HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: martinm@garond.cray.com (Martin Maiers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Making sense out of Penrose
Date: 11 Nov 92 04:56:44 GMT
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.

> > In article <1992Oct26.200146.967@awdprime.austin.ibm.com>, zazen@hwperform (East Coker) writes:
> > The only way I know of to make sense of Penrose is as follows, as direct
> > belief in quantum gravity consciousness is completely unsupportable, and
> > will remain so for a long long time.
> > [...]
>
>FYI, I am vaguely away of some work by Donah Zohar (spelling?), which
>barks up the same alley.
>
>Any pointers?
>
>Gordon,
                      
I found this book by Danah Zohar in Oxford.
                      ^
Danah Zohar, _The Quantum Self: A Revolutionary View of Human Nature and 
Consciousness Rooted in the New Physics_, 1990, Bloomsbury, London.

Here's a brief synopsis:
	In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modern
	physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life - our
	relationships to ourselves, to others and to the world at large.  The
	upshot is a whole new quantum psychology.  Drawing on the strange and
	fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to give us a new model of
	human consciousness, she addresses enduring philosophical questions.
	Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might
	continue beyond death?  How does the material world (for instance very
	ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self?  Is there a
	subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others,
	and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?  More
	importantly, Danah Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics
	combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and
	replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may
	possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one
	expression.

Hmmm.  "Karma Explained" 8^)
-----
Martin Maiers
Martin.Maiers@cray.com
Cray Research, Inc.
-- 
----------------------------
Martin Maiers              /
CCN User Services         /  "Only being is, non-being can not be."
martinm@carina (x3-3040) /               -Paramenedies
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:01:26 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.114206.3065JPII@tygra.Michigan.COM> dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) writes:
>In article <BxHMy3.tu@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr) writes:
>>the set of phenomena that we perceive to be a cat may or may not
>>correspond to a single noumenon, what I think your calling an
>>"identity."  There is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence
>>between the items on the menu and the items of food, to use your
>>metaphor.  In fact, we don't have any way of finding out a whole hell
>>of a lot about the food and we're better off talking about the menu.
>
>Hmm.  I'm a bit confused.  It seems to me that there are three things
>here.  First, the "noumena" or "identities", the real things.  Second,
>the percepts, our sensations of them.  And third, the words which we
>assign to them.
>
>Now, I had taken the menu to represent the linguistic aspect, the words,
>and the food to represent the real objects in the metaphor above.  But
>then your last sentence ignores the percepts?  Perhaps you interpret the
>metaphor differently, with menu equaling words and food equaling percepts,
>or menu equaling percepts and food equaling "noumena"?  Either of these
>would clear up your argument to an extent, for me.
>
>But I don't want to put words in your mouth.  What did you mean, and do
>you agree with the division of objects, percepts, words?
>

In the above interpretation of the metaphor, I was using only noumena
and phenomena, or what you're calling objects and percepts.  Perhaps
the original poster of the metaphor had your third category, words, in
mind, but I don't really see why such a third category would be
necessary.  It would seem that words would be phenomena.  By
"phenomena" I mean absolutely all perceptions, including "internal"
perception, or apperception.  



-- 
Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
From: system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall)
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 92 11:58:41 NZST
Organization: The Code Works Limited, PO Box 10 155, Auckland, New Zealand

lamorte@netcom.com (R. Scott LaMorte) writes:

> Point taken! Was I was trying to say, though, is that not all
> responses require conscious control. I think our definitions of
I can agree with that. I love reasoned discussion where both sides 
explain their views and reach agreement, or agree on where they 
disagree.
> consciousness are off here (oh no!).
.... which is why it is important to agree on definitions, or you can 
never have an interesting, reasoned argument.

> 
> I think if hit you on the side of the head with, say, a large lead
> pipe, and then propped you up and tapped your knee with a little hammer,
> it would probably kick.

Only in COMP.AI.PHILOSOPHY would people advocate slugging me with large 
lead pipes. [Actually, there are a number of places, but it is not 
usually in the interests of science].

I agree with this [not being slugged, but your "probably"], as does my 
doctor wife who also thinks that I wouldn't kick if you hit me hard 
enough to kill me.

> 
> That wasn't my main point though. My main point was that many reaction
Many????
> occur before our counscious mind has awareness of the stimulus. *I*
> don't have to take the time to think about blinking when you throw
> something at me, that response is hard-wired *in the brain.* "I" only
> become aware of it after the fact.
> 
Yes, but I think you were also suggesting that the brain responds to 
many body responses, whereas I think they are low-level non-conscious 
events only. I just don't see our functions as being mostly "instinct" 
or "hard-wired". I don't think a Venus Fly-trap is conscious or 
thinking when it shuts its leaves. 

