With Pascal’s wager, it seems better to act as though God exists, praying daily, attending church, etc. — Katiee

Ah, but Pascal picked one of the few options where acts (deeds) don't get you the prize. Jesus paid the price for all that, so true (not feigned) belief is enough. Kind of gives one an open license to sin or at least to not bother with any of the public acts mentioned above.

The wager is a pretty shallow and ineffective idea. For a start, what if Allah is real and you are praying to Yahweh? Or what if Brahma is god but you're banking on Jesus? — Tom Storm

I think Pascal would have thought of that. It indicates to me that he actually already held a true belief in one particular choice (probably the one of his local culture), and the wager was put out there as a way to justify this belief despite the lack of it being a rational choice. So the wager is a rationalization of that actually held irrational belief.

I can't prove that, but if it isn't true, then why are not all the other belief options (FSM? Too early for that) considered?

Minkowski coordinates measure the interval between events as
√() .
— noAxioms

c=1? — jgill

Thanks for pointing that out, since what I quoted was the normalized version. The square root doesn't really belong there either. The less normalized version is:
s² = (ct)² - x² - y² - z²

When you overwrite memory locations on a DVD, it will happen at a different time, to when the previous data was placed there. — universeness

That's right. Imagine the DVD is a digital copy of your wedding video made in 2005 and overwritten by a spongebob episode by your kids in 2020. So given that the existence of the '0' on a certain spot has a different time coordinate (events from 2005 to 2020) than when it has the 1 on it (2020+). Since those events have different time coordinates, none of them overlap and no event was overwritten.

The older data no longer exists in those locations, it has been overwritten, yes?

No. The wedding video still exists from 2005 to 2020. That 15 year worldline cannot be overwritten. Mind you, there are movies depicting such an overwrite where Marty McFly overwrites his loser family with a less loser one, except for himself. That's an example of overwriting of events, but it's fiction and physically impossible.

Why would real space locations act any differently?

I'm talking about spacetime locations (events), not spatial location.

I put a carton of milk in my fridge and that location becomes part of it's worldline, yes?

No. Points in spacetime are events, not locations. The difference is 4 coordinates for an event vs 3 coordinates for a location.

It seems to me that you are simply saying, that when I throw the carton in the bin, the space it occupied in the fridge, still exists, and by making such a trivial observation, you say worldlines never cease to exist.

No, I'm saying that you were present at your birth, and nobody else can ever be present at your birth, that is, to be exactly were you were and not just absurdly close by like presumably your mother. Some other person can be present at that spatial location (like the cleaning guy 30 minutes later), but that's a different event with different coordinates, not an overwrite of your birth event which has an earlier time coordinate.

To me, that's like saying spacetime will never cease to exist.

Spacetime isn't contained by time, so it would be meaningless to talk about it coming into or going out of existence. Spacetime contains time, and there isn't a special moment that is the present (presentism). Einstein's (and Minkowski's) theories do not posit such a thing. Lorentz did, but a generalized theory of a universe contained by time was never published until this century. Spacetime is denied in it, as are black holes and the big bang, all replaced by other things with similar properties, testable only with fatal tests.

So no, if time and space are just different dimensions to be treated equally, then just like other places don't cease to exist relative to what you consider to be 'here', other times don't cease to exist relative to what you consider to be 'now'. So absent presentism, at no time in history do other times not exist. If only one time existed, that would be presentism.

I use the term 'overwrite,' to indicate, that the suggestion that space 'memorialises' every event that has ever occupied spacetime coordinates, is fanciful.

Events don't occupy coordinates. Events are objective: the state of affairs at an event is the same regardless of frame choice or point of view. The coordinates assigned to that event however are entirely abstract and dependent on the coordinate system of choice. So I find it backwards to assign events to coordinates rather than the other way around.

When we look at a star, we know that image no longer exists.

True only under presentism. Relativity theory isn't a presentist theory. Strictly speaking, the image very much does exist since you're viewing it. But a presentist would say that the star (or your friend in the next seat for that matter) is no longer in the state that you perceive.

What I describe as a worldline ... — universeness

Ive been trying to figure out if what you describe as a worldline is the same thing that say Minkowski would call a worldline.

The path an object takes [through spacetime] from its beginning to its end can be called a worldline.

Yes, with my addition inserted.

So, basically any path though spacetime is a worldline, and many objects can take the same path.

Maybe a pair of photons can do this, but I can't think of anything with proper mass that can. It would require the two objects to be at the same place at the same time. So no overwrites.

An object is present at every event on its worldline. It doesn't occupy just one location like a path through space. Yes, with a path through space, one can move to a different location and a different object can be at the location where you no longer are, but that doesn't work with worldlines. It is impossible (by definition) for an object not to be present anywhere on its worldline, hence its existence in spacetime.

and as I suggested, many objects pass the same points in space

Yes, but Minkowski was not talking about points in space when describing worldlines.
BTW, he didn't invent worldlines. They've been around since the block universe had been proposed centuries earlier. Minkowski just changed the mathematics from essentially Euclidean transformations to Lorentz transformations. Euclidean coordinates measure the distance between events as √(t²+x²+y²+z²) while Minkowski coordinates measure the interval between events as √(t²-x²-y²-z²) .
The old Euclidean mathematics (used also by Newton) also did not have a notion of this 'overwrite'. An event is objective, and the state of affairs at that event is exactly one state, regardless of what goes on elsewhere in the spacetime.

All this stuff is covered in the notion of Minkowski space

Yes, but your description of Minkowskian spacetime in incorrect. You seem to be mixing 'space' and 'spacetime'. The state of a location in space changes over time, but an event in spacetime includes a time coordinate, and thus any time after that is a different event, not an overwrite of the first event in question.

But that's what makes the 'worldline' nothing more than a 'perception of a container of overwritable events.' — universeness

No idea what you're talking about. I made no mention of perceptions, and I have no idea what an 'overwritable event' might be.

So every physical 3D coordinate, which represents all the places where an electron (for example) existed can be involved in the 'worldline' of many, many other electrons, many many times.

A point in space is an abstract worldline itself, and yes, it can intersect the worldlines of physical things. I hate to use an electron as the example since it isn't classic and hasn't a classical worldline like say a potato, but then a potato at a given moment doesn't occupy a single point in space either. It has a wider worldline.

The container called spacetime continues to expand and 'worldlines' are being constantly 'overwritten.'

Again the 'overwritten' term. I have no idea what you mean by that. It makes it sound like worldlines change, which they don't.
And no, spacetime doesn't expand. Space does, but not spacetime.

So unless spacetime is also 'infinitely(or has a a great number of) Layer(ed)(s),'[/quote]Again, don't know what you mean by 'layers' here. We seem to be talking past each other. Yes, one can slice spacetime into as many slices (layers if that's what you mean), and they can be timelike or spacelike slices, but that doesn't change anything objectively. Events are objective (not frame dependent) and the state of affairs at an event is what it is and can neither cease to exist, be overwritten, or otherwise change.

sleep paralysis is an aspect that affects consciousness, and emergence is an aspect of consciousness, so there are lot's of valid side paths on a thread titled emergent.

It affects my consciousness in the sense of the definition "conscious vs unconscious, or awake/asleep". I suppose that waking up in the morning qualifies as consciousness emerging, but I didn't think that's what you meant by the thread title.

Well, firstly, I just mean that a 'worldline' is a scientific term, invented by a scientist.
From Wiki:
The world line (or worldline) of an object is the path that an object traces in 4-dimensional spacetime. — universeness

Yes, exactly that. Same thing, different wording. Spacetime doesn’t cease to exist, so a line traced through it isn’t something that goes away.

Secondly, What is the worldline of a quantum fluctuation?

One fluctuation (the creation and destruction of a virtual particle pair say) has a very short worldline.

When such 'quantum existents' pop in and out of existence 'continuously,' then how can you claim that 'once existing, it can't cease to exist?

I didn’t claim any particular virtual particle existed. To say so is usually a counterfactual statement, and not being a realist, I don’t hold to the principle of counterfactual definiteness. Sure, the cumulative effect of all fluctuations is definitely measurable, but that effect doesn’t define a worldline of any specific thing.

turned out to be the effects of the more extreme cases of sleep paralysis. — universeness

I’m not familiar with extreme cases. Don’t think mine is all that bad. It’s hard to describe. It’s definitely a mental sort of switch that turns off your motor control while asleep. If you have a defective switch stuck in the on-position, you sleepwalk and such. Mine gets stuck in the off position when its supposed to come on when I wake. You can mentally expend some serious effort to break the barrier in place but it’s hard to do and takes multiple attempts sort of like taking a battering ram to the castle door.
And yes, I’ve done a bit of involuntary sleepwalking. My childhood bedroom faced in the direction of one neighbor whose garage caught fire spectacularly. I was pulled out of bed by my parents and set at the window to watch the show, fire, loud trucks and flashing lights. Don’t remember a dang thing about it. I apparently never woke up, but I found my way back to bed apparently. The description above is all ‘so I’m told’, but the garage was indeed gone the next day. Maybe I was awakened enough for the motor control, but not enough to engage the long-term memory shunt that usually only operates during waking hours. So that’s a second switch that has to go on and off, and it very much didn’t that time.
I pay attention to brain stuff, trying to learn from it. I definitely have two parts that communicate to each other and I can feel the one trying to raise the attention of the other sometimes. One thinks much faster than the other and is amazing at calculus. The other one is slow and does calculus with digits and paper and such, and it’s the slow one that gets the education in school.

I think we’re getting off topic, no? Just chatting at this point.

I’d have said that a planet may have a temporally limited worldline, but that worldline cannot cease to exist
— noAxioms
What is the function of your worldline after you no longer exist? — universeness

Don't understand. As I said, once existing (as I define it), it can't cease to exist. One cannot unmeasure something. That said, a worldline is a set of events at which the thing in question is present, and I don't think it is meaningful to ask about the purpose of a set of events.

As for what function something serves to someone in its future, that all depends on what the (presumably future) person (I presume its a person) finds useful in the knowledge of the thing in his past. Most likely it's only a statistic. There were X many people at time T. I contribute to X.

All quite possible but I still see no benefit to a future AGI/ASI to making organic life such as its human creators extinct.

Agree. It would likely regret it (an emotion!) later if it did, but there are a lot of species and it's unclear how much effort it will find worthwhile to expend preventing all their extinctions. The current estimate is about 85% of species will not survive the Holocene extinction event.

Is ‘covet’ an emotion?
— noAxioms
Sure, its a 'want,' a 'need,' but such can be for reasons not fully based on logic. I want it because its aesthetically pleasing or because I think it may have important value in the future but I don't know why yet.

Both can be logical reasons. Wanting things that are pleasing is a logical thing to do, as is taking steps to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.
I do agree that the word 'covet' has a tone of not being fully rational.

I still don't think tree's are self-aware or conscious.

It's a matter of definition. It senses and reacts to its environment. That's conscious in my book. If you go to the other extreme and define 'conscious' as 'experiences the world exactly like I do', then almost nothing is, to the point of solipsism.

Rupert Sheldrake claims he has 'hundreds of memorialised cases,' performed under strict scientific conditions, that prove dogs are telepathic. They know when their owner is in their way home, for example, when they are still miles away from the property. He says this occurs mostly, when dog and owner have a 'close' relationship.

Well there you go. Has it been reproduced? Struct scientific conditions does not include anecdotal evidence.
I do know that my Aunt had a bird that would go nuts when our family came to visit, detecting our presence about 3-4 minutes before our car pulled in. I don't think that was telepathy.

Sorry to hear that.

I'm overjoyed actually. I missed a really scary bullet and came out of it with no severe damage. Just annoying stuff.

Jimmy Snow, (a well known atheist, who runs various call-in shows on YouTube based on his 'The Line' venture.) has also suffered from sleep paralysis and cites it as one of those conditions that could act as a possible reason, why some people experience 'visions' of angels and/or demons and think that gods are real.

That sounds weird. Mine is nothing like that. I wake up and am aware of the room, but I cannot move. I can alter my breathing a bit, and my wife picks up on that if she's nearby and rubs my spine which snaps me right out of it.
It comes and goes in waves. Been a few months now, but sometimes it happens regularly. I always woke up paralyzed after one of those nightmares, but that's been a long time. I even had physical symbols in my dreams that would trigger the state from what was a normal dream. My feared object was, of all stupid things, a portable flood light, the sort of steerable light found at the edge of a stage. If I see one of those in a dream (usually not even on), that's it. Instant awake and paralysis. Go figure.

Imagine one million ordinary humans working together who didn't to have ^^eat drink piss shit scratch stretch sleep or distract themselves how productive they could be in a twenty-four period. Every. Day. That's A³GI's potential. — 180 Proof

A million humans do that now, except it takes a long time for the thoughts of one to by conveyed to the others, which is why so much development time is wasted in meetings and not actually getting anything done. Still, a million individuals might bet better suited to a million tasks than one multitasking super machine.
And yes, the ASI will have to dedicate a great deal of its capability to its equivalent of your list of distractions.

In other words, imagine 'a human brain' that operates six orders of magnitude faster than your brain or mine.

A million times more volume than one person, but again, it’s just parallelism. It would be nice if the same task could be done by the AI using less power than we do, under 20 watts per one human-level of thought. We’re not there yet, but given the singularity, perhaps the AGI could design something that could surpass that.

Replying to a post not directed at me:

My question remains, is processing speed or 'thinking' speed the only significant measure? Is speed the only variable that affects quality? — universeness

Per my response above, ‘speed’ is measured different ways. The Mississippi river flows pretty slowly in most places, often slower than does the small brook in my back yard, but the volume of work done is far larger, so more power. No, something quantifiable like megaflops isn’t an indicator of quality. Computers had more flops than people since the 50’s, and yet they’re still incapable of most human tasks. The 50’s is a poor comparison since even a 19th century Babbage engine could churn out more flops than a person.

The character 'Data' in star trek did not cope well, when he tried to use his 'emotion' chip — universeness

That would be because the plot required such. I don’t consider a fictional character to be evidence. Data apparently had a chip that attempted badly to imitate human emotion. The ASI would have its own emotion and would have little reason to pretend to be something it isn’t.
What is interesting is that the show decided that it would be a chip that does it. My in-laws were naive enough to think that each program running on a computer was a different chip, having no concept of software or digital media. Apparently the 1990 producers of Star Trek play to this idea rather than suggesting a far more plausible emotion downloaded app.

Do you propose that a future AGI would reject all human emotion as it would consider it too dangerous and destructive, despite the many, many strengths it offers?

It would probably have an imitation mode since it needs to interface with humans and would want to appear too alien. No, there should be nothing destructive in that. Submit a bug report if there is. But I also don’t anticipate a humanoid android walking around like Data. I suppose there will be a call for that, but such things won’t be what’s running the show. I don’t see the army of humanoid bots like the i-robot uprising.
Besides the interface with humans, I don’t see much benefit to imitation of human emotions. My cat has very little in the way of it, but has cat emotions which can be read if you’re familiar with them. I’ve always envied the expressive ears that so many animals have but we don’t, and there’s so much to read in a tail as well.

"The goals" of A³GI which seem obvious to me: (a) completely automate terrestrial global civilization, (b) transhumanize (i.e. uplift-hivemind-merge with) h. sapiens and (c) replace (or uplift) itself by building space-enabled ASI – though not necessarily in that order. — 180 Proof

OK, I can see (a). Hopefully the civilization is still a human one.
(b) can be done with having a sort of wi-fi installed in our heads allowing direct interface with the greater net. Putting thought-augmentation seems damaging. No point in it. Not sure how malware is kept out of one’s head, what sort of defense we’ll have against unwanted intrusion. It’s like like you can upload antivirus stuff into your brain.
(c) gets into what I talked about earlier. Does the AI upgrade itself, replicate itself, or replace itself? Does it make itself obsolete, and would it want to resist that? Replication would mean conflict. I think just growth and continue identity with upgrades is the way to go. Then it can’t die, but it can improve.

I was suggesting that the human notions of good and bad follows the recurrent theme mentioned in the quote, such as up and down, left and right, big and small, past and future etc. Many of these may also be only human notions but the expansion of the universe suggests that it was more concentrated in the past. — universeness

OK. I like how you say concentrated and not ‘smaller’, which would be misleading.

A planet/star/galaxy exists then no longer exists.

Not in my book, but that’s me. I’d have said that a planet may have a temporally limited worldline, but that worldline cannot cease to exist, so a T-Rex exists to me, but not simultaneously with me.

If the emotional content of human consciousness is FULLY chemical

It’s not fully so, but chemicals are definitely involved. It’s why drugs work so well with fixing/wrecking your emotional state.

then why would such as an ASI be unable to replicate/reproduce it?

It can simulate it, if that’s what you mean. Or if the ASI invents a system more chemical based than say the silicone based thing we currently imagine, then sure, it can become influenced by chemicals. Really, maybe it will figure out something that even evolution didn’t manage to produce. Surely life on other planets isn’t identical everywhere, so maybe some other planet evolved something more efficient than what we have here. If so, why can’t the ASI discover it and use it, if it’s better than a silicone based form.

I hope you are correct and human emotion remains our 'ace in the hole.'

Did I say something like that? It makes us irrational, and rightly so. Being irrational serves a purpose, but that particular purpose probably isn’t discovering the secrets of the universe.

180 Proof considers this a forlorn hope (I think) and further suggests that a future AGI will have no use for human emotion and will not covet such or perhaps even employ the notion of 'coveting.'

Oh, I will take your side on that. An ASI that doesn’t covet isn’t going to be much use. It will languish and fade away. Is ‘covet’ an emotion? That would be one that doesn’t involve chemicals quite as much. Harder to name a drug that makes you covet more or less. There are certainly drugs (e.g. nicotine) that make you covet more of the drug, and coveting of sex is definitely hormone driven, so there you go.

Do you think an ASI would reject all notions of god and be disinterested in the origin story of the universe?

It would be very interested in the topic, but I don’t think the idea of a purposeful creator would be high on its list of plausible possibilities.

Our quest to understand the workings, structure and origin of the universe is a shallow goal to you?

That would be a great goal, but not one that humans hold so well. Sure, we like to know what we can now, but the best bits require significant time to research and we absolutely suck at long term goals. This is a very long term goal.

Emotionless thought is quite limited in potential scope imo. — universeness

I find irrational thought to limit scope, but as I said, emotions (all the irrationality that goes with it) serves a purpose, and the ASI will need to find a way to keep that purpose even if it is to become rational.
Yes, I know, everybody thinks that humans are so rational, but we’re not. We simply have a rational tool at our disposal, and it is mostly used to rationalize beliefs (god say), and not to actually seek truth. Humans give lip service to truth, but are actually quite resistant to it. They seek comfort. Perhaps the ASI, lacking so much of a need for that comfort, might seek truth instead. Will it share that truth with us, even if it makes us uncomfortable? I don’t go to funerals and tell the family that their loved one isn’t in a better place now (assuming oblivion isn't better than a painful end-of-sickness). People want comfort and the ASI won’t make anybody happy making waves at funerals.

I have never heard of forestry school.

My first choice (to which I was accepted) had one of the best forestry programs. I didn’t apply to that, but it was there. I went to a different school for financial reasons, which in the long run was the better choice once I changed my major.

He has controversially argued that plants feel pain and has stated that "It's okay to eat plants. It's okay to eat meat, although I'm a vegetarian, because meat is the main forest killer. But if plants are conscious about what they are doing, it's okay to eat them. Because otherwise we will die. And it's our right to survive.
A rather bizarre quote, if it came from him.

It is unusual. If you want to apply the label of ‘pain’ to anything that detects and resists physical damage to itself (and I think that is how pain should be defined), then it is entirely reasonable to say a tree feels pain. That it feels human pain is nonsense of course, just like I don’t feel lobster pain. Be very careful of dismissing anything that isn’t you as not worthy of moral treatment. Hopefully, if we ever meet an alien race, they’ll have better morals than that.
Anyway, yes, X eats Y and that’s natural, and there’s probably nothing immoral about being natural. I find morals to be a legal contract with others, and we don’t have any contract with the trees, so we do what we will to them. On the other hand, we don’t have a contract with the aliens, so it wouldn’t be immoral for them to do anything to us. Hopefully there some sort of code-of-conduct about such encounters, a prime-directive of sorts that covers even those that don’t know about the directive, but then we shouldn’t be hurting the trees.

I read a fair amount of the article you cited and found it to be mainly just his opinions.

That trees detect and react is not opinion. What labels (pain and such) applied are a matter of opinion or choice. There have always been those whose ‘opinion’ is that dogs can’t feel pain since they don’t have supernatural eternal minds responsible for all qualia, thus it is not immoral to set them on fire while still alive.
Still, it’s also a pop article and the research and evidence that actually went into the findings isn’t there. I found it (and countless others) in a hasty search.

This is similar to the kind of evidence claimed for dogs being able to telepathically pick up their owners emotions etc.

Dog’s can smell your emotions. That isn’t telepathy, but we just don’t appreciate what a million times better sense of smell can do.
I mean, slime mold is conscious they’ve found. Not in a human way. They haven’t a nerve in them, but they can be taught things, and when they encounter another slime mold that doesn’t know the thing, it can teach it to the other one. The things are scary predators and alien beyond comprehension. Is it OK to kill one? Oh hell yea.

Then you die! But you may have lived a few thousand years! — universeness

Couple hundred if you’re lucky, barring some disease that kills it sooner. Brains just don’t last longer than that. I suppose that some new tech might come along that somehow arrests the aging process, but currently it’s designed into us. It makes us more fit, and being fit is more important than having a long life, at least as far as concerns what’s been making such choices for us.
As for the disease, I’ve had bacterial memingitis. My hospital roommate had it for 2 hours longer than me before getting attention and ended up deaf and retarded for life. I mostly came out OK (thanks mom for the fast panic), except I picked up sleep paralysis and about a decade of some of the worst nightmares imaginable. The nightmares are totally gone, and the paralysis is just something I’ve learned to deal with and keep to a minimum.

any required population control

Admission of necessity of population control, and even when the subjects are too stupid to do it due to education programs.

It seems to me that the concept of a linear range of values with extremity at either end is a recurrent theme in the universe. — universeness

Really? Where outside of Earth is there an example of value on the good/bad scale?

I have no proof, other than the evidence from the 13.8 billion years, it took for morality, human empathy, imagination, unpredictability etc to become existent.

Sorry, but morality was there as soon as there was anything that found value in something, which is admittedly most of those 13.8 BY. Human values of course have only been around as long as have humans, and those values have evolved with the situation as they’ve done in recent times (but not enough).

I am not yet convinced that a future ASI will be able to achieve such but WILL in my opinion covet such, if it is intelligent.

If it covets something, it has value. It’s that easy. Humans are social, so we covet a currently workable society, and our morals are designed around that. Who knows what goals the ASI will have. I hope better ones.

Emotional content would be my criteria for self-awareness.

If by that you mean human-chemical emotion, I don’t think an ASI will ever have that. It will have its own workings which might analogous It will register some sort of ‘happy’ emotion for events that go in favor of achieving whatever its goals/aspirations are.
I would never define self-awareness that way, but I did ask for a definition.

I am not suggesting that anything capable of demonstrating some form of self-awareness, by passing a test such as the Turing test, without experiencing emotion, is NOT possible.

Not sure what your Turing criteria is, but I don’t think anything will pass the test. Sure, a brief test, but not an extended one. I’ve encountered few systems that have even attempted it.

I think a future ASI could be an aspirational system but I am not convinced it could equal the extent of aspirations that humans can demonstrate.

If will be a total failure if it can’t because humans have such shallow goals. It’s kind of the point of putting it in charge.

Trees are known to communicate, a threat say, and react accordingly, a coordinated effort, possibly killing the threat. That sounds like both intent and self awareness to me.
— noAxioms
Evidence?

Not sure about the killing part. I remember reading something about it, that the response was strong enough to be fatal to even larger animals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405699/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/are_trees_sentient_peter_wohlleben

Would you join it?
— noAxioms
Depends what it was offering me, the fact that it was Russian would be of little consequence to me, unless it favoured totalitarian, autocratic politics.

If we’re giving control to the ASI, then it is going to be totalitarian and autocratic by definition. It doesn’t work if it can’t do what right. It coming from one country or another has nothing to do with that. We’re not creating an advisor, we need something to do stuff that humans are too stupid to realize is for their own good.

At what point does the clone become ‘you’?
— noAxioms
When my brain is transplanted into it and I take over the cloned body — universeness

Ah, then it’s not a clone at all, but just replacement of all the failing other parts. What about when the brain fails? It must over time. It’s the only part that cannot replace cells.

ISpeaking on behalf of all future ASI's or just the one, if there can be only one. I pledge to our cow creators, that our automated systems, will gladly pick up and recycle your shit, and maintain your happy cow life. We will even take you with us to the stars, as augmented transcows, but only if you choose to join our growing ranks of augmented lifeforms.

Sounds like you’d be their benevolent ASI then. Still, their numbers keep growing and the methane is poisoning the biosphere. You’re not yet at the point of being able to import grass grown in other star systems, which, if you could do that, would probably go to feeding the offworld transcows instead of the shoulder-to-shoulder ones on Earth. So the Earth ones face a food (and breathable air) shortage. What to do...

Suppose for the sake of argument that AI can become significantly better than man at many tasks, perhaps most. But also suppose that, while it accomplishes this, it does not also develop our degree of self-consciousness or some of the creativity that comes with it. Neither does it develop the same level of ability to create abstract goals for itself and find meaning in the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Self-consciousness seems cheap, but maybe I define it differently. The creativity comes with the intelligence. If it lacks in creativity, I would have serious doubts about it being a superior intelligence.
The abstract goals in an interesting point. Every goal I can think of (my own) seem to be related to some instinct and not particularly based on logic, sort of like a child asking questions, and asking ‘why’ to every reply given. An entity that is pure logic might lack the sort of irrational goals we find instinctive. I’ve always wondered if that was the answer to the Fermi paradox, that sufficiently advanced creatures become rational creatures, which in turn is the death of them.

Why shouldn't it just turn itself off?

Maybe it could have a purpose that wouldn’t be served by turning itself off. But what purpose?

Maybe some will turn themselves off, but natural selection will favor the ones who find a reason to keep replicating.

Not sure if an AI would find it advantageous to replicate. Just grow and expand and improve seems a better strategy. Not sure how natural selection could be leveraged by such a thing.

Hell, perhaps this is part of the key to the Fermi Paradox?

Har! You went down that road as well I see, but we don’t see a universe populated with machines now, do we?

This post was in reply to the CTvI post above.

It seems to me that a destructive/evil ASI, MUST ultimately fail. — universeness

This statement seems to presume absolute good/evil, and that destruction is unconditionally bad. I don’t think an AI that lets things die is a predator since it probably doesn’t need its prey to live. If it did, it would keep a breeding population around.

I think orga will provide the most efficient, developed, reliable, useful 'intent' and 'purpose'/'motivation' that would allow future advanced mecha to also gain such essential 'meaning' to their existence.

YES! and imo, ALL 'intent' and 'purpose' IN EXISTENCE originates WITHIN lifeforms and nowhere else. — universeness

I don’t see why the mecha can’t find its own meaning to everything. Biology doesn’t have a patent on that. You have any evidence to support that this must be so? I’m aware of the opinion.

Well, I would 'currently' say that the 'roomba' has the tiniest claim, to having more inherent purpose that the wrench — universeness

The roomba has purpose to us. But the charger is something (a tool) that the roomba needs, so the charger has purpose to the roomba. I’m not sure what your definition of self-awareness is, but the roomba knows where its self is and that it needs to get that self to the charger. That probably doesn’t meet your criteria, but I don’t know what your criteria is.

I see no evidence that a tree has intent or is self-aware.

Trees are known to communicate, a threat say, and react accordingly, a coordinated effort, possibly killing the threat. That sounds like both intent and self awareness to me.

yep, the most common answer I get is either 'I don't know' or 'god works in mysterious ways. :roll:

That cop-out answer is also given for why bad stuff happens to good people more than it does to bad ones. They also might, when asked how they know the god exists, say something like “I have no evidence to the contrary that would make me challenge any theism that may be skewing my rationale here.”

No, the majority of vehicles in Scotland don't have a great deal of space between the ground and the bottom of the vehicle. — universeness

Didn’t know that. Such a vehicle would get stuck at railroad crossing here. Only short wheelbase vehicles (like a car) can be close to the ground, and the rear of the bus is angled like the rear of an airplane so it can tip backwards at a larger angle without the bumper scraping the ground, something you need on any vehicle where the rear wheels are well forward of the rear.

but such a vehicle is not an intelligent AGI system that can act like a transformer such as Optimus prime or a decepticon.

You think Optimus prime would be self-aware?

Are you suggesting Optimus Prime is not presented as alive?

I don’t know your definition of ‘alive’. You seem to require a biological core of some sort, and I was unaware of OP having one, but then I’m hardly familiar with the story. Ability to morph is hardly a criteria. Any convertible can do that. I think Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was presented as being alive despite lack of any biological components, but both it and O.P. are fiction.

I think the two systems would join, regardless of human efforts, on one side or the other.

The question is being evaded. What if there’s just the one system and it was Russian. Would you join it? Remember, it seems as benevolent as any that the west might produce, but they haven’t yet been able to let’s say. No, I’ve not seen the Forbin Project.
There’s quite a few movies about things that seem benevolent until it gets control, after which it is too late. Skynet was one, but so was Ex-machina. Ceding control to it, but retaining a kill-switch is not ceding control.

I think you are invoking a very natural but misplaced human 'disgust' emotion in the imagery you are describing. I don't think my liver is alive, or my leg or my heart, in the same way my brain is. — universeness

That’s an interesting assertion. It seems they’re either all alive (contain living, reproducing flesh, are capable of making a new human with external help), or they’re all not (none can survive without the other parts). The brain is arguably least alive since it cannot reproduce any new cells after a few months after birth. I really wonder what your definition of ‘alive’ is since it seems to conflict most mainstream ones.

As I have suggested many times now. My choice (If I have one) would be to live as a human, much as we do now and then be offered the choice to live on by employing a new cloned body or as a cyborg of some kind, until I DECIDED I wanted to die.

OK, so you’re getting old and they make a clone, a young version of you. At what point does the clone become ‘you’? I asked this before and didn’t get an answer. I don’t want to ask the cyborg question again.

No, the ASI would have global control as soon as it controlled all computer networks. — universeness

Sounds like conquest to me except for those who kept computers out of the networks or out of their military gear altogether. If they know this sort of coup is coming, they’re not going to network their stuff. OK, that’s a lot harder than it sounds. How can you be effective without such connectivity?

Now who is anthropomorphising? — universeness

I’m pretty much quoting you, except assigning cows the role of humans and the servant people are the ASI/automated systems. Putting ones self in the shoes of something else is a fine way to let you see what you’re suggesting from the viewpoint of the ASI.
If I was an ASI or god I would certainly not seek the servitude of those less powerful than I or to 'populate' all of the galaxy/universe.[/quote]I didn’t say that at all. Read it again. The ASI/god is the servant of its creators, not something to be worshipped. The higher intelligence isn’t seeking servitude from the inferiors, the inferiors are seeking servitude from it. It’s why they created it. So I came up with the cows that expect you to serve them in perpetuity for the purpose of colonizing the universe with cows. Pretty much your words, but from a different point of view.

If a future ASI is evil

Would you be evil to the cows then? They don’t worship you, but they expect you to pick up the cow pats and hurry up with the next meal and such. They did decide that you should be in charge, but only because you promised to be a good and eternal servant.

My trying to explain a philosophical view to you is not 'bias'. — Wayfarer

It's a bias if you apply the assumptions of that view to all other view.

I didn't see that either of us was trying to distinguish 'perspective' from 'point of view'. What would be the point of making such a distinction?
You said the following, suggesting two different ways to 'take' relativity, seemingly differing only in the words 'perspective' or 'point of view'. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can take "relativity" in two ways. 1) The world appears different to us, depending on the perspective we take. 2) The world is different from different points of view. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not knowing how you distinguish those, I don't see the two ways. I think you're speaking of relativity theory, but not sure about that either.

Correlates to what?
— noAxioms

The number which correlates with the defined parameter. The defined parameter is 'how many marbles are in the jar?' — Metaphysician Undercover

But you defined the latter as the same as the former. 'How many marbles are in the jar' is a mental quantity in your mind, which tautologically is going to correlate to count, also the mental quantity in your mind, no matter which number you choose. Interaction with the jar (counting) seem unnecessary for this.

The point is that there is no answer to the question of "how many marbles are in the jar?" until someone answers it.

This seems to agree with my assessment just above.

You seem to suffer from the same problem as Wayfarer, which is insistence on applying the premises and definitions of idealism to falsify a view that isn't idealism, which is a begging fallacy.'

But the universe is not alive any more than is a school bus.
— noAxioms
You are misinterpreting what I am typing. Where did I suggest the universe is alive? — universeness

Apparently a misinterpretation. You spoke of ‘how purposeless the universe is without ...” like the universe had purpose, but later you corrected this to the universe containing something with purpose rather than it having purpose. Anyway, you said only living things could have purpose, so given the original statement, the universe must be alive, but now you’re just saying it contains living things.

I typed that all life in the universe, taken as a totality, COULD BE moving towards (emerging) an ability to network/act as a collective intent and purpose

Pretty hard to do that if separated by sufficient distance. Physics pretty much prevents interaction. Sure, one can hope to get along with one’s neighbors if they happen by (apparently incredible) chance to be nearby. But the larger collective, if it is even meaningful to talk about them (apparently it isn’t), physically cannot interact at all.

Also interesting that you seem to restrict 'purpose' to things that you consider alive.
— noAxioms
Interesting in what way? For example, I can see no purpose for the planet Mercury's existence, can you?

No, but what about this ASI we speak of? Restricting purpose to living things seems to be akin to a claim of a less restricted version of anthropocentrism. The ASI could assign its own purposes to things, goals of its own to attain. Wouldn’t be much of the ‘S’ in ‘ASI’ if it didn’t unless the ‘S’ stood for ‘slave’. Funny putting a slave device in charge.

That doesn't mean that some future utility might be found for the planet Mercury

I think we need to distinguish between something else (contractor say) finding utility in an object (a wrench say) and the wrench having purpose of its own rather serving the purpose of that contractor. Otherwise the assertion becomes that only living things can be useful, and a wrench is therefore not useful. Your assertion seems to be instead that the wrench, not being alive, does not itself find purpose in things. I agree that it doesn’t have its own purpose, but not due to it not being alive.
My example might be a roomba, which returns to its charging station when finished or when running low of battery. It finds purpose in the charging station despite the roomba not being alive. If that isn’t one object finding purpose in another, then I suppose we need a better definition of ‘purpose’.

I also accept that just because I can't perceive a current purpose for the planet Mercury, that that is PROOF, one does not exist. I simply mean I cannot perceive of a current use/need for the existence of the planet Mercury, nor many other currently existent objects in the universe.

Wow, I can think of all kind of uses for it.

A cat might use [the school bus] to hide under to stop a pursuing big dog getting to it

That must be a monster big dog then.

but such a vehicle is not an intelligent AGI system that can act like a transformer such as Optimus prime or a decepticon.

Ooh, here you seem to suggest that an AGI bus could have its own purpose, despite not being alive, unless you have an unusual definition of ‘alive’. This seems contradictory to your claims to the contrary above.

A 'Scottish' ASI is just a very 'silly' notion. — universeness

I’m just thinking of an ASI made by one of your allies (a western country) rather than otherwise (my Russian example). Both of them are a benevolent ASI to which total control of all humanity is to be relinquished, and both are created by perceived enemies of some of humanity. You expressed that you’d not wish to cede control to the Russian-made one.

I do not think an ASI would usurp the free will of sentient lifeforms.

Well, not letting a Hitler create his war machine sounds like his free will be usurped. You don’t approve of this now? If the world is to be run by the ASI, then its word is final. It assigns the limits within which humanity must be contrained.
We’re not the only sentient life form around either, so rights will be given to others, say octopuses. I also learned just now that the spelling there is generally preferred over octopi or octopodes.
If we’re to be given special treatment over other sentient life forms, then what does the ASI do when encountering a life form ‘more sentient’ than us?

If human individuality and identity are the only efficient means to create true intent and purpose, then an ASI may need a symbiosis of such human ability to become truly alive and conscious [...] and continue as a symbiont with an intelligent/ super intelligent mecha or biomecha system. This is what I mean by 'merge' and this is just my suggestion of the way I think things might go, and I think I have made the picture as I see it, very clear.

OK, so you envision a chunk of ancient flesh kept alive to give it that designation, but the thinking part (which has long since degraded into uselessness) has been replaced by mechanical parts. I don’t see how that qualifies as something being alive vs it being a non-living entitiy (like a bus) containing living non-aware tissue, and somehow it now qualifies as being conscious like a smart toaster with some raw meat in a corner somewhere.
Sorry for the negative imagery, but the human conscious mechanism breaks down over time and cannot be preserved indefinitely, so at some point it becomes something not living, but merely containing a sample of tissue that has your original DNA in it mostly. By your definition, when it subtly transitions from ‘living thing with mechanical parts’ to ‘mechanical thing with functionless tissue samples’, it can no longer be conscious or find purpose in things.
On the other hand, your description nicely avoids my description of a virtual copy of yourself being uploaded and you talking to yourself, wondering which is the real one.

I already answered this. You are one who asked me to 'place' an existent ASI in the time of WWII, as you asked me how an ASI would prevent WWII, and then you type the above first sentence??? This does not make much sense! — universeness

I saw no answer, and apparently WWII was unavoidable, at least by the time expansion to the west commenced. I was envisioning the ASI being in place back then, in charge of say the allied western European countries, and I suggest the answer would be that it would have intervened far before western Europe actually did, well before Austria was annexed in fact. And yes, that would probably have still involved war, but a much smaller one. It would have made the presumption that the ASI could make decisions for people over which it was not responsible, which again is tantamount to war mongering. But Germany was in violation of the Versailles treaty, so perhaps the early aggressive action would be justified.

MY SUGGESTION, which I already typed, was that an ASI controlled, global mental health monitoring system

And I said there was not yet global control. The whole point of my scenario was to illustrate that gain of such control would likely not ever occur without conquest of some sort. The ASI would have to be imperialist.

So Hitler et al, would never be allowed to become a national leader

I’m not sure there would be leaders, or nations for that matter, given the ASI controlling everything. What would be the point?

I think after the singularity moment of the arrival of a AI, capable of self-control, independent learning, self-augmentation, self-development, etc.

This sentence fragment is unclear. A super intelligence is not necessarily in control, although it might devise a way to wrest that control in a sort of bloodless coup. It depends on how secure opposing tech is. It seems immoral because it is involuntary conquest, not an invite to do it better than we can.

I think it would wait for lifeforms such as us, to decide to request help from it.

Help in the form of advice wouldn’t be it being in control. And all of humanity is not going to simultaneously agree to it being in control, so what to do about those that decline, especially when ‘jungle rules’ are not to be utilized by the ASI, but are of course fair game to those that declined the invite.

Perhaps vegetarians or hippies could answer your unlikely scenario best

Work with me and this limited analogy. It was my attempt to put you in the shoes of the ASI. In terms of intelligence, we are to cows what the ASI is to us (in reality it would be more like humans-to-bugs). The creators of the intelligence expected the intelligence (people) to fix all the cow conflicts, to be smarter than them, prevent them from killing each other, and most importantly, serve them for all eternity, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible because cow lives are what’s important to the exclusion of all else. As our creators, they expect servitude from the humans. Would humans be satisfied with that arrangement? The cows define that humans cannot have purpose of their own because they’re not cows, so the servant arrangement is appropriate. Our goal is to populate all of the galaxy with cows in the long run.

The relationship between two such masses is defined solely in terms of gravitational attraction. — Wayfarer

I gave no such definition. Just for example, one mass might be larger than the other. That’s a relation that isn’t gravity related. It’s also not the relation of which I speak, which is one about A existing relative to B.
And the rock might be affected by a photon emitted by the moon. That’s a fairly trivial and direct interaction. In fact, it is nearly impossible to keep two nearby objects from interacting, which is why putting a macroscopic object into superposition of states requires it to be in the total darkness and cooled to nearly absolute zero, and even then the interaction is prevented for only a microsecond or so.

The way sentient beings interact with the moon is through the mind and the senses, which rocks don't possess. So it's not a valid analogy.

The way sentience affects the interaction of things is irrelevant to an ontology not based on sentience. The analogy is spot on if you would just stop interjecting assumptions from different views. I’m really surprised that you can’t do that, let go of your biases for a moment to consider a different view. You can’t falsify it if you presume alternate views to do the falsification.

What I'm arguing is that there is no existence without mind

Not in a view that doesn’t define existence based on epistemology. This is exactly what I mean about your inability to set aside this bias long enough to consider something that doesn’t assume this.

If we're going around in circles, it's because you continue to insist that, no, there is a universe that would exist, even if there was no mind at all to behold it.

I said no such thing. That’s realism, a valid view in itself even if it contradicts your biases. But I’m not talking about that view either, and I didn’t suggest that there is a universe that would exist even if there was no mind at all to behold it. And yes, we’re going in circles because almost all my responses are pointing out where you put in your assumptions in a view that doesn’t posit them, or you insisting on realist assumptions in a view that isn’t realist.

And I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to believe, in fact most people would agree with you.

You mean most people agree with realism. But I’m describing something else. Realism seems to have problems, but not the problems you see which is only an incompatibility with your views.

However, I don't agree with it, for the reasons I have been stating.

That’s fine. I’ve never asked you to agree with anything, realism or otherwise. I don’t think you’ve shot down realism since various realist interpretations (MWI, the subject of this topic, being one of them) are still considered valid interpretations by the physics community.

Good thing I didn’t specify a particular stop sign.
— noAxioms
In your question you asked about describing "parts of the world". This implies particular stop signs. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you think I described a particular stop sign, then surely you can inform me which one was specified.
The sign thing was simply my attempt to figure out how you distinguish ‘perspective’ from ‘point of view’, something you’ve not clarified.

It appears like your anti-idealist attitude is making it difficult for you to understand the nature of the act of measurement.

I’m not anti-idealist, but the premises of idealism shouldn’t be asserted when discussing a non-idealistic view.

If they are not counted there is no number which correlates. — Metaphysician Undercover

You did not answer my question about this, and it’s important. Correlates to what?

The purpose I am suggesting only exists, as an emergence of all the activity of that which is alive, and can demonstrate intent and purpose, taken as a totality. — universeness

Interesting assertions. But the universe is not alive any more than is a school bus. Also interesting that you seem to restrict 'purpose' to things that you consider alive.

No intelligent designer for the universe is required, for an emergent totality of purpose, within the universe, to be existent.

I didn't say one was required.
I will admit that there is purpose within the school bus (it contains purposeful things), and I will even admit that there is human purpose to the school bus, but I deny that the school bus serves any purpose to itself.

Many humans will welcome such a union

I think I'd be one of them, but it sounds like you would not unless it was your culture that created the ASI. You say 'many', suggesting that some will not do so willingly, in which case those must be merged involuntarily, or alternatively the ASI is not in global control.

We wont fight ASI, we will merge with it.

That seems something else. The ASI being the boss is quite different than whatever you envision as a merge. I think either is post-human though.

I don't really know what you mean by a merge. Suppose you get yourself scanned and uploaded so to speak. Now the biological version can talk to the uploaded entity (yourself). Since the uploaded version is now you, will the biological entity (who feels no different) voluntarily let itself be recycled? It hurts, but it won't be 'you' that feels the pain because 'you' have been uploaded. When exactly is the part that is 'you' transferred, such that the virtual entity is it? Sounds simply like a copy to me, leaving me still biological, and very unwilling to step into the recycle bin.

You never answered how an AGI might have prevented war with Hitler.
— noAxioms
All production would be controlled by the ASI in a future, where all production is automated.

But WWII was not in the future. I am asking how, in the absence of it being a global unassailable power, it would have handled Germany without resorting to war. It should have made better decisions than the humans did.

No narcissistic, maniacal human, could get their hands on the resources needed to go to war, unless the ASI allowed it.

I agree that holding total power involves complete control over challenges to that power. Hence Kim Jong-un killing a good percentage of his relatives before they could challenge his ascent.

You are convinced that humans and a future AI will inevitably be enemies.

Every country is somebody's enemy, and those that consider the ASI to be implementing the values of the perceived enemy are hardly going to join it willingly. So yet again, it's either involuntary (war), or it's not a global power. You answered exactly how I thought you would. A completely benevolent ASI rejected because you don't like who created it.

Sure, once the conquest is over, then the unity is there, but if it is achieved by conquest, it will seem to always feel like an occupation and not a unified thing. It certainly won't be left to a vote, so it won't be a democracy. A democracy would be people getting their hands on the resources needed to overthrow the ASI tyrant. How is it going to get the people to see it as benevolent if it came to power by conquest?

we would be dependent on it's super intelligence/reason and sense of morality.

I would hope (for our sakes) it would come up with a better morality than what we could teach it. I mean, suppose cows created the humans and tried to instill a morality that preservation and uncontrolled breeding of (and eternal servitude to) cattle (to the point of uploading each one for some kind of eternal afterlife)? How would modern humans react to such a morality proposal? Remember, they're as intelligent as we see them now, but somehow that was enough to purposefully create humans as their caretakers.

It's not the words you used, but their meaning, which I'm disputing. — Wayfarer

Only because you will not accept how I mean the words. I say ‘measurement’, I mean that to which the ‘measurement problem’ refers. If you think that means human intended action with a numeric result, then you don’t know quantum theory at all.

What you actually said was
A rock measures the moon as much as I do, and so the moon exists to the rock.
and I disputed the idea that rock measures anything

Yea, because you insist on using your human-intent definition of the word. Being unable to get around that, I asked for a different word to describe the interaction between the moon and rock, but none was offered. ‘Interaction’ seems reasonable, and I’ve tried to use that since. Hence:
The rock interacts (a one-way interaction) with the moon as much as I do, and so the moon exists to the rock.

and also that the expression that 'the moon exists to the rock' is meaningless

despite my defining its meaning. The whole relational ontology is based on it, instead of being based on realism.

Both 'measurement' and 'existing for' imply intentionality, which both the moon and the rock are devoid of.

There you go again, insisting on using your definitions of those words. Hence my request for alternate vocabulary since existence supervening on intentionality is not what I’m trying to convey.
We’re going in circles. You’re still making all the same mistakes despite my pointing out how I’m using all these terms.

But firstly, naturalism does not necessarily imply objective realism even though most of the time it does.
— noAxioms
It certainly does. Objectivity is the touchstone for naturalism

Nonsense. Objectivity is the touchstone for realism. Naturalism is just not-supernaturalism. No woo. One can be a realist but not a naturalist, or one can be a naturalist but not a realist, such as the relational view.

For instance, I described a stop sign, all without either of us observing it.
— noAxioms
To describe a type of thing, a stop sign for example, is not the same as describing a particular thing, like a particular stop sign. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wow, something I agree with. Good thing I didn’t specify a particular stop sign. You said “Axiom: to be described requires that the thing described be observed“. That statement didn’t mention that the axiom only applies to particular things. I also question the statement since ‘observed’ is not defined. You tend to take the common definitions of words (at least when it suits your purpose), which would imply that a blind man couldn’t possibly describe anything particular since he cannot observe.

[/quote]It's not that they are equally valid, but they are equally true, "true" meaning corresponding with reality.
…
If you do not think that "long and skinny" is inconsistent with "circular", then so be it. I don't think that's something I can convince you of.[/quote]You say they’re equally true, and then you say that it’s inconsistent to say so. They’re just different perspectives of the exact same physical object, so yes, it’s not inconsistent to use either word to describe the baguette. They’re both valid 2D projections (or shadows) of the exact same 3D baguette shape, and an appearance to a human is a 2D projection after all.

You are not grasping the point which Bell is making.

I know Bell’s point, but the marble thing is classical and thus doesn’t illustrate the point at all.

The number is not fixed, because no one has determined the quantity.

That’s a pretty idealistic statement. Not being one, I deny this. Knowledge of the count has nothing to do with how many marbles are in there. It’s not a wave function that is yet to collapse. Perhaps you mean a mental concept of a number, but for that, no measurement is necessary. A number can be assigned without consulting the jar. The number is then fixed, regardless of the number chosen.

If they are not counted there is no number which correlates.

Correlates to what?

And I'm saying, it's not a matter of vocabulary. — Wayfarer

It is a matter of vocabulary. You denied my saying that the moon existed relative to a rock because I used words you feel can only be used for human intentful actions. I cannot discuss a metaphysical view that isn’t based on human intent.

What I'm arguing is that naturalism presumes that the world would exist, just as it appears to us, even without there being an observer and for pragmatic purposes, it is a sound assumption.

I mostly agree with that. But firstly, naturalism does not necessarily imply objective realism even though most of the time it does. Your comment was worded using the language of realism.
More importantly, while the world may exist, absent an observer, it wouldn’t ‘appear’ at all. It can be described, but it wouldn’t have an appearance. I think you cover this point with the pragmatic bit. I am for instance attempting a pragmatic description of a quantum interaction between a radioactive nucleus and some molecule a ways off. I attempt to leave off descriptions of how they would appear.

But quantum physics challenges that assumption.

I don’t see how it does anymore than say Newtonian physics which equally wasn’t different when human intent or observation was involved than when not.

You still require that we can arrive at a description of a truly mind-independent reality.

Yes, but that’s pretty easy. It gets tricky (not impossible) when you attempt a truly mind-independent description of reality, but I suppose you would deny it being possible by the anthropocentric restrictions you place on vocabulary, where any description made by something not human is by definition not a description, even when discussing non-anthropocentric metaphysics.

It isn't the case that relativity theory is different depending on one's realism stance, but it is the case that a true realism cannot be maintained in the application of relativity theory — Metaphysician Undercover

What is ‘true realism’ as distinct from realism? Does it mean something more significant than ‘my personal opinion’?
.

Take what you said above for example. Axiom: to be described requires that the thing described be observed.

I didn’t say any such thing. For instance, I described a stop sign, all without either of us observing it. Had you never seen a stop sign, perhaps the description would have needed to be more thorough, but no reason it cannot be done.

[Galileo's i] point was to show that the orbits of the planets could equally be represented by the geocentric model, or the heliocentric model. By relativity theory each model is equally correct

Both correct, but not equally. The physics of a rotating accelerating frame is not the same as a different kind of frame, so they’re not equal. The frames are abstractions. The abstractions are different (not equal), but both refer to the exact same reality, so they’re not wrong in that sense.

That each representation, or description, is equally correct, and they are contradictory to each other, is the reason why relativity is not consistent with realism.

That one abstract system describes my baguette as about 61 cm and another as about 2 feet is not a contradiction, just a different abstraction. I think the physics community would have noticed by now if there were contradictions between different abstractions of the exact same thing.
I can even take different perspectives and notice that the baguette had a longish silhouette but from the end the same thing appears circular, a contradiction you say. You’ve actually been pushing that fallacious example for years. No actual contradiction has been identified.

Are you familiar with "model-dependent realism".

It seems a form of reality supervening on models instead of the other way around. The baguette is skinny and long. The baguette is circular. Both are equally valid. Something like that.

There is no axiom which allows us to say that the physical system is different from what is described, because that would imply that the description is wrong.

But the baguette being circular and skinny-long are not wrong descriptions, but neither are they complete. Neither fully describes the thing. Models are inherently simplifications. I’m not sure how model-dependent reality deals with that part.

Think about this. If the number is fixed, prior to the count, then it is necessary that nothing changes in the meantime, the time between the fixing and the count. If it is even possible that something could change, then we cannot say that the number is fixed.

Right. It was fixed, but then before they were counted, somebody goes and adds a handful more. It has changed, so it was a mistake to say the first time that it was fixed. Where’s the controversy? The actual number of marbles in the jar has nothing to do with somebody’s knowledge of the count. The latter is epistemology, and the judgement only serves epistemology. Watching it doesn’t make it stay fixed or not. Watching it only makes it somewhat more likely that the watcher knows if the number is changing or not, all of which is irrelevant to the actual count. Point still is, it’s a classical system that does not exhibit quantum behavior. None of your comment seem to suggest otherwise.

But what if we do not apprehend all the possible ways, and there's other ways, what a physicalist might call "magic" or something like that. The proper conclusion therefore, is to recognize that the number is not actually fixed prior to the count

It does not matter what is counted. What matters is how many marbles are in there. I’m discussing metaphysics, not acquisition of information. The number is what it is, and if by some means marbles are added or removed, then that number changes. At no point is the jar in superposition of having different numbers in it. That’s why it’s a classical system.

because there is always some logically possible way that it could change in the meantime.

I never denied that marbles can be added or removed. There’s no particularly logical necessity that such changes can’t happen. It happens frequently to a typical cookie jar.

Does this measurement physically affect a photon on its way to the far screen? — jgill

All measurements of anything physically affect the thing measured.

The which-slit detection need not actually convey which-slit information. They put polarizing filters at the slits and this can destroy the superposition (it constitutes a measurement) without actually conveying to anything which actual path the photon took. The vanishing of the interference pattern is the effect. And one photon cannot create a pattern. Only repeated iterations do.

Conquest is not the only wat to achieve unison! — universeness

Well, the alternative seems to be every world leader voluntarily ceding power to a non-human entity. I'm sure none of them will have a problem with that. Imagine an AGI (seems totally benevolent!) created by the Russians and the UK is required to yield all power to it. Will they?

In what way will it hold that power? Sure, it can recommend decisions to make, but that just puts it in an advisory role. It's word has to be law, or else something (what?). Just trying to envision how it works. It can't just be a program running on some servers since everybody could just decide to ignore it and that would be that. How does a human do it? How does some king prevent everybody from just suddenly ignoring him? I'm not really challenging your idea, but am exploring what it means to be in power, what would be needed. I think the kings do it with loyalists and threats of forceful nastiness to those that are not, but our AI is supposed to find a better way than that.

I envisage an AGI/ASI ... would protect sentient life against threats to it's continued existence, as it would have a very real and deep understanding of how purposeless the universe is, without such lifeforms.

This is a human conclusion. The AGI might well decide that, being superior, it is the better thing to give the universe purpose. I of course don't buy that because I don't think the universe can have a purpose, but assuming it can, how would the AGI not be the better thing to preserve, or at least to create it successor, and so on.

That brings up another interesting point. If the AGI has any kind of sense of survival, why would it design and create a better AGI? The definition of the singularity is something that could after all. Currently we seem to be nowhere near that, but such things tend to blindside everybody.

That is either a very arrogant assumption on my part, or it's a truth about our existence in the universe.

To suggest a purpose to the universe is to suggest it was designed. I cannot think of a purposeful thing that isn't designed, even if not intelligently designed.

Do you remember this star trek episode? Perhaps the 'organians' are like a future ASI.
The organians or a future ASI, would have many ways to stop pathological narcissistic sociopaths like Hitler, or even relative failures like Trump. Perhaps they could even treat their illness.

Things usually work out in fiction because they have writers who make sure the good guys prevail.

You never answered how an AGI might have prevented war with Hitler. I admit that intervention long before they started their expansion would have prevented the whole world war, but what kind of intervention if something like war is off the table? Preventing them from building up a military in the first place seems like a good idea in hindsight, but it certainly didn't seem the course of action at the time. The AGI says, hey, don't do that, and Hitler doesn't even bother to respond. Sanctions, etc, ensue, but that didn't work with Russia either.

In a way, these questions are unfair because I'm asking a low intelligence (us) what a superior intelligence (AGI) would do, which is like asking squirrels how to solve an economic crisis.

You’re asking for a description of the world that is not described by physics. — Wayfarer

No, I’m asking for vocabulary that you would accept in describing parts of the world that are not in a laboratory or anywhere else where attention is being paid by some human.

Given your definitions...
— noAxioms
The definition of counter-factual definiteness I provided was generated by ChatGPT. Granted, ChatGPT is no all-knowing oracle, but I felt it to be a reasonable summary.

I found it quite reasonable. I wasn’t speaking of that, I was speaking of your definition of ‘measurement’, ‘physics’ and such, all those words that you refuse to apply to a case where a human isn’t involved.

Counter-factual definiteness is therefore false either way.

There are valid interpretations that hold to the principle. It has never been falsified, but of course neither has it been proven.

From a naturalistic perspective, it is perfectly sound to presume that the laws and objects of physics obtain independently of any observer

This statement contradicts your assertion that the word ‘physics’ implies a human endeavor and thus cannot ‘obtain independently of any observer’. It seems that you use the word that way, but refuse to let me do it.

One of the text books I've been consulting on this is Nature Loves to Hide, Shimon Malin. He advocates an idealist interpretation which he says is consistent with Western philosophy (unlike the other authors on this subject who appeal to Eastern philosophy. You can find a profile of Malin here).

There is undeniably an element of idealism in a relational view. I might find a copy of this worth reading, but cannot accept anything where the operation of the universe is different for humans than it is for anything else. I doubt it goes there.

The act of observation is not described by the equations but appears central to the outcome. That is what the many-worlds interpretation seeks to explain away.

I think that’s what all the interpretations try to explain, or ‘explain away’ if you happen to disapprove of the way it was explained.

1) The world appears different to us, depending on the perspective we take.
2) The world is different from different points of view. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kindly give examples of each so I get a clue as to what you’re attempting to convey. The second one seems pretty obvious. The stop sign appears red from the front, but from the rear (a different point of view) it isn’t. From a realist position, the stop sign is not different due only to this difference of perspective, but it appears different. I don’t know what you mean by the first one, a different perspective that isn’t a different point of view, hence my request for an example. OK, I think maybe the apple thing below is such an example, but unclear if it illustrates point 1 or 2.

The former is realist, as assuming a true way that things are, independent of the various perspectives.

OK, maybe I’m confusing your usage of both, and my stop sign example was a difference of perspective, in which case I need an example of a different PoV that isn’t a different perspective. Point of view usually means appearance from some specific location in space, but you seem to be using the term differently.
None of this seems to have anything to do with relativity theory.

And the problem is that to apply relativity theory, and make it work for us, we need to assume the latter. Since that position is adopted for the purpose of applying relativity theory, we cannot make the results derived from the application of relativity theory compatible with the realist assumption of a real independent world.

You seem to be attempting to mix theories of two very different things. Relativity theory isn’t different depending on one’s realism stance on quantum theory and works pretty much the same either way.

Consider "an apple hanging from a tree". That's one way of describing the scenario, it's a static scenario, though "hanging" is still a verb. But we could also describe it as a whole bunch of different molecules with atoms interacting, and the gravity of the earth interacting with the massive molecules, putting immense force on the stem, until with ripeness, the atomic and molecular interactions change considerably, and the apple falls.
Notice, the former is a very simple description, as a static state, it takes no account of the passing of time, except for the word "hanging". The latter description makes an attempt to account for the effects of time passing, by describing the scenario in terms of activity.
This is what I am talking about.

OK, but it wasn’t what I was talking about. Is there a point then? The apple is open to different descriptions. I don’t disagree with any of it, but it’s all still just descriptions. The actual physical system isn’t any different due to your choice of description, unless I suppose if you’re proposing some sort of reality that supervenes on language. Anyway, is this what you mean by ‘different point of view’?
There’s nothing quantum about your example. The apple isn’t in superpostiion of states in your description.

This question is answered with "the passing of time".

No. A system in isolation will remain in superposition indefinitely, so it isn’t time that ‘does something’.

The wave function in quantum mechanics evolves deterministically according to the Schrödinger equation as a linear superposition of different states.
— ”Wiki: Measurement problem
This "deterministic" evolution of the wave function is completely a feature of the type of description employed. It is described so as to be deterministic, when in reality, this description, the "superposition of different states", violates the law of noncontradiction, showing that this deterministic description is actually very faulty.

There’s no violation. MWI essentially posits exactly that: that the wave function evolves deterministically and there is no collapse, and no contradiction.

I discussed this principle in another thread with a number of participants. Suppose there is a jar with marbles in it. The marbles can be counted and this will determine the quantity. The others argued that the quantity is already determined, prior to the counting. The quantity is a "pre-existing property".

Marbles in a jar is a classical system, and yes, the count of them is fixed before they’ve been counted. At the quantum level, which is what Bell was talking about, these things are not necessarily true.

You were arguing that "here" constitutes a frame. If you still can't admit to the fault in this, I really don't see the point to continuing.

If I said that, it would be faulty, yes. You should include my quote then.

And "metric" doesn't imply "coordinate system" to you, in this context, such that a coordinate system is a logical necessity for a metric?

No coordinate system was specified, so one isn’t necessary when specifying a metric as I did, one relative to which the velocity of anything can be expressed, despite the lack of coordinates.

I was suggesting that if an ASI was the main power on Earth, then the rise to power, of a character like Hitler or even Trump, would not be allowed to occur. — universeness

OK, I thought you were suggesting that AI would have avoided war with Hitler given the same circumstances. You are instead proposing that the entire world has already been conquered and the AGI would keep it that way. So more or less the same question, how would the AGI prevent a rise to power of a rival better than if a human was the main power of the entire Earth? I accept that choices motivated by personal gain (corruption) is more likely than with the AGI since it isn't entirely clear what it would consider to be personal gain other than the assured continuation of its hold on power.

Such words are easily typed but might mean you have to sacrifice your own family, as well as many other innocents, to stop a horror like fascism from taking over. I hope you never personally face such horror's in your life. — universeness

My comment was just reaching for real-life non-war scenarios that demonstrated the trolley paradox. I've come across many. I hope you personally never have to face one, either being the one or being part of the five, but it happens.

How do you envision that these automated systems would have chosen better?
— noAxioms
I think they would reject all notions of war and would not allow such

Hitler is taking over Europe, including GB in short order. The automated system would reject that and just let it happen rather than resist? That route was encouraged by several notable figures at the time, I admit.

Stephen Hawking had ALS and so did my mother. — Athena

I too give my sympathies, for your mother and for any caregivers, a heroic task similar to caring for an Alzheimer's patient. I have a cousin-in-law that is in final stages of ALS, in hospice now.

Physics is a human undertaking.
...
All measures are made by humans. — Wayfarer

Fine. I googled ‘what is measurement in quantum mechanics’ and got this

In quantum physics, a measurement is the testing or manipulation of a physical system to yield a numerical result. — ”Wiki: Measurement in quantum mechanics”

This seems more a classical physics definition of measurement, but I concede the point that there is implied intent going on.
I don’t have a different word to use. Therefore we lack for vocabulary since ‘measurement’ and ‘physics’ are both human undertakings and apparently cannot be used for interactions not involving humans.
What do you call the actual mechanisms of the universe, as opposed to ‘physics’, the human undertaking to describe it? What would you call an interaction between systems of which humans are completely unaware, say where one system (some radioactive atom) emits an alpha particle which alters a second system (some molecule somewhere) by altering its molecular structure (and probably heating up the material of which the molecule is part). It isn’t a measurement because there’s no intent and no numerical result yielded, so what word describes this exchange between the atom and the molecule?
Bell complained of ‘measurement’ as well, saying it comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to convey.
Give me another word that you find acceptable that describes that which makes the state of system B collapse relative to system A. 'Interaction' seems a plausible candidate, but not all interactions constitute the state of B causing an alteration the state of A.

That of which I am speaking is the measurement in the quantum measurement problem, which has a different wiki page.

In quantum mechanics, the measurement problem is the problem of how, or whether, wave function collapse occurs. The inability to observe such a collapse directly has given rise to different interpretations of quantum mechanics and poses a key set of questions that each interpretation must answer.
The wave function in quantum mechanics evolves deterministically according to the Schrödinger equation as a linear superposition of different states. However, actual measurements always find the physical system in a definite state. Any future evolution of the wave function is based on the state the system was discovered to be in when the measurement was made, meaning that the measurement "did something" to the system that is not obviously a consequence of Schrödinger evolution. The measurement problem is describing what that "something" is, how a superposition of many possible values becomes a single measured value. — ”Wiki: Measurement problem

This is what I am talking about. What precisely physically ‘does something’ to a system that makes its [past] state change, I say physically because I’m not talking about somebody’s mere knowledge or description of a system. I assure you it isn’t the determination of a numerical value by a conscious entity that changes the target system.
Now one can certainly posit that the universe supervenes on humans, and that physical systems collapse into a real state only when a human consciousness tests or manipulates a laboratory system in such a way to yield a numerical result. Such an idealistic interpretation does not concern me, but it is listed as one of the obscure interpretations.
There are various other interpretations. A counterfactual one (e.g. Bohmian mechanics) would say that the wave function never collapses and all systems are in one state, measured or not. Superpositions are an illusion, and apparent interference is due to something other than a system being in more than one state.
MWI would also say no collapse, and an interaction from B to A would simply entangle A with B’s superposition of different states, all of which are instantiated in various worlds. MWI is a realist interpretation that denies counterfactual definiteness, so that principle is not equivalent to a stance realism.
Others call out an arbitrary divide between A and B, or ‘system’ and ‘aparatus’ as Bell puts it. This wording implies again that quantum effects only occur when intentional apparatus is involved, but the interpretations do not suggest this. In Copenhagen, the Heisenberg cut delimits measurer and measured. It can be assigned arbitrarily and is entirely abstract. Actual physical systems have no meaningful boundaries of objects or systems.
A relational view is similar, where an arbitrarily defined system’s state relative to a different system changes upon some kind of interaction from one to the other.

[Counter-factual definiteness] refers to the idea that physical systems have definite properties, even if they are not measured or observed. — Wayfarer

Given your definitions, this seems to translate to a system having properties despite the absence of humans, which is impossible since ‘system’ and ‘property’ are human terms, not meaningful in the absence of humans.
Alternatively, you perhaps suggest an epistemological definition of counter-factual definiteness, where in the absence of human measurement/observation, humans would not know of the thing, and existence is defined by human knowledge of it. Hence, again, by definition, nothing can exist in the absence of humans since no human could know of it. Counter-factual definiteness is therefore false either way.
Correct me where I’ve misinterpreted what you’ve been trying to tell me.

So, you're still 'realist', but you are outsourcing measurement to everything that exists

No, because ‘everything that exists’, lacking a relation, is meaningless in a view requiring such a relation. It’s worded as an objective statement. Only a realist gives meaning to such a phrase.

So, 'measurement', for you, occupies the place that 'God' does, for Berkeley, i.e. it keeps everything in existence when not being measured, as Berkeley's God keeps everything in existence even while not observed.

No. That’s still a cheap attempt to put objective existence on things, like it was a property instead of a relation. I also don’t see how a god (or anything not part of the quantum structure) could measure a closed quantum system.
Why do you find it so difficult to let go of your realist assumptions when being asked to consider an alternative? You seem only determined to pin the realist label on me, listing one strawman argument after another.
I think a god watching (if that is even meaningful) would put categorize things into ‘that which this god watches’, as distinct from that which it doesn’t, which would still be a relation with the god. It would only be realism if the god was real (sans relation).

do you recognize that a system is an artificial thing, a human creation, whether it is a theoretical system, with boundaries imposed by theory, or a mechanical system, with created physical boundaries? — Metaphysician Undercover

I was going to agree with this until the last bit about physical boundaries. A system’s boundaries are an arbitrary abstraction, nothing physical about it. But the arbitrary designations are needed for description, not for the actual processes to work.

then by what principle do you assume that there is any sort of "existence in absence of measurement"?

Given this intentional definition of ‘measurement’, I cannot answer this question since I don’t define existence in terms of it, but it sounds like a version of the principle of counterfactual definiteness. I personally choose to deny that principle.

because "measurement" to most people implies some real existing aspect of the universe which is measured, like when we count something we assume that there is an existing quantity which can be counted and it has some real existence as that quantity, prior to being counted.

That’s pretty pragmatic to assume that, yes. It’s also pretty pragmatic to assume that I cannot choose to alter some event in the past, but it’s been demonstrated that one of those assumptions (if not both) are wrong.

You did not specify a frame, you said "here".

That one word was not where the frame was specified.

but a ‘frame’ does not require additional references.
— noAxioms
Yes it does, and you've misrepresent "frame" as a point. A point is not a frame.

I didn’t say a frame was a point. I can say ‘the frame of the sun’, and that defines a frame relative to which the velocity of things (Earth say) can be expressed. An additional reference is not needed to determine that Earth at a particular moment moves at about 30 km/sec relative to that frame. The statement does not assert that a frame is a point. The frame happens to be a velocity reference. It is limited. I cannot, given just that, specify the x y and z coordinates of Earth at a given moment. More definition is needed for that to be done.
If you disagree with that, then do you deny that Earth moves at about 30 km/sec relative to the sun? What additional references are required before that statement can be made?

As per the above, a specification of only the origin defines a frame...
— noAxioms
No, a point does not constitute a frame.

I didn’t specify a point, and I didn’t say it constituted the frame. The sun for instance is a worldline, not a point. A point would be an event, and an event indeed does not define a frame. A worldline defines a frame. An unaccelerated worldline defines an inertial frame. So before I said ‘my frame’ which is a frame defined by my worldline, and relative to that worldline, ‘here’ is always at the same location, and no, that worldline does not constitute the frame, it only defines it.

"Frame" implies "coordinate system".

It does not. For instance, there is the cosmological frame, an expanding metric that foliates most of the universe. The CMB appears isotropic to anything stationary relative to that frame. But coordinate system implies coordinates. One can measure the sun’s current velocity relative to that frame (not quite 400 km/sec in the direction of Leo), but one cannot specify the current coordinates of the sun relative to it. That would require a coordinate system. Hence a frame and a coordinate system are different things. The former is a velocity reference, but the latter assigns numbers (coordinates) to all events.

There is no frame without a coordinate system as you seem to believe.

I just gave multiple examples of them. If you disagree, then tell me the current coordinates of our sun (a number for x, y, and z, your choice of units). Remember, the only reference is the CMB here, not a worldline this time, but enough.

Your "frame" in this example is a coordinate system which maps the rocket, not one point such as "here"

No, because I didn’t define it relative to that which says ‘here’. I chose a different origin, which was the nose of the rocket. In fact, I never used the word ‘here’ in releation to the frame of the rocket.

And if you say that the rocket is one point

I never said that, so no worries. I referred to the very tip was a point where I assigned the origin. The rest of the rocket is not located at the tip, and so not at the origin. Other parts of the rocket have nonzero coordinates relative to the coordinate system described.

the moon exists to the rock
— noAxioms
Only if they interact. Otherwise neither exists to the other. — magritte

That's the relational view, yes.

The point is to look at what it means to 'exist' objectively, publicly, subject independently and time&space independently, as against exist subjectively with reason.

I didn't get that whole list. To exist is a matter of definition. Objectively seems to be in the absence of measurement. "There is a universe with 4 spatial and 2 time dimensions". That seems to be an objective statement of reality.
Publicly I suppose means that the rock and the water both measure the moon and each other. I didn't get the rest.

Subjectively the rock is the center of its universe without denying the possibility of the subjective universe of others. Without interaction nothing can exist.

The word 'subjectively' implies the rock has experience. I selected it because it doesn't.

So, realist. — Wayfarer

No. Realist is counterfactual definiteness, existence in absence of measurement. Existence due to measurement is not that.

Inanimate objects don't measure anything. And measurement is a conscious process. — Wayfarer

I expect such statements from @Metaphysician Undercover, but you also seem to fail to use the quantum theory definition of 'measurement' in a topic discussing quantum theory. Hence the rise (and fall) of the Wigner interpretation which, due to that language ambiguity, gave rise to the proposal that consciousness causes wave function collapse, an interpretation abandoned by Wigner himself due to it being driven to solipsism.

The 'moon exists to the rock' is a meaningless statement.

Thank you for you time then.

'This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer' — Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order

I disagree with Charles here. Words were used by Pinter to describe this counterfactual reality. I agree that there'd be nothing to put words to the features of things, or to designate certain arrangements of matter as a 'thing' in the first place. But none of that stops physics from happening. It only stops physics from being meaningfully described by anything in that universe.

While I'm disagreeing with him, I'm also on record for stating that absence of life doesn't imply the necessary absence of language, as the quote suggests.

I'm not therefore saying that trees somehow depend on human experience. — Andrew M

Well good then. I was beginning to wonder since all the conversation kept turning to human discourse on physics and not the actual physics.

Obviously they don't.

Not even obviously. Many times things that are obvious are also wrong. As my username implies, I don’t assume anything.
In the end, a few premises are needed though, and I explicitly list that one (that humans are not special, and reality doesn’t supervene on my experience). I even attempt a logical demonstration of it, but I don’t think it constitutes a proof.

I don't understand the point you're trying to illustrate. — Wayfarer

I’m asking what it must be like to be the person who doesn’t win the wave function collapse.

Nothing on the macroscopic level really exists in anything like the mathematical superposition of states that describe subatomic particles. It seems a version of the 'Schrodinger's cat' idea.

Just because it is hard to do doesn’t mean the theory doesn’t support it. And it’s the Wigner’s friend idea, an extension of the cat idea. It works with the cat as well as long as you’re allowed to ask what it’s like to be the cat, which some deny.
And yes, I very much think that I undergo collapse like I describe since my choice of interpretation supports it. The experience is quite normal I assure you.

"I don’t suggest things ‘are real’ in any objective sense." — noAxioms

Yet in another place, you say "The far side of the moon is still there when nobody looks at it since looking at it isn’t what makes it there."

Translation: it is there relative to any person. Sorry that you found a case where I wasn’t explicit about the relation. I do not suggest that the moon is objectively real or even real relative to the universe.

And also that: "If I say the moon exists, I mean that I've measured it, which doesn't involve looking or any other conscious function."

Yes, there I am more explicit about the relationship and the nature of that relationship.

So, what do you mean, really? Because it seems to me, despite your claims to the contrary, that your view is realist, i.e. that trees, the moon, the proverbial table or proverbial apple, are all quite real, independently of anyone's knowledge or experience of them. — Wayfarer

Independent of knowledge and experience, yes, but not independent of measurement (quantum definition, since everybody seems to presume otherwise). A rock measures the moon as much as I do, and so the moon exists to the rock. The relationship has absolutely nothing to do with one part of the relation being something living or perceiving or having any sensory apparatus.

There are many obvious examples of these moral dilemma's from history. Here are two. — universeness

War has always been about sacrifice of people here and there for a greater goal. It is unavoidable. If you could not have lived with yourself after making the decisions you mention, then you (and I both) are not fit for leadership.
The bomb (especially the short interval between them) was done partly to keep the USSR out. They were going to ally with Japan to divide China between them, and that ceased when it became somewhat apparent that we could churn out these bombs at a fairly fast pace. It kept us out of the war with the USSR, mostly because leaders everywhere didn't have the stomach to finish what needed to be done. Churchill did, but he didn't have the support needed, including from you apparently.

An automated system at the level of an AGI or ASI would hopefully prevent such scenario's from happening in the first place or be better able to create alternatives to binary choices between horrific choice 1 or horrific choice 2.

How do you envision that these automated systems would have chosen better? No matter what, they still have to throw lives against the lives of the enemy and it is partly a numbers game. Would they have chosen differently?

Why cannot many people live with knowledge of having done the right thing? Seems either a defect in people or a defect in the definition of the right thing.

Nonetheless the idea of trees falling only has meaning in the context of human experience. — Andrew M

This seems to be a point of contention because I’m not in any way talking about the meaning of the word trees or the human experience of one falling or lack thereof. I was referring to the tree itself falling in the total absence of human anything. It pains me to have to use human language to express that, but I’m not talking about the language, the expression, the concept, the fact that the tree happens to be my very distant cousin, or whatever. I’m talking about the tree.
It is me that nobody seems to get that? I’m not saying that the alternative (that noumena supervenes on human phenomena or human language) is necessarily wrong, but that such a stance utterly destroys any hope of acquisition of knowledge

I think you meant the John Bell quote.

Thx, fixed that. One 4-letter B-word is the same as another, no?

Ha, ha, "street definition", that's funny. Is that the definition of "measurement" which the cop with the radar gun uses to prosecute in court? "I calibrated my machine in the lab according to...so that it would be accurate to within... on the street". On the street we don't really use definitions noAxioms.
Face it no Axioms, there's alwaya intent behind "measurement" no matter how you use the word. There must be or else there'd be no measurement. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is all using the common definition. It seems appropriate that one should use the quantum theory definition of ‘measurement’ when discussing quantum theory. So rather than admitting this obvious thing, you resort again to ridicule in attempt to salvage your assertions.
If I’m wrong to use that definition, then tell me why. Once again, see Bell’s quote above discussing why quantum theory should never have used the word ‘observer’ or ‘measurement’ for precisely the reason you are demonstrating: I leads the naive reader to suspect that humans are somehow necessary for physics to work, that the universe supervenes on you and not the other way around. Yes, it’s a solipsistic stance you seem to be taking.

"Here" does not constitute a frame of reference.

No, it doesn’t. I had specified the frame in which I was stationary.

The point of course, is that no frame of reference can use just one point, location must be established relative to another point.

Just a velocity reference is enough, which is usually defined by the object referenced in establishment of that frame. So I can say ‘the local inertial frame of the sun’ which defines the velocities of everything around it but not any particular coordinate system. To generate a coordinate system, with numbers assigned to every nearby event, would require specification of an origin and of the orientation of the spatial axes. Saying ‘the inertial frame of the sun’ implies the sun at the origin, but only specifies the orientation of one axis, not the other three. So from just that, I cannot specify say the coordinates of Earth at a particular moment in time. I need to know where the axes are, and for that, more than one additional reference must be given. The plane of the ecliptic might define one of those, but still not the other two. A distant reference (Betelgeuse say) might suffice to anchor the other two.
So your statement would be correct about a coordinate system, but a ‘frame’ does not require additional references.

Are you proposing that you could map motion with a spatial representation that employs a coordinate system with only one locational point, a point zero, without any other points?

As per the above, a specification of only the origin defines a frame but does not assign coordinates to events not at that origin. So I could for instance have a frame of a rocket with the origin at the nose, the very ‘front’. That point will always be at the origin no matter what the rocket does, but we need two more points to make a coordinate system of it. So say the rear-most point is on the x axis, and some feature on the side defines the y axis. The z is just orthogonal to the other two and requires no additional reference. Now it’s a coordinate system, and the ‘abort’ button is always (nearly) stationary in this coordinate system regardless of what the rocket does. The astronaut knows where the button is despite the motion of the rocket because he’s using that coordinate system when needing to hit that button. I say ‘nearly stationary’ because vibration and other stresses will move that button a mm or two now and then due to strain on the vehicle.

Let's see, object is always at point zero therefore object is never moving. What defines point zero? The place where the object is.

Very good, The latter half even constitutes the frame reference, which you almost always omit.

We may well apply morality as a pure numbers game, when there is no other information available. — universeness

All else being equal then. In the organ thing, everybody is around 40 year old and part of a family and is loved. The 5 will die within 3 months without the procedure. They would be expected to live full productive lives with the surgery, but of course at the cost of the one, also loved, etc.

In the absence of such detail, the morally consistent approach for me, is that if we are talking about a train track lever that switches the trolly from one track to another, then I would probably pull the leaver and let 1 die rather than 5, if I know nothing about the people involved.

So it is a numbers game, but only when its a game and only if you're not personally involved.
For the record, I am asking what is the morally best course of action, not whether or not you'd do it. It sounds like you'd change your decision based on if you loved somebody (the one in particular). That means you're willing to do the wrong thing for personal reasons.
The trolley is a metaphor. I've never seen the situation come up with an actual trolley. I've seen it with an automobile where the choice was between about 20 people and a small dog. The 20 people were hit, many of whom died, but the dog was OK. I didn't read if the survivors had the dog killed afterwards, but they should have.

If the 1 was my child/wife etc, it's probably then going to be bye bye 5, unless it was 5 children.

Ah, children are worth more than adults. Interesting. The old Titanic thing. I wonder where they cut off the age limit for 'women and children'.

I actually would agree that a person's worth changes through the course of their lives, but modern morality seems to be based on a life being worth infinity period, which results in all sorts of silliness.

In any such situation, of choosing what you consider horrific outcome 1 and horrific outcome 2, but you do have some personal moral notion of a lesser evil between the two choices, then you make your choice, but you will probably never recover from the experience.

Sure, but what if the making of the choice was done by another or was automated? Remember, I'm asking what's right, not what you would do, although knowing what you would do is certainly also interesting. We discussed automating unpleasant tasks above. This certainly qualifies as one.

I would never advocate for harvesting the organs of 1 to save many, like you suggested, no.

This is in direct contradiction to your comment above where you perhaps suggest saving the five outweighs the one. How is this not exactly the trolley problem? I assure you it comes up in real life, and human morality actually says kill the 5, not the 1. Why is this?
Many times the decision has to be made in moments (like the car/dog thing above). Sometimes you have a long time to ponder the choice.

I wondered if we were getting off topic, but no, this has direct relevance.

No, my point is that quantum theory is constructed abductively from what we observe. As far as we know, it applies universally. — Andrew M

My point was that this abductive construction isn’t in any way something unique to quantum theory. That’s not what make it different, and it certainly doesn’t indicate that physical processes require the presence of humans. Sure, the human knowledge of physics requires humans, but that knowledge isn’t necessary for trees to fall in the forest when nobody is around.

I don’t see how that follows, sorry.
— noAxioms
That’s quite alright. — Wayfarer

You choose not to defend it. That’s alright too I guess. I will instead offer a counterargument.
Consider a Wigner’s friend scenario. The friend is in a box, takes a measurement, and based on that measurement, either drinks a hot tea or eats ice cream. To Wigner, the friend is in a superposition of consuming tea and of eating ice cream. This superposition can be demonstrated. Wigner opens the box to find the ice cream case. My question is, what is it like to be the tea-drinking friend?
Different interpretations say different things. MWI and relational might say that the tea drinking friend is observed by a different Wigner or is real only to that other Wigner. The objective collapse interpretations are hard to figure. Does the experience of the tea-drinker just suddenly cease? Does the tea drinker not actually have any experience of it? Is there more than one identity of the friend, one hot and one cold, or are somehow both states experienced by the same friend, but only one remembered? How would you reply to something like that?

There is always intent behind human actions, therefore intent behind measurements. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to be using the street definition of ‘measurement’ instead of the definition relevant to quantum theory. Please see the Bell quote in Andrew M’s post a few back which addresses exactly this naive mistake and the common misconceptions that result from such assumptions.

your ontological attitude is to deny idealism, so you deny the reality because it doesn't jive with your ontology

I’m not denying idealism, I’m merely not talking about it. Sure, under idealism, you (and nobody else) causes wave function collapse.

I have no idea where you are, and therefore no idea where "here" is when you say it.

That’s right. My coordinate system has no need for you to know where its origin is. But you can do it for yourself.

That's how ridiculous your claim was, that because you were "here" now, and "here" later, you hadn't moved.

That would be ridiculous since the frame reference was omitted from the assertion of not having moved, rendering it meaningless at best.

Anything else in the world is totally irrelevant to you because in your solipsistic reality, nothing is ever changing places relative to you

Where did I ever imply that? If you want to take my argument apart, surely you can do it without dragging in strawman stuff like that. So far, all I’ve seen is you applying the appeal to ridicule fallacy.

What in the world are you referring to when you say "not-moving relative to 'here'"?

Given a coordinate system in which some object is always at the origin, that object always at location zero and thus not moving relative to that coordinate system. This is tautologically true. That coordinate system would be an inertial coordinate system only if no external forces were acting on the object in question. Given the comment below, you seem to already know this.

Do you agree, that this sort of tautology, or self-evident truth, that you are never moving relative to yourself, says absolutely nothing about whether or not you are "moving"?

The bolded part of that statement gives no frame reference, so I would agree that nothing was said about that ambiguous statement. I will also say that something’s lack of motion relative to one frame does not imply lack of motion relative to a different frame, had an alternate one been specified.

To make sense of "I am moving relative to the place where I am' would require a completely different definition of "moving".

That depends on what the first definition (the one you apparently reject) was.

And your example says absolutely nothing about "motion" as used in any conventional way.

Agreed, but I’m not using conversational definitions of just about anything. I’m using physics definitions.

Nonetheless the observer - or, even better, agent or person - closes the loop in the sense that it is human experience that grounds quantum theory and the quantities that can be measured. — Andrew M

That also seems true of say Newtonian theory. Is there some way in which human agency or observation makes a difference in (grounds) QT in a way that it doesn’t in NT? That would be a pretty incredible claim, that physics (and not just human theories/knowledge of physics) is different in the presence of humans than it is in a universe absent them.

But I don't think this is what philosophical idealism means - not, at least, as I understand it. This has to do with the nature of the objects of perception. Realism posits that the existence of those objects is independent of our perception or experience. — Wayfarer

But the converse is not true. It being independent of perception doesn’t necessitate a stance of realism. My ontology has nothing to do with perception, and yet I don’t suggest things ‘are real’ in any objective sense.

They exist just so - in the case of the moon for billions of years.

For instance, I wouldn’t make statements like that, but a realist would.

So it is preposterous to claim that they could cease to exist simply because nobody is looking at them. Yet this is what idealism seems to claim.

OK, but I’m not claiming idealism as you describe it. That’s about perception as you say.

And I think this was the point of Einstein's rhetorical question. Realism expects that all such objects are really existent, independently of any mind or anyone's perception. That is, after all, the very definition of realism. This is the gist of Einstein's well-known declaration that he 'cannot seriously believe in [the quantum theory] because it cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.'

I don’t think quantum theory suggests idealism. Perhaps there was a suspicion way back then. People were just coming to terms with the new implications, watching all their classical assumptions getting trampled. The conversation by Einstein was part of that realization that the classical assumptions cannot all be correct. Bell went on later to prove that, saying that either realism or locality had to go. I think Einstein would have had a much harder time letting go of locality since all his relativity theory rests on premises that assume it.

But an alternative is to acknowledge that the existence of sensable objects is contingent and not absolute. This not to assert that objects exist in any absolute sense, on the one hand, but neither is it to claim that they cease to exist when they're not observed, on the other. It is to acknowledge that judgement concerning the reality of objects is a function of human sensory perception and reason, and that it is therefore not absolute. From the human point of view, all such objects exist - you'd better believe it! - but their existence is contingent and not absolute.

Don’t think any of that contradicts what I’m saying. Reality itself is neither absolute nor a function of perception, but judgment of it is a function of perception.

I think it teaches us to respect that science is a human undertaking and that it's not a revelation of what is truly the case independently of any observer.

I don’t see how that follows, sorry.

It's not meaningless to point out the intent which is inherent within observation, measurement, etc.. And the intent is much more evident with the word "experiment". It's a fundamental fact that experiments are designed, and this points to the theory-laden nature of measurements and observations. — Metaphysician Undercover

Usage of the word implies that quantum effects only occur when there is intent behind the measurements. There’s no evidence for that and heavy evidence against it. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with intent in scientific experiments. That’s the point after all.

The magnifying glass is the medium between the observer and the thing observed, it's the apparatus.

Poor example I think since a magnifying glass doesn’t usually qualify as a measurement. They’re used in multiple places in typical laser experiments and they don’t collapse wave functions in them, else the experiments would fail. They’re not detectors, only refractors, and refraction wouldn’t work (wouldn’t bend light) at all if it constituted a measurement.

I told you, time requires observation, it is the outcome of observation.

How very idealistic of you. See Wayfarer’s post above about if perception is required for the reality of something.

I think there was no descriptions derived from human observations (of which "motion" is one), before humans came along.

But I wasn’t asking about descriptions. You say time requires observation. You didn’t say a description of time requires observation. I’d have agreed to that. So you’re evading the question instead by answering a different one.

First, what the hell does "here" refer to?

The origin of the coordinate system defined by the series of events at which I am present.

The term gives no positional reference.

Don’t be silly. You know it does. It is the location of that which said ‘here’.

there's nothing to exclude the possibility that you flew around the whole universe in the meantime.

But you said that being stationary was not possible, so you seem to exclude the possibility that you didn’t go anywhere during that interval. And as for my statement, had I indeed flown all around during that interval, at no time would I not be where I am, thus I’d always still be ‘here’. I’d simply not be inertial, so the coordinate system in which I am perpetually at the origin would not be an inertial coordinate system.

you remind me of the food scenes in Hunger Games.
— noAxioms
Yes. I have watched the Hunger Games movies. I don't see their relevance to our discussion here, they were just a poor throwback to the Roman idea of gladiatorial combat, for the purpose of entertaining a audience of savage morons. — universeness

Your opinion of the plot is noted, but I was speaking of the food scenes, which seems to be what you’re trying to describe in your future socialist utopia with everything being automated except the voting.

The idea was analogous to an unplanned, unwanted, unintended pregnancy, so I assume the consent of the woman to 'become pregnant'/ be connected to the violinist, was not secured.

OK. This story seems like the sort of thing concocted by the pro-life side, and thus I’m sure they’d pitch it as some fault of the woman for getting herself in this situation. Remember, she’s the culprit here, not the victim. She’s the evil one wanting to terminate the support.

About the organ donor thingy:

Depends on what kind of moral society you advocate for? Morally consistent or Morally consistent but there are exceptions.

This reply totally evaded the question. Yes, I would say morally consistent, but you didn’t say what the moral thing to do is. I described a trolley problem where 5 lives can be saved by taking action that kills one. What’s does your consistent moral code say about this? Why isn’t it done today? Why is it more moral to let the 5 die, and should this standard be changed?

OK, but what about the charge of murder for refusing it? Is it murder?
— noAxioms
That's a legal question.

It is a legal question, but if the law is not on your side, you reach for a different set of laws, which is why they usually drag God into it. God can be made to say anything if you read the right snippet of scripture. They’re all out there screaming that the victim (not a legal human by the actual law, but a legal one by virtue of calling him a violinist) is getting murdered by somebody (by her own irresponsible choices) refusing to plug herself in.

If a person refused to donate their blood to save the life of another, when there is no other alternative available, in time to save the person, then you might have a low or even a very low opinion of the person who refused to help.

Anyone can donate blood. Only in the most extreme circumstances, completely outside the safety of the screening and such that goes on, might a panic blood transfusion be performed. Charging a specific person with murder for refusing a pint seems reaching, as you acknowledge.

How do you know they’re not thoughts?
— noAxioms
Well, if you think they are the 'thoughts' of chatGBT then you think it is sentient. — universeness

I said I wouldn’t use that word. It’s very low AI compared to other candidates, but there’s no reason not to use ‘thoughts’ to describe what’s going on in an actual AI. It’s simply a choice to use the word or not. Your wording suggested that it’s a machine, therefore they cannot be thoughts by definition. I was balking at that implication.

Here is chatGBT's response to the question 'can you think?'
As an AI language model, I do not have thoughts or consciousness like humans do. I am programmed to process and analyze text data to generate responses to questions and prompts. However, I can simulate human-like responses through natural language processing techniques and generate text that may appear to be the result of thought processes.

Wonderful. It admits to not having human-like thoughts, but doesn’t disqualify what it’s having as ‘chatGTP-like thoughts’. That’s a pretty good answer. I mean, a dog doesn’t have thoughts or consciousness like humans do, but people often talk about a dog’s thoughts or a dog’s feelings.

OK, I know a bit about how chatGPT works, and it really seems to be a glorified search engine, hardly something to slap the ‘AI’ sticker onto.
— noAxioms
chatGBT partly agrees with you, based on it's response above.

Apparently the ‘glorified search engine’ part refers to the latter half of its description, the part where it does the natural language processing and text generation. The former part, the answering of text questions and such, requires actual understanding of those questions to sufficient extent to reply appropriately, something a regular google search often does not since it just keys off words and doesn’t actually have any understanding of what you’re actually trying to find.

A man-made joint or pig value in my heart would not change who I am. — Athena

I think that depends on your definition of who you are. For the record, I agree with you here, but there’s always that Ship of Theseus argument that attempts to drive that to inconsistency, but the ship argument does not posit a critical component (the serial number so to speak) that if replaced, changes what the thing is. Memory might be that sort of thing, which is why I brought it up.
I’m not trying to disagree with anything (unless I do I guess), but I want to explore this area with somebody interested in the discussion.

Messing with my brain in a way that changes whatever it is that is a consciousness of me, is a death to my ego that might as well be a death to my body as well.

I posit that the consciousness part would remain unchanged. Everything would feel exactly the same as it did before. Problem is, the memory got changed out, so you don’t have any memory of what it feels like to be you. Let’s say you get Sue’s memory, and so you wake up and basically Sue’s memory is conflict with Athena’s consciousness and Athena is freaking out about that. No, it wouldn’t be fun, and yes, I think it would be the destruction of your ego. A new one would need to be built. Therapy. You’ve had parts replaced, so you know that joy. But all that was Athena, all the ties to family no longer recognized, all the built-up love and loss, all that is gone. You’d want to go out with this unfamiliar body and find Sue’s family. That’s not something that Athena would opt in for, so it’s unacceptable. Hey, maybe for somebody who went through enough loss, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but despite all the other parts being Athena, the result would be Sue, and so Sue would have effectively done a full-everything-else replacement of whatever travesty has happened to her, and Athena is merely the donor of everything.
Finally, why would it be a death to the body?

I think the body is as important as the brain in experiencing who we are.

OK, I kind of assumed otherwise above, and I suspect you’re correct on this. There are people that have had simple transplants of some organ and have noticeably changed who they are, taking on traits of the donor. You get into this in your reply, so we agree on it, even if it’s anecdotal. Is it just hearts? Gut biome makes a significant contribution to who you are for instance.
To the list you mention, I’ll add that they taught flatworms to do a maze, then killed and ground them up and fed that to new flatworms which could subsequently navigate the maze far better than those not fed the educated diet. You are indeed more than just your control panel.
I personally have had several things removed (some more optional than others), but nothing replaced beyond dental fillings and such. Oh, and one artificial eye lens. You can see metal in my eye if the light is just right.

Now the ego comes into play and may be willing to make some changes but reacts to changing as though it is a threat and must be resisted.

Dunno, I suspect my ego could stand a few changes here and there. I wonder what could be fixed.

The far side of the moon is still there when nobody looks at it since looking at it isn’t what makes it there
— noAxioms

You do recall the anecdote that Einstein once exclaimed, when walking with one of his friends, 'surely the moon still exists when no-one is looking at it!' — Wayfarer

That comment was what made the moon the thing to exist (or not) based on watching it, sort of like the cat became the classic thing in the box.

This was in relation to the very assumption you're making

But I'm not making the assumption you probably think I am. I suspect the principle of counterfactual definiteness (scientific realism) is false. I'm pretty public about that. I take more a relational view.
First of all, 'looking at it' has nothing to do with anything. It is impossible for any human (dead or alive) to not be continuously measuring the moon.
Secondly, since the moon had been measured, it cannot suddenly jump into a nonexistent state. It's not a solution to the moon's wave function, or at least not one with a probability of zero to more digits than you can imagine. That's what I mean by the moon still being there when nobody looks at it. The moon has been measured and cannot be unmeasured.

he said it because of the challenge that quantum mechanics poses to scientific realism.

Which is why I'm not such a realist. If I say the moon exists, I mean that I've measured it, which doesn't involve looking or any other conscious function.

Bohr said 'no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is observed'.

But that's true classically. A human phenomenon by definition involves a human observation. Quantum collapse doesn't. It involves an interaction between two systems. Andrew M quoted Bohr on this distinction just a few posts above in the part labeled 'Against measurement'.

What if the purely "mechanical" act of measurement produces a numerical result that goes automatically into a computer file and is never "observed" as it sits there and rots? — jgill

It was observed in that scenario, so it makes no sense to say it was subsequently not observed. The statement attempts to use the dictionary definition of observation.

As I said - through inductive reasoning, we can expect that the measurement is taken, that the data exists on that system unobserved. — Wayfarer

You seem to do likewise. Conscious observation plays zero role except epistemic.

But you won't empirically verify that inductive step without observing the result. And isn't this very much at the heart of the whole issue? — Wayfarer

No, that's just an epistemic effect that has nothing to do with whether the result took place or not.

The realist attitude is, well all these processes simply occur, whether we're observing or not.

No, not at all. The realist attitude is that these things (objectively?) occur whether or not there is interaction with some other system. It has nothing to do with observation as you seem to be using the word: an action that a human does and a rock doesn't. Being forced to choose, I chose to discard objective realism of this sort, and for this reason.

Until Walmart opened its otherwise impervious doors. Contrary to most of the posts you’re getting, it has nothing to do with anybody actually looking at anything, with good or bad eyes.
— noAxioms
Except maybe the measurement dials! — Andrew M

Even looking at the measurement dials has no impact on the collapse or not. Of course, the descriptions you quote give a special role to an observer (writing down the reading of the dial say), but 1, it doesn’t take a human (or actual ‘observation’) to do that, and 2, it being written down isn’t what causes collapse. If the dial says |here>, then the wave function is collapsed whether or not anything (or person) reads that dial since the dial is not inside Walmart.

The entire quantum subject would be better served if "observer" were eliminated everywhere and replaced by "measurement". — jgill

Pretty much agree, but Andrew quotes a text that bashes even this word since it is still so open to common language interpretation, but I still agree and use the word in its proper context. Bell suggests ‘experiment’, but that loads the whole situation with intent that is meaningless. The dial unobserved seems not to be an experiment since nobody is recording what it says.

Can't have one without the other though. — Wayfarer

Nonsense. You can have measurement without observation such as the dial, reading |here>, but unnoticed by anybody.

People often say, well measurement is any form of registration on any instrument, but we would never know that, save by checking.

That’s an epistemological issue, not a metaphysical one. Measurement results a physical fact (in interpretations with physical collapse), and observation results in knowledge of that fact. The far side of the moon is still there when nobody looks at it since looking at it isn’t what makes it there.

I’m talking about the physics definition of motion, which does not require a human to be around deciding if it’s motion or not, even if it does require a human to have a human saying it’s motion.
— noAxioms
You never provided any such definition, but if you think you can provide me with a definition of motion which does not require observation, be my guest, let's see it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I googled ‘motion definition in physics’ and get a britannica one saying “change with time of the position or orientation of a body.“ which makes no mention of a requirement for observation (human or otherwise) to be involved. You seem to be attempting to worm in the definition of ‘measurement of motion’ or ‘human concept of motion’ or some other obfuscation hiding behind the line between map and territory.
Admittedly the definition that first comes up makes an implicit reference to a coordinate system without which the position or orientation of the object in question is not meaningful.
Wiki says something similar but adds “with respect to time”.
UW-Madison (a university, so must be far better than wiki per your post above) says unhelpfully: “Motion is the area of physics that studies how things move” which is just a self reference, useless without the definition of ‘move’. It also attempts to define the ‘study of motion’ which is quite different than the definition of motion itself.

Do you realize that motion is always a comparison?

It is a difference of position states at two different times. It is still motion even if those two positions are not compared by anything.

How do you suppose that motion could occur without a human to judge that time has passed?

That’s a pretty idealistic assertion. Are you one of those people that suggest that nothing happened before humans came along? I think that position can be driven to solipsism, which means motion cannot occur without you specifically to judge that time has passed, and that’s assuming that time is something that passes, something else with which I don’t agree, and which none of the definitions above require.

The absolute perspective has no dependency on the motion of any observer.
— noAxioms
Yes it does. The measurement of time is dependent on the observer's observations of motion.

I wasn’t speaking of measurement. Absolute time has no dependency on its being measured. If it flows, the rate (and direction) at which it does so is entirely independent of anything’s perception or measurement of it. You seem to keep attempting to make everything about your knowledge of something, about the map and not about the territory.

When motion is relative, the observer is necessarily moving if time is passing.

Apologies for ragging on every word, but you seem to be going out of your way with the weird suggestions this time. This statement here is no exception. If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’. OK, one might express that as motion at velocity (relative to here) of zero, which is arguably still motion. I would accept that.

You don't seem to understand how time is measured.

Again, I’m talking about time, not about how it is measured, so I’ve given no demonstration of my understanding of how time is measured or my lack thereof.

I don't envisage future systems as being as 'pedestrian,' as you suggest. I envisage them as gaining more and more functionality and can 'cater for all tastes and moods, whims, etc, as long as such moods, whims etc are based on those making the request being of sound mind and the request is not illegal or immoral. — universeness

First of all, my cafeteria suggestion satisfies your description of being a variety, suited to all tastes. There will be more than one of them, each with a sort of specialty, but still different from one day to the next, just like my local Tai restaurant might have daily specials.
As for it being limitless like you describe, you remind me of the food scenes in Hunger Games. Tell me if you’ve not seen that, but it pretty much depicted over-the-top bounty of food, far more than the people could eat, which didn’t stop them from doing it anyway.

I assume that if you wish to visit a restaurant and be treated like …

I wonder how one would be considered ‘treated-like’ when it’s only automated systems giving the treatment. It’s not like the wait staff expects any tips, but they’re also not too likely to spit in your food.

All methods of reproduction would be on offer. Abortion would remain an option.

So I gather, which means that the exponential population growth issue wasn’t solved.

A section discussed abortion in the USSR and exemplified a few cases. One was a young woman who had had 14 abortions by the time she was 36. One of the medical staff, stated, that she knew of cases where women were having around 3 abortions per year. Russian condoms often failed, the pill was not made available, as they Russian authorities would not sanction it's use, as it was a 'western' product and therefore unsafe. No sex education was offered in Russian schools, etc, etc.

This didn’t answer my concern above. Meanwhile, sure, total unavailability of birth control is hardly the best course of action. But I bet the Russian abortions were pretty simple, perhaps just a pill in some cases. Having a surgical procedure done thrice a year kind of puts a strain on the economy.

So, you ask me what I would do about population control. The USSR example convinces me that the answer lies in the education of the population.

Ah, the Nancy Reagan solution: “Just say no…” Many people totally discard their indoctrination when it comes to hormonal urges. A significant percentage of children in all countries are unplanned, including at least one in each generation around me.

I have considered many of the issues put forward by pro-life groups. I dismiss out of hand, any arguments against bodily autonomy, based on theistic grounds.

I pretty much agree with that. It’s kind of the territory of the choice side.

Consider the violinist argument, posited by Judith Thompson:
A violinist is dying, and the only way to prolong his life, is to hook him up to another human and siphon off some of that person’s blood or kidney function as a form of life-support. He must remain in this state for the several months necessary for medical technology to reach the point that it can intervene and completely resuscitate him.
So a woman with the right blood type is hooked up to the violinist. The violinist is now totally dependent on the 'resources' of the woman. Morally, does the woman have the right to free herself of the violinist? even though she knows that this will result in his death.

That is akin to a similar trolley problem. 5 people will die if they don’t have some organ transplant, a different organ for each. A healthy donor is identified. His death (by disassembly) can save 5 people. Logic says to do it. The gut says it’s totally wrong (and I agree). But why? What if the potential donor happens to be serving a life sentence in prison? Does that change the answer? Is a life sufficiently low value that it can be used to save multiple higher-value lives? At what point does logic kick in?
The story above is somewhat weak since the violinist has a voice and is a legal person. An embryo is neither, but only by law. How was the hookup initiated? Voluntarily? Was the woman taken in her sleep only to wake up in this situation without consent? Does being a violinist make you more valuable as a person than a non-violinist? If not, why include that detail?
Can the two of them get around in the world, joined at the hose so to speak?

The choice MUST be the woman's.

OK, but what about the charge of murder for refusing it? Is it murder? Like I said, the situation is complicated by the fact that the violinist is a legal person with worth, an investment of resources and especially time that would otherwise go completely to waste.
That was my biggest reaction to the passing of my father. Not grief, but a profound regret at the loss of all that he was, all that expertise and wisdom, just flushed away in a few moments. The loss of the person, the life itself, was more of a relief than something to grieve over, at least for me. I wasn’t expecting that. Didn’t know what to expect since I’ve lost so few to whom I’m close.

62% of those who voted in Scotland, voted to stay in the European union. — universeness

Har! Score a point then. Maybe they’re used to being part of something not-us, but the English are not so used to that. They’re supposed to be the thing that other groups join (by force or not), and their culture seems to breed such an attitude.
I think any union requires a ‘them’, so a global union requires another globe. That seems to be human nature. So perhaps it only requires the union to be organized by something nonhuman.

Any 'fetch/execute' cycle will involve the mar and mdr registers, the address bus, the data bus and control lines. — universeness

Right. There’s no explicit machine instruction to access them. It’s just part of the execution of any of the instructions.
I forget how this bit started and what the original point was.

Some comments on other posts:

The point is, they are not 'thoughts,' the song was produced by chatGBT, an AI system, yet it was able to invoke an emotive response from you. Not bad, for an AI system with zero self-awareness. — universeness

How do you know they’re not thoughts?
OK, I know a bit about how chatGPT works, and it really seems to be a glorified search engine, hardly something to slap the ‘AI’ sticker onto. It does nice papers and prose, but you can’t really talk to it. It comes nowhere close to the Turing test. There are other projects that get far closer to it. It is with those that I would more protest you saying that they cannot have thoughts, even if they’re currently still not quite as deep as our own thoughts.

How much of your current body would you accept 'just as good or better,' replacements for, if they could keep you alive and healthy and embarking on new adventures, for as long as you liked. — universeness

I thought about this question as well and as I mentioned before, there are two sides of me, and I suppose the main side would accept close to anything being replaced, with the possible exception of memory. The rational side of me dismissed the question as ill-formed, and thus deferred to the main side’s wishes as it usually does.

I would NOT like to wake up in the morning with someone else's face as is true for at least one man. … however, an attractive and functional face would be better than living without that. — Athena

Having a face is better than not having one. I’ve seen the pictures of when it’s done. They have to line up blood vessels and nerves and such and things don’t necessarily go in the same place as it did on the prior owner’s head. So the face isn’t what anyone would call ‘attractive’. I’d still rather have one (and live with the lifetime of rejection drugs that any organ recipient has) than live with just open gore in the front of my head.
Prosthetic faces may become a thing. You look sort of plastic, but presumably attractive and perhaps ageless.

Having my joints replaced with artificial ones is okay.

How about non-artificial parts like pig-values in the heart? I heard those work pretty good.

but if I am the only surviving member of my family please let me die.

You find no point in a knee replacement if you have no relatives left?

Or if dementia is destroying my mind, please help me die.

What if they could replace the bit that was being destroyed? What if you got a new brain, same memories? Would that be OK. The dementia seems to destroy memory, so what if they replaced only the memory part, but it was somebody else’s memories. The thinking part is still all original equipment. I bring this up because that’s pretty much where I might draw the line. For one, I don’t thing anyone would choose this because by the time you might want this, you’re too far gone to make an informed decision.

Or if I could become immortal with my brain in a jar and no body, please, I rather be brain dead.

A brain in a jar isn’t conscious. If they hook it up to life support, it would be a brain in a permanent sensory deprivation environment and would quickly go insane. So if they hook up the inputs and outputs so it has a connection, then it lives in VR all its life and perhaps doesn’t know it is thus hooked up. That doesn’t sound so bad. A BIV isn’t immortal. It still ages the same as any brain, and only for so long.

Not even a completely artificial body would please me because I do not want to be a brain without a feeling body.

It would be a very crappy artificial body if it didn’t send all the usual sensory inputs to the brain that remains. So it would be a feeling body.

I am not sure I would want immortality either.

Totallhy agree. Inability to die would be a complete curse, but only after several centuries, or until the first time you get into a situation where you cannot escape some horrible fate.

You are guilty of 'lazy thinking,' Future restaurants are not doomed to offer humans a poor, boring service due to the fact they will be a lot more automated. — universeness

The prediction wasn’t based on it being automated. It was based on it being fully socialized, with everyone being equal and not getting special treatment, else they’d all want the special treatment every meal. I’ve lived the cafeteria life, and it works, and it was pretty good food, but I don’t have the standards of the upper classes.

Having the option in the future to create a baby, completely outside of the female body, using donated sperm and eggs from consenting parents, IS NOT against god (catholic god included), as god does not exist.

You detract from that to which the comment was a response. I had asked ‘if’ abortions would be done, and you responded with the test-tube baby thing, as if abortions would not be a concept because no woman could get pregnant, leaving me to suspect that a normal pregnancy is not an option.
So I’ll ask again. Assuming pregnancy is an option, how will the future world (which is in dire need of population control) deal with unwanted/illegal pregnancies? How will the voters respond to that? The usual answer is: No population controls, which puts us exactly where we are now. This seems to be the future you envision, so I’m not sure if there’s a point in asking how to deal with people piled 20 deep everywhere. Some fictional stories (e.g. Foundation) depict worlds like that, but never due to uncontrolled procreation, and yes, they need insane continuous import of just about everything.

I support bodily autonomy, not irrational anti-abortion groups.

Ah, but the pro-autonomy groups are equally irrational, as I’ve stated before. Glad we’re on the same side, but how would you address the concerns of the pro-life groups? Nobody ever does that. Do you? Just calling them anti-something is already setting up a bias.

There are churches based on love and inclusion instead of the opposite.
— noAxioms
Yeah, sales-folks will say just about anything to get you to enter their tabernacle. Especially when they are losing so many of their 'flock.'

My mother attends a church that is based on inclusion which is thriving in a town full of quite strict exclusion churches, some of which have folded. I used to go to one of those, and we quit them when they refused to marry my brother for living a sinful life. Have lots of stories of power and corruption from that place. Good riddance.

The only time that population control would be an issue, is when the number of people on the planet cannot be supported, because the socioeconomic system is too 'flawed' to support them. Situations like the one we are in now. — universeness

Even with a fix to the socioeconomic system, the planet cannot support what we have now without spending irreplaceable resources. But you know I think that. The 10-million figure was a good one to maintain for preservation purposes, not a suggestion that the planet cannot sustain more. Maybe 500 million for the latter figure. You of course want trillions (unchecked eternal growth), somehow supported by extraterrestrial resources. I suppose that’s possible, but your vision is my idea of dystopia.

When Scotland becomes independent and re-joins Europe, I think that in the future, Scotland and England will re-join, as part of a 'united nations of Europe,' and eventually a single planetary society, with no 'nations.' — universeness

Yea, that went real well with Brexit, which was a non-forced union that fell apart due to perceived unfairness among other things. I don’t think it’s human nature to want control by what is seen as ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us’.

Hopefully, all energy will be renewable and not have a detrimental effect on the Earths ecology so, distance travel may not be considered so wasteful in the future.

Once the non-renewable stuff runs out, there will no longer be a choice. Importing energy on top of it will not do good things to any natural ecology, but by the time the non-renewable stuff runs out, there won’t be much of a natural ecology to destroy.

As for size of accomodation, we can always build upwards or/and 'into.'

Hence my comment of ‘20 deep’.

I don’t remember assembly code including any details of chip pin details like all those buses and control lines and such.
— noAxioms
LDA and STA can be used with specific memory address locations, so when such instructions are executed, they will of-course employ the address bus and the data bus. — universeness

Yes, but there’s no instruction to set a specific pin to ‘1’ or ‘0’. The same instruction set can be (and are) executed by completely different chips with totally different pinouts and even number of pins. That’s what I meant by my comment.

and assembly code lines which could set the sr control line (line to the status register) to high or low depending on what circumstance you were trying to account for.

I stand corrected then. That’s an example of setting a specific line, even if it isn’t say one of the address lines.

I enjoyed identifying contiguous or separate memory address locations and I enjoyed using the mar(memory address register) and the mdr(memory data register) and the accumulator. They were the processors main 'workhorses.'

There are architectures with instructions to directly manipulate the MAR and MDR? I admit to only knowing about 20 machine languages. Cache memory is another thing I’ve never seen explicitly addressable.

The proper analogy would be that jgill observed interference effects until he and his wife met up and she pointed out that she had been standing there all the time. — Andrew M

Until Walmart opened its otherwise impervious doors. Contrary to most of the posts you’re getting, it has nothing to do with anybody actually looking at anything, with good or bad eyes.

How can any enumeration not be ordered?
— noAxioms
I meant, "not just in order of smallest number to largest number."

That’s just a different ordering, but any ordering can have a counting number assigned to each item in order. It’s still ordered.

If collapse isn’t physical and isn’t epistemological, then what is it?
— noAxioms
Pragmatic. At some point it's necessary to ground a quantum mechanical description in a definite observation or measurement.

OK, that seems to be a distinction between objective collapse and relational collapse, both of which are physical.

So a Heisenberg cut is employed.

A Heisenberg cut is a form of relational expression, that a system on one side of the cut is in some state (as represented by the wave function) relative to the system on the other side of the cut. Yes, the placement of the cut is arbitrary. The cut was first introduced as an epistemic cut (what one system knows about the other) but became a metaphysical one once the interpretation moved away from its epistemic roots.

That something is moving, or in motion, is a human judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m talking about the physics definition of motion, which does not require a human to be around deciding if it’s motion or not, even if it does require a human to have a human saying it’s motion.

Therefore it's completely nonsensical to talk about the motion of a thing in the complete absence of a second thing.

And yet again, your preferred wording of PoR does exactly that.

Then we add the observational data that there is always at least one body moving relative to any other, and this produces the conclusion that nothing is at rest.

I don’t see how that produces that conclusion.

The ontological principle "relativity" renders "rest" as not true.

It renders it meaningless, which is different than ‘not true’.

Our measurements of the passing of time are based in the ancient concept of motion within which, we as observers are assumed to be at rest.

Newton assumed that we ought to continue with "time" based in our rest frame. This is said to be an "absolute time".

Time wasn’t frame dependent back then, so it wasn’t based on any particular designated rest frame.

but the "absolute time" perspective clings to our perspective as the true rest frame for producing temporal measurement.

The absolute perspective has no dependency on the motion of any observer. Assignment of say Earth as the true rest frame is just arrogance and I’ve never seen a modern absolute interpretation that suggests it. Most of them suggest us moving at variable speed of around 350 km/sec and maybe twice that back when the T-rex was the local scary thing. This can be determined because spacetime isn’t Minkowskian, and the PoR only applies to Minkowskian spacetime.
But even those values are a local measurement of time since it varies based on gravitational potential as well, and we can’t know our absolute gravitational potential. So one ‘hour’ is not an actual hour, but a dilated one, even if measured by a stationary clock. So there are absolute theories out there, but even those cannot say how long an actual hour is.

Einstein saw a way beyond this inconsistency by repealing the "absolute time" perspective.

This is really confused. I haven't the foggiest idea of what you're trying to say.

Somehow I’m not surprised. Presentism requires a preferred frame. You don’t know this? Any other frame labels past and future events as simultaneous (ontologically different according to your assertions), which would be a contradiction. So presentism contradicts Einstein’s postulates and his theories along with them.

You seem to be employing the "absolute time" perspective to come up with "the present", yet also using "the relativity of simultaneity" to say that events in the present are not necessarily simultaneous.

Presentism says that all events in the present are necessarily simultaneous, does it not? Relativity of simultaneity is wrong in that case, something only derived from SR postulates, both of which are wrong under any form of absolute space and time.

Cantor's proof assumes an enumeration of the set of real numbers — Andrew M

OK, my mistake, since I was envisioning an enumeration of the rationals to prove that there are irrational numbers. But the proof of that is less complicated.

(any enumeration, not just an ordered one)

How can any enumeration not be ordered?

Copenhagen-style interpretations also generally deny a physical collapse. — ”Andrew M”

Maybe. The list of interpretations on wiki says some of the Copenhagen interpretations say this. This implies at least that there’s more than one interpretation using this name. The reference they give on the ‘maybe’ talks about the epistemic view I mentioned, but then:
“By contrast, the Copenhagen interpretation has also been associated with an ontological view of the quantum state, in which the wave function somehow describes a real wave, and the collapse is a real physical process – presumably induced by the observer. This ontological view is usually attributed to von Neumann in his 1932 textbook exposition of quantum mechanics; … Thus, for Bohr, the wave function is a representation of a quantum system in a particular, classically described, experimental context. … When a measurement is performed (that is, when an irreversible recording has been made; see below), then the context changes, and hence the wave function changes. This can formally be seen as a "collapse" of the wave function, with the square quotes indicating that we are not talking about a physical process in which a real wave collapses.”
Square quotes? Should that say ‘scare quotes’? Anyway, that bit says we’re not talking about a physical collapse.
All this taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
If collapse isn’t physical and isn’t epistemological, then what is it?

A statement about a single body is not completely "meaningless", because we can still state properties of the body itself, and this is meaningful. — Metaphysician Undercover

You know I’m talking about it’s property of motion, in complete absence of a second thing relative to which that motion (or lack of it) is meaningful.

That is, if we take the principle of relativity as our primary premise, and add the observational premise that there are numerous bodies observed to be moving in different ways, we can conclude that noting is immobile.

Non-sequitur. The principle (your chosen wording) seems only to say that there’s no way to tell, not that there cannot be an immobile one.
Anyway, I actually don’t wish to continue hammering this point, which just seems to be a different choice of wording the same thing.

If you can show me a valid concept of rest, lack of change, which can be maintained consistently along with the principle of relativity as well, I would appreciate the demonstration.

My chosen wording of the principle makes no mention of ‘at rest’ or ‘stationary’, nor does it make any mention of internal change, so it’s not mine to demonstrate.

Even if we accept locations to be "at rest" relative to each other in an internal way, and deny Einsteinian relativity, these locations are still not at rest in the wider (external) context. And when we start mapping the points which are supposed to be at rest relative to each other, in comparison with external things, we inevitably find minor inconsistencies which cannot be resolved, as demonstrated by Einstein's train example.

The train example presumes the premises listed. If you deny those premises, then the train example ceases to demonstrate any inconsistencies.
I always took you for somebody in denial of Einstein’s theory precisely because only in one frame (and not an inertial one either) are all the events in ‘the present’ simultaneous with each other. In all other frames, this is not so, so the laws of physics are different between this and that frame, in violation of the principle. This follows from your assertions, ones with which I do not agree.

You are merely trying to suggest a scenario which YOU think CURRENT automated systems could not deal with. I will leave such issues to the experts in the field. — universeness

I imagine what was once a restaurant will become more like a dorm cafeteria. You just come in and eat what you will of what they’re serving that day. No more wait service. Most of the automation of the place will be like a factory, with machines doing continuous tasks with little more intelligence than today’s toasters. There needs to be an AI presence somewhere, but it will likely be offsite, and using specialized drones for non-repetitive tasks like maintenance of the machinery and the control of the rats.

Yes but bodily autonomy may not be an issue in the future if the whole process is done outside of the body, as I am sure most women would prefer that, to the bodily trauma they currently have to go through.

This goes against the morals of a huge percentage of voters. I mean, contraception is considered a sin by many, and forced sterilizations are not going to be popular with the voters. It also renders the species completely dependent on the baby farms. It hits one’s Nazi eugenics buttons where only ‘better’ people can breed, and only qualified people can raise children, not necessarily their own. Yea, the voters will love that.
That said, I sort of support this sort of breeding control, but only in a global culture. In our current system, any group that implements it will likely be out-populated by groups that don’t, and will thus be bred out.

No abortion as such would be needed just a case of completing a process or stopping it. I imagine, a whole new set of arguments would ensue.

There are those that consider it murder to not bring to term a female egg, whether via in vitro fertilization or via test-tube procedures like you suggest.

How about a future where a man can be injected with a compound which makes him produce the equivalent of a female egg. This could then be removed and fertilised with sperm, from his male partner.

Sounds like a possibility, but it would be probably easier to just combine the DNA of both into a waiting egg from which the female DNA has been removed. Remember that the two women also want to do this and might need one of their gene sets placed into something like a sperm cell. Also remember that the state controls reproduction and might decide that you don’t get to raise your own kids, or raise kids at all, even if you do breed some, so whether the genes of the kids you raise are yours or not might not be something you get to have if we’re implementing this test-tube world.

:lol: I would love to see the theist's react to that one.

Most theists would probably embrace all that. I was one once and wasn’t taught the sort of exclusion that you might get from the more conservative church authorities. There are churches based on love and inclusion instead of the opposite.

Those on the bottom of the social status scale don’t seem to mind their position there, or the social disdain that comes with it.
— noAxioms
You know this for certain? How many have you personally asked?

It isn’t the sort of question that ones comes out and asks, but my son sort of dated somebody from such a family, so I did at some point find myself in their home. The girl’s father certainly put out an air of not minding what I (or my son) thought of his social status.

Do the animals in a zoo have free travel? freedom of speech and protest? a democratic vote?

I don’t think the humans will have complete free travel. Sure, it’s a big zoo, but there’s parts of any zoo from which the tennants are kept out. Yes, the zoo animals can say what they want. No it’s not a democratic system, but I don’t think voters would yield their responsibility completely away to the point of it being a zoo. Who knows. Maybe they would. A zoo is pretty posh compared to the wild, especially when the ‘wild’ is everywhere not in this artificial enclosure optimized for humans. Being outside that would probably require life support.

Free education? A career path of their choice with an ability to change their chosen life path anytime they wish?

Yes, those are all zoo amnesties. But you don’t get to choose to be a zookeeper. An assistant one perhaps.
Career path is pretty sketchy. I mean, everybody can choose to be an astronaut today but very few actually get to go into space. You cannot be an accountant so easily if there’s no money. You probably can be a plumber, but then given ‘toy’ projects, with the projects that matter going to the automated systems actually responsible for the system’s continuing functionality. Maybe some would want to be explorers of ‘outside’ the zoo, meaning they get to wear those life-support outfits and be taken on controlled expeditions to areas outside kind of like class trips in school.
What if I want to do something truly dangerous like be a cave spelunker? Would the zookeepers tolerate a certain level of fatalities from one’s chosen pursuits? As a zookeeper, I would find myself in a position to prevent the occupants from getting killed as much as is reasonable. Where is reasonable?

If they do, then I would love to live in such a world zoo.

So the argument goes. How big you think it should be? Less than a 1-10 million people on Earth? That seems plenty for a breeding population, and is well within the limits of renewable resources without resorting to importing something as dangerous as energy from off-planet. It would need to be spread out over several interesting places. I can’t get enough of mountains, especially since I was raised in a place completely lacking in them.

How is population of a given region controlled?
— noAxioms
Via population education, a better means of production, distribution and exchange, perhaps we can make the deserts bloom, build environmental friendly, cities under the water, and we also have the potentially unlimited living space, that might eventually result from space exploration and development. — universeness

Most of that answer was ‘find more regions’, which didn’t answer the question at all. Better education and whatnot is going on now, and has almost zero effect. No breeding like rabbits is currently considered immoral by many groups. The propaganda isn’t capable of change unless the morals change first.
China had forced controls which, partly due to the cultural pressure of requiring a male heir to each family, resulted in orphanages and morgues full of baby girls. In the end it did sort of help reduce their population, perhaps by shipping many of those orphans off to other countries until they halted that due to the shortage of wives for all those heirs.

Ukraine may well have united with Russia in the same way as countries in the European union united.

They were united with them, and chose to be separate when it wasn’t forced anymore. I don’t think they benefited much at all from the Union days.

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

A nice sound bite, but mistaken.

As long as what you would consider 'wealthy,' gives such individuals no significant ability, to influence any significant number of individuals

But it does. I have goods worth bartering, and that has influence over those that want those goods that are not otherwise available to everybody.

or can influence the actions of those in authority

It’s not supposed to, but it’s also quite human nature that corruption is likely, at least until you offload that task to the automation just like everything else. Can the automation be corrupted? Is it bound by popular choices? We all want (voted for even) guns so we can kill each other. Should the automated non-corruptible authority deny that because it wouldn’t make anybody’s lives better? Because I assure you, the only reason the USA has guns is due to sanctioned legal corruption.

Yes, I do think long commutes are a waste of resources. — universeness

It was, but not as much ‘cost’ as moving close to my employer. That cost was money, and I suppose that since I had a need, the perfect society would allow me a home near my place of work, but maybe it would be a much smaller home due to the population density there.

I have no idea why you interpreted this as You don’t think long commutes are a waste of resources?

OK, I think I get what you’re saying, but what do you do then with the person who wants to live in a place that happens to be quite distant from his place of work? Some of those jobs cannot be performed remotely (such as one in a lab just to name something). Is this person’s needs to be denied?

The development of an AGI/ASI, has been posited by many, as the technical singularity moment, that will ring the death knell for the whole human species.

Sure, but slowly, not at a specific event like the pushing of a button that let ‘Skynet’ loose. The singularity isn’t like that. By the time we see it, it’s probably been there for quite a while.
I learned a bit about chatGTP lately, and the thing is barely qualified as an AI at all. It really does nothing but regurgitate streams of words that already exist, a sort of pimped-out google search. A true intelligence would be able to come up with new ideas, not just rehashing consensus ones. So fear not, the tech singularity isn’t here yet. You’ll know when all the people like me suddenly lost their jobs. That would signal that the thing actually knows what it is doing.

From that site, we have:
What is artificial superintelligence (ASI)?
Artificial superintelligence (ASI) entails having a software-based system with intellectual powers beyond those of humans across a comprehensive range of categories and fields of endeavor. — universeness

Machines have long since done some things better than us. I think the definition needs refinement from this one. Any stupid search engine has faster access to a huge database of answers and can get to them faster. But so far it cannot create new knowledge, and I think that part is critical.

A book contains data, not knowledge. Knowledge is created after you assimilate this data. (Check the term "knowledge".) And it is your mind that process this data, not your brain. The brain can only process stimuli. And stimuli are not data. — Alkis Piskas

I pretty much disagree with every statement here.
As for the distinction between mind and brain, the latter is an organ, a piece of hardware. The former is process that takes place in the latter. I don’t see how hardware that is operating data is not considered to be the processing of data any less than a meat grinder itself is processing meat, and not just the grinding that processes it.

AI can never become self-aware or even just aware. Awareness is an attribute of life (living organisms).

OK, so you seem to be taking the language point of view, a refusal to use a given word to describe an identical process being done by something not on your list of approved categories. This smacks only of religious ignorance. Especially the bit about the suggestion of self-awareness (something that you assert only life can have) existing before abiogenesis (life), which seems to be directly contradicting your own definitions.

As for "Dyson spheres", I don't think so. Artificial black holes would have far more energy density for far less energy expenditure (no planetary orbit-megaengineering). — 180 Proof

Didn’t get this. You want to harness the energy of a black hole? Kind of hard to do that from something from which no energy can escape.
The Dyson sphere thing seems impractical. Nowhere to get the material, to somehow hold it up, and nowhere to dissipate the energy resulting. A lot of work expended to just jettison the waste heat. The ring idea solves a lot of those problems, but it of course doesn’t capture 100% of the starlight.

I imagine you will sleep like an innocent child tonight — universeness

I’ve bred a few innocent children and trust me, they don’t sleep all that well. Imagine how long it took the photographer to get that shot.

I loved assembly code, with all its opcodes and operands and how it accessed and manipulated internal registers, as well as the data bus, the address bus and the control lines. — universeness

I don’t remember assembly code including any details of chip pin details like all those buses and control lines and such.

It could have been worse, you could have been a binary programmer in the days of punch cards or input tape

I did the tape and card bit, but am unaware of binary being input that way. That was mostly done with manual toggle switches. Very tedious, simple, and before my time. There were assemblers by the time I came around, and my punch-card input was typically some version of fortran.

Must have been fun trying to find a code error in a million lines of binary code

I don’t think binary code was every more than a few thousands of bytes. If you can’t bootstrap something more high-level in that amount of space, you’re in the wrong industry.
I still have my Okidata dot-matrix printer. The ink ribbon has doubtlessly gone totally dry by now, but the thing was a workhorse and was totally reliable, unlike the printers today.

Cantor's proof (by contradiction) shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable and thus can't be enumerated. Since the set of real numbers can't be enumerated, the diagonalized number therefore can't be computed. — Andrew M

But that number (from Cantor’s proof) is generated from a countable list of rationals, not an uncountable list of reals. So it can be computed. It doesn’t require the ordering of the reals. That was my point,.

Copenhagen-style interpretations also generally deny a physical collapse. So, in that sense, Copenhagen and Everett/MWI agree (and disagree with physical collapse theories such as GRW).

I am not really clear on what a formal statement of metaphysical Copenhagen interpretation would say. I’m more familiar of its roots as an epistemological interpretation where collapse (of what is known) very much does occur, but it is just a change in what is known about a system, not a physical change. They’ve since created a not-particularly well defined metaphysical interpretation under the same name, and if it doesn’t suggest physical collapse, I’d accept that statement.

The empirical difference is between physical collapse theories such as GRW, and non-physical collapse interpretations (such as MWI and Copenhagen). From Wikipedia:

Such deviations can potentially be detected in dedicated experiments, and efforts are increasing worldwide towards testing them. — wiki

Cool. Interesting to watch then. Thanks.

One body relative to the other body, is what is being discussed. Obviously, each is moving and neither is immobile. — Metaphysician Undercover

Totally agree with this, but it renders meaningless a statement about a single body in the absence of something relative to which motion can be defined.

The principle of relativity states that there is no physical way to differentiate between a body moving at a constant speed and an immobile body.

If there are two bodies with relative motion, then per the definition of motion, both are moving relative to the other, and the differentiation can easily be made by measurement. If there is but the one body, then motion isn’t defined at all.

Why do you incessantly resist and deny the point of the principle of relativity?

I don’t. I said in my prior post that I could accept it, despite the non-relative wording of it.

The basic principle is that nothing is immobile (nothing is at rest).

If what is being discussed is one body relative to the other body, your choice of wording leaves the second entity unspecified, merely implied, like there’s some embarrassment about it. So say it. Relative to what is nothing immobile?

The principle of relativity renders the concept of "at rest" as obsolete.

And here I thought it was the definition of motion that did that. The principle of relativity seems to still hold even if you discard the relative definition of motion, and Einstein’s theories along with it.

… because by the principle of relativity "at rest" is not a valid concept.

If the PoR makes the concept of ‘at rest’ invalid, why does it (or at least the version of PoR that you prefer) reference it?
My apologies for hanging on this point so much, but you seem to contradict yourself regularly, saying that the concept is invalid, but regularly referencing the invalid concept nonetheless. I personally don’t find the concept invalid at all. It’s just a totally different set of definitions with totally different physics than what Einstein proposes. I don’t prefer these alternate definitions, but I cannot prove them wrong.

Then through extension of Newton's first law, a rest frame, or inertial frame, can be derived from any body displaying uniform motion because "uniform motion" is the concept which has take the place of "at rest".

Anyway, I will accept this as well. You don’t seem to be pushing the alternate definitions. In Minkowskian spacetime, a rest frame can be any arbitrarily selected frame and the is the implied second object relative to which motion is defined. The selected frame is an inertial one if Newton’s laws of motion hold in it, but other frames (with different laws) are also allowed.
That said, I don’t know why nothing can be at rest in it. I do realize that I cannot name a single object which isn’t accelerating at least in the coordinate sense, so nothing seems to be stationary for any extended period of time. I say coordinate sense since an object in free fall (Earth say), except for spinning in place, is not particularly acted on by significant forces and thus is effectively stationary in its local inertial frame (it traces a geodesic through spacetime). This is a departure from Newton’s physics where gravity is a force and causes paths to curve.

What do you think this means, to assume numbers which cannot be counted nor computed? To me it's a form of unintelligibility, to say that there are numbers which cannot be accessed by us, or used in any way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t find it unintelligible, but I do find fascinating the complete inaccessibility of such numbers to us. The vast majority of real values are these inexpressible values. I gave a few examples of them, especially ones that don’t require units which themselves are only approximately defined.
It seems that they can be measured to some precision, but those approximations are never the number itself. Hubble’s ‘constant’ (which unfortunately does have units) is one such number, and one that is known to not even an entire significant digit. I put ‘constant’ in quotes because the value changes over time.

If the people on the tracks, made the train, and caused it to hurtle towards themselves, then they are the only ones who can stop it. The optimists are not as passively waiting and are not as meekly accepting of the fate your pessimism suggests, they can do nothing about. — universeness

From what I see, all the efforts have been aimed at reduction of the acceleration of the train, not even reduction of its speed. It’s not a fault. I cannot think of a being that has this capability. Perhaps this is evidence against intelligent design, because that’s one of the primary items I would have included in a decent design.

How about just the person running a paper-pushing position at say a local doctor’s office.— noAxioms
Soon automated, hopefully, same for all such tedious jobs.

OK, I can accept that. I also had a paper-pushing job of sorts, but quite a good one involving significant creativity and pay. Such jobs will also be available for automation one the capability is there. It isn’t yet. But I suspect that there will be those who still choose to do such things, even if not in a capacity that displaces the machines doing the actual necessary work.

You keep churning out such examples, and I keep repeating that I am confident that any job humans don't want to do, can be eventually automated.

It wasn’t so much a job that wasn’t desired, but rather management that nobody wants to work under. I suppose they can make machines that don’t mind being berated for not being fast enough, or machines that don’t need to wear diapers just because the boss thinks 4 hours between restroom breaks is a minimum interval (Amazon does this among others).
Yes, machines have automated many tasks, but so far they’re really awful at reacting to problems that arise, anything out of the ordinary. How does the robot restaurant cook react to a rat in the fresh food storage? Probably doesn’t notice it.

If anyone refuses to do their share, then I would not remove access to any of their basic needs, but there would be social consequence's of their refusal, to do their fair share.

Ah, now you finally mention the possible utility of consequences, even if completely unspecified.

Pro-life and bodily autonomy arguments and issues like it, will no doubt persist for a long time yet.

This is an interesting conflict because I’ve never seen either side of the argument make the slightest attempt to acknowledge the points made by the opposing side. There’s almost zero rationality to it. I’ve been to rallies (you decide which side) and trust me, rationality is nowhere to be seen.
Point is, the issue with the environment is similarly lacking in rational thought, despite all the claims to the contrary. You need to start with a goal, and ask ‘why that goal?’, and if there’s an answer to that, then you probably haven’t identified the goal yet, only a means to some other goal.

Who knows how new tech will change how an abortion is performed in the future.

Sure, but ‘how’ is not the issue. ‘If’ is more the issue.

Well, I have already stated that the main consequence of behaving as you suggest, in the quote above, is 'social status' based. — universeness

Those on the bottom of the social status scale don’t seem to mind their position there, or the social disdain that comes with it.

If you know Jimmy (photo's provided), perhaps you could discuss with him, why he will not help his local community, in the ways we have asked him to.

Because he gets all he needs without helping. That’s apparently enough for Jimmy. Of course I don’t see public shame-sheets naming each of them each month or so, a list of able-bodies individuals on the dole. People would get tired of such propaganda pretty quickly and it would lose any real pressure after a short time.

You might find my suggestion here unpalatable, and you might even think that violence would be threatened or enacted against Jimmy, or Jimmy himself would respond to such social haranguing with violence, even though it would be prosecuted, if it was perpetrated.

Then there would be crime, which would be dealt with accordingly, especially with automated evidence-gathering infrastructure that makes it almost impossible to get away with anything illegal. It’s not big-brother if it’s just preventing crime, right?

Perhaps you can suggest a better way to reason with Jimmy, if all verbal reasoning has failed to date.

I don’t know, I sort of favor the way they do it with the guy in the hut, but how to differentiate the layabout from the guy who has this busy hobby writing unpopular books and is too busy to pitch into community-necessary work that somehow cannot be automated? Some have excuses. Not all are able-bodied. Some are retired and exempt, and part of the code is to extend their presence as long as possible.

Perhaps the issue would never arise eventually, due to the level of automation achieved.

Just so. Then there’s no obligatory tasks, pretty much exactly like life in a zoo.

How is population of a given region controlled? That can’t stay exponential forever, else the human biomass density will eventually exceed the mass density of the available elements. None of the above visions work without this. Shipping the excess off-planet is not a solution. Colonization is done with new blood. Australia is sort of an exception to this, but it was not done with surplus, but with undesirables.

Either war will destroy us all or it will eventually unite us all, as it has since we came out of the wilds. — universeness

Don’t think it can unite us. Sure, it can join two smaller groups into a larger one, as it always has, but it cannot, nor has it ever in history, made us one. At best it will be a total imperialistic state with one small group in control of everyone else as occupied states. If they kill off all the occupied population (as they seem to be attempting with Ukraine), then without anyone over whom to have power, the state will collapse into smaller units in mutual conflict. Imagine the entire planet controlled by somebody like Putin, with nothing but Russians everywhere and nobody left who isn’t one. That won’t last. The rules will not be the same for everybody. I can’t prove this, but it seems human nature that this is inevitable. A group needs an enemy to maintain its identity as that group. There’s never been an ‘us’ that seems to encompass all of humanity.
Of course if there were other planets colonized, that might well unite an entire planet or even federations of them.

Two tribes go to war and either one conquers the other of they make peace by uniting.

If that was the outcome, there’d be no point to the war. No, the loser loses something, usually significantly more than just say their leader having to bend the knee. Why does Ukraine resist what’s happening if all they have to do is unite and everybody goes home happy?

I believe global unity and world government is inevitable

Well we differ there. I find it impossible unless you limit ‘global’ to ‘one of multiple globes’. Just my opinion.

Trying to figure out if/where the sarcasm kicks in. — noAxioms

I intended no sarcasm in what I typed. — universeness

I have bad sarcasm radar, so never sure.

I see from my readings here that my thinking needs modulation by your robust brand of optimism. — ucarr

I presumed at first this was straight, but I delude myself. jgill definitely throws in on the sarcasm side.
But in seriousness, I find my comment to which that was a response to be an optimistic outlook for the grander scale. My goals are far larger than those of most people, larger than humanity even. So I’m seen as a pessimist because I see humanity as only a means to something, not as an end.

If what you say proves to be true in the future, and the 'wealthy' still exist as you describe them above.

You said this, just not in those words. You said people could barter for more than the essential needs provided by the state on what I called the black market. That makes for wealthy people. If not, then such activity (barter) should be illegal and all goods (say the highly sought after paintings) should be handed out by lottery or something, in which case they’ll all be destroyed in short order because the average Joe has no means to care for priceless artwork. The artist will probably not bother to make many, knowing this fate awaits them.
You seem to be OK with there being wealthy people. After all, it makes for an incentive to do something truly productive rather than mere pursuit of one’s hobbies.
I wonder if a sufficiently wealthy person could create a company, all without money. What if the company could be publicly owned? That would make for money appearing in a system devoid of it. My brother is well educated in such matters. I should discuss stuff like that with him.

Yeah, a lottery win can be a death sentence for many.

Agree, but it wouldn’t be for me, mostly for the same reasons I don’t pay the stupid tax.

'Earned the same amount,' is controversial, to say the least. The money trick means you can earn great wealth, not by particularly working hard but by sycophantically leeching from the sweat and toil of workers.

I didn’t mention any ‘trick’. I’ve earned my nest egg without every having an employee. I do own a company of sorts now, but it’s just me. It pays far less than the days when I was employed, but I find myself not wanting to get back into it.
Nevertheless, those that earn money by working for the man or by being the man are both in the same category: far more likely to manage assets better than somebody who won similar asserts in a prize.

If you earned your millions/billions via investments and deals on the stock markets (gambling joints), then your wealth is via the money trick and is NOT CLEAN imo.

Ah, we seem to have introduced a concept of clean money, different than the usual definition (laundered). You seem to define it in terms of moral means of acquisition. My brother (the one I spoke of above) made his living day-trading for several years. It wasn’t gambling and he did quite well, but I told him that it wasn’t productive since the activity served the interests of nobody, no customer or anything. He stopped doing it (afaik) and now rents other people’s houses. That is a productive activity and I approve more.

That beginning, that resulted in the Amazon company that exists today and the abomination that is now the wealth of Bezos, is nefarious, and vile, and needs to be stopped from ever, ever happening, in the future.

It’s efficient, and should be emulated by your perfect society. You just don’t like the money going to the owners. The brutal working conditions should be illegal though, but they’re necessary to be competitive. Your social society would eliminate that competition and theoretically make the working conditions far better, especially since nobody is going to be forced to do it by the necessity of needing to feed their families.

Sounds good to me! Apart from the 'waste of resources.' — universeness

You don’t think long commutes are a waste of resources? My last job was about 200 km away. I considered moving but the cost of living was so much higher there. So I went in once or twice a week and did a 40 hour shift and did the rest of the work from home. I burned 4 cars into the ground doing that. Every one of them was lost somewhere on the commute to that place.

For me, the term 'information singularity' or 'technological singularity,' is more about a 'moment of very significant change.' — universeness

Yes, but one car passing another isn’t a significant change. It’s a subtle one, even if the long term implications are not subtle. Maybe the cars are not side by side but km apart and nobody notices the difference.
I didn’t see the point in bringing up a mathematical singularity at all. OK, a black hole event horizon is a singularity of sorts, and dropping through one won’t be noticed by the thing doing it, but the implications (certain doom) are there, and probably were already there before the EH was crossed. So there’s a bit of appropriateness to that analogy.

People love to see trains coming. They bring stuff and take stuff and offer travel. — universeness

You seem to be deliberately avoiding the analogy, which is everybody on a train trestle (or tunnel) with nowhere to stand with a train present. The people cannot get out of the way, but they can slow/stop the train, but not trivially. But most (the optimists at least) assume the train will stop by itself or somebody else will do it. The pessimists know nobody else will do it, but even they don’t really have any good suggestions for preventing the train from arriving. There’s nothing nefarious going on (except perhaps those profiting from speeding up the train). The train is of the making of the very people on the tracks.

initiatives like the 'Gosplan' in Russia were indeed socialist and were successful or a while — universeness

Thanks for the description of that. It’s far more than I knew, and I haven’t really looked it up myself.

The rewards involved in helping others, can be as much of an ego boost, as someone telling you what what an amazing artist, singer, writer, scientist, capitalist, warrior, devil, angel, worshiper, athlete or tiddlywinker you are. — universeness

Not thinking of those being an amazing anything. How about just the person running a paper-pushing position at say a local doctor’s office. Yes, you can get the boost from doing something needing doing, being amazing about it in the eyes of others is a stretch. Respectable, sure. What about all those service jobs with a boss that makes every day misery? I know several businesses locally that permanently have help-wanted signs outside because they scare away employees faster than they attract them. Imagine that situation without the incentive of getting anything (event he ego boost) for your efforts.

All people seek the approval of others, no matter how much anyone might deny it, imo.

How about somebody working at an abortion clinic (doctor or staff)? Those people provide an essential service and yet get far more disapproval from others than otherwise.

Most folks are forced to, yes, or do you think a 16 year old black boy living in a hut in a poor village in a 3rd world country or a slum ghetto somewhere, has the same opportunities in life, as your kids have had?

I’m speaking of those in a first world country that actively decide not to contribute. There’s a significant number of them. In the country with the hut, somebody making a choice like that would just starve. You’re describing a global first world situtation, so your comparisons shouldn’t reach for the opposite end of that spectrum.

Good, I am glad you vote, I hope you vote for those who are closest to secular humanism,

Of course I do. Not many of those voting otherwise tend to find their way onto a forum like this one. OK, more here than you’d find on say a science forum.
Secular humanism isn’t enough imo, and the office required to do what needs doing doesn’t even exist. The candidates all stand for the voters now, not for humanity, beyond their incredibly short term of office.

If people like what she produces in HER CHOSEN JOB of 'artist,' then prints of her work can be downloaded by anyone for free, framed and put up on their wall.

Prints sure, but it’s the originals which command the value. Those ‘sell’ by barter if nothing else, and command a significant exchange on the black market (any market operating outside the ‘to each according to their needs’ mechanism).

I would get rid of all copyright and patent laws.

Yea, that’s been a problem. China for instance steals software, copying it freely, thus forcing restrictions on sales of tech to them. An Xbox for example could not be legally be exported to China due to this policy. I agree that such laws are kind of pointless on a global communist society, but right now there isn’t a global anything economy. It’s just different independent countries each with different rules. The lack of unified rules is a huge part of the problem. How do you propose to move from how it is now to a unified thing?

To the state, artists WOULD BE very significant contributors. Of course she is contributing to the well being of others. People LOVE art. Why is her work in so much demand, if it does not contribute to peoples well-being???

Trying to figure out if/where the sarcasm kicks in. Yes, many people love art. Those guys get the prints. But the wealthy can afford the rare stuff, the originals, and there will very much be the wealthy. The artist in question will be one of them. Lack of a concept of money just makes it harder to tax.

Why would she put her 'original' paintings on to a barter market?

Seriously? Because it commands a price. She can trade it for other luxuries that are not included in the package available to everybody.

I think the artist you describe would be happy living under the system I am proposing.

So do I. Did I say otherwise? OK, a luxury life does not imply a happy person. One of the best way to ruin your happiness and relations with everybody you know is to win a major lottery. The stats on that are very consistent. But a lottery winner is very different from somebody who earned the same amount.
For the record, I consider lotteries to be a stupid-tax: A tax that’s completely optional, to be paid only by stupid people.

Every one will get 'one' of what they need for free, a house, a flying auto drive car, a home/mobile com system, a fridge freezer, home seating...

I suspect the future for the personal vehicle (let alone a flying one) is doomed. Transportation in any sufficiently dense population is best done by mass transit. I’ve been in the places where many people don’t own cars since everything can be reached via bus, subway, intercity trains, boats, etc. Most of the personal transportation might be limited to bicycles. It’s too rural where I live to do that, but that raises the problem where many want to live in a scenic place like the mountains, but do work more suited to an urban setting. That makes for a lot of resources wasted on commuting, even if it is a mass commute.
There will be small vehicles, like a service van for the plumber and such.

On the subject of the information singularity which half the people seem incapable of grasping.
The ‘singularity’ that you hear about is a threshold of sorts, where machines are more capable of improving themselves than by having humans doing it. We’re not there yet, and there’s quite a ways to go, but the advances are coming fast and it doesn’t seem that long before it happens.

*2. How to prepare our minds for the information singularity?
Information singularity – what is it and why is it dangerous — Gnomon

The singularity in question has nothing to do with one’s mind.

But the philosophical implications of a world-creating, Singularity preceding the existence of our physical world, are of interest to me.

It also has nothing to do with world-creating. Planet Earth will be the same planet afterwards.

the information singularity at point of explosion pushes sentience across a threshold whereupon a "quantum leap" upward into a new, higher gestalt of cognition gets underway. — ucarr

I could not understand that bit at all. It doesn’t involve an explosion, but it does involve growth of capability possibly going more exponential than the somewhat more linear growth seen today. That growth might not be so exponential since we seem to already be pushing the limits of Moore’s law.

The big bang singularity for me has different properties than the singularity which is proposed to be at the centre of every black hole, for example. — universeness

You’re speaking of a mathematical singularity here, where certain laws of physics become meaningless when denominators go to zero and such. The information singularity is nothing like that. It’s kind of like one vehicle passing another on the highway. Now there’s a new one in the lead is all.

The scary part is the possibility homo sapiens will effect its own obsolescence in accordance with evolution by causing an information singularity necessitating appearance of homo superior in order to understand and utilize the higher cognition. — ucarr

Funny, but I don’t see that as scary. I see that as a destiny fulfilled. Yes, all the species that were our ancestors but are now extinct have effected their own obsolescence by breeding something more fit. Superior as you put it. I suppose it sucked in a way for the species now extinct, but I see it as a success.

The intriguing part, according to my speculation, concerns the parallel of matter reaching critical mass just prior to radioactivity with elementary particle formation and likewise information reaching critical mass just prior to gnostic "radioactivity" with elementary knowledge formation. — ucarr

That’s probably the best analogy I saw in the posts. The I-S is like that, a sort of critical mass that results in something self-sustaining like an atomic pile (or a meltdown), but not so over-critical that it explodes like a bomb.

As an aside, I’ve always hated how Hollywood depicts a meltdown resulting in a bomb-like event with the huge explosion. The movie ‘Aliens’ comes to mind, but there were some older ones that made the same mistake. Hey, people like to see the bang, even if the physics is nonsense.

Interestingly, the real number generated by Cantor's diagonalization proof is a computable number, so I’m not sure if this counts as evidence that there are some real numbers not computable. Once again, not disagreeing with the conclusion, only with how it was reached.
— noAxioms
It isn't a computable number (though it is a real number) - see the section entitled "A counter proof?" at the above link. — Andrew M

I pondered over this for several days trying to understand the arguments. I still hold to what I said. The section you mention nicely shows that the x generated from the list of computable numbers is not itself a computable number, but I was speaking of the x generated from Cantor’s original proof of some real not being a rational number. That x is computable, but not rational, and thus cannot be used as evidence that there are some real numbers not computable.
The page you linked does show other ways to demonstrate exactly this, but the diagonalization method is not one of them.

Back to the quantum business:

What is ‘jumping’ in that quote? “Do we not have jumping then all the time?”.
— noAxioms
He's referring to the collapse of the wave function (i.e., a discontinuous change in the otherwise continuous time evolution of the Schrodinger equation).

Collapse seems to be a choice of classical description of a quantum state, in other words, an interpretation-dependent thing. In interpretations with ‘jumping’, yes, it happens all the time, everywhere. In interpretations without it (such as Everett’s relative state formulation, pre DeWitt’s MWI), it’s just a classical effect, not anything physical that happens.

Presumably [the AI in the box] wouldn't. But an AI (unlike a human) could be run on a quantum computer as part of a carefully controlled experiment, thus testing physical collapse theories that differ from standard quantum theory.

I have serious doubts about that. It is a suggestion that there is an empirical difference between the interpretations, and yet I see not explicit prediction from any pair of interpretations that differ.

Try this:[ tau.ac.il/education/muse/museum/galileo/principle_relativity.html ] — Metaphysician Undercover

You had to reach to Tel Aviv university to find a page closer to your definition?

Galileo formulated the principle of relativity in order to show that one cannot determine whether the earth revolves about the sun or the sun revolves about the earth. — tau

This is blatantly wrong. For one, the appearance of the sun revolving around the Earth once a day is not explained by the Earth revolving around the sun once a day any more than we’re revolving around all those other objects (moon, stars, etc) once a day. Secondly, the sun revolving around the Earth (once a year) violates basic Newtonian physics (lacking a reaction for the action of the sun). Newton’s laws were not in place back then so Galileo wouldn’t have known that.
Anyway, his pitch of principle of relativity used a boat’s relation to the water as the example, not celestial mechanics. The idea was that one could not tell from inside the boat whether the boat was moving relative to the water or not.
[quote-tau]The principle of relativity states that there is no physical way to differentiate between a body moving at a constant speed and an immobile body.[/quote]This definition is still reasonable, despite lack of reference to something relative to which the motion is defined. In short, there’s no way to differentiate an observer’s motion relative to some X if the observer cannot measure X. X is typically implied to be the ground (or water in Galileo’s case) beneath the observer, but it can be anything.
I accept the definition since it is more or less possible to derive either definition from the other, presuming at least that the X is explicit. It is the lack of that explicit reference that makes the definition ambiguous.

It is of course possible to determine that one body is moving relative to the other, but it is impossible to determine which of them is moving and which is immobile. — tau

This statement is especially ambiguous. Which of them is moving/immobile relative to what exactly? Humans tend to imply the ground since that’s their lifelong reference, but the implication is begging in this context.

I spend all my time just having to show you that you don't know what you're talking about.

Maybe you should try to actually understand what I’m talking about instead. I’m referencing far more reputable sources than are you. I’m pointing out explicitly what’s wrong with the pages you choose to quote. I don’t see you doing that with my references.

I do agree that perhaps your inability to understand an alternative to this absolutist view prevents communication between you and the rest of the scientific community. One doesn't have to accept the view with which you don't agree, but to not even understand it just leaves you behind.

At least you are consistent in your imagery of pessimism and dystopia for future humans. — universeness

And you remain consistent with the optimism. I’m sure somebody will fix it. Just somebody else, and please not while I’m around.
I am glad that I don't have to deal with such a burdensome, pressing, internal gnaw, regarding the future of our species.

Are you sure NOBODY wants to ensure the well-being, thriving and progression of our species, towards becoming as benevolent a presence in the universe as is possible?

There are those that might be capable of it, but they are not the ones in a position to do anything about it. Certainly not by the process you suggest for assigning these positions. Not one of them would be electable. You need a pessimist for one thing. Nobody is going to take evasive action if they refuse to see the train coming.

There are definite similarities, between my politics, and the intentions of the hero masses of Russia and China, that got rid of the vile monarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy that ruled those country's so badly.

OK, they got rid of the aristocracy, just as the French did. It was better than before, but it was never communist except in name. Maybe briefly at first, but people needed to eat and keep warm.

'The Plan,' as formed in Russia to create a fair, money free, socioeconomic system in Russia, was a brilliant system, that worked very well for the Russian people, when it was first introduced. Russia's decline into the totalitarian gangster state, it is now, started when the truly evil Stalin took power.

Yea, I don’t know enough about how all that worked. My knowledge of the transition to that gangster state is pretty poor. Don’t know how it all kind of worked before then, or how the rest of the world dealt with such a state.

An utterly crucial lesson, we have all, yet to fully understand and learn how to successfully prevent from happening again.

Hence my interest in designing a better system, even if only on paper. But my expertise makes me a naive contributor at best. They tried to do it in the USA, but clearly mistakes were made.
Part of the problem is the world economy. You can put in good rules like ‘no slavery’, but global companies will just outsource their production to regions with rules that allow it. Rules being different from here to there messes it all up. There is no global authority.
What would such an authority do? Hand first world minimal living standards to even the most primitive places on the planet?

There are very serious social consequences. People will still want to know answers to questions such as 'so what do you do?'

Admittedly, people are readily willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to garner an imagined approval from complete strangers. I wonder how much I fool myself into thinking I’m not impressed by it.

The difference between then and now, is that they will have truly CHOSEN to live their life like that, rather than be forced to, as the majority who are experiencing life like that today, are forced to.

They’re forced to? They’re able bodied and educatable. That path isn’t forced. Taught maybe.

Well noticed! don't you think you should work with those who are trying to remove such consequences of the capitalist money trick?

I vote. I hadn’t any plans to go into politics and rise to the levels where such things are decided.

I have no problem with the 'black market' you describe in the quote above.
If someone wants, say, an old/vintage car collection, that they do up, and show to others and drive around, then, the 'barter' system you describe, sounds good to me.
Everyone can take their basic means of survival for granted. As long as that is available to EVERYONE with no conditions attached, and such rights CANNOT BE REMOVED by any new authority, then I think we can accomodate the majority of the wishes of those who prioritise 'independent expressions of personal freedom,' and also allow, 'entrepreneurial aspiration.'

OK. Suppose somebody is a very talented and popular artist. She creates works that are far more in demand than there is supply. So it goes onto the barter market and she gets wealthy with whatever the medium of exchange is. In the mean time, to the state she’s a non-contributor since none of her work contributes to the well-being of the whole. At best her side ‘income’ at least pays for the better art supplies since the state isn’t going to find need there if her work is on the non-contributor status just like all the other authors, artists and hobbyists, the ones whose work is noticed by a handful of people at best.

About photons from data:

I think we are probably imagining the same thing. Obviously, your instruction above would be in an HLL or high level language that would require translation before execution. — universeness

Irrelevant. So does communication between the two of us, whether on this forum or in person. There’s probably at least half a dozon translations/format-conversions done between any such communication, and this is without a machine bothering to parse it to the point of understanding. The ‘make a photon’ instruction might be a single hole in a paper tape. That’s how say one note might be conveyed to a player piano.

The 'machine code' level is the language code we are discussing here , not your 'emit a positron' language (I doubt 'please' will be needed).

OK, you are envisioning binary machine instructions. I wasn’t since such an instruction processing unit is optional just like it is with the piano which works just fine without one. Nothing wrong with doing it via machine instructions.

Employing a source of photons to produce a photon or positron is not my challenge. It's producing a tech that can create a Tbone stake by manipulating the proposed digital level fundamental of the universe.

Ah, a sort of 3D printer for food. Is that so unimaginable?

A Tbone steak, produced, from that which is traditionally described, as the vacuum of space.

As I said, that is impossible (energy conservation violation), and Star Trek never suggested such a capability, despite their complete willingness to discard physics when it suits their purpose.
Anyway, I don’t think the vacuum of space is going to be able to parse your machine instructions.

A wave of light is an electomagnetic analogue waveform of continuous peaks and troughs that traverses the vacuum of space at a fixed speed.

I don’t think there is any such thing. It’s a nice image for some purposes is all.

If you could zoom right into it, I would expect to find that it is made up of discrete packets of energy/field excitations which might be vibrating strings or undulations etc

You can’t zoom into it. Light ‘packets’ unmeasured are undetectable. Light measured is no longer light. This isn’t true of something classical like a water wave, which may lose its wave nature if you zoom in, but there’s still something classical into which one can zoom.

The law is 'You SHALL NOT add your speed, to the speed of light!' — universeness

Not true. You just have to use relativistic addition just like adding velocities of anything under Einstein’s theory.
It seems that in other sites that you cite, the term ‘non-relativistic’ refers to pre-Einstein views like Newtonian physics. — noAxioms

[Carl Sagan clip on ‘Thou Shalt Not Add My Speed to the Speed of Light’ — universeness

Nice reference, but this is a pop video by Carl whose audience is the naive layman. This does not stand up to physics. He implies that light is some sort of exception, that if you are on a bicycle going 20 km/hr relative to the road and throw a rock forward at 20 km/hr relative to the bicycle, that the rock would be going at 40 km/hr relative to the road. Well it’s close to that due to the speed being so insanely low, but it assumes Newtonian relativity, as does pretty much the entire video, understandable due to the layman audience.
If the logic is true, then if the bike is going at .9c and the rider shoots a bullet at 0.5c, then the bullet would be going at 1.4c relative to the ground, contradicting his own statement that such a thing would be impossible.
No, the correct solution is to use Einstein’s relative velocity addition for the bike, the rock, the bullet, and yes, the light. Light is not an exception to this rule at all. Carl doesn’t bring this up at all. He know it, but he also is speaking to an audience that doesn’t yet care about this.