Stephen P. King (stephenk1@home.com)
Sat, 03 Apr 1999 10:04:07 -0500
Dear Hitoshi,
Hitoshi Kitada wrote:
>
> Dear Stephen,
>
> First of all, are you all right with your new child? I am concerned if you
> need to find time for your child and wife rather than to be at desk. :)
>
> In response to your questions, I recommend reading Ben's paper, if you did not
> see it:
>
> http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1995/GOERTZEL.html
>
> I saw the paper today and found in it what might be a hint for your inquiry of
> "mind as a computation procedure." Pratt's formalism looks like seeing things
> from an artificial satellite, whose images can be sharp enough, but it cannot
> see the things behind other things. It just tells a very abstract aspect of
> recognition. I think just to say things are dual does not clarify the
> situation. Ben's description seems to clarify the machinery of recognition
> (perception vs. cognition) from a computational aspect.
I can see your point about Pratt, but in the sum of his papers, an
concept emerges that is paradigmic. The idea of duality is not just a
clarification, it is a modeling tool. Ben's thoughts unfortunately do
not go far enough, as of what I have read. I am not interested
personally in the particular details of consciousness, e.g. perception,
cognition, etc. at this moment. We need to merely show that
consciousness is derivable from our model and let others work out that
detail.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen P. King <stephenk1@home.com>
> To: Hitoshi Kitada <hitoshi@kitada.com>
> Date: Saturday, April 03, 1999 3:08 PM
> Subject: prugovecki
>
> >Dear Hitoshi,
> >
> > I am reading prugovecki's book. Very interesting. I can see why he is
> >sooooo close but so far. :( Have you talked to him?
>
> I have never met him nor spoken to him.
I am thinking about e-miling him when i finish his book. :) I have some
questions.
> Did you catch my
> >crude sketch of the "Equivalence principle"?
> >
> >" Not only are we finite Gods, but we also exist in the center of our own
> >finite universe, we don't experience it directly because we are
> >"perfectly adapted" to it. I think of it as the frame of reference that
> >describes the complete lack of inertia with respect to the LS at the
> >origin. This idea gives us the equivalent to Einstein's equivalence
> >principle! I hope to discuss this more latter, and to hope you guys with
> >critique me well. :) Remember that there are at least an uncountable
> >number of such God/universe pairs and they might "share" objects..."
>
> Your recognition here completely agrees with mine. I of course noticed this
> description of yours in [time 102].
>
> >
> >[time 102]
> >
> >We do need to hone this, I need your help with the math. The fiber
> >bundle ideas, I think, are a good starting point but I don't know how to
> >proceed.
>
> Let me know your ideas. If I can help you, I am willing to do so.
>
> I feel that Pratt's ideas are a key! I am not getting any
> >feedback/responce on that... :( I think I found an axiom, but it is very
> >ugly:
>
> Would you write it down?
"Only in the limit of infinite monotonically increasingly accurate
approximations is the "representation of an object" identical to "the
object"."
> >"Only in the limit of infinite monotonically increasingly accurate
> >approximations is the "representation of an object" identical to "the
> >object." This implies that under finite error, a representation of a
> >thing, say a wavefunction of a chair, is only dual to the "physical"
> >chair. How center of mass configurations in an X are represented by
> >configurations of an LS, is for me, the whole idea behind
> >"bisimulational equivalence."
> > I know that physics does not have a good understanding of what
> >information "is", but we need not worry, it has patterns and thus has a
> >"physics" but it is not that of matter. I remember how long it took me
> >to understand the solution to the mind body problem, but it exists, we
> >merely need to stop thinking so hard about it. Descartes was almost
> >right, he just asked the wrong question...
> > One way that I think of this is to consider how many ways A one can
> >encode a given string of bits that say, describe a chair. Compare this
> >to the number of possible physical chairs X constructable with matter.
> >There is an ensemble for both A and X, how we match pairs {a_i, x_j)
> >implies an "optimal" matching of information and matter. The Pratt
> >"residuation", the informorphism of Barwise, Wegner et al and the
> >"re-entrant mapping" of Edelman are all just different jargons
> >describing the same thing! We must not forget the computational aspect
> >of physics. Software is *not* hardware.
> > There is also the matter of inertia! Mach was almost right! There is
> >not a single universe for all, every object, such as Newton's bucket of
> >water, has its own universe that might be rotating relative to it or
> >dually, the bucket might be rotation relative to its universe; the key
> >is that there is no measurable difference!
What I am thinking here is: What does the 'cosmos' 'see' of an
observer? We think a lot about what the observer perceives of its local
environment, but what about the opposite question? We think of the
cosmos's spatial and temporal extention as invariant, but is it really?
Again, I ask, when we look at the world, does not the world look back?
What do we look like to it?
> >Later,
> >
> >Stephen
> >
>
> Best wishes,
> Hitoshi
Kindest regards,
Stephen
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