John Yates has posted on Facebook a review on
See:
May 19, 2012 by Evgenii Rudnyi · Leave a Comment
Filed under: consciousness
Social Tagging: free will
Filed under: consciousness
Social Tagging: free will
From the discussion on the everything list.
>The universe as a whole does not have “purpose” unless you believe in a certain kind of god.
Let us imagine that we have a deterministic theory of everything and it has started at time zero with given initial conditions. Then it is possible to state that the purpose of that initial conditions was to reach the state that we have now. Otherwise, why exactly these initial conditions have been employed? One could definitely imagine that the theory of everything starts with some other initial conditions (also with some values of fundamental constants, etc.).
In my view, the same event can have purpose or not depending on how you describe it. Say a mechanical system develops itself according some Lagrangian. There is no purpose. Yet, if you remember about the variational principle, then the trajectory minimizes some functional and this could be considered as the purpose of the trajectory. Well, this is a word game but then you have also to make your definitions to justify your statement.
May 7, 2012 by Evgenii Rudnyi · 2 Comments
Filed under: consciousness, physics
Social Tagging: Max Velmans • Quantum Mechanics
Filed under: consciousness, physics
Social Tagging: Max Velmans • Quantum Mechanics
Max Velmans, Understanding Consciousness
In Chapter 2, Conscious Souls, Brains and Quantum Mechanics there is a nice section Quantum Dualist Interactionism (p. 17 – 21) where Max Velmans describes works that present interpretation of dualism in the framework of quantum mechanics.
Stapp, H. (2007a) ‘Quantum mechanical theories of consciousness’ in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, pp. 300-312.
Stapp, H. (2007b) ‘Quantum approaches to consciousness’ in The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, pp. 881-908.
Stapp, H. (2007c) Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer.
Interestingly enough Stapp refers to the work of von Neumann:
Von Neumann, J. (1955/1932) Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics/Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantummechanik.
p. 19. “In various interpretations of quantum mechanics there is in any case ambiguity, and associated controversy, about where in the observation process a choice about what to observe and a subsequent observation is made. For example, according to the ‘Gopenhagen Convention’, the original formation of quantum theory developed by Niels Bohr, there is a clear separation between the process taking place in the observer (Process 1) and the process taking place in the system that is being observed (Process 2).”
p. 21. “To differentiate the conscious part of Process 1 (the ‘conscious ego’) from the physically embodied part, Stapp (2007c) refers to it as ‘Process 0′. Stapp believes that such quantum dualist interactionism neatly sidesteps the classical problems of mind-body (or consciousness-brain) interaction (see Stapp, 2007a, p. 305). According to the von Neumann/Stapp theory, consciousness (Process 0) chooses what question to ask; through the meditation of Process 1 that interacts with Process 2 (the developing possibilities specified by the quantum mechanics of the physical system under interrogation, including the brain) – and Nature supplies an answer, which in turn reflected in conscious experience (making the entire process a form of dualism-interactionism).”
p. 21. “A central claim of the von Neumann/Stapp theory, for example, is that it is the observer’s conscious free will (von Neumann’s ‘abstract ego’ or Stapp’s ‘Process 0′) that chooses how to probe nature.”
Discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/829d724dd65a502f
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/bfcd9b61e07c87c0
From http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/bb4830b7ded7d81d
John Mike:
“In the beginning there was Nothingness.
And when Nothingness realised it’s nothingness
It turned into Somethingness – an explanation…”
A link from my discussion on Linkedin
“MIND|CONSTRUCT is developing a ‘strong-AI engine’, a so called AI-mind, that can be used in (human-like) robotics, healthcare, aerospace sciences and every other area where ‘conscious’ man-machine interaction is of any importance.
The MIND|CONSTRUCT organization is the culmination of many years in AI-research and the so called ‘hard-problems’, and the application of elaborate experience in knowledge-management, for the design and development of a ‘strong-AI engine’.“
See:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/-gay7jh-h17e0kop-6q/vaq/105949056/134407/77220668/
Also:
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/48ce23e5fa5a28ad
May 5, 2012 by Evgenii Rudnyi · Leave a Comment
Filed under: philosophy
Social Tagging: Bruno Marchal
Filed under: philosophy
Social Tagging: Bruno Marchal
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/a1e3e283cb183eb7
Stephen’s question:
Could you give us a sketch of exactly how ‘physical rules’ or the appearance thereof are the “consequences of 0, + and *”? I think that there is more to the explanation than the fact that 0, + and * exist…. This is the part of your work that I still do not understand.
Bruno’s answer :
Well, it is the second part. the one I call AUDA.
In a sketch.
1) define provable-by-machine-PA in the arithmetical language {0, s, +, *, “E”, “A”, etc.}. Like in Gödel 1931. This gives Bp (for beweisbar <some arithmetical proposition>. This will play the role of the “scientific rational opinion of the machine”.
2) Solovay: the truth about the logic of Bp is given by G*. The provable part of it is given by G.
3) define the knowledge of the machine by Bp & p. (Theatetus) The logic of Bp & p is given by S4Grz (a logic of a form of intuitionist evolving antisymmetrical knowledge.
4) define observable by Bp & Dt (logic Z and Z*-
5) define feel-able by Bp & Dt & p (logic X and X*)
Note that the splitting proof/truth (G/G*) extends to Bp & Dt, and to Bp & Dt & p; that is the observable and the feel-able.
Then (eneter the arithmetical UD): restrict the arithmetical realization of the sentence letters p to the sigma_1 sentence. You get the logic Z1* (quanta and qualia). the quanta appears in the non communicable part, and are particular case of qualia, and this assure our coherence: we share histories (this is what Everett confirms the most: we are collectively multiplied by huge factor, and symmetry and linearity appears at the arithmetical quantum bottom.
If comp is correct, and if the Theatetus’s idea is correct, Z1* gives the probability one, and you can deduce the other probabilities from there (von Neumann old criteria for a genuine quantum logic).
I hope I was not too sketchy. Use this to dig on the second part (the interview of the LUM, it is AUDA) of the sane04 paper.
May 1, 2012 by Evgenii Rudnyi · Leave a Comment
Filed under: consciousness
Social Tagging: Max Velmans • vision
Filed under: consciousness
Social Tagging: Max Velmans • vision
The title is taken from Max Velmans, Where experiences are: Dualist, physicalist, enactive and reflexive accounts of phenomenal consciousness, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Volume 6, Number 4 (2007), 547-563
Preprint: http://cogprints.org/4891/
In the paper, the reflexive model of perception is suggested.
“In most respects Figure 3 is the same as Figures 1 and 2. As before, there is a cat in the world (perceived by E) that is the initiating stimulus for what S observes, and the proximal neural causes and correlates of what S experiences are, as before, located in S’s brain. The only difference relates to the ontology and location of S’s experience. According to dualists, S’s experience of a cat consists of “stuff that thinks” that is located “nowhere”; according to reductionists, S’s experience of a cat is a state or function of the brain that is located in her brain; according to the reflexive model, both of the former models are theoretically rather than empirically driven with the consequence that they systematically misdescribe what S actually experiences. If you place a cat in front of S and ask her to describe what she experiences, she should tell you that she sees a cat in front of her in the world. This phenomenal cat literally is what she experiences, located where it seems to be—and she has no additional experience of a cat either “nowhere” or 10 “in her brain.” According the reflexive model, this added experience is a myth. Applying Occam’s razor gets rid of it.”
“Crucially, perceptual projection refers to an empirically observable effect, for example, to the fact that this print seems to be out here on this page and not in your brain. In short, perceptual projection is an effect that requires explanation; perceptual projection is not itself an explanation. We know that preconscious processes within the brain produce consciously experienced events, which may be subjectively located and extended in the phenomenal space beyond the brain, but we don’t really know how this is done.”
“Put your hands on your head. Is that the real skull that you feel, located more or less where it seems to be? If that makes sense, the reflexive model makes sense. Or is that just a phenomenal skull inside your brain, with your real skull beyond the dome of the sky? If the latter seems absurd, biological naturalism is absurd. Choose for yourself.”
A related paper has been mentioned by Paul Peters during discussion on Linkedin
http://www.linkedin.com/e/-gay7jh-h17e0kop-6q/vaq/105949056/134407/77220668/
Rupert Sheldrake, The Sense of Being Stared At — Part 2: Its Implications for Theories of Vision, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 12, Number 6, 2005 , pp. 32-49(18).
Preprint: http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/staring/
In the paper, there is a nice historical account of theories of vision. The author takes even more radical step then and introduces a perceptual field.
“My own hypothesis is that projection takes place through perceptual fields, extending out beyond the brain, connecting the seeing animal with that which is seen. Vision is rooted in the activity of the brain, but is not confined to the inside of the head (Sheldrake, 1994; 2003). Like Velmans, I suggest that the formation of these fields depends on the changes occurring in various regions of the brain as vision takes place, influenced by expectations, intentions and memories. Velmans suggests that this projection takes place in a way that is analogous to a field phenomenon, as in a hologram. I suggest that the perceptual projection is not just analogous to but actually is a field phenomenon.”
To this end, there is a nice comparison with Many World Interpretation
“The quantum physicist David Deutsch, a leading proponent of this extravagant hypothesis, postulates that there is ‘a huge number of parallel universes, each similar in composition to the tangible one, and each obeying the same laws of physics, but differing in that the particles are in different positions in each universe’ (Deutsch, 1997, p. 45).
Compared with an observer splitting the universe by looking at a cat, the sense of being stared at seems conservative.”
In general both papers shows that a theory of vision is far from being complete.
A link from John Yates.
An interesting story about Robert J. White.
Head Transplant: The Truly Disturbing Truly Real Story
http://vimeo.com/20230127
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