Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
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Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Russell Standish-2
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I'm reposting this. I forgot that I have to have the everything-list email address first, otherwise it bounces from GoogleGroups :( On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 08:56:24PM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > I think this issue should be pushed further a little, since there seems to > be a fundamental misunderstanding somewhere. It seems a number of people have had difficulties following chapter 4. This is possibly because I haven't explained things well, or even that there is somthing fundamentally incoherent in it, but I suspect more likely is that it confronts existing epistemic baggage that readers have, and that I haven't successfully taken this into account. It is an important chapter, however, so it is worthwhile trying to get this straight. > > (There appears to be a subsidiary issue of 'many description > strings to one OM' (what you seem to be saying in your first email para), > but perhaps that can be dealt with by different definiions of 'OM' - you > seem to think of it as one OM 'type', whereas I think of it as one OM > 'occurrence'.) > Multiple description strings map to a single OM. This is a relatively obvious feature of a functionalist theory, which this theory is. One can certainly think of the OM being an occurrence, but you m ust also realise that there a multiple identical OMs (an uncountable infinity in fact) within the everything. > Perhaps the most direct route to the problem is your statement at the end of > section 4.2 that (paraphrasing), the problem of induc`tion is not a problem > for the plenitude provided [either the Schmidhuber solution holds or] > observers always tend to model reality, find patterns, theories and so on > that compress the description of the world around them, discarding > non-model-fitting bits as 'noise'. > > The reason that there is no failure of induction (in general), under this > scenario is, as I stated under (b) earlier (which appears to be the one > closest to your view), that we are most likely to be in one of the simplest > universes that supports SAS's, and it is this that determines the complexity > of the universe that we are in, and provides order for our universe, and not > how observers behave/operate in it. > But where does the premise "we are most likely to be in one of the simplest universes that supports SASes" come from, if not from the properties of the observer? That is what 4.1 is all about (coupled with section 5.1 of course). But section 4.1 does not directly answer the failure of induction issue. Nothing about Occam's razor says that a universe has to continue being comprehensible. > If an observer *didn't* model reality, find patterns etc, the world would > still continue on its ordered way, even if the observer didn't appreciate > this. (One could just conceive - and it is hypothetical possibility that is > the issue here - of some kind of observer that used automatic filtering of > irrelevant features of the environment together with a one to one mapping of > the remainder to its internal processor - no actual compression of data as > such.) Conversely, one could have a world where there were no laws, but a > freak set of coincidences allowed SAS's to materialise, and (freakly) model > the reality they (freakly) see - there would still be a failure of induction > problem (no laws), even though observers model, find patterns etc. Boltzmann brains are interesting, but seemingly extremely rare occurrence. In any case, its hard to imagine a Bolztmann brain being conscious unless its input was of a more sane and comprehensible variety. However, I don't consider these in my book, and perhaps thats an area for future work. One can imagine being thrust into a perfect VR setup by an evil scientist that connects your sensory input to white noise. I would contend that the white noise wouldn't remain white noise for long, and that one would enter a dreamlike state, where the noise was interpreted as reality. Plus, the absence of correlata with one's own mental states entailing a lack of self-awareness might lead to loss of consciousness. I'm not sure how much bearing the sensory deprivation experiments have on this. > > I understand that one can think of the universe as a set of cohering OM's, > but the minimal specification of them should be something like a TOE > (otherwise why do we see neurons and brains etc, if we care to look?), so > 'physical universe' should normally be a relevant concept. And (under the > above scenario) it is the simplest universe that counts for measure > purposes, not the simplest OM - this explains the lack of white rabbits, but > compression of the description of the world and 'random data' being > discarded by our senses has nothing to do with the WR issue, as far as I > can see. > The idea of cohering OMs forming a universe relates to the Anthropic principle. By having phenomenal correlata, one can deduce that there are other OMs that share a reality, and that which remains invariant under shifts to different OMs become the law of physics. This is, in essence Vic Stenger's Point of View Invariance (POVI) principle. This set of laws of physics is the physical Universe inhabited by the observers - there's nothing else I can imagine it to be. So, it seems you are suggesting that time translation invariance (of the same observer, but successive OMs) is enough therefore to banish the white rabbits. But it does hinge on the anthropic principle, which we need for other things. The argument in sect 4.2 does not hinge on the AP, but does rely upon the property of robustness of the observer, which I haven't completely formalised, but I have made a couple of attempts in postings on this list. Unfortunately, I just did a quick search in GoogleGroups, and can't lay my hands on them just at the minute. Perhaps there is some connection between robustness and the AP? I really should write up a formal version of the robustness concept somewhere more permanent, and also try to develop a formal model of the process to see what happens in the face of pure white noise. I'm sure it won't be white rabbits, as the argument in section 4.2 still seems valid to me, but whether it is anything interpretable as a universe is another thing. > It seems then that there is more of a problem with my understanding of > section 4.2 than I first appreciated! > > (Feel free to copy any reply to Everything-list if considered to be of > general interest.) > > Alastair > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Russell Standish" <hpcoder@...> > To: "Alastair Malcolm" <amalcolm@...> > Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:27 AM > Subject: Re: White Rabbit query from your TON > > > >Description strings stand in a many-to-one relationship with OMs. The > >diagram on page 33 summarises this neatly - the description are at the > >base (syntactic space), and the OMs are in Semantic space. > > > >Therefore, of your 3 options, b) is closest to the mark. Only a finite > >number of bits are relevant for specifying the OM (due to the > >robustness requirements). > > > >It is perhaps misleading to refer to "physical universe". In some > >sense, the physical universe must emerge out shared meanings from the > >OMs. Bruno has much more to say on this topic :) > > > >The complexity of the OMs are due to an evolutionary process, and I > >use this as a justification for later modeling observation (or > >construction of the OMs) as an evolutionary process. The idea of > >progressively reading in more bits of the description string is akin > >to random mutations. The selection process is the observer making > >meaning of the bits read. Heritability corresponds to preservation of > >information through time, which is why we need to eliminate those > >white rabbits. > > > >Cheers > > > >On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 09:21:31AM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > >>Russell, > >> > >>I have recently been revisiting the 'White Rabbit' issue, > >>and still am rather puzzled by parts of the relevant section (4.2) in > >>'Theory of Nothing'. I'll focus on the statement 'the complexity of the > >>world around us is actually the outcome of a very simple process called > >>evolution' (third last para), and list three possible ways your > >>'descriptions' can relate to our experiences (call them OM's). > >> > >>(a) A maximum of one OM per infinite description bit string, with only a > >>finite segment being used by the observer - effectively we have 'all > >>possible OM's' - but with this scenario there is no reason for us to > >>expect > >>to see a physical brain (or universe) compatible with that OM (and > >>Darwinian > >>evolution seems impossible). In a variation on this idea, each > >>description > >>string represents (can map to) all the OM's for a single observer (only), > >>but this does seem rather artificial and perhaps solipsistic. I sense > >>that > >>you don't intend either of these variants, but I am not sure. > >> > >>(b) (My preferred option.) A relevant finite part of each description can > >>represent a physical universe (perhaps a Tegmark level 1/2/3 or similar), > >>and so can contain mappings to OM's in each universe. We are most likely > >>to > >>be in one of the simplest that supports SAS's - there are more bit > >>combinations along the string beyond those specifying these universes on > >>any > >>equal (large) finite string comparison with more complex candidates, and > >>it > >>is this latter argument (or an equivalent) that determines the complexity > >>of > >>our world, and not evolution, which proceeds as per Darwin, in apparent > >>contradiction of the quoted statement in my opening paragraph. > >> > >>(c) Each description bit string can have one or more mappings to what > >>are, > >>or could be, brief experiences. So 'observers will filter their inputs to > >>more robustly obtain meaning from the data streaming in through their > >>senses' - the more data we ignore the shorter the 'visible' part > >>represented > >>by the input string, and so the less the complexity - hence the > >>complexity > >>(at least of what we see) links to evolution, in keeping with the opening > >>quotation. But note that the data that is excluded still forms part of > >>the > >>physical universe (else the observer wouldn't be in a position to reject > >>it), which in turn implies the description string is split into three as > >>regards mapping to an OM: this actual mapping, the rest of the mapping to > >>our physical universe (or other OM's if you prefer), and the rest of the > >>string, specifying rubbish (or conceivably other universes). (This last > >>of > >>the three is as under (b).) > >> > >>The reason I am dubious about (c) is that it seems certain that the most > >>compact description of our universe (akin to a TOE perhaps) will have no > >>'intra-universe-related' spare (rubbish) bits (the second of the three in > >>(c)) for evolution to 'work' on (and all bits should mainly correlate > >>with > >>micro-level phenomena anyway). (I presume you are not referring to WR's > >>as > >>illusions or freak molecular/uncertainty-principle-based assemblages - > >>this > >>is not the WR problem.) White rabbits (flying at least) are physically > >>impossible and so don't occur in our universe - as far as I can see this > >>should be the context for WR discussions, and not phenomena like shadows. > >> > >>So as regards the 'third approach' of your section 4.2 I am not entirely > >>clear as to which of the above three possibilities you are referring - > >>probably some fourth one I have missed! > >> > >>With thanks for your time > >> > >>Alastair > > > >-- > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > >Mathematics > >UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... > >Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message ----- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Russell Standish-2
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Hi Malcolm, I still haven't had a chance to look at your comments here - hopefully I'll get a chance over Easter. On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 07:58:35PM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Russell Standish" <lists@...> > To: <everything-list@...> > Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:56 AM > Subject: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution > . > .> > In your 'Why Occam's Razor' paper, sect 2, following a discussion of the > Schmidhuber ensemble and the Universal Prior, it is stated "If we assume the > self-sampling asssumption [...t]his implies we should find ourselves in one > of the simplest (in terms of C-0[Complexity of description x]) possible > universes capable of supporting self-aware substructures (SASes). This is > the origin of physical law...". If one takes the description string x (up to > some finite limit) as (minimally) representing a universe (and from which > OM's are derived), then application of your equivalence class method should > solve the WR problem directly (check out my roughly equivalent method at > www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm) - this hopefully answers your point > above about the origin of our being almost certainly in one of the simplest > SAS-supporting universes: the premise can be all logically possible > universes (or just 'entities'), some or all of which are representable by > description strings (say). (From other comments I earlier assumed this is > what you were actually doing - it seems our ideas in this area are > significantly different after all.) > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Russell Standish-2
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On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 07:58:35PM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Russell Standish" <lists@...> > To: <everything-list@...> > Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:56 AM > Subject: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution > . > . > . > >> > >> (There appears to be a subsidiary issue of 'many description > >> strings to one OM' (what you seem to be saying in your first email para), > >> but perhaps that can be dealt with by different definiions of 'OM' - you > >> seem to think of it as one OM 'type', whereas I think of it as one OM > >> 'occurrence'.) > >> > > > > Multiple description strings map to a single OM. This is a relatively > > obvious feature of a functionalist theory, which this theory is. > > > > One can certainly think of the OM being an occurrence, but you m ust > > also realise that there a multiple identical OMs (an uncountable > > infinity in fact) within the everything. > > Comparing identical OM's/OM sequences, it seems to me that I am most likely > to be ['in'] that sequence of OM occurrences that is in one of the > simplest universes that can produce them (cet. par.). (Reason given below.) You are assuming a measure over all histories, rather than birth moments or observer moments. This is a rather different SSA than has been usually proposed (ASSA or RSSA). I can see a possible connection here to the Schmidhuber II approach (measure over programs), but it is contradictory to either the Marchal dovetailer (subjective indeterminism) or my all strings approach (which I consider to be essentially just starting from the dovetailer trace UD* and assuming a uniform prior on the strings). > > >> Perhaps the most direct route to the problem is your statement at the end > >> of > >> section 4.2 that (paraphrasing), the problem of induction is not a > >> problem > >> for the plenitude provided [either the Schmidhuber solution holds or] > >> observers always tend to model reality, find patterns, theories and so on > >> that compress the description of the world around them, discarding > >> non-model-fitting bits as 'noise'. > >> > >> The reason that there is no failure of induction (in general), under this > >> scenario is, as I stated under (b) earlier (which appears to be the one > >> closest to your view), that we are most likely to be in one of the > >> simplest > >> universes that supports SAS's, and it is this that determines the > >> complexity > >> of the universe that we are in, and provides order for our universe, and > >> not > >> how observers behave/operate in it. > >> > > > > But where does the premise "we are most likely to be in one of the > > simplest > > universes that supports SASes" come from, if not from the properties > > of the observer? That is what 4.1 is all about (coupled with section > > 5.1 of course). > > > > But section 4.1 does not directly answer the failure of induction > > issue. Nothing about Occam's razor says that a universe has to > > continue being comprehensible. > > In your 'Why Occam's Razor' paper, sect 2, following a discussion of the > Schmidhuber ensemble and the Universal Prior, it is stated "If we assume the > self-sampling asssumption [...t]his implies we should find ourselves in one > of the simplest (in terms of C-0[Complexity of description x]) possible > universes capable of supporting self-aware substructures (SASes). This is > the origin of physical law...". The SSA refers to birth moments. The "universe" is sort of code for the history up to that point in time. The White Rabbit problem concerns what happens after that point in time. An assumption of a noumenal reality is enough, of course, to eliminate white rabbits in conjunction with the arguments in section 2 of Why Occams Razor. But noumenal reality has its own set of problems, including being incompatible with quantum facts, something that Bruno has been at pains to point out. What I find is that most explanations requiring noumenal reality can also be explained by simply assuming the anthropic principle. It is possible that the AP suffices to banish white rabbits also. However, the AP becomes a little mysterious without noumenal reality, which I do discuss at several points in my book. It remains, IMHO, an unsolved problem. > If one takes the description string x (up to > some finite limit) as (minimally) representing a universe (and from which > OM's are derived), then application of your equivalence class method should > solve the WR problem directly (check out my roughly equivalent method at > www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm) - this hopefully answers your point > above about the origin of our being almost certainly in one of the simplest > SAS-supporting universes: the premise can be all logically possible > universes (or just 'entities'), some or all of which are representable by > description strings (say). Its been a while since I read your paper, but IIRC it was largely a paraphrase of the same argument I put in section 3 of Why Occams Razor. > (From other comments I earlier assumed this is > what you were actually doing - it seems our ideas in this area are > significantly different after all.) > It seems to me that you have changed your interpretation of the SSA (there's nothing wrong with changing your mind, but its always worth trying to dig into the foundations) as mentioned above. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Alastair Malcolm-2
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Standish" <lists@...> To: <everything-list@...> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 1:30 AM Subject: Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution >> >> Comparing identical OM's/OM sequences, it seems to me that I am most >> likely >> to be ['in'] that sequence of OM occurrences that is in one of the >> simplest universes that can produce them (cet. par.). (Reason given >> below.) > > You are assuming a measure over all histories, rather than birth > moments or observer moments. No. Please see below. >This is a rather different SSA than has > been usually proposed (ASSA or RSSA). I can see a possible connection here > to > the Schmidhuber II approach (measure over programs), but it is > contradictory to either the Marchal dovetailer (subjective > indeterminism) or my all strings approach (which I consider to be > essentially just starting from the dovetailer trace UD* and assuming a > uniform prior on the strings). > >> In your 'Why Occam's Razor' paper, sect 2, following a discussion of the >> Schmidhuber ensemble and the Universal Prior, it is stated "If we assume >> the >> self-sampling asssumption [...t]his implies we should find ourselves in >> one >> of the simplest (in terms of C-0[Complexity of description x]) possible >> universes capable of supporting self-aware substructures (SASes). This is >> the origin of physical law...". > > The SSA refers to birth moments. The "universe" is sort of code for > the history up to that point in time. The White Rabbit problem > concerns what happens after that point in time. > > An assumption of a noumenal reality is enough, of course, to eliminate > white rabbits in conjunction with the arguments in section 2 of Why > Occams Razor. But noumenal reality has its own set of problems, > including being incompatible with quantum facts, something that Bruno > has been at pains to point out. If your 'noumenal reality' is the same as the 'compressed ('u')reality' I use in my paper, I can't see where it has any more of a problematical relationship with (say) mwi qm than the basic physicalist approach does. (Neither can I find any references to noumen* and qm/quantum together in the everything archives by Bruno. If by 'noumenal reality', you just mean materialism, that's a different kettle of fish.) > > What I find is that most explanations requiring noumenal reality can > also be explained by simply assuming the anthropic principle. It is > possible that the AP suffices to banish white rabbits also. However, > the AP becomes a little mysterious without noumenal reality, which I > do discuss at several points in my book. It remains, IMHO, an unsolved > problem. > >> If one takes the description string x (up to >> some finite limit) as (minimally) representing a universe (and from which >> OM's are derived), then application of your equivalence class method >> should >> solve the WR problem directly (check out my roughly equivalent method at >> www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm) - this hopefully answers your point >> above about the origin of our being almost certainly in one of the >> simplest >> SAS-supporting universes: the premise can be all logically possible >> universes (or just 'entities'), some or all of which are representable by >> description strings (say). > > Its been a while since I read your paper, but IIRC it was largely a > paraphrase of the same argument I put in section 3 of Why Occams Razor. Re-reading this section under the interpretation provided in your recent email (where you talk about phenomenally cohering OM's) convinces me that you are saying something fundamentally different. Your section 2 is certainly closer - I previously assumed from other comments that you were taking it as read that any minimal specification of an OM (eg via a program, description string etc) would have to implicitly include all the OM's in that universe - that is the simplicity that a TOE is aiming for. The 'cohering OM's' are then automatically catered for - they are part of the same representing description string (or whatever represents them). This would then coincide with my own approach: the measure is taken over (say) bit strings minimally representing all possible relevant universes (or just 'entities', since minimal universe representations are assumed to provide the simplest representations of normal OM's), and not over 'histories'. > >> (From other comments I earlier assumed this is >> what you were actually doing - it seems our ideas in this area are >> significantly different after all.) >> > > It seems to me that you have changed your interpretation of the SSA > (there's nothing wrong with changing your mind, but its always worth > trying to dig into the foundations) as mentioned above. I don't think I have, but it does seem that misinterpretations like the one above have led to misunderstandings of our respective views. I would just like to reiterate that what is in my paper does not correspond to the ideas expressed in section 4.2 of 'Theory of Nothing'. Alastair > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by John Mikes
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In Alistair's post (I believe) Russell is quoted as:
>...The SSA refers to birth moments. The "universe" is sort of code for > the history up to that point in time. The White Rabbit problem > concerns what happens after that point in time.... which reminds me of the astrology I used in my 20s as a young aspiring natural sciences student. As I rationalized astrology to fit this old-time wisdom into my 'modern' sci. vues. The horoscope is a composition of ASPECTS in a metaphoric representation of the known - knowable status of the ambient part of the universe (Solar system) at BIRTH MOMENT, with differences of as little as 2-3 minutes (angle-changes). It was a HINT for the understanding mind and included the rudimentary knowledge of close sequencing movements of the points included. All that (white rabbit problem?) is expressable in a metaphric simulative translation (which may be wrong). This was in the 1st half of the 40s. I did not use astrology ever since, but then it was interesting. No conclusions for the ongoing topics. John M On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Alastair Malcolm <amalcolm@...> wrote:
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Russell Standish-2
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On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 01:40:58PM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Russell Standish" <lists@...> > To: <everything-list@...> > Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 1:30 AM > Subject: Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution > > > >> > >> Comparing identical OM's/OM sequences, it seems to me that I am most > >> likely > >> to be ['in'] that sequence of OM occurrences that is in one of the > >> simplest universes that can produce them (cet. par.). (Reason given > >> below.) > > > > You are assuming a measure over all histories, rather than birth > > moments or observer moments. > > No. Please see below. > > >This is a rather different SSA than has > > been usually proposed (ASSA or RSSA). I can see a possible connection here > > to > > the Schmidhuber II approach (measure over programs), but it is > > contradictory to either the Marchal dovetailer (subjective > > indeterminism) or my all strings approach (which I consider to be > > essentially just starting from the dovetailer trace UD* and assuming a > > uniform prior on the strings). > > > > > >> In your 'Why Occam's Razor' paper, sect 2, following a discussion of the > >> Schmidhuber ensemble and the Universal Prior, it is stated "If we assume > >> the > >> self-sampling asssumption [...t]his implies we should find ourselves in > >> one > >> of the simplest (in terms of C-0[Complexity of description x]) possible > >> universes capable of supporting self-aware substructures (SASes). This is > >> the origin of physical law...". > > > > The SSA refers to birth moments. The "universe" is sort of code for > > the history up to that point in time. The White Rabbit problem > > concerns what happens after that point in time. > > > > An assumption of a noumenal reality is enough, of course, to eliminate > > white rabbits in conjunction with the arguments in section 2 of Why > > Occams Razor. But noumenal reality has its own set of problems, > > including being incompatible with quantum facts, something that Bruno > > has been at pains to point out. > > If your 'noumenal reality' is the same as the 'compressed ('u')reality' I > use in my paper, I can't see where it has any more of a problematical > relationship with (say) mwi qm than the basic physicalist approach does. > (Neither can I find any references to noumen* and qm/quantum together in the > everything archives by Bruno. If by 'noumenal reality', you just mean > materialism, that's a different kettle of fish.) Sorry - I have used the term "noumenal reality" a few times in correspondence with Colin Hales. Bruno would call the concept "Concrete universe", and rereading your paper, it is not the same as your "u-reality", since you use that to refer to ensembles such as the bitstring ensemble, or all mathematics and so on, which are idealist abstract things. In my book I do say a materialist is someone positing that a concrete reality exists (p159) then note on page 177 that Lockwood distinguishes between physicalism and materialism, with materialism just meaning that supervenience holds (which need not imply the existence of a concrete reality, but does imply the anthropic principle). Note on page 59, I use the term physicalism. To be consistent, I should have used physicalism on p159 - oh dear! > > > > > What I find is that most explanations requiring noumenal reality can > > also be explained by simply assuming the anthropic principle. It is > > possible that the AP suffices to banish white rabbits also. However, > > the AP becomes a little mysterious without noumenal reality, which I > > do discuss at several points in my book. It remains, IMHO, an unsolved > > problem. > > > >> If one takes the description string x (up to > >> some finite limit) as (minimally) representing a universe (and from which > >> OM's are derived), then application of your equivalence class method > >> should > >> solve the WR problem directly (check out my roughly equivalent method at > >> www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm) - this hopefully answers your point > >> above about the origin of our being almost certainly in one of the > >> simplest > >> SAS-supporting universes: the premise can be all logically possible > >> universes (or just 'entities'), some or all of which are representable by > >> description strings (say). > > > > Its been a while since I read your paper, but IIRC it was largely a > > paraphrase of the same argument I put in section 3 of Why Occams Razor. > > Re-reading this section under the interpretation provided in your recent > email (where you talk about phenomenally cohering OM's) convinces me that > you are saying something fundamentally different. Your section 2 is > certainly closer - I previously assumed from other comments that you were > taking it as read that any minimal specification of an OM (eg via a program, > description string etc) would have to implicitly include all the OM's in > that universe - that is the simplicity that a TOE is aiming for. The minimal specification including all OMs in a universe could not be sufficient to specify the OMs completely. There must always be some random component to the complete specification of an OM. > The > 'cohering OM's' are then automatically catered for - they are part of the > same representing description string (or whatever represents them). This > would then coincide with my own approach: the measure is taken over (say) > bit strings minimally representing all possible relevant universes (or just > 'entities', since minimal universe representations are assumed to provide > the simplest representations of normal OM's), and not over 'histories'. > This is measure over birth moments (which is handled by section 4.1). Subsequent moments must also include fairly random additional data - this is dealt with in section 4.2, which indicates that this additional random data is extremely unlikely to be interpreted as miraculous, but rather just interpreted as noise on top of the regularities contained in the birth moment. I note that you have this argument now in your pb01.htm paper, not in pa01.html which is where I remembered it to be. Have you swapped things around? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Alastair Malcolm-2
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Standish" <lists@...> To: <everything-list@...> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 11:33 PM Subject: Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution . . . >> >> If one takes the description string x (up to >> >> some finite limit) as (minimally) representing a universe (and from >> >> which >> >> OM's are derived), then application of your equivalence class method >> >> should >> >> solve the WR problem directly (check out my roughly equivalent method >> >> at >> >> www.physica.freeserve.co.uk/pa01.htm) - this hopefully answers your >> >> point >> >> above about the origin of our being almost certainly in one of the >> >> simplest >> >> SAS-supporting universes: the premise can be all logically possible >> >> universes (or just 'entities'), some or all of which are representable >> >> by >> >> description strings (say). >> > >> > Its been a while since I read your paper, but IIRC it was largely a >> > paraphrase of the same argument I put in section 3 of Why Occams Razor. >> >> Re-reading this section under the interpretation provided in your recent >> email (where you talk about phenomenally cohering OM's) convinces me that >> you are saying something fundamentally different. Your section 2 is >> certainly closer - I previously assumed from other comments that you were >> taking it as read that any minimal specification of an OM (eg via a >> program, >> description string etc) would have to implicitly include all the OM's in >> that universe - that is the simplicity that a TOE is aiming for. > > The minimal specification including all OMs in a universe could not be > sufficient to specify the OMs completely. There must always be some random > component to the complete specification of an OM. Bang goes AI! I can't actually see the necessity for unspecifiable or random-content OM's, but here again I should see if I can unearth an explanation for your above assertion in TON (rememember I am talking about OM occurrences when I refer to OM's - part of my probably erroneous assumptions about your approach). I am guessing there will be some premise somewhere I can't agree with. > >> The >> 'cohering OM's' are then automatically catered for - they are part of the >> same representing description string (or whatever represents them). This >> would then coincide with my own approach: the measure is taken over (say) >> bit strings minimally representing all possible relevant universes (or >> just >> 'entities', since minimal universe representations are assumed to provide >> the simplest representations of normal OM's), and not over 'histories'. >> > > This is measure over birth moments (which is handled by section > 4.1). Subsequent moments must also include fairly random additional > data - this is dealt with in section 4.2, which indicates that this > additional random data is extremely unlikely to be interpreted as > miraculous, but rather just interpreted as noise on top of the > regularities contained in the birth moment. I note that you have this > argument now in your pb01.htm paper, not in pa01.html which is where I > remembered it to be. Have you swapped things around? (Pb01 and Pa01 have never changed substantially; you may be thinking of P105/111/112, no longer available; all of the modules have the same fundamental approach in this area.) This is part of the same mutual misunderstanding I suspect. I say nothing about *interpretation* of data, or rejection of noise in Pb01 (or anywhere else). For me, random data is very unlikely to be *encountered*, since I am most likely to be in an ordered universe. If 'invisibles' were to occur (which the program analogy lends itself more towards), they would stay invisible. At least I can understand a *little* better what you are trying to do, which is why I am more satisfied our approaches are fundamentally different. A final brief point in an attempt to help clarify matters. The failure of induction problem is about the next OM's, fine, but the applicability of the minimal specification of a universe (bit string, axiom set, whatever, and akin to a TOE if such exists) *itself* ensures that there is no failure of induction (in general) - there is nothing special about now, or the next few OM's. Alastair > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@... To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe@... For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- |
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Re: Malcom/Standish white rabbit solution
by Russell Standish-2
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On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 04:19:44PM -0000, Alastair Malcolm wrote: > > > > The minimal specification including all OMs in a universe could not be > > sufficient to specify the OMs completely. There must always be some random > > component to the complete specification of an OM. > > Bang goes AI! I can't actually see the necessity for unspecifiable or > random-content OM's, but here again I should see if I can unearth an > explanation for your above assertion in TON (rememember I am talking about > OM occurrences when I refer to OM's - part of my probably erroneous > assumptions about your approach). I am guessing there will be some premise > somewhere I can't agree with. The simplest way of seeing this is Bruno's UDA, which necessarily implies that OMs have some randomness (subjective indeterminancy). Of course, this argument assumes computationalism, but I believe the UDA also generalises to functionalism, as it mainly depends on the assumption of consciousness surviving the copy operation. In ToN, I also explore the relationship between randomness and creativity in chapter 6. As to your pessimism about AI, I don't share that. It is quite feasible to add sources of quantum randomness to machines, and indeed there is already quite a bit of literature on this subject, mostly for cryptographic applications. > > (Pb01 and Pa01 have never changed substantially; you may be thinking of > P105/111/112, no longer available; all of the modules have the same > fundamental approach in this area.) > > This is part of the same mutual misunderstanding I suspect. I say nothing > about *interpretation* of data, or rejection of noise in Pb01 (or anywhere > else). For me, random data is very unlikely to be *encountered*, since I am > most likely to be in an ordered universe. If 'invisibles' were to occur > (which the program analogy lends itself more towards), they would stay > invisible. > > At least I can understand a *little* better what you are trying to do, which > is why I am more satisfied our approaches are fundamentally different. Fair enough. I don't share the literary scholar's enthusiasm to get positions and differences that occurred in the past correct. All that matters to me are ideas, and if your current position differs from mine, it is interesting to explore that. If I have misrepresented your position circa 1999 in ToN, I apologize for that, but I don't regard this as an important mistake. > > A final brief point in an attempt to help clarify matters. The failure of > induction problem is about the next OM's, fine, but the applicability of the > minimal specification of a universe (bit string, axiom set, whatever, and > akin to a TOE if such exists) *itself* ensures that there is no failure of > induction (in general) - there is nothing special about now, or the next few > OM's. > This only works in deterministic universes. I don't think we live in one. > Alastair > > > > > > -- > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > > Mathematics > > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... > > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder@... Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to |
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