In summary, I agree that there are reactions that don't involve the 
brain, but I don't think that these have any significant effect on our 
consciousness that can't be overriden by the brain/mind.

-- 
  Wayne McDougall, BCNU
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel)
Subject: Re: Human vs. Machine
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:13:41 GMT

>In article <1992Oct19.210541.21740@news.media.mit.edu>
>minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>> [...]
>>Why do you assume that the brain is singularly unpredictable, or that
>>there is an fundamental problem is assessing the properties of all the
>>synapses in, say, your brain?  Consider the location of anything so large as a
>>neurotransmitter vesicle.  (In some theories of synaptic thresholds,
>>the number of these is a critical parameter.)  The heisenberg
>>uncertainty of that location is many orders of magnitude smaller than
>>its thermodynamic variance; in effect, Heisenberg uncertainty probably
>>is irrelevant to neurological performance.
>>
>>The thermodynamic chaotic aspect is somewhat more relevant, but there
>>is no reason to assume that it is anywhere nearly so important as the
>>computational complexity aspect of a machine as large as the brain.
>>
>>As a counter to your doctrinaire view, consider the following
>>anthropic hypothesis about why synapses are as huge as they are: in
>>the course of evolution, there were many variations that involved
>>making smaller, less reliable neural circuits that were more affected
>>by quantum, thermal, and chemical chaos.  Those variants were weeded
>>out by non-survival.  What remains is a very stable brain, equipped
>>with huge synapses, micron-diameter small fibers, and very effective
>>blood-brain barriers.  Yes, there have been brains afficted with
>>uncertainty, but evolution disposed of them as they deserved!

Taking the last first, why did brains "...afflicted with uncertainty"
deserve to perish?

It is probably true that each synaptic transmission is so macroscopic
that quantum effects have no significant impact. However, as Minsky
mentions, chaotic effects could play a role in the nerve cell behavior.
Each neuron produces an output in response to the inputs - excitatory and
inhibitory - that it receives. The thresholds for firing are surely variable
from cell to cell, and over time. I can well imagine that the precise
threshold is chaotically controlled over some range, so that a given cell
might fire at one time, and not at another, depending upon chemically
controlled parameters which behave chaotically within narrow ranges.

Does anyone here have any hard data to back up or refute these speculations?

Regards,
       H. Biesel
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
From: system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall)
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 92 01:44:29 NZST
Organization: The Code Works Limited, PO Box 10 155, Auckland, New Zealand

burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:

> >burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
> 
> >> I would say that this persistent sense of identity across
> >> multiple states of being, and even across multiple
> >> personalities, could be explained easily in terms
> >> of an assumed a priori consciousness which has the
> >> capacity of intentional identification with structures
> >> in an individuals mind.
> >> bv
> 
> We're talking about two "persistant states of identity" here, Wayne.
> You're talking about the one that says: Well, here I am now, and
> this is the same I as I remember from ten minutes/two days/three
> years/ ten years, etc. ago.  There is, as you point out, no immediate
> reason to believe this.
> What I'm talking about is the state of identity that says: Here I am
> _now_ and whenever _now_ is, I'm here.  That is, I'm not positing
> any historical qualities with this identity, simply a sense of
> identity qua identity.

I fail to see how you can reconcile "indentity qua identity" with 
"persistent sense of identity across multiple states of being". I 
propose that the latter, by virtue of you applying the persistence to 
it, must have a temporal aspect that can only be drawn from a history 
which you agree we have no evidence as to the reliabiity thereof. It 
seems to me you have changed your tack from "persistent sense" to "here 
I am _now_". Yes the latter has no historical qualities, but neither is 
it "persistent".

All IMO, of course. [Sorry, I don't have humble opinions. Design 
defect].

-- 
  Wayne McDougall, BCNU
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Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6777 sci.philosophy.tech:4070 talk.philosophy.misc:2427
From: Chris Chesher <cchesher@uts.edu.au>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: talk.philosophy.language?
Date: 13 Nov 1992 00:11:48 GMT
Organization: Uni of Technology, Sydney
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: maclab433-29.hum.uts.edu.au
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
X-XXMessage-ID: <A7293E2224038AB3@maclab433-29.hum.uts.edu.au>
X-XXDate: Fri, 13 Nov 92 19:12:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.105428.27398@samba.oit.unc.edu> Rick
Horowitz, Rick.Horowitz@launchpad.unc.edu writes:
>I've not seen enough stuff in the philosophy groups which focuses on
>philosophy of language topics.  I'm wondering about the possibility of 
>getting a group going which would discuss topics in philosophy of
>language, philosophy of linguistics, theories of meaning and truth, 
>including cognitive theories, behaviourist theories, intensional
>theories, issues in pragmatics, speech act theory, reference, naming, 
>...and the works of philosophers like Putnam, Dummett, Davidson,
>Searle, Donnellan, Evans, etc., etc., etc.
>
>Is there interest to justify such a group?  How does one start such a 
>group?  

Sounds good to me...
And let's talk about Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard too!

---------------------------------------------------------
Chris Chesher                         cchesher@uts.edu.au 
University of Technology, Sydney
PO Box 123 Broadway 2007
---------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: rlr@panix.com (Richard L. Rosen)
Subject: Re: The Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:48:05 GMT
Organization: RLRCLC

(I'm walking in in the middle and I hope I don't have the wrong "unexpected
hanging" problem here, but...)

I always thought the resolution to this whole unexpected hanging problem was
based in something no one seemed to be considering.  When the prisoner goes
through his cascading logic that "proves" that it cannot happen on any of the
available days, the system reduces it being equally unlikely (zero likelihood)
that the event will occur on any given day.  (By the same token, it is equally
LIKELY that the event will occur on any given day.)  That is precisely the
condition in which you can have surprise...

The act of proving (by whatever means) that you cannot be surprised leads to a
condition in which you can be.

(Unless, of course, I missed someone offering this analysis, in which case,
never mind...)
-- 
"Digging in the dirt, stay with me I need support		
 Digging in the dirt, find the places I got hurt		Rich Rosen
 Open up the places I got hurt..."				rlr@panix.com
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
From: system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall)
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 07:44:42 NZST
Organization: The Code Works Limited, PO Box 10 155, Auckland, New Zealand

nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes:

> In article <5w1DTB3w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz> system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.n
> >Hmmm. Just a passing comment. If life is based PURELY on chemical 
> >reactions, then home come no one has created life in a test tube yet?
> >I expect your answer will be a form of "have patience". Hmmm....
> 
>       Things are a bit further along than that.  Read the ads in Nature.
> DNA synthesis services are commercially available.  Send in your datafile,
> get DNA back.  Get suitable files of existing viruses, etc. via the Internet.
> Desktop DNA synthesizers are available for under $20,000.  These interface
> to PCs.  So far, you can only synthesize a few hundred base pairs before
> errors creep in, but the technology is improving.
> 
>       All-new custom-designed enzymes Real Soon Now, apparently.  CAD
> tools are becoming available. 
> 
>      This is true direct synthesis, not "recombinant DNA" work.  
> Plants and animals have already had their genomes deliberately altered
> in controlled ways, but this is modifying life, not direct synthesis.
> Direct synthesis is still very limited, but it is into the range of
> complexity that, just barely, can be called "life".
> 
> 					John Nagle

Are you saying that for $20,000 (US, sob), I can design my own virii??

Someone should have told Saddam.

Keeping to the group topic....:

Why waste time on machine AI. Lets jsut design our own DNA to have 
super efficient large brains. (If only we knew how to make brains more 
efficient. Sigh.)

-- 
  Wayne McDougall, BCNU
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: avrom@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Avrom Faderman)
Subject: Re: Human Intelligence vs. Machine Intelligence
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:40:28 GMT

Sorry not to quote, but I have lost the original articles.  There has been 
a lot of talk in the group about Godel's theorem recently, and, in particular, 
about whether certain sentences qualify as "Godel sentences for the human 
mind."  One in particular is the Quine sentence, "Diagonalizing 'diagonal-
izing X yields a sentence that [the person whose incompleteness we are 
trying to demonstrate] cannot consistently believe' yields a sentence that 
[the person whose incompleteness we are trying to demonstrate] cannot 
consistently believe."

Some people have argued that this sentence does not do the trick.  If, 
they have said, we view the kernel as just a string of words, we must 
view the resultant sentence just as a string of words, and strings of 
words aren't really _believed_ by anybody (rather, the propositions that 
they express are).  On the other hand, if we regard the kernel as having 
a content, the whole sentence is about its own content, and is therefore 
meaningless.

Well...

Consider the Godel sentence for a formal system.  This sentence, on one 
level, merely talks about a particular integer, and so poses no problem 
for the system.  Of course, the real trick in Godel's theorem is viewing 
the kernel of the Godel sentence as an expression in the language of 
the formal system rather than as a "mere" integer.  After all, every 
natural number corresponds to a sentence.

Don't be surprised, however, if the formal system in question retorts:
"Hmph.  You can't slip back and forth between these two levels.  Do 
you want to look at the sentence as being about a mere integer, or 
even about the syntactic properties of some string of words?  If so, 
it places no limits on what I can believe;  I believe _propositions_, 
not strings.  If, however, you want to regard it as about the _content_ 
of some sentence, you're in trouble, for the sentence to whose content 
it is referring is itself, and therefore it's meaningless!"

In fact, I think we have recently seen some formal systems say just that.


-- 
Avrom I. Faderman                  |  "...a sufferer is not one who hands
avrom@csli.stanford.edu            |    you his suffering, that you may 
Stanford University                |    touch it, weigh it, bite it like a
CSLI and Dept. of Philosophy       |    coin..."  -Stanislaw Lem
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: talk.philosophy.language?
Date: 13 Nov 92 04:54:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov12.235431.17400
Distribution: world
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1durs4INN9hl@sequoia.ccsd.uts.EDU.AU> 
Chris Chesher <cchesher@uts.edu.au> writes:

>In article <1992Nov7.105428.27398@samba.oit.unc.edu> Rick
>Horowitz, Rick.Horowitz@launchpad.unc.edu writes:

RH:
>>I've not seen enough stuff in the philosophy groups which focuses on
>>philosophy of language topics.  I'm wondering about the possibility of 
>>getting a group going which would discuss topics in philosophy of
>>language, philosophy of linguistics, theories of meaning and truth, 
>>including cognitive theories, behaviourist theories, intensional
>>theories, issues in pragmatics, speech act theory, reference, naming, 
>>...and the works of philosophers like Putnam, Dummett, Davidson,
>>Searle, Donnellan, Evans, etc., etc., etc.
>>
>>Is there interest to justify such a group?  How does one start such a 
>>group?  

CC:
>Sounds good to me...
>And let's talk about Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard too!

Certainly not if the group is created in the sci hierarchy, as per the
modified proposal.  At this time, the proper venue for any discussion
of the above is alt.postmodern.  If you are confident of the objective
value possessed by your claim to epistemic entitlement, which would
appear to be wholly incompatible with any sort of allegiance to the
unholy trio, then by all means feel free to cross-post in a more
reputable venue.

>---------------------------------------------------------
>Chris Chesher                         cchesher@uts.edu.au 
>University of Technology, Sydney
>PO Box 123 Broadway 2007
>---------------------------------------------------------

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
" -- I shall speak bluntly, because life is short."
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:44:54 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1992Nov10.020502.116627@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

>*Was* evolution capable of producing a brain which could faithfully remember
>every experience presented to it?  Maybe it's still working on it.  Note
>that some people have better memories than others, and that having a better
>memory is in general an advantage.  Evolution is generally a messy process;
>it does not tend to produce perfection.

Some people do have absolutely perfect recall of every detail. One of
Luria's books contains a study of this. These people found their
condition more of a problem than an advantage.

-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: marky@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young)
Subject: Re: The Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:00:42 GMT

%r vender@plains.NoDak.edu (Does it matter?)
>Just a note in passing:  The statements
>    B: "A always lies"
>    A: "I am telling a lie"
>result in an unresolvable problem, quite similar to a halting problem.

The problem of A's statement (B's statement being irrelevent) is _not_
that it has no resolution, but that it has too many.

There are (at least) two ways that someone can say X when (not X) is the
way things are:

    1) they can be lying--saying something they believe to be false; or
    2) they can be mistaken--believing what they say is true.

There is also the chance that the speaker is merely insincere--saying
something they do not believe to be true, without actually believing
that it is false, either.

So:

If A believes that A is lying, then A's statement is true, so A is
    mistaken.
If A believes that A is not lying, then A's statement is false, so
    A is again mistaken.

If A has no idea whether A is lying, then A's statement is insincere,
    and so false (unless insincere statements are lies, in which case
    it's true).

If A has reasoned this all out, then A knows that none of the above
    three states are stable, and so the statement must be paradoxical.  
    Therefore, the only reason for A to make this statement is to mess
    around with other people's minds.

We now have four ways to understand A's statement.  Which one we choose
will depend on what we think of A's reasoning powers.

...mark young

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 01:43:25 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <sX2FTB2w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz> system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall) writes:
>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>Although there are all sorts of interesting experiments such as where
>rats learn a maze significantly faster when fed the ground up brains of 
>rats that have already learnt that same maze.

This experiement used worms, not rats.  And it has been debunked; the worms
were actually following olfactory clues.
From: iordonez@academ01.mty.itesm.mx (Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: A linguistical reformulation of the problem of consciousness
Date: 9 Nov 92 23:31:06 GMT

Everything in the Universe is in third person (that, it, there, etc).
Everything but a very little part, that is in the first person, I. What
makes the difference? What makes a part of the universe become a first
person? Explain it in terms of third persons alone.

In other words, Why am I?

--Ivan Ordonez

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy