases. --------------- Due to a misunderstanding this method of conception involving two women and one man was initially wildly popular among men throughout the country........ BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 15 23:56:30 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 17:56:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] ovaricicle In-Reply-To: References: <001801d25723$d9a7cb50$8cf761f0$@att.net> Message-ID: Due to a misunderstanding this method of conception involving two women and one man was initially wildly popular among men throughout the country........ BillK I like it, I like it! Wry at its best. bill w On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 5:49 PM, BillK wrote: > On 15 December 2016 at 22:36, spike wrote: > > > > So this child was sick, had an ovary removed and frozen when she was > aged 9, > > became a mother 15 yrs later: > > > > http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/15/former-cancer-kid-puts- > ovary-on-ice-just > > > > OK cool, now, we can easily imagine that such a procedure could be > routine, > > since ova degrade over the years, and plenty of women just don?t hit > their > > stride during their reproductive years. We know we can freeze embryos, > but > > they need to be fertilized. So with this tech, a teenager could get an > > ovary frozen, then later, even after her normal reproductive years, the > > ovary could be re-implanted, her own ova extracted, fertilized by a > partner > > chosen after she knows what she is doing, better outcome perhaps. > > > > > Also in the UK - > > Babies made from three people approved in UK > > Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's > fertility regulator. > The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born > with deadly genetic diseases. > --------------- > > > Due to a misunderstanding this method of conception involving two > women and one man was initially wildly popular among men throughout > the country........ > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 16 05:38:47 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 21:38:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] uber is doing what? In-Reply-To: <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> References: <00af01d25673$00cda2b0$0268e810$@att.net> <023301d256fa$1d7cda20$58768e60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 9:38 AM, spike wrote: > Ja, but whose law is it? California's. > The state of California allows self-drivers if it meets their requirements. It looks to me like it does in this case: somebody is covering the liability. There are other requirements beyond liability. Apparently at least one was not met. > Why would Uber need to ask anyone's permission in the first place? Because California's laws say, "you may only do this with a permit". If you never asked permission, you're not allowed. From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 16 05:45:58 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 21:45:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 9:33 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:27 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> One might view the human brain as a kind of quantum computer, in this >> sense. > > There is not one speck of evidence that the human brain uses any sort of > quantum process in its information processing. You are trolling, aren't you? You should know there is plenty of such evidence. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ervin-laszlo/why-your-brain-is-a-quant_b_489998.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15488665 http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/does-the-mind-play-dice-with-reason And that's just some of the results from a quick google. From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 16 16:36:31 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 11:36:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 12:45 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > >> ?> ? >> There is not one speck of evidence that the human brain uses any sort >> of quantum process in its information processing > > > ?> ? > You are trolling, aren't you? ?Trolling?? I know it's difficult for you Adrian but try not to be a total jerk, I've been posting on this subject on this list for over 20 years.? ?Trolling my ass!? > ?> ? > You should know there is plenty of such evidence. > ? [...various silly or irrelevant links]? > And that's just some of the results from a quick google. ?Thanks for that brilliant use of ?Google, I can't imagine how else anybody could have found a Wikipedia article. Obviously the brain involves chemical reactions and obviously all chemical reactions involve quantum mechanics, but an old Apple-2 computer also wouldn't work without quantum mechanics, and the exact same thing is true of a neolithic hand ax. The term "quantum computer" does not mean an object that uses quantum mechanics, it would be pretty silly if it did as every object in the universe does, it means an object that uses quantum algorithms and quantum logic to process information. Until Feynman raised the possibility in the 1980s nobody had even thought about such a thing and it's only been since Shor's factoring work in 1994 that it has looked like they might actually be practical someday. But I repeat what I said before, there is not one speck of evidence that the human brain uses any sort of quantum algorithm in its logic or memory processing. ? Yes ? ? Penrose and Hameroff ? ? had a theory that ? ? electrons inside ? ? the ? ? microtubules in neurons would somehow get entangled and then somehow process information, ? ? but they were extremely vague on how it would all work and there is zero evidence ? ? that they're actually right. And it's extremely hard to see how on earth they could be right, the human brain is just too hot and ? ? physically chaotic. Max Tegmark ? ? has calculated that if 2 electrons in a microtubule ? ? become entangled they would become unentangled in less than a ? ? picosecond ? ? and that's far too short for structures as large as those in the brain to do any quantum logic processing. Light, the fastest thing in the universe, moves about a hundredth of an inch in a picosecond. At least ? Penrose and Hameroff ? are semi-respectable but there is also the quantum mind nutjobs whose entire theory seems to be that human consciousness is mysterious and quantum mechanics is mysterious so the two must be related. Needless to say they also have no supporting evidence. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 16 22:49:58 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 16:49:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:43 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Jason Resch > wrote: > > The difficulty is we > > can't prove there is no collapse from our vantage point. Running an > > execution of some program on a quantum computer necessitates that there > is > > no collapse from your point of view. If we run a brain simulation and we > > know there is no collapse, then we know some, possibly exponentially > > growing, number of divergent emulations of that mind were instantiated in > > that superposition. > > I don't see how we know that any divergent emulation were > instantiated. All we know for sure is that at least one was: the one > resulting in the resulting state. We don't know whether any others > existed. > If the wave function is real, and not merely a tool that yields right probabilities for us, then the superpositions within the wave function would all have an equal claim to reality. > > > The difference between quantum computers and fluid dynamics, is that some > > large enough problem in fluid dynamics, using this method, will > eventually > > break down as the finite limited number of atoms leads to the fluid > becoming > > discrete atoms/molecules, > > I think you mean "small enough". For large fluids, even a large > number of atoms is still a fluid - but, yes, go small enough and you > are indeed dealing with discrete particles rather than a fluid. > This is kind of what I meant, if the container is large enough, the discrete nature of the fluid will eventually break down. E.g. a system of pies, each of which splits into two pipes every foot, and if this goes on for 1000 feet. > > > and this limit is pretty tightly constrained based > > on the some 10^80 number of atoms in this universe. > > Granted as a practical limit, but the math and general nature of fluid > dynamics holds up if we were to introduce 10^90 more atoms. > > > Quantum computers, using qubits, can for example, factor the product of > any > > two prime numbers so long as the quantum computer has at least twice as > many > > qubits as it takes to represent the number being factored. So a number > that > > is 10,000 bits long could be factored by a quantum computer with 20,000 > > qubits. However, this quantum computer, which could fit on your > tabletop, is > > effectively exploring 2^10,000 possibilities, more possibilities by far > than > > atoms in the observable universe, and it does so near instantaneously. A > > classical computer, on the other hand, even if it were so big it used all > > the atoms in the observable universe and it ran until the heat death of > the > > universe, would likely never find the answer. > > > > This is why fact that quantum computers can be built so strongly suggests > > the existence/reality/and effective causality of vast unseen resources > > present throughout the (now assuredly very real) wave function. > > For certain definitions of "resources", but it doesn't suggest any of > those resources exist outside of or necessarily spawn other worlds. > Then what resources is the computation using? We can agree we get the final answer and it is not by magic, so clearly something real is responsible for yielding the answer. According to the theory, this thing is the wave function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various superpositions. > > > Once one accepts the reality of the > > wave function, all that is required to get to many worlds is to assume > > yourself as Wigner's Friend (in the thought experiment). > > As in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner's_friend ? Yes. > As the article > notes, the friend could be in a superimposed state. Another > possibility, which I have illustrated before, is that which way the > experiment would go was determined at least as early as the last > conscious actor performing any action that could influence the > experiment (such as the exact timing of putting the cat in the box), > even if no such actor knew the outcome yet. > There's nothing to motivate this theory. In fact, there's been no reason to believe in Copenhagen Interpretation since Everett used the assumption of no collapse to show how the math of the theory produces the illusion of collapse. You can't get a more clear cut case for Occam's razor's preference for MW over CI than this: explains more, while assuming less. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 02:48:23 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 19:48:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3398db05-caee-6fb3-5019-d70337990e63@gmail.com> Hi John, I think I see how to make progress here with what you are saying. I'm going to explain how I hear what you are saying, and you can let me know what I'm still missing. Let me restate my position more concisely and point out the falsifiable predictions being made by my theory, and then see if I can concisely state what your not quite falsifiable position is and how it differs? I believe there is an emerging consensus around the idea that there is a consistent neural correlate to a redness quality and a consistently observably different neural correlate for a greenness quality. This theory could be proven, if we find these, and with that can reliably predict (i.e. demonstrably never fails or is never falsified) at observing such differing correlates in other's brains, letting us reliably know whether any brain is using redness or greenness to represent an abstracted word like red. The only problem is, currently, when we observe something in the brain, our senses give us abstracted information, like the word "red" to describe what we are detecting, and this information does not have any quality to it - and is only meant to represent such, given the correct interpretation. At best, we interpret the words like red as if it was representing the quality of the surface of the strawberry, or the initial source of the perception process (why we think it is the same for all people, even if what we observe in the brain is different and needs to be "corrected"). Worst case, we are interpreting the abstracted information we are detecting about what is in the brain as if it had no quality at all. For an example of both of these types of errors, see this current article "The color of consciousness" recently published in "The New York Review of Books" http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/12/08/color-of-consciousness/ . They say both that the physical brain is just "grey matter" and also that it has no color at all and just think there is a "hard" problem or a conundrum because of these miss interpretations. So, I'm making the demonstrable prediction that the neural correlate of redness is more than just the "neural correlate" it is what actually has the redness quality we experience and that this consistent relationship, once found, will never fail at predicting when someone is experiencing redness or greenness. I'm describing week, stronger and strongest methods for achieving this knowledge (see my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4) You seem to be unwilling to say that is possible as you claim that even if something in the brain is the neural correlate of redness, the actual mindful experience is separated from this physical reality, and you seem to be claiming that a mindful redness quality has no demonstrably reliable relationship to physical reality and isn't approachable via science. You seem to say that with: "there is no way they could know if my subjective experience of those colors was inverted from their own." So, at best you seem to be leaning towards Cartesian dualism, where there is a neither "spirit" world which is not approachable via science and that this unknowable neither world is the realm of your mindful experiences. It's just that instead of admitting that your view is Descartes dualism, you are simply claiming it is in the mind. Even though you say that "the mind is what the brain does" this seems to contradict your assertion that "there is no way they could know...", implying there might be (as in never say never fails) a complete lack of relationship between physical detectable reality and what is in any "mind"? Brent Allsop On 12/15/2016 12:56 PM, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > ?>> ? > ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" > is just an ASCII sequence. ? > > > ?> ? > So you agree that there is a significant qualitative difference > between your experience of redness and any abstracted > representation of red like an ASCII sequence. In other words, > would you agree that it could be that my brain interprets the word > "red" as being your greenness experience or something. (i.e. I > could have red green inverted qualia from you.) > > > ?Certainly I agree.? > > ?> ? > Do you believe that something in your brain has your redness quality, > > > ?It > would be more accurate to say > ? ? > something in > ?my? > ?mind? > has > ?my? > redness quality > ?. Mind is what ?the brain does and sometimes my brain does red. > > ?> ? > and could anyone else besides you detect this stuff that has your > redness quality while you are experiencing it, with any advanced > detection system, and could they, using these same detection > systems, do things like distinguish this quality from whatever it > is that has your greenness quality when you experience that, > instead...? > ? ? > In other words, by making such observations on others, and on > themselves, they could tell if someone else has red green inverted > qualia from themselves? > > ?No. They could theoretically tell that I am experiencing the color ?I > associate with tomatoes and stoplights and not the color I associate > with spinach and golights, but there is no way they could know if my > subjective experience of those colors was inverted from their own. I > don't know what it would feel like to be a bat and I never will; the > only way would be for me to become a bat but then I still wouldn't > know because I wouldn't be I anymore, I'd be a bat. > > John K Clark > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 17 17:25:51 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 09:25:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree Message-ID: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> I have mentioned before (patience with me please) how cool it would be if we could figure out some kind of systematic means of recording into some kind of web-based collective database or some means of recording systematically nature observations. We had one going some time ago with bees. Someone had organized a bee observation site where people submitted observations in verbal form, but we had never figured out a way to systematically data-fy the observations, or create some means of expressing things in numerical format. I have been pondering that for a long time. Yesterday I noticed something cool. A tree near my home still has its full-sized green summer leaves and also its multi-colored fall leaves. This happens every year, but this has been an oddball mild wet fall without a hard wind. Sometimes we see the winter blossoms come on before the solstice (which is this coming Wednesday.) Yesterday I looked closely and noticed the tree already has its spring leaf buds showing the first traces of green. So now this tree has growth from all four seasons: I bought one of those weather stations that records rainfall, temperature, wind direction and speed, humidity, solar flux and keeps it all in a file. Tomorrow's task is to set that up and get it recording. OK cool, we have climate in a format which is formatted in numerical data. I want to figure out a way to do the same trick with bees, birds, trees, whatever else I can find which can be expressed in numbers. We could express a date at which the leaves started turning colors in the fall, the date of the winter blossoms, the date one could see the first spring buds. Any other ideas on metrics for trees? How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 13956 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 17 17:53:09 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 09:53:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree Message-ID: <002901d2588e$8f0bc800$ad235800$@att.net> From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Subject: four seasons tree >. how cool it would be if we could figure out some kind of systematic means of recording into some kind of web-based collective database or some means of recording systematically nature observations.How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? Spike For instance. Are all honeybees the same size? How does that happen? Why does that happen? We know that in mammals if food is plentiful during the rapid-growth phase, the organism is generally healthier and grows bigger, particularly if there is plenty of high-fat food available. We know that bees have good years and bad years where they thrive or starve. OK so do bees grow after they emerge? One would think so, ja? If it is an abundant year, do they grow bigger than a sparse year? If so, would not the frequency of their wings be slightly lower? And if so, could not we measure it and record it over time? Take a favored bee hangout (hover-out?) and set up a microphone with a RaspberryPi doing realtime Fourier analysis, couldn't we figure out if the local bees are healthy and big or are hungry and puny? If not bees, how about hummingbirds? Those guys definitely grow in proportion to available food, ja? I am not sure about bees, but birds do. Hummingbirds would be easier to Fourier some data, since their characteristic frequency is lower. Perhaps we could get a jillion citizen scientists doing this kind of automated observation, and get it into numbers rather than useless verbiage, then put the data where we can all get to it and start extracting the signal from the noise. We have been rattling our jaws for so long about climate change this and that, but what we really need is this kind of data so see if we can find long-term correlations like this. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bmd54321 at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 19:00:28 2016 From: bmd54321 at gmail.com (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 14:00:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> Spike, Very important topic!! > How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? Well, the birds part has some cool data being gathered right now: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ eBird is permitting observers to quantify more than species and number observed as time goes on. Right now it's "breeding codes" (nest building, mating, territorial defense behavior, etc.), sex, approx. age, and a few other things. But more options will be added soon. Sweden has an amazing system called the Species Portal: http://www.artportalen.se/ It enables people to record data on all life, not just birds. I became a crazy-avid birdwatcher a year ago, and have used both eBird and ArtPortalen, and have spoken with people running both projects. There's a problem. This is just an empirical observation. The why of it I don't know. With ArtPortalen, people tend to report rarities only. "Cool butterfly! I'll log in to my ArtPortalen account and report it!" What's needed are systematic observations of ALL butterflies (and not just butterflies) in a given area in a given period. With eBird, people tend to make systematic observations, but only of birds, of course. Perhaps it's just because it's less overwhelming to do so about birds only, or perhaps the interface is easier. But if we're going to ditch the ArtPortalen approached, we'd need to create eBee, eButterfly, eTree, etc. > Perhaps we could get a jillion citizen scientists doing this kind of automated observation. The more automated, the better. We here tend to be optimists, and some reading this might think: "Forget the citizen! Just ask the NSA, GCHQ, FRA, all 7-11s, etc. to let us run some recognition algorithms on camera footage and the like. Surely such algorithms will be good enough by 2020 or something." The people at eBird think high-quality automated recognition of both images and sound is well over a decade away. And using images from surveillance cameras will be trickier than using images from an observer taking a high-quality picture. So we might not have a lot of automation soon. Meanwhile, check out eBird. Lots of fun. Oh, hey, wait. Maybe image-recognition isn't so far away: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ Pardon typos Brian From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 19:05:49 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 14:05:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> Message-ID: I feel like it would be best to have a set of metrics which are applicable to life in general: Basal metabolic/photosynthetic rate Respiration/carbon fixation rate Fecundity Rate of mutations' adoption into greater gene pool Rate of change of population area (=div?) 'Trophic flux'--regarding their status as food and consumption of other species (this is a binary function) Change in migratory pattern idk what units to use &c &c On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Brian Manning Delaney wrote: > > Spike, > > Very important topic!! > > How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? >> > > Well, the birds part has some cool data being gathered right now: > > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ > > > eBird is permitting observers to quantify more than species and number > observed as time goes on. Right now it's "breeding codes" (nest building, > mating, territorial defense behavior, etc.), sex, approx. age, and a few > other things. But more options will be added soon. > > Sweden has an amazing system called the Species Portal: > > http://www.artportalen.se/ > > It enables people to record data on all life, not just birds. > > I became a crazy-avid birdwatcher a year ago, and have used both eBird and > ArtPortalen, and have spoken with people running both projects. There's a > problem. This is just an empirical observation. The why of it I don't know. > With ArtPortalen, people tend to report rarities only. "Cool butterfly! > I'll log in to my ArtPortalen account and report it!" What's needed are > systematic observations of ALL butterflies (and not just butterflies) in a > given area in a given period. > > With eBird, people tend to make systematic observations, but only of > birds, of course. Perhaps it's just because it's less overwhelming to do so > about birds only, or perhaps the interface is easier. But if we're going to > ditch the ArtPortalen approached, we'd need to create eBee, eButterfly, > eTree, etc. > > > Perhaps we could get a jillion citizen scientists doing this kind of >> automated observation. >> > > The more automated, the better. We here tend to be optimists, and some > reading this might think: "Forget the citizen! Just ask the NSA, GCHQ, FRA, > all 7-11s, etc. to let us run some recognition algorithms on camera footage > and the like. Surely such algorithms will be good enough by 2020 or > something." > > The people at eBird think high-quality automated recognition of both > images and sound is well over a decade away. And using images from > surveillance cameras will be trickier than using images from an observer > taking a high-quality picture. So we might not have a lot of automation > soon. > > Meanwhile, check out eBird. Lots of fun. > > Oh, hey, wait. Maybe image-recognition isn't so far away: > > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ > > Pardon typos > Brian > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 17 19:27:21 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 11:27:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> Message-ID: <008201d2589b$9741c210$c5c54630$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brian Manning Delaney Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2016 11:00 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] four seasons tree Spike, Very important topic!! >>... How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? >...Well, the birds part has some cool data being gathered right now: >...http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ >...eBird is permitting observers to quantify more than species and number observed as time goes on. Right now it's "breeding codes" (nest building, mating, territorial defense behavior, etc.), sex, approx. age, and a few other things. But more options will be added soon... Cool! Image recognition for birds. This is a big step in the right direction: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ Overall I am hoping to press for quantization of observations, but it isn't clear how to it. Think of medicine and how it advanced after health metrics were quantized. Can we even imagine doing medicine without numbers or measurements? I am hoping to create metrics for nature. >...Sweden has an amazing system called the Species Portal: http://www.artportalen.se/ >...It enables people to record data on all life, not just birds... Coool! Go Vikings! >...I became a crazy-avid birdwatcher a year ago, and have used both eBird and ArtPortalen, and have spoken with people running both projects... Birds are cool, ja? Yesterday I saw a robin perched up on a pole cawing. As I came closer, I think the robin became aware of me (or it could have been a coincidence.) He seemed to say "Hey human, watch me hassle this cat" and down he swooped, cat headed for cover under the car. Of course I busted out laughing. I don't know if the bird was aware of my reaction or if I imagined it. If I had the right observation equipment, I could determine if robins harass and bother cats when no one is watching. Any theories? Crows and ravens: they appear to me to be trying to impress their buddies by letting humans get close. They sometimes stand in the middle of the road and play chicken with cars. But they don't do that unless there is another one nearby to watch. Could I be imagining that? Seagulls love to interact with humans, but I don't really see it as trying to impress their friends the way ravens seem to do. They just like to hang around us it seems. Three species, three behaviors: robins (possibly) wanting to entertain humans, ravens challenging humans to gain status with their own species and peaceful gulls wanting handouts perhaps. It shouldn't surprise us so much. Different breeds of dogs have their collective personalities; they are all the same species. spike There's a problem. This is just an empirical observation. The why of it I don't know. With ArtPortalen, people tend to report rarities only. "Cool butterfly! I'll log in to my ArtPortalen account and report it!" What's needed are systematic observations of ALL butterflies (and not just butterflies) in a given area in a given period. With eBird, people tend to make systematic observations, but only of birds, of course. Perhaps it's just because it's less overwhelming to do so about birds only, or perhaps the interface is easier. But if we're going to ditch the ArtPortalen approached, we'd need to create eBee, eButterfly, eTree, etc. > Perhaps we could get a jillion citizen scientists doing this kind of automated observation. The more automated, the better. We here tend to be optimists, and some reading this might think: "Forget the citizen! Just ask the NSA, GCHQ, FRA, all 7-11s, etc. to let us run some recognition algorithms on camera footage and the like. Surely such algorithms will be good enough by 2020 or something." The people at eBird think high-quality automated recognition of both images and sound is well over a decade away. And using images from surveillance cameras will be trickier than using images from an observer taking a high-quality picture. So we might not have a lot of automation soon. Meanwhile, check out eBird. Lots of fun. Oh, hey, wait. Maybe image-recognition isn't so far away: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ Pardon typos Brian _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 20:10:03 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 14:10:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <008201d2589b$9741c210$c5c54630$@att.net> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> <008201d2589b$9741c210$c5c54630$@att.net> Message-ID: If I had the right observation equipment, I could determine if robins harass and bother cats when no one is watching. Any theories? spike I have four cats, so I don't feed birds and try to keep them away. (Oddity; I went to two nature talks and won the only two things I've ever won in my life - two birdhouses!) I tear down the starts of nests birds build in my bushes. One thing I do know: birds go crazy when cats get near a nest, and some birds can mate in any season, not just spring, so if I hear a bird fussing I go out to see if a nestling has gotten loose or just what. I have saved a few, in one case literally pulling it out of the cat's mouth. I visited a guy in North Alabama who had a license to trap hummingbirds - he tags them if untagged and records data if they are tagged. I think there is a big network keeping track of hummers.. He had about 200 around his house the time I went. Awesome. Highly aggressive things. Birds are great to look at, but they are vicious creatures. Like cats. bill w On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 1:27 PM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On > Behalf > Of Brian Manning Delaney > Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2016 11:00 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] four seasons tree > > > Spike, > > Very important topic!! > > >>... How do we data-fy birds? Bugs? > > >...Well, the birds part has some cool data being gathered right now: > > >...http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ > > > >...eBird is permitting observers to quantify more than species and number > observed as time goes on. Right now it's "breeding codes" (nest building, > mating, territorial defense behavior, etc.), sex, approx. age, and a few > other things. But more options will be added soon... > > > Cool! Image recognition for birds. This is a big step in the right > direction: > > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ > > Overall I am hoping to press for quantization of observations, but it isn't > clear how to it. > > Think of medicine and how it advanced after health metrics were quantized. > Can we even imagine doing medicine without numbers or measurements? I am > hoping to create metrics for nature. > > > >...Sweden has an amazing system called the Species Portal: > > http://www.artportalen.se/ > > >...It enables people to record data on all life, not just birds... > > Coool! Go Vikings! > > > > >...I became a crazy-avid birdwatcher a year ago, and have used both eBird > and ArtPortalen, and have spoken with people running both projects... > > Birds are cool, ja? Yesterday I saw a robin perched up on a pole cawing. > As I came closer, I think the robin became aware of me (or it could have > been a coincidence.) He seemed to say "Hey human, watch me hassle this > cat" > and down he swooped, cat headed for cover under the car. Of course I > busted > out laughing. I don't know if the bird was aware of my reaction or if I > imagined it. If I had the right observation equipment, I could determine > if > robins harass and bother cats when no one is watching. Any theories? > > Crows and ravens: they appear to me to be trying to impress their buddies > by > letting humans get close. They sometimes stand in the middle of the road > and play chicken with cars. But they don't do that unless there is another > one nearby to watch. Could I be imagining that? > > Seagulls love to interact with humans, but I don't really see it as trying > to impress their friends the way ravens seem to do. They just like to hang > around us it seems. Three species, three behaviors: robins (possibly) > wanting to entertain humans, ravens challenging humans to gain status with > their own species and peaceful gulls wanting handouts perhaps. > > It shouldn't surprise us so much. Different breeds of dogs have their > collective personalities; they are all the same species. > > spike > > > > > > > > > > There's a problem. This is just an empirical observation. The why of it I > don't know. With ArtPortalen, people tend to report rarities only. > "Cool butterfly! I'll log in to my ArtPortalen account and report it!" > What's needed are systematic observations of ALL butterflies (and not just > butterflies) in a given area in a given period. > > With eBird, people tend to make systematic observations, but only of birds, > of course. Perhaps it's just because it's less overwhelming to do so about > birds only, or perhaps the interface is easier. But if we're going to ditch > the ArtPortalen approached, we'd need to create eBee, eButterfly, eTree, > etc. > > > > Perhaps we could get a jillion citizen scientists doing this kind of > automated observation. > > The more automated, the better. We here tend to be optimists, and some > reading this might think: "Forget the citizen! Just ask the NSA, GCHQ, FRA, > all 7-11s, etc. to let us run some recognition algorithms on camera footage > and the like. Surely such algorithms will be good enough by 2020 or > something." > > The people at eBird think high-quality automated recognition of both images > and sound is well over a decade away. And using images from surveillance > cameras will be trickier than using images from an observer taking a > high-quality picture. So we might not have a lot of automation soon. > > Meanwhile, check out eBird. Lots of fun. > > Oh, hey, wait. Maybe image-recognition isn't so far away: > > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinvision201611/ > > Pardon typos > Brian > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 21:24:28 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 15:24:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: belief proof and truth are three different things. John We likely agree on 'belief' - an insufficiently supported opinion in many cases. 'Proof'. When I hear "I have proof.." I think of verifiable facts (the outcomes of proving) - facts being reliably observed behaviors of something or someone. Proof is a variable in that there may be very small amounts of relevant data, or tons of it. The proof may, should be, relevant to some theory or at least some abstraction, and there may be proof supporting competing theories, so proof actually has nothing to do with truth, which is what we would know if every possible experiment supported the theory. Given that, no truth exists in the larger sense. It is true in the trivial or just everyday sense that I am typing and thinking of supper (not requiring proof to me). Scientific truth may never appear, only be approached. bill w On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:56 PM, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > ?>> ? >>> ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is just an >>> ASCII sequence. ? >>> >> >> ?> ? >> So you agree that there is a significant qualitative difference between >> your experience of redness and any abstracted representation of red like an >> ASCII sequence. In other words, would you agree that it could be that my >> brain interprets the word "red" as being your greenness experience or >> something. (i.e. I could have red green inverted qualia from you.) >> > > ?Certainly I agree.? > > > > >> ?> ? >> Do you believe that something in your brain has your redness quality, >> > > ?It > would be more accurate to say > ? ? > something in > ?my? > > ?mind? > has > ?my? > redness quality > ?. Mind is what ?the brain does and sometimes my brain does red. > > > >> ?> ? >> and could anyone else besides you detect this stuff that has your >> redness quality while you are experiencing it, with any advanced >> detection system, and could they, using these same detection systems, do >> things like distinguish this quality from whatever it is that has your >> greenness quality when you experience that, instead...? >> ? ? >> In other words, by making such observations on others, and on themselves, >> they could tell if someone else has red green inverted qualia from >> themselves? >> > > ?No. They could theoretically tell that I am experiencing the color ?I > associate with tomatoes and stoplights and not the color I associate with > spinach and golights, but there is no way they could know if my subjective > experience of those colors was inverted from their own. I don't know what > it would feel like to be a bat and I never will; the only way would be for > me to become a bat but then I still wouldn't know because I wouldn't be I > anymore, I'd be a bat. > > John K Clark > > > > >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 22:39:05 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 09:39:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <3398db05-caee-6fb3-5019-d70337990e63@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <3398db05-caee-6fb3-5019-d70337990e63@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 17 December 2016 at 13:48, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi John, > > I think I see how to make progress here with what you are saying. I'm > going to explain how I hear what you are saying, and you can let me know > what I'm still missing. Let me restate my position more concisely and > point out the falsifiable predictions being made by my theory, and then see > if I can concisely state what your not quite falsifiable position is and > how it differs? > > > I believe there is an emerging consensus around the idea that there is a > consistent neural correlate to a redness quality and a consistently > observably different neural correlate for a greenness quality. This theory > could be proven, if we find these, and with that can reliably predict (i.e. > demonstrably never fails or is never falsified) at observing such differing > correlates in other's brains, letting us reliably know whether any brain is > using redness or greenness to represent an abstracted word like red. The > only problem is, currently, when we observe something in the brain, our > senses give us abstracted information, like the word "red" to describe what > we are detecting, and this information does not have any quality to it - > and is only meant to represent such, given the correct interpretation. At > best, we interpret the words like red as if it was representing the quality > of the surface of the strawberry, or the initial source of the perception > process (why we think it is the same for all people, even if what we > observe in the brain is different and needs to be "corrected"). Worst > case, we are interpreting the abstracted information we are detecting about > what is in the brain as if it had no quality at all. For an example of > both of these types of errors, see this current article "The color of > consciousness" recently published in "The New York Review of Books" > http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/12/08/color-of-consciousness/ . They > say both that the physical brain is just " > grey > matter" and also that it has no color at all and just think there is a > "hard" problem or a conundrum because of these miss interpretations. > > > So, I'm making the demonstrable prediction that the neural correlate of > redness is more than just the "neural correlate" it is what actually has > the redness quality we experience and that this consistent relationship, > once found, will never fail at predicting when someone is experiencing > redness or greenness. I'm describing week, stronger and strongest methods > for achieving this knowledge (see my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch? > v=AHuqZKxtOf4) You seem to be unwilling to say that is possible as you > claim that even if something in the brain is the neural correlate of > redness, the actual mindful experience is separated from this physical > reality, and you seem to be claiming that a mindful redness quality has no > demonstrably reliable relationship to physical reality and isn't > approachable via science. You seem to say that with: "there is no way > they could know if my subjective experience of those colors was inverted > from their own." > > > So, at best you seem to be leaning towards Cartesian dualism, where there > is a neither "spirit" world which is not approachable via science and that > this unknowable neither world is the realm of your mindful experiences. > It's just that instead of admitting that your view is Descartes dualism, > you are simply claiming it is in the mind. Even though you say that "the > mind is what the brain does" this seems to contradict your assertion that > "there is no way they could know...", implying there might be (as in never > say never fails) a complete lack of relationship between physical > detectable reality and what is in any "mind"? > When a hammer hits a nail, it is possible that red qualia are produced. How would you go about proving or disproving this? -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 22:47:57 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 17:47:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <3398db05-caee-6fb3-5019-d70337990e63@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <3398db05-caee-6fb3-5019-d70337990e63@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > ?> ? > I believe there is an emerging consensus around the idea that there is a > consistent neural correlate to a redness quality and a consistently > observably different neural correlate for a greenness quality. This theory > could be proven, if we find these, and with that can reliably predict (i.e. > demonstrably never fails or is never falsified) at observing such differing > correlates in other's brains, > > ?Yes, I could determine that whatever color qualia you associate with strawberries you also associate with stoplights, if of course I make the unproven assumption that you experience any qualia at all. But for all I know your red could be the same as my green, or your red could be like nothing I've ever experienced or ever could experience. Or it could be about the same as mine. I don't know and will never know. ?> ? > The only problem is, currently, when we observe something in the brain, > our senses give us abstracted information, like the word "red" to describe > what we are detecting, and this information does not have any quality to it > > ?You seem to feel that there is something physical in the brain like a "red circuit" that does nothing but generate the subjective qualia red, but random mutation and Natural Selection could never have produced the red circuit if it did nothing but produce the quilia red, but I know with absolute certainty that at least one human being DOES experience the red qualia. Therefore I must conclude that the red circuit must produce something else that Evolution can see, like behavior, and qualia is just a byproduct of that in the same way that a spandrel is the byproduct of an arch. ?>? > - and is only meant to represent such, given the correct interpretation. ?That red neural correlate does not exist in isolation but is embedded in and generates qualia as it relates to the entire brain. ?My red circuit is interpreted by the rest of my brain that is not part of the red circuit, and the non-red circuit part of my brain is different from the non-red circuit part of your brain, if it were not we'd be the same person. So even if the red circuit is identical for both of us our interpretation of it, that is to say the subjective experience we get out of it, could be different. ?> ? > At best, we interpret the words like red as if it was representing the > quality of the surface of the strawberry, or the initial source of the > perception process > > ?Yes, we both agree that red is the color of both strawberries and stop lights but we don't know if my subjective red is your subjective green or not. There is nothing mystical in this it's just a result of the fact that if X is not Y then X is not Y. Thomas Nagel might someday know what it would be like if Thomas Nagel were a bat, but Thomas Nagel will never know what it's like for a bat to be a bat because then Thomas Nagel wouldn't be Thomas Nagel anymore, he'd be a bat. A bat can know what it's like to be a bat but nothing else can. > ?> ? > and you seem to be claiming that a mindful redness quality has no > demonstrably reliable relationship to physical reality and isn't > approachable via science. You seem to say that with: "there is no way > they could know if my subjective experience of those colors was inverted > from their own." > > ?Yes.? ? I'm not saying they are inverted, I'm just saying there will never be proof they are or are not inverted. I'm also saying that fact doesn't prove there is something ?mystical going on ?> ? > So, at best you seem to be leaning towards Cartesian dualism, > > Perhaps you could say what ?I believe in dualism, but not ? Cartesian dualism?? ?. I have no patience ?with "The Soul" but I do believe in information and I do believe that mind and brain are not the same thing because nouns verbs and adjectives are not the same thing. Mind is what the brain does and I am not a noun, I am the way atoms behave when they are organized in a johnkclarkian way. And although I will never be able to prove it I believe that consciousness is what data feels like when it is processed intelligently, I take ?it? as a axiom so after that there just isn't much ?more ? to say about consciousness. ? There is however plenty more to say and discover about how intelligence works. ? ?> ? > Even though you say that "the mind is what the brain does" this seems to > contradict your assertion that "there is no way they could know...", > > ?No, that's one of the things that I CAN know. If my mind changes then my brain changes, and if my brain changes then my mind changes.? ?What I don't know for sure is if the same is true for you; I know that if your brain changes your behavior changes and if your behavior changes your brain changes, but if your mind changes too I don't know for certain, I don't even know for sure that you or anybody else in the universe has a mind, although I very very strongly suspect that they do.? > ?> ? > implying there might be (as in never say never fails) a complete lack of > relationship between physical detectable reality and what is in any "mind"? ?Not necessarily a lack of a relationship but the lack of a proven relationship. Godel tells us that proof and truth are not the same things. Depending on the axioms chosen there can be true things that can't be proven or, what is much worse, false things that can be proven. And no axiomatic system powerful enough to do arithmetic can prove its own consistency. So all you can do is be very careful in picking axioms, make them as simple innocuous and self evidently true as you can and then hope for the best. But if you don't need "X is certainly true" and "X is probably true" is good enough then you don't need to worry about Godel. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 23:37:14 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 18:37:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > no truth exists in the larger sense. I wouldn't go that far. I think the continuum hypothesis ? is either true or it isn't, but whether we will ever know which is a entirely different question. In 1940 Godel showed that using the simple innocuous and self evidently true axioms of set theory you can never prove that a set exists that is larger than the set of integers but smaller than the set of Real Numbers. And in 1963 Paul Cohen ? showed those very same axioms can never prove that such a set does not exist. So we can't prove it exists and we can't prove it doesn't. So we're sorta stuck. And we can't just add it, or its negation, as an additional axiom because neither it nor its negation is simple or self evidently true, and adding an axiom that may be false would be about as far from innocuous as you can get. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Dec 17 23:44:12 2016 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 15:44:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] another weird star Message-ID: http://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-have-found-another-star-that-is-mysteriously-dimming From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 00:10:26 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 19:10:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Talk Message-ID: Yes it can be awkward but there are some things kids just have to know: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4 John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 01:51:38 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 19:51:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened Message-ID: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-10/senate-quietly-passes-countering- disinformation-and-propaganda-act Don't know what is meant by 'cracking down'. If it means censoring web sites, then we are no better than China. bill w? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 18 06:22:48 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 22:22:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> <008201d2589b$9741c210$c5c54630$@att.net> Message-ID: <01b901d258f7$277c9c50$7675d4f0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace ? >?I visited a guy in North Alabama who had a license to trap hummingbirds - he tags them if untagged and records data if they are tagged. I think there is a big network keeping track of hummers.. He had about 200 around his house the time I went. Awesome. Highly aggressive things. Birds are great to look at, but they are vicious creatures. Like cats. bill w Ja, hummingbirds in particular. They are mean little bahstids. If you ever get a feeder you soon find out: they will cheerfully slay each other if they can. They seem to have an attitude, no fear at all: Human! Load that feeder and get out of my damn territory forthwith, you big ugly featherless thing! What they lack in size they make up in mean. Contrast the gentle seagull, playful, fun, never mean. They will shit on you if you let them, but it is nothing personal, just business. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 08:37:34 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 00:37:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 5:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-10/senate-quietly-passes-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act > > Don't know what is meant by 'cracking down'. If it means censoring web > sites, then we are no better than China. There seems to be one silver lining: the crackdown only applies to disinformation. In other words, if you can prove in court that what you're reporting is true, you're immune. This is definitely not the case with China. From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 08:47:09 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 00:47:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 18, 2016, at 12:37 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 5:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: >> http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-10/senate-quietly-passes-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act >> >> Don't know what is meant by 'cracking down'. If it means censoring web >> sites, then we are no better than China. > > There seems to be one silver lining: the crackdown only applies to > disinformation. In other words, if you can prove in court that what > you're reporting is true, you're immune. This is definitely not the > case with China. I think that's a very thin veneer to make it appear the government knows best and only has the truth in mind. I'd rather put up with the risk of being misinformed and fear for people who put their trust in this new law. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 09:33:21 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 01:33:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:43 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Jason Resch >> wrote: >> > The difficulty is we >> > can't prove there is no collapse from our vantage point. Running an >> > execution of some program on a quantum computer necessitates that there >> > is >> > no collapse from your point of view. If we run a brain simulation and we >> > know there is no collapse, then we know some, possibly exponentially >> > growing, number of divergent emulations of that mind were instantiated >> > in >> > that superposition. >> >> I don't see how we know that any divergent emulation were >> instantiated. All we know for sure is that at least one was: the one >> resulting in the resulting state. We don't know whether any others >> existed. > > If the wave function is real, and not merely a tool that yields right > probabilities for us, then the superpositions within the wave function would > all have an equal claim to reality. Not so much. If there is a "right" probability, then by definition it has a superior claim. > E.g. a system of pies, each > of which splits into two pipes every foot I know that was a typo, but "a system of pies" calls into mind some weird mental imagery. (Though the fact that I've been baking a bit today may have helped.) :P >> > This is why fact that quantum computers can be built so strongly >> > suggests >> > the existence/reality/and effective causality of vast unseen resources >> > present throughout the (now assuredly very real) wave function. >> >> For certain definitions of "resources", but it doesn't suggest any of >> those resources exist outside of or necessarily spawn other worlds. > > Then what resources is the computation using? We can agree we get the final > answer and it is not by magic, so clearly something real is responsible for > yielding the answer. According to the theory, this thing is the wave > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various > superpositions. "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. >> As the article >> notes, the friend could be in a superimposed state. Another >> possibility, which I have illustrated before, is that which way the >> experiment would go was determined at least as early as the last >> conscious actor performing any action that could influence the >> experiment (such as the exact timing of putting the cat in the box), >> even if no such actor knew the outcome yet. > > There's nothing to motivate this theory. There's just as much to motivate that theory as there is MWI - to wit, nothing that proves either way. > In fact, there's been no reason to believe in Copenhagen Interpretation > since Everett used the assumption of no collapse to show how the math of the > theory produces the illusion of collapse. You can't get a more clear cut > case for Occam's razor's preference for MW over CI than this: explains more, > while assuming less. If we're using Occam's Razor (which, granted, I have been), then predetermination (with possible exception for conscious actors, up until their last action that could influence a given result) seems simpler than MWI, as it does not assume anything we can not observe. From atymes at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 09:56:17 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 01:56:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 8:36 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 12:45 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >>> There is not one speck of evidence that the human brain uses any sort of >>> quantum process in its information processing >> >> You are trolling, aren't you? > > Trolling?? I know it's difficult for you Adrian but try not to be a total > jerk, I've been posting on this subject on this list for over 20 years. Yes, thus why I found it so odd that your prior responses on this topic delved into word twisting and nonsequitors. At least this time you responded to what I actually said, for which I thank you. > Max Tegmark > has calculated that if 2 electrons in a microtubule > become entangled they would become unentangled in less than a > picosecond > and that's far too short for structures as large as those in the brain to do any quantum logic processing. Light, the fastest thing in the universe, moves about a hundredth of an inch in a picosecond. A hundredth of an inch is larger than many neurons, and only a fraction of that distance need be traversed to affect potentials. Quantum interactions can influence when and whether specific neurons fire, though the collective result is no more superpositioned than Schrodinger's cat - and, just like with the cat, the possible resulting states are constrained by the medium through which this influence takes place. From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 15:36:50 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 10:36:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: >I believe there is an emerging consensus around the idea that there is a consistent neural correlate to a redness quality and a consistently observably different neural correlate for a greenness quality. This theory could be proven, if we find these, and with that can reliably predict (i.e. demonstrably never fails or is never falsified) at observing such differing correlates in other's brains ?Yes, I could determine that whatever color qualia you associate with strawberries you also associate with stoplights, if of course I make the unproven assumption that you experience any qualia at all. But for all I know your red could be the same as my green, or your red could be like nothing I've ever experienced or ever could experience. Or it could be about the same as mine. I don't know and will never know. ?