Re: Rationalizing is something we *all* do

On Nov 1, 2012 1:10 PM, "Bruno Marchal" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> On 31 Oct 2012, at 16:07, Rami Rustom wrote:
>
> > On Oct 28, 2012 2:43 PM, "Bruno Marchal" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > On 27 Oct 2012, at 18:38, Rami Rustom wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On 26 Oct 2012, at 20:04, Rami Rustom wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]
> > >
> > > > >> wrote:
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> On 25 Oct 2012, at 20:32, Rami Rustom wrote:
>
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >>> That error is not only done often, if not systematically at the
> > > > >>> political level, in the domain of Health, it is done in other parts
> > > > >>> of
> > > > >>> politics, and frequently in racist discourses, defamation, and fake
> > > > >>> sciences.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> That error has even a Darwinian explanation, as simple neural
> > > > >>> associative nets do that error, and yet can solve problem and needs
> > > > >>> very few K. Some 'mistaken theory' are efficacious in the short term
> > > > >>> (like robbing a bank, to solve the money problem).
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Stupidity is not in the mistake, it is in the doing of the same
> > > > >>> mistake again and again and again and again (usually for problem of
> > > > >>> image of oneself by some people indeed, or just for perpetuating a
> > > > >>> fear selling technic to steal your money, something sad, bad, but
> > > > >>> 'natural' like robbing a bank).
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Sometimes people make the same mistakes repeated because of anti-
> > > > >> rational memes.
> > > > >
> > > > > Yes. The problem is that something anti-rational for the long term can
> > > > > be completely rational in the short term. Typically "stealing money".
> > > > > It works well in the short term, but only because it is bad and it is
> > > > > done by a minority. If stealing money was encouraged and taught in
> > > > > high school, the society would quickly degenerate in many mafia