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It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. It makes a certain amount of sense since science itself aims to

It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. It makes a certain amount of sense since science itself aims to remove any taint of subjectivity in its practice, so folks who want to be thoroughly 'scientific' in other aspects of their lives (e.g. their personal philosophies of reality) carry over over this ideal. But it's also a contradiction since science scientific methodology demands we check our results empirically: the fact that you have subjectivity (i.e. that qualia exist) and what it's like, is the most direct empirical fact we have access to and which needs reconciling in any discussion of the universe's constitution. I think people sort of push this point aside either by saying that qualia/subjectivity could be generated by math (or a computational process), and that's what really matters. But we have no examples of abstract math generating anything; physical processes generate things and we use math to influence their behavior—but that's it! And furthermore, even if math generated subjectivity—it's still there in all of its un-mathematical obviousness at the end of the day. I've yet to see an argument in favor of math having higher ontological status than this which wasn't every bit as unrestrainedly imaginative and unfounded as Plato's 'ideal forms'. I would expect a thoroughgoing adherent to scientific methodology to instead say something on the lines of, "this is outside the domain of science to judge one way or the other; the most we can say is the idea that reality is made of math is one untestable hypothesis among many whose probabilities of correctness each approach zero by dint of their many peers."

whatshisface 9y ago
I know of a nice argument against simulationism that I think applies here: If simulated universes can be "real," then we're assuming that there's a mapping between patterns of electrons in a computer (or provable theorems, if you're brave enough), and the real universe they represent. (Say, interpreting two numbers that may be stored very far apart on the chip as the positions of two particles that are, in the universe, very close together.) The problem that this introduces is that there are no well-motivated ways that we could decide which mappings are "real," and could be "lived in." For example, we might claim that the state of the simulation must be map-able in polynomial time to some charts and pictures that a human could interpret - but an inhabitant wouldn't care. So, since all mappings are equally motivated as far as an inhabitant is concerned, allow me to choose one that maps this grain of sand to a universe the same as ours. Well, there you go. Our world in a grain of sand.
- drdeca 9y ago
  Not to say that I think that the world is a simulation or anything like that (I don't), but I think that computational complexity and related things probably do induce a natural notion of "naturality" on the different mappings. Even if there might not be a single most natural mapping, I think it makes sense to say that some mappings are more natural than others. I think there is a natural sense which is independent from human perception and intent, in which a computer running, say, a graph coloring algorithm, is doing that more than a waterfall is. Even if there is a bijection between a collection of initial states of the waterfall with the input of program, that fits together with one between the outputs and the results of the waterfall.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Computational complexity is an insufficient motivator, because while in our current universe some problems are hard and others are easy, in the hypothetical universe there might be a law of physics that solves NP-hard problems. In fact, if the problem is right, you might even end up in a situation where they can't hook their NP-hard problem solvers together in a way that solves problems that we would consider polynomial.
    - drdeca 9y ago
      > in the hypothetical universe there might be a law of physics that solves NP-hard problems I agree with this part. I wasn't thinking specifically about P vs NP though. (if I was, I think that would be a kind of weak argument because we don't have a proof that P isn't equal to NP ? At least not yet.) I was thinking more in terms of like, Solomonoff probability and Kolmorogov and things like that. And even if you suppose that the universe in question has a Turing oracle, I think you would just have to go up enough levels in that hierarchy in order solve that. Even without that though, looking at the space of permutations on N, I think it is likely that there is a natural way to talk about what things are true of "most" things in that space, and things like that, which could, I think, support at least a weak sense of degrees of naturality between mappings, even without appealing to computational complexity. Edit: I figured I should respond to this part also: > In fact, if the problem is right, you might even end up in a situation where they can't hook their NP-hard problem solvers together in a way that solves problems that we would consider polynomial. I think that whatever process is needed to get the output in a form that can be used as input for other things in general should be considered to be part of the computational process. Maybe that should even be implied by the meaning of "compute". Like, say that some computation takes a number as input in a binary representation, and outputs a number, but outputs it in ternary. If you are talking about how fast the process is on numbers, it should include the time needed to convert back to the binary representation. (Unless, of course, the computation that you are considering the process to be doing includes the "input is in binary, output is in ternary" part. If it is being considered "on numbers" though, I think it should include the conversion time to and from whatever representation of numbers is being considered to be canonical.)
placebo 9y ago
