Fundamental Compressionist Philosophy.

[Andrew Stanworth]

Subject: Fundamental Compressionist Philosophy.

Hello Detlef,

| I want to reply to what you write on your site - which I find
| gripping. (We may return to the switch discussion another time.)

Thanks for that, though everyone wants to sidestep my switches : (
See the reply to Gerry for my undaunted perseverance : )

| Let's assume, our minds are emulated in a UCM. Some interesting
| puzzles must be solved by a programmer who wants to code such a
| brain.

YES!!!! : )

| [You -AS- write:]
| "In effect, we seem to be acting as massive filter systems, able to
| pick out the essential features and relationships in the data that is
| presented to us in the form of our sensory experience."
|
| [Me -DM-:]
| There must be some global filter criterion for 'essence'. How would
| you describe, how such a filter can detect essence which it had never
| seen before, i.e. for which it cannot have built in patterns to
| compare to - with the aim of finding a matching one?

In a word, the global filter criterion is - 'utility', in five words it is
'fitness for an intended purpose'.  The filter (in this case our
brain-mind - as distinct from 'mind' in the purely philosophical sense)
arises as a consequence of evolution and natural selection, but not as a
fundamental prerequisite.  In short, in a universe which is governed by
maximizing the overall global efficiency of the dissipation of energy at the
expense of any smaller local decreases in efficiency (i.e., the
thermodynamic entropic universe of the physicists, where larger overall
efficiency gains can produce the motive 'force' to drive smaller apparent
inefficiencies) produces filters which are otherwise recognized as stable
energy redistribution pathways.

But all of this is merely the context within which I intend to frame my
answer to your question.  You really ask a form of the question - which came
first, the chicken or the egg?  My answer is that what we understand to be
an egg, is really a single celled chicken.  Therefore, the question becomes
which came first, the chicken or the single celled chicken?  For which the
answer is immediately obvious - the single celled chicken.  In the same way,
the patterns must come before pattern recognition.  Pattern recognition
being a particular stable form of energy redistribution pathway which has
evolved to suit particular local conditions - i.e., its a form of
recursion - which may also be described as a form of compaction/compression.
Evolution itself being driven by the thermodynamic entropic redistribution
of energy (if using the thermodynamic model of reality, though there are
others possible!!)

| [AS:]
| "All of our quests for truth and knowledge come down to nothing more
| than trying to reduce the experiences we have to the simplest
| underlying patterns that we can recognize."
|
| [DM:]
| We have a very efficient sense for regularity. How would you describe
| the essence of regularity?

The essence of regularity must surely be 'reducibility' or
compact/compressibility.

| [AS:]
| "It is a common mistake to think that science produces explanations
| of how or why things work."
|
| [DM:]
| Science distilles regularity - the very essence we seem to be
| interested in - from experience. With a firm belief in causality, we
| do so to be able to forecast effects when observing causes. If we
| want to abstractly model 'science as such' in a UCM, we must define
| how regularity - the essence for which we still have to give a
| sufficient description - can be distilled from experience. That's
| all, what remains to do...

Yep, science = distilling regularity.

I am not sure if this answers your question, or if I have misunderstood your
direction, but to my mind, there seems to be the blending together of two
separate concepts in your statement.  A UCM can be used to
model/simulate/emulate the cause and effect structures we experience in
daily reality.  This is not modeling 'science' which in itself is a method
of hunting for local patterns of repeatability, within a universe which
exists in every particular instant of time, as a whole, in a state which has
never existed before (excluding theories such as big bang being followed by
a big crunch, etc.) - i.e., of detecting stable energy redistribution
pathways.  My point (above) was that science deals with how one set of
observed patterns flow into another set of observed patterns, but does not,
and can not, penetrate to the essence of what supports those patterns and is
fundamentally responsible for making those patterns 'work' - there is a
reality barrier below which our thoughts have no existence.  But going back
to your question of how the essence of regularity can be distilled from
experience, we now have a definition of the essence of regularity, i.e., as
compressibility.  The question thus becomes, how can compressibility be
distilled from experience?  My answer is I hope, becoming clear, in that
compressibility (in the form of stable energy redistribution pathways -
which included such things as people, trees, clouds, atoms, etc.,) is an
inherrent function of reality, and any such functioning of the universe is
what gives rise to experience by default (providing you accept the more
'materialist' view of reality) - in short, it's all a consequence of the
same nonreducible phenomena.

| [AS:]
| "The key point to remember is that all UCMs are fundamentally
| identical in terms of what they can actually do - the only difference
| between the different architectures is that some may be easier to
| configure for one task rather than another."
|
| [DM:]
| This means, we must describe an architecture for a UCM which can be
| easily configured for the task just mentioned.

Again, I am not certain that I have grasped the task you have in mind.  If
not, explain again and I'll re-answer.

| [AS:]
| "My universal computing machine is now not so much a machine, rather
| it is the heart of a universal descriptive framework (which although
| being the essence of Turing's machine, now makes it look hideously
| complex)."
|
| [DM:]
| Is it functioning in the above sense?

All descriptive frameworks function in the true sense - think of a
descriptive framework as being an algorithm written in a set of languages
(e.g., verbal, logical and mathematical) being processed by our mind - i.e.,
our mind is the hardware and the descriptive framework is an operating
system software.

| [AS:]
| > I have sackloads more of this sort of stuff to say if anyone is
| > interested.
|
| I am!!

Glad to hear it.  I've enjoyed your questions and look forward to some more.

kind regards,

Andrew.
andrew at seaca.org
www.seaca.org