> > The only problem is, currently, when we observe something in the brain, > our senses give us abstracted information, like the word "red" to describe > what we are detecting, and this information does not have any quality to it > ?You seem to feel that there is something physical in the brain like a "red circuit" that does nothing but generate the subjective qualia red, but random mutation and Natural Selection could never have produced the red circuit if it did nothing but produce the quilia red, but I know with absolute certainty that at least one human being DOES experience the red qualia. Therefore I must conclude that the red circuit must produce something else that Evolution can see, like behavior, and qualia is just a byproduct of that in the same way that a spandrel is the byproduct of an arch. ?>? > - and is only meant to represent such, given the correct interpretation. ?That red neural correlate does not exist in isolation but is embedded in and generates qualia as it relates to the entire brain. ?My red circuit is interpreted by the rest of my brain that is not part of the red circuit, and the non-red circuit part of my brain is different from the non-red circuit part of your brain, if it were not we'd be the same person. So even if the red circuit is identical for both of us our interpretation of it, that is to say the subjective experience we get out of it, could be different. ?> > At best, we interpret the words like red as if it was representing the > quality of the surface of the strawberry, or the initial source of the > perception process > ?Yes, we both agree that red is the color of both strawberries and stop lights but we don't know if my subjective red is your subjective green or not. There is nothing mystical in this it's just a result of the fact that if X is not Y then X is not Y. Thomas Nagel might someday know what it would be like if Thomas Nagel were a bat, but Thomas Nagel will never know what it's like for a bat to be a bat because then Thomas Nagel wouldn't be Thomas Nagel anymore, he'd be a bat. A bat can know what it's like to be a bat but nothing else can. > > ? ? > and you seem to be claiming that a mindful redness quality has no > demonstrably reliable relationship to physical reality and isn't > approachable via science. You seem to say that with: *"there is no way > they could know if my subjective experience of those colors was inverted > from their own."* ?Yes.? ? I'm not saying they are inverted, I'm just saying there will never be proof they are or are not inverted. I'm also saying that fact doesn't prove there is something ?mystical going on ?> ? > So, at best you seem to be leaning towards Cartesian dualism, > Perhaps you could say what ?I believe in dualism, but not ? Cartesian dualism?? ?. I have no patience ?with "The Soul" but I do believe in information and I do believe that mind and brain are not the same thing because nouns verbs and adjectives are not the same thing. Mind is what the brain does and I am not a noun, I am the way atoms behave when they are organized in a johnkclarkian way. And although I will never be able to prove it I believe that consciousness is what data feels like when it is processed intelligently, I take ?it? as a axiom so after that there just isn't much ?more ? to say about consciousness. ? There is however plenty more to say and discover about how intelligence works. ? ?> > Even though you say that "the mind is what the brain does" this seems to > contradict your assertion that "there is no way they could know...", > ?No, that's one of the things that I CAN know. If my mind changes then my brain changes, and if my brain changes then my mind changes.? ?What I don't know for sure is if the same is true for you; I know that if your brain changes your behavior changes and if your behavior changes your brain changes, but if your mind changes too I don't know for certain, I don't even know for sure that you or anybody else in the universe has a mind, although I very very strongly suspect that they do.? > ?> > implying there might be (as in never say never fails) a complete lack of > relationship between physical detectable reality and what is in any "mind"? ?Not necessarily a lack of a relationship but the lack of a proven relationship. Godel tells us that proof and truth are not the same things. Depending on the axioms chosen there can be true things that can't be proven or, what is much worse, false things that can be proven. And no axiomatic system powerful enough to do arithmetic can prove its own consistency. So all you can do is be very careful in picking axioms, make them as simple innocuous and self evidently true as you can and then hope for the best. But if you don't need "X is certainly true" and "X is probably true" is good enough then you don't need to worry about Godel. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 15:42:06 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 10:42:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 4:24 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > > no truth exists in the larger sense. > I wouldn't go that far. I think the continuum hypothesis ? is either true or it isn't, but whether we will ever know which is a entirely different question. In 1940 Godel showed that using the simple innocuous and self evidently true axioms of set theory you can never prove that a set exists that is larger than the set of integers but smaller than the set of Real Numbers. And in 1963 Paul Cohen ? showed those very same axioms can never prove that such a set does not exist. So we can't prove it exists and we can't prove it doesn't. So we're sorta stuck. And we can't just add it, or its negation, as an additional axiom because neither it nor its negation is simple or self evidently true, and adding an axiom that may be false would be about as far from innocuous as you can get. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 16:11:43 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 11:11:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 4:56 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> ?>? >> Max Tegmark >> ? ? >> has calculated that if 2 electrons in a microtubule >> ? ? >> become entangled they would become unentangled in less than a >> ? ? >> picosecond >> ? ? >> and that's far too short for structures as large as those in the brain to >> do any quantum logic processing. Light, the fastest thing in the universe, >> moves about a hundredth of an inch in a picosecond. > > > ?>? > A hundredth of an inch is larger than many neurons, ? A hundredth of an inch is ? ? about 4 times shorter ? ? than ? ? the shortest neuron, ? ? and the longest neuron is over a ? ? METER ? ? long, the longest cell in the body. And Penrose and Hameroff ? ? did a lot of theorizing but provided zero experimental evidence that electrons in microtubules are entangled, or that anything in neurons is entangled, or that the brain uses any sort of quantum logic in its information processing. Nor is the human brain very good at doing the sort of things that we know for sure that Quantum Computers would be good at, like factoring large numbers or simulating quantum processes; conventional non-quantum computers aren't very good at those things either but they're better than we are. ? John K Clark? ? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 18:33:41 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 13:33:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 8:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > ?> ? > If it means censoring web sites, then we are no better than China. You ain't seen nothing yet and ?I t's a bit late in the day to be worrying about stuff like ?that? , people should have been worrying before November 8. This is the new normal ?, and it's not as if it's come as any big surprise. ? ? It's enough to make me nostalgic for the good old days when we were young and foolish and the worst thing voters could ?imagine was Hillary's ? E-mail server. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 18:57:30 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 10:57:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 18, 2016, at 10:33 AM, John Clark wrote: >> On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 8:51 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> >> ?> ?If it means censoring web sites, then we are no better than China. > > You ain't seen nothing yet and ?It's a bit late in the day to be worrying about stuff like ?that?, people should have been worrying before November 8. This is the new normal?, and it's not as if it's come as any big surprise. ?? It's enough to make me nostalgic for the good old days when we were young and foolish and the worst thing voters could ?imagine was Hillary's? E-mail server. Whoa! This was voted on by people currently in office. Also, Democrats, especially Clinton, are extremely vocal about doing something about 'fake news.' And Clinton has never been much of a civil libertarian. I know folks who were afraid of Clinton not because they thought the email server thing was a big deal, but because they feared she might start a war with Russia. That's no different than you -- than your whining about the possibility Trump might start a war. And they seemed about as reasonable -- I mean as hysterical, irrational, and unbearable -- as you. And, yup, like you, they tried to browbeat others into voting for their candidate -- even telling third party voters and non-voters that it would be their fault if Clinton got in. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 23:44:52 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 17:44:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <01b901d258f7$277c9c50$7675d4f0$@att.net> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> <67b1a4f8-04a6-e812-8a5d-7d350d8a4bcb@gmail.com> <008201d2589b$9741c210$c5c54630$@att.net> <01b901d258f7$277c9c50$7675d4f0$@att.net> Message-ID: Contrast the gentle seagull, playful, fun, never mean. They will shit on you if you let them, but it is nothing personal, just business. spike I think the proper term is 'strafe'. bill w On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 12:22 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > *?* > > > > >?I visited a guy in North Alabama who had a license to trap hummingbirds > - he tags them if untagged and records data if they are tagged. I think > there is a big network keeping track of hummers.. He had about 200 around > his house the time I went. Awesome. Highly aggressive things. Birds are > great to look at, but they are vicious creatures. Like cats. > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > Ja, hummingbirds in particular. They are mean little bahstids. If you > ever get a feeder you soon find out: they will cheerfully slay each other > if they can. They seem to have an attitude, no fear at all: Human! Load > that feeder and get out of my damn territory forthwith, you big ugly > featherless thing! > > > > What they lack in size they make up in mean. Contrast the gentle seagull, > playful, fun, never mean. They will shit on you if you let them, but it is > nothing personal, just business. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 23:52:25 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 18:52:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 Dan TheBookMan wrote: ?> ? > Whoa! This was voted on by people currently in office. Also, Democrats, > especially Clinton, are extremely vocal about doing something about 'fake > news. > ?The bill passed the House by a landslide ?vote ? 390 to 30, but of the 30 that voted against it 24 were Democrats.? It's unlikely to become law before January 20. On a unrelated subject that ? has nothing to do with fake news, did you know that the headquarters of Hillary's child sex slave ring ?is? ?in ? the basement of ?the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant ? in Washington DC?? It is, and I know it is because I read all about it on the internet. Never mind that ?the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant ? in Washington DC has no basement. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 00:26:53 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 16:26:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <249423E9-982F-4D08-AD25-AB43F98084FC@gmail.com> On Dec 18, 2016, at 3:52 PM, John Clark wrote: > >> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> > >> ?> ?Whoa! This was voted on by people currently in office. Also, Democrats, especially Clinton, are extremely vocal about doing something about 'fake news. > > ?The bill passed the House by a landslide ?vote ?390 to 30, but of the 30 that voted against it 24 were Democrats.? Granted, though that still means many, many Democrats in the House voted for -- not just a handful. 390 is well above a bare majority. So what's your point? Are you denying any Democrats, including Clinton, have spoke out about the need to use the state to deal with fake news? Here's but one example of her calling for the government to do something about fake news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/09/hillary-clinton-warns-danger-fake-news-addresses-ceremony-harry1/ Isn't the legislation Clinton is talking about there -- and praising -- this bill? If so, then why wouldn't we expect if she takes the Oval Office next month that she'll sign it into law? (I'm saying if the Electors decide to vote for her.) > It's unlikely to become law before January 20. Do you seriously believe that had Clinton won, she would veto it? It that if the bill passes the Senate by a similar margin, it would veto-proof, no? > On a unrelated subject that ?has nothing to do with fake news, did you know that the headquarters of Hillary's child sex slave ring ?is? ?in ?the basement of ?the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant? in Washington DC?? It is, and I know it is because I read all about it on the internet. Never mind that ?the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant? in Washington DC has no basement. What's your point? Did you fall for that bit of fake news? I certainly didn't. Since you often claimed to be a libertarian here, I'm wondering if to you you believe that being a libertarian is compatible with the state deciding what's fake news. Don't we already have plenty of historical examples of what happens when the state decides these issues? Wouldn't you rather put up with the bother of fake news over the much more serious threat of government vetted news? Thanks once more for your fake news approach to editing my responses. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 01:11:01 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 20:11:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <249423E9-982F-4D08-AD25-AB43F98084FC@gmail.com> References: <249423E9-982F-4D08-AD25-AB43F98084FC@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 Dan TheBookMan wrote: ?> ?you often claimed to be a libertarian here ?I do indeed.? > ?> ? > I'm wondering if to you you believe that being a libertarian is compatible > with the state deciding what's fake news. > ?Then wonder no longer, I do not believe ?being a libertarian is compatible with the state deciding what's fake news. > ?> ? > Thanks once more for your fake news approach to editing my responses. > ?Editing your response? What the hell are you talking about? John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 01:23:06 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 18:23:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> On 12/18/2016 8:36 AM, John Clark wrote: > if you don't need "X is certainly true" and "X is probably true" is > good enough then you don't need to worry about Godel. Yes, I think we are in a large part in agreement. We can't prove the sun will come up tomorrow, we just know it has, every day, for the past 6+ billion years. And the falsifiable prediction is that we will be able to find a similarly reliable relationship between a redness quality to it's neural correlate and greenness quality to it's, and reliably predict one with the other. I refer to what this would give us as the weak form of effing the ineffable because of these and other weaknesses. > On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > >I believe there is an emerging consensus around the idea that there > is a consistent neural correlate to a redness quality and a > consistently observably different neural correlate for a greenness > quality. This theory could be proven, if we find these, and with that > can reliably predict (i.e. demonstrably never fails or is never > falsified) at observing such differing correlates in other's brains > > ?Yes, I could determine that whatever color qualia you associate with > strawberries you also associate with stoplights, if of course I make > the unproven assumption that you experience any qualia at all. But > for all I know your red could be the same as my green, or your red > could be like nothing I've ever experienced or ever could experience. > Or it could be about the same as mine. I don't know and will never know. Maybe not, for sure, via the "week" form of effing the ineffable that we've been talking about. But there is a much stronger form of efffing the ineffable. The right hemisphere of your brain knows absolutely what quality your left hemisphere represents red with and visa versa - since you experience the knowledge of both the left (in the right hemisphere) and right (in the left hemisphere) field of your vision at the same time. Similarly, there are cases of conjoined twins that share brain parts that can do the same - be aware of the knowledge and it's qualities in the other's brain (what the other is seeing out the other eyes). Obviously, the corpus Collosum is doing something that makes this possible between hemispheres, possibly neurons firing in synchronized standing waves as Steven Lehar predicts, the implication being that we will some day be able to do the same, between brains - enabling you to experience, first hand the quality of another's knowledge. I refer to this as the strongest form of effing the ineffable, since you are directly experiencing the qualities of the same knowledge in the other's brain, along with your own. > ?> > The only problem is, currently, when we observe something in the > brain, our senses give us abstracted information, like the word > "red" to describe what we are detecting, and this information does > not have any quality to it > > ?You seem to feel that there is something physical in the brain like a > "red circuit" that does nothing but generate the subjective qualia > red, but random mutation and Natural Selection could never have > produced the red circuit if it did nothing but produce the quilia red, > but I know with absolute certainty that at least one human being DOES > experience the red qualia. Therefore I must conclude that the red > circuit must produce something else that Evolution can see, like > behavior, and qualia is just a byproduct of that in the same way that > a spandrel is the byproduct of an arch. The redness neural correlate being a "circuit" of some kind is definitely a theoretical possibility. I think it is more likely and I predict that something just physically has each of the elemental qualities we can experience, like glutamate, reacting in a synapse having a redness quality and glycene having a greenness quality. Diversity of representations is important for intelligent knowledge. That is why you need a representation of a 1 to be different from a zero. The more diversity the smarter. Evolution simply harnessed these natural phenomenal qualitative diversities, so we could survive better by more easily differentiating and picking out our knowledge of the red strawberry from amongst the green leaves. > ?> > At best, we interpret the words like red as if it was representing > the quality of the surface of the strawberry, or the initial > source of the perception process > > ?Yes, we both agree that red is the color of both strawberries and > stop lights but we don't know if my subjective red is your subjective > green or not. There is nothing mystical in this it's just a result of > the fact that if X is not Y then X is not Y. > > Thomas Nagel might someday know what it would be like if Thomas Nagel > were a bat, but Thomas Nagel will never know what it's like for a bat > to be a bat because then Thomas Nagel wouldn't be Thomas Nagel > anymore, he'd be a bat. A bat can know what it's like to be a bat but > nothing else can. At the composite qualia level, for sure. But I'm not talking about effing composite qualia, just elemental qualia from which composite qualia are constructed. When you have conjoined twins, they may know and directly experience what each other's elemental redness is like, but they may have different memories or feelings compositely bound with any particular elemental quality. And they for sure each have unique sets of knowledge of different selves looking out of different eyes, while being aware of each other's knowledge. > > ?>? > - and is only meant to represent such, given the correct > interpretation. > > > ?That red neural correlate does not exist in isolation but is embedded > in and generates qualia as it relates to the entire brain. ?My red > circuit is interpreted by the rest of my brain that is not part of the > red circuit, and the non-red circuit part of my brain is different > from the non-red circuit part of your brain, if it were not we'd be > the same person. So even if the red circuit is identical for both of > us our interpretation of it, that is to say the subjective experience > we get out of it, could be different. I guess that is a theoretical possibility. But I predict something different - that there are elemental qualities of matter or at least states of matter that are just as consistent as all other qualities of matter or in fact glutamate consistently behaves the way it does, because of it's consistent physical redness quality. The behavior of the neural correlate and it's quality are one and the same. I'd like to see you give at least one similar falsifiable specific example of what physical combinations of matter, or states of matter could produce your redness. And how would the physical behavior of redness be different than greenness. Any theoretical possibility using any set of matter, in any state, in any kind of a "circuit" (even if it is some kind of unique composite redness that needs to be "interpreted" [please explain what you mean by this with specific physical examples] in some special way) would satisfy me. At least you threw out the real sandrel of an arch. But you need to give a similar physical example of what could be responsible for your redness, and how this behavior could be different than greenness. Until you start providing some specific falsifiable examples in your predictions, it's hard to know that you are talking about anything other than just hand waving because we don't know how we might test for such - even if only to prove there is no consistent relationship between the dual physical neural correlate and your unknowable mind. Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 01:32:30 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 17:32:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <249423E9-982F-4D08-AD25-AB43F98084FC@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Dec 18, 2016, at 5:11 PM, John Clark wrote: > >> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> >> ?> ?you often claimed to be a libertarian here > > ?I do indeed.? > >> ?> ?I'm wondering if to you you believe that being a libertarian is compatible with the state deciding what's fake news. > > ?Then wonder no longer, I do not believe ?being a libertarian is compatible with the state deciding what's fake news. Then are you going my to criticize Clinton and many Democrats for advocating that the state decide what's fake news? >> ?> ?Thanks once more for your fake news approach to editing my responses. > > ?Editing your response? What the hell are you talking about? You've done it again. Trimming out relevant portions of my response, which makes me wonder if you're doing that to make it look as if I didn't respond to those points. For instance, I dedicated part of my post to a link where Clinton openly supported the legislation we're discussing. (That's important and relevant to your darker comments because the legislation is not a Trump innovation.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 02:43:38 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 21:43:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <249423E9-982F-4D08-AD25-AB43F98084FC@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: ?> ? > are you going my to criticize Clinton and many Democrats for advocating > that the state decide what's fake news? > ?If? ?that what their ? advocating ?then yes I criticize it, but I haven't bothered to read the bill in question because I doubt the Senate will even vote on it much less pass it. But I have read a brief summery of it and nothing particularly dreadful jumps out at me. Maybe I'm wrong but it just seems to be saying if Russia covertly fucks around with us we should covertly fuck around with them, something I'm sure the intelligence agencies would do anyway with or without the bill. http://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hr_6393_one_pager.pdf ?But maybe it's a bad summary and the problem is in the fine print, so here is the entire bill: https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr6393/BILLS-114hr6393rds.pdf? Your homework assignment is to read the entire bill, all 93 pages, and report back to us on exactly what's wrong with it. I'd do it myself but I'd rather watch paint dry. ?> ? > You've done it again. > ?Done what again?? > ?> ? > Trimming out relevant portions of my response, > ?For god's sake Dan, ? ?your entire post is still right there next to mine for all to see in all its untrimmed glory!? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 19 03:19:35 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:19:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened Message-ID: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of John Clark ? I'd do it myself but I'd rather watch paint dry?John K Clark Guys, you know what we really really need? I?ll tell you what we really need. We need a kind of paint that does something interesting while it is drying, something that would make it worth watching. I came up with an idea. You have seen those tiny low-intensity devices that project light patterns. We could rig up one of those things to emit in IR, just below the human visual band, about 800 nanometers with an LED. Then we mix powdered phosphor in with ordinary paint, brush it on, turn off the lights, turn on your hidden projector, tell your friends you have invented a special kind of paint, it is interesting to watch it dry. Your hidden device projects nekkid images, or the Virgin Mary perhaps and you are back there IT?S A MIRACLE! Or hey, why not both, have a nekkid Virgin Mary? Either way, it would make paint interesting to watch as it dries. It would wreck a perfectly good hyperbole that?s been around for a long time perhaps, but oh it would be a hoot. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 05:37:59 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 00:37:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> Message-ID: LSD works. *If* you like to see the innate patterns in the paint and how it dries, then hallucinate complex fractal symmetries on those patterns, then think of all the metaphorical connections that paint drying entails, then realize that the visual patterns and the metaphorical patterns are really the same thing, then hallucinate metaphor fractal symmetries, &c. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 19 06:00:13 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 22:00:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> Message-ID: <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Subject: Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened >?LSD works. *If* you like to see the innate patterns in the paint and how it dries, then hallucinate complex fractal symmetries on those patterns, then think of all the metaphorical connections that paint drying entails, then realize that the visual patterns and the metaphorical patterns are really the same thing, then hallucinate metaphor fractal symmetries, &c? Well OK, but I would go for something I could control a little better. Think of the enormous potential for a truly epic caper, such a wild gag you could pull. Consider my previous example: the Virgin Mary must have been crazy hot in about Spring of 1 BC, so smoking hot a supernatural being couldn?t resist the temptation. I recommend leaving the dope alone, get a UV image projector, phosphor in the paint, get your buddies together, set it up patiently and carefully, have a blast. Do it right, they will be telling their grandchildren about it fifty years from now, and what a story that would be. Nothing like the boring old images in a slice of toast or a questionable shadow in a pine knot, snooze, that?s been done to death. This vision would be from before she was famous and would be much more interesting to watch. Safe, legal, won?t interfere with your getting a security clearance, never been done before. Odd and fun mixture of reverence and lust. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Dec 19 10:21:24 2016 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 10:21:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5857B4A4.1000302@yahoo.com> I see this silly 'fundamental red' argument has been raised from the dead yet again. I thought we'd knocked it on the head ages ago, but apparently not. Brent's 'fundamental red' concept has a glaring, fundamental flaw: The idea that conscious perception of a colour (and presumably, by extension, any other conscious perception) is a 'fundamental quality'. This simply cannot be. It's at odds with what we know about neurobiology, and it's logically infeasible. The sensation of 'yellow' is not a simple, single thing in our brains, it's a combination of many many things, varying over time and dependent on individual experiences, memories, associations of varying strengths and types, and variations in brain wiring. And probably other things we don't yet know about. It would be a very odd thing indeed if yellow, green, red, blue, orange, pink, that vaguely bluish-grey you often see in the clouds, etc., etc., not to mention literally billions of other sensations, were each 'fundamental qualities'. That's stretching the concept of 'fundamental' to breaking point, for a start. If a single neurotransmitter like glutamate embodied a single concept like 'red', how many neurotransmitters would we need? How many colours can we perceive? How many other sensations are we capable of perceiving? There's only one known way of representing such an enormous number of things, and that's by combining a smaller number of simpler (or more fundamental) things. We know how this works, are quite good at it, and see examples of it again and again in nature. Including in our brains. Biology is especially good at this, as anyone who's studied virtually any aspect of biology will know. It's just as easy to say "purple" as it is to say "car", but neither thing is a 'fundamental' phenomenon. There are probably as many shades of purple as there are types of car, and I'd guess that the creation of the sensation of a specific colour purple in a person's mind is roughly comparable in complexity to the construction of a specific car. Conscious sensation, at the very least, has to be a complex phenomenon, involving many neuronal events. The only 'fundamental' items here are spike trains (no, not trains belonging to Spike) or even individual action potentials. An analogy with computers would be thinking that the characters in a video game were 'fundamental qualities' of the computer, while ignoring the fact that everything the computer does is a result of combinations of ones and zeros, which are themselves actually voltages on wires and in semiconductors. I know it's weird and a bit unintuitive that all of Halo, Minecraft, etc., boil down, fundamentally, to various combinations of 0 and +5 volts, but it's true. Ben Zaiboc From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 11:10:05 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 06:10:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> Message-ID: Ok fine, but joking aside you and many people here are the best candidates for psychedelic use (for being better than well, not for curative purposes,) and using catchall terms like "dope" for them and the general idea of "[not being in] control" are destructive and anti-thought. Control is a value judgment and you might find yourself in control of aspects of your mind you thought were only able to be explored in science fiction. One thing in particular I remember is you saying you do not have a very powerful 'mind's eye' (yay remembering stuff!); psychedelics would perhaps give you a temporary boost in this regard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 12:11:47 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 07:11:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> Message-ID: I will compile some literature regarding psychedelics and especially their espousal by those ISTP types who find extreme comfort in consistency but who have experienced this incredible otherworldly tool for self-improvement, pattern recognition and concept grokking. If Leary had been less radical, and if the privileged white middle class kids we called 'hippies' had been less, er, freaky-deaky, I have no doubt that Spike types such as yourself (Spike a Spike type? Who'dathunkit?) would either already have experienced or be extremely open to experiencing these phenomenal pieces of pharmacological technology. In fact, 'Grokogenic' is a very apt term for them as well that would appeal to the SF crowd. I am glad that they appear to be on the path to cultural acceptance and legalization, because I stand by my belief that, especially for people like you, not trying these in your lifetime is a waste of immense proportions. I will even make a bet with anyone here who hasn't tried--same as Rafal's star bet, ten to one you'll thank me afterwards. Or better yet, if you don't thank me I'll cut you a check for a grand; if you do then that's all the spoils I need. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 15:33:14 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 10:33:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 12:25 PM, spike wrote: > > > I have mentioned before (patience with me please) how cool it would be if > we could figure out some kind of systematic means of recording into some > kind of web-based collective database or some means of recording > systematically nature observations. > Sigh. Spike, you try my patience. :-) Every time you bring this up I mention the National Phenology Network, a well-organized program that is already doing exactly this: https://www.usanpn.org/ >From : --- USA National Phenology Network *What we do:* The USA-NPN developed *Nature's Notebook* , a project focused on collecting standardized ground observations of phenology by researchers, students and volunteers. We also foster phenology communities of practice, and the development of tools and techniques to support a wide range of decisions made routinely by citizens, managers, scientists, and others, including decisions related to allergies, wildfires, water, and conservation. *Our mission:* The USA National Phenology Network serves science and society by promoting broad understanding of plant and animal phenology and its relationship with environmental change. The Network is a consortium of individuals and organizations that collect, share, and use phenology data, models, and related information. *Our vision:* The USA National Phenology Network encourages people of all ages and backgrounds to observe and record phenology as a way to discover and explore the nature and pace of our dynamic world. The Network makes phenology data, models, and related information freely available to empower scientists, resource managers, and the public in decision-making and adapting to variable and changing climates and environments. *How we're organized:* The efforts of the USA-NPN are organized and directed by the staff of the National Coordinating Office . We are currently working to establish a Steering Group that will provide input on the direction of the USA-NPN and on activities of the National Coordinating Office. The activities of the USA-NPN are funded by several organizations, including the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service, The University of Arizona and the National Science Foundation. --- Anyone can join and the data is available free from < https://www.usanpn.org/data>. They don't seem to have a lot of data collection automated, but for storing and distributing data I don't see any reason not to use their infrastructure. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 19 15:20:44 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 07:20:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> Message-ID: <015101d25a0b$780f3b90$682db2b0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Subject: Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened >?I will compile some literature regarding psychedelics?I am glad that they appear to be on the path to cultural acceptance and legalization, because I stand by my belief that, especially for people like you, not trying these in your lifetime is a waste of immense proportions? Hi Will, thanks for the invitation. I respectfully decline your offer. For the record, I advise not going there, and while not there, staying not there. My intuition tells me the risks outweigh the benefits. As you say, I have not tried it, so all I have is my intuition on the matter. I am all for open-mindedness and trying new experiences. Just not this one. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 15:51:23 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 09:51:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] macular degeneration Message-ID: It is strongly suspected that high amounts of blue light contribute to this disease. This has been known for several years. So why aren't we hearing more about it? We who look at PC and smartphone screens, spend time outdoors (UV), use the new lightbulbs, go to and work in places where fluorescent lights are used. So I Googled it and found that a special type of lens can filter out the possibly harmful amounts of blue light. https://essilorusa.com/content/essilor-usa/en/newsroom/news/new-eyeglass-lenses-block-harmful-blue-light-and-uv-rays.html So why, on my recent trip to the optometrist, did I not get a recommendation from him to get this new lens? The irony here is that I have learned to never trust my doctor to know all the latest things. I think I'll get them. Better safe than sorry. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 19 16:52:45 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 08:52:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] four seasons tree In-Reply-To: References: <001d01d2588a$9dfe8540$d9fb8fc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <009101d25a18$531a6780$f94f3680$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] four seasons tree On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 12:25 PM, spike > wrote: I have mentioned before (patience with me please) how cool it would be if we could figure out some kind of systematic means of recording into some kind of web-based collective database or some means of recording systematically nature observations. Sigh. Spike, you try my patience. :-) Every time you bring this up I mention the National Phenology Network, a well-organized program that is already doing exactly this: https://www.usanpn.org/ >From : --- USA National Phenology Network What we do: The USA-NPN developed Nature's Notebook, a project focused on collecting standardized ground observations of phenology by researchers, students and volunteers. ?-Dave Doesn?t hurt to repost it occasionally, thanks. I see that NPN is gaining popularity and I think we are on our way. What I really want is to invent ways to quantize specialized observations. NPN does some of this. Cool! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 17:31:03 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:31:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] macular degeneration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 19 December 2016 at 15:51, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > It is strongly suspected that high amounts of blue light contribute to this > disease. This has been known for several years. So why aren't we hearing > more about it? We who look at PC and smartphone screens, spend time > outdoors (UV), use the new lightbulbs, go to and work in places where > fluorescent lights are used. > > So I Googled it and found that a special type of lens can filter out the > possibly harmful amounts of blue light. > > https://essilorusa.com/content/essilor-usa/en/newsroom/news/new-eyeglass-lenses-block-harmful-blue-light-and-uv-rays.html > > So why, on my recent trip to the optometrist, did I not get a recommendation > from him to get this new lens? The irony here is that I have learned to > never trust my doctor to know all the latest things. > > I think I'll get them. Better safe than sorry. > I read it on the internet so it must be true! :) Do you really think that all the makers of screens and lightbulbs are risking making people go blind, with all the subsequent lawsuits for damages? You won't find evidence on sites selling special glasses. You just get the sales spiel. Try reading reliable medical sites. The main risk factors for age-related macular degeneration are Age (!), smoking and family history (and being female). On the other hand, special lenses will probably only damage your wallet. BillK From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 18:10:23 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 10:10:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] macular degeneration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <31BCB126-2227-40CB-A131-01877A821357@gmail.com> On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:31 AM, BillK wrote: >> On 19 December 2016 at 15:51, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> It is strongly suspected that high amounts of blue light contribute to this >> disease. This has been known for several years. So why aren't we hearing >> more about it? We who look at PC and smartphone screens, spend time >> outdoors (UV), use the new lightbulbs, go to and work in places where >> fluorescent lights are used. >> >> So I Googled it and found that a special type of lens can filter out the >> possibly harmful amounts of blue light. >> >> https://essilorusa.com/content/essilor-usa/en/newsroom/news/new-eyeglass-lenses-block-harmful-blue-light-and-uv-rays.html >> >> So why, on my recent trip to the optometrist, did I not get a recommendation >> from him to get this new lens? The irony here is that I have learned to >> never trust my doctor to know all the latest things. >> >> I think I'll get them. Better safe than sorry. > > I read it on the internet so it must be true! :) > > Do you really think that all the makers of screens and lightbulbs are > risking making people go blind, with all the subsequent lawsuits for > damages? > > You won't find evidence on sites selling special glasses. You just get > the sales spiel. Try reading reliable medical sites. > The main risk factors for age-related macular degeneration are Age > (!), smoking and family history (and being female). > > > > > On the other hand, special lenses will probably only damage your wallet. You beat me to a response. The only thing I would add is LEF's eye health protocol: http://www.lifeextension.com/Protocols/Eye-Ear/Eye-Health/Page-01 Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 18:19:20 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 12:19:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] macular degeneration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > > > > I read it on the internet so it must be true! :) > ?Well, now, I hope that I am a bit or two above that category of people.? > > Do you really think that all the makers of screens and lightbulbs are > risking making people go blind, with all the subsequent lawsuits for > damages? > ?Yes, I do. How many lawsuits have been filed and won regarding food additives, asbestos, pesticides etc., drugs and thousands more. Well not yes, in that they are not knowingly chancing lawsuits.? But companies historically only pull dangerous products when they lose lawsuits or the feds make them do it. Voluntarily doing it is fairly rare. Hurts their bottom line. Profits can overcome settling lawsuits. > > You won't find evidence on sites selling special glasses. You just get > the sales spiel. Try reading reliable medical sites. > The main risk factors for age-related macular degeneration are Age > (!), smoking and family history (and being female). > > related-macular-degeneration-overview> > > > ?This latter link cites two studies that implicate blue light in the possible causes. You did not read it fully. (Check refs. 16 and 17) You are a victim of your own logic. You assume that because webmd did not list blue light, then it is not a factor. Why believe them? If it is not proven, then it is tentative, right? I will not alarm you with all the wrong things doctors have done to me, but it surely made me a big skeptic of any sort of medical pronouncements, esp. including what to eat. Just ignorant pill pushers, some of them. I appreciate the response. My views here are on hold. ?bill w > On the other hand, special lenses will probably only damage your wallet. > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 19:18:43 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 11:18:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <015101d25a0b$780f3b90$682db2b0$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <015101d25a0b$780f3b90$682db2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2016 7:35 AM, "spike" wrote: For the record, I advise not going there, and while not there, staying not there. My intuition tells me the risks outweigh the benefits. As you say, I have not tried it, so all I have is my intuition on the matter. I am all for open-mindedness and trying new experiences. Just not this one. Agreed. The risk of long-lasting damage is too great. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Dec 19 20:22:44 2016 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 15:22:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <015101d25a0b$780f3b90$682db2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2016 14:19, "Adrian Tymes" wrote: Agreed. The risk of long-lasting damage is too great. To me that sounds like the product of anti-hippie fearmongering about "flashbacks" and your cousin's cousin who took too much LSD and now thinks he's the messiah and a grapefruit. Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder is quite uncommon. I honestly doubt you'll find much literature which concludes that one dose of psychedelics is mentally risky. Prove me wrong? It's propaganda. On the other hand, there are old and new studies where people who are completely drug-naive have positive experiences--sometimes everyone in the study. Psychedelics have been shown to assuage end-of-life anxiety in terminal disease patients. If psychedelics don't freak out people who are DYING, I don't think you'd have much of a problem. Spike, Adrian: You're scientists. You believe in the worth of the scientific method. Thus I would ask if you can provide literature to show that it is risky for an average person to use psychedelics. As well, my bet still stands, with odds of (x*1000) to 1, where x is 1 if you win the bet and 0 if you lose. I won't harangue, but these chemicals do just what a lover of nature and science wishes a chemical existed to do--and they do exist. It's an awful, awful waste of mind potential to forgo them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 19 20:38:30 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 12:38:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <015101d25a0b$780f3b90$682db2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <019201d25a37$dc3b4a60$94b1df20$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Sent: Monday, December 19, 2016 12:23 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened On Dec 19, 2016 14:19, "Adrian Tymes" > wrote: Agreed. The risk of long-lasting damage is too great. >? Psychedelics have been shown to assuage end-of-life anxiety in terminal disease patients. If psychedelics don't freak out people who are DYING? Hey, I see an area of agreement: for terminal patients, go for it! If I am terminal and I can see the end of the road coming, then I will use that stuff. Or perhaps not, but in those circumstances, I might give it a try. Not now. > ?.I won't harangue, but these chemicals do just what a lover of nature and science wishes a chemical existed to do--and they do exist. It's an awful, awful waste of mind potential to forgo them? Ja the risk of wasted potential is a risk I am willing to take. Were I Peter Parker, I would say my spidey sense is tingling whenever the notion arises. I will consider it once the local medic tells me she can do no more for me. Onward! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 00:03:57 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 19:03:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] AI Translation Message-ID: A funny thing happened on November 4, although no public announcement was made Google Translate suddenly started to do ? a? much much better ? job? . ?? Historically machine translation has improved a lot but the rate of improvement has slowed down over the last 4 or 5 years, until November 4. And then Boom! For example before November 4 it would translate the ? Jorge Borges ? quote ?"? *Uno no es lo que es por lo que escribe, sino por lo que ha le?do?"?* ? as: ? *One is not what is for what he writes, but for what he has read*? Pretty clunky, but after November 4 it was: ?*You are not what you write, but what you have read*? People in Japan were among the first to notice ?that something was up and within hours of the change the topic was the # 1 trend on Japanese Twitter. Somebody took a paragraph from a Japanese translation of ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro? ? made by a human and asked Google-translate to translate it back into English. One of the below is pure Hemingway and the other is ? Hemingway ? translated to ? Japanese ? and then translated by Google back to English, see if you can tell which is which:? *"Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai ?Ngaje Ngai,? the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude."* *"Kilimanjaro is a mountain of 19,710 feet covered with snow and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. The summit of the west is called ?Ngaje Ngai? in Masai, the house of God. Near the top of the west there is a dry and frozen dead body of leopard. No one has ever explained what leopard wanted at that altitude".* The first one is pure Hemingway ?'s and the second went through 2 translations, one of them make by a machine. Pretty damn good, the only giveaway is the lack of an article before the word "leopard". Odd it captured the subtlety but missed the "the" and a "a". But compare that with what Google-Translate would have give you just one day before: *"Kilimanjaro is 19,710 feet of the mountain covered with snow, and it is said that the highest mountain in Africa. Top of the west, ?Ngaje Ngai? in the Maasai language, has been referred to as the house of God. The top close to the west, there is a dry, frozen carcass of a leopard. Whether the leopard had what the demand at that altitude, there is no that nobody explained."* ?Granted it remembered to put an article before "leopard" but overall I think you'll agree it's a greatly inferior translation. So what happened? It turns out it all started in February, Google decided to switch over from a symbolic AI system that they and everybody else has been using for machine translation for the last 30 years to a neural net. They figured it would take at least 3 years to make the change because they not only had to write a lot of code they'd also have to make a new chip called a ?tensor processing unit? to deal with the heavy user volume. But things went much smother than expected and in mid March they stopped all new work on the old symbolic AI translation system to concentrate on neural net translation, and by early November they were finished. Google thinks a system like they've developed that recognized patterns and patterns of patterns that worked so well for translation could work equally well for other things, like going through millions of pages of documents for legal discovery far faster and cheaper than any human lawyer could. It should also work to greatly improve image recognition; and that would put more than just 3 and a half million truck drivers out of work, neural networks are much better at finding tumors in X-rays and MRI's than human radiologist. It seems to me that in the health care field the only two areas where humans are still better than machines are nursing and surgery. Translators, doctors, lawyers, truck drivers.... although our civilization will generate more wealth than ever before people are going to find it increasingly difficult to find a job. The New York Times has a good article about all this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai-awakening.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 00:56:59 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 19:56:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2016 1:15 AM, "spike" wrote: , get a UV image projector, phosphor in the paint, get your buddies together, set it up patiently and carefully, have a blast. Do it right, they will be telling their grandchildren about it fifty years from now, and what a story that would be. Nothing like the boring old images in a slice of toast or a questionable shadow in a pine knot, snooze, that?s been done to death. This vision would be from before she was famous and would be much more interesting to watch. Safe, legal, won?t interfere with your getting a security clearance, never been done before. Odd and fun mixture of reverence and lust. I think your projector trick is a non-starter. You know any chemists who can mix up some two-step reactions? I was imagining a midnight pre-paint using step 1 that dries clear. Next day you make a spectacle of "white washing" the space with your magic paint... your proles watch this paint dry as it reacts/reveals your earlier-applied mural. btw, the bigger risk in using illegal substances is the consequences of being caught. Well, and the fact that unless you make it yourself you have no idea what you're ingesting. Though making your own drugs is definitely something you don't want to be caught doing. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 20 00:46:36 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:46:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] AI Translation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004a01d25a5a$84dd7c70$8e987550$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark >?One of the below is pure Hemingway and the other is ? Hemingway translated to ?Japanese and then translated by Google back to English, see if you can tell which is which:? "? Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude." "? Near the top of the west there is a dry and frozen dead body of leopard. No one has ever explained what leopard wanted at that altitude". >?The first one is pure Hemingway's and the second went through 2 translations, one of them make by a machine. Pretty damn good?John K Clark WOWsers, that is a big improvement. I could tell which is which, but only because I am a big fan of Hemingway. He used words copiously, but never wasted them. A subtle example would be ?frozen dead body? which is not Hemmingway?s way. He might have said ?dry and frozen leopard? as an alternative, or ?dry and frozen leopard carcass? but Papa would not have penned the redundant ?frozen dead body.? I learned a lot from Hemingway. He demonstrates excellent craftsmanship in his writing. Somehow it feels like every word in his passages have pointers to every other word. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 20 01:06:33 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:06:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> Message-ID: <000c01d25a5d$4e3d6330$eab82990$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Sent: Monday, December 19, 2016 4:57 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened On Dec 19, 2016 1:15 AM, "spike" > wrote: >>? get a UV image projector, phosphor in the paint...Safe, legal, won?t interfere with your getting a security clearance, never been done before. Odd and fun mixture of reverence and lust. >?I think your projector trick is a non-starter. >?You know any chemists who can mix up some two-step reactions? I was imagining a midnight pre-paint using step 1 that dries clear. Next day you make a spectacle of "white washing" the space with your magic paint... your proles watch this paint dry as it reacts/reveals your earlier-applied mural? Ja, what I meant was, the vision of the Virgin would be a slowly moving image. She looks normal at first, your buddies have a religious experience, then? she starts? We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 03:41:09 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 22:41:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 8:23 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: ?> ? > the falsifiable prediction is that we will be able to find a similarly > reliable relationship between a redness quality to it's neural correlate > and greenness quality > ?I see no way it could ever be proven or disproven that X causes qualia Y, at least not proven to be true in anyone except for me. ?And even then the proof would only be available to me.? > ?> ? > The right hemisphere of your brain knows absolutely what quality your left > hemisphere represents red with and visa versa > ?. ? > Obviously, the corpus Colosseum > ? ? > is doing something that makes this possible between hemispheres, > ?Yes and that something it's doing is communicating between the hemispheres. ?In most people the corpus ?callosum? ? has formed a connection between ?the 2 hemispheres for their entire life. But if corpus ?callosum? is severed, as they are in split brain experiments, it's as if there were 2 individuals in the same body. If you and I could communicate as well as the corpus ?callosum can then we'd be the same person, and so John Allsop (or Brent Clark) might know what the others red quale was like, but Brent Allsop and John Clark still wouldn't. ?