You're right, and I also see how this obvious observation is consistently and elegantly ignored in most scientific or philosophical arguments that try and promote some totally "objective" account of reality. However, it's not really that surprising: Science over the centuries has steadily (and for it's time, justifiably) eroded the role of subjectivity in order to uncompromisingly get at what is consistently true (regardless of what we'd like to be true) and this process required being very suspicious of any subjective accounts that can't be measured. That being said, perhaps the time has come to dig a bit deeper and in the same persistent and uncompromising way ask what does objectivity or subjectivity mean? What do they arise from and to whom? I don't know if any new technologies can be derived from having clearer insights to these questions, but I do feel that it would be time better spent than any untestable mind made artifact about what reality ultimately is.
- westoncb 9y ago
  I agree it's worth looking more closely at the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, especially the mapping from the 'nearest' objective structure we know to various aspects of subjectivity. I think this could be a decent route to finding a brain structure tightly related to conscious experience. However, my suspicion is that the experience itself will remain not amenable to conceptual analysis—that it will remain fundamentally incapable of systematizing. For instance what would the mathematical description of the experience of a fever chill look like? (Hint: the definition there requires that you don't take a reductive approach to this: it's not asking about a mechanism which produces or is responsible for the experience, it refers to the experience itself.) That said, I think it would be very valuable to understand better what the limits of our conceptual faculty are: as impressive as cognition is relative to other things we and other animals are able to do, we're being unduly anthropocentric in assuming it to be boundless in capability. More recently I've come to consider concepts as almost like another sense: they are symbolic patterns consistently formed when we are exposed to certain stimuli (like our experience of smells consistently reappearing when exposed to similar molecules). Our conceptual faculty augments the pure pattern-correspondence of our more primitive senses in that the patterns can be associated with other internal patterns, and in that we can generate new patterns purely from existing patterns (using logical and analogical processes), which at some future time may be usefully associated with some never-encountered external stimulus. Finding the limits to our conceptual faculty is almost synonymous with find its 'structure', which I think would have clear benefits.
titzer 9y ago
> It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. Do they? Everyone is entitled to their unquestioned assumptions as long as they state them outright and describe their parameters. I have yet to see dualists (which ultimately is at the base of this whole line of argumentation) admit that they posit subjective experience _without evidence_, since they equate asking questions and "seeing" things as subjective experience. It's worthwhile debating and deconstructing just exactly what that means before accepting it and its hoaky mystical follow-ons. The fact remains that no entity can successfully prove to another entity that it has inner experience, so how would proving you have subjectivity to _your own mind_ work? You can't, and probably, you don't bother, because it is somehow "self evident" that you have this property. The whole qualia and consciousness debate is riddled with circular reasoning about something that dualists just "feel." Well sometimes I feel like I might have the same thoughts as a jelly donut, go ahead and prove me wrong with math! > I think people sort of push this point aside either by saying that qualia/subjectivity could be generated by math (or a computational process), and that's what really matters. But we have no examples of abstract math generating anything; This is a bizarre and unsupportable statement. Clearly physical processes can carry out computation, which is a special case of mathematics (or vice versa, depending on what you got your doctorate in), and computation can produce statements in whatever language you desire, even English. Yes, chips and software stacks produce outputs, even in English. How is that not "generating" something? Ah, but you ask what is inside? Tons! There are gazillions of bits inside computers, and similarly gazillions of flashes in your neural circuitry. That's a whole lot of "inside". How do you know that it _doesn't_ feel like something to be all those twinkling bits? If you still accept without question that you do in fact have subjective experience, doesn't it stand to reason that if the neural network which absolutely definitely does correlate with your consciousness did feel like _anything_, then by definition it would have to feel like this?
- westoncb 9y ago
  > The fact remains that no entity can successfully prove to another entity that it has inner experience, so how would proving you have subjectivity to _your own mind_ work? If you are trying to 'prove' subjectivity, in the sense of providing an argument for it, then you are missing the point: you already experience it directly by definition, so there is nothing to prove. > This is a bizarre and unsupportable statement. Clearly physical processes can carry out computation, which is a special case of mathematics ... I am arguing against the idea that the computation (i.e. the math part) carried out the physical process—not the other way around.
titzer 9y ago
> But it's also a contradiction since science scientific methodology demands we check our results empirically: the fact that you have subjectivity (i.e. that qualia exist) and what it's like, is the most direct empirical fact we have access to and which needs reconciling in any discussion of the universe's constitution. I hereby directly challenge your subjectivity and qualia. It is most absolutely not an empirical fact.
- westoncb 9y ago
  It doesn't matter whether I also have it—as long as at least you have subjectivity/qualia, then it's a part of reality and must be accounted for.
kybernetikos 9y ago
I strongly suspect that I can dramatically affect or entirely 'turn off' your experience of qualia through purely physical means, so I think your objection is much more to do with your skepticism that mathematical or computational processes can generate physical processes than anything to do with qualia. Of course, you only have to have a virtual object thrown at your head in VR to discover that your brain will mistake computational processes for physical ones rather easily.
- westoncb 9y ago
  Your brain doesn't experience computational processes any more directly through VR: VR works by sending controlled physical sensations to your senses using the same routes as when you ordinarily interact with the world.
  - kybernetikos 9y ago
    Sure, but your brain mistakes lights flashing according to a computational process for light flashing according to a physical process. It's not an argument that you are directly experiencing maths, just an example of how easily our brains can get maths and physics mixed up with the hint of a suggestion that if it's so easy, then perhaps there's not as big a distinction as we might think.
westoncb 9y ago
I'll also add where I see math fitting in: imagine some complex 3d object changing in time. Now imagine it's wrapped in a kind of net, like you see in 'wireframes' in computer graphics. If that complex 3D object is our universe, I see math as like that wrapping wireframe: there is a strong correspondence of some kind, and it covers the full extent of what's out there in some sense, but there are still gaps and extents into other directions etc. which are not math (or any form of human description).
jlg23 9y ago
> It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. The author does not ignore that but states his assumption on the first page: The foundation of my argument is the assumption that there exists an external physical reality independent of us humans. EDIT: Clarification: "external physical reality" means to me that we can rule out subjectivity here.
- westoncb 9y ago
  Yes, I thought that part of the article was kind of funny: just because we admit an external reality that is supposed to imply there is no internal reality? Here's the one other part where he references subjectivity/qualia: > In this example, the frog itself must consist of a thick bundle of pasta whose highly complex structure corresponds to particles that store and process information in a way that gives rise to the familiar sensation of self-awareness. This is too big an big assumption to make: processing something gives rise to sensations? Just because the processing is mathematically describable, is the sensation also? What would the mathematical description of the experience of a fever chill look like? This is the typical omission made by the many people who have formed similar arguments to Tegmark.
  - jlg23 9y ago
    > just because we admit an external reality that is supposed to imply there is no internal reality? Do we? Were? I don't see that in the essay. > This is the typical omission made by the many people who have formed similar arguments to Tegmark. Do you have any links? I'd like to read more.
    - westoncb 9y ago
      > Do we? Were? I don't see that in the essay. Actually, I think you are correct—I misread part of it the first time. He is pretty meticulous about saying this only applies to 'external physical reality,' and the only reference to an internal part is in the excerpt I gave above about the sensation of self-awareness. However, it's a similar kind of trick. He goes ahead and makes statements like: > Everything in our world is purely mathematical — including you. —which isn't really so significant if you are implicitly ignoring any interior aspects. Instead, it's just kind of a tautology: the 'exterior' aspects of reality (well, the selection of them which we know of/discuss anyway) are precisely the ones approachable to conceptual/linguistic/mathematical formulation. So I don't see much more being said here than "the mathematically describable parts of reality are mathematically describable." > Do you have any links? I'd like to read more. I've already spent far too much time on this thread, but if you look around at adherents of digital physics, computational universe, etc. you'll find a similar elision repeating itself: either subjectivity/qualia are ignored completely, or it is assumed that they would be a by-product of some kind of generative mathematical/computational process. I've seen several articles related to the idea just on HN. Edit: also: this is just a recent manifestation of the idea, which has been around at least since Plato.
musage 9y ago
a comment I made earlier, with Hannah Arendt quoting Heisenberg on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634222 In the prologue of "Vita Activa" she wrote this: > This future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems to be possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself. There is no reason to doubt our abilities to accomplish such an exchange, just as there is no reason to doubt our present ability to destroy all organic life on earth. The question is only whether we wish to use our new scientific and technical knowledge in this direction, and this question cannot be decided by scientific means; it is a political question of the first order and therefore can hardly be left to the decision of professional scientists or professional politicians. > While such possibilities still may lie in a distant future, the first boomerang effects of science's great triumphs have made themselves felt in a crisis within the natural sciences themselves. The trouble concerns the fact that the "truths" of the modern scientific world view, though they can be demonstrated in mathematical formulas and proved technologically, will no longer lend themselves to normal expression in speech and thought. The moment these "truths" are spoken of conceptually and coherently, the resulting statements will be "not perhaps as meaningless as a 'triangular circle,' but much more so than a 'winged lion' " (Erwin Schrodinger). We do not yet know whether this situation is final. But it could be that we, who are earth-bound creatures and have begun to act as though we were dwellers of the universe, will for- ever be unable to understand, that is, to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do. In this case, it would be as though our brain, which constitutes the physical, material condition of our thoughts, were unable to follow what we do, so that from now on we would indeed need artificial machines to do our thinking and speaking. If it should turn out to be true that knowledge (in the modern sense of know-how) and thought have parted company for good, then we would indeed become the helpless slaves, not so much of our machines as of our know-how, thoughtless creatures at the mercy of every gadget which is technically possible, no matter how murderous it is. > However, even apart from these last and yet uncertain consequences, the situation created by the sciences is of great political significance. Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being. If we would follow the advice, so frequently urged upon us, to adjust our cultural attitudes to the present status of scientific achievement, we would in all earnest adopt a way of life in which speech is no longer meaningful. For the sciences today have been forced to adopt a "language" of mathematical symbols which, though it was originally meant only as an abbreviation for spoken statements, now contains statements that in no way can be translated back into speech. The reason why it may be wise to distrust the political judgment of scientists qua scientists is not primarily their lack of "character" — that they did not refuse to develop atomic weapons — or their naivete — that they did not understand that once these weapons were developed they would be the last to be consulted about their use — but precisely the fact that they move in a world where speech has lost its power. And whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves. As for the paper: "It is important to remember, however, that it is we humans who create these concepts" vs. "Modern mathematics is the formal study of structures that can be defined in a purely abstract way." What's the definition of "to define"? Create a concept of something? "the only properties of integers are those embodied by the relations between them. That is, we don’t invent mathematical structures — we discover them" That doesn't follow at all. What's worse, you could also use an example sentence about a child and her mother translated into various languages, and say the actual nouns don't matter, just the relation between them. That's how you discover biological relations, that's how you discover what a priest and their function is. Last, but never least: http://www.bartleby.com/370/55.html http://www.bartleby.com/370/55.html
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
Look, as far as I know, I definitely have an actively inferring predictive-coding central nervous system, so I know I'm in here. But you keep insisting you're a ghost, so I can't really be sure you're not a zombie. After all, I only get access to your behavior, so I can't see that you've got a proper predictive system in there at all. Whenever I try to cut you open and get at it, you keep yelling about qualia and human-rights violations.
- westoncb 9y ago
  > But you keep insisting you're a ghost I think there has been some miscommunication if what you got from my comment is an insistence that I (and others) are less than what's suggested in the article. What I'm speaking of is strictly addition. If anything, the ghost metaphor what be more applicable to someone claiming 'we are only' abstraction X (e.g. mathematics). Or Maybe I'm not following your intention there.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >Or Maybe I'm not following your intention there. That's probably because without a proper cognitive system, you don't have intentionality ;-).
eternalban 9y ago
> the idea that reality is made of math is one untestable hypothesis among many whose probabilities of correctness each approach zero by dint of their many peers. I would like to (gently) challange the assertion that all untestable hypotheses are "peers" of (neo)Platonic notions. What sets mathematics apart is this: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.htm...
- westoncb 9y ago
  Hey eternalban, I am familiar with that article. I posted something else here which I think explains why I find it insufficient for the author's uses (Tegmark, not Wigner): > imagine some complex 3d object changing in time. Now imagine it's wrapped in a kind of net, like you see in 'wireframes' in computer graphics. If that complex 3D object is our universe, I see math as like that wrapping wireframe: there is a strong correspondence of some kind, and it covers the full extent of what's out there in some sense, but there are still gaps and extents into other directions etc. which are not math (or any form of human description). I agree with you though, that it should be set apart from many more absurd hypotheses because of the additional merit it has—although for the specific question of whether reality is literally comprised of mathematics (rather than aspects of it being accurately describable by mathematics), it's a binary question, true or false, and while in some sense it's closer than the others, as far as I can tell it still lacks justification. Edit: I should also add that my jab about probabilities approaching zero etc. etc. was more kind of a joke/flourish which probably could've been left out :)
nurettin 9y ago
I like the approach of declaring maths as the ultimate construct through which the universe can be modeled and understood. At best it will approach towards truth, such as Eratosthenes's calculation of Earth's shape and dimensions or Copernican derivations for the solar system, at worst it will help enlarge the definitions and constructs within mathematics. So shut up. And calculate.
visarga 9y ago
> people sort of push this point aside either by saying that qualia/subjectivity could be generated by math It's not math that generates qualia, it's embodiment. The fact that "math" is inside an agent, which is inside a world that evolves. The agent can move about and affect the world, and it has a utility principle (some needs to fulfill) that guide its actions and perceptions - that generates qualia. The source is being in the world, not math. Math describes anything, qualia describes the world as experienced by the agent. If you take "being in the world, maximizing utility" as an explanation for consciousness, then you can easily classify various AIs and entities as conscious or not-conscious.
ozy 9y ago
Learning creates subjectivity.

whatshisface 9y ago

I know of a nice argument against simulationism that I think applies here: If simulated universes can be "real," then we're assuming that there's a mapping between patterns of electrons in a computer (or provable theorems, if you're brave enough), and the real universe they represent. (Say, interpreting two numbers that may be stored very far apart on the chip as the positions of two particles that are, in the universe, very close together.) The problem that this introduces is that there are no well-motivated ways that we could decide which mappings are "real," and could be "lived in." For example, we might claim that the state of the simulation must be map-able in polynomial time to some charts and pictures that a human could interpret - but an inhabitant wouldn't care. So, since all mappings are equally motivated as far as an inhabitant is concerned, allow me to choose one that maps this grain of sand to a universe the same as ours. Well, there you go. Our world in a grain of sand.

drdeca 9y ago
Not to say that I think that the world is a simulation or anything like that (I don't), but I think that computational complexity and related things probably do induce a natural notion of "naturality" on the different mappings. Even if there might not be a single most natural mapping, I think it makes sense to say that some mappings are more natural than others. I think there is a natural sense which is independent from human perception and intent, in which a computer running, say, a graph coloring algorithm, is doing that more than a waterfall is. Even if there is a bijection between a collection of initial states of the waterfall with the input of program, that fits together with one between the outputs and the results of the waterfall.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  Computational complexity is an insufficient motivator, because while in our current universe some problems are hard and others are easy, in the hypothetical universe there might be a law of physics that solves NP-hard problems. In fact, if the problem is right, you might even end up in a situation where they can't hook their NP-hard problem solvers together in a way that solves problems that we would consider polynomial.
  - drdeca 9y ago
    > in the hypothetical universe there might be a law of physics that solves NP-hard problems I agree with this part. I wasn't thinking specifically about P vs NP though. (if I was, I think that would be a kind of weak argument because we don't have a proof that P isn't equal to NP ? At least not yet.) I was thinking more in terms of like, Solomonoff probability and Kolmorogov and things like that. And even if you suppose that the universe in question has a Turing oracle, I think you would just have to go up enough levels in that hierarchy in order solve that. Even without that though, looking at the space of permutations on N, I think it is likely that there is a natural way to talk about what things are true of "most" things in that space, and things like that, which could, I think, support at least a weak sense of degrees of naturality between mappings, even without appealing to computational complexity. Edit: I figured I should respond to this part also: > In fact, if the problem is right, you might even end up in a situation where they can't hook their NP-hard problem solvers together in a way that solves problems that we would consider polynomial. I think that whatever process is needed to get the output in a form that can be used as input for other things in general should be considered to be part of the computational process. Maybe that should even be implied by the meaning of "compute". Like, say that some computation takes a number as input in a binary representation, and outputs a number, but outputs it in ternary. If you are talking about how fast the process is on numbers, it should include the time needed to convert back to the binary representation. (Unless, of course, the computation that you are considering the process to be doing includes the "input is in binary, output is in ternary" part. If it is being considered "on numbers" though, I think it should include the conversion time to and from whatever representation of numbers is being considered to be canonical.)

placebo 9y ago

You're right, and I also see how this obvious observation is consistently and elegantly ignored in most scientific or philosophical arguments that try and promote some totally "objective" account of reality. However, it's not really that surprising: Science over the centuries has steadily (and for it's time, justifiably) eroded the role of subjectivity in order to uncompromisingly get at what is consistently true (regardless of what we'd like to be true) and this process required being very suspicious of any subjective accounts that can't be measured. That being said, perhaps the time has come to dig a bit deeper and in the same persistent and uncompromising way ask what does objectivity or subjectivity mean? What do they arise from and to whom? I don't know if any new technologies can be derived from having clearer insights to these questions, but I do feel that it would be time better spent than any untestable mind made artifact about what reality ultimately is.

westoncb 9y ago
I agree it's worth looking more closely at the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, especially the mapping from the 'nearest' objective structure we know to various aspects of subjectivity. I think this could be a decent route to finding a brain structure tightly related to conscious experience. However, my suspicion is that the experience itself will remain not amenable to conceptual analysis—that it will remain fundamentally incapable of systematizing. For instance what would the mathematical description of the experience of a fever chill look like? (Hint: the definition there requires that you don't take a reductive approach to this: it's not asking about a mechanism which produces or is responsible for the experience, it refers to the experience itself.) That said, I think it would be very valuable to understand better what the limits of our conceptual faculty are: as impressive as cognition is relative to other things we and other animals are able to do, we're being unduly anthropocentric in assuming it to be boundless in capability. More recently I've come to consider concepts as almost like another sense: they are symbolic patterns consistently formed when we are exposed to certain stimuli (like our experience of smells consistently reappearing when exposed to similar molecules). Our conceptual faculty augments the pure pattern-correspondence of our more primitive senses in that the patterns can be associated with other internal patterns, and in that we can generate new patterns purely from existing patterns (using logical and analogical processes), which at some future time may be usefully associated with some never-encountered external stimulus. Finding the limits to our conceptual faculty is almost synonymous with find its 'structure', which I think would have clear benefits.

titzer 9y ago

> It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. Do they? Everyone is entitled to their unquestioned assumptions as long as they state them outright and describe their parameters. I have yet to see dualists (which ultimately is at the base of this whole line of argumentation) admit that they posit subjective experience _without evidence_, since they equate asking questions and "seeing" things as subjective experience. It's worthwhile debating and deconstructing just exactly what that means before accepting it and its hoaky mystical follow-ons. The fact remains that no entity can successfully prove to another entity that it has inner experience, so how would proving you have subjectivity to _your own mind_ work? You can't, and probably, you don't bother, because it is somehow "self evident" that you have this property. The whole qualia and consciousness debate is riddled with circular reasoning about something that dualists just "feel." Well sometimes I feel like I might have the same thoughts as a jelly donut, go ahead and prove me wrong with math! > I think people sort of push this point aside either by saying that qualia/subjectivity could be generated by math (or a computational process), and that's what really matters. But we have no examples of abstract math generating anything; This is a bizarre and unsupportable statement. Clearly physical processes can carry out computation, which is a special case of mathematics (or vice versa, depending on what you got your doctorate in), and computation can produce statements in whatever language you desire, even English. Yes, chips and software stacks produce outputs, even in English. How is that not "generating" something? Ah, but you ask what is inside? Tons! There are gazillions of bits inside computers, and similarly gazillions of flashes in your neural circuitry. That's a whole lot of "inside". How do you know that it _doesn't_ feel like something to be all those twinkling bits? If you still accept without question that you do in fact have subjective experience, doesn't it stand to reason that if the neural network which absolutely definitely does correlate with your consciousness did feel like _anything_, then by definition it would have to feel like this?

westoncb 9y ago
> The fact remains that no entity can successfully prove to another entity that it has inner experience, so how would proving you have subjectivity to _your own mind_ work? If you are trying to 'prove' subjectivity, in the sense of providing an argument for it, then you are missing the point: you already experience it directly by definition, so there is nothing to prove. > This is a bizarre and unsupportable statement. Clearly physical processes can carry out computation, which is a special case of mathematics ... I am arguing against the idea that the computation (i.e. the math part) carried out the physical process—not the other way around.

titzer 9y ago

> But it's also a contradiction since science scientific methodology demands we check our results empirically: the fact that you have subjectivity (i.e. that qualia exist) and what it's like, is the most direct empirical fact we have access to and which needs reconciling in any discussion of the universe's constitution. I hereby directly challenge your subjectivity and qualia. It is most absolutely not an empirical fact.

westoncb 9y ago
It doesn't matter whether I also have it—as long as at least you have subjectivity/qualia, then it's a part of reality and must be accounted for.

kybernetikos 9y ago

I strongly suspect that I can dramatically affect or entirely 'turn off' your experience of qualia through purely physical means, so I think your objection is much more to do with your skepticism that mathematical or computational processes can generate physical processes than anything to do with qualia. Of course, you only have to have a virtual object thrown at your head in VR to discover that your brain will mistake computational processes for physical ones rather easily.

westoncb 9y ago
Your brain doesn't experience computational processes any more directly through VR: VR works by sending controlled physical sensations to your senses using the same routes as when you ordinarily interact with the world.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  Sure, but your brain mistakes lights flashing according to a computational process for light flashing according to a physical process. It's not an argument that you are directly experiencing maths, just an example of how easily our brains can get maths and physics mixed up with the hint of a suggestion that if it's so easy, then perhaps there's not as big a distinction as we might think.

westoncb 9y ago

I'll also add where I see math fitting in: imagine some complex 3d object changing in time. Now imagine it's wrapped in a kind of net, like you see in 'wireframes' in computer graphics. If that complex 3D object is our universe, I see math as like that wrapping wireframe: there is a strong correspondence of some kind, and it covers the full extent of what's out there in some sense, but there are still gaps and extents into other directions etc. which are not math (or any form of human description).

jlg23 9y ago

> It baffles me that people ignore the fact that they have subjectivity when making these claims. The author does not ignore that but states his assumption on the first page: The foundation of my argument is the assumption that there exists an external physical reality independent of us humans. EDIT: Clarification: "external physical reality" means to me that we can rule out subjectivity here.

westoncb 9y ago
Yes, I thought that part of the article was kind of funny: just because we admit an external reality that is supposed to imply there is no internal reality? Here's the one other part where he references subjectivity/qualia: > In this example, the frog itself must consist of a thick bundle of pasta whose highly complex structure corresponds to particles that store and process information in a way that gives rise to the familiar sensation of self-awareness. This is too big an big assumption to make: processing something gives rise to sensations? Just because the processing is mathematically describable, is the sensation also? What would the mathematical description of the experience of a fever chill look like? This is the typical omission made by the many people who have formed similar arguments to Tegmark.
- jlg23 9y ago
  > just because we admit an external reality that is supposed to imply there is no internal reality? Do we? Were? I don't see that in the essay. > This is the typical omission made by the many people who have formed similar arguments to Tegmark. Do you have any links? I'd like to read more.
  - westoncb 9y ago
    > Do we? Were? I don't see that in the essay. Actually, I think you are correct—I misread part of it the first time. He is pretty meticulous about saying this only applies to 'external physical reality,' and the only reference to an internal part is in the excerpt I gave above about the sensation of self-awareness. However, it's a similar kind of trick. He goes ahead and makes statements like: > Everything in our world is purely mathematical — including you. —which isn't really so significant if you are implicitly ignoring any interior aspects. Instead, it's just kind of a tautology: the 'exterior' aspects of reality (well, the selection of them which we know of/discuss anyway) are precisely the ones approachable to conceptual/linguistic/mathematical formulation. So I don't see much more being said here than "the mathematically describable parts of reality are mathematically describable." > Do you have any links? I'd like to read more. I've already spent far too much time on this thread, but if you look around at adherents of digital physics, computational universe, etc. you'll find a similar elision repeating itself: either subjectivity/qualia are ignored completely, or it is assumed that they would be a by-product of some kind of generative mathematical/computational process. I've seen several articles related to the idea just on HN. Edit: also: this is just a recent manifestation of the idea, which has been around at least since Plato.

musage 9y ago

a comment I made earlier, with Hannah Arendt quoting Heisenberg on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634222 In the prologue of "Vita Activa" she wrote this: > This future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems to be possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself. There is no reason to doubt our abilities to accomplish such an exchange, just as there is no reason to doubt our present ability to destroy all organic life on earth. The question is only whether we wish to use our new scientific and technical knowledge in this direction, and this question cannot be decided by scientific means; it is a political question of the first order and therefore can hardly be left to the decision of professional scientists or professional politicians. > While such possibilities still may lie in a distant future, the first boomerang effects of science's great triumphs have made themselves felt in a crisis within the natural sciences themselves. The trouble concerns the fact that the "truths" of the modern scientific world view, though they can be demonstrated in mathematical formulas and proved technologically, will no longer lend themselves to normal expression in speech and thought. The moment these "truths" are spoken of conceptually and coherently, the resulting statements will be "not perhaps as meaningless as a 'triangular circle,' but much more so than a 'winged lion' " (Erwin Schrodinger). We do not yet know whether this situation is final. But it could be that we, who are earth-bound creatures and have begun to act as though we were dwellers of the universe, will for- ever be unable to understand, that is, to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do. In this case, it would be as though our brain, which constitutes the physical, material condition of our thoughts, were unable to follow what we do, so that from now on we would indeed need artificial machines to do our thinking and speaking. If it should turn out to be true that knowledge (in the modern sense of know-how) and thought have parted company for good, then we would indeed become the helpless slaves, not so much of our machines as of our know-how, thoughtless creatures at the mercy of every gadget which is technically possible, no matter how murderous it is. > However, even apart from these last and yet uncertain consequences, the situation created by the sciences is of great political significance. Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being. If we would follow the advice, so frequently urged upon us, to adjust our cultural attitudes to the present status of scientific achievement, we would in all earnest adopt a way of life in which speech is no longer meaningful. For the sciences today have been forced to adopt a "language" of mathematical symbols which, though it was originally meant only as an abbreviation for spoken statements, now contains statements that in no way can be translated back into speech. The reason why it may be wise to distrust the political judgment of scientists qua scientists is not primarily their lack of "character" — that they did not refuse to develop atomic weapons — or their naivete — that they did not understand that once these weapons were developed they would be the last to be consulted about their use — but precisely the fact that they move in a world where speech has lost its power. And whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves. As for the paper: "It is important to remember, however, that it is we humans who create these concepts" vs. "Modern mathematics is the formal study of structures that can be defined in a purely abstract way." What's the definition of "to define"? Create a concept of something? "the only properties of integers are those embodied by the relations between them. That is, we don’t invent mathematical structures — we discover them" That doesn't follow at all. What's worse, you could also use an example sentence about a child and her mother translated into various languages, and say the actual nouns don't matter, just the relation between them. That's how you discover biological relations, that's how you discover what a priest and their function is. Last, but never least: http://www.bartleby.com/370/55.html http://www.bartleby.com/370/55.html

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

Look, as far as I know, I definitely have an actively inferring predictive-coding central nervous system, so I know I'm in here. But you keep insisting you're a ghost, so I can't really be sure you're not a zombie. After all, I only get access to your behavior, so I can't see that you've got a proper predictive system in there at all. Whenever I try to cut you open and get at it, you keep yelling about qualia and human-rights violations.

westoncb 9y ago
> But you keep insisting you're a ghost I think there has been some miscommunication if what you got from my comment is an insistence that I (and others) are less than what's suggested in the article. What I'm speaking of is strictly addition. If anything, the ghost metaphor what be more applicable to someone claiming 'we are only' abstraction X (e.g. mathematics). Or Maybe I'm not following your intention there.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >Or Maybe I'm not following your intention there. That's probably because without a proper cognitive system, you don't have intentionality ;-).

eternalban 9y ago

> the idea that reality is made of math is one untestable hypothesis among many whose probabilities of correctness each approach zero by dint of their many peers. I would like to (gently) challange the assertion that all untestable hypotheses are "peers" of (neo)Platonic notions. What sets mathematics apart is this: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.htm...

westoncb 9y ago
Hey eternalban, I am familiar with that article. I posted something else here which I think explains why I find it insufficient for the author's uses (Tegmark, not Wigner): > imagine some complex 3d object changing in time. Now imagine it's wrapped in a kind of net, like you see in 'wireframes' in computer graphics. If that complex 3D object is our universe, I see math as like that wrapping wireframe: there is a strong correspondence of some kind, and it covers the full extent of what's out there in some sense, but there are still gaps and extents into other directions etc. which are not math (or any form of human description). I agree with you though, that it should be set apart from many more absurd hypotheses because of the additional merit it has—although for the specific question of whether reality is literally comprised of mathematics (rather than aspects of it being accurately describable by mathematics), it's a binary question, true or false, and while in some sense it's closer than the others, as far as I can tell it still lacks justification. Edit: I should also add that my jab about probabilities approaching zero etc. etc. was more kind of a joke/flourish which probably could've been left out :)

nurettin 9y ago

I like the approach of declaring maths as the ultimate construct through which the universe can be modeled and understood. At best it will approach towards truth, such as Eratosthenes's calculation of Earth's shape and dimensions or Copernican derivations for the solar system, at worst it will help enlarge the definitions and constructs within mathematics. So shut up. And calculate.

visarga 9y ago

> people sort of push this point aside either by saying that qualia/subjectivity could be generated by math It's not math that generates qualia, it's embodiment. The fact that "math" is inside an agent, which is inside a world that evolves. The agent can move about and affect the world, and it has a utility principle (some needs to fulfill) that guide its actions and perceptions - that generates qualia. The source is being in the world, not math. Math describes anything, qualia describes the world as experienced by the agent. If you take "being in the world, maximizing utility" as an explanation for consciousness, then you can easily classify various AIs and entities as conscious or not-conscious.

ozy 9y ago

Learning creates subjectivity.