This Principle does not explain how or show that Consciousness is a Software feature. It just says it is so, and assumes it for the rest of the analysis. The original intention of the Thesis was just to say that Physical Systems can be simulated by software. The Principle included some Speculation that presupposed that Consciousness was just a Physical Process. No Explanation just Speculation. Could be true but any kind of proof is missing. — SteveKlinko

The Principle does not "just say it is so". The CTD Principle does not mention consciousness at all.

I thought the discussion was about the Hard Problem being solved by your framework. The question is the Hard Problem. You think it's solved. I say nobody knows the answer yet. Of course I don't have an answer to the Hard Problem. You have to recognize that there at least is a Hard Problem. — SteveKlinko

I thought is standard practice to deny the thing you can't explain, at least amon a sizeable minority of philosophers?

Anyway, it is also standard practice to deny scientific results, like the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle (not to be confused with the Church-Turing Thesis) which tells us that consciousness is a software feature.

I didn't say they weren't different, I pointed out that the differences within each group are greater than the differences between the two groups. — Tomseltje

Irrelevant. The difference within males is greater than the difference within females.

You're right. I misstated. What I should have said was that the results of IQ testing research are often used, by others, to support theories and political positions that claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence between races. — T Clark

How else do you explain the 6 point difference between Asians (of the far eastern variety) and Europeans?

Sure, the point however is, that as long as the difference between the averages are less than either standard deviation, the two groups are more alike than different from each other. — Tomseltje

The groups are quite different. Their standard deviations are different.

I may be wrong but success in life, generally speaking, has been attributed to making the right choices. — TheMadFool

Success in life has nothing to do with evolution. Look at all the successful, rich and powerful people whose genes have been deselected via the choices of the phenotype.

So, when someone choses to be barren, that is irrelevant to the evolutionary success of their genes?

That said, evolutionary theory already accommodates for the fact of niche construction, which is the when organisms alter their environment so as to be better accommodated to it. That niche construction occurs says nothing about 'free will' though, so we can keep the science while dropping the bad metaphysics. — StreetlightX

So animals can construct niches, but people can't make choices?

Free Will may not be a "survival advantage" because the freely chosen preferences of the individual need not align with the survival of the genes.

We all know people who prefer not to have children. Their genes have been deselected.

Any computer program can be correctly and accurately described as a collection of bytes, but it doesn't matter. — Pattern-chaser

It can't, no more than a rhinoceros can be correctly and accurately described as a collection of the letters A, G, C, and T.

There is a large abstract-level gap between a stream of bytes and a word processor. — Pattern-chaser

Which is one of the main reasons an abstract entity cannot be correctly or accurately described as a collection of bytes, or base pairs.

It's just too large a gap for us to bridge, when we try to think about the mind in terms of the brain. — Pattern-chaser

Yet we manage to distinguish between the word-processor and the hardware. The mind is software.

The differences in average iq between men and women are less than the standard deviations. Meaning that the differences in iq between men and women are less than the differences among men and less than the differences among women. — Tomseltje

The difference is a lot less than the standard deviation, being approximately 0. The SDs are not the same though.

This is true, but completely useless nonetheless. :wink: To describe Microsoft Word as a collection of bytes is true. Winword.exe is just that. And yet the useful (and also true) way to define Word is as a word processor. It is still a collection of bytes, but the more abstract definition describes it usefully. I think that matters. — Pattern-chaser

I'm not sure it's true to describe Microsoft Word as a collection of bytes. The source-code archive is as much Word, and with different computer architectures, the collection of bytes will be different. Whatever Word is, it is not just a collection of bytes.

I think most people recognize that animals probably have some kind of Conscious existence and experience similar to what humans have. — SteveKlinko

That is just an example of the typical anthropomorphizing that people do. There is no evidence that animals possess qualia, and let's hope robots don't either.

If animals can create "what-it-is-like" knowledge, then what stops them creating any other kind of knowledge?

If you program the robot for view colors, why do you think that it has not a "qualia" such as of humans for which evolution programmed them for that? For my it is an unwarranted assumption. — Belter

So, if you attach a camera to your PC, the PC has qualia? Do you really think so?

They have qualia (except robots if they have not a "brain", even when it is not "cellular") due to the same (evolutionary) reasons that us: to perceive and predict the world and to our self. — Belter

Robots can be programmed to do all that without qualia.

You are simply making an unwarranted assumption, when the opposite is practically certain. What we know of qualia, apart from our personal exeriences, is that only knowledge-creating entities can have them. Fish don't create knowledge, and they don't possess qualia. They have no use for it.