> ? > The redness neural correlate being a "circuit" of some kind is definitely > a theoretical possibility. I think it is more likely and I predict that > something just physically has each of the elemental qualities we can > experience, like glutamate, reacting in a synapse having a redness quality > and glycene having a greenness quality. > ?I can't prove it but it seems to me that subjectivity, like experiencing a red or green quale, would require some minimum amount of complexity, and a molecule is just too simple for that. ? > ?> ? > Diversity of representations is important for intelligent knowledge. That > is why you need a representation of a 1 to be different from a zero. > ?Yes, a primate needs to be able to tell red from green because ripe red berries are good to eat but unripe green berries are not. But if our red and green qualia were the opposite of the other neither of us would have an advantage over the other. As long as consistency is maintained one qualia label is as good as another. > ?> ? > The more diversity the smarter. Evolution simply harnessed these natural > phenomenal qualitative diversities, so we could survive better by more > easily differentiating and picking out our knowledge of the red strawberry > from amongst the green leaves. > ?Being smarter gives you a evolutionary, having a subjective experience does not. And yet Evolution produced me and I know for a fact I have a subjective experience, therefore I conclude consciousness must be a byproduct of intelligence ?just as a spandrel is the byproduct of an arch. > ?> ? > The behavior of the neural correlate and it's quality are one and the same. > ?I'm not certain what you mean by that. Behavior and qualia are not the same but if Darwin was right then one is the inevitable consequence of the other.? > ?> ? > how would the physical behavior of redness be different than greenness. > ?The 2 quales are caused by different physical things (wavelengths of light) ?so they form different mental labels (different combinations of neuron connections). > ?> ? > But you need to give a similar physical example of what could be > responsible for your redness, and how this behavior could be different than > greenness. > ?The 2 different wavelengths of light must have different mental ?labels, otherwise you couldn't tell the difference between red light and green light. ?> ? Until you start providing some specific falsifiable examples in your predictions, it's hard to know that you are talking about anything other than just hand waving ?Except for behavior nobody can or will ever be able to make a falsifiable prediction about the subjective experience of other people. If you don't make it an axiom that intelligent behavior and consciousness are linked then there is every reason to believe rocks are as conscious as you are. John K Clark ? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 20 16:53:19 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 08:53:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] cost of energy by source Message-ID: <006001d25ae1$918cc930$b4a65b90$@att.net> Energy hipsters among us, do feel free to comment on this article. I will start: I hope it is true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source I don't know how they are dealing with the full-cycle costs however. I need to re-read and get up to speed on assumed life cycle of their systems. Most of these articles tend to look only at initial startup costs and cost of capital. Finance gurus might comment, but as I understand it, rising capital costs tend to favor ground-based solar, since the plants are not so capital-intensive, ja? We don't need to scale them way the hell up to get economies of scale on those? This topic has to have been studied to death. What we need are pointers to the credible sources. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 48948 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 18:04:00 2016 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:04:00 -0200 Subject: [ExI] AI Translation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <064aace6-1cca-bbc7-dbbc-15960eeeb210@gmail.com> On 19/12/2016 22:03, John Clark wrote: > A funny thing happened on November 4, although no public announcement > was made Google Translate suddenly started to do > ? a? > much much better > ? job? > . > ?? > Historically machine translation has improved a lot but the rate of > improvement has slowed down over the last 4 or 5 years, until November > 4. And then Boom! For example before November 4 it would translate the > ? > Jorge Borges > ? > quote > ?"? > /Uno no es lo que es por lo que escribe, sino por lo que ha le?do > ?"? > / > ? > as: They must be launching it selectively. Portuguese translations still suck. See below: Eram duas caveiras que se amavam. E ? meia-noite se encontravam Should be something like: They were two skulls in love. And at midnight they used to meet But Google translated it as: They were two skulls that were loved each other. And at midnight they were Which makes no sense at all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 18:32:52 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:32:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] AI Translation In-Reply-To: <064aace6-1cca-bbc7-dbbc-15960eeeb210@gmail.com> References: <064aace6-1cca-bbc7-dbbc-15960eeeb210@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 20 December 2016 at 18:04, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > They must be launching it selectively. Portuguese translations still suck. > See below: > > Eram duas caveiras que se amavam. E ? meia-noite se encontravam > Should be something like: > They were two skulls in love. And at midnight they used to meet > > But Google translated it as: > They were two skulls that were loved each other. And at midnight they were > > Which makes no sense at all On Nov 15, Google Blog said: Today we?re putting Neural Machine Translation into action with a total of eight language pairs to and from English and French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish. These represent the native languages of around one-third of the world's population, covering more than 35% of all Google Translate queries! ---------------------- So Portuguese should be available now. Perhaps it just doesn'r like poetic style writing. :) I tried translating a business article into Portuguese, then selected the text and translated it back into English. It seemed to do a good translation. Try translating a news article. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 20:04:17 2016 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:04:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <000c01d25a5d$4e3d6330$eab82990$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <000c01d25a5d$4e3d6330$eab82990$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 8:06 PM, spike wrote: > Ja, what I meant was, the vision of the Virgin would be a slowly moving > image. She looks normal at first, your buddies have a religious experience, > then? she starts? > > We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. > I think you'll find that you're going to need to be administering those psychedelic sacraments in order for this new genre to gain critical mass.. and that's hardly "new" From brent.allsop at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 23:36:36 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:36:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi William, You are the original asker in this thread of subject "Do digital computers feel?" right? I haven't seen you comment on what I've been saying. Hopefully it is evident to you that the theory I have been describing predicts an answer to this question and that science could soon demonstrably prove such to all of us by enabling us to eff the ineffable. Even John admitted that an abstracted word like red does not have a redness quality. And since all information in a computer is this type of abstracted information - a computer can represent or emulate or behave as if it knows what it is like to feel - but unless it knows how to interpret its abstracted representation of feelings (something that the theory predicts is possible, but it would then be more than just a "digital computer") - a purely digital computer does not qualitatively "feel" like we do. Brent On 12/15/2016 10:59 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > in fact I have no proof that you or anybody else have any subjective > experiences at all. john > > It may be that your standards of proof are in question, at the least. > You seem to be able to believe that only you, out of over 7 billion > people, can be conscious, think, feel, and so on. In other words, the > most basic of human qualities. > > I would have to ask you: */what proof do you have that you are this > unique?/* How likely is this? It is far, far less likely than that > others experience things in the external world much like you do. > > Ask ten million people, excluding the colorblind, to view a red > thing. All ten million call it red. What else do you need? > > bill w > > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 8:05 AM, John Clark > wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:51 PM, Brent Allsop > >wrote: > > ?> ? > Let me ask you what you think I mean when I talk about a > "redness quality"? > > > ?Come on Brent, this isn't my ?first day at the rodeo! I am quite > familiar with the > qualia > ? idea and I know the difference between objective and subjective.? > > ?> ? > And would you also agree that an abstracted work like "red" > does not have this quality? > > > ?I would agree that red is a subjective experience and "red" is > just an ASCII sequence. ? > > ?> ? > And would you agree that something in our brain has this > quality when we experience it? > > > ?What's with this "our" and "we" stuff? I have a subjective > experience when I experience red but I have no proof that you do, > in fact I have no proof that you or anybody else have any > subjective experiences at all. ? > ?If somebody believes that a digital computer ?behaving as if it > is conscious is insufficient evidence to conclude that it really > is conscious and if he wishes to be consistent in his beliefs then > there is no alternative but to embrace solipsism. > > John K Clark > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 20 23:32:35 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:32:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <000c01d25a5d$4e3d6330$eab82990$@att.net> Message-ID: <016301d25b19$5aaaaad0$10000070$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > >> We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. >...I think you'll find that you're going to need to be administering those psychedelic sacraments in order for this new genre to gain critical mass.. and that's hardly "new" _______________________________________________ Critical MASS, heeeeeeeheheheheheeee I get it. I am told this whole religio-erotic genre is not new. Who do you call upon during the peak of the experience? they asked. The Flying Spaghetti Monster? But I realized we could have specialized varieties. For instance, currently this kind of activity occurs in the home. Certainly someone's home, ja? Etymologists generally agree this is related to the origin of the term "homo-erotic." OK sure, but if we had the other; it would then be churcho-erotic. Or if one is of a middle eastern culture, perhaps mosquo-erotic, but if one is Jewish, it even takes on a kind sexy sound, perhaps invoking mental imagery of those sexy dance boots from the days of yore: sin-a-gogo-erotic. Oh the endless possibilities! spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 02:05:26 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 21:05:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 Brent Allsop wrote: > ?> ? > Even John admitted that an abstracted word like red does not have a > redness quality. > > *RED* is RED but *RED* is not ? RED?. > ?> ? > all information in a computer is this type of abstracted information - A computer can store all sots of information and that's not true for every type of information. The ASCII sequence "red" can not differentiate between red light and green light even if it has access to testing equipment, but a suitably written program stored in a digital computer can. ? ?> ? > a purely digital computer does not qualitatively "feel" like we do. ?What's with this "we" stuff? The only person I know for sure that feels is me, just because the inside of your head is squishy and the insides of a digital computer isn't is not enough for me to think the two of you are fundamentally different. And what do you have against digital stuff, why would analog be better? John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 02:22:54 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:22:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened In-Reply-To: <016301d25b19$5aaaaad0$10000070$@att.net> References: <007c01d259a6$b9f155d0$2dd40170$@att.net> <00d001d259bd$2ab85460$8028fd20$@att.net> <000c01d25a5d$4e3d6330$eab82990$@att.net> <016301d25b19$5aaaaad0$10000070$@att.net> Message-ID: We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. spike I reckon a head cold has kept me from understanding just what you are talking about. When I think of religion and eroticism, I think of the old religions that had fertility rites which involved dancing and costumes and, of course, sex. I know extremely little about this, but am surprised that you find the connection new and interesting (if I understand what you are talking about, which I am pretty sure I don't). ??? bill w On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 5:32 PM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On > Behalf Of Mike Dougherty > ... > > > >> We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. > > > >...I think you'll find that you're going to need to be administering > those psychedelic sacraments in order for this new genre to gain critical > mass.. and that's hardly "new" > > _______________________________________________ > > Critical MASS, heeeeeeeheheheheheeee I get it. > > I am told this whole religio-erotic genre is not new. Who do you call > upon during the peak of the experience? they asked. The Flying Spaghetti > Monster? > > But I realized we could have specialized varieties. For instance, > currently this kind of activity occurs in the home. Certainly someone's > home, ja? Etymologists generally agree this is related to the origin of > the term "homo-erotic." OK sure, but if we had the other; it would then be > churcho-erotic. Or if one is of a middle eastern culture, perhaps > mosquo-erotic, but if one is Jewish, it even takes on a kind sexy sound, > perhaps invoking mental imagery of those sexy dance boots from the days of > yore: sin-a-gogo-erotic. > > Oh the endless possibilities! > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Dec 21 02:41:54 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:41:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] exciting paint... Message-ID: <01fe01d25b33$caefab50$60cf01f0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] exciting paint, was: RE: freedom threatened >>?We could create an entirely new genre: religio-erotic. spike >? When I think of religion and eroticism, I think of the old religions that had fertility rites which involved dancing and costumes and, of course, sex. ???? bill w Sure but has it ever been done with miracle paint, the kind that is fun to watch as it dries? I thought not. >?Honestly Spike, how do you dream up weird stuff like this? Well OK confession time: I have been dropping acid. Several weeks now. I go pick them, juice them, down goes the old citric acid. I see colors. Orange in particular. Excellent fruit this year. Here?s a mystery for you. Two trees, ten meters apart, same soil, same fertilizer, same climate, same bees, same species, radically different outcomes. Tree number 1: Tree number 2: Excellent fruit on both, but two orders of magnitude difference in the yield this year. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 28724 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 16577 bytes Desc: not available URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 03:56:19 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 22:56:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] macular degeneration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 10:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > It is strongly suspected that high amounts of blue light contribute to > this disease. This has been known for several years. So why aren't we > hearing more about it? We who look at PC and smartphone screens, spend > time outdoors (UV), use the new lightbulbs, go to and work in places where > fluorescent lights are used. > ?The UV from the sun is so much more intense it's hard to believe the UV from a smartphone could be much of a factor. Glare has bothered me since I was a kid so I've been using "Transitions Lenses" for decades, they darken almost instantly when I go outside but it take ?s? a little longer for them to lighten up when I go inside, but after a few minutes are as clear as a bell. http://www.eyeglassguide.com/my-guide/faq.aspx ? ?John K Clark? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 06:30:45 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 23:30:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Causal Properties of redness (Was Re: Do digital computers feel) In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> Message-ID: <70df9b9f-ca32-7e8e-0c1b-568e619c0616@gmail.com> On 12/19/2016 8:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > it seems to me that subjectivity, like experiencing a red or green > quale, would require some minimum amount of complexity, and a molecule > is just too simple for that. ? > and On 12/19/2016 8:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > I conclude consciousness must be a byproduct of intelligence ?just as > a spandrel is the byproduct of an arch. With these, and other things you've said, I think I'm starting to understand more about your theory, and how to test for it, unless... (see below) Let me see if I can restate it? So if your theory is proven true, you will be able to take a sufficiently complex set of bits and organize them in the right way, put them in the right (red) context and wala, a redness quality will be experienced by you. And potentially all you need to do to change this same set of bits into your greenness qualia, is put them in your different (green) context? But what do you mean by "byproduct of"? Certainly that at least implies a causal relationship from the physics to the qualia - but are you saying the reverse isn't true? - that the quality of your experience that is the byproduct of physics has no detectable causal effect on physical reality? (This is why I stated, unless - above) Certainly, when I'm picking strawberries, it can be said that the initial cause of me picking a strawberry (and avoiding the green things) is the causal properties of a redness quality of my knowledge of the strawberry. If you observe or represent this physical process with abstracted data, it will look like the causal properties of the neural correlate. In my case, you would observe that the causal property causing me to pick the strawberry would be simply the causal properties of glutamate since they are the same causal properties of the redness I can experience. In your case the initial causal property causing you to pick the strawberry would be be the correctly organized set of bits put in the red context. Certainly, this could be considered the neural correlate of your theory - that can be considered the initial cause of you picking the strawberry? And if this is true, you could detect your neural correlates for red and green (based on whether they were in the red or green context?), and know or be able to detect if someone else had inverted qualia - or not - from you right? - because the other person's set of bits representing "red" were in the different context which you reliably experience as greenness.? On 12/19/2016 8:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 8:23 PM, Brent Allsop >wrote: > > ?> ? > The behavior of the neural correlate and it's quality are one and > the same. > > > ?I'm not certain what you mean by that. Behavior and qualia are not > the same but if Darwin was right then one is the > inevitable consequence of the other.? Again, are you implying that your redness quality has no physical causal properties? I'm predicting that my redness quality must have detectable physical causal properties (Else, what would be the initial cause of me picking the strawberry?). And if my theory is proven true, these would be one and the same as the the causal properties of glutamate. If your theory is proven true, wouldn't the causal properties causing you to pick the strawberry be one and the same as the causal properties of the correct set of bits in the right context that is your redness? On 12/20/2016 7:05 PM, John Clark wrote: > The ASCII sequence "red" can not differentiate between red light and > green light even if it has access to testing equipment, but a suitably > written program stored in a digital computer can. ? Aren't you saying that "a suitably written program stored in a digital computer" does have something for which to interpret the abstracted word "red" as - which is the neural correlate of your redness? With all current computers that I know of nobody has done anything to represent red with the correct set of organized bits in the right context (i.e what you mean by suitably written?). If your theory turns out to be true, we will be able to organize computers that do represent "red" with the correct set of bits, in the red context, so we can predict that they do represent redness like you do. But, as I said, this would be very different than one of today's simple digital computers which are not in any way what you call "suitably written" - The initial cause of you picking that strawberry is the right set of bits in a red context - while the initial cause of a simple digital computer picking the strawberry is just any physical representation some piece of hardware is interpreting or transduceing to the next downstream representation or motor neuron, as if it was the word "red" - without anything like the right set of bits in your red context. Brent Allsop P.S. John, thank you so much for sticking with all this for so long!! You are the first person that thinks anything like you that has persisted with me for anything like this long. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 15:18:30 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 09:18:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi William, You are the original asker in this thread of subject "Do digital computers feel?" right? No, not me. I have scanned the conversations between you and John and have to say that I don't understand any of it. The idea that code can emulate human experience is just ludicrous to me. Four quadrillion neural firings a second in our brains. I don't think any supercomputer will be able to deal with that for some time. Suppose you isolate a neuron: some have up to tens of thousands of connections with other neurons, which maybe exciting it, suppressing it, or not changing. And I believe that I read where a neuron can change its state from excitatory to inhibitory or the other way around. Just mind boggling complicated to try to understand one second of the neuron's behavior. It's like some people seem to believe that neurons are like electrical wires and circuits, able to be laid out in a diagram. Extremely more complicated than that. bill w On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 8:05 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 Brent Allsop wrote: > >> ?> ? >> Even John admitted that an abstracted word like red does not have a >> redness quality. >> >> *RED* is RED but *RED* is not > ? RED?. > > > >> ?> ? >> all information in a computer is this type of abstracted information - > > > A computer can store all sots of information and that's not true for every > type of information. The ASCII sequence "red" can not differentiate between > red light and green light even if it has access to testing equipment, but a > suitably written program stored in a digital computer can. ? > > > ?> ? >> a purely digital computer does not qualitatively "feel" like we do. > > > ?What's with this "we" stuff? The only person I know for sure that feels > is me, just because the inside of your head is squishy and the insides of a > digital computer isn't is not enough for me to think the two of you are > fundamentally different. And what do you have against digital stuff, why > would analog be better? > > John K Clark ? > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 18:59:33 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 18:59:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu., 22 Dec. 2016 at 2:20 am, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Hi William, > > You are the original asker in this thread of subject "Do digital computers > feel?" right? > > No, not me. I have scanned the conversations between you and John and > have to say that I don't understand any of it. > > The idea that code can emulate human experience is just ludicrous to me. > Four quadrillion neural firings a second in our brains. I don't think any > supercomputer will be able to deal with that for some time. Suppose you > isolate a neuron: some have up to tens of thousands of connections with > other neurons, which maybe exciting it, suppressing it, or not changing. > And I believe that I read where a neuron can change its state from > excitatory to inhibitory or the other way around. Just mind boggling > complicated to try to understand one second of the neuron's behavior. > > It's like some people seem to believe that neurons are like electrical > wires and circuits, able to be laid out in a diagram. Extremely more > complicated than that. > > bill w > > That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. A > valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise > non-computable physics. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 19:22:21 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 13:22:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise non-computable physics. N ?ever argued that?. But assuming that some super super computer could emulate the firings of a set of neurons is a long way from saying that the computer would experience what the person does. Feelings are just that - something you feel. Emotions come from motion, moving. The neurons do something besides just fire - they activate hormonal networks which in turn activate muscles and other glands and so on. Anxiety, for one, can be felt in one's arms and legs and in another person's head, another person's stomach and so on. Are there going to be connected networks to emulate the endocrine system? The muscles and sinews? The organs of digestion? And so on and so on. And still you have utterly no reason to think that the computer experiences human emotions. Assuming the computer can talk, you could ask it what it feels and it has no way of knowing how to answer that. It can only put it in human language. Humans, on the other hand, have no idea what an electrical circuit feels when it is activated, right? This will have to be the end of my 'contribution' to this discussion. I don't know any more. For more you will have to talk to a computer person. Which I for sure am not. bill w On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Thu., 22 Dec. 2016 at 2:20 am, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi William, >> >> You are the original asker in this thread of subject "Do digital >> computers feel?" right? >> >> No, not me. I have scanned the conversations between you and John and >> have to say that I don't understand any of it. >> >> The idea that code can emulate human experience is just ludicrous to me. >> Four quadrillion neural firings a second in our brains. I don't think any >> supercomputer will be able to deal with that for some time. Suppose you >> isolate a neuron: some have up to tens of thousands of connections with >> other neurons, which maybe exciting it, suppressing it, or not changing. >> And I believe that I read where a neuron can change its state from >> excitatory to inhibitory or the other way around. Just mind boggling >> complicated to try to understand one second of the neuron's behavior. >> >> It's like some people seem to believe that neurons are like electrical >> wires and circuits, able to be laid out in a diagram. Extremely more >> complicated than that. >> >> bill w >> >> That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. >> A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise >> non-computable physics. >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 23:21:24 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 10:21:24 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On 22 Dec. 2016, at 6:22 am, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise non-computable physics. > > N?ever argued that?. But assuming that some super super computer could emulate the firings of a set of neurons is a long way from saying that the computer would experience what the person does. Feelings are just that - something you feel. Emotions come from motion, moving. The neurons do something besides just fire - they activate hormonal networks which in turn activate muscles and other glands and so on. Anxiety, for one, can be felt in one's arms and legs and in another person's head, another person's stomach and so on. > > Are there going to be connected networks to emulate the endocrine system? The muscles and sinews? The organs of digestion? It is generally thought that feelings occur in the central nervous system, specifically the cortex, and that peripheral nerves and hormones act by stimulating the central nervous system. When you dream or hallucinate, you have the experience in the absence of the usual peripheral stimulus. But even if emulating the whole body rather than just the brain were needed to emulate the full range of experience that would not present an impediment: we could make robots. > And so on and so on. And still you have utterly no reason to think that the computer experiences human emotions. Assuming the computer can talk, you could ask it what it feels and it has no way of knowing how to answer that. It can only put it in human language. Humans, on the other hand, have no idea what an electrical circuit feels when it is activated, right? Before John says it: you don't know whether any other humans really feel, you just deduce it from their behaviour. > This will have to be the end of my 'contribution' to this discussion. I don't know any more. For more you will have to talk to a computer person. Which I for sure am not. Your intuition is that in order to reproduce consciousness it may not be sufficient to just reproduce the behaviour of the human brain, because consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. This, I think, is what Brent is claiming. He further claims that one day we may be able to work out the exact correlates of experience - glutamate for red experiences for example (for illustrative purposes - it wouldn't be as simple as this). But there is an argument due to philosopher David Chalmers that assumes this common intuition to be true and shows that it leads to absurdity: http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 23:32:13 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 18:32:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Causal Properties of redness (Was Re: Do digital computers feel) In-Reply-To: <70df9b9f-ca32-7e8e-0c1b-568e619c0616@gmail.com> References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> <70df9b9f-ca32-7e8e-0c1b-568e619c0616@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 Brent Allsop wrote: ?> ? > I think I'm starting to understand more about your theory, and how to test > for it > ? [...] ? > So if your theory is proven true > ?...? > ?There is no way my ideas about consciousness (or that of anybody else)? ?can ever be proven true or false, so it is not a scientific theory. Instead, "*intelligent behavior implies subjectivity and consciousness is what date feels like when it is processed and produces intelligent behavior*" are axioms. If I refuse to take them as my starting point then there are only 2 alternatives: 1) I am the only conscious being in the universe. 2) Everything in the universe is as conscious as I am, including rocks. Neither alternative is very appealing so I think I'll stick with my axioms. Actually everybody not just me uses behavior to determine if something is conscious or not, that's why they believe rocks are not conscious but other people are, except when they behave as if they are asleep or dead. Yes it's not perfect, maybe they're just pretending to be sleeping or dead and maybe rocks are just shy and don't feel like talking, but it's the only tool we have so if you want to be consistent you must use it on computers too. > ?> ? > So if your theory is proven true, > ?That will never happen.? > ?> ? > you will be able to take a sufficiently complex set of bits and organize > them in the right way, put them in the right (red) context and wala, a > redness quality will be experienced by you. And potentially all you need > to do to change this same set of bits into your greenness qualia, ?But if you switched my qualia of red and green how would my behavior change, how would you notice any difference in me? I'd still say strawberries and stoplights have the same color and spinach and go-lights have the same color. And how would I notice a difference? ? ?My memories of what a strawberries and what a stoplight looks like would also change. So if switching the red and green qualia would make no difference objectively and it would make no difference subjectively then what difference would switching the two color qualia make? ?> ? > But what do you mean by "byproduct of"? > ?I mean you can't make an arch without a spandrel and you can't produce ? ?intelligent behavior ?without consciousness. Evolution can't detect consciousness in others any better than we can, but like us it can detect intelligent behavior. I know for a fact that Evolution did produce consciousness at least once so I must conclude that consciousness is a byproduct of intelligence. You must make the same conclusion, provided of course that like me you do know for a fact that there is at least one conscious being in the universe. If you don't know that for a fact then all bets are off. > ?> ? > Certainly that at least implies a causal relationship from the physics to > the qualia - but are you saying the reverse isn't true? - that the quality > of your experience that is the byproduct of physics has no detectable > causal effect on physical reality? > ?There are many correct answers to the question, "why did you scratch your nose?". Some answers would involve physiology, some would involve physics, some would involve mosquitoes, and some would involve qualia. "Because I felt my nose itch and I thought it would feel good if I scratched it" would be a perfectly acceptable answer. ? > ?> ? > are you implying that your redness quality has no physical causal > properties? > ?No, the redness qualia causes me to put my foot on the brake pedal of my car whenever I see a traffic signal take on that quality. ? ?> ? > I'm predicting that my redness quality must have detectable physical > causal properties > ?Me too. As I said there is more than one way to correctly answer a question. "I'm picking strawberries because the neurons in my brain are sending signals to the muscles in my fingers to do so" would be a correct answer, " I'm picking them because I think red strawberries? ?taste good" would also be a correct answer. ? To a physicist pressure is a perfectly real concept, and the idea ? that pressure makes a balloon expand is true. And the concept that a million billion trillion gas molecules are pushing on the inside of a balloon making it expand is also true. Two different ways of saying the same thing and both are true. The one that is the most useful depends on the thing you're trying to do, if you're studying Brownian Motion you use one, if you're studying hurricanes you use the other. > > Aren't you saying that "a suitably written program stored in a digital > computer" does have something for which to interpret the abstracted word > "red" as - which is the neural correlate of your redness? ?Yes.? > ?> ? > With all current computers that I know of nobody has done anything to > represent red with the correct set of organized bits in the right context ?Well.....since the 1960's computers (with suitable robotic eyes and hands) have been able to look at a pile of red and green balls and pick out the ones you would interpret as red and put them in one bin and pick out the ones you would interpret as green and put them in another bin. I agree with your interpretation that the 2 qualia are different and we both agree with the robot's interpretation of what is red and what is green. I don't understand what more is needed because that's the same way I determine if you can detect a difference between red and green. I don't know of any other way to go about it and it seems to me we should play by the same rules regardless of if we are judging people, computers, or rocks. ?> ? > P.S. John, thank you so much for sticking with all this for so long!! > ?I enjoy this sort of thing.? ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Dec 21 23:34:34 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 15:34:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! Message-ID: Humanity might be able to spread beyond this rock after all. :-D http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/china-says-tests-of-propellentless.html?m=1 Quote: "Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station)." Stuart LaForge Sent from my phone. From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 23:52:23 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 17:52:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: It is generally thought that feelings occur in the central nervous system, specifically the cortex, and that peripheral nerves and hormones act by stimulating the central nervous system. You make it sound like peripheral (i.e. sensory) stimulation is the only way the mind is run. The only thing we feel in our heads is headache (which is not brain ache). The endocrine system is run by the hypothalamus, which directs the pituitary gland, which controls all the other endocrine glands (exocrine glands like sweat glands are in a different system). So adrenaline, for ex. comes from the adrenal gland , sitting on top of the kidney, but it was releasing hormones from the pituitary, that told it what to do. The resulting feelings caused by the adrenaline, such as feeling pumped up and powerful, are a feedback system. A sequence of fear can be started either by thinking or by external stimulation. Now if you want to call something like intuition a feeling, then we are at cross purposes. I am talking about literal feelings as created by an emotional system, the limbic system. bill w consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. Where else could it be? I am a physical monist and don't like metaphysics. It may be possible for a computer to feel things the way we do, but we will never know. I would like to reiterate an earlier post and remind everyone that neurons are not the only things in our heads: we have several kinds of glia (I have a couple of books on that subject) and they certainly do affect the neurons (not just as support, as earlier thought), so we have to take their behavior into consideration in beginning to understand the mind. There are many times more glia than neurons and currently we have little way of mapping them. bill w Before John says it: you don't know whether any other humans really feel, you just deduce it from their behaviour. Yes, and this is the only way we know *anything at all* of humans, puppies, atoms, and all the rest of the universe. It is the only way we know ourselves, by observing ourselves and making deductions. Everything told to me by authorities (including possible divine inspiration), reason and logic, and intuition, is tentative at best. I am an empiricist to the bone! bill w On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 22 Dec. 2016, at 6:22 am, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. A > valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise > non-computable physics. > > N > ?ever argued that?. But assuming that some super super computer could > emulate the firings of a set of neurons is a long way from saying that the > computer would experience what the person does. Feelings are just that - > something you feel. Emotions come from motion, moving. The neurons do > something besides just fire - they activate hormonal networks which in > turn activate muscles and other glands and so on. Anxiety, for one, can be > felt in one's arms and legs and in another person's head, another person's > stomach and so on. > > Are there going to be connected networks to emulate the endocrine system? > The muscles and sinews? The organs of digestion? > > > It is generally thought that feelings occur in the central nervous system, > specifically the cortex, and that peripheral nerves and hormones act by > stimulating the central nervous system. When you dream or hallucinate, you > have the experience in the absence of the usual peripheral stimulus. But > even if emulating the whole body rather than just the brain were needed to > emulate the full range of experience that would not present an impediment: > we could make robots. > > And so on and so on. And still you have utterly no reason to think that > the computer experiences human emotions. Assuming the computer can talk, > you could ask it what it feels and it has no way of knowing how to answer > that. It can only put it in human language. Humans, on the other hand, > have no idea what an electrical circuit feels when it is activated, right? > > > Before John says it: you don't know whether any other humans really feel, > you just deduce it from their behaviour. > > This will have to be the end of my 'contribution' to this discussion. I > don't know any more. For more you will have to talk to a computer person. > Which I for sure am not. > > > Your intuition is that in order to reproduce consciousness it may not be > sufficient to just reproduce the behaviour of the human brain, because > consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. This, I think, is > what Brent is claiming. He further claims that one day we may be able to > work out the exact correlates of experience - glutamate for red experiences > for example (for illustrative purposes - it wouldn't be as simple as this). > But there is an argument due to philosopher David Chalmers that assumes > this common intuition to be true and shows that it leads to absurdity: > > http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Wed Dec 21 23:19:28 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 15:19:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? Message-ID: Stathis wrote: FYI the originator of this question was Rafal and he hypothesized that if consciousness was the result of analog physics operating upon a real number continuum instead of discrete "chunks" of space-time, then neural activity, and therefore consciousness, might NOT be computable. And IMO, this is a valid concern, since on the continuum between any two floating point decimal numbers of any finite precision, there exists an uncountably infinite number of possible values most of which are not computable. One observes that human mathematicians like Cantor and Newton were able comprehend and manipulate those infinities in such a way as to make them tractable to analysis, a feat that I haven't seen a computer yet capable of. Furthermore, despite some string theories and quantum loop gravity postulating that space-time comes in very small discrete "chunks", to date our best experimental evidence has failed to confirm the existence of these chunks and instead seem to indicate the exact opposite, that space-time is continuous down to well below the Plank scale. Thus despite the vigorous hand-waving of some list members, this is still an open question of some importance to many on the list including myself. Stuart LaForge Sent from my phone. From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 00:46:21 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 19:46:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > The idea that code can emulate human experience is just ludicrous to me. > Four quadrillion neural firings a second in our brains. I don't think any > supercomputer will be able to deal with that for some time. > > Four quadrillion ? isn't a particularly impressive number, ?China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has already achieved 34 quadrillion floating point operations a second, and a 130 quadrillion FLOPS machine in Japan should come online in late 2017. ? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 02:15:48 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 21:15:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 Stuart LaForge wrote: > ?> ? > Rafal and he hypothesized that if consciousness was the result of analog > physics operating upon a real number continuum instead of discrete "chunks" > of space-time, then neural activity, and therefore consciousness, might NOT > be computable. > ? > And IMO, this is a valid concern, since on the continuum between any two > floating point decimal numbers of any finite precision, there exists an > uncountably infinite number of possible values most of which are not > computable. > ?Ah Analog computers, this topic has come up before on the list, I wrote this in 1995: Welcome to the exciting world of analog computing. Thanks to the new Heath Kit ? ? Home Study Course you can build your very own analog computer in the privacy of your own home. Make big bucks! Amaze your friends! Be a hit at parties! This is a true analog computer, no wimpy pseudo analog stuff here, this baby can handle infinity. Before we begin construction there are a few helpful hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. Make sure your ?analog ? computer is cold, as it will not operate at any finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ? or electrical charge when you build your analog computer. Now that we ?? got those minor points out of the way we can start to manufacture your ?very own ? analog computer. Step One: Repeal the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Step Two: ?Take? any infinitely accurate measuring stick you have handy and .. ?..? ?==? ?Back then the great Marvin Minsky ? ?was on the list and he too had something to to say about analog computers and the people who love them : *"people who happily assume that analog computers bring some mysterious sort of infinite precision that cannot be simulated by a mere 64-bit computer working with double precision floating point. I used to use analog computers, [...] If you were real careful, even at Room Temperature, you could sometimes get close to 10-bit performance for brief periods."* ?> ? > One observes that human mathematicians like Cantor and Newton were able > comprehend and manipulate those infinities in such a way as to make them > tractable to analysis, a feat that I haven't seen a computer yet capable of. > There are an infinite number, ? in fact ? an uncountable ? y ? infinite number, of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a computer ?way back ? in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it without a computer. ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 03:24:43 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:24:43 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9B578A79-F53B-4D6C-B87D-BAE29E4A3B56@gmail.com> > On 22 Dec. 2016, at 10:19 am, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > Stathis wrote: > > > FYI the originator of this question was Rafal and he hypothesized that if consciousness was the result of analog physics operating upon a real number continuum instead of discrete "chunks" of space-time, then neural activity, and therefore consciousness, might NOT be computable. > > And IMO, this is a valid concern, since on the continuum between any two floating point decimal numbers of any finite precision, there exists an uncountably infinite number of possible values most of which are not computable. > > One observes that human mathematicians like Cantor and Newton were able comprehend and manipulate those infinities in such a way as to make them tractable to analysis, a feat that I haven't seen a computer yet capable of. > > Furthermore, despite some string theories and quantum loop gravity postulating that space-time comes in very small discrete "chunks", to date our best experimental evidence has failed to confirm the existence of these chunks and instead seem to indicate the exact opposite, that space-time is continuous down to well below the Plank scale. > > Thus despite the vigorous hand-waving of some list members, this is still an open question of some importance to many on the list including myself. If the brain's engineering tolerance was such that the trillionth decimal place in some parameter made a difference then the gravitational effect of a mosquito in the next town would cause a drastic disruption. A machine so lacking in robustness, whether made or evolved, could not work. From spike66 at att.net Thu Dec 22 04:10:22 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 20:10:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i'll be moffed Message-ID: <045801d25c09$51894f60$f49bee20$@att.net> Hey cool. Those of you who have seen the new Star Wars saw the digitally recreated Peter Cushing, the actor who died 22 years ago, as Grand Moff Tarkin. It might be a worthwhile activity to learn CGI well enough to create moffs of ourselves. Then I can write cool funny lines for my moff to say after I am dead and frozen, visit with the attendees at my funeral, wisecracks and such, encouragements to get with it on the cryonics research, and Hey you warm proles, hurry and get me out of this cold purgatory, dark and boring in here, that kinda thing. Oh this is cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 04:37:32 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 20:37:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] i'll be moffed In-Reply-To: <045801d25c09$51894f60$f49bee20$@att.net> References: <045801d25c09$51894f60$f49bee20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 8:10 PM, spike wrote: > Hey cool. Those of you who have seen the new Star Wars saw the digitally > recreated Peter Cushing, the actor who died 22 years ago, as Grand Moff > Tarkin. It might be a worthwhile activity to learn CGI well enough to > create moffs of ourselves. Then I can write cool funny lines for my moff to > say after I am dead and frozen, visit with the attendees at my funeral, > wisecracks and such, encouragements to get with it on the cryonics research, > and Hey you warm proles, hurry and get me out of this cold purgatory, dark > and boring in here, that kinda thing. Until they drill into you, using warm liquid to shatter your skull so they can get at (and map and emulate) your brain, only for one of them to confess to being the Moffer Fracker? > Oh this is cool. Pun intended? ;) From atymes at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 07:52:17 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:52:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Humanity might be able to spread beyond this rock after all. :-D > > http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/china-says-tests-of-propellentless.html?m=1 > > Quote: "Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station)." Uh huh. It is well known that they outright lie when they think they can get away with it to their benefit. I'll believe it when they provide independently verifiable evidence, and it is independently verified. (Which would be as simple as having the test take place just outside the space station, and inviting people to watch. Notice that this isn't happening.) From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 08:31:07 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:31:07 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On 22 Dec. 2016, at 10:52 am, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > > > You make it sound like peripheral (i.e. sensory) stimulation is the only way the mind is run. The only thing we feel in our heads is headache (which is not brain ache). The endocrine system is run by the hypothalamus, which directs the pituitary gland, which controls all the other endocrine glands (exocrine glands like sweat glands are in a different system). So adrenaline, for ex. comes from the adrenal gland , sitting on top of the kidney, but it was releasing hormones from the pituitary, that told it what to do. The resulting feelings caused by the adrenaline, such as feeling pumped up and powerful, are a feedback system. > > A sequence of fear can be started either by thinking or by external stimulation. Yes, but the extra-cerebral mechanisms are only affect feelings to the extent that they affect the brain. If the same brain activity were to occur in the absence of external stimuli, the effect would be the same. In dreams a wide variety of experiences can occur even though the patient is asleep in bed. > Now if you want to call something like intuition a feeling, then we are at cross purposes. I am talking about literal feelings as created by an emotional system, the limbic system. bill w > > > > Where else could it be? I am a physical monist and don't like metaphysics. It may be possible for a computer to feel things the way we do, but we will never know. The theory of mind called "functionalism" holds that consciousness results from the brain carrying out its business of cognition, rather than from the actual substrate of the brain. This would mean that if the function of the brain could be reproduced using another substrate, such as a digital computer, the associated consciousness would also be reproduced. The paper by Chalmers I cited is a reductio ad absurdum starting with the assumption that consciousness is substrate-dependent, thus establishing functionalism as the better theory. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 09:44:56 2016 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 10:44:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here is to a successful test! On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 12:34 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Humanity might be able to spread beyond this rock after all. :-D > > http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/china-says-tests-of- > propellentless.html?m=1 > > Quote: "Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for the > China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 > that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its > laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g > testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test > is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station)." > > Stuart LaForge > > Sent from my phone. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 19:12:23 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:12:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 6:52 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ?> ? > consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. > ?I'll believe that when you show me that when vacuum ?tube computers add two numbers they get a different result than when solid state computers add the same two numbers. ?> ? > Where else could it be? > ?Information of course. > ?> ? > It may be possible for a computer to feel things the way we do, but we > will never know. > ?True, but computers are not unique in that. ?It may be possible for you to feel things the way I do, but I will never know for sure. > I would like to reiterate an earlier post and remind everyone that neurons > are not the only things in our heads: we have several kinds of glia > ?Irrelevant, if gilia or hormones or anything else processes information than a digital computer can too, just as it can for neurons. ? ?> ? > Before John says it: you don't know whether any other humans really feel, > you just deduce it from their behaviour. > ?But you couldn't deduce anything unless you've already taken it as a axiom that intelligent behavior implies consciousness. All I'm asking is you play by the same rules when dealing with computers. ? > ?> ? > I am a physical monist and don't like metaphysics. [...] I am an > empiricist to the bone! ?Good. There is not one bit of experimental evidence that the carbon atoms in your body are different from the carbon atoms in my body or in a lump of coal or the atoms in a computer, therefore the only difference between you me a computer and a lump of coal must be information on how those atoms are arranged. The only alternative to that conclusion is a religious type soul, but you said you don't like metaphysics. Information is as close as you can get to a soul and still remain within the scientific method. ? ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 19:23:20 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 12:23:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 12/21/2016 4:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Your intuition is that in order to reproduce consciousness it may not > be sufficient to just reproduce the behaviour of the human brain, > because consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. > This, I think, is what Brent is claiming. He further claims that one > day we may be able to work out the exact correlates of experience - > glutamate for red experiences for example (for illustrative purposes - > it wouldn't be as simple as this). But there is an argument due to > philosopher David Chalmers that assumes this common intuition to be > true and shows that it leads to absurdity: > > http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html > > and On 12/22/2016 1:31 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > The theory of mind called "functionalism" holds that consciousness > results from the brain carrying out its business of cognition, rather > than from the actual substrate of the brain. This would mean that if > the function of the brain could be reproduced using another substrate, > such as a digital computer, the associated consciousness would also be > reproduced. The paper by Chalmers I cited is a reductio ad absurdum > starting with the assumption that consciousness is > substrate-dependent, thus establishing functionalism as the better > theory. Thanks for bringing this up! This neural substitution argument for functionalism was around way before Chalmers used the argument in his paper. For example Hans Moravec made this same argument way back in 1988, in his book Mind Children. https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Children-Future-Robot-Intelligence/dp/0674576187 So at least Stathis Papaioannou, Hans Moravec, David Chalmers, James Carroll (CC-ed), and a bunch of others think this argument is sound, causing them to think "functionalism is the better theory" resulting in the apparent "hard problem" conundrum. I think all these people are world leading, understanding wise, in this field, so we need to take this argument seriously. But, despite this, it seems obvious to me that this so called "hard" problem is a simple misunderstanding of how phenomenal computation works below the abstracted layer - at the hardware quality dependent layer. Let me describe the hardware quality dependent layer in today's computers in a slightly qualitatively advanced way to illustrate how this misunderstanding results. One of the fundamental operations of a computation device is comparisons: Is a 1 different than a zero? So fundamentally, today's computer circuits are composed of lots of such comparison gates that let you know if the voltage on one wire is the same as the voltage on another wire. In other words, we are talking about a simple exclusive or functional operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_gate So, instead of just implementing our XOR logical comparison function with simple voltages that are not physically very qualitatively different lets use neurotransmitter molecule comparisons like between glutamate and glycine. Let's implement our XOR function with a comparison neuron that fires if two of it's input synapses are chemically the same and not fire if they are different. In effect, this comparison neuron is a good glutamate detector. If glutamate is being fed to one of it's input synapses, nothing but glutamate in the other will cause it to fire. So, the complete XOR neural setup is composed of 3 significant neurons. There are two input neurons that can dump different nero transmitters into the two input synapses. and the third comparison neuron that fires, if the two input synapses are chemically the same. So let's perform the neural substitution on this xor gate. We first replace one of the input neurons with a silicone system that can function identically. When it outputs a positive voltage, it is considered as representing what glutamate is chemically like. Outputting a zero voltage is considered to represent dumping something chemically different than glutamate into the synapse of the comparitor neuron. At this point, you have to add a physical translator between this first silicone neuron substitutuion and the real comparitor neuron. So when the silicone neuron outputs a positive voltage, the translation mechanism feeds glutamate to the comparison neuron. Obviously, since the real neuron is receiving glutamate, it is happy, and it fires since it's two inputs are chemically or qualitatively the same. Now, obviously, in order to replace the comparitor neuron, you also need to replace the other input with a translator system. This system translates glutamate, coming from the second input neuron, into a positive voltage being fed into the newly artificial comparitor neuron. So, this simple XOR gate is functioning identically to the comparitor neuron. It fires if the two inputs are the same, but doesn't fire if they are different. With that, you should be able to see the flaw in this neural substitution logic. The physical qualities being compared between these two functionally identical XOR systems is critically important when it comes to our consciousness. That is why Thomas Nagel is wanting to know what the two comparison systems are physically and qualitatively like. The two inputs being compared, and what they are physically, chemichally, and qualitatively like is important to understanding the nature of physical qualitative comparison. The two systems can be thought of as functionally the same, but the qualities of what they are comparing is physically very different. Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 21:31:36 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:31:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: Oh great. Thanks, James, for this reply. I realized after I sent my post, that I left a few important things out, and you are clearly pointing these omissions out. The difference is that computer functional logic is all implemented above and abstracted away from the quality of the physical hardware level. All representations have a translation or transduction system that physically translates between all the different physical representations, so they can all be thought of or function as 1s and 0s. But we are different. The physical quality of our representations is all important, and included in all of the comparison and intelligent processing systems. With us, we can be aware of and reflect on what they are like, but with a computer, all that is abstracted away by all the hardware translators. So, true Chalmers admitted that the fading / dancing qualia is a possibility, and this is exactly what this theory predicts will happen. If the comparison system can detect a phenomenal quality of positive voltages and zero voltages, then there will be dancing qualia, as you make the substitution. If there is no qualia at all, it will be fading qualia. Except that qualitatively, you will be able to tell with the first comparator substitution. The prediction is that you will never be able to construct any of the comparitors to say glutamate is the same as +5 volts. So you will not be able to ?flip the switch? between the first comparator substitution, and not see a difference between them. True, you will be able to replace everything, and eventually it will start functioning entirely identically. But, as the wave of conversion progresses partially along, this theory is predicting there will clearly be dancing / fading qualia, until everything is replaced and the quality of the representations becomes entirely irrelevant - abstracted away from the quality of the physical layer - everyone admitting that there is clearly a big difference due to the dancing / fading qualia as you progressed to the eventually completely identical behavior. Brent Allsop On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 1:52 PM, James Carroll wrote: > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 12:23 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> >> With that, you should be able to see the flaw in this neural substitution >> logic. >> > > > Why? > > I don't yew see how your discussion of translation leads to a flaw in the > logic. You may have a point, but I am failing to grasp it given what you > have written above. > > First, it appears that your comparator neuron fires when the inputs are > the same... so that is implementing a -XOR, rather than an XOR (which fires > if they are different), but that is trivial. I will just assume you meant > not XOR. > > So, if I understand you correctly, we have two neuro-transmitters, g and > a, with you so far. We then have a comparator neuron C... with you so > far... and two input neurons A and B... with you so far... C fires if A and > B both dump the same neurotransmitter, and don't fire if they dump > different neurotransmitters. Is that correct? > > Now I replace one of those input neurons, A, (and potentially other > neurons on the upstream side of A) with a mechanical copy A_m... then I put > a translator on the output of neuron A_m at the input to comparator C. The > translator dumps chemical g if the output of A_m is a 1, and chemical a if > the output of A_m is a 0. This is necessary for A_m to properly talk to C > in the same way that A did before. Ok... good so far. Now C fires if it > gets chemical g from both inputs A_m (translated) and B, or chemical a from > both inputs A_m(translated) and B. Now C's behavior is identical both > before and after A was replaced with A_m. > > Now we can continue down the chain... I can now replace C with C_m.. now > no translation between A_m and C_m is needed, but a new translation step is > needed between B and C_m, as well as between C_m, and whatever it's output > is hooked to... let's call that D. Now I must translate between C_m and D. > So... as I expand the number of neurons that are replaced with mechanical > versions (_m neurons), there is a translation step needed between each > neuron that is mechanical, and each that isn't. You can think of this as an > expanding wave of mechanical neurons, with a translation step at the edge > of the wave. As this wave moves across the brain, the brain's behavior > remains unchanged. But IF consciousness is tied to the substrate, the > consciousness of the brain is changing, while it's behavior is not changed. > This is the concept of fading and "dancing" qualia that Chalmers described > in his paper. > > And if you believe in fading and dancing qualia, then you believe in a > form of qualia that is essentially epiphenomenal! But my qualia are NOT > epiphenominal. They impact my behavior... For example, I say "red is > beautiful" because my qualia of red affects my decision to say that. If you > substitute a few neurons in my brain, and I STILL say "red is beautiful"... > then I still have the qualia of red, and it hasn't faded. > > I fail to see how your discussion of the comparator neuron changes this in > any significant manner... it's just an example of exactly what we have been > describing all along. > > James > > -- > Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 21:57:56 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:57:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: ?But you couldn't deduce anything unless you've already taken it as a axiom that intelligent behavior implies consciousness. All I'm asking is you play by the same rules when dealing with computers. John Quadrillions, nonillions, it doesn't matter. All I am trying to say is that we are talking about the most complex thing known to man and reducing it to code. It just boggles my mind. Even if you could hook up every neuron, every glial cell for recording purposes, and assuming that the hookups did not interfere with the functions (which I would very, very seriously doubt), then maybe you could do it. Happy now? No, every cell is just atoms and I agree that computers and people are alike in that way - no magical something to account for anything including consciousness. But by your own logic, you could never tell if a computer program was conscious and could feel. By my own logic, all we could do it sample behavior and induce, followed by deduction and further testing. Suppose instead of uploading a real brain, it was built from the getgo with code - the way they are doing it now. Now suppose that it passes all the Turing tests and whatever. Would such an advanced computer be capable of lying? Yes? Then it can hide its feelings or consciousness from us. It could be paranoid, like HAL. BTW - connection between intelligence and consciousness. There is no evidence that an amoeba has any memory, which to me would make a case for consciousness. All beasties above that have memories and can learn. They 'view' the world with eyes or something and move around in it as if they had a plan to get food, mate, make nests and everything else creatures do - i.e. purposeful behaviors (mark the 'as if' - I am making no statements that are teleological). To me that means consciousness and intelligence down as far as the paramecium (if that's the next creature up and I dunno). Ever hear of the Wormrunner's Digest? Worth a Google. I met the man and taught 101 out of his text. bill w On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 3:31 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Oh great. Thanks, James, for this reply. I realized after I sent my > post, that I left a few important things out, and you are clearly pointing > these omissions out. > > > > The difference is that computer functional logic is all implemented above > and abstracted away from the quality of the physical hardware level. All > representations have a translation or transduction system that physically > translates between all the different physical representations, so they can > all be thought of or function as 1s and 0s. But we are different. The > physical quality of our representations is all important, and included in > all of the comparison and intelligent processing systems. With us, we > can be aware of and reflect on what they are like, but with a computer, all > that is abstracted away by all the hardware translators. So, true > Chalmers admitted that the fading / dancing qualia is a possibility, and > this is exactly what this theory predicts will happen. If the comparison > system can detect a phenomenal quality of positive voltages and zero > voltages, then there will be dancing qualia, as you make the substitution. > If there is no qualia at all, it will be fading qualia. Except that > qualitatively, you will be able to tell with the first comparator > substitution. The prediction is that you will never be able to construct > any of the comparitors to say glutamate is the same as +5 volts. So you > will not be able to ?flip the switch? between the first comparator > substitution, and not see a difference between them. True, you will be > able to replace everything, and eventually it will start functioning > entirely identically. But, as the wave of conversion progresses > partially along, this theory is predicting there will clearly be dancing / > fading qualia, until everything is replaced and the quality of the > representations becomes entirely irrelevant - abstracted away from the > quality of the physical layer - everyone admitting that there is clearly a > big difference due to the dancing / fading qualia as you progressed to the > eventually completely identical behavior. > > Brent Allsop > > > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 1:52 PM, James Carroll > wrote: > >> On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 12:23 PM, Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> >>> >>> With that, you should be able to see the flaw in this neural >>> substitution logic. >>> >> >> >> Why? >> >> I don't yew see how your discussion of translation leads to a flaw in the >> logic. You may have a point, but I am failing to grasp it given what you >> have written above. >> >> First, it appears that your comparator neuron fires when the inputs are >> the same... so that is implementing a -XOR, rather than an XOR (which fires >> if they are different), but that is trivial. I will just assume you meant >> not XOR. >> >> So, if I understand you correctly, we have two neuro-transmitters, g and >> a, with you so far. We then have a comparator neuron C... with you so >> far... and two input neurons A and B... with you so far... C fires if A and >> B both dump the same neurotransmitter, and don't fire if they dump >> different neurotransmitters. Is that correct? >> >> Now I replace one of those input neurons, A, (and potentially other >> neurons on the upstream side of A) with a mechanical copy A_m... then I put >> a translator on the output of neuron A_m at the input to comparator C. The >> translator dumps chemical g if the output of A_m is a 1, and chemical a if >> the output of A_m is a 0. This is necessary for A_m to properly talk to C >> in the same way that A did before. Ok... good so far. Now C fires if it >> gets chemical g from both inputs A_m (translated) and B, or chemical a from >> both inputs A_m(translated) and B. Now C's behavior is identical both >> before and after A was replaced with A_m. >> >> Now we can continue down the chain... I can now replace C with C_m.. now >> no translation between A_m and C_m is needed, but a new translation step is >> needed between B and C_m, as well as between C_m, and whatever it's output >> is hooked to... let's call that D. Now I must translate between C_m and D. >> So... as I expand the number of neurons that are replaced with mechanical >> versions (_m neurons), there is a translation step needed between each >> neuron that is mechanical, and each that isn't. You can think of this as an >> expanding wave of mechanical neurons, with a translation step at the edge >> of the wave. As this wave moves across the brain, the brain's behavior >> remains unchanged. But IF consciousness is tied to the substrate, the >> consciousness of the brain is changing, while it's behavior is not changed. >> This is the concept of fading and "dancing" qualia that Chalmers described >> in his paper. >> >> And if you believe in fading and dancing qualia, then you believe in a >> form of qualia that is essentially epiphenomenal! But my qualia are NOT >> epiphenominal. They impact my behavior... For example, I say "red is >> beautiful" because my qualia of red affects my decision to say that. If you >> substitute a few neurons in my brain, and I STILL say "red is beautiful"... >> then I still have the qualia of red, and it hasn't faded. >> >> I fail to see how your discussion of the comparator neuron changes this >> in any significant manner... it's just an example of exactly what we have >> been describing all along. >> >> James >> >> -- >> Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net >> > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 22:07:03 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 16:07:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] some damn good psychology Message-ID: OK, so it's political but it doesn't have to be. Worthwhile in any debate or argument. There's a lot more to winning arguments but this is insightful and a good start. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-win-your-next-political-argument-618064427 I get this feed and recommend it. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 22:35:08 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 09:35:08 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: <39320F2D-F49E-44E1-96FB-B2381BA55604@gmail.com> > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 6:23 am, Brent Allsop wrote: > > >> On 12/21/2016 4:21 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> Your intuition is that in order to reproduce consciousness it may not be sufficient to just reproduce the behaviour of the human brain, because consciousness might reside in the actual brain substance. This, I think, is what Brent is claiming. He further claims that one day we may be able to work out the exact correlates of experience - glutamate for red experiences for example (for illustrative purposes - it wouldn't be as simple as this). But there is an argument due to philosopher David Chalmers that assumes this common intuition to be true and shows that it leads to absurdity: >> >> http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html > > and > >> On 12/22/2016 1:31 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> The theory of mind called "functionalism" holds that consciousness results from the brain carrying out its business of cognition, rather than from the actual substrate of the brain. This would mean that if the function of the brain could be reproduced using another substrate, such as a digital computer, the associated consciousness would also be reproduced. The paper by Chalmers I cited is a reductio ad absurdum starting with the assumption that consciousness is substrate-dependent, thus establishing functionalism as the better theory. > > Thanks for bringing this up! This neural substitution argument for functionalism was around way before Chalmers used the argument in his paper. For example Hans Moravec made this same argument way back in 1988, in his book Mind Children. > > https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Children-Future-Robot-Intelligence/dp/0674576187 > > So at least Stathis Papaioannou, Hans Moravec, David Chalmers, James Carroll (CC-ed), and a bunch of others think this argument is sound, causing them to think "functionalism is the better theory" resulting in the apparent "hard problem" conundrum. I think all these people are world leading, understanding wise, in this field, so we need to take this argument seriously. But, despite this, it seems obvious to me that this so called "hard" problem is a simple misunderstanding of how phenomenal computation works below the abstracted layer - at the hardware quality dependent layer. > > Let me describe the hardware quality dependent layer in today's computers in a slightly qualitatively advanced way to illustrate how this misunderstanding results. One of the fundamental operations of a computation device is comparisons: Is a 1 different than a zero? So fundamentally, today's computer circuits are composed of lots of such comparison gates that let you know if the voltage on one wire is the same as the voltage on another wire. In other words, we are talking about a simple exclusive or functional operation: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_gate > > So, instead of just implementing our XOR logical comparison function with simple voltages that are not physically very qualitatively different lets use neurotransmitter molecule comparisons like between glutamate and glycine. Let's implement our XOR function with a comparison neuron that fires if two of it's input synapses are chemically the same and not fire if they are different. In effect, this comparison neuron is a good glutamate detector. If glutamate is being fed to one of it's input synapses, nothing but glutamate in the other will cause it to fire. > > So, the complete XOR neural setup is composed of 3 significant neurons. There are two input neurons that can dump different nero transmitters into the two input synapses. and the third comparison neuron that fires, if the two input synapses are chemically the same. So let's perform the neural substitution on this xor gate. We first replace one of the input neurons with a silicone system that can function identically. When it outputs a positive voltage, it is considered as representing what glutamate is chemically like. Outputting a zero voltage is considered to represent dumping something chemically different than glutamate into the synapse of the comparitor neuron. At this point, you have to add a physical translator between this first silicone neuron substitutuion and the real comparitor neuron. So when the silicone neuron outputs a positive voltage, the translation mechanism feeds glutamate to the comparison neuron. Obviously, since the real neuron is receiving glutamate, it is happy, and it fires since it's two inputs are chemically or qualitatively the same. Now, obviously, in order to replace the comparitor neuron, you also need to replace the other input with a translator system. This system translates glutamate, coming from the second input neuron, into a positive voltage being fed into the newly artificial comparitor neuron. So, this simple XOR gate is functioning identically to the comparitor neuron. It fires if the two inputs are the same, but doesn't fire if they are different. > > With that, you should be able to see the flaw in this neural substitution logic. The physical qualities being compared between these two functionally identical XOR systems is critically important when it comes to our consciousness. That is why Thomas Nagel is wanting to know what the two comparison systems are physically and qualitatively like. The two inputs being compared, and what they are physically, chemichally, and qualitatively like is important to understanding the nature of physical qualitative comparison. The two systems can be thought of as functionally the same, but the qualities of what they are comparing is physically very different. Yes, but do you agree that despite the silicon-based comparator neurone you describe being physically different, the rest of the brain will function exactly the same? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 23:18:26 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 23:18:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] i'll be moffed In-Reply-To: <045801d25c09$51894f60$f49bee20$@att.net> References: <045801d25c09$51894f60$f49bee20$@att.net> Message-ID: On 22 December 2016 at 04:10, spike wrote: > > Hey cool. Those of you who have seen the new Star Wars saw the digitally > recreated Peter Cushing, the actor who died 22 years ago, as Grand Moff > Tarkin. It might be a worthwhile activity to learn CGI well enough to > create moffs of ourselves. Then I can write cool funny lines for my moff > to say after I am dead and frozen, visit with the attendees at my funeral, > wisecracks and such, encouragements to get with it on the cryonics > research, and Hey you warm proles, hurry and get me out of this cold > purgatory, dark and boring in here, that kinda thing. > > > Apparently Light and Magic are not going to discuss exactly how they did it until January, so as not to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it. But they found a British actor, Guy Henry, to play the part in the filming. He has similar features to Peter Cushing so this probably helped in the transformation. BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 02:39:41 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:39:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> James, After thinking about this for a year or more, and hearing your's and Stathis' comments (in his post he asked: "Yes, but do you agree that despite the silicon-based comparator neurone you describe being physically different, the rest of the brain will function exactly the same?") I think I have a better understanding of your logic in these complaints. The way the substitution would feel as the substitution wave traversed across the brain would be highly dependent on the type of binding mechanism the brain employed to bind all of this knowledge together so we can be aware of the physical quality of it it all at once. When we look at a strawberry we are aware of a 3D model of the strawberry. We can split the image up into 3D voxel elements, and we are aware of the quality of each voxel element on the surface of the strawberry and the leaves, again all at the same time. So lets say that there is one neuron that represents each voxel element, firing on all it's downstream synapses with glutamate when representing the surface of the strawberry. It would take much more than a single neuron to bind all this together, including the semantic information that it all represents a red strawberry.... but let's just imagine that the binding system is one single awareness neuron for simplicity purposes. This large neuron needs to have an upstream synapse touching each of these actual knowledge voxel neurons, each firing - some with glutamate and some with glycene. Otherwise, it couldn't be aware of the entire thing all at once. Steven Lehar postulates that this knowledge is neurons firing in standing wave patterns, so maybe this large single neuron aware of the physical quality of all our knowledge representation neurons is coordinating the firing pattern of all of these neurons so they fire in a standing wave or something. Anyway, the point being is that if you could do the entire binding process with one neuron, it would function the same as James is demanding when you replace it. When you replace the one large binding neuron, only then could you replace all the upstream neurons and translators producing glutamate. But of course, everyone would know this was only functionally the same - both interpreting the very different physical representations as if they were red. But the binding system probably isn't a single neuron, so there may be some type of possible wave, during the substitution, for which the system would not behave the same - saying that that glutamate is nothing like a positive voltage. Brent I tried to explain that it wouldn't be identical behavior, until the entire substitution On 12/22/2016 3:21 PM, James Carroll wrote: > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > Oh great.Thanks, James, for this reply.I realized after I sent my > post, that I left a few important things out, and you are clearly > pointing these omissions out. > > The difference is that computer functional logic is all > implemented above and abstracted away from the quality of the > physical hardware level. > > > > You are begging the question. > > All representations have a translation or transduction system that > physically translates between all the different physical > representations, so they can all be thought of or function as 1s > and 0s.But we are different.The physical quality of our > representations is all important, and included in all of the > comparison and intelligent processing systems.With us, we can be > aware of and reflect on what they are like, but with a computer, > all that is abstracted away by all the hardware translators. > > > > You are begging the question. > > So, true Chalmers admitted that the fading / dancing qualia is a > possibility, and this is exactly what this theory predicts will > happen. > > > > If you believe in fading and dancing qualia, then your qualia is > epiphenomenal. YOUR qualia may be epiphenomenal, mine isn't. > > If the comparison system can detect a phenomenal quality of > positive voltages and zero voltages, then there will be dancing > qualia, as you make the substitution. > > > > But the behavior will be unchanged.... When YOUR qualia change, does > your behavior remain unaltered? > > If there is no qualia at all, it will be fading qualia.Except that > qualitatively, you will be able to tell with the first comparator > substitution.The prediction is that you will never be able to > construct any of the comparitors to say glutamate is the same as > +5 volts. > > > > Sure, to preserve the behavior the translation at the boundary between > the mechanical element and the natural one is necessary. Again, so > what? That doesn't mean that there is no qualia in a system that is > mechanical, with the proper translation at the boundaries. > > Remember that you can push the boundary where the "translation" takes > place completely outside the brain, and translate between the brain > and the muscles of your mouth, eyes, skin (for touch) etc. > > So you will not be able to ?flip the switch? between the first > comparator substitution, and not see a difference between > them.True, you will be able to replace everything, and eventually > it will start functioning entirely identically. > > > > It will function identically during the in-between steps too... so > long as there is a translation layer between each of the mechanical > neuron and the natural ones. > > But, as the wave of conversion progresses partially along, this > theory is predicting there will clearly be dancing / fading > qualia, until everything is replaced and the quality of the > representations becomes entirely irrelevant - abstracted away from > the quality of the physical layer - everyone admitting that there > is clearly a big difference due to the dancing / fading qualia as > you progressed to the eventually completely identical behavior. > > > > But if the behavior is unchanged (as it must be), then the person will > have their qualia fade, all the while they claim that their qualia is > NOT fading... that's exactly what the contradiction of the thought > experiment is. And that is why Chalmers and I think that his thought > experiment means that qualia MUST be functional. > > James > > -- > Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 03:25:59 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:25:59 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> References: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> Message-ID: <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 1:39 pm, Brent Allsop wrote: > I tried to explain that it wouldn't be identical behavior, until the entire substitution. > I think the issue is, as James Charles has also pointed out, that you contradict yourself by allowing that the artificial neurone will interact with the the other neurones normally (which is of course crucial to the experiment) but then saying that the other neurones will behave differently. How could the other neurones possibly behave differently, if they are receiving the same inputs they would normally receive? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 04:23:24 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 20:23:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] some damn good psychology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 2:07 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > OK, so it's political but it doesn't have to be. Worthwhile in any debate > or argument. There's a lot more to winning arguments but this is insightful > and a good start. > > https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-win-your-next-political-argument-618064427 Hmm...not sure I agree with #1. At least when it comes to convincing me, bring up legit facts (from sources I trust) and that may change my opinion. The other four perhaps, though. There are definitely nicer ways to point out incorrect facts. From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 04:44:38 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 21:44:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> References: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> Hi Stathis, Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You seem to be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no place did I intend to say that any functionally equivalent neurons would behave differently when they were receiving the same inputs. I am only saying that IF the entire comparison systems was one neuron (it would at least have to have input from all voxal element representing neurons - at the same time, so it could know how they all compared to one another, all at the same time.) And if this was the case, and if you swapped this entire awareness of it all neuron - only then could you swap all the glutamate producing representations of the strawberry with positive voltage representations of the strawberry - just as the neural substitution argument stipulates is required to get the same functionality. Only then would it behave the same. If only any sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it would not be able to function the same. The way it would fail would be different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real glutamate sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the strawberry are all glutimate when it is all represented with real physical glutamate and a comparison system will only say all the positive voltages (again representing the same strawberry) are the same "red" if it knows how to interpret all it's physically different representations of "red" as if they were red. I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete individual small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware of whether they are all qualitatively alike, all at the same time. If you give to me any example of some mechanical way that a system can know how to compare (or better - be aware of) the quality of all the physical representations at the same time (I'm doing this by making the entire system be one large neuron) it will be obvious how the neural substitution will fail to function the same. If the entire comparison system is one neuron, when it, along with all glutamate is replaced by positive voltages, - there would be no failure and it would behave the same - as demanded by the substitution argument. Brent On 12/22/2016 8:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 1:39 pm, Brent Allsop > wrote: >> >> I tried to explain that it wouldn't be identical behavior, until the >> entire substitution. >> > I think the issue is, as James Charles has also pointed out, that you > contradict yourself by allowing that the artificial neurone will > interact with the the other neurones normally (which is of course > crucial to the experiment) but then saying that the other neurones > will behave differently. How could the other neurones possibly behave > differently, if they are receiving the same inputs they would normally > receive? > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 05:09:51 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 23:09:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> References: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> Message-ID: Is what you are describing with the two neurotransmitters for red and green light merely the opponent process theory of color vision ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process )? According to this view, the visual system does not transmit RGB values, as computers do, instead different colors are paired as opposing. Red vs. Green, Blue vs. Yellow, Black vs. White. The more red light that falls on the retina, the faster the neuron firing rate, and the more green light the slower (I might be mixing up which one speeds it up vs. which one slows it). If so, then we would expect the same neurotransmitters pairs of red/green, to also appear for yellow/blue. But then you have to explain, why in one circumstance, the neurotransmitter is associated with red in some contexts and blue in others. The opponent process explains why there are bluish greens (cyan), bluish reds (purple), yellowish reds (orange), but no yellowish blues, and no reddish greens. I don't think there is anything special about the neurotransmitters here, aside from their effect on either accelerating, or decelerating the rate of firing. There are thousands, if not millions of colors that can be perceived by the eye, and each might be considered its own quale in its own right, but there are not millions of different chemicals or neurotransmitters. Some humans can see 4 primary colors. It is due to having an extra type of color sensing cone in their retina, not due to a difference in brain chemistry. This was demonstrated when monkeys that were normally color blind had their retinas infected with a retrovirus that inserted a gene to create a third color-sensing cone. After a few weeks their brains learned to adapt to the new signals and they could perceive a new primary color. Given that the change was purely one that affected the eye, and the information the eye sent to the brain via the optic nerve, I don't see how the outcome of this experiment can be explained in terms of altered neurochemistry of the brain. It appears, rather, that the brain began to process the signals differently, and the new informational states it realized led to new patterns and thereby new perceptions. Jason On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 10:44 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Stathis, > > > Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You seem to > be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no place did I intend to > say that any functionally equivalent neurons would behave differently when > they were receiving the same inputs. I am only saying that IF the entire > comparison systems was one neuron (it would at least have to have input > from all voxal element representing neurons - at the same time, so it could > know how they all compared to one another, all at the same time.) And if > this was the case, and if you swapped this entire awareness of it all > neuron - only then could you swap all the glutamate producing > representations of the strawberry with positive voltage representations of > the strawberry - just as the neural substitution argument stipulates is > required to get the same functionality. Only then would it behave the > same. If only any sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it > would not be able to function the same. The way it would fail would be > different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real glutamate > sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the strawberry are all > glutimate when it is all represented with real physical glutamate and a > comparison system will only say all the positive voltages (again > representing the same strawberry) are the same "red" if it knows how to > interpret all it's physically different representations of "red" as if they > were red. > > > I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete individual > small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware of whether they are > all qualitatively alike, all at the same time. If you give to me any > example of some mechanical way that a system can know how to compare (or > better - be aware of) the quality of all the physical representations at > the same time (I'm doing this by making the entire system be one large > neuron) it will be obvious how the neural substitution will fail to > function the same. If the entire comparison system is one neuron, when it, > along with all glutamate is replaced by positive voltages, - there would be > no failure and it would behave the same - as demanded by the substitution > argument. > > > Brent > > > On 12/22/2016 8:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 1:39 pm, Brent Allsop wrote: > > I tried to explain that it wouldn't be identical behavior, until the > entire substitution. > > I think the issue is, as James Charles has also pointed out, that you > contradict yourself by allowing that the artificial neurone will interact > with the the other neurones normally (which is of course crucial to the > experiment) but then saying that the other neurones will behave > differently. How could the other neurones possibly behave differently, if > they are receiving the same inputs they would normally receive? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing listextropy-chat at lists.extropy.orghttp://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 07:37:15 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 18:37:15 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> References: <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 3:44 pm, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > Hi Stathis, > > > Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You seem to be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no place did I intend to say that any functionally equivalent neurons would behave differently when they were receiving the same inputs. I am only saying that IF the entire comparison systems was one neuron (it would at least have to have input from all voxal element representing neurons - at the same time, so it could know how they all compared to one another, all at the same time.) And if this was the case, and if you swapped this entire awareness of it all neuron - only then could you swap all the glutamate producing representations of the strawberry with positive voltage representations of the strawberry - just as the neural substitution argument stipulates is required to get the same functionality. Only then would it behave the same. If only any sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it would not be able to function the same. The way it would fail would be different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real glutamate sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the strawberry are all glutimate when it is all represented with real physical glutamate and a comparison system will only say all the positive voltages (again representing the same strawberry) are the same "red" if it knows how to interpret all it's physically different representations of "red" as if they were red. > > > I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete individual small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware of whether they are all qualitatively alike, all at the same time. If you give to me any example of some mechanical way that a system can know how to compare (or better - be aware of) the quality of all the physical representations at the same time (I'm doing this by making the entire system be one large neuron) it will be obvious how the neural substitution will fail to function the same. If the entire comparison system is one neuron, when it, along with all glutamate is replaced by positive voltages, - there would be no failure and it would behave the same - as demanded by the substitution argument. > I'm having difficulty following what you're saying. I'm simply proposing replacing any component of a neurone, or any collection of neurones, with a machine that does the same job. There is a type of glutamate receptor that changes its shape when glutamate molecules bind, creating a channel for sodium and potassium ions to pass through the membrane, and triggering an action potential. We could imagine nanomachines in the place of these receptors that monitor glutamate and open and close ion channels in the same way as the natural receptors, but are made from different materials; perhaps from carbon nanotubules rather than proteins. The engineering problem would be to ensure that these nanomachines perform their task of detecting glutamate and opening ion channels just like the naturally occurring receptors. Do you think it is in theory possible to do this? Do you see that if it is possible, then neurons modified with these receptors *must* behave just like the original neurons? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Dec 23 16:04:02 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 08:04:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] whence will learning come Message-ID: <00ab01d25d36$2e8e71b0$8bab5510$@att.net> Here's an interesting article with some jewels of wisdom, too long to read perhaps. The previous clause proves the point of the article itself: https://aeon.co/essays/can-students-who-are-constantly-on-their-devices-actu ally-learn?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter &utm_campaign=dea3bdfe0e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term =0_411a82e59d-dea3bdfe0e-68957125 Comment from the article: An even bigger problem is the way that technology damages critical-thinking skills. Because knowledge is so ubiquitous, we don't have to hone it as sharply and we don't have to commit much to memory - we can just Google everything. Researchers from University College London report that readers skim information, rarely reread, and engage in something called 'power browsing' rather than actual reading. I would like to hear BillW's take on it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 19:21:01 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:21:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 4:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ? > ?> ? > All I am trying to say is that we are talking about the most complex thing > known to man and reducing it to code. ?The brain is complex, but not all that complex. Ray Kurzweil estimates you'd need about 50 megabytes of code to emulate the behavior of a newborn baby, and that seems about right to me. In the entire human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs. There are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits, there are 8 bits per byte so that comes out to 750 meg. Just 750 meg. About half of that is for parts of the body other than the brain so we're down to 375, and most of that 375 would be for basic metabolism that any cell needs to stay alive but has nothing to do with information processing, and the genome is notorious for the inefficient way it encodes information with long long stretches of repeats (often instead of saying something like "write ABC 1001 times" it will actually write "ABC" 1001 times). So 50 meg seems about right for a seed AI, about the same as it would take to record one Britney Spears song with good quality. > ?> ? > It just boggles my mind. ?Mine too, but that doesn't mean it's untrue.? > > ?> > Even if you could hook up every neuron, every glial cell for recording > purposes, and assuming that the hookups did not interfere with the > functions (which I would very, very seriously doubt) > ?Now you're talking about uploading not just AI, but even so it's just a question of making sure the atoms of the correct element ? are in the correct places.? > No, every cell is just atoms and I agree that computers and people are > alike in that way - no magical something to account for anything including > consciousness. ?I'm glad to hear you say that.? ? > > > ? ? > But by your own logic, you could never tell if a computer program was > conscious and could feel. > ?True, ? ?but except for yourself you could never tell ?that *ANYTHING* is conscious and can feel unless you accept certain axioms. ?> ? > By my own logic, all we could do it sample behavior and induce, followed > by deduction and further testing. > ?Logic is useless unless there are axioms for that logic to work on. I have 2 axioms: 1) I an conscious. 2) Darwin was right about random mutation and natural selection being the origin of species. >From those axioms it's easy ?to use logic and deduce that intelligent behavior must imply consciousness. Those are my axioms, so what are your axioms? > ?> ? > Suppose instead of uploading a real brain, it was built from the getgo > with code - the way they are doing it now. Now suppose that it passes all > the Turing tests and whatever. Would such an advanced computer be capable > of lying? Yes? ?Yes I agree, it could be lying, the AI could just be pretending to be stupid when it's really smart as hell, maybe computers already do that and have been foolin us for years, and maybe the same thing is true for rocks. It would be much more difficult to do the reverse, I don't quite see how Einstein could have just been pretending to be smart. ? ?> > BTW - connection between intelligence and consciousness. There is no > evidence that an amoeba has any memory, > ?Untrue.? https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15068-smart-amoebas-reveal-origins-of-primitive-intelligence/ ? John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 20:13:47 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:13:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Nuclear hair-trigger Message-ID: Some months ago Spike said something about how the USA shouldn't be on a nuclear hair trigger, and the more I think about it the more I think he was right. Somebody has started the following petition to President Barack Obama: *" We urge you to take U.S. nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. Heed what you said back in 2008, "Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment's notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation. I believe that we must address this dangerous situation." Now more than ever, we call on you to ensure calmer heads prevail. Taking this critical step would bring profound security benefits for all Americans by reducing the risk of nuclear disaster." * If you want to sign it you can do so here: https://www.change.org/p/potus-help-keep-trump-s-finger-off-the-button-nucleartrump If this went into effect the USA could still launch missiles but it would take hours not seconds to do so, perhaps enough time for anger to cool a little. Of course the new president could change it back to a hair trigger, but one must do what one can. The matter seems particularly urgent in light of of Mr. Trump's latest twitter posts. *"?T?he United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."* And *" Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,"* Right now World War 3 could start in less time than it takes to type 140 characters. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 20:15:16 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:15:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] whence will learning come In-Reply-To: <00ab01d25d36$2e8e71b0$8bab5510$@att.net> References: <00ab01d25d36$2e8e71b0$8bab5510$@att.net> Message-ID: On 23 December 2016 at 16:04, spike wrote: > Here?s an interesting article with some jewels of wisdom, too long to read > perhaps. The previous clause proves the point of the article itself: > > https://aeon.co/essays/can-students-who-are-constantly-on-their-devices-actually-learn > > Comment from the article: An even bigger problem is the way that technology > damages critical-thinking skills. Because knowledge is so ubiquitous, we > don?t have to hone it as sharply and we don?t have to commit much to memory > ? we can just Google everything. Researchers from University College London > report that readers skim information, rarely reread, and engage in something > called ?power browsing? rather than actual reading? > Also - Quote: Warning: Surfing the internet in class is now linked to poorer test scores, even among the most intelligent and motivated of students. Michigan State University researchers studied laptop use in an introductory psychology course and found the average time spent browsing the web for non-class-related purposes was 37 minutes. Students spent the most time on social media, reading email, shopping for items such as clothes and watching videos. And their academic performance suffered. ---------- That result seems pretty obvious to me. What else would anyone expect? BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 20:23:22 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:23:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Nuclear hair-trigger In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 December 2016 at 20:13, John Clark wrote: > Right now World War 3 could start in less time than it takes to type 140 > characters. > No Problem. Already fixed. The Pentagon is confident it has averted Armageddon after fitting a childproof lock to the nuclear launch button in the Oval Office. --------------------- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 21:02:40 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:02:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] whence will learning come In-Reply-To: References: <00ab01d25d36$2e8e71b0$8bab5510$@att.net> Message-ID: I would like to hear BillW?s take on it. spike Let's take Pavlov: classical conditioning occurs with or without conscious effort to put something into memory. Beyond that, much learning requires conscious effort (no sleep learning, sorry), and beyond that, much requires repetition. I probably cannot tell you what I found on Google yesterday even if you told me what I searched for. Probably. I did not 'study' it; I just processed it a bit and then went on to something else. This sort of hit and run experience does not lend itself to permanent memories. I have not researched it but I suspect that it has been or will be: how good are memories of what the person did on FAcebook, or Youtube or whatever? I suspect that they are not very good. Now everyone has memories that they had no intention of putting into memory and I have no explanation of those. The unconscious has its own agenda and often we don't know what it is. Why would any teacher not ban the use of computers and smartphones and iPads with telephone capability from the classroom? When I am teaching they'd better not be on simplenudes.com. OK, so what do we do when they tell us that they are typing their notes because they cannot read their own writing? Surely there is some gadget that can be turned on to suppress all wifi activity in the classroom. That will not prevent them from writing letters, of course. If someone is determined to avoid the proper kind of study there's not much a teacher can do. If students were not paying attention to me I'd call on them and get it. I'll bet if I stopped here and Googled 'internet addiction' I'd find plenty of data. Now I have to admit that I turn on my computer in the morning to see if any responses have showed up, or new posts, but what I read about relating to this topic is just pathetic. We'll just have to hope that their grades will correct some of this behavior. I don't know what other teachers did, but I told my classes how to read the book, how to behave in class, how to ask questions - in short, how to succeed in my class and probably other classes. College students are suffering from being young and being more interested in social things than classwork. I drank beer and shot pool seven days a week when I was a freshman and cut one class 22 times (met six days a week at 9 - ouch! - aced every test and got a D in a 5 hour class - that still haunts me) Obviously I straightened out in time to graduate with honors, which could easily have been highest honors had I not been so young. Then I could have gone to Harvard or Stanford. Who knows how that would have changed my life? bill w On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 2:15 PM, BillK wrote: > On 23 December 2016 at 16:04, spike wrote: > > Here?s an interesting article with some jewels of wisdom, too long to > read > > perhaps. The previous clause proves the point of the article itself: > > > > https://aeon.co/essays/can-students-who-are-constantly- > on-their-devices-actually-learn > > > > Comment from the article: An even bigger problem is the way that > technology > > damages critical-thinking skills. Because knowledge is so ubiquitous, we > > don?t have to hone it as sharply and we don?t have to commit much to > memory > > ? we can just Google everything. Researchers from University College > London > > report that readers skim information, rarely reread, and engage in > something > > called ?power browsing? rather than actual reading? > > > > > Also - > tied-lower-test-scores-46583> > Quote: > Warning: Surfing the internet in class is now linked to poorer test > scores, even among the most intelligent and motivated of students. > > Michigan State University researchers studied laptop use in an > introductory psychology course and found the average time spent > browsing the web for non-class-related purposes was 37 minutes. > Students spent the most time on social media, reading email, shopping > for items such as clothes and watching videos. > > And their academic performance suffered. > ---------- > > That result seems pretty obvious to me. What else would anyone expect? > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 21:03:58 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:03:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Nuclear hair-trigger In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *" Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,"* *?Huh? We've already done that. bill w?* On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 2:23 PM, BillK wrote: > On 23 December 2016 at 20:13, John Clark wrote: > > Right now World War 3 could start in less time than it takes to type 140 > > characters. > > > > No Problem. Already fixed. > > white-house-nuclear-launch-button/> > > The Pentagon is confident it has averted Armageddon after fitting a > childproof lock to the nuclear launch button in the Oval Office. > > --------------------- > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 21:06:35 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:06:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: > > ?> > BTW - connection between intelligence and consciousness. There is no > evidence that an amoeba has any memory, > ?Untrue.? https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15068-smart-amoebas- reveal-origins-of-primitive-intelligence/ ? John K Clark? Thanks for the info. I did not know that. I'll have to think about my axioms. bill w On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 1:21 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 4:57 PM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > ? > > > >> ?> ? >> All I am trying to say is that we are talking about the most complex >> thing known to man and reducing it to code. > > > ?The brain is complex, but not all that complex. Ray Kurzweil estimates > you'd need about 50 megabytes of code to emulate the behavior of a newborn > baby, and that seems about right to me. In the entire human genome there > are only 3 billion base pairs. There are 4 bases so each base can represent > 2 bits, there are 8 bits per byte so that comes out to 750 meg. Just 750 > meg. About half of that is for parts of the body other than the brain so > we're down to 375, and most of that 375 would be for basic metabolism that > any cell needs to stay alive but has nothing to do with information > processing, and the genome is notorious for the inefficient way it encodes > information with long long stretches of repeats (often instead of saying > something like "write ABC 1001 times" it will actually write "ABC" 1001 > times). So 50 meg seems about right for a seed AI, about the same as it > would take to record one Britney Spears song with good quality. > > >> ?> ? >> It just boggles my mind. > > > ?Mine too, but that doesn't mean it's untrue.? > > >> >> ?