Re: 'Multiverse Theory' - Universe is a Virtual Reality Matrix
From: Torbj?rn Larsson (070-3993938_at_comhem.se)
Date: 07/28/04
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Date: 28 Jul 2004 11:19:33 -0700
dralexgreen@yahoo.co.uk (Alex Green) wrote in message news:<42c8441.0407280149.6138c7fc@posting.google.com>...
> "Jaxtraw" <jaxtraw@nospamnobigfoot.com> wrote in message news:<1090944134.14321.0@echo.uk.clara.net>...
> > "Alex Green" <dralexgreen@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:42c8441.0407270645.21edcfd9@posting.google.com...
> > > "Jaxtraw" <jaxtraw@nospamnobigfoot.com> wrote in message
Being absent a while, I see that Jaxtraw has argued much as I myself
believe.
> > We do? I find my poor brain can only deal with one thing at a time.
>
> This is not true, much of your brain is an elegant parallel processor.
While this is a minor point: it's true that many (information)
processing tasks are paralllell, however we are discussing the
metaprocess of consciousness. It has been recently shown that
consciousness is a serial process. I can't remember the name of the
paper right now, but they show that as we try to 'multi-task' faster
and faster the response time increases because we devote more
percentage of time for task-switching. (Yes, just like a computer
would!)
> > That's not to say that my nervous system *as a whole*
> > cannot accept large number of inputs, nor to deny the fact that I can walk
> > and do math simultaneously. But I'm not *aware* of all those inputs, and
> > walking is handled by some subsystem well below the conscious level. The
> > conscious bit of my brain seems really rather limited, unaware of most of
> > what is occurring, blissfully unaware of why I reach the decisions I do (hey
> > I want a ham sandwich, though why I like ham and not tomatoes I have no
> > idea).
>
> Again this seems to be naive realism (see:
> http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~lka/strongai.htm )
> things like doing math are trivial compared with the main business of
> the brain which is 'conscious experience'. Conscious experience is
I really don't understand why this point is raised again and again,
when we manifestly are discussing processes inside the body.
> You state that "consciousness is a phenomenological observation of the
> behaviour of a system". I disagree. There is excellent evidence that
This should be equivalent to the process of modelling consciousness, a
behaviour that we do with or own and others. I think this is well
established.
> the brain operates an information system that combines data from the
> senses, or from the modelling activity of dreams etc. This activity
Agreed.
> can be monitored using fMRI etc. and the areas of brain involved in
> binocular fusion, for instance, can be located. However, at some stage
> the information processing has done its work and created the data set
> that is the content of conscious experience. Conscious experience IS
> this conjoint set of data itself, not an observation OF it or further
> processing of it.
This seem to say that conscious experience is merely a snapshot of a
wast data set. Again the dust picture?
> > The system which exhibits conscious behaviour *is* so constructed
> > of course, but neither of us are arguing that a real physical brain can exist
> > inside a computer. We are discussing whether two different substrates
> > (brain, silicon) can exhibit the same behaviour.
Or if my brain can feel something like your brain; or if any
hypothetical aliens can have consciousness (after all, it's highly
unlikely if their brains will be exactly like ours); or if a brain
damage automatically means that the consciousness disappears.
> > > Incidently, this 'state' is not a simple 3D array, it is one sided and
> > > corresponds to a set of vectors pointing at an observation point.
> >
> > Please present evidence for this statement.
>
> Conscious experience has a bizarre geometry. Most people believe that
...
> But having been modelled how do they become the field of things in
> conscious experience? What is the geometry of the perceptual field or
> the field within a dream? It has spherical symmetry, things occur
> simultaneously, things have a "sidedness" and things are directed at a
> fictitious "point eye" or observation point that contains nothing.
> This geometry is quite unlike a 3D arrangement in space, it is more
> like a 4D 'view'. See:
>
> http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~lka/conz.htm for a discussion.
Due to time constraints I must confess to merely been browsing this
web-site. It looks to be an argument where an inner view is supposed
to be a (faithful?) geometry. My view (sic!) is that this is a model
of memories or arguments that the brain is set up to perform (since
most of us are sight-oriented). It is well-known that some
mathematicians are quite unable to 'see' their objects in their inner
view, but are depending on more formal (language-oriented) reasoning.
(More power to them!) I would guess that people born blind have a
quite different view of their inner 'view'.
> state in the state of an information system loses its geometrical form
> because information systems transfer state data, not geometrical
> states themselves. It is this feature of information systems that
> would prevent them from containing conscious experience.
There is nothing that blocks the state data from encrypting geometric
information (geometric states); in fact they must do so with enough
resolution to show the geometry of things.
> Incidently, an information system that carried perfect copies of the
> geometrical state of things would be a replication of the things.
No, there is more to things than geometry; the feeling of weight for
example.
Also, I don't understand the explanation of problem of simultaneity:
"> What I gather the author doesn't
> understand the concept of process, but are mapping a mental 'state' to
> for example static or moving dust patterns.
The author fully understands this. The author also understands the
problem of simultaneity (see below)."
...
"Information is simply a state that encodes another state (eg: a
succession of bits encoding a temperature). A problem arises when
information encodes position/extent data because, at any instant a bit
stream does not contain the position/extent data. Position and extent
can only be encoded accurrately at an instant by constructing a
replication rather than a simulation."
But this is no problem, since the the data stream of course encodes
the position et cetera data if needed and you can both operate
immediately on this or construct a (simulated) replica as you suggest
and I discuss above.
In fact, I think the view of the brain as something special and
different and magic, not just complex, going on is fun since it seem
to rise just the inner homunculus that the argument seemingly want to
kill.
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