Posted by alexandra_k on November 15, 2005, at 18:38:38
In reply to Re: your banishment » alexandra_k, posted by lil' jimi on November 8, 2005, at 1:31:34
Hey there.
We will have to catch up in a couple weeks - assuming we can co-ordinate our blocks ;-)I actually think... That while it can be hard at times... It is worthwhile to try and understand the reasons for the PBC's / blocks and try and follow the guidelines because... Unless one only wants to talk to people who agree with ones own way of thinking... One has to learn to express oneself in a way that has people listening to what one has to say and following along (though they may still disagree) and engaging in dialogue - which they won't if they feel they are being attacked.
Re-phrasings can be a bit tricky...
But I think it is worth taking the time...Hmm.
I have to learn to get better at that myself...
Anyway...
> ... i read the excerpt from "Freedom Evolves" ...
> ... totally beyond my mistaken expectations ...
> ... Thanks ...:-)
But he hasn't even got started yet! You might really like what he has to say about Conway's life game. Are you familiar with that? The notion is... That you 'digitalise' space by turning it into little pixels (like a square of math paper). Each pixel is either 'on' or 'off'. Time is similarly discrete and progresses fowards in instants. There is one law of physics in the life world... I do believe it is... If 3 adjacent 'pixels' are 'on' then in the next instant the 'pixel' will be 'on' otherwise the 'pixel will be 'off'.
(If less than 2 adjacent 'pixels' are 'on' then in the next instant the 'pixel' will be off - you can think of it as dying of lonliness if you like. If more than 3 adjacent 'pixels' are 'on' then in the next instant the 'pixel' will be off - you can think of it as dying of overcrowding if you like).
[okay i checked... its a tiny bit more complicated: 2 or 3 and its on]
So... You start with a distribution of cells. And using the one law of physics in the life world... You can predict the state of the lifeworld for every instant into the future with 100% accuracy. Laplace's vision of determinism...
What is interesting...
Is that certain configurations or distributions of cells behave in different ways. Three cells in a horizontal line will become three cells in a vertical line will become three cells in a horizontal line back and forth as a 'flasher' indefinately (provided that nothing encroaches). Four cells in a square will remain that way forever (provided that nothing encroaches).
Dennett says... Encroachment is: 'what makes life interesting'.
You get some configurations (or 'objects') that move...
There are 'gliders' which take strokes horizontally across the life plane (for example). There are 'eaters' which encroach on other configurations and engulf them. The ontology of 'gliders' 'eaters' etc is an emergent ontology to what Dennett calls the 'design stance level'. The very notion of 'moving through space' is an emergent ontology to the design stance level.From the physical level... All there are are cells. And cells don't move through life-world space, they stay right where they are though can turn 'on' or 'off'. The behaviour of the cells can be predicted with 100% accuracy...
From the emergent design level... There is an ontology of 'gliders' and 'eaters' and 'movement of an object through space'. Their behaviour can be predicted fairly reliably by saying things like:
'An eater can eat a glider in three steps. In the first step a bridge forms between the eater and the prey. In the second step both the eater and glider collide with the bridge. In the third stage the eater recovers and the prey does not.'
But all this is PROVIDED THAT... Nothing else encroaches. So... The predictive leverage we have at the design stance level is less than the predictive leverage we have at the physical stance level (because of the PROVIDED THAT clause). But... The notion is... That our predictions are more computationally tractible. Imagine how much you would have to compute to express the above design stance prediction from the level of physics... (It is controversial but I actually don't think the translation is possible because design stance ontology cannot be translated into physical stance ontology).
People do work (or perhaps play) trying to build various configurations of objects in the life world...
Trying to build self-replicating configurations (has been done).
Trying to build universal turing machines (which can compute any computable function) in the life world (has been proven that it is possible - by Turing I think).So... It would be possible to build a chess playing computer in the life world!
:-)
Of course... It has been estimatedt that you would need a life world on the order of billions and billions and billions of pixels square... But it is possible in principle...
:-)
What I find most interesting in the notion of self-replicating life configurations. Also... Mutating self-replicating life configurations (which is very much harder). Also... Trying to build 'protective' configurations that are less vulnerable to 'engulfment' or other 'harm'. The trade off between defence, and mobility...
Etc etc...Some people think... The life world is a model of conditions in the actual world... When we go back to considering the molecular soup that was the origin of cells etc...
:-)
Anyway... Something to think about.
If you find yourself getting bored...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
> anyway, my studies (glacial as they go) now include "intentionality"Okay... Intentional states just are mental states like belief and desire and hope and fear etc etc that are states that are ABOUT something other than themselves (are ABOUT states of affairs in the external world, or are ABOUT other mental states). What is most interesting about intentionality... (IMO) is how the intentional stance relates to the design stance and how the design stance relates to the physical stance and hence how the intentional stance (and the ontology of beliefs and desires etc) relates to the laws of physics and the ontology of physics (where there is mass and charge etc).
> and "compatabilism" ...
Compatabilism (with respect to free will) is just the thought that...
IF determinism was true (as it is in the life world on the physical level)
THEN we can still have free will.To be a compatabilist you don't have to say that the actual world really is determined on the physical level (the way the life world is). You might think determinism is false... You might say that the actual world is irreducibly indeterminate on the physical level...
What makes you a compatabilist is the thought that IF determinism was true... Then that wouldn't rule out free will.Dennett.... Is of course interested in showing how 'free will' is emergent to the intentional stance. In the same way that 'eaters' and 'gliders' are emergent to the design stance. Thus... He wants to show... How there can be free will in the life world.
> my interests focus on the intersection of neuroscientific studies of consciousness (like libet's "mind time: the temporal factor in consciousness"; restak's "modular brain"; rita carter's "exploring consciousness"); penrose's mathematical realism; the ontology of quantum theory; and mahayana buddhism ...
:-)
I'm a fan of Libet's 'backwards referral in time' experiments. Though I'll admit... I've only read of them in Dennett's "Consciousness Explained". Hmm.. Modular Brain... Closest I've come to that would be Jerry Fodor's "Modularity of Mind". Those are interesting to me... But I haven't read them...> for instance, in oliver sacks' "the man who mistook his wife for a hat",
:-)
I remember learning about that in my Cognitive Psychology course.> sacks tells of sub-60s IQ savant twins who, as casual spor,t exchanged progressively larger numbers with some pleasure ... sacks discovers these 6 or 7 digit (i forget how many digits exactly numbers are all prime ... (i can't find my copy of sacks' right now; maybe they were 9 digit primes)
Yeah, I remember that :-)
> ... it is as if they were plucking them from some platonic reality they had access to ...
Hmm... Or crunching numbers really really fast. Kind of like... How computers do ;-)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:558860
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050924/msgs/579062.html