Numbers are not needed for anchoring. We could arrange the probabilities of the truth of statements into partially ordered sets. This po set can even include statements about the probabilistic relation between statements.
Well, we should be careful to avoid the barbers paradox though... things like x = {x is more likely then y} are a bad idea
I think it would be better to avoid just making up numbers until we absolutely have to, we actually find our selves playing a lottery for the continued existence of Earth, or there is some numerical process grounded in ...
i also consider morality to be about cooperation... in this sense moral progress predates humanity specifically i consider the evolution of multicellular life to be an example of moral progress
The problem with taking physics as fundamental and working up from there is that it forces us to make a lot of assumptions about the nature of the hardware that underlies reality, which are not supported by observation.
I say this because in order to make an observation we have to describe the observation in terms of the hardware in the form that we assume it has. We can claim to observe the sun rising in the east or the number of atoms in a box, but these are actually judgment about our observations and these judgments are formulated in terms of the hardw...
Brains, as far as we currently understand them, are not digital. For a neuron fire / not fire is digital, but there is a lot of information involved in determining weather or not a neuron fires. A leaky integrator is a reasonable rough approximation to a neuron and is continuous.
I think an important thing to consider with this change of basis is that fourier modes are the eigenvectors of translation. As such any linear operation which commutes with translation will also have fourier modes as eigenvectors. As long as the laws of physics are expressed in such a way that they do not work differently in different places, they will treat fourier modes independently.
"To suppose that physics contains a basic account of "observation" is like supposing that physics contains a basic account of being Republican. It projects a complex, intricate, high-order biological cognition onto fundamental physics. It sounds like a simple theory to humans, but it's not simple."
This seems to be arguing in favor of epiphenominalism, but you just spent pages and pages arguing against it. what gives?
I don't think it is reasonable to expect to find anything about phenomena in quantum physics, but that does not mean it ...
Since our judgments about the universe come from subjective experience. The mystery we should be considering is not how consciousness arises from an arrangement of atoms and weather or not it effects those atoms, but rather why our experiences are consistent.
We may conclude from the consistency of our experiences that there is some sort of substance which is maintaining that consistency, and that this substance some how operates independently of our experiences, and that what specific experiences we have depends on this substance.
This sounds like epipheno...
I would rather say that the observable consequences of the heat like nature of the universe are already included in the observable consequences of the kinematic like nature of the universe, so heat is redundent in this sence, though still a useful idea.
Relying on the potential existence of an Idealized Omniscient Science Interpreter feels a bit too much like divine revelation for my taste. The difference is rather then saying "Aha! This is what has actually been happening all along." I would say "Aha! This more accurately fits my observations."
"The order of inference exists in your map, not in the territory."
I agree completely. I would however say that "atoms" and "lightning" as concepts must categorically be part of a map, not part of the territory. There is something atom like about the territory in so far as the consequence of atoms in our maps is consistent with our experiences which come from the territory, but the similarity ends there. I would not be willing to conclude from this that the territory actually implements atoms in the same way that they are implemented in our maps, and i think to do so would be a mind projection fallacy. As such i doubt that atoms as we understand them are actually part of the territory.
Ben Jones. I am not arguing against reductionism. I am arguing in favor of reductionism. My point is that fundamental particles are not the deepest level we can reduce to.
Latanius. I did not mean that my experience is in some way special, but rather that if you start with a model that does not involve observers, i do not think you will be able to derive the existence of an observer, even if you can predict their behavior with some accuracy. You might, for example, predict that an ai will act in a manner that we would recognize as angry, but you wi
I think the zombie world is a valid thing to consider, but the only way you could say something about the zombie world is to consider what you would see if you were there, and then it would not be a zombie world anymore. Perhaps a more useful zombieish world to consider is one in which there are only zombies except for one epiphenomenal ghost: you.
"So you're denying that the 'subjective' is a subset of the 'objective', categorically?" I am not exactly sure what you mean here.
My understanding of 'subjective' and 'objective' is as follows. I see an image and simultaneously hear a sound. Immediately i recognize that three experiences are occurring: seeing, hearing, and the integration of the two into a third experience, which is aware of the other two. I also have experiences of recognizing other experiences as being more or less similar to eachother.
I would define subjective entities as s...
In peaceful moments when my mind is clear i become aware of my own experience and the passage of time independent of what my specific experience is at that moment.
I consider this to be a religious experience.
Also, it seems to be the only thing about me that is consistent over time. Certainly I do not now think the same way I did when I was 10 years old, nor do i look the same, or want the same things. My memory connects me more to that 10 year old then other people, but even my memories are suspect.
Through my empathy i can recognize that the experiences o...
I don't think it is reasonable to say the laws of physics are part of the territory. The territory, or at least the closest we can get to it, is our direct experience. Any physical model is a map of the territory that we have created from our experience, some may be more accurate then others, but all are still maps. Scientists didn't get rid of the haunts and gnomes any more then relativity got rid of Newtonian physics. It just described them more accurately. There is a real difference, though, between these models beyond accuracy, and that is weather...
Anchovies have to die to make anchovy pizza, so depending on who you talk to it might still be immoral to eat anchovy pizza even if you want to.
There is not always a clear cut case that is best for every one, and part of morality is weighing the wants and needs of one being verses another in such cases.
morality is another one of those things that is true in the sense of consensus, which is a different meaning of truth from mathematical truth, or physical truth.
In the prisoners dilemma it is always advantageous to speak when the other player's action is fix... (read more)