Fish, lizards and robots all use some kind of "brain", in the sense of a material system for thinking. Mind happens without some form of brain is for my not conceivable. — Belter

Fish, lizards and robots don't have minds though. None of them possess qualia.

Yes. Your initially chosen door has 1/3 probability of containing the prize. The other two doors have a total of 2/3 probability. When the host shows you that one of those doors is empty, its probability goes to 0. — Andrew M

We're getting there. If the host instead told you that he could see that behind one of the other two doors, there was nothing. Do you think he is telling you something you don't already know for certain?

Would you still swap to choosing 2 doors, or stick with your initial choice of 1.

It's the same problem, with identical results, just without the sleight of hand.

But if your selected door does not have the car behind it then it is very relevant information, because it means the car is behind the remaining closed door that you did not select. — andrewk

You are confusing information with theatrics.

The Monty Hall problem and its analysis is identical to choosing 1 door, or choosing 2 doors. There is no more to it than that.

When Red-Neurons are firing in X, the conscious experience of Red happen in X (X experiences a qualia). We know it due to psychological experiments. — Belter

You know it's true from psychological experiments on fish, lizards, and robots. I doubt it.

I don't know. — T Clark

Science knows.

I've read "The Mismeasure of Man." I haven't read "The Bell Curve." I've read a little bit of the discussion about the controversy. My understanding of statistics is not sophisticated enough for me to figure it out. Also, I don't really care except to the extent the discussion hides a political agenda. — T Clark

How about the sex difference in IQ?

how do universals cause mathematical intuition? There are basically two answers. Say that they have no causal influence whatsoever. In that case, we don't need them at all. Or provide a causal explanation of how they interact with the physical mind, without somehow making universals physical as well. — Uber

Physical mind?

Knowledge of anything can be causal. The laws of nature don't communicate with us, neither do the truths of mathematics, but we can create knowledge of them, and once created, this knowledge may have profound effects on reality.

Here's the result of 100,000 games where you don't re-guess. 1/3 games are winners

Here's the result of 100,000 games where you re-guess. 1/2 games are winners

Go down towards the bottom and hit "Execute". — Michael

The probability of winning, when you choose 2 doors is 2/3. That is all there is to it. The fact that one of these doors is open is irrelevant. One door can always be opened, because one of them is certain to be empty.

If you have to pick one of three doors then the probability of being right is 1/3.
If you have to pick one of two doors then the probability of being right is 1/2.

Later I might write a script to test the Monty Hall problem. I believe prior experiments have supported the hypothesis. — Michael

If you were given the choice of 1 or 2 doors, which would you choose? I hope you would choose 2. What about the extra information that bears sh*t in the woods? I suspect you would still choose 2 doors. What about if you were told that if you choose 2 doors, the host will open an empty door as an irrelevant dramatic flourish? It makes no difference.

The host can always open an empty door, an act as relevant to the choice as the behaviour of bears in the woods. It's a choice between 1 or 2 doors, that's all there is to it.

The reality is that we don't know anything about how our own Conscious experience of Red happens. We need to figure that out first before we can ask questions about CCDs. — SteveKlinko

We know that neither "red neurones" nor CCDs cause qualia. That is impossible

That is because you are wrong. Knowing which door is empty is the new information which calls for a reallocation of credibility. — Jeremiah

How does this new information alter the fact that one door has a probability of 1/3, and 2 doors has a probability of 2/3?

It should be noted that beyond the theoretical impasse you cited, physicists have actually made some major experimental breakthroughs in this century, including the discovery of the Higgs and the discovery of gravitational waves. — Uber

These were theoretical discoveries made 50years and 100years respectively prior to a successful experiments. There were decades of quote experimental failure.

At this point I think people are waiting for nature to reveal another big secret through an experiment. — Uber

I hope not, because science doesn't work that way. Reality is always revealed through theory.

And the only thing that IQ tests have ever been able to tell about anyone is how good or bad they are at taking IQ tests. — MetaphysicsNow

And how likely or not someone is to die from all causes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616302331

And rates of mental illness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170757/

And propensity to violent crime.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404054/

...

The problem with research into IQ is that people are mostly interested in using it as justification for drawing conclusions about differences in intelligence between races. Is that where this discussion is going? — T Clark

Is there such a difference, or is it a social construct?

How so? Isn't the host telling you a specific door number (that doesn't contain the prize) information? — Andrew M

Well, it certainly seems like you are being given information, but you're not. The host, because he has total knowledge of the situation, can always open an empty door. There will always be an empty door. So, the problem is identical to choosing 1 door or 2 doors.

You, as the contestant, know for certain that one of the other two doors is empty, once the door is opened, you still know for certain that one of the doors is empty. OK, you now now which one is empty, and that IS information of sorts, but is it relevant information?

Anyway, I've never encountered anyone who agrees with me on this.

The event of waking provides information about which states one can eliminate (not merely the conditional probabilities, which were previously known). BTW, do you assign 1/2 or 1/3 to P(Heads|Awake)? — Andrew M

In the original description of the problem, Sleeping Beauty wasn't told what day it is, so all waking events are identical. She knows there is a probability space of 3 independent events, and that 2 of them are associated with tails.

All she knows is that she is awake, and that is twice as likely to be associated with tails.

I doubt it but who knows? If we knew how maybe we could ask the Conscious Mind, if there is one, that is connected to the camera if it had a Red experience.However, I do know that when Red Neurons fire there is a Red experience for Humans. — SteveKlinko

I think it's jumping the shark to entertain the idea that a CCD possesses qualia. Asking the conscious mind attached to the CCD would be no more useful than asking the conscious mind attached to a retina.

Yes, we get it, humans have qualia, but if "red neurones" cause qualia in humans, then why don't they in animals, or robots.

In the Monty Hall problem, the host gives you information that changes the probabilities that you assign to each door. That information is new to you. — Andrew M

The host does not, that's the trick.

Similarly, in the Sleeping Beauty problem, awakening provides information that enables you to rule out one of the four states. However since you have no information distinguishing the remaining states, you should be indifferent about which state you are currently in. — Andrew M

Not as the problem was described at the top of the thread. No information is given to Sleeping Beauty beyond what she was told would happen. To her each awakening is identical, and there are three of them.

Cool but that automatically deflates the canonical versions of Platonism, including the fairy tale varieties on offer from Wayfarer, where reason just magically permeates the mind first, and then conjencture and criticism come later.

This is precisely why philosophers of math abandoned Platonic realism in droves after Benacerraf. — Uber

There is still a bit of "magic", we have no theory of the psychology of conjecture.

Putting that to one side, we have a fully developed method for dealing with conjectures, and this theory cannot work under postmodernism, deconstructionism, or structuralism, which claimthat theories are essentially arbitrary.

Contrast these ideas with falibilism - you can't be a fallible postmodernist or structuralist!

It boils down to a simple question, which can be asked in different ways: how can universals communicate their properties to the human mind if not through physical causation? — Uber

Platonic forms, necessary truths, laws of nature. None of them communicate with us. We gain knowledge of these things in the same way - conjecture and criticism, though our conjectures regarding the laws of nature are amenable to a particularly powerful method of criticism.

The same idea really. One should update one's probabilities when given new information. — Andrew M

Except in this, and in the Monty Hall problem, there is no new information.

There may be multiple reasons why the Red experience happens but with a normal Human being, if Red Neurons fire there will be a Red experience. Seems to me a Biological Mechanism is a cause. I just want to know what the Biological Mechanism is that accomplishes this. — SteveKlinko

When the red sensors in a CCD fire, will there be red experience?

Thirdly, this notion of measuring energy. We don't directly measure energy, it is calculated. For instance, you measure the mass of an object and its velocity - given a frame of reference of course - and you can calculate its kinetic energy relative to that frame. But in one sense of "measure" that would be enough to measure the kinetic energy of the object. — jkg20

Right, we can't calculate the amount of energy using the Principle of conservation of energy, because it does not tell us how to do this.

We need to employ the laws of physics to calculate the energy.

Secondly, although I have not come across the "Criterion of Demarcation" before, just looking it up very quickly shows that it is a disputable and disputed philosophical criterion for making a dividing line between the scientific and the non-scientific. I don't think any philosophical dispute is going to be settled by appealing to a disputed philosophical criterion. — jkg20

It's not a philosophical criterion, it's a methodological criterion, pertaining to the Scientific Method. Don't upset mathematicians or logicians by claiming what they do is science, or that they employ the scientific method.

Firstly, on the "reduction" of chemical laws to physical laws, there has been a lot of research into looking into the quantum mechanical basis of catalytic behaviour. That's certainly true, and MN should take a look at it. However, although I admit not being right up to date with the latest research, my understanding is that there had been no straightforward mapping of a law such as the Bronsted Law of Catalysis to the Schrodinger Wave Equation. — jkg20

Are you claiming that what is happening in a catalytic reaction does not obey quantum mechanics?

The block universe was consequence of Minkowski space, so no idea what you are on about in emphasising GR as your speculative basis here. — apokrisis

Literally the first Google result.

https://plus.maths.org/content/what-block-time

and the second

https://plus.maths.org/content/stuff-happens-block-time

and the third

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)

...