> >> Even if you could hook up every neuron, every glial cell for recording >> purposes, and assuming that the hookups did not interfere with the >> functions (which I would very, very seriously doubt) >> > > ?Now you're talking about uploading not just AI, but even so it's just a > question of making sure the atoms of the correct element ? > > are in the correct places.? > > > No, every cell is just atoms and I agree that computers and people are >> alike in that way - no magical something to account for anything including >> consciousness. > > > ?I'm glad to hear you say that.? > > > ? >> > >> ? ? >> But by your own logic, you could never tell if a computer program was >> conscious and could feel. >> > > ?True, ? > > ?but except for yourself you could never tell ?that *ANYTHING* is > conscious and can feel unless you accept certain axioms. > > ?> ? >> By my own logic, all we could do it sample behavior and induce, followed >> by deduction and further testing. >> > > ?Logic is useless unless there are axioms for that logic to work on. I > have 2 axioms: > > 1) I an conscious. > 2) Darwin was right about random mutation and natural selection being the > origin of species. > > From those axioms it's easy ?to use logic and deduce that intelligent > behavior must imply consciousness. Those are my axioms, so what are your > axioms? > > >> ?> ? >> Suppose instead of uploading a real brain, it was built from the getgo >> with code - the way they are doing it now. Now suppose that it passes all >> the Turing tests and whatever. Would such an advanced computer be capable >> of lying? Yes? > > > ?Yes I agree, it could be lying, the AI could just be pretending to be > stupid when it's really smart as hell, maybe computers already do that and > have been foolin us for years, and maybe the same thing is true for rocks. > It would be much more difficult to do the reverse, I don't quite see how > Einstein could have just been pretending to be smart. ? > > ?> >> BTW - connection between intelligence and consciousness. There is no >> evidence that an amoeba has any memory, >> > > ?Untrue.? > > > https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15068-smart-amoebas- > reveal-origins-of-primitive-intelligence/ > > ? John K Clark? > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Dec 23 21:04:20 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:04:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Nuclear hair-trigger In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <016501d25d60$248141a0$6d83c4e0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: [ExI] Nuclear hair-trigger >?Some months ago Spike said something about how the USA shouldn't be on a nuclear hair trigger, and the more I think about it the more I think he was right. Somebody has started the following petition to President Barack Obama: " We urge you to take U.S. nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. ? If you want to sign it you can do so here: https://www.change.org/p/potus-help-keep-trump-s-finger-off-the-button-nucleartrump >?Right now World War 3 could start in less time than it takes to type 140 characters. John K Clark Cool thanks, I will sign this and I think it is a good idea. Even more to the point, the decision to launch these shouldn?t be in the hands of the executive branch at all. The power to declare war rests with congress. Launching a nuke is declaring war. My possibly over-optimistic conclusion is that this transfer has already been done, and if so, we have no reasonable expectation we would know about it, or even that the head of the executive branch would know that football no longer signals the submarines but rather signals the joint chiefs and a couple of biggies in the senate and house. If the top military brass made that change, I see no reason why they would need to tell. Now is a golden opportunity to fix this if it isn?t already fixed. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Dec 23 21:16:24 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:16:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] whence will learning come In-Reply-To: References: <00ab01d25d36$2e8e71b0$8bab5510$@att.net> Message-ID: <01a701d25d61$d18bd9e0$74a38da0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 1:03 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] whence will learning come >>?I would like to hear BillW?s take on it. spike >?When I am teaching they'd better not be on simplenudes.com . Thanks BillW! I?ll be back in a few hours. Or perhaps days, but this other stuff you wrote is interesting too. >?Let's take Pavlov: classical conditioning occurs with or without conscious effort to put something into memory?BillW I am tempted to agree. If there is a passive path to learning, I don?t think it has been discovered. Our technology for teaching has improved dramatically, but it still isn?t really to where we can play our way to smart. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Dec 25 16:00:37 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 10:00:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] new years Message-ID: I should send this in a week but I'll probably forget, so.... Thanks for another year of intellectual stimulation! Hope you and yours have a great holiday. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Dec 25 16:12:10 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 08:12:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] new years In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01d201d25ec9$a5ddce20$f1996a60$@att.net> Thanks BillW! Thanks to all who have posted smart, informative, insightful, entertaining, BESTDOITSO-ish cool, interesting material. May we have more of it, for as the saying goes, if some is good, more is better and too much is just right. Merry Newtonmas! spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 8:01 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] new years I should send this in a week but I'll probably forget, so.... Thanks for another year of intellectual stimulation! Hope you and yours have a great holiday. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Dec 26 00:41:10 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 16:41:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? Message-ID: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> You know this will be huge. Fake news will be practically indistinguishable from real. We can make anyone appear to say anything: https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/24/think-tech-is-blurring-fact-and-fantas y-just-wait/?utm_source=Singularity+Hub+Newsletter &utm_campaign=7456354a43-Hub_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0 cf60cdae-7456354a43-57458369 spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Dec 26 22:57:23 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 22:57:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Entire Universe Message-ID: I have just watched a BBC TV science program 'The Entire Universe', with Professor Brian Cox and Eric Idle (Monty Python) including song and dance. Recommended! I was watching the recording on my TIVO box and after it finished I pressed the 'Clear' button. The message on the screen said - 'Are you sure you want to delete The Entire Universe?'. I hesitated for a moment, then.................... BillK From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Dec 26 23:17:29 2016 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 15:17:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Entire Universe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 26, 2016, at 2:57 PM, BillK wrote: > I have just watched a BBC TV science program 'The Entire Universe', > with Professor Brian Cox and Eric Idle (Monty Python) including song > and dance. Recommended! > > I was watching the recording on my TIVO box and after it finished I > pressed the 'Clear' button. The message on the screen said - > 'Are you sure you want to delete The Entire Universe?'. > I hesitated for a moment, then.................... Care to sum up the entire universe? (Sorry, couldn't resist.;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Dec 27 00:02:53 2016 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 19:02:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Max mocked Message-ID: <201612270110.uBR1A438017357@ziaspace.com> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/25/british-futurist-charge-us-cryogenic-facility-reveals-plans/ >British futurist in charge of US cryogenic >facility reveals plans to freeze his own head > >A British 'futurist' in charge of one of the >world's largest cryogenic facilities has >compared himself to Leonardo Da Vinci... I'm glad there's publicity for cryonics, Alcor, and our friend Max, but the headline?repeated in the article and now on Drudge Report?is not news. Max's official Alcor bio says he's been a member since 1986. And he's hardly made a secret of his plans for a neurosuspension?he was posting about it on cryonet at least 24 years ago. And Max did *not* compare himself to Da Vinci. His point was that like Da Vinci and the helicopter (or Babbage's Difference Engine, O'Neill's L-5 space colonies, Drexler's MNT), cryonicists can envision the development of revival techniques long before tech is up for accomplishing them. -- David. From sjatkins at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 02:59:54 2016 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 18:59:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: <5861D92A.2000901@gmail.com> The governments of the world, including in the US, have been putting out fake news for decades. Pretending it is a big new deal now and especially suggesting that government be empowered to "fix" it is absurd. Nothing will replace a discerning pan-critical mind. Governments want power over media as always but especially over this internet thing that they see as hard to control. Beware. What they are really after is far worse than "fake news". - samantha spike wrote: > > You know this will be huge. Fake news will be practically > indistinguishable from real. We can make anyone appear to say anything: > > https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/24/think-tech-is-blurring-fact-and-fantasy-just-wait/?utm_source=Singularity+Hub+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7456354a43-Hub_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0cf60cdae-7456354a43-57458369 > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Dec 27 05:42:07 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 21:42:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? Message-ID: <185d0a54fe93a019eaa125b1149d1c43.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Stathis wrote: It's not the physical structure of the brain that we are discussing but the richness of mental states resulting from the brain's functioning. So no a mosquito in the next town won't result in your brain melting down, but it might influence your mood or your decision to buy mosquito netting. Chaos theory describes the "butterfly effect", therefore a similar mathematical treatment might allow small gravititational effects to influence ones mental states in unpredictable ways. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Tue Dec 27 05:59:45 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 21:59:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? Message-ID: <3aba4bbbf3f5db71dd1a2a1a15714a89.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: Welcome back Samantha. :-) Yes, I see this as a pretty big problem. Best I can suggest for the time being is digital media file formats that have built-in alteration-sensitive watermarks and maybe laws extending the crime of forgery to include forging someone's digital likeness for personal gain or political goals. Stuart LaForge Spike wrote: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Dec 27 05:28:35 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 21:28:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? Message-ID: John Clark wrote: ? This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states instead of finite number of discrete mental states? I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena; they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And yes, while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which is itself continuous. ? John Clark wrote: No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital computer running a boolean alogorithm. During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable for them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism. These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital computers and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of giant computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were. Stuart LaForge From spike66 at att.net Tue Dec 27 06:43:53 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 22:43:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <5861D92A.2000901@gmail.com> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <5861D92A.2000901@gmail.com> Message-ID: <014601d2600c$9729aa90$c57cffb0$@att.net> Samantha! Where the heck ya been, me lass? You post about once or twice a decade, then we never hear nothin? at all. Welcome, our friend from a long time ago. spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins Sent: Monday, December 26, 2016 7:00 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] he said what???? The governments of the world, including in the US, have been putting out fake news for decades. Pretending it is a big new deal now and especially suggesting that government be empowered to "fix" it is absurd. Nothing will replace a discerning pan-critical mind. Governments want power over media as always but especially over this internet thing that they see as hard to control. Beware. What they are really after is far worse than "fake news". - samantha spike wrote: You know this will be huge. Fake news will be practically indistinguishable from real. We can make anyone appear to say anything: https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/24/think-tech-is-blurring-fact-and-fantasy-just-wait/?utm_source=Singularity+Hub+Newsletter &utm_campaign=7456354a43-Hub_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0cf60cdae-7456354a43-57458369 &utm_campaign=7456354a43-Hub_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0cf60cdae-7456354a43-57458369> spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 07:26:07 2016 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 23:26:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <014601d2600c$9729aa90$c57cffb0$@att.net> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <5861D92A.2000901@gmail.com> <014601d2600c$9729aa90$c57cffb0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5862178F.8000106@gmail.com> spike wrote: > > Samantha! Where the heck ya been, me lass? You post about once or > twice a decade, then we never hear nothin? at all. > Alas, too much time on FB and being distracted surfing the net. Nice to have conversation without deciding whether I like the argument or the link or conclusion or none of the above and which emoji to use. :) > Welcome, our friend from a long time ago. > Thanks! > spike > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 08:28:36 2016 From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 00:28:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <3aba4bbbf3f5db71dd1a2a1a15714a89.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <3aba4bbbf3f5db71dd1a2a1a15714a89.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <58622634.2010702@gmail.com> Stuart LaForge wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > fake news for decades. Pretending it is a big new deal now and especially > suggesting that government be empowered to "fix" it is absurd. Nothing > will replace a discerning pan-critical mind. Governments want power over > media as always but especially over this internet thing that they see as > hard to control. Beware. What they are really after is far worse than > "fake news".> > > Welcome back Samantha. :-) Yes, I see this as a pretty big problem. Best I > can suggest for the time being is digital media file formats that have > built-in alteration-sensitive watermarks and maybe laws extending the > crime of forgery to include forging someone's digital likeness for > personal gain or political goals. How will that help? What if if the source is a fabrication? The trouble also would be that such media would also likely identify the host machine environment and location and thus be dangerous to users who are saying anything the powers that be don't like. I don't think the problem is document tampering. Or even complete digital creation out of whole cloth. The problem seems to be more one of gullibility and polarization. It is exacerbated by people acting as if they do not believe than any process of reasoning or appeal to reality or argumentation is a valid way of showing or finding what is so or more likely to be so. Perhaps all those years of postmodern picking apart of all narratives have run their course. Some versions of communist theory had it that the classes could never see beyond their class worldview and were hopelessly biased so only revolution would work. Now it is like the common stance is that those outside one's memetic tribe are inherently flawed and dishonest. This is very dangerous. And of course there is the problem that most people do not think. Whether this is by bad training, inability or unwillingness I can't say. But mostly they pick up their opinions and attitudes by cultural osmosis. Madison Avenue has known this for decades. Propagandists know this. Put thoughts and opinions in millions of heads that go right past whatever reason they are capable [in theory] of. After a while only the freaks [some intellectuals mostly and some neuro-atypicals] even notice. - samantha > Stuart LaForge > > From pharos at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 11:29:18 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:29:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 2017 - The year of AI Message-ID: The past year?s developments point to a 2017 shaped by the next phase of virtual and augmented reality, the emergence of an internet for artificial intelligence and the creation of personalised digital assistants that follow us across devices. 1) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. 2017 could see us using AR to check our emails, posting on Facebook and discovering the best route to our meeting place across town, with all content delivered straight to our eyes. 2) Internet of Things and Internet of Connected Robots. Cloud Robotics - The robots use the cloud to share the data, enabling it to be analysed by any other robot or intelligence system also connected to the same network. One robot teaches something to another, who in turn develops it and passes it forward in a collaborative effort that could massively increase the learning potential and connectivity of machines. 3) Intelligent Personal Assistants. The next iterative step for the likes of Siri, Cortana and Alexa: an intelligent assistant able to travel with us wherever we go, across every device we use, to assist us in nearly every aspect of our lives. ------------- This all sounds a bit frightening to me. I don't think I'm prepared to hand my life over to the Cloud. If you are worried about 'fake news' now just wait till everything ls monitored, controlled and fed to you from the Cloud. You won't be able to run NoScript or AdBlock on connected devices. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 14:37:37 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 08:37:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers but seems second nature to us. john Pattern recognition. This is a very important point about the thinking of the human brain. If we want computers to emulate people, then they must often jump to spurious conclusions based on insufficient data and form many superstitions. Some of these inductive leaps will result in amazing perceptions of patterns where no one else sees those patterns (or maybe some guy named Wallace who knocks on Darwin's door), and be a world class discovery. Most will be wrong. Pages and pages of cognitive errors on Wikipedia. bill w On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > John Clark wrote: > ? this in 1995: [. . .] Before we begin construction there are a few helpful > hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. > Make sure your ?analog ?computer is cold, as it will not operate at any > finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and > processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ?or > electrical charge when you build your analog computer.> > > This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog > computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as > experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave > function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these > infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states > instead of finite number of discrete mental states? > > I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena; > they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and > they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And yes, > while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed > states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which > is itself continuous. > ? > John Clark wrote: > of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed > to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a > computer ?way back ?in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it without > a computer.> > > No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to > prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it > was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers > but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present > empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported > axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital > computer running a boolean alogorithm. > > During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were > the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable for > them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism. > These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital computers > and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of giant > computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 16:44:04 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:44:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > ?> ? > This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog > ? ? > computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, ?Well that's the big question, are ?mathematical infinities real? I don't know, all I know is that so far nobody has found a infinite number of anything in the physical world. ?> ? > as > ? ? > experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave > ? ? > function Schrodinger's wave is continuous but it's not something that can perform calculations or even be directly detected, to do that you need to take the square of the absolute value of the ?wave ? function ? of a particle at a point , and even then you only get ?the? probability ?,? not a certainty ?,? ? of finding the particle at that point? . So maybe the wave is just a tool humans have invented to help us calculate things, like the lines of longitude and latitude are useful tools for calculating position on the Earth's surface but have no physical reality. After all Schrodinger's wave isn't the only way to calculate probabilities, Heisenberg's more abstract matrix method can do it too and was actually discovered a few months before ? ? Schrodinger ? ? found his wave. On some problems Heisenberg's ? ? method is easier to use although usually Schrodinger's ? ? is more convenient, ? ? but both work. > ?> ? > and the lack of granularity in space-time, ?I think most (but not all) physicists would say ? space-time ? must be ?granular, and if it happens at the obvious place, the Planck level, then it's not surprising there is no experimental evidence of it. > ?> ? > then might not these > ? ? > infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states > ? ? > instead of finite number of discrete mental states? > ?A computer that can be in a ?continuum of states is the definition of an Analog computer, and by that definition nobody has ever built a true Analog computer. People stopped making sudo "Analog" computers in the 1950s, and even the best one couldn't be in as many discernible states as a $9 digital hand calculator can. ?>> ? >> There are an infinite number,? in fact? an uncountabley? infinite number, >> ? ? >> of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed >> ? ? >> to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a >> ? ? >> computer ?way back ?in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it without >> ? ? >> a computer. > > > ?> ? > No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to > ? ? > prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it > ? ? > was trying to solve. ?And human mathematicians don't understand the proof the computer provided, they must just take it on faith that what the computer is telling them is true. ? > ?> ? > Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers > ? ? > but seems second nature to us. Inductive reasoning ? isn't only second nature to us it's second nature to a snail too; Evolution invented it more than 500 million years ago ?but deductive reasoning is much more difficult, it only managed to come up with it about a million years ago. ? Inductive reasoning ? just makes use of a simple axiom to predict the future, namely ?"things usually, but not always, continue". ?> ? > During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were > ? [...]? > > ? There is no such thing as an analog pocket ? ? watch ?.? The hands on those watches were connected to a finite number of gears and ratchets, and those gears and ratchets ? ? had teeth on them, a finite number of teeth. So the watch could only be in a finite number of states. ? So it's not analog. ? ? ? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 16:55:11 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:55:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 9:37 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > ?> ? > Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers > ? ? > but seems second nature to us. john > ?Actually ? Stuart LaForge ?said that not me. John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:03:06 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:03:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <185d0a54fe93a019eaa125b1149d1c43.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <185d0a54fe93a019eaa125b1149d1c43.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On 27 December 2016 at 16:42, Stuart LaForge wrote: Stathis wrote: It's not the physical structure of the brain that we are discussing but the richness of mental states resulting from the brain's functioning. So no a mosquito in the next town won't result in your brain melting down, but it might influence your mood or your decision to buy mosquito netting. Chaos theory describes the "butterfly effect", therefore a similar mathematical treatment might allow small gravititational effects to influence ones mental states in unpredictable ways. The claim that the brain utilises infinite precision arithmetic, and that this is essential for consciousness, is different. Thermal noise would swamp the effect of any parameter after a few decimal places, so the gravitational effect of a mosquito in the next town cannot, in fact, directly influence the depolarisation of neurons. The butterfly effect is different: the mosquito could set off a cascade of events that influence a distant brain. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:03:38 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 12:03:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <185d0a54fe93a019eaa125b1149d1c43.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <185d0a54fe93a019eaa125b1149d1c43.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 12:42 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: ?> ? > Chaos theory describes the "butterfly effect", therefore a similar > mathematical treatment might allow small gravititational effects to > influence ones mental states in unpredictable ways. > ?It should be noted that ? Chaos theory ?and? the butterfly effect ? were discovered not by observing a human brain but by observing what a digital computer did.? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:03:53 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:03:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > John Clark wrote: > ? this in 1995: [. . .] Before we begin construction there are a few helpful > hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. > Make sure your ?analog ?computer is cold, as it will not operate at any > finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and > processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ?or > electrical charge when you build your analog computer.> > > This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog > computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as > experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave > function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these > infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states > instead of finite number of discrete mental states? > If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process (including you) can access it. > > I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena; > they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and > they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And yes, > while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed > states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which > is itself continuous. > ? > John Clark wrote: > of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed > to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a > computer ?way back ?in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it without > a computer.> > > No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to > prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it > was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers > but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present > empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported > axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital > computer running a boolean alogorithm. > > During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were > the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable for > them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism. > These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital computers > and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of giant > computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were. > > This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function as a "universal instrument". Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, would not possess a mind or consciousness. *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. Which camp do you consider yourself in? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:23:58 2016 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:23:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Which camp do you consider yourself in? A Computationalist. On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 6:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Stuart LaForge > wrote: > >> John Clark wrote: >> ?> this in 1995: [. . .] Before we begin construction there are a few helpful >> hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. >> Make sure your ?analog ?computer is cold, as it will not operate at any >> finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and >> processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ?or >> electrical charge when you build your analog computer.> >> >> This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog >> computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as >> experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the wave >> function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these >> infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states >> instead of finite number of discrete mental states? >> > > If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to > any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the > holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of > information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even > if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process > (including you) can access it. > > >> >> I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena; >> they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and >> they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And yes, >> while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed >> states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which >> is itself continuous. >> ? >> John Clark wrote: >> > of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed >> to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a >> computer ?way back ?in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it without >> a computer.> >> >> No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to >> prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it >> was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers >> but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present >> empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported >> axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital >> computer running a boolean alogorithm. >> >> During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were >> the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable for >> them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism. >> These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital computers >> and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of giant >> computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were. >> >> > This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. > > It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can > perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the > same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function > as a "universal instrument". > > Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an appropriately > programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its behaviors. > Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the question of > consciousness and the computational theory of mind: > > *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical > processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s > impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. > > *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be > replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, > would not possess a mind or consciousness. > > *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be > replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is > sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. > > > Which camp do you consider yourself in? > > Jason > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:28:47 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:28:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] 2017 - The year of AI In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This all sounds a bit frightening to me. I don't think I'm prepared to hand my life over to the Cloud. If you are worried about 'fake news' now just wait till everything ls monitored, controlled and fed to you from the Cloud. You won't be able to run NoScript or AdBlock on connected devices. BillK Ads don't bother me. They take only a few seconds to get rid of and they are paying for our content. When I fast forward a recording through commercials I do see what they are and can stop anytime (but never do). Sure, they want to control our lives by knowing everything about us, and as far as my buying habits are concerned they can know all they want to, since then I at least will get ads relevant to my life. If people don't like this sort of thing they won't stand for it, and competition will provide alternatives. Yes, it's a minefield out there and some people will pay the price for not paying attention to passwords and letters from Nigeria. Thirty thousand people die each year from car wrecks and we are still driving away. Some of these things will fall away. We are going through a time when really cool things are available at good prices. The shine will wear off, I think and then the net, the smartphone, Siri, etc. will become just tools to use, not to play with. (That sentence contains content that is just massively wrong. Why did I write that? Probably because I don't play any games on any device, don't use Facebook, etc. These things will likely continue indefinitely.) bill w On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 5:29 AM, BillK wrote: > The past year?s developments point to a 2017 shaped by the next phase > of virtual and augmented reality, the emergence of an internet for > artificial intelligence and the creation of personalised digital > assistants that follow us across devices. > > robots-will-drive-2017s-top-technology-trends-70540> > > 1) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. 2017 could see us using AR > to check our emails, posting on Facebook and discovering the best > route to our meeting place across town, with all content delivered > straight to our eyes. > > 2) Internet of Things and Internet of Connected Robots. Cloud Robotics > - The robots use the cloud to share the data, enabling it to be > analysed by any other robot or intelligence system also connected to > the same network. One robot teaches something to another, who in turn > develops it and passes it forward in a collaborative effort that could > massively increase the learning potential and connectivity of > machines. > > 3) Intelligent Personal Assistants. The next iterative step for the > likes of Siri, Cortana and Alexa: an intelligent assistant able to > travel with us wherever we go, across every device we use, to assist > us in nearly every aspect of our lives. > ------------- > > > This all sounds a bit frightening to me. I don't think I'm prepared to > hand my life over to the Cloud. If you are worried about 'fake news' > now just wait till everything ls monitored, controlled and fed to you > from the Cloud. You won't be able to run NoScript or AdBlock on > connected devices. > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 17:42:02 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:42:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well that's the big question, are ?mathematical infinities real? I don't know, all I know is that so far nobody has found a infinite number of anything in the physical world. I have! I'll let you know when I am through counting them. bill w On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > > Which camp do you consider yourself in? > > A Computationalist. > > On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 6:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > >> >> >> On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Stuart LaForge >> wrote: >> >>> John Clark wrote: >>> ?>> this in 1995: [. . .] Before we begin construction there are a few >>> helpful >>> hints I'd like to pass along. Always keep your workplace neat and clean. >>> Make sure your ?analog ?computer is cold, as it will not operate at any >>> finite temperature above absolute zero. Use only analog substances and >>> processes, never use digital things like matter, energy, spin, ?or >>> electrical charge when you build your analog computer.> >>> >>> This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed the brain is an analog >>> computer. Rafal simply asked that if mathematical infinities are real, as >>> experimental evidence supports both with regard to the reality of the >>> wave >>> function and the lack of granularity in space-time, then might not these >>> infinities allow the brain to generate a continuum of mental states >>> instead of finite number of discrete mental states? >>> >> >> If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to >> any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the >> holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of >> information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even >> if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process >> (including you) can access it. >> >> >>> >>> I don't see why not. The brain certainly exhibits wave-like phenomena; >>> they are called brain waves. The physics of waves is well understood, and >>> they propagate on a continuum both mathematically and physically. And >>> yes, >>> while the quantum properties you enumerate are discrete, the observed >>> states of those properties are dictated by a quantum wave function which >>> is itself continuous. >>> ? >>> John Clark wrote: >>> >> number, >>> of maps that can be drawn on a flat square, but only 4 colors are needed >>> to keep all the countries on the map separate. This was proven by a >>> computer ?way back ?in 1977, ?but? to this day nobody can prove it >>> without >>> a computer.> >>> >>> No actually it was proven by some mathematicians that used a computer to >>> prove their theorem. The computer didn't even understand the problem it >>> was trying to solve. Inductive reasoning seems really hard for computers >>> but seems second nature to us. If you want to be convincing, present >>> empirical evidence and not specious arguments based on an unsupported >>> axiom that the brain is some kind of wet naturally evolved digital >>> computer running a boolean alogorithm. >>> >>> During the Victorian era, when clocks and and analog pocket-watches were >>> the most complex technology that people knew of, it became fashionable >>> for >>> them to believe that nature was some sort of giant clockwork mechanism. >>> These days the most complex machines we can think of are digital >>> computers >>> and it seems natural to try to think of the universe as some sort of >>> giant >>> computer. We are likely just as wrong as the Victorians were. >>> >>> >> This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. >> >> It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can >> perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the >> same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function >> as a "universal instrument". >> >> Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an >> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >> >> *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical >> processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s >> impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. >> >> *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >> replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, >> would not possess a mind or consciousness. >> >> *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >> replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is >> sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. >> >> >> Which camp do you consider yourself in? >> >> Jason >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > > -- > https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 04:27:26 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 21:27:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> On 12/23/2016 12:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 3:44 pm, Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> Hi Stathis, >> >> >> Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You seem >> to be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no place did I >> intend to say that any functionally equivalent neurons would behave >> differently when they were receiving the same inputs. I am only >> saying that IF the entire comparison systems was one neuron (it would >> at least have to have input from all voxal element representing >> neurons - at the same time, so it could know how they all compared to >> one another, all at the same time.) And if this was the case, and if >> you swapped this entire awareness of it all neuron - only then could >> you swap all the glutamate producing representations of the >> strawberry with positive voltage representations of the strawberry - >> just as the neural substitution argument stipulates is required to >> get the same functionality. Only then would it behave the same. If >> only any sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it would >> not be able to function the same. The way it would fail would be >> different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real >> glutamate sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the >> strawberry are all glutimate when it is all represented with real >> physical glutamate and a comparison system will only say all the >> positive voltages (again representing the same strawberry) are the >> same "red" if it knows how to interpret all it's physically different >> representations of "red" as if they were red. >> >> >> I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete >> individual small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware of >> whether they are all qualitatively alike, all at the same time. If >> you give to me any example of some mechanical way that a system can >> know how to compare (or better - be aware of) the quality of all the >> physical representations at the same time (I'm doing this by making >> the entire system be one large neuron) it will be obvious how the >> neural substitution will fail to function the same. If the entire >> comparison system is one neuron, when it, along with all glutamate is >> replaced by positive voltages, - there would be no failure and it >> would behave the same - as demanded by the substitution argument. >> > I'm having difficulty following what you're saying. I'm simply > proposing replacing any component of a neurone, or any collection of > neurones, with a machine that does the same job. There is a type of > glutamate receptor that changes its shape when glutamate molecules > bind, creating a channel for sodium and potassium ions to pass through > the membrane, and triggering an action potential. We could imagine > nanomachines in the place of these receptors that monitor glutamate > and open and close ion channels in the same way as the natural > receptors, but are made from different materials; perhaps from carbon > nanotubules rather than proteins. The engineering problem would be to > ensure that these nanomachines perform their task of detecting > glutamate and opening ion channels just like the naturally occurring > receptors. Do you think it is in theory possible to do this? Do you > see that if it is possible, then neurons modified with these receptors > *must* behave just like the original neurons? Good example ? that helps me to understand more clearly. Yes, I see that if neuron?s are modified [using carbon nanotubes to open and close ion channels in the same way that glutamate does] they *must* behave just like the original neurons. I really appreciate you and James sticking with me and pointing out all my admittedly sloppy mistakes. I've spent much time rewriting this response, after thinking about all this for many years, and I hope I've improved and am not making as many sloppy mistakes with this reply. I still see and theoretically predict that there must be some level, for which it can be said that something ?has? the redness quality we can experience in a bound together way with other diverse qualities. Of note is that something having a redness quality is different than some mechanism that can detect this redness quality by being aware of it together with other qualities. And that is the purpose of the binding neuron in my example that you are replacing. It does not have the quality, but only detects, by being aware of the glutamate quality vs other physical qualities. So, the binding neuron, itself, does not have the glutamate quality, but only allows such qualities to be bound together into unified awareness of all diverse qualities. As for the behavior of a regular not exclusive or gate, how the not exclusive or functionality is implemented is irrelevant and hardware independent ? as long as the output is the same. But for this binding neuron, the diverse qualities it can be aware of at the same time is critically important to its conscious intelligence. And when you replace this functionality with an abstracted not exclusive or gate, you are obviously doing this same function without being aware of nor comparing any real physical glutamate qualities. On 12/23/2016 1:59 PM, James Carroll wrote: > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 7:39 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > But of course, everyone would know this was only functionally the > same > > > > No, everyone would NOT know that. You are begging the question... > since the question is whether things that are functionally the same > have the same qualia. So we would NOT know that it is "only" > functionally the same. > I think statements like this reveal a key difference in our theoretical predictions and that this difference in our thinking is the cause of all of our failure to communicate. For you, it is anything that is functionally the same as, that is the neural correlate of qualia. For you, the qualia is downstream, or implemented on top of the functional behavior. But my prediction is that you have this completely backwards. When we are aware of redness and greenness qualities, together, this qualitative awareness is what enables us to consciously perform the not exclusive or hugely diverse qualitative comparison functionality. And, again, as I have pointed out in the various week, stronger, and strongest ways to eff the ineffable, the prediction is that you and John Clark will soon be proven wrong, and that we will be able to find out the actual qualities of these physical behaviors, (and how they are bound together) and reliably predict when someone's awareness systems is aware of glutamate vs glycene psychical qualities, and thereby reliably predict when someone is comparing a redness quality with a greenness quality. The prediction is that everyone will be forced by reliable demonstrable science to say something like - yes, it is glutamate that has the greenness quality. Everyone will start talking about it in this way, using the term "has" a redness quality, instead of using terms like the neural correlate of redness. Another point I feel I should point out is that you are predicting that a functional theory of qualia gets around the issue allegedly raised with the neural substitution argument. But I predict that it doesn't. Perhaps it will help to look at it this way. Let?s go with your functional predictions and move qualia above the hardware level and assume that there is some hardware independent function that has the redness quality we can experience, and that there is a different function that has the greenness quality we can experience, and of course we must be able to bind these two qualitative functions together so that it can be said that some binding system is our conscious awareness of both of the functional qualities. The detection of these functional qualities, via being consciously aware of them, can be said to be the initial cause of us reporting that ?I am experiencing red?. Our ability to perform the not exclusive or operation consciously is based on our ability to be aware of the redness function quality, and know that this is not like the greenness function quality. So, when you do the neural substitution of this system, and when you replace the binding / awareness function (whatever enables us to be aware of a greenness and a redness function at the same time) and you replace the redness and greenness functions with something else, you - again, remove the conscious redness and greenness quality based not exclusive or function and replace it with something that is again hardware independent (or rather independent of the functional quality at this level). The functionalist theory of qualia implies that the true redness is some place beyond or based on this logical awareness functioning system. So you must repeat the process, removing the qualitative system on which the not exclusive or functionality is based add infinitem. The best you can do is claim that it is functional redness turtles, all the way up, and that the only place a redness quality exists (on which our conscious not exclusive or functionality is implemented on), is in this infinite regressed functionality. Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 05:49:17 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:49:17 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: Stathis: <> Brent: I'm still confused as to your position. You agree that replacing a component of a neurone with a different, but functionally equivalent, component will not change that neurone's behaviour. But you are also saying (if I understand correctly) that the experience, such as a redness quality, does not come from the functional relationships between brain components. So swapping some components in the brain with functional equivalents might change the redness experience, but not change the behaviour of the neurones or the behaviour of the person, which is determined by the neorones. Is this what you believe would happen? Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 13:29:33 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 07:29:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: The software of a self driving car can differentiate a red light from a green light. It's high level functions know when it is seeing a red light it should stop, and when it sees a green light it can proceed. The high level part of the program understands there is a fundamental difference between these two states, and that they are exclusive: it should never expect to see a simultaneous red-green state. Millions of bytes of raw pixel data were distilled down to this binary sensation, which puts the driving software into states of different feelings: "the sensation of needing to stop" and the "the sensation of wanting to go". If we added the ability to speak in english to this high level driving software, we could ask it to describe the difference between red and green lights, but it wouldn't be able to describe it any differently than in the terms of how it makes it feel, since the high level part of the program doesn't have access to the low level raw pixel data. It is thought that the brain is similarly organized, Fodor's Modularity of Mind is an example. In this idea, the brain has many specialized modules, which take a lot of inputs and produce a simplified output shared with other regions of the brain. We experience this, rather than redness as the frequent action potentials of neurons connected to red-sensing cones in our retina, just as self driving cars perceive only the need to stop or the need to go, rather than the RGB values collected by its cameras. All this goes to say, you can't explain the experience of red without explaining a good part of your brain and how the experience effects all the other parts of your brain. Quale aren't simple, they are extraordinary complex. Jason On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 10:27 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > On 12/23/2016 12:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 23 Dec. 2016, at 3:44 pm, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Stathis, > > > Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You seem to > be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no place did I intend to > say that any functionally equivalent neurons would behave differently when > they were receiving the same inputs. I am only saying that IF the entire > comparison systems was one neuron (it would at least have to have input > from all voxal element representing neurons - at the same time, so it could > know how they all compared to one another, all at the same time.) And if > this was the case, and if you swapped this entire awareness of it all > neuron - only then could you swap all the glutamate producing > representations of the strawberry with positive voltage representations of > the strawberry - just as the neural substitution argument stipulates is > required to get the same functionality. Only then would it behave the > same. If only any sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it > would not be able to function the same. The way it would fail would be > different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real glutamate > sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the strawberry are all > glutimate when it is all represented with real physical glutamate and a > comparison system will only say all the positive voltages (again > representing the same strawberry) are the same "red" if it knows how to > interpret all it's physically different representations of "red" as if they > were red. > > > I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete individual > small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware of whether they are > all qualitatively alike, all at the same time. If you give to me any > example of some mechanical way that a system can know how to compare (or > better - be aware of) the quality of all the physical representations at > the same time (I'm doing this by making the entire system be one large > neuron) it will be obvious how the neural substitution will fail to > function the same. If the entire comparison system is one neuron, when it, > along with all glutamate is replaced by positive voltages, - there would be > no failure and it would behave the same - as demanded by the substitution > argument. > > I'm having difficulty following what you're saying. I'm simply proposing > replacing any component of a neurone, or any collection of neurones, with a > machine that does the same job. There is a type of glutamate receptor that > changes its shape when glutamate molecules bind, creating a channel for > sodium and potassium ions to pass through the membrane, and triggering an > action potential. We could imagine nanomachines in the place of these > receptors that monitor glutamate and open and close ion channels in the > same way as the natural receptors, but are made from different materials; > perhaps from carbon nanotubules rather than proteins. The engineering > problem would be to ensure that these nanomachines perform their task of > detecting glutamate and opening ion channels just like the naturally > occurring receptors. Do you think it is in theory possible to do this? Do > you see that if it is possible, then neurons modified with these receptors > *must* behave just like the original neurons? > > > Good example ? that helps me to understand more clearly. Yes, I see that > if neuron?s are modified [using carbon nanotubes to open and close ion > channels in the same way that glutamate does] they *must* behave just like > the original neurons. I really appreciate you and James sticking with me > and pointing out all my admittedly sloppy mistakes. I've spent much time > rewriting this response, after thinking about all this for many years, and > I hope I've improved and am not making as many sloppy mistakes with this > reply. > > I still see and theoretically predict that there must be some level, for > which it can be said that something ?has? the redness quality we can > experience in a bound together way with other diverse qualities. Of note > is that something having a redness quality is different than some mechanism > that can detect this redness quality by being aware of it together with > other qualities. And that is the purpose of the binding neuron in my > example that you are replacing. It does not have the quality, but only > detects, by being aware of the glutamate quality vs other physical > qualities. So, the binding neuron, itself, does not have the glutamate > quality, but only allows such qualities to be bound together into unified > awareness of all diverse qualities. As for the behavior of a regular not > exclusive or gate, how the not exclusive or functionality is implemented is > irrelevant and hardware independent ? as long as the output is the same. > But for this binding neuron, the diverse qualities it can be aware of at > the same time is critically important to its conscious intelligence. And > when you replace this functionality with an abstracted not exclusive or > gate, you are obviously doing this same function without being aware of nor > comparing any real physical glutamate qualities. > > > On 12/23/2016 1:59 PM, James Carroll wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 7:39 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > > >> But of course, everyone would know this was only functionally the same >> > > > No, everyone would NOT know that. You are begging the question... since > the question is whether things that are functionally the same have the same > qualia. So we would NOT know that it is "only" functionally the same. > > > I think statements like this reveal a key difference in our theoretical > predictions and that this difference in our thinking is the cause of all of > our failure to communicate. For you, it is anything that is functionally > the same as, that is the neural correlate of qualia. For you, the qualia > is downstream, or implemented on top of the functional behavior. But my > prediction is that you have this completely backwards. When we are aware > of redness and greenness qualities, together, this qualitative awareness is > what enables us to consciously perform the not exclusive or hugely diverse > qualitative comparison functionality. > > And, again, as I have pointed out in the various week, stronger, and > strongest ways to eff the ineffable, the prediction is that you and John > Clark will soon be proven wrong, and that we will be able to find out the > actual qualities of these physical behaviors, (and how they are bound > together) and reliably predict when someone's awareness systems is aware of > glutamate vs glycene psychical qualities, and thereby reliably predict when > someone is comparing a redness quality with a greenness quality. The > prediction is that everyone will be forced by reliable demonstrable science > to say something like - yes, it is glutamate that has the greenness > quality. Everyone will start talking about it in this way, using the term > "has" a redness quality, instead of using terms like the neural correlate > of redness. > > Another point I feel I should point out is that you are predicting that a > functional theory of qualia gets around the issue allegedly raised with the > neural substitution argument. But I predict that it doesn't. > > Perhaps it will help to look at it this way. Let?s go with your > functional predictions and move qualia above the hardware level and assume > that there is some hardware independent function that has the redness > quality we can experience, and that there is a different function that has > the greenness quality we can experience, and of course we must be able to > bind these two qualitative functions together so that it can be said that > some binding system is our conscious awareness of both of the functional > qualities. The detection of these functional qualities, via being > consciously aware of them, can be said to be the initial cause of us > reporting that ?I am experiencing red?. Our ability to perform the not > exclusive or operation consciously is based on our ability to be aware of > the redness function quality, and know that this is not like the greenness > function quality. So, when you do the neural substitution of this system, > and when you replace the binding / awareness function (whatever enables us > to be aware of a greenness and a redness function at the same time) and you > replace the redness and greenness functions with something else, you - > again, remove the conscious redness and greenness quality based not > exclusive or function and replace it with something that is again hardware > independent (or rather independent of the functional quality at this > level). The functionalist theory of qualia implies that the true redness > is some place beyond or based on this logical awareness functioning > system. So you must repeat the process, removing the qualitative system on > which the not exclusive or functionality is based add infinitem. The best > you can do is claim that it is functional redness turtles, all the way up, > and that the only place a redness quality exists (on which our conscious > not exclusive or functionality is implemented on), is in this infinite > regressed functionality. > > Brent Allsop > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 14:41:20 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 09:41:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > The software of a self driving car can differentiate a red light from a > green light. It's high level functions know when it is seeing a red light > it should stop, and when it sees a green light it can proceed. > OK, although "know" is not the right word. The high level part of the program understands there is a fundamental > difference between these two states, and that they are exclusive: it should > never expect to see a simultaneous red-green state. > No, the program doesn't "understand" that: the programmer(s) implemented that requirement. How the program deals with unexpected conditions like simultaneous red and green lights depends, again, on what the programmer implemented. A safe thing to do would be recognize the red light regardless of the whether the green or yellow lights are lit and treat it as "do not proceed/stop". > Millions of bytes of raw pixel data were distilled down to this binary > sensation, which puts the driving software into states of different > feelings: "the sensation of needing to stop" and the "the sensation of > wanting to go". > No, that's just silly anthropomorphism. The program doesn't "feel" or "want" anything: it processes the inputs and does what it's told. Does a "hello world" program want to print "hello, world"? No, it just does, because the processor executes the instructions it was given. > If we added the ability to speak in english to this high level driving > software, we could ask it to describe the difference between red and green > lights, but it wouldn't be able to describe it any differently than in the > terms of how it makes it feel, since the high level part of the program > doesn't have access to the low level raw pixel data. > No, you can't just give a program the ability to speak. Pretending you can and imaging what it would say is silly. If you added speech capabilities to a program, what it would say depends entirely upon how those capabilities are coded. Like the driving code, it'd process inputs and do what the programmer directed it to do. It is thought that the brain is similarly organized, Fodor's Modularity of > Mind is an example. In this idea, the brain has many specialized modules, > which take a lot of inputs and produce a simplified output shared with > other regions of the brain. We experience this, rather than redness as the > frequent action potentials of neurons connected to red-sensing cones in our > retina, just as self driving cars perceive only the need to stop or the > need to go, rather than the RGB values collected by its cameras. > > All this goes to say, you can't explain the experience of red without > explaining a good part of your brain and how the experience effects all the > other parts of your brain. Quale aren't simple, they are extraordinary > complex. > Yes, brains are extraordinarily complex and not well understood. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 20:21:36 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 15:21:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? Message-ID: Brent Allsop wrote: > I still see and theoretically predict that there must be some level, for > which it can be said that something ?has? the redness quality If "red" means experiencing the red qualia then a tomato can not be red, unless tomatoes are conscious. A tomato can produce the redness qualia in certain arrangements of atoms that obey the laws of physics (like me), but it would be meaningless to say something has the redness qualia even in a thought experiment without specifying what is observing it. Qualia is in the mind of the beholder not the behold, what is being observed may not even have a mind. > something having a redness quality is different than some mechanism that > can detect this redness quality A redness qualia detecting mechanism may or may not itself be red, it can make that determination with the help of a mirror. Asking "does a glutamate molecule have the largeness or smallness quality?" can only have one answer, "It depends on what it's compared to, compared to an electron it has the largeness quality and compared to a galaxy it has the smallness quality". And the same would be true about it having the redness quality, it depends on who is observing it, or more generally how the observer is interacting with the glutamate. If I am interacting with the glutamate by observing the light reflected off it then it will not produce the redness quaia in me, but if I interact with glutamate by the molecule binding with certain neurons in my brain then it will produce the redness quality. Interacting with electromagnetic waves of 780 nanometers is not the only way that the redness qualia can be experienced by me. ?> ? > For you, it is anything that is functionally the same as, that is the > neural correlate of qualia. ?Yes.? ?> ? > For you, the qualia is downstream, I think the ability to experience qualia needs a certain amount of complexity so it's got to be downstream from something as simple as a molecule. And nothing in isolation has the redness qualia or any qualia at all, it's only meaningful to say X produces the redness qualia in Y. . > ?> ? > or implemented on top of the functional behavior. > ? ? > But my prediction is that you have this completely backwards. ?If you accept that Darwin was right and your ideas are also right then you must predict ?there are no conscious beings in the universe. I think qualia are implemented on top of the functional behavior as a byproduct, so if I accept that Darwin was right (and I do) and if my ideas are right then the fact that there is at least one conscious being in the universe is not mysterious. ?> ? > The prediction is that everyone will be forced by reliable demonstrable > science to say something like - yes, it is glutamate that has the greenness > quality. ?And when that happens the next order of business will be ?in determining what " the greenness quality ?" means. Does it mean... 1) Something that makes someone else make a noise with their mouth that sounds like "I am experiencing the greenness quality ?"? 2) Something that makes someone else make a noise with their mouth that sounds like ? "? I am experiencing the ?same ? greenness quality ? I have when I observe grass or an emerald"? 3) ? Something that makes someone else make a noise with their mouth that sounds like ? " I am experiencing the ?same ? greenness quality ? that you do when you observe emeralds or grass"? 4) ? Something that makes someone ? else actually experience ? the ?same ?subjective greenness quality ? that I do when I observe emeralds or grass? If it means #4 how on Earth could that be reliably demonstrated, even in theory? >Let?s go with your functional predictions and move qualia above the > hardware level and assume that there is some hardware independent function > that has the redness quality we can experience Not to be pedantic but when dealing with philosophical issues like personal identity, qualia and consciousness one must be extremely careful with personal pronouns like "I" "we" and "you". Those pronouns can mask a lot of fuzzy thinking. ?> ? > there is a different function that has the greenness quality we can > experience, ?The greenness function is not light with a wavelength of 510 nanometers nor is it part of my brain, it is part of my mind, ?it is not a noun it is part of what my brain does. My greenness function ? inputs light of ? 510 nanometers ? and outputs the green qualia. I don't know if your green function does the same as mine, I have my suspicions but I don't even know for a fact that you have a green function, after? all most things don't. I suspect but can not prove that rocks and trees don't have a greenness function because they don't behave as if they do, however I do suspect my fellow human beings do have a greenness function of some sort because they behave as if they do. But I could be wrong. > ?> ? > The detection of these functional qualities, via being consciously aware > of them, can be said to be the initial cause of us reporting that ?I am > experiencing red?. ?If that's all it takes why wouldn't you believe an AI if it said? ?I am experiencing red? ??? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 21:01:18 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:01:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:41 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > ?> ? > the program doesn't "understand" that: > ?Forget the program, if it's not behavior how do know what your fellow human beings does or does not understand?? > > ?> ? > How the program deals with unexpected conditions like simultaneous red and > green lights depends, again, on what the programmer implemented. > ?But even the programer doesn't know what the ? programmer implemented ?. The programer took 5 minutes to write a program to find the first even number greater than 2 ?that is not the sum of two primes and then stop, but the programer has no idea what the computer will do when it runs that program, even worse the programer doesn't even know if he will ever know. The computer will decide for itself when or even if it will stop. > ?> ? > that's just silly anthropomorphism. > ?I am using ? anthropomorphism ? right now to conclude that you are probably conscious. Am I being silly? What I have done is draw an analogy with the only thing in the universe known with absolute certainty to be conscious (me) with another thing that behaves in complex ways that have certain similarities with the way I behave (you). ?If something behaves rather like me I conclude it is probably conscious rather like me. I could be wrong but it's the best I can do. > ?> ? > The program doesn't "feel" or "want" anything > ?How do you know this? How do you know your fellow human beings feels or wants anything?? ?> ? > brains are extraordinarily complex and not well understood. > ?But you think you understand brains well enough to understand they are not complex enough ? ?to make an AI.? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 21:26:16 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:26:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 4:01 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:41 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > > >> ?> ? >> the program doesn't "understand" that: >> > > ?Forget the program, if it's not behavior how do know what your fellow > human beings does or does not understand?? > I can never know that, can I? I can only believe one way or the other. >> ?> ? >> How the program deals with unexpected conditions like simultaneous red >> and green lights depends, again, on what the programmer implemented. >> > > ?But even the programer doesn't know what the ? > programmer implemented > ?. The programer took 5 minutes to write a program to find the first even > number greater than 2 ?that is not the sum of two primes and then stop, but > the programer has no idea what the computer will do when it runs that > program, even worse the programer doesn't even know if he will ever know. > The computer will decide for itself when or even if it will stop. > The programmer knows what he implemented. That doesn't mean he can predict the program's behavior for all possible inputs. > ?> ? >> that's just silly anthropomorphism. >> > > ?I am using ? > anthropomorphism > ? right now to conclude that you are probably conscious. Am I being silly? > No, I but I might be. > What I have done is draw an analogy with the only thing in the universe > known with absolute certainty to be conscious (me) with another thing that > behaves in complex ways that have certain similarities with the way I > behave (you). ?If something behaves rather like me I conclude it is > probably conscious rather like me. I could be wrong but it's the best I can > do. > Agreed. ?> ? >> The program doesn't "feel" or "want" anything >> > > ?How do you know this? How do you know your fellow human beings feels or > wants anything?? > > I don't know it, I believe it, based on my understanding of computer science and digital logic. ?> ? >> brains are extraordinarily complex and not well understood. >> > > ?But you think you understand brains well enough to understand they are > not complex enough ? > ?to make an AI.? > Huh? Straw man much? I'm pretty sure we haven't created a human-level general AI, yet, but I'm also pretty sure we probably will someday. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 22:28:24 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 17:28:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Dave Sill wrote: ? >> ?>> ? >> even the programer doesn't know what the ? >> programmer implemented >> ?. The programer took 5 minutes to write a program to find the first even >> number greater than 2 ?that is not the sum of two primes and then stop, but >> the programer has no idea what the computer will do when it runs that >> program, even worse the programer doesn't even know if he will ever know. >> The computer will decide for itself when or even if it will stop. >> > > ?> ? > The programmer knows what he implemented. That doesn't mean he can predict > the program's behavior for all possible inputs. > ?It has nothing to do with inputs, even if the programer knows exactly what inputs the program will receive in the future the programer still won't know what the final output of his ?program ?will be ?and doesn't even know if there will be a final output. There might there might not, it depends on how the computer feels about it. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 22:36:31 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 22:36:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 29 December 2016 at 22:28, John Clark wrote: > It has nothing to do with inputs, even if the programer knows exactly what > inputs the program will receive in the future the programer still won't know > what the final output of his program > will be and doesn't even know if there will be a final output. There might > there might not, it depends on how the computer feels about it. > I've worked on computers like that - and a real pain they were! Try powering it off and on again. :) BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 05:25:48 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:25:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 2:52 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Stuart LaForge > wrote: > > Humanity might be able to spread beyond this rock after all. :-D > > > > http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/china-says-tests-of- > propellentless.html?m=1 > > > > Quote: "Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for > the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 > that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its > laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g > testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test > is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station)." > > Uh huh. It is well known that they outright lie when they think they > can get away with it to their benefit. I'll believe it when they > provide independently verifiable evidence, and it is independently > verified. (Which would be as simple as having the test take place > just outside the space station, and inviting people to watch. Notice > that this isn't happening.) ### I'll believe it when I can buy a ticket on a spaceship using this drive and successfully fly to Mars and back. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 05:36:23 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:36:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] cost of energy by source In-Reply-To: <006001d25ae1$918cc930$b4a65b90$@att.net> References: <006001d25ae1$918cc930$b4a65b90$@att.net> Message-ID: Sound like to total bullshit. Wind cheaper than coal? Really? Why then do you need government subsidies to build wind turbines and government persecution to eradicate coal power plants? Rafal On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 11:53 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > Energy hipsters among us, do feel free to comment on this article. I will > start: I hope it is true. > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source > > > > I don?t know how they are dealing with the full-cycle costs however. I > need to re-read and get up to speed on assumed life cycle of their > systems. Most of these articles tend to look only at initial startup costs > and cost of capital. Finance gurus might comment, but as I understand it, > rising capital costs tend to favor ground-based solar, since the plants are > not so capital-intensive, ja? We don?t need to scale them way the hell up > to get economies of scale on those? > > > > This topic has to have been studied to death. What we need are pointers > to the credible sources. > > > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Senior Scientist, Gencia Corporation 706 B Forest St. Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (434) 295-4800 fax: (434) 295-4951 This electronic message transmission contains information from the biotechnology firm of Gencia Corporation which may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (434-295-4800) or by electronic mail (fportell at genciabiotech.com) immediately. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 48948 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 05:52:15 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:52:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > > > Then what resources is the computation using? We can agree we get the > final > > answer and it is not by magic, so clearly something real is responsible > for > > yielding the answer. According to the theory, this thing is the wave > > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various > > superpositions. > > "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > ### We do not assume MWI here, we merely observe that a superposition of quantum states yields computational results in agreement with quantum theory, which as you surely know, uses the notion of the wave function to describe the evolution of quantum systems. If the computational results depend on the interference between a number of quantum states predicted by the wave function, then each of the states exists - or else it would not be capable of being causally involved in the generation of computational results. These states are not directly observed, as in simple quantum events, yet they exist. The wave function therefore describes actually existing entities, not just probabilities of observing entities. Applied to the universe, the wave function implies MWI. Is it so difficult to see? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Dec 30 05:45:35 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 21:45:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] cost of energy by source In-Reply-To: References: <006001d25ae1$918cc930$b4a65b90$@att.net> Message-ID: <001b01d2625f$f1a519f0$d4ef4dd0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 9:36 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] cost of energy by source Sound like to total bullshit. Wind cheaper than coal? Really? Why then do you need government subsidies to build wind turbines and government persecution to eradicate coal power plants? Rafal Ja, once I got looking at their numbers, I realized they were reporting three and sometimes four significant figures for their cost to generate, however? there are so many variables that need to be taken into account. We have no good way to deal with cost of factors such as risk of bad guys getting ahold of radioactive fuel, or the cost of a grimy black haze over the Grand Canyon, or the environmental cost of wind turbines swatting birds out of the sky, or of birds flying toward solar farms from all directions because it looks like a lake. The cost of generating power depends on how you count it, and what factors you take into account. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 06:41:26 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 01:41:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > Here's another way to look at it. Suppose your brain contained identical > parallel circuits A and B, tied together at input and output, which could > be switched on and off independently of each other. It would be difficult > to do with biological tissue due to chaotic internal processes but more > straightforward if you consider a digital implant. Obviously, if you switch > A and B off together you will lose all the functionality of the circuitry. > But if you switch off either A or B, you will notice no change. > ### Let's say the A/B circuits run all the way from a simulation of your spinal cord sensory areas, such as the substantia gelatinosa, all the way to the frontal lobe cortical areas involved in attaching an affective valence to sensory stimuli (cingulate cortex, DLPF and others). We simulate the neural processes of you being slowly burned alive, separately in circuit A and in circuit B, and route the identical output to the rest of the brain. Obviously, the other parts of the brain, involved in e.g. producing screams and generating a memory of pain, will not scream twice as loud, or remember twice the pain. Yet, a process sufficient to produce the experience of pain ran twice. Are you sure you know how much pain was actually experienced by the system as a whole (A+B+ the rest of you)? Please note that the observable results of the experiment (loud screaming) would be the same no matter whether A/B are digital or analog. As I mentioned in the initial post, I do not know. My intuitions are overtaxed by the problem. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 06:50:47 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 01:50:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. >> A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise >> non-computable physics. >> > ### Well, there are non-computable mathematical problems, why can't you have non-computable physics (at least, not computable on digital computers with finite storage)? This is an important part of the argument I proposed when starting the thread - that there could be qualitative differences between digital simulations of brains and the inherently analog computations that occur in brains. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 07:14:41 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 02:14:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to > any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the > holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of > information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even > if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process > (including you) can access it. > ### Indeed, this is a valuable insight. But you could still have qualitative but inaccessible (to other observers) differences between the mental states realized on finite machines vs. ones implemented in (putatively) infinite physics. --------------------------------------------------- >> > This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. > > It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can > perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the > same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function > as a "universal instrument". > > Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an appropriately > programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its behaviors. > Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the question of > consciousness and the computational theory of mind: > > *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical > processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s > impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. > > *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be > replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, > would not possess a mind or consciousness. > > *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be > replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is > sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. > > > Which camp do you consider yourself in? > ### I have always considered myself a computationalist but recently thinking about the identity of indiscernibles as applied to finite mathematical objects simulating mental processes I became confused. I think I am still a computationalist but a mildly uneasy one. At least, if digitally simulated human minds are P-zombies, it won't hurt to be one, so I still intend to get uploaded ASAP. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 14:50:18 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 08:50:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:50 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >>> That neurons are complicated is no argument against their computability. >>> A valid such argument would involve a claim that neurons utilise >>> non-computable physics. >>> >> > ### Well, there are non-computable mathematical problems, why can't you > have non-computable physics (at least, not computable on digital computers > with finite storage)? > > This is an important part of the argument I proposed when starting the > thread - that there could be qualitative differences between digital > simulations of brains and the inherently analog computations that occur in > brains. > > They are possible, but up until now, all known physical laws are computable, which is why Penrose and Hameroff have to propose a speculative undiscovered physics for their theory to rest upon. It is worth noting, that what led Penrose to his belief that the brain does incomputable things was his idea that halting problem does not apply to humans. Turning discovered the Halting problem, which was the idea that no fixed computer program can decide whether any other given program will complete or not. But it would seem this limitation applies to humans as well. $1,000,000 was offered to any person who could prove whether or not this simple program ever finishes or not, the prize was never claimed: Step 1: Set X = 4 Step 2: Set R = 0 Step 3: For each Y from 1 to X. if both Y and (X - Y) are prime, set R = 1 Step 4: If R = 1, Set X = X + 2 and go to Step 2 Step 5: If R = 0, print X and halt Given that humans appear equally limited by the halting problem, the entire motivation for Penrose and Hameroff to propose there exist undiscovered physical laws that are incomputable evaporated. This is not to say that there could not be, but there are none that are known. Moreover, they would have to be exploited by the brain, in other words, the laws would have to have been already discovered by natural selection, but not yet by us. There is evidence against this. IBM's Blue Brain project and others have implemented realistic simulations of biological neurons and groups of neurons. No speculative physical laws had to be assumed for these models to accurately mimic the behaviors of similarly arranged groups of biological neurons. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 15:01:57 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 09:01:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 1:14 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Jason Resch > wrote: > >> >> If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to >> any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the >> holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of >> information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even >> if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process >> (including you) can access it. >> > > ### Indeed, this is a valuable insight. But you could still have > qualitative but inaccessible (to other observers) differences between the > mental states realized on finite machines vs. ones implemented in > (putatively) infinite physics. > > --------------------------------------------------- > What would be accessing this information and having these perceptions then? It seems to me you would need some "raw perceiver" which itself is divorced entirely from the physical universe. Can there be perceptions that in theory can have no effect on behavior whatsoever? Not even in detectable differences in neuronal behavior or positions of particles in the brain? > > >>> >> This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. >> >> It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can >> perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the >> same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function >> as a "universal instrument". >> >> Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an >> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >> >> *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical >> processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s >> impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. >> >> *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >> replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, >> would not possess a mind or consciousness. >> >> *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >> replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is >> sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. >> >> >> Which camp do you consider yourself in? >> > > ### I have always considered myself a computationalist but recently > thinking about the identity of indiscernibles as applied to finite > mathematical objects simulating mental processes I became confused. I think > I am still a computationalist but a mildly uneasy one. At least, if > digitally simulated human minds are P-zombies, it won't hurt to be one, so > I still intend to get uploaded ASAP. > > What does your unease come from? Is it the uncertainty over whether or not the brain is infinite or finite? I think even if it is finite there is reason to be uneasy over uploading, the question of whether the functional substitution captures the necessary level. The concept of a substitution level is defined and explored in this paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf I think the matter of the substitution level and the importance of it is what Ned Block captured in his Blockhead thought experiment ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockhead_(computer_system) ), where his brain was replaced with a lookup table. This can replicate external behaviors, but it is an entirely different function from one that actually implements his mind, and thus it may be a zombie or zombie-like. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robot at ultimax.com Fri Dec 30 16:13:15 2016 From: robot at ultimax.com (Robert G Kennedy III, PE) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:13:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:25:48 -0500 > From: Rafal Smigrodzki > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] China testing EMdrive in space! [snip] > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Just so. I said exactly the same words on the FPSpace, the Russian-American space affairs listserver wherein EMdrive+China was also posted. The Russkiis said flat-out that the story was false. Mr. Lissov quoted below is the publisher of the best Russian-language journal about space, "Novosti Kosmonautiki", so I would take his word over those other dodgier sources. The experimental flaw that my physicist friend spotted explains the observed effect. On 2016-12-27 12:57, Robert G Kennedy III, PE wrote to FPSpace: > Remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. > Before anybody goes running off to invest in "reactionless" drives, > I strongly suggest those of you with a physics inclination check out > the following website, which provides an alternative explanation for > what has been claimed in the news. Short answer: uwave resonant > interaction by RF radiation between the test object and the > undamped test chamber. > Suggestions 2 years ago to the PIs to correct this flaw in their > test apparatus have gone unanswered and apparently unheeded. > > Written by a experimental physicist whom I know in the Bay Area. > > http://www.davidwoolsey.com/AttO/AttO_blog/Entries/2016/12/21_Critique_of_Eagleworks_Labs_test_of_a_supposedly_reactionless_thruster.html > > -- > Robert G Kennedy III, PE > www.ultimax.com > 1994 AAAS/ASME Congressional Fellow > U.S. House Subcommittee on Space >> >> Igor Lissov replied to David R. Woods thus: >> >> China has never said that they test EMDrive at Tiangong. >> This is just not true. >> >> Igor Lissov >>> >>> The Chinese National Space Administration has confirmed that it has >>> been >>> funding the impossible and controversial space propulsion technology >>> Electromagnetic Drive, popularly known as the EmDrive. >>> >>> China has also surprised everyone by revealing that more tests are >>> being >>> conducted on EmDrive. The tests are being conducted aboard its >>> Tiangong-2 space station. From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:10:13 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:10:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm saying that when you experience a redness qualia, there must be something in the brain that has, or is the neural correlate of that redness experience. And also when you experience a greenness qualia, there is something detectably different that has this different qualia. And both of these things can interact with a binding system that enables us to be aware of both of these qualities at the same time. Our ability to be aware of the redness and greenness quality at the same time, enables us to do various computational tasks, like exclusive or, consciously. Introspectively, we all know what is going on and how it does an exclusive or operation, how and why our conscious awareness is qualitatively involved, and what it is like. You are talking about the only computational unit in the brain being neurons firing, in one way, due to sufficient ion channels in synapses opening. But there is a the possibility that it is more than just this. Also, I refer to the binding system as a single neuron, only because this simplifies the argument I'm trying to make about what happens when this is replaced during the substitution process. The same qualitative argument will similarly apply to whatever binding system is used, no matter how complex, and no matter how many neurons are involved. It seems kind of doubtful to me that if you could replace glutamate with carbon nanotubes, and that if this could result in identical neural behavior - that it would be glutamate that has a redness quale - we just don't know. Also, there is the possibility that both glutamate and carbon nanotubes can both have the "redness quality" just as it is possible for many physically diverse surfaces to reflect "red" light. So, either case, there must be something that has the redness quale, and there must be some binding mechanism. I don't see how this could be possible from just a simple neuron firing in a single way. So, my prediction is that if what you say is possible, it is likely something else that is the neural corelate of redness, and there is some other way for these all to be bound, consciously together. And whatever mechanism you provide, which will enable something to be a redness quale, and something different to be a different quale, and also some mechanism to bind all these together, I will then be able to describe to you how the neural behavior will change, unless whatever it is that has the redness quality is physically the same (in such a way that it will be impossible to simulate it with something that does not have the physical redness quality). So, it seems to me that you and James' argi,emt is relying on the assumption that it is simple neurons firing in a single way that is the only thing producing conscious awareness and qualia. On 12/28/2016 10:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Stathis: <> Brent: I'm still confused as to your position. You agree that replacing a component of a neurone with a different, but functionally equivalent, component will not change that neurone's behaviour. But you are also saying (if I understand correctly) that the experience, such as a redness quality, does not come from the functional relationships between brain components. So swapping some components in the brain with functional equivalents might change the redness experience, but not change the behaviour of the neurones or the behaviour of the person, which is determined by the neorones. Is this what you believe would happen? Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:12:51 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:12:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] bs Message-ID: Now here is something some of us may need to use a lot: it's a BS generator. What a great idea! We don't have to come up with profound-sounding proposals, explanations, and so on. This will do it for you: http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Dec 30 17:13:10 2016 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 09:13:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) Message-ID: Jason Resch wrote: ------------------------------------------- As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead of an argument. Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of P-zombies. For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real consciousness or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious but are not really so. So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to them, he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they all act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not Fred. This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or curse, an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies but never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by P-zombies. Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . Does he see himself? I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my answer and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the computational theory of mind. Stuart LaForge From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:24:54 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:24:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <6afbef5c-91f7-56fd-76a5-4d15840fc463@gmail.com> <255298D9-70FF-4139-A043-3DCE59C1A5E8@gmail.com> <3b9069f1-018c-2760-fd8a-b88f51602091@gmail.com> <6e4ab984-3c87-1ddf-fc91-55b3c2f39931@gmail.com> Message-ID: Sorry, I accidentally hit the send button long before that last e-mail was completed. Here is what it should have been: I'm saying that when you experience a redness qualia, there must be something in the brain that has, or is the neural correlate of that redness experience. And also when you experience a greenness qualia, there is something detectably different that has this different qualia. And both of these things can interact with a binding system that enables us to be aware of both of these qualities at the same time. Our ability to be aware of the redness and greenness quality at the same time, enables us to do various computational tasks, like exclusive or, consciously. Introspectively, we all know what is going on and how it does an exclusive or operation, how and why our conscious awareness is qualitatively involved, and what it is like. You are talking about the only computational unit in the brain being neurons firing, in one way, due to sufficient ion channels in synapses opening. But there is a the possibility that it is more than just this. Also, I refer to the binding system as a single neuron, only because this simplifies the argument I'm trying to make about what happens when this is replaced during the substitution process. The same qualitative argument will similarly apply to whatever binding system is used, no matter how complex, and no matter how many neurons are involved. It seems kind of doubtful to me that if you could replace glutamate with carbon nanotubes, and that if this could result in identical neural behavior - that it would be glutamate that has a redness quale - we just don't know. Also, there is the possibility that both glutamate and carbon nanotubes can both have the "redness quality" just as it is possible for many physically diverse surfaces to reflect "red" light. So, either case, there must be something that has the redness quale, and there must be some binding mechanism. I don't see how this could be possible from just a simple neurons firing in the simple way you are describing. So, my prediction is that if what you say is possible, it is likely something else that is the neural correlate of redness, and there is some other way for these all to be bound, consciously together. And whatever mechanism you provide, which will enable something to be a redness quale, and something different to be a different quale, and also some mechanism to bind all these together, I will then be able to describe to you how the neural behavior will change, unless whatever it is that has the redness quality is physically the same (in such a way that it will be impossible to simulate it with something that does not have the physical redness quality). So, it seems to me that you and James' argument is relying on the assumption that it is simple neurons firing in a single way that is the only thing producing conscious awareness and qualia, in which the 3 key elements (redness, greenness, and an awareness binding system) aren't possible. So my assumption is that there is something more going on to achieve the 3 elemental primary requirements of qualitative awareness. If you can provide to me any way to achieve these 3 elemental requirements with whatever you think is all that is required in neural activity, my claim is that how the neural behavior will change, or not change, when you replace one set of physical redness quale with something else that does not have it. And remember, you must be able to ask the system something like: 'what is redness like for you', and it must be able to be consciously aware of the answer, like we are, and it must be able to using a binding system like process to do the strong form of effing the ineffable between brains, like we do between hemispheres. On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:10 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > I'm saying that when you experience a redness qualia, there must be > something in the brain that has, or is the neural correlate of that redness > experience. And also when you experience a greenness qualia, there is > something detectably different that has this different qualia. And both of > these things can interact with a binding system that enables us to be aware > of both of these qualities at the same time. Our ability to be aware of > the redness and greenness quality at the same time, enables us to do > various computational tasks, like exclusive or, consciously. > Introspectively, we all know what is going on and how it does an exclusive > or operation, how and why our conscious awareness is qualitatively > involved, and what it is like. > > > You are talking about the only computational unit in the brain being > neurons firing, in one way, due to sufficient ion channels in synapses > opening. But there is a the possibility that it is more than just this. > Also, I refer to the binding system as a single neuron, only because this > simplifies the argument I'm trying to make about what happens when this is > replaced during the substitution process. The same qualitative argument > will similarly apply to whatever binding system is used, no matter how > complex, and no matter how many neurons are involved. It seems kind of > doubtful to me that if you could replace glutamate with carbon nanotubes, > and that if this could result in identical neural behavior - that it would > be glutamate that has a redness quale - we just don't know. Also, there is > the possibility that both glutamate and carbon nanotubes can both have the > "redness quality" just as it is possible for many physically diverse > surfaces to reflect "red" light. So, either case, there must be something > that has the redness quale, and there must be some binding mechanism. I > don't see how this could be possible from just a simple neuron firing in a > single way. So, my prediction is that if what you say is possible, it is > likely something else that is the neural corelate of redness, and there is > some other way for these all to be bound, consciously together. And > whatever mechanism you provide, which will enable something to be a redness > quale, and something different to be a different quale, and also some > mechanism to bind all these together, I will then be able to describe to > you how the neural behavior will change, unless whatever it is that has the > redness quality is physically the same (in such a way that it will be > impossible to simulate it with something that does not have the physical > redness quality). > > > So, it seems to me that you and James' argi,emt is relying on the > assumption that it is simple neurons firing in a single way that is the > only thing producing conscious awareness and qualia. > > > > > > On 12/28/2016 10:49 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Stathis: < proposing replacing any component of a neurone, or any collection of > neurones, with a machine that does the same job. There is a type of > glutamate receptor that changes its shape when glutamate molecules bind, > creating a channel for sodium and potassium ions to pass through the > membrane, and triggering an action potential. We could imagine nanomachines > in the place of these receptors that monitor glutamate and open and close > ion channels in the same way as the natural receptors, but are made from > different materials; perhaps from carbon nanotubules rather than proteins. > The engineering problem would be to ensure that these nanomachines perform > their task of detecting glutamate and opening ion channels just like the > naturally occurring receptors. Do you think it is in theory possible to do > this? Do you see that if it is possible, then neurons modified with these > receptors *must* behave just like the original neurones?>> > > > Brent: see that if neuron?s are modified [using carbon nanotubes to open and close > ion channels in the same way that glutamate does] they *must* behave just > like the original neurons. I really appreciate you and James sticking with > me and pointing out all my admittedly sloppy mistakes. I've spent much > time rewriting this response, after thinking about all this for many years, > and I hope I've improved and am not making as many sloppy mistakes with > this reply. > > I still see and theoretically predict that there must be some level, for > which it can be said that something ?has? the redness quality we can > experience in a bound together way with other diverse qualities. Of note > is that something having a redness quality is different than some mechanism > that can detect this redness quality by being aware of it together with > other qualities. And that is the purpose of the binding neuron in my > example that you are replacing. It does not have the quality, but only > detects, by being aware of the glutamate quality vs other physical > qualities. So, the binding neuron, itself, does not have the glutamate > quality, but only allows such qualities to be bound together into unified > awareness of all diverse qualities. As for the behavior of a regular not > exclusive or gate, how the not exclusive or functionality is implemented is > irrelevant and hardware independent ? as long as the output is the same. > But for this binding neuron, the diverse qualities it can be aware of at > the same time is critically important to its conscious intelligence. And > when you replace this functionality with an abstracted not exclusive or > gate, you are obviously doing this same function without being aware of nor > comparing any real physical glutamate qualities.> > > > I'm still confused as to your position. You agree that replacing a > component of a neurone with a different, but functionally equivalent, > component will not change that neurone's behaviour. But you are also saying > (if I understand correctly) that the experience, such as a redness quality, > does not come from the functional relationships between brain components. > So swapping some components in the brain with functional equivalents might > change the redness experience, but not change the behaviour of the neurones > or the behaviour of the person, which is determined by the neorones. Is > this what you believe would happen? > > > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:26:00 2016 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:26:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] bs article Message-ID: The generator created nonsense sentences that sounded profound to a nonthinker. Over 98% of the Ss believed at least one of the generated bs statements. We believe what we want to believe; we hear what we want to hear; we distort our information to fit what we already think; we will trust a person more the more often we hear or read his name (think of how many times you saw Trump in the news - papers, magazines, online - when a person votes, they often pull the lever for the person who is most familiar to them, sometimes called a priming effect - all worked for Trump) WE seriously need to address the BS plethora and the skepticism lack in our students and populace. https://aeon.co/ideas/why-bullshit-is-no-laughing-matter?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=691adaf4c3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-691adaf4c3-68993993 bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:33:39 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 10:33:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 9:13 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or curse, > an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies but > never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never > could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came > to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by > P-zombies. > > Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . > > Does he see himself? He sees a reflection of what he looks like (flipped, as images in mirrors are). If he knows about mirrors, he knows that what he sees in the mirror isn't even a P-zombie, but just a reflection. Likewise, if he saw the reflection of a (known to him) P-zombie, that reflection wouldn't be a different P-zombie, but just a reflection. From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:09:11 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 13:09:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I came across this video today, and thought it relevant to this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI Jason On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 9:01 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 1:14 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < > rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Jason Resch >> wrote: >> >>> >>> If infinities are relevant to mental states, they must be irrelevant to >>> any external behavior that can be tested in any way. This is because the >>> holographic principal places discrete and finite bounds on the amount of >>> information that can be stored in a an area of space of finite volume. Even >>> if there is infinite information in your head, no physical process >>> (including you) can access it. >>> >> >> ### Indeed, this is a valuable insight. But you could still have >> qualitative but inaccessible (to other observers) differences between the >> mental states realized on finite machines vs. ones implemented in >> (putatively) infinite physics. >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> > > What would be accessing this information and having these perceptions > then? It seems to me you would need some "raw perceiver" which itself is > divorced entirely from the physical universe. Can there be perceptions that > in theory can have no effect on behavior whatsoever? Not even in detectable > differences in neuronal behavior or positions of particles in the brain? > > >> >> >>>> >>> This is analogy is somewhat backwards, in my opinion. >>> >>> It's not that the brain works like a computer, it's that computers can >>> perfectly mimic any finite process. They are "universal machines" in the >>> same sense of a universal remote, or in that a speaker system can function >>> as a "universal instrument". >>> >>> Therefore, if the brain is a machine, and is finite, then an >>> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >>> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >>> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >>> >>> *Non-computable physicists - *Believe human thought involves physical >>> processes that are non-computable, and therefore conclude that it?s >>> impossible to replicate the behavior of a human brain using a computer. >>> >>> *Weak AI proponents - * Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >>> replicated by computer, but assume such a reproduction, no matter how good, >>> would not possess a mind or consciousness. >>> >>> *Computationalists - *Believe the behavior of the human brain can be >>> replicated by a computer, and assume that when the reproduction is >>> sufficiently faithful, it possesses a mind and conscious. >>> >>> >>> Which camp do you consider yourself in? >>> >> >> ### I have always considered myself a computationalist but recently >> thinking about the identity of indiscernibles as applied to finite >> mathematical objects simulating mental processes I became confused. I think >> I am still a computationalist but a mildly uneasy one. At least, if >> digitally simulated human minds are P-zombies, it won't hurt to be one, so >> I still intend to get uploaded ASAP. >> >> > What does your unease come from? Is it the uncertainty over whether or not > the brain is infinite or finite? I think even if it is finite there is > reason to be uneasy over uploading, the question of whether the functional > substitution captures the necessary level. The concept of a substitution > level is defined and explored in this paper: http://iridia.ulb.ac. > be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf > > I think the matter of the substitution level and the importance of it is > what Ned Block captured in his Blockhead thought experiment ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockhead_(computer_system) ), where his > brain was replaced with a lookup table. This can replicate external > behaviors, but it is an entirely different function from one that actually > implements his mind, and thus it may be a zombie or zombie-like. > > Jason > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:11:52 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:11:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 1:50 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > ?> ? > there could be qualitative differences between digital simulations of > brains and the inherently analog computations that occur in brains. > ?Can you think of an example of a brain performing an analog computation, or for that matter ANYTHING performing an analog calculation? I can't because I can't think of anything that can be in an infinite number of physically discernible states, and physics is needed for anything to perform any calculation. ? ?> ? > ?t?here are non-computable mathematical problems, why can't you have > non-computable physics ?It's a bad idea to invoke new physics to explain a mystery ?unless there is a very very *VERY* good reason, and in this case the new physics wouldn't even solve a mystery. Why on earth would non-computable stuff be more conscious than computable stuff? Most numbers on the Real number line are non-computable and as a result do not and can not even have a name, are they more self aware than a computable number like 1/3, the square root of 2, PI, or e? And physics can provide answers to problems, but non-computable "physics" can not by its very definition, so what's the point of it? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:18:15 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:18:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] bs article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 10:26 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > https://aeon.co/ideas/why-bullshit-is-no-laughing-matter?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=691adaf4c3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-691adaf4c3-68993993 I notice that first paragraph, that was claimed to be BS, is possibly actually true. One would have to read "this week" as "the week ending in Sunday" if you're reading on a Sunday, but even for Sunday through early Monday, it's comparing to a "normal person" 1,000 years ago - which, we know through archaeology, would on average be an illiterate peasant, whose total lifetime bullshit quotient would mostly consist of religious stories (Christian or otherwise - thus, equal to some fraction, likely a small fraction, of the Bible), the equivalent of which many of us do get confronted with routinely. (And there have been studies on the total amount of information produced over time; given the expense and thus low rate of publication pre-Enlightenment - and thus pre-printing-press - the claim about "every scholarly work" vs. 21st century Internet is at least plausible from a cursory examination of the evidence.) From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:30:10 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 13:30:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Reminds me a bit of "An Unfortunate Dualist": http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-23-unfortunate-dualist.html As to your puzzle, if Fred is unable to detect any effects from conscious people (including their reflections), then he should not be able to see his own reflection, but then he also shouldn't be able to hear his own thoughts either. Which might be your definition of a zombie, making him visible, etc. "Russell's reflection". However, Fred's own voice might still be heard if Fred's consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but I think practically speaking I think epiphenomenalism can be ruled out, together with the notion of p-zombies. See Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/unzombie.htm Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition".[3] [4] He coined the term "zimboes" ? p-zombies that have second-order beliefs ? to argue that the idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[12] "Zimboes thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] I'm not sure, however, whether your thought experiment sheds any new light on the concepts of consciousness or zombies. It seems like it may be only a reformulation of the "Barber Paradox", where the self reflexivity is a "power to detect only non-consciousness things", aimed at one's own consciousness. Jason On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Jason Resch wrote: > appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its > behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the > question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: > Non-computable physicists [. . .]Weak AI proponents [. . .] > Computationalists. > > Which camp do you consider yourself in?> > ------------------------------------------- > > As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I > prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that > neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the > Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a > philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead of > an argument. > > Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist > because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of > P-zombies. > > For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings > that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real consciousness > or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious but > are not really so. > > So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see > were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to them, > he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they all > act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not > Fred. > > This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or curse, > an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies but > never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never > could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came > to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by > P-zombies. > > Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . > > Does he see himself? > > I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my answer > and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the > computational theory of mind. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:47:31 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 11:47:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> > According to the theory, this thing is the wave >> > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various >> > superpositions. >> >> "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > > ### We do not assume MWI here "According to the theory" means that the rest of it is true if the theory is true. You then present a case where the theory is true...but it's still qualified with "According to the theory". > If the computational results > depend on the interference between a number of quantum states predicted by > the wave function, then each of the states exists - or else it would not be > capable of being causally involved in the generation of computational > results. A thing can have the potential to exist without actually existing. The things that give rise to that potential can exist without the end result coming into existence, and perform the necessary interference themselves, getting rid of that potential through their interactions. (I would give macro level non-quantum examples, but I suspect they would be dismissed out of hand for being non-quantum.) From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 20:15:40 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:15:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:43 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Jason Resch > >> wrote: > >> > The difficulty is we > >> > can't prove there is no collapse from our vantage point. Running an > >> > execution of some program on a quantum computer necessitates that > there > >> > is > >> > no collapse from your point of view. If we run a brain simulation and > we > >> > know there is no collapse, then we know some, possibly exponentially > >> > growing, number of divergent emulations of that mind were instantiated > >> > in > >> > that superposition. > >> > >> I don't see how we know that any divergent emulation were > >> instantiated. All we know for sure is that at least one was: the one > >> resulting in the resulting state. We don't know whether any others > >> existed. > > > > If the wave function is real, and not merely a tool that yields right > > probabilities for us, then the superpositions within the wave function > would > > all have an equal claim to reality. > > Not so much. If there is a "right" probability, then by definition it > has a superior claim. > > > E.g. a system of pies, each > > of which splits into two pipes every foot > > I know that was a typo, but "a system of pies" calls into mind some > weird mental imagery. (Though the fact that I've been baking a bit > today may have helped.) :P > > >> > This is why fact that quantum computers can be built so strongly > >> > suggests > >> > the existence/reality/and effective causality of vast unseen resources > >> > present throughout the (now assuredly very real) wave function. > >> > >> For certain definitions of "resources", but it doesn't suggest any of > >> those resources exist outside of or necessarily spawn other worlds. > > > > Then what resources is the computation using? We can agree we get the > final > > answer and it is not by magic, so clearly something real is responsible > for > > yielding the answer. According to the theory, this thing is the wave > > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various > > superpositions. > > "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > But what, in "wave function isn't really real"-theories, can explain the computational power of quantum computers? What is doing the calculating? Are the vast numbers of states in the intermediate steps of the calculation not the ultimate causes of the final answer the quantum computer spits out? How can something that is not real cause a physical effect? > > >> As the article > >> notes, the friend could be in a superimposed state. Another > >> possibility, which I have illustrated before, is that which way the > >> experiment would go was determined at least as early as the last > >> conscious actor performing any action that could influence the > >> experiment (such as the exact timing of putting the cat in the box), > >> even if no such actor knew the outcome yet. > > > > There's nothing to motivate this theory. > > There's just as much to motivate that theory as there is MWI - to wit, > nothing that proves either way. > There are proposed experiments that can prove it either way. E.g. a reversible quantum computer running an AI. Or, using currently available technology, quantum suicide: an iterated version of Schrodinger's cat, with you as the cat. > > > In fact, there's been no reason to believe in Copenhagen Interpretation > > since Everett used the assumption of no collapse to show how the math of > the > > theory produces the illusion of collapse. You can't get a more clear cut > > case for Occam's razor's preference for MW over CI than this: explains > more, > > while assuming less. > > If we're using Occam's Razor (which, granted, I have been), then > predetermination (with possible exception for conscious actors, up > until their last action that could influence a given result) seems > simpler than MWI, as it does not assume anything we can not observe. You would need to add a lot of additional postulates to the theory of QM to explain how and when collapse occurs, what about observers enables them to initiate a collapse, etc. But none of this math is needed. The regular existing postulates of QM can explain the appearance of wave function collapse, and do not need to assume it. Moreover, if collapse is real, it would be the only thing in physics that is irreversible, fundamentally random, not time symmetric, has faster-than-light influences, etc. It requires an extraordinary leap of faith to believe these extra assumptions are at play in the theory, when the math of the theory, pretty clearly tells us, such assumptions are completely unnecessary. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 20:17:19 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:17:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 25, 2016 at 7:41 PM, spike wrote: > ?> ? > You know this will be huge. Fake news will be practically > indistinguishable from real. We can make anyone appear to say anything: > > > > https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/24/think-tech-is- > blurring-fact-and-fantasy-just-wait/?utm_source= > Singularity+Hub+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7456354a43-Hub_ > Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0cf60cdae- > 7456354a43-57458369 > ?NASDAQ inserts a digital time stamp from the National Institute of Standards into its financial transactions and then makes a cryptographically secure hash out of it, that way anyone can prove when a transaction occurred to within a fraction of a second. Perhaps not too far from now it will be common practice for cameras, even cell phone cameras, to do something similar. That way if somebody produces a video of me making silly faces I can produce an older video without the clowning proving it was altered. I might also want to digitally sign any video of me. Of course somebody could still make a phony video and claim it was made by a hidden camera showing me doing something I shouldn't; the only way around that I can think of is if I filmed myself 24/7 with digital time stamp included, that way I'd always have an alibi. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 20:34:03 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:34:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:17 PM, John Clark wrote: > NASDAQ inserts a digital time stamp from the National Institute of Standards > into its financial transactions and then makes a cryptographically secure > hash out of it, that way anyone can prove when a transaction occurred to > within a fraction of a second. Perhaps not too far from now it will be > common practice for cameras, even cell phone cameras, to do something > similar. That way if somebody produces a video of me making silly faces I > can produce an older video without the clowning proving it was altered. Not sure I understand. What would prevent the faker from just signing their video with the same time stamp (or rather, a hash produced from the same time stamp) as the original? From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 20:55:36 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:55:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > > But what, in "wave function isn't really real"-theories, can explain the > computational power of quantum computers? "Not MWI" doesn't mean "not wave function". MWI isn't the only possible explanation of the wave function. Also, the way you're phrasing it seems to suggest you think quantum computers have been proven to be general purpose, rather than usable only for a few specific types of problems. There is hope that they are, but they aren't yet, and we don't know for sure that they can be. http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 has a good summary. >> There's just as much to motivate that theory as there is MWI - to wit, >> nothing that proves either way. > > There are proposed experiments that can prove it either way. E.g. a > reversible quantum computer running an AI. Or, using currently available > technology, quantum suicide: an iterated version of Schrodinger's cat, with > you as the cat. You'd need an observer that can report results when dead - i.e., when not making more observations. Unless you mean something far more trivial, in which case why hasn't that experiment been run yet? >> If we're using Occam's Razor (which, granted, I have been), then >> predetermination (with possible exception for conscious actors, up >> until their last action that could influence a given result) seems >> simpler than MWI, as it does not assume anything we can not observe. > > You would need to add a lot of additional postulates to the theory of QM to > explain how and when collapse occurs, what about observers enables them to > initiate a collapse, etc. But none of this math is needed. The regular > existing postulates of QM can explain the appearance of wave function > collapse, and do not need to assume it. That paragraph fails to note anything that would be needed for SWI that would not also be needed for MWI. > Moreover, if collapse is real, it would be the only thing in physics that is > irreversible, fundamentally random, not time symmetric, has > faster-than-light influences, etc. If you mean collapse of quantum entanglement, superdetermination does not posit faster than light influences. And yes, QM does produce fundamentally random results, and is not time symmetric. This is generally accepted. Black hole evaporation generally seems irreversible too, though you can make another black hole. From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 21:00:33 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:00:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:17 PM, John Clark wrote: >> > NASDAQ inserts a digital time stamp from the National Institute of >> Standards >> > into its financial transactions and then makes a cryptographically >> secure >> > hash out of it, that way anyone can prove when a transaction occurred to >> > within a fraction of a second. Perhaps not too far from now it will be >> > common practice for cameras, even cell phone cameras, to do something >> > similar. That way if somebody produces a video of me making silly faces >> I >> > can produce an older video without the clowning proving it was altered. > > > ?> ? > Not sure I understand. What would prevent the faker from just signing > their video with the same time stamp (or rather, a hash produced from > the same time stamp) as the original? > ?When I make my non-clowning video I get it timestamped by a trusted party like the National Institute of Standards ? and then I sign the entire thing? ? myself. After that if somebody altered it the alteration would have a later timestamp and would be lacking my signature and I could prove which one was original, or at least more original, I couldn't prove there wasn't an even earlier version out there somewhere. If you can do it for financial transactions I don't see why it couldn't be done for video, right now it would probably be too expensive but it the demand is high the price would fall. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 21:22:54 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 13:22:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 1:00 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:17 PM, John Clark >>> wrote: >>> > NASDAQ inserts a digital time stamp from the National Institute of >>> > Standards >>> > into its financial transactions and then makes a cryptographically >>> > secure >>> > hash out of it, that way anyone can prove when a transaction occurred >>> > to >>> > within a fraction of a second. Perhaps not too far from now it will be >>> > common practice for cameras, even cell phone cameras, to do something >>> > similar. That way if somebody produces a video of me making silly faces >>> > I >>> > can produce an older video without the clowning proving it was altered. >> >> Not sure I understand. What would prevent the faker from just signing >> their video with the same time stamp (or rather, a hash produced from >> the same time stamp) as the original? > > When I make my non-clowning video I get it timestamped by a trusted party > like > the National Institute of Standards > and then I sign the entire thing > myself. After that if somebody altered it the alteration would have a later > timestamp and would be lacking my signature and I could prove which one was > original, or at least more original, I couldn't prove there wasn't an even > earlier version out there somewhere. If you can do it for financial > transactions I don't see why it couldn't be done for video, right now it > would probably be too expensive but it the demand is high the price would > fall. Ah, I think I see the disconnect. With NASDAQ, the hash is a way of verifying the time stamp they claim. Of course they also have a plaintext time stamp too. Most likely, the time stamp and other crucial info are signed by NASDAQ's private key, so one can be sure that the communication is what NASDAQ claims - guarding against man-in-the-middle attacks. In your example, you could do the same for your videos, proving that *you say that* you have an older video. This does not absolutely prove that you actually had that earlier video, just that you say that you do. In neither case does NIST actually sign anything. NIST provides a time value, which you and NASDAQ claim to have cited. But it is impossible to prove 100% that you or NASDAQ actually got that time stamp from NIST; you or NASDAQ could have made up an earlier time stamp. There's nothing special about time stamps; fundamentally, they are just a number of time units since an agreed-upon epoch. That said, people trust NASDAQ not to deliberately lie; using NIST just helps them to not accidentally lie (in case their own clock is off). From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 22:15:44 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:15:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I, like most people, am a mere tetra chromate ? I experience the world with 3 primary colors. But some people are tetrachromats, and do it with 4 primary colors. Let?s call this 4th color ?grue?. Obviously, all us tri chromats can hear the person say things like: ?No that is Grue, not one of the primary colors, as you claim? and we can observe what is causing the 4th primary color, including it?s neural correlate in their brains. In other words, like Frank Jackson?s brilliant color scientist raised in a black and what room, us trichromats can learn everything about grue, and see that it is not in our heads, but we can see when the neurarl correlate of grue is in the head of a tetrachromat. In other words, all of us normal trichromatic people are grue zombies. We can know and communicate everything about them. In fact, we might even be able to be trained to call the right things grue, just like the tetrachromat does, and lie about it, and convince everyone else that we might be a tetrachromat. (until you observe my brain) So, until we enhance our primary visual cortext and give it what has the grue color, we will never know how the tetrachromat qualitatively interprets the word ?grue?. Now, some people think of a ?p-zombie? as something that is atomically identical to us, but just doesn?t have the qualitative experience of consciousness ? which of course is very absurd, and very different than the grue type of zombie, I am, who simply isn?t yet capable of producing the grue neural correlate in my brain. But I can represent grue with anything else that is in my brain, and talk about it as if it was grue, in a grue zombie way. On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > Reminds me a bit of "An Unfortunate Dualist": > > http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-23-unfortunate-dualist.html > > As to your puzzle, if Fred is unable to detect any effects from conscious > people (including their reflections), then he should not be able to see > his own reflection, but then he also shouldn't be able to hear his own > thoughts either. Which might be your definition of a zombie, making him > visible, etc. "Russell's reflection". However, Fred's own voice might still > be heard if Fred's consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but I think > practically speaking I think epiphenomenalism can be ruled out, together > with the notion of p-zombies. > > See Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": > https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/unzombie.htm > > Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, > they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and > end up imagining something that violates their own definition".[3] > > [4] > He > coined the term "zimboes" ? p-zombies that have second-order beliefs > ? to argue that the > idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[12] > "Zimboes > thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer > pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in > ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] > > > > > I'm not sure, however, whether your thought experiment sheds any new light > on the concepts of consciousness or zombies. It seems like it may be only a > reformulation of the "Barber Paradox", where the self reflexivity is a > "power to detect only non-consciousness things", aimed at one's own > consciousness. > > Jason > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Stuart LaForge > wrote: > >> Jason Resch wrote: >> > appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >> Non-computable physicists [. . .]Weak AI proponents [. . .] >> Computationalists. >> >> Which camp do you consider yourself in?> >> ------------------------------------------- >> >> As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I >> prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that >> neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the >> Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a >> philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead of >> an argument. >> >> Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist >> because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of >> P-zombies. >> >> For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings >> that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real consciousness >> or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious but >> are not really so. >> >> So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see >> were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to them, >> he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they all >> act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not >> Fred. >> >> This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or curse, >> an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies but >> never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never >> could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came >> to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by >> P-zombies. >> >> Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . >> >> Does he see himself? >> >> I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my answer >> and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the >> computational theory of mind. >> >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 22:29:02 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:29:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > > I, like most people, am a mere tetra chromate ? I experience the world > with 3 primary colors. But some people are tetrachromats, and do it with > 4 primary colors. Let?s call this 4th color ?grue?. Obviously, all us > tri chromats can hear the person say things like: ?No that is Grue, not one > of the primary colors, as you claim? and we can observe what is causing the > 4th primary color, including it?s neural correlate in their brains. In > other words, like Frank Jackson?s brilliant color scientist raised in a > black and what room, us trichromats can learn everything about grue, and > see that it is not in our heads, but we can see when the neurarl correlate > of grue is in the head of a tetrachromat. > > > > In other words, all of us normal trichromatic people are grue zombies. We > can know and communicate everything about them. In fact, we might even > be able to be trained to call the right things grue, just like the > tetrachromat does, and lie about it, and convince everyone else that we > might be a tetrachromat. (until you observe my brain) So, until we > enhance our primary visual cortext and give it what has the grue color, we > will never know how the tetrachromat qualitatively interprets the word > ?grue?. > > > > Now, some people think of a ?p-zombie? as something that is atomically > identical to us, but just doesn?t have the qualitative experience of > consciousness ? which of course is very absurd, and very different than the > grue type of zombie, I am, who simply isn?t yet capable of producing the > grue neural correlate in my brain. But I can represent grue with > anything else that is in my brain, and talk about it as if it was grue, in > a grue zombie way. > > > But no new neurotransmitters are required to experience grue. Moreover, tretrachromats don't just see 1 new type of color, they can see 99 million new colors that us trichromats cannot see. This is because we can sense about 100 independent relative brightnesses for red green and blue colors, which allows 100x100x100 possible resulting colors (1 million colors). Tetrachromats get to see 100x100x100x100 or 100 million colors. How can so many new colors come about if the neurocorolates are somehow dependent on specific chemicals in the brain? Tetrachromats don't have 100 times as many chemicals in their brain as trichromats have, yet they get to perceive 100 times as many qualia. Jason > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Jason Resch > wrote: > >> Reminds me a bit of "An Unfortunate Dualist": >> >> http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-23-unfortunate-dualist.html >> >> As to your puzzle, if Fred is unable to detect any effects from conscious >> people (including their reflections), then he should not be able to see >> his own reflection, but then he also shouldn't be able to hear his own >> thoughts either. Which might be your definition of a zombie, making him >> visible, etc. "Russell's reflection". However, Fred's own voice might still >> be heard if Fred's consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but I think >> practically speaking I think epiphenomenalism can be ruled out, together >> with the notion of p-zombies. >> >> See Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": >> https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/unzombie.htm >> >> Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are >> conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or >> imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own >> definition".[3] >> >> [4] >> He >> coined the term "zimboes" ? p-zombies that have second-order beliefs >> ? to argue that the >> idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[12] >> "Zimboes >> thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer >> pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in >> ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] >> >> >> >> >> I'm not sure, however, whether your thought experiment sheds any new >> light on the concepts of consciousness or zombies. It seems like it may be >> only a reformulation of the "Barber Paradox", where the self reflexivity is >> a "power to detect only non-consciousness things", aimed at one's own >> consciousness. >> >> Jason >> >> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Stuart LaForge >> wrote: >> >>> Jason Resch wrote: >>> >> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >>> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >>> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >>> Non-computable physicists [. . .]Weak AI proponents [. . .] >>> Computationalists. >>> >>> Which camp do you consider yourself in?> >>> ------------------------------------------- >>> >>> As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I >>> prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that >>> neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the >>> Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a >>> philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead of >>> an argument. >>> >>> Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist >>> because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of >>> P-zombies. >>> >>> For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings >>> that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real >>> consciousness >>> or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious >>> but >>> are not really so. >>> >>> So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see >>> were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to them, >>> he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they >>> all >>> act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not >>> Fred. >>> >>> This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or >>> curse, >>> an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies but >>> never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never >>> could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came >>> to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by >>> P-zombies. >>> >>> Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . >>> >>> Does he see himself? >>> >>> I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my >>> answer >>> and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the >>> computational theory of mind. >>> >>> Stuart LaForge >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 22:36:35 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:36:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: <4b5d01b5-97c7-8b3d-6f01-c82516cbdcfb@gmail.com> <456281d0-feb8-0cff-a8c0-eee3b5a9b20b@gmail.com> <5ebf7035-f7f3-a418-4ce2-10028de54b20@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 8:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 8:23 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > > ?> ? >> the falsifiable prediction is that we will be able to find a similarly >> reliable relationship between a redness quality to it's neural correlate >> and greenness quality >> > > ?I see no way it could ever be proven or disproven that X causes qualia Y, > at least not proven to be true in anyone except for me. > > ?And even then the proof would only be available to me.? > > > Which you? Your right or left hemisphere you? And if your right hemisphere knows, absolutely, that your left hemisphere's neural correlate of redness is not your left hemisphere's greenness neural correlate, why could we not simply predict that we will soon be doing the same thing between brains - and proving what you claim cannot be proven, just as surely as your left hemisphere knows what your right is like? At least this particular repeated claim of yours is very falsifiable. Brent Allsop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 22:53:04 2016 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:53:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Jason, I'm just talking in simplified qualitative terms to make communication easier to model what is and isn't important. that is the only reason I used the term grue to represent all the 99 million or whatever new colors that any particular tetrachromat can experience (surely they are not all the same). Also, when i say that glutamate has the redness quality and glycene has the grenness quality, this too, is just simplified. I am describing what it would be like in a hypothetical world that only has 3 colors - red (glutamate), green(glycene), and white(aspartate). (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4&t=30s) I simply describe in that video that if there was such a world, how could the people in that world correctly see that in their simplified world that glutamate was the neural correlate of red (and not think it was white since glutamate reflects white light). Then once a person can understand how this general correct qualitative interpretation theory works in the simplified world, they can use the same proper qualitative interpretation of abstracted data, in the real world - to finally not be qualia blind and finally discover what really has all the redness qualities any one of us can experience. Brent On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> >> >> I, like most people, am a mere tetra chromate ? I experience the world >> with 3 primary colors. But some people are tetrachromats, and do it >> with 4 primary colors. Let?s call this 4th color ?grue?. Obviously, >> all us tri chromats can hear the person say things like: ?No that is Grue, >> not one of the primary colors, as you claim? and we can observe what is >> causing the 4th primary color, including it?s neural correlate in their >> brains. In other words, like Frank Jackson?s brilliant color scientist >> raised in a black and what room, us trichromats can learn everything about >> grue, and see that it is not in our heads, but we can see when the neurarl >> correlate of grue is in the head of a tetrachromat. >> >> >> >> In other words, all of us normal trichromatic people are grue zombies. We >> can know and communicate everything about them. In fact, we might even >> be able to be trained to call the right things grue, just like the >> tetrachromat does, and lie about it, and convince everyone else that we >> might be a tetrachromat. (until you observe my brain) So, until we >> enhance our primary visual cortext and give it what has the grue color, we >> will never know how the tetrachromat qualitatively interprets the word >> ?grue?. >> >> >> >> Now, some people think of a ?p-zombie? as something that is atomically >> identical to us, but just doesn?t have the qualitative experience of >> consciousness ? which of course is very absurd, and very different than the >> grue type of zombie, I am, who simply isn?t yet capable of producing the >> grue neural correlate in my brain. But I can represent grue with >> anything else that is in my brain, and talk about it as if it was grue, in >> a grue zombie way. >> >> >> > > But no new neurotransmitters are required to experience grue. > > Moreover, tretrachromats don't just see 1 new type of color, they can see > 99 million new colors that us trichromats cannot see. This is because we > can sense about 100 independent relative brightnesses for red green and > blue colors, which allows 100x100x100 possible resulting colors (1 million > colors). Tetrachromats get to see 100x100x100x100 or 100 million colors. > > How can so many new colors come about if the neurocorolates are somehow > dependent on specific chemicals in the brain? Tetrachromats don't have 100 > times as many chemicals in their brain as trichromats have, yet they get to > perceive 100 times as many qualia. > > Jason > > >> >> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Jason Resch >> wrote: >> >>> Reminds me a bit of "An Unfortunate Dualist": >>> >>> http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-23-unfortunate-dualist.html >>> >>> As to your puzzle, if Fred is unable to detect any effects from >>> conscious people (including their reflections), then he should not be able >>> to see his own reflection, but then he also shouldn't be able to hear his >>> own thoughts either. Which might be your definition of a zombie, making him >>> visible, etc. "Russell's reflection". However, Fred's own voice might still >>> be heard if Fred's consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but I think >>> practically speaking I think epiphenomenalism can be ruled out, together >>> with the notion of p-zombies. >>> >>> See Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": >>> https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/unzombie.htm >>> >>> Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are >>> conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or >>> imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own >>> definition".[3] >>> >>> [4] >>> He >>> coined the term "zimboes" ? p-zombies that have second-order beliefs >>> ? to argue that the >>> idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[12] >>> "Zimboes >>> thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer >>> pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in >>> ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> I'm not sure, however, whether your thought experiment sheds any new >>> light on the concepts of consciousness or zombies. It seems like it may be >>> only a reformulation of the "Barber Paradox", where the self reflexivity is >>> a "power to detect only non-consciousness things", aimed at one's own >>> consciousness. >>> >>> Jason >>> >>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Stuart LaForge >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Jason Resch wrote: >>>> >>> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >>>> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >>>> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >>>> Non-computable physicists [. . .]Weak AI proponents [. . .] >>>> Computationalists. >>>> >>>> Which camp do you consider yourself in?> >>>> ------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I >>>> prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that >>>> neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the >>>> Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a >>>> philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead >>>> of >>>> an argument. >>>> >>>> Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist >>>> because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of >>>> P-zombies. >>>> >>>> For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings >>>> that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real >>>> consciousness >>>> or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious >>>> but >>>> are not really so. >>>> >>>> So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see >>>> were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to them, >>>> he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they >>>> all >>>> act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not >>>> Fred. >>>> >>>> This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or >>>> curse, >>>> an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies >>>> but >>>> never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he never >>>> could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, came >>>> to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by >>>> P-zombies. >>>> >>>> Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . >>>> >>>> Does he see himself? >>>> >>>> I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my >>>> answer >>>> and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the >>>> computational theory of mind. >>>> >>>> Stuart LaForge >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 22:57:11 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:57:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Jason Resch > wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > > > > But what, in "wave function isn't really real"-theories, can explain the > > computational power of quantum computers? > > "Not MWI" doesn't mean "not wave function". MWI isn't the only > possible explanation of the wave function. > But if the wave function is real, then many states are real (so long as the system is isolated), even in collapse theories that accept the reality of the wave function (some don't and say only measured values are real). Therefore, if you have a person in such an isolated state (e.g. Wigner's Friend), then from Wigner's view, there are many "Wigner's Friends" in many different states simultaneously. And if there is no collapse (i.e. observers aren't magic superposition collapsing machines) this yields many worlds. > > Also, the way you're phrasing it seems to suggest you think quantum > computers have been proven to be general purpose, rather than usable > only for a few specific types of problems. There is hope that they > are, but they aren't yet, and we don't know for sure that they can be. > I'm not supposing that they need to be general purpose, but quantum computers can implement any algorithm classical computers can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gate They just can't accelerate every classical algorithm. > > http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 has a good summary. > > >> There's just as much to motivate that theory as there is MWI - to wit, > >> nothing that proves either way. > > > > There are proposed experiments that can prove it either way. E.g. a > > reversible quantum computer running an AI. Or, using currently available > > technology, quantum suicide: an iterated version of Schrodinger's cat, > with > > you as the cat. > > You'd need an observer that can report results when dead - i.e., when > not making more observations. Unless you mean something far more > trivial, in which case why hasn't that experiment been run yet? > The AI is assumed to be a conscious observer. It makes a which-way observation of a particle in a two slit experiment, records the fact that it measured a definite result but does not record which slit it passed through. The computation of that conscious AI observer is then reversed (quantum erasing it), which should, in theory, restore the interference pattern. This experiment, if it were run and produced the results I described, would serve to disprove "consciousness/observation causes collapse"-type theories. One of MWI's strongest advocates is David Deutsch .[84] According to Deutsch, the single photon interference pattern observed in the double slit experiment can be explained by interference of photons in multiple universes. Viewed in this way, the single photon interference experiment is indistinguishable from the multiple photon interference experiment. In a more practical vein, in one of the earliest papers on quantum computing,[85] he suggested that parallelism that results from the validity of MWI could lead to "*a method by which certain probabilistic tasks can be performed faster by a universal quantum computer than by any classical restriction of it*". Deutsch has also proposed that when reversible computers become conscious that MWI will be testable (at least against "naive" Copenhagenism) via the reversible observation of spin.[65] > > >> If we're using Occam's Razor (which, granted, I have been), then > >> predetermination (with possible exception for conscious actors, up > >> until their last action that could influence a given result) seems > >> simpler than MWI, as it does not assume anything we can not observe. > > > > You would need to add a lot of additional postulates to the theory of QM > to > > explain how and when collapse occurs, what about observers enables them > to > > initiate a collapse, etc. But none of this math is needed. The regular > > existing postulates of QM can explain the appearance of wave function > > collapse, and do not need to assume it. > > That paragraph fails to note anything that would be needed for SWI > that would not also be needed for MWI. > Did you mean SWE? (Schrodinger Wave Equation?) MWI is what you get when all you assume is the Schrodinger Wave Equation is true (and never violated). > > > Moreover, if collapse is real, it would be the only thing in physics > that is > > irreversible, fundamentally random, not time symmetric, has > > faster-than-light influences, etc. > > If you mean collapse of quantum entanglement, superdetermination does > not posit faster than light influences. > Super determinism has to be the most unlikely of all theories, and is reminiscent of Newton's pre-established harmony. It also seems like it would require math itself to be superdetermined, what if I chose what measurements to make based on the digits of Pi? Would Pi then be superdetermined? Or only my decision to use Pi to guide my measurements? Do you really find the idea that other parts of the wave function are as real as the one you find yourself in now so distateful that it requires accepting all the baggage ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/q6/collapse_postulates/ ) that comes with rejecting that idea? > > And yes, QM does produce fundamentally random results, and is not time > symmetric. This is generally accepted. Black hole evaporation > generally seems irreversible too, though you can make another black > hole. I thought Susskind won the bet against Hawking that information was not destroyed by throwing it into a black hole? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 23:25:54 2016 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 10:25:54 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 30 December 2016 at 17:41, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > > > On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: >> >> >> Here's another way to look at it. Suppose your brain contained identical >> parallel circuits A and B, tied together at input and output, which could >> be switched on and off independently of each other. It would be difficult >> to do with biological tissue due to chaotic internal processes but more >> straightforward if you consider a digital implant. Obviously, if you switch >> A and B off together you will lose all the functionality of the circuitry. >> But if you switch off either A or B, you will notice no change. >> > > ### Let's say the A/B circuits run all the way from a simulation of your > spinal cord sensory areas, such as the substantia gelatinosa, all the way > to the frontal lobe cortical areas involved in attaching an affective > valence to sensory stimuli (cingulate cortex, DLPF and others). We simulate > the neural processes of you being slowly burned alive, separately in > circuit A and in circuit B, and route the identical output to the rest of > the brain. Obviously, the other parts of the brain, involved in e.g. > producing screams and generating a memory of pain, will not scream twice as > loud, or remember twice the pain. Yet, a process sufficient to produce the > experience of pain ran twice. Are you sure you know how much pain was > actually experienced by the system as a whole (A+B+ the rest of you)? > Please note that the observable results of the experiment (loud screaming) > would be the same no matter whether A/B are digital or analog. > > As I mentioned in the initial post, I do not know. My intuitions are > overtaxed by the problem. > If I tried either a 20% reduction in the painful stimulus I would be in slightly less pain and scream slightly less, while if circuit A were switched off I would feel I was in just as much pain and scream just the same. So if I had a choice, I would choose the 20% reduction. If you told me that I was deluded about my pain, and I was actually better off switching circuit A, I would probably use some bad words telling you what you could do with your advice. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 00:44:01 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:44:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Friday, December 30, 2016 12:17 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] he said what???? >?Of course somebody could still make a phony video and claim it was made by a hidden camera showing me doing something I shouldn't; the only way around that I can think of is if I filmed myself 24/7 with digital time stamp included, that way I'd always have an alibi?.John K Clark I can think of a way to make money on this. Create a device which records location as a function of time, perhaps with some kind of biometric sensor to verify it was you carrying your device. It would create counter evidence against bogus video. It might later be a cool archive to have: where you were and when since way back. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 02:36:24 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 18:36:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2016 4:59 PM, "spike" wrote: I can think of a way to make money on this. Create a device which records location as a function of time, perhaps with some kind of biometric sensor to verify it was you carrying your device. It would create counter evidence against bogus video. It might later be a cool archive to have: where you were and when since way back. I built such a system. We got very few orders, and the startup essentially folded for lack of revenue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 02:43:20 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 18:43:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> Message-ID: <037801d2630f$a66d35c0$f347a140$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Friday, December 30, 2016 6:36 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] he said what???? On Dec 30, 2016 4:59 PM, "spike" > wrote: I can think of a way to make money on this. Create a device which records location as a function of time, perhaps with some kind of biometric sensor to verify it was you carrying your device. It would create counter evidence against bogus video. It might later be a cool archive to have: where you were and when since way back. >?I built such a system. We got very few orders, and the startup essentially folded for lack of revenue? Mighta been a kind of market timing thing. If there is an explosion of awareness that anyone can create a video of you that looks genuine, then that might create sufficient demand for the product. Your device might have been years ahead of its time. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 03:06:02 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:06:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 7:44 PM, spike wrote: > I can think of a way to make money on this. Create a device which records > location as a function of time, perhaps with some kind of biometric sensor > to verify it was you carrying your device. It would create counter > evidence against bogus video. It might later be a cool archive to have: > where you were and when since way back. > Android devices can already track your location so the cool archive part is done. You can even play nifty videos showing how you've moved around the country. Legally proving your whereabouts is a much harder problem, for which the need is not currently widespread. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 03:41:54 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:41:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 30 December 2016 at 17:41, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: > >> >> >> >> On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > > wrote: >>> >>> >>> Here's another way to look at it. Suppose your brain contained identical >>> parallel circuits A and B, tied together at input and output, which could >>> be switched on and off independently of each other. It would be difficult >>> to do with biological tissue due to chaotic internal processes but more >>> straightforward if you consider a digital implant. Obviously, if you switch >>> A and B off together you will lose all the functionality of the circuitry. >>> But if you switch off either A or B, you will notice no change. >>> >> >> ### Let's say the A/B circuits run all the way from a simulation of your >> spinal cord sensory areas, such as the substantia gelatinosa, all the way >> to the frontal lobe cortical areas involved in attaching an affective >> valence to sensory stimuli (cingulate cortex, DLPF and others). We simulate >> the neural processes of you being slowly burned alive, separately in >> circuit A and in circuit B, and route the identical output to the rest of >> the brain. Obviously, the other parts of the brain, involved in e.g. >> producing screams and generating a memory of pain, will not scream twice as >> loud, or remember twice the pain. Yet, a process sufficient to produce the >> experience of pain ran twice. Are you sure you know how much pain was >> actually experienced by the system as a whole (A+B+ the rest of you)? >> Please note that the observable results of the experiment (loud screaming) >> would be the same no matter whether A/B are digital or analog. >> >> As I mentioned in the initial post, I do not know. My intuitions are >> overtaxed by the problem. >> > > If I tried either a 20% reduction in the painful stimulus I would be in > slightly less pain and scream slightly less, while if circuit A were > switched off I would feel I was in just as much pain and scream just the > same. So if I had a choice, I would choose the 20% reduction. If you told > me that I was deluded about my pain, and I was actually better off > switching circuit A, I would probably use some bad words telling you what > you could do with your advice. > ### Obviously, other people's pain doesn't hurt much. I know that. The discussion is not just about the pain you remember but about the sum total of pain being experienced in the system under consideration. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 03:51:09 2016 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:51:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:47 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> > According to the theory, this thing is the wave > >> > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions various > >> > superpositions. > >> > >> "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. > > > > ### We do not assume MWI here > > "According to the theory" means that the rest of it is true if the > theory is true. You then present a case where the theory is > true...but it's still qualified with "According to the theory". > ### I really do not understand what you could possibly mean here. ------------------------------- > > > If the computational results > > depend on the interference between a number of quantum states predicted > by > > the wave function, then each of the states exists - or else it would not > be > > capable of being causally involved in the generation of computational > > results. > > A thing can have the potential to exist without actually existing. > The things that give rise to that potential can exist without the end > result coming into existence, and perform the necessary interference > themselves, getting rid of that potential through their interactions. > ### So potentially existing but not really existing things are according to you capable of interference with real things? Really :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 03:55:23 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 21:55:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Do digital computers feel was Re: Is the wave function real? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, December 30, 2016, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> >> >> On 30 December 2016 at 17:41, Rafal Smigrodzki < >> rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com >> > wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Stathis Papaioannou < >>> stathisp at gmail.com > >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Here's another way to look at it. Suppose your brain contained >>>> identical parallel circuits A and B, tied together at input and output, >>>> which could be switched on and off independently of each other. It would be >>>> difficult to do with biological tissue due to chaotic internal processes >>>> but more straightforward if you consider a digital implant. Obviously, if >>>> you switch A and B off together you will lose all the functionality of the >>>> circuitry. But if you switch off either A or B, you will notice no change. >>>> >>> >>> ### Let's say the A/B circuits run all the way from a simulation of your >>> spinal cord sensory areas, such as the substantia gelatinosa, all the way >>> to the frontal lobe cortical areas involved in attaching an affective >>> valence to sensory stimuli (cingulate cortex, DLPF and others). We simulate >>> the neural processes of you being slowly burned alive, separately in >>> circuit A and in circuit B, and route the identical output to the rest of >>> the brain. Obviously, the other parts of the brain, involved in e.g. >>> producing screams and generating a memory of pain, will not scream twice as >>> loud, or remember twice the pain. Yet, a process sufficient to produce the >>> experience of pain ran twice. Are you sure you know how much pain was >>> actually experienced by the system as a whole (A+B+ the rest of you)? >>> Please note that the observable results of the experiment (loud screaming) >>> would be the same no matter whether A/B are digital or analog. >>> >>> As I mentioned in the initial post, I do not know. My intuitions are >>> overtaxed by the problem. >>> >> >> If I tried either a 20% reduction in the painful stimulus I would be in >> slightly less pain and scream slightly less, while if circuit A were >> switched off I would feel I was in just as much pain and scream just the >> same. So if I had a choice, I would choose the 20% reduction. If you told >> me that I was deluded about my pain, and I was actually better off >> switching circuit A, I would probably use some bad words telling you what >> you could do with your advice. >> > > ### Obviously, other people's pain doesn't hurt much. I know that. The > discussion is not just about the pain you remember but about the sum total > of pain being experienced in the system under consideration. > > Rafal > We can't rule out that other people's pain hurts just as much, only we are amnesiac about it. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 04:44:03 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 20:44:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 7:51 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:47 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki >> wrote: >> > On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >> > According to the theory, this thing is the wave >> >> > function, and the resources used are all of the wave functions >> >> > various >> >> > superpositions. >> >> >> >> "Assume MWI, therefore MWI." Sorry, that's circular reasoning. >> > >> > ### We do not assume MWI here >> >> "According to the theory" means that the rest of it is true if the >> theory is true. You then present a case where the theory is >> true...but it's still qualified with "According to the theory". > > ### I really do not understand what you could possibly mean here. I mean that you did in fact assume MWI there, and I pointed out how. >> > If the computational results >> > depend on the interference between a number of quantum states predicted >> > by >> > the wave function, then each of the states exists - or else it would not >> > be >> > capable of being causally involved in the generation of computational >> > results. >> >> A thing can have the potential to exist without actually existing. >> The things that give rise to that potential can exist without the end >> result coming into existence, and perform the necessary interference >> themselves, getting rid of that potential through their interactions. > > ### So potentially existing but not really existing things are according to > you capable of interference with real things? Not directly. Rather, certain things X can potentially cause other things Y, such that it is usually said that Y "exists" when it doesn't yet, but X does exist, X is real, and X can cause interference. In this case, Y is the states themselves, and X is the conditions that could lead to each of the multiple states. From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 05:10:27 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 21:10:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > Did you mean SWE? (Schrodinger Wave Equation?) No, I mean Single (or Superdeterministic) World Interpretation. > Super determinism has to be the most unlikely of all theories Here is the core of our disagreement. Superdeterminism - in ways that do not violate free will - seems more likely than MWI, to me. > It also seems like it would require math itself to be superdetermined, what > if I chose what measurements to make based on the digits of Pi? Would Pi > then be superdetermined? Or only my decision to use Pi to guide my > measurements? The latter, just like our distant ancestors' eventual collective choice to use a base-10 numbering system in which values such as pi would be expressed. Pi itself is not affected by your choice. You could argue that pi is superdetermined: the value that it will have had, has been determined since before the beginning of our universe. It is immutable and unchangeable; no observer or act of will (free or otherwise) can change it. But this is true whether MWI is true or false, and whether or not we are otherwise in a superdetermined universe, so it is irrelevant to finding out which of those (or something else) is the case. > Do you really find the idea that other parts of the wave function are as > real as the one you find yourself in now so distateful that it requires > accepting all the baggage ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/q6/collapse_postulates/ > ) that comes with rejecting that idea? All of that "baggage" (some of which seems a bit suspect) is still less unlikely than MWI. Check down in the comments and Wiseman sums it up nicely: the laws of physics are what they are. But also, superdeterminism speculates that the "collapse" isn't of real objects, but only of our knowledge space. The result always was what it will be (possibly modulo free will, but that's outside of what can be measured). From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 06:01:36 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 01:01:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?> ? > In your example, you could do the same for your videos, proving that > *you say that* you have an older video. This does not absolutely > prove that you actually had that earlier video, just that you say that > you do. > ? ? > In neither case does NIST actually sign anything. ?But why couldn't NIST sign it? ? ?I send my video to NIST and a few seconds later they send me a file signed with NIST's private key that says "we received your video ?and made this hash of it at time X". Then if somebody produces a different version of the video with a time stamp later than X on it I can produce the signed hash of the earlier video proving the later one must be phony ?;? provided ?of course ? it ? is generally agreed that NIST is honest. ? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 06:06:07 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:06:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> Message-ID: Resending, since the list suggested it didn't get through the first time. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Adrian Tymes Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 7:24 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] he said what???? To: ExI chat list On Dec 30, 2016 7:07 PM, "Dave Sill" wrote: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 7:44 PM, spike wrote: > > I can think of a way to make money on this. Create a device which records location as a function of time, perhaps with some kind of biometric sensor to verify it was you carrying your device. It would create counter evidence against bogus video. It might later be a cool archive to have: where you were and when since way back. Android devices can already track your location so the cool archive part is done. You can even play nifty videos showing how you've moved around the country. Legally proving your whereabouts is a much harder problem, for which the need is not currently widespread. What Dave said. There's just not enough of a market to make it worth making, at least on the sort of mass commercial basis you'd need to make this not just some trivial system you could easily forge (and so worth anything as evidence in court). From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 06:11:34 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:11:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 10:01 PM, John Clark wrote: > But why couldn't NIST sign it? That's a confusion between "could" and "does". NIST isn't about crypto or the like; it's about standards, such as standard time. It is in this capacity that NASDAQ uses them. NASDAQ itself does the signing, and only uses what it claims NIST said the time was at the time. NASDAQ itself is the ultimately trusted entity; NIST is little more than error correction in this case. NIST could, in theory, add crypto and public signing and all of that. It would be outside of NIST's current mission - there would be no obvious reason why NIST should be more trusted to do this or is inherently more capable of it than certain other parts. For that reason, they are unlikely to be able to justify adding this to their budget - and with government, if you don't have the budget to do it, it doesn't get done. So they will not do this in practice, even though in theory they could. From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 09:30:22 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 03:30:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:10 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > Did you mean SWE? (Schrodinger Wave Equation?) > > No, I mean Single (or Superdeterministic) World Interpretation. > > > Super determinism has to be the most unlikely of all theories > > Here is the core of our disagreement. Superdeterminism - in ways that > do not violate free will - seems more likely than MWI, to me. > Interesting, I would like to know what about MWI you find so unlikely. > > > It also seems like it would require math itself to be superdetermined, > what > > if I chose what measurements to make based on the digits of Pi? Would Pi > > then be superdetermined? Or only my decision to use Pi to guide my > > measurements? > > The latter, just like our distant ancestors' eventual collective > choice to use a base-10 numbering system in which values such as pi > would be expressed. Pi itself is not affected by your choice. > But once Pi is chosen, it offers infinite digits beyond my or any physical thing's control. Are physical outcomes now superdetermined for all eternity to follow Pi now, based on a choice someone made thousands of years ago? By what mechanism do you suppose this is possible? > > You could argue that pi is superdetermined: the value that it will > have had, has been determined since before the beginning of our > universe. It is immutable and unchangeable; no observer or act of > will (free or otherwise) can change it. But this is true whether MWI > is true or false, and whether or not we are otherwise in a > superdetermined universe, so it is irrelevant to finding out which of > those (or something else) is the case. > > > Do you really find the idea that other parts of the wave function are as > > real as the one you find yourself in now so distateful that it requires > > accepting all the baggage ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/q6/ > collapse_postulates/ > > ) that comes with rejecting that idea? > > All of that "baggage" (some of which seems a bit suspect) is still > less unlikely than MWI. Please explain. MWI is the simplest theory of QM we know of that is compatible with all observations. > Check down in the comments and Wiseman sums > it up nicely: the laws of physics are what they are. > But also, superdeterminism speculates that the "collapse" isn't of > real objects, but only of our knowledge space. The result always was > what it will be (possibly modulo free will, but that's outside of what > can be measured). Have you read Russell Standish's theory of nothing? It is available as a free e-book: http://swc2.hccs.edu/kindle/theoryofnothing.pdf . Chapter 7 and Appendix D actually derive the laws of quantum mechanics from a simple assumption about observation and how it would operate in an the context of an infinite plentitude. What this means: the infinite minds and observations are already out there, it is the new information we learn that changes which of the infinite locations one can still consider oneself to be a part of. This is quite similar to Heinz-Dieter Zeh's Many Minds Interpretation, or Ron Garett's Zero Universe Interpretation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc As for where the infinite observers come from, there is a whole discussion list dedicated to that topic. See the everything-list google group. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 15:11:42 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 10:11:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 1:11 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 10:01 PM, John Clark wrote: > > ?>> ? >> But why couldn't NIST sign it? ? >> I send my video to NIST and a few seconds later they send me a file >> signed with NIST's private key that says "we received your video ?and made >> this hash of it at time X". Then if somebody produces a different version >> of the video with a time stamp later than X on it I can produce the signed >> hash of the earlier video proving the later one must be >> phony >> ?;? >> provided >> ?of course ? >> it >> ? is >> generally agreed that NIST is honest. >> ? >> > > > ?> ? > That's a confusion between "could" and "does". > ?I'm not confused, I realize ?NIST doesn't do that but there is no reason they, or some other trusted third party, couldn't do that. > ?> ? > there would be no > ? ? > obvious reason why NIST should be more trusted to do this ?Well, we already trust them to tell us how long a inch is and how much a pound weighs and how many seconds there are in a year and when to put in a leap second; and you have to trust somebody. John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 15:20:56 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 10:20:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> <02fd01d262fe$fb1d6ab0$f1584010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 1:06 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: ?> ? > Resending, since the list suggested it didn't get through the first time. > It's happening to me too. I think we're only seeing each other's posts because we're both on Gmail. The same thing happened a few weeks ago. ? ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 15:41:10 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 07:41:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger Message-ID: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> We know the elation of the past decade when technology appeared which lets any ordinary pr? uh? human... out anywhere to think of something she wants to know, pull out the phone and OK Google, get to the answer. Our phones now put the entire internet in our pockets, oh what a time to be living, what a time. We have gone to geek heaven without having to die first or actually be?like?good. OK cool but what if? we want to set up a specialized version of OK Google that doesn?t go out on the entire internet, but goes to a specialized database that the user creates perhaps, a sub-universe, some kind of something that searches not the universe but rather only our world? We don?t care about the latest movie star scandal that gobbles up about 2/3 of the internet bandwidth, we just want what we care about. It has to be voice activated, and it has to work with our phone. For instance, yesterday I was out hiking with the cub scouts. We saw a bug that I had never seen before. As I was fumbling for my phone to take a picture, it flew off. I still don?t know what it was. If I saw that species once in all my tragically many years, good chance I will never see it again, but I still want to know stuff about that bug. Wouldn?t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger, have it come up with some kind of program that already knows I am looking for something about insects, or I am about to give it an image-recognition task involving insects. It would already know my location and the time of year, so it would know what species are likely to be in the adult phase then and there. It would log that observation, time, place, image. We could work together, those of us who are into this kind of thing, create a public-access database. The question is not about entomology but rather commercial computing products, for I can think of a hundred uses before breakfast. We could make something like this for sports cars or business locations or birds or hell anything that catches one?s fancy, no reason to explain why it does (I can?t really explain why bugs interest me.) Is there some kind of software which allows a user to create a database or collection of links, put it on our phones and have it searchable by voice command? Spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 16:43:11 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 16:43:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: On 31 December 2016 at 15:41, spike wrote: > Wouldn?t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger, have it > come up with some kind of program that already knows I am looking for > something about insects, or I am about to give it an image-recognition task > involving insects. It would already know my location and the time of year, > so it would know what species are likely to be in the adult phase then and > there. It would log that observation, time, place, image. We could work > together, those of us who are into this kind of thing, create a > public-access database. > > The question is not about entomology but rather commercial computing > products, for I can think of a hundred uses before breakfast. We could make > something like this for sports cars or business locations or birds or hell > anything that catches one?s fancy, no reason to explain why it does (I can?t > really explain why bugs interest me.) > > Is there some kind of software which allows a user to create a database or > collection of links, put it on our phones and have it searchable by voice > command? NEW - For bird ID from a photo There are many apps for identifying insects, pests, weeds, flowers, trees. etc, but they don't work from a submitted photo. They are more like guides that you have to look through yourself. Of course, I hear that insects are fairly plentiful, so you would need a big database. :) BillK From sparge at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 17:31:56 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:31:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 10:41 AM, spike wrote: > For instance, yesterday I was out hiking with the cub scouts. We saw a > bug that I had never seen before. As I was fumbling for my phone to take a > picture, it flew off. I still don?t know what it was. If I saw that > species once in all my tragically many years, good chance I will never see > it again, but I still want to know stuff about that bug. > Seems like that's a bigger problem than identifying the species from a photo, but that could easily be solved by something like Google Glass that constantly records everything you see. Wouldn?t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger, have > it come up with some kind of program that already knows I am looking for > something about insects, or I am about to give it an image-recognition task > involving insects. It would already know my location and the time of year, > so it would know what species are likely to be in the adult phase then and > there. It would log that observation, time, place, image. We could work > together, those of us who are into this kind of thing, create a > public-access database. > That would be cool, but I suspect Google Search will be usable for that before a grassroots effort could create something usable. I've already used Google image searches to identify plants, animals, and flowers, and that's without any high-level interpretation or geolocation involved. > The question is not about entomology but rather commercial computing > products, for I can think of a hundred uses before breakfast. We could > make something like this for sports cars or business locations or birds or > hell anything that catches one?s fancy, no reason to explain why it does (I > can?t really explain why bugs interest me.) > Absolutely, there are tons of applications. Is there some kind of software which allows a user to create a database or > collection of links, put it on our phones and have it searchable by voice > command? > > That's old-school thinking, Spike. It's gotta be cloud-based and crowd-sourced. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 17:24:44 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 09:24:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: <002c01d2638a$c78b0860$56a11920$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 8:43 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] hey dr, bugger On 31 December 2016 at 15:41, spike wrote: >> Wouldn?t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger... >...NEW - For bird ID from a photo http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ Oooh this is cool. How do you hipsters find all this cool stuff? I am eager to go try out this Merlin bird software as soon as I get it downloaded and running. >... They are more like guides that you have to look through yourself... Ja like a field guide to birds, only automated and containing enough information that would take 50 pounds of paper books. Really way better than 50 pounds of field guides, because I don't just want to know the name of the bird and its habitat; I want to know waaaaay more than that, way more, such as gory details of how it makes its living, the branch of its evolutionary tree, all the stuff that the really hardcore bird people memorize. I want all that, but I want it externalized, stored outside my very limited brain, accessible but not part of my bio-RAM until I actually see it. I don't care much about species I can never see personally in the wild. >...Of course, I hear that insects are fairly plentiful, so you would need a big database. :) BillK _______________________________________________ Ja! What I learned after I wrote the initial post is that the bug in question is probably closely related to Diabrotica undecimpunctata, common enough in this part of the world that if I had never seen one, I apparently haven't been looking closely enough or don't grow vegetables in a home garden. I was thrown off by the lack of spots on the pronotum, but the internet tells me these guys don't have them, and some of them are green. There are just too many beetles to even start to learn them. Where I am going with this isn't even about bugs or birds but rather software tools which are voice activated. I want to be able to create specialized personal access (or arcane-interest group access) databases, perhaps even classified or restricted access. Example, local parolee serves 1 of his 3-year term for patronizing the neighborhood 15 yr old harlot. Perhaps he is a reformed man, but... I don't trust him. I would like to have some means of noting when and where I see the sleaze-bag. I might want something like Adrian's Field Trip app which notes when one is near a point of historical interest, but it has to be user-specialized historical interest. I don't care about what Spanish missionary slew and Christianized the surviving indigenous people. I care about the elementary school of the guy who invented the integrated circuit, or the site of the local bar which was the hangout for the team which invented the liquid crystal display (we have that one right here in town.) It has to be user-controlled in what it contains and what it doesn't contain, has to be voice activated. I haven't studied Field Trip enough to know if it meets all the specs, so feel free to scold me if it does. spike From sparge at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 17:52:06 2016 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:52:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 11:43 AM, BillK wrote: > There are many apps for identifying insects, pests, weeds, flowers, > trees. etc, but they don't work from a submitted photo. They are more > like guides that you have to look through yourself. > I have an Android app called LikeThat Garden that identified plants from my photos. Seems like maybe the maker went under, but they were supposed to making a whole series of apps to ID plants, cars, etc. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 18:25:49 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 10:25:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: <006501d26393$4ff2f2f0$efd8d8d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dave Sill Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 9:52 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] hey dr, bugger On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 11:43 AM, BillK > wrote: There are many apps for identifying insects, pests, weeds, flowers, trees. etc, but they don't work from a submitted photo. They are more like guides that you have to look through yourself. >?I have an Android app called LikeThat Garden that identified plants from my photos. Seems like maybe the maker went under, but they were supposed to making a whole series of apps to ID plants, cars, etc. -Dave Such a marvel: this bird app is 238 MB. For so many years we had those 40MB drives sitting on our desks (if we were lucky) and if we did we thought we were soooo geeky hi-tech. Now my phone gobbles down 6 times that much, all of it free, and doesn?t even know it ate anything, having so much capacity. My phone has nearly 1000 times the memory capacity which I was using on my desktop during my career. We are that fortunate generation that gets to experience the elation of finally being able to effectively externalize and access our collective knowledge, analogous perhaps in some ways to the beehive and the ant colony in their mysteriously externalized knowledge, allowing them to work as a huge loosely interconnected team, living in peace with each other, finding out stuff previously out of reach to any individual, collectively pooling our observations and insights. With all this, our extropian visions are steadily becoming reality, not in the form of sudden Singularity, but rather more like a gradual awakening, an steadily-increasing awareness, an accelerating climb to the pinnacle of sentient existence, right here in our own times. I run short of adjectives. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 18:47:08 2016 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:47:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: <002c01d2638a$c78b0860$56a11920$@att.net> References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> <002c01d2638a$c78b0860$56a11920$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike, If you're really interested in the voice activated piece, you can leverage Amazon's Alexa(Echo) API and AWS very easily and build an app on top of that. Amazon is smart enough (as they usually are) to be pushing Alexa as a hardware agnostic platform. Yes, they want you to use it to buy more Amazon stuff, but it it available to whoever wants to create an app for it. It is also possible to do decent voice recognition with a Raspberry Pi and some open source software combined with a mic(s), but unless you have some kind of privacy/philosophical objection to leveraging Alexa's API, I would go that route. I'm sure there are other alternatives, but that's the one that immediately sprang to mind. The voice recognition portion of the API is very user friendly and pretty accurate on decent hardware. On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 12:24 PM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On > Behalf Of BillK > Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 8:43 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] hey dr, bugger > > On 31 December 2016 at 15:41, spike wrote: > >> Wouldn?t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger... > > >...NEW - For bird ID from a photo > http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ > > > Oooh this is cool. How do you hipsters find all this cool stuff? I am > eager to go try out this Merlin bird software as soon as I get it > downloaded and running. > > > >... They are more like guides that you have to look through yourself... > > Ja like a field guide to birds, only automated and containing enough > information that would take 50 pounds of paper books. Really way better > than 50 pounds of field guides, because I don't just want to know the name > of the bird and its habitat; I want to know waaaaay more than that, way > more, such as gory details of how it makes its living, the branch of its > evolutionary tree, all the stuff that the really hardcore bird people > memorize. I want all that, but I want it externalized, stored outside my > very limited brain, accessible but not part of my bio-RAM until I actually > see it. I don't care much about species I can never see personally in the > wild. > > > >...Of course, I hear that insects are fairly plentiful, so you would need > a big database. :) BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > Ja! What I learned after I wrote the initial post is that the bug in > question is probably closely related to Diabrotica undecimpunctata, common > enough in this part of the world that if I had never seen one, I apparently > haven't been looking closely enough or don't grow vegetables in a home > garden. I was thrown off by the lack of spots on the pronotum, but the > internet tells me these guys don't have them, and some of them are green. > There are just too many beetles to even start to learn them. > > Where I am going with this isn't even about bugs or birds but rather > software tools which are voice activated. I want to be able to create > specialized personal access (or arcane-interest group access) databases, > perhaps even classified or restricted access. Example, local parolee > serves 1 of his 3-year term for patronizing the neighborhood 15 yr old > harlot. Perhaps he is a reformed man, but... I don't trust him. I would > like to have some means of noting when and where I see the sleaze-bag. > > I might want something like Adrian's Field Trip app which notes when one > is near a point of historical interest, but it has to be user-specialized > historical interest. I don't care about what Spanish missionary slew and > Christianized the surviving indigenous people. I care about the elementary > school of the guy who invented the integrated circuit, or the site of the > local bar which was the hangout for the team which invented the liquid > crystal display (we have that one right here in town.) It has to be > user-controlled in what it contains and what it doesn't contain, has to be > voice activated. > > I haven't studied Field Trip enough to know if it meets all the specs, so > feel free to scold me if it does. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 19:05:13 2016 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:05:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > ?> ? > MWI isn't the only > ? ? > possible explanation of the wave function. > ?What needs to be explained is quantum mechanical behavior, the wave function ?is ?just a way to perform quantum mechanical calculations and it's not the only way, if you don't like it you can use Heisenberg ? Matrices? and you'll get the same answer. MWI, Copenhagen, Transactional, Pilot Wave etc are all attempts to give a physical intuition about what is going on and not just crunch numbers. Many, perhaps most, ph ysicists? ? ?don't care about that and belong to the "shut up and calculate" school; assuming you're not a member of that school which physical interpretation do you think is less weird than the MWI? > ?> ? > Also, the way you're phrasing it seems to suggest you think quantum > ? ? > computers have been proven to be general purpose, rather than usable > ? ? > only for a few specific types of problems. There is hope that they > ? ? > are, but they aren't yet, and we don't know for sure that they can be. > ?True, but if general purpose ?quantum ? ? computers are possible then there is a way to tell if Copenhagen or MW is correct. Yes that would be hard to do but that's Copenhagen's fault not the MWI fault. Copenhagen says conscious stuff obeys different laws of physics than non-conscious stuff, consciousness can collapse the wave function but non-conscious stuff can't. MWI says both obey the same laws of physics. So to tell who's right you need an AI that operates on quantum principles. And that would be very difficult to make but it's starting to look like it's not impossible. ?> ? > And yes, QM does produce fundamentally random results, ?True, and yet ? ?both ? Schrodinger's ?W? ave ? Equation and ? Heisenberg ? Matrices are 100% deterministic, one of the many weird things about quantum mechanics. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Dec 31 19:29:29 2016 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 11:29:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> <002c01d2638a$c78b0860$56a11920$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ad01d2639c$34d1fa30$9e75ee90$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 10:47 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] hey dr, bugger Spike, >?If you're really interested in the voice activated piece, you can leverage Amazon's Alexa(Echo) API and AWS very easily and build an app on top of that. Amazon is smart enough (as they usually are) to be pushing Alexa as a hardware agnostic platform. Yes, they want you to use it to buy more Amazon stuff, but it it available to whoever wants to create an app for it? THANKS! Ja this API might be just what I need. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 20:31:32 2016 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:31:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] hey dr, bugger In-Reply-To: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> References: <009001d2637c$4ffbc400$eff34c00$@att.net> Message-ID: On 31 December 2016 at 15:41, spike wrote: > The question is not about entomology but rather commercial computing > products, for I can think of a hundred uses before breakfast. We could make > something like this for sports cars or business locations or birds or hell > anything that catches one?s fancy, no reason to explain why it does (I can?t > really explain why bugs interest me.) > > Is there some kind of software which allows a user to create a database or > collection of links, put it on our phones and have it searchable by voice > command? Following on from Dave's comment, I found two more apps. Try Leafsnap Garden Answers Plant Identification Another suggestion is use your photo to do a Google Reverse Image search. Google should find similar images that may link to a web site with more info. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 22:07:30 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:07:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 1:30 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:10 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> Here is the core of our disagreement. Superdeterminism - in ways that >> do not violate free will - seems more likely than MWI, to me. > > Interesting, I would like to know what about MWI you find so unlikely. The MW portion. It posits all these other worlds/realities/whatever that just so happen to be perfectly locked away from any actual measurement - suggestive of a theory that was specifically made to be unfalsifiable. Granted, >> > It also seems like it would require math itself to be superdetermined, >> > what >> > if I chose what measurements to make based on the digits of Pi? Would Pi >> > then be superdetermined? Or only my decision to use Pi to guide my >> > measurements? >> >> The latter, just like our distant ancestors' eventual collective >> choice to use a base-10 numbering system in which values such as pi >> would be expressed. Pi itself is not affected by your choice. > > But once Pi is chosen, it offers infinite digits beyond my or any physical > thing's control. Are physical outcomes now superdetermined for all eternity > to follow Pi now, based on a choice someone made thousands of years ago? Yes and no. Yes in that physical outcomes in the future are in part a result of past choices in general. This has nothing to do with pi. For example, this email could only have happened because you chose to respond to my previous email; had you not, I would have had nothing to respond to. And once I send this email, it will always have been true from that point on that I sent this email; all outcomes from then on will be in a world where that happened. Even millions or billions of years ago, all choices will be made in a universe with that event in its history. (I hesitate to say "based on" because this is a trivial thing that is highly unlikely to substantially influence any of those future decisions - but any that do care whether I sent this email, will be based on it. You could even say they will be superdetermined to have been based on it, if you wish; it's redundant, but still true.) No in that what the value of pi is, was determined long before the Earth was formed, let alone before any human was around to make choices. Anything about the exact value of pi is not "based on a choice someone made thousands of years ago", but is instead based on something older than our universe. So far as we know, nothing caused the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (which we call "pi") to have the value that it has. This is true of math in general: the relations and equations were always there, even if we were not around to discover them until the past several thousand years. In that sense, math can be considered to be superdetermined even if MWI is true: going all the way back to the Big Bang, where MWI collapses to a single world, math was already there, and remains unchanged (even if observers' expressions of it differ) throughout all the multiple worlds. > Please explain. MWI is the simplest theory of QM we know of that is > compatible with all observations. Superdeterminism is simpler than MWI, and is compatible with all observations. > What this means: the infinite minds and observations are already out there, That it leads to assuming this sort of thing, is why MWI is more complex. From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 22:52:34 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:52:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] he said what???? In-Reply-To: References: <004301d25f10$c10436c0$430ca440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 7:11 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 1:11 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> That's a confusion between "could" and "does". > > I'm not confused, I realize NIST doesn't do that but there is no reason > they, or some other trusted third party, couldn't do that. But why NIST? The kinds of things we trust them on, aren't the kinds of things we'd need for a trusted signer. Why not the Department of Justice (if this is intended to be court-admissible evidence), or Defense, or Agriculture? Why not NASA, the FCC, or clerks of the United States Supreme Court? Just pointing out, your entire reason for suggesting NIST - that NASDAQ uses them - seems to be based on a confusion - what specifically NASDAQ uses them for (NIST doesn't do the signing in NASDAQ's case; they just provide the time). From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 22:57:50 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 16:57:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 4:07 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 1:30 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:10 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> Here is the core of our disagreement. Superdeterminism - in ways that > >> do not violate free will - seems more likely than MWI, to me. > > > > Interesting, I would like to know what about MWI you find so unlikely. > > The MW portion. It posits all these other worlds/realities/whatever > that just so happen to be perfectly locked away from any actual > measurement - suggestive of a theory that was specifically made to be > unfalsifiable. > MW is just barebones QM. As Everett said, MW is falsifiable because QM is falsifiable. Some quotes to this effect: Everett?s theory is more than an interpretation of the quantum mechanical effects we see (such as collapse). On the contrary, it is the very (and so far only) explanation for them. On this matter, Deutsch said that talking about Everett?s theory as an interpretation ?*would be like talking of dinosaurs as the ?interpretation? of fossil records, rather than the things in the theory that explain them.*" The cosmologist Max Tegmark concurs, saying, ?*I disagree that the distinction between Everett and Copenhagen is ?just interpretation?. The former is a mathematical theory, the latter is not. The former says simply that the Schr?dinger equation always applies. The latter says that it only applies sometimes, but doesn't given an equation specifying when it doesn't apply (when the so-called collapse is supposed to happen). If someone were to come up with such an equation, then the two theories would be mathematically different and you might hope to make an experiment to test which one is right.*? So it is not that MW is formulated to be unfalsifiable, it's that the alternatives are not mathematical theories offering any explanation or specification of how they work. CI doesn't explain how collapse or observation are related or happen, and Superdeterminism doesn't specify how photon pairs can know to offer the correct statistics according to how you will choose to measure them at the time they are created. > > Granted, > > >> > It also seems like it would require math itself to be superdetermined, > >> > what > >> > if I chose what measurements to make based on the digits of Pi? Would > Pi > >> > then be superdetermined? Or only my decision to use Pi to guide my > >> > measurements? > >> > >> The latter, just like our distant ancestors' eventual collective > >> choice to use a base-10 numbering system in which values such as pi > >> would be expressed. Pi itself is not affected by your choice. > > > > But once Pi is chosen, it offers infinite digits beyond my or any > physical > > thing's control. Are physical outcomes now superdetermined for all > eternity > > to follow Pi now, based on a choice someone made thousands of years ago? > > Yes and no. > > Yes in that physical outcomes in the future are in part a result of > past choices in general. This has nothing to do with pi. For > example, this email could only have happened because you chose to > respond to my previous email; had you not, I would have had nothing to > respond to. And once I send this email, it will always have been true > from that point on that I sent this email; all outcomes from then on > will be in a world where that happened. Even millions or billions of > years ago, all choices will be made in a universe with that event in > its history. > > (I hesitate to say "based on" because this is a trivial thing that is > highly unlikely to substantially influence any of those future > decisions - but any that do care whether I sent this email, will be > based on it. You could even say they will be superdetermined to have > been based on it, if you wish; it's redundant, but still true.) > > No in that what the value of pi is, was determined long before the > Earth was formed, let alone before any human was around to make > choices. Anything about the exact value of pi is not "based on a > choice someone made thousands of years ago", but is instead based on > something older than our universe. So far as we know, nothing caused > the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (which we call > "pi") to have the value that it has. > > This is true of math in general: the relations and equations were > always there, even if we were not around to discover them until the > past several thousand years. In that sense, math can be considered to > be superdetermined even if MWI is true: going all the way back to the > Big Bang, where MWI collapses to a single world, math was already > there, and remains unchanged (even if observers' expressions of it > differ) throughout all the multiple worlds. > > > Please explain. MWI is the simplest theory of QM we know of that is > > compatible with all observations. > > Superdeterminism is simpler than MWI, and is compatible with all > observations. > You need to posit almost a God-like magic to allow my selection of Pi in the use of setting polarization angles in an iterated EPR experiment, to cause the photon pairs to be generated with just the right patterns of polarizations to yield the observed probabilities. No theory exists to explain such a magic link, and to bolt it on to QM would serve to vastly complicate the theory. > > > What this means: the infinite minds and observations are already out > there, > > That it leads to assuming this sort of thing, is why MWI is more complex. Occam's razor is not about reducing multiplicities of things predicted by a theory, it is about reducing assumptions of the theory. For example, the theory that stars were distant suns was a simpler theory than that they were two distinct things. Yet that simpler theory implied countless billions of other suns. An idea surely as mind blowing to people who were not used to the idea as the idea of MW seems to many contemporaries. In general, the simpler the theory gets, the larger the ontology it yields. It would take 10^120 bits to specify the history of this universe assuming there is only one such history, but it would take only a few pages of equations to specify the laws of physics and leave the particular arrange a free parameter. But in this theory where a particular arrangement of particles if a free parameter, that theory includes a vastly larger ontology, of all possible physical universes sharing our physical laws. Going a step further, and leaving the equations themselves as a free parameter, requires no information to specify, and this leads to an ensemble of all logically possible structures: every universe's history of every possible set of laws. It's a progression that began hundreds of years ago: - One planet -> Many planets (Heliocentrism) - One solar system -> Many star systems (Discovery of parallax) - One galaxy -> Many galaxies (Hubble's observations of red shift) - One history -> Many histories (Everett's many worlds) - One big bang -> Many big bangs (Eternal Inflation, bubble universes) - One physical law -> Many physical laws (String theory, anthropic reasoning) - One mathematical structure -> Many (all?) mathematical structures (Tegmark's, Marchal's, Standish's ultimate ensemble theories) The trend is clear. It took 100 years for people to accept heliocentrism after its discovery. Hopefully it doesn't take so long for people to adopt the more recent theories. If there is any lesson from past theories, now widely accepted, it is that nature is not parsimonious with creation, she wastes a whole lot of existence on things unrelated to us and which we wouldn't think are necessary. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 23:13:46 2016 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:13:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > MW is falsifiable because QM is > falsifiable. We were talking about the difference between MWI and superposition, and that not being falsifiable. QM being falsifiable is irrelevant to "MWI or superposition or something else". > You need to posit almost a God-like magic to allow my selection of Pi in the > use of setting polarization angles in an iterated EPR experiment, to cause > the photon pairs to be generated with just the right patterns of > polarizations to yield the observed probabilities. No, I just need to posit that what you observe is what you observe. No cause or conspiracy to produce the observed results is required. I roll a die. It comes up 2. Nothing conspired to make that particular result happen (assuming no loaded dice, I didn't trick roll, or the like). Nothing needed to. From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 23:44:03 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:44:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Zombie Detector (was Re:Do digital computers feel?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Brent, Thank you, the video cleared it up for me then. So do you have no objection to multiple-realizability (the idea that different physical materials could in theory be used to construct minds that have identical mental states)? Jason On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 4:53 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Jason, > > I'm just talking in simplified qualitative terms to make communication > easier to model what is and isn't important. that is the only reason I > used the term grue to represent all the 99 million or whatever new colors > that any particular tetrachromat can experience (surely they are not all > the same). > > Also, when i say that glutamate has the redness quality and glycene has > the grenness quality, this too, is just simplified. I am describing what > it would be like in a hypothetical world that only has 3 colors - red > (glutamate), green(glycene), and white(aspartate). (see: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4&t=30s) I simply describe in > that video that if there was such a world, how could the people in that > world correctly see that in their simplified world that glutamate was the > neural correlate of red (and not think it was white since glutamate > reflects white light). > > Then once a person can understand how this general correct qualitative > interpretation theory works in the simplified world, they can use the same > proper qualitative interpretation of abstracted data, in the real world - > to finally not be qualia blind and finally discover what really has all the > redness qualities any one of us can experience. > > Brent > > > > > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > >> >> >> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Brent Allsop >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> I, like most people, am a mere tetra chromate ? I experience the world >>> with 3 primary colors. But some people are tetrachromats, and do it >>> with 4 primary colors. Let?s call this 4th color ?grue?. Obviously, >>> all us tri chromats can hear the person say things like: ?No that is Grue, >>> not one of the primary colors, as you claim? and we can observe what is >>> causing the 4th primary color, including it?s neural correlate in their >>> brains. In other words, like Frank Jackson?s brilliant color scientist >>> raised in a black and what room, us trichromats can learn everything about >>> grue, and see that it is not in our heads, but we can see when the neurarl >>> correlate of grue is in the head of a tetrachromat. >>> >>> >>> >>> In other words, all of us normal trichromatic people are grue zombies. We >>> can know and communicate everything about them. In fact, we might even >>> be able to be trained to call the right things grue, just like the >>> tetrachromat does, and lie about it, and convince everyone else that we >>> might be a tetrachromat. (until you observe my brain) So, until we >>> enhance our primary visual cortext and give it what has the grue color, we >>> will never know how the tetrachromat qualitatively interprets the word >>> ?grue?. >>> >>> >>> >>> Now, some people think of a ?p-zombie? as something that is atomically >>> identical to us, but just doesn?t have the qualitative experience of >>> consciousness ? which of course is very absurd, and very different than the >>> grue type of zombie, I am, who simply isn?t yet capable of producing the >>> grue neural correlate in my brain. But I can represent grue with >>> anything else that is in my brain, and talk about it as if it was grue, in >>> a grue zombie way. >>> >>> >>> >> >> But no new neurotransmitters are required to experience grue. >> >> Moreover, tretrachromats don't just see 1 new type of color, they can see >> 99 million new colors that us trichromats cannot see. This is because we >> can sense about 100 independent relative brightnesses for red green and >> blue colors, which allows 100x100x100 possible resulting colors (1 million >> colors). Tetrachromats get to see 100x100x100x100 or 100 million colors. >> >> How can so many new colors come about if the neurocorolates are somehow >> dependent on specific chemicals in the brain? Tetrachromats don't have 100 >> times as many chemicals in their brain as trichromats have, yet they get to >> perceive 100 times as many qualia. >> >> Jason >> >> >>> >>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Jason Resch >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Reminds me a bit of "An Unfortunate Dualist": >>>> >>>> http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-23-unfortunate- >>>> dualist.html >>>> >>>> As to your puzzle, if Fred is unable to detect any effects from >>>> conscious people (including their reflections), then he should not be able >>>> to see his own reflection, but then he also shouldn't be able to hear his >>>> own thoughts either. Which might be your definition of a zombie, making him >>>> visible, etc. "Russell's reflection". However, Fred's own voice might still >>>> be heard if Fred's consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but I think >>>> practically speaking I think epiphenomenalism can be ruled out, together >>>> with the notion of p-zombies. >>>> >>>> See Daniel Dennett's "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies": >>>> https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/unzombie.htm >>>> >>>> Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are >>>> conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or >>>> imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own >>>> definition".[3] >>>> >>>> [4] >>>> He >>>> coined the term "zimboes" ? p-zombies that have second-order beliefs >>>> ? to argue that the >>>> idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[12] >>>> "Zimboes >>>> thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer >>>> pains ? they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in >>>> ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm not sure, however, whether your thought experiment sheds any new >>>> light on the concepts of consciousness or zombies. It seems like it may be >>>> only a reformulation of the "Barber Paradox", where the self reflexivity is >>>> a "power to detect only non-consciousness things", aimed at one's own >>>> consciousness. >>>> >>>> Jason >>>> >>>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Stuart LaForge >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Jason Resch wrote: >>>>> >>>> appropriately programmed computer can perfectly emulate any of its >>>>> behaviors. Philosophers generally fall into one os three camps, on the >>>>> question of consciousness and the computational theory of mind: >>>>> Non-computable physicists [. . .]Weak AI proponents [. . .] >>>>> Computationalists. >>>>> >>>>> Which camp do you consider yourself in?> >>>>> ------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> As a general rule, I prefer not to go camping with philosophers as I >>>>> prefer the rigor of science and mathematics. But if I must camp in that >>>>> neck of the woods, I would set up my own camp. I would call it the >>>>> Godelian camp after Kurt Godel. Since I am a scientist and not a >>>>> philosopher, I will explain my views with a thought experiment instead >>>>> of >>>>> an argument. >>>>> >>>>> Imagine if you will a solipsist. Let's call him Fred. Fred is solopsist >>>>> because he has every reason to believe he lives alone in a world of >>>>> P-zombies. >>>>> >>>>> For the uninitiated, P-zombies are philosophical zombies. Horrid beings >>>>> that talk, move, and act like normal folks but lack any real >>>>> consciousness >>>>> or self-awareness. They just go through the motions of being conscious >>>>> but >>>>> are not really so. >>>>> >>>>> So ever since Fred could remember, wherever he looked, all he could see >>>>> were those pesky P-zombies. They were everywhere. He could talk to >>>>> them, >>>>> he could interact with them, and he even married one. And because they >>>>> all >>>>> act perfectly conscious, they would fool most anyone but certainly not >>>>> Fred. >>>>> >>>>> This was because Fred had, whether you would regard it as a gift or >>>>> curse, >>>>> an unusual ability. He could always see and otherwise sense P-zombies >>>>> but >>>>> never normal folk. Normal folk were always invisible to him and he >>>>> never >>>>> could sense a single one. So he, being a perfect P-zombie detector, >>>>> came >>>>> to believe that he was the only normal person on a planet populated by >>>>> P-zombies. >>>>> >>>>> Then one day by chance he happened to glance in a mirror . . . >>>>> >>>>> Does he see himself? >>>>> >>>>> I want to hear what the list has to say about this before I give my >>>>> answer >>>>> and my interpretation of what this means for strong AI and the >>>>> computational theory of mind. >>>>> >>>>> Stuart LaForge >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 23:50:16 2016 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:50:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bell's Inequality In-Reply-To: References: <53ef6d4522071ef24ff5f3e0c351c858.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > MW is falsifiable because QM is > > falsifiable. > > We were talking about the difference between MWI and superposition, > and that not being falsifiable. QM being falsifiable is irrelevant to > "MWI or superposition or something else". > > The theory that all the parts of the superposition go away when observed, except for one, is an extension (the collapse postulate) added to vanilla QM, the math of which contains no such provision for parts of the superposition disappearing when observed. > > You need to posit almost a God-like magic to allow my selection of Pi in > the > > use of setting polarization angles in an iterated EPR experiment, to > cause > > the photon pairs to be generated with just the right patterns of > > polarizations to yield the observed probabilities. > > No, I just need to posit that what you observe is what you observe. > No cause or conspiracy to produce the observed results is required. > A conspiracy is required, for the statistics to match the predictions of QM in a superdetermined world and to rob all agents of control over their destinies. Gottfried Leibniz 's theory of *pre-established harmony* (French : *harmonie pr??tablie*) is a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" affects only itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to "harmonize" with each other. Leibniz's term for these substances was "monads " which he described in a popular work (*Monadology * ?7) as "windowless". An example: An apple falls on Alice's head, apparently causing the experience of pain in her mind. In fact, the apple does not cause the pain?the pain is caused by some previous state of Alice's mind. If Alice then seems to shake her hand in anger, it is not actually her mind that causes this, but some previous state of her hand. Superdeterminism is just a modern day version of a pre-established harmony. The measurements you and someone else on Alpha Centauri make were pre-ordained to be just the right ones to match up with the polarizations of the photons in a manner to preserve the quantum statistics. Jason > I roll a die. It comes up 2. Nothing conspired to make that > particular result happen (assuming no loaded dice, I didn't trick > roll, or the like). Nothing needed to. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: