I am not sure how you got that out of what I said. I think that we can hear the joy in the song of birds, they are not reflectively aware, they simply are. Shelley kinda nailed it. — Cavacava

Quite! There is no reason to attribute qualia to birds. My argument was that birds (and all non-human animals) don't create knowledge and thus don't create qualia.

As I suggested to ND I think it might be in their tweet. — Cavacava

How do you think the knowledge that the other bird is happy gets into the bird's brain? Do you think it requires concepts of the self, other and happiness?

I think they can share these senses, these feelings at times but knowledge in my opinion requires conceptualization, determinate concepts, without which there is no understanding, no knowledge. — Cavacava

How do birds "share these sensations, these feelings"?

No. I think all life shares the same world, but each species confronts that world in their own way, utilizing what nature has provided to it according to its own pragmatics. — Cavacava

So, why might it not be possible to transfer dog knowledge to a bird? If a bird can know something, then what stops it knowing anything?

Don't you think you ought to try for at least a definition of knowledge before you ask people about the varieties of it? Keep in mind I did not say they were different; I did say I distinguished between them. If you locate knowledge in qualia, and qualia is an internal state of some kind, then I imagine that all knowledge is different. We both may be able to identify raspberries in a series of blind tests, but by no means does that lead to the conclusion that our mental states - our qualia - are the same. — tim wood

You claimed that dog knowledge and bird knowledge are different. Why do you not attempt to defend your claim, rather than pretending yu did not make it? If you don't know what knowledge is, how can you even make such a claim?

Granted birds cannot create people knowledge. Can you create bird knowledge? — tim wood

So, for some reason, birds cannot create "people knowledge"!

I certainly do distinguish between "knowledge" and "bird knowledge," as well as human knowledge, dog, cat, whale, otter, and every other kind of knowledge. Don't you? — tim wood

In order to distinguish between "dog, cat, whale, otter, and every other kind of knowledge", there must be a difference between them. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Sniffability — Cavacava

Do you think it possible to transfer dog knowledge to a bird?

As to knowledge, I certainly do distinguish between "knowledge" and "bird knowledge," as well as human knowledge, dog, cat, whale, otter, and every other kind of knowledge. Don't you? — tim wood

What is the difference between "bird knowledge" and "dog knowledge"?

How about as genus and species. And I'll tackle the how when you've accounted for human knowledge. Three questions: an sit, quid sit, quale sit, Is it? What is it? What kind is it? Are you denying the third because you haven't dealt with the first two? — tim wood

I see, you claim "bird knowledge" is different from knowledge, and now demand that I defend your claim?

I dunno. Crows are supposed to be pretty intelligent. Granted birds cannot create people knowledge. Can you create bird knowledge? Perhaps you claim that birds are incapable of knowing. If so, make your case. — tim wood

In what way is "bird knowledge" any different from knowledge? How do birds create this "bird knowledge"?

The point that's getting skipped, here, is How Do You Know? — tim wood

Funny!

I don't see knowledge in there at all. And even if so, your "knowledge" is just of "what it is like to experience red." That's not the same thing as the experience of red. And what does the experience of red have to do with red itself? — tim wood

Qualia and knowledge are intimately related.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

Science isn't a method, it's a name for a tradition with a history of changing methods and evolving views of what an object is, how it relates to the scientist attempting to apprehend it , and thus how to achieve objectivity. — Joshs

I refer you to "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" by Karl Popper. In that book you will discover why science is precisely a method, and what that method is.

For a concise exposition of the state-of-the-art in our understanding of the scientific method, try this brilliant paper:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.02048.pdf

Clear enough, but this is just definition, and not quite accurate. And it says that red is the name of a judgment made about a feeloing. People may agree that the book is red, but what does that tell us about red in-itself? — tim wood

The quale of red is the knowledge of what it is like to experience red.

Consider a physicist and a robot, neither of which can see red, due to a genetic defect and a loose connection respectively. When the physicist (who knows of red) is repaired by a geneticist, she can not only detect red, but also gains knowledge of what it is like to see red. When the robot is fixed by an engineer it can detect red, but has no idea what it is like to see red.

A quale is "what it is like" knowledge. Birds are incapable of creating such knowledge, as are robots.

And again, what makes something "good" or "bad" re evaluative claims is subjective. — numberjohnny5

Sore, you decree this from above, with no explanation. Why not, explanations are totally subjective.

Meanwhile in reality, explanations of a certain broad category may be tested and compared objectively, by experiment. The other class of explanations may be criticised and compared using objective criteria like the one I gave earlier.

First off, it's a fact that "explanations" are subjective. There are no objective criteria for what counts as a correct/incorrect or right/wrong "explanation". — numberjohnny5

I'm sorry, but there are objective criteria regarding what makes a good explanation, and what makes one explanation better than the other. In fact, we have a rather well-developed method for deciding between explanations. It's called science.

Here's the objective criterion as to whether an explanation is good/bad: An explanation is good/bad if it is hard/easy to vary while still accounting for what it purports to account for.

Superposition states are states too (they are also called "mixed" states, as opposed to "pure" states). — SophistiCat

Actually it's the other way round. Superpositions are pure states, mixed states are statistical mixtures.

They do not say that they are speaking precisely and formally in their books. It is only you that says that. The evidence points to the opposite being the case. The absence of equations is a big clue.

In any case, the books are not holy scripture and we are not in the helpless position of those trying to interpret holy scripture and work out what the Author intended. Either mathematical analysis supports a conclusion that there does not exist a single level 1 spacetime lacking a duplicate Earth, rather than the set of such spacetimes merely having measure zero, or it doesn't. If it does, you should be able to point to a rigorous proof of the former. So far you have not done so. — andrewk

Here's Tegmark being as explicit in one of his papers as in his book:

"In particular there are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one, but infinitely many with people with the same appearance, name and memories as you. Indeed there are infinitely many other regions the size of our observable universe, where every possible cosmic history is played out. This is the Level I multiverse."

All relevant papers are available on arXiv.

EDIT:

For example the abstract of the paper you claimed to have read:

"A generic prediction of inflation is that the thermalized region we inhabit is spatially infinite. Thus, it contains an infinite number of regions of the same size as our observable universe, which we shall denote as O-regions. We argue that the number of possible histories which may take place inside of an O-region, from the time of recombination up to the present time, is finite. Hence, there are an infinite number of O-regions with identical histories up to the present, but which need not be identical in the future. Moreover, all histories which are not forbidden by conservation laws will occur in a finite fraction of all O-regions. The ensemble of O-regions is reminiscent of the ensemble of universes in the many-world picture of quantum mechanics. An important difference, however, is that other O-regions are unquestionably real.

I think the cosmological principle allows such exceptions, but just says that the probability of us being that exception is sufficiently infinitesimal to preclude explanations that require us to be that exception. — noAxioms

This is simply false. In Inflationary cosmology, no assumptions about randomness, or all initial states being instantiated, or probability distributions, or typicality, or mediocrity is required. Inflation guarantees that this type of "exhaustive randomness" is in place.

Which is why I have been describing the initial conditions as ERGODIC from the beginning.

Really? Empricism is the working principle of science. Why is it that scientists perform experiments if empiricism is a fallacy? — TheMadFool

To test their theories.

I'm not saying g = m/s^2. The unit of g is m/s^2. — TheMadFool

I was doing some dimensional analysis for you. The fundamental units are arbitrary.

Before we discover relationships (laws). — TheMadFool

Then why were gravitational waves known about 100years before we could detect them?

The general point that I wanted to make is that if there are separate systems with a finite number of possible states between them, then for them to be found in the same state at some moment, they do not have to have identical histories up to that moment — SophistiCat

And, this is also true for Hubble Volumes in the Level 2 Multiverse. Indistinguishable Hubble Volumes will have different histories due to different laws of physics operating.

Well, I cannot answer for Vilenkin or Tegmark, but I think they were speaking informally. — SophistiCat

I've quoted from Vilenkin's book. Nerither he not Tegmark were speaking informally.

How we interpret these results depends on how we think about probability. If we interpret probability as a quantitative measure of credence, or degree of belief, then there isn't really a difference between "almost surely" and "surely": in either case, the credence is exactly zero. This failure to make a distinction between possibility and impossibility may be a deficiency of the epistemic interpretation of probability (not to mention the problems of formal probabilistic modeling that have been raised here). — SophistiCat

It's nothing to do with probability, or our interpretation of probability. All initial conditions are realised by inflation, deterministically.

But if we further think about our concepts of probability and possibility, this might be argued to be a distinction without a difference. We can hardly tell the difference in credence between an event that has a probability of 10-10 in a single trial and one with a probability 10-100. We stop making a difference long before "almost surely". — SophistiCat

It's nothing to do with credences either.

There is still a possible/impossible distinction though. But is there, really? If "an event A is impossible" means for you that you should live your life as though A will never happen, then events with an extremely low probability are as good as impossible. You live your life assuming that the air will not suddenly evacuate the room through the window, leaving you choking on the floor, even though science says that such an event is possible (and even has a well-defined, finite probability!) — SophistiCat

Impossible events are those forbidden by the laws of physics.

If consciousness is a spectrum, then animals would have some sort of limited consciousness. I'm not sure what's sentimental about that. — Noble Dust

Perhaps consciousness is on a spectrum, but why would you think birds have any of it? Also, if consciousness is on a spectrum, what restrains the consciousness of lower organisms. If you can know and be aware of yourself, what prevents knowledge of any thing?

Consciousness gives birth to reason, imagination, etc; the things you're using to discuss in this thread. It's the backdrop of you're entire human experience. The bird clearly doesn't have a consciousness as developed as you because it can't reason through arguments the way you can, just as one example. — Noble Dust

I can see no reason, beyond morbidly sentimental anthropomorphism, to attribute consciousness of any degree to a bird.

I thought you pushed the view that you're married to both of them, a deterministic view.
I just now see Michael's edit where he notes the same view shift. — noAxioms

In half your futures you are married to Jane. In the other half, you are married to Mary. Are you suggesting I have ever promoted polygamy?

Of course I am a determinist, it's just that the picture of how determinism applies in Reality has to take into account quantum mechanics. This is different from classical determinism.

If they have the same history, and if determinism is the case, then wouldn't they also have the same future? — Michael

If you perform a quantum measurement - e.g. a measurement of z-spin of a particle prepared in x-spin-up configuration, and choose your spouse based on the result, in half your futures you are married to Mary, in the other half it's Jane. Same past different futures.

Determinism is dead. Long live Unitarity!

I think so:

1. only physical things exist
2. only [things subject to the laws of and principles that physics discovers] exist
3. only [things subject to the laws of and principles that [the science of the fundamental constituents of reality and their interactions] discovers] exist

It's also vacuous. It just amounts to the claim that only the things that exist exist.

Although it seems to me that this doesn't really explain the issue. Surely people make such claims as "the fundamental constituents of reality are immaterial"? And so using the above definition(s), physics is the science of the immaterial, and so physicalism and immaterialism are identical? — Michael

Bit of a self inflicted injury there. Perhaps "discovers" should be replaced with "studies" or "discovers and may discover". The implication is that physics is complete, not that it is over.

I think a more frequently encountered claim is that the mental and consciousness are substances in their own right.

You're being illusive. Wayfarer has a point, and you know the next question.
Countable means you can assign a number to any of these volumes, and to do that they must be distinguished. If they can't be, they're not countable. — noAxioms

No it doesn't. You can't count your clones. Physics tells us that the cardinality of your clones is Aleph_0.

If you think it is possible to count your clones, I urge you to try.

If identical state, how can they diverge? You must consider the full set of worlds as the one state, else there is no 'current state' with which another volume can be identical. — noAxioms

I said the Hubble Volumes are INDISTINGUISHABLE not identical. I also mentioned somewhere that the Hubble Volumes would be INDISTINGUISHABLE after FINITE time.

The distinction is that the Volumes have the same history, not necessarily the same future.

Physics being the science of the physical.
Physical is what physics studies. — Πετροκότσυφας

How about:

Physics is the science of the fundamental constituents of reality and their interactions.
Physical is everything that is subject to the laws of and principles that physics discovers.
Physicalism is the metaphysical claim that only physical entities exist.

Could be better worded of course, but is it circular?

Sorry, my question wasn't worded well. What I meant to ask is; what does it mean for a thing to be a law of physics? Is a law of physics just whatever all things are subject to? That's the second horn of Hempel's dilemma, and makes for physicalism to be circular. Is a law of physics just whatever is part of current physical theories? That's the first horn of Hempel's dilemma, and makes for physicalism to be known to be false as it is known that current physical theories are not a Theory of Everything. — Michael

I don't have a problem with the purported circularity of physicalism, it is a metaphysical stance after all. If it were in fact the case that physics was proliferating and laws were having to be altered to accommodate new entities like, vital forces, the aether, flogiston, then perhaps the physicalist project would need to be reconsidered, but that is not happening. Admittedly dark energy and matter, and even the multiverse are new entities that have had to be admitted to physics, but they are not the result of a proliferation of physics.

One possible threat to the unification project of physics is panpsychism. If the panpsychics are right, then consciousness would have to be brought under the umbrella of fundamental physics. If that happened, then I would admit physicalism is false, though following Hempel, others might simply absorb it into their definition.

It seems I take a different view of the meaning of the "Completeness of Physics" from Hempel. I don't mean the laws of physics as we currently have them nor some imaginary perfect future theory. I mean that the deep fundamental principles of physics are manifest in Reality and will be respected by all future theories.

where I think what he means is "there is almost surely an infinite number of .....". That is, I think he over-simplified his statement, presumably because he wanted to make it more accessible to the non-physicist reader, since it is a non-technical article. — andrewk

This is truly weird. You think you know better than Garriga and Vilenkin what they actually mean?

In Vilenkin's book, which he published 6yrs later, he repeats that paragraph verbatim. He also writes:

"Yes, dear reader, scores of your duplicates are now holding copies of this book. They live on planets exactly like our earth, with all its mountains, cities, trees and butterflies. The Earths revolve around perfect copies of our Sun, and each Sun belongs to a grand spiral galaxy - an exact copy of our Milky Way."

Also:

"It follows from the theory [of eternal inflation] that island universes are infinite and that the initial conditions at the big bang are set by random quantum processes during inflation. The existence of clones is thus an inevitable consequence of the theory."

You might explain for us hoi polloi how indistinguishable things can be counted, because we would have thought that distinguishing something is a prerequisite for counting it. — Wayfarer

I didn't say you could count them. You can't count them.

Empiricism!? — TheMadFool

One of my favourite fallacies!

The unit of g is m/s^2...time! has to be measured accurately first. — TheMadFool

With some rudimentary algebra, s = sqrt(m/g). So, we really can derive the second from other units if we wish, which is really what the SI standard does when it defines the second. It defines a frequency in terms of a measurable energy.

Science is empirical. Measurement, time, length, mass, etc. comes first. — TheMadFool

Comes before what?

In one post you said there are countably many Hubble volumes, and in another post you said there were uncountably many. Can you clarify this? — fishfry

Could you just read the quotes again, slowly, and out loud?

Or, try swapping the parts in bold:

There are a countable infinity of INDISTINGUISHABLE Hubble Volumes, which diverge.

There are uncountably many Hubble Volumes, instantiating countably many initial states.

My understanding of your argument is that at the moment of the creation of the multiverse every possible state gets instantiated.

As I understand it, the argument for that conclusion is probabilistic. — fishfry

No, the physics is Unitary, all the way back to the Inflaton, and beyond.

I don't understand how you can say this, yet claim you don't understand the idea of countably many coin flips. They're the same mathematical idea. — fishfry

Umm, did I ever claim incomprehension?

You have countably many regions, or universes, or coin flips. Each region or universe or flip is assigned one out of finitely many possible states. One out of a zillion in the case of physics, or one out of 2 in the case of coin flips, but the math is exactly the same either way. — fishfry

Umm, no. There are uncountably many Hubble Volumes instantiating countably many initial states, at least that is what the theory says. What is a "zillion"?

You can't mock the idea of coin flips and then come back with the exact same idea in the guise of countably many universes. There's no mathematical difference between a 2-sided coin or a gazillion-sided coin. If the number of states is finite, then probability theory applies. In the large, it is "almost certain" that all states recur infinitely many times, but it is not absolutely certain. The case of coins or universes are exactly the same. It only depends on there being countably many coins or universes or regions, each taking up one out of at most finitely many states. — fishfry

You make me laugh.

Yes. If you're going to say a result is established in physics, and is obvious. It should come with either a reference to either the paper or popular science article that establishes it, or a description of the text which suggests it.* — fdrake

What? It's a toy example! If you need a reference, you need your head examining. Seriously, I am feeling vicariously embarrassed and ashamed, and somewhat defiled.

Can you provide a reference to the derivation? — fdrake

What? Are you joking? You need a derivation and a reference? You are giving me a headache.

I have not noticed such an explanation. But it's a long thread and I haven't read it all. Can you please point to one such explanation? — andrewk

I repeat. All possible initial states are instantiated over a Gaussian distribution due to the nature of the Inflaton.

There is no member of the initial superposition of all possible states of the Inflaton that is singled out for non-existence.

Physics is Unitary.

After finite time there are a countably infinite number of indistinguishable Hubble Volumes, which, as time progresses, may diverge.

Please explain it to me. If there are no measure zero events, then NO distribution of states to universes is possible. Just like if you flip infinitely many coins. Whatever result comes up, that was a measure zero event. — fishfry

Do we have to go back to Kindergarten? If we do, I'm feeling like the much anticipated demolition of Cosmic Inflation has a somewhat uninspiring probability.

What strikes me as particularly strange, is that it seems you think it possible, in a Hubble Volume, to flip a coin infinitely many times, and presumably store the result? I am literally suppressing laughter.

I think maybe you should either accept the physics or try to understand it.

If you make a statistical argument on an infinite probability space and you don't take measure zero events into account, you have to say why they're not relevant in the particular case under discussion. If you can't formulate a coherent reply, you don't understand the ideas you're promoting. — fishfry

This is really depressing. There are no measure zero events, as explained multiple times in this thread.

Still waiting for your demolition of Cosmic Inflation, you are the self proclaimed expert.

Neuronal and mental activities have mutual effects, but are incommensurable because physiological activity is a correlate, not a cause, of mental activity. — Galuchat

Mutual effects, which aren't causal? What is that?

In addition to the two previously mentioned, you would probably need to include at least Thermodynamics.

Is the notion that certain systems may be subject to laws, but not explicable by them so difficult to grasp?

On the one hand, we may define the physical as whatever is currently explained by our best physical theories, e.g., quantum mechanics, general relativity. Though many would find this definition unsatisfactory, some would accept that we have at least a general understanding of the physical based on these theories, and can use them to assess what is physical and what is not. And therein lies the rub, as a worked-out explanation of mentality currently lies outside the scope of such theories.

This strikes me as verging on a Straw-Man. Does anyone really claim that everything can be explained by GR and QM (+ other branches of physics)? That is a far cry from the more reasonable position that everything is subject to the laws of physics.

Do we have a (fully) worked out theory of anything? With respect to mentality, isn't it more reasonable to claim that, when we have an explanatory theory, whatever it is, mentality will be subject to physical laws just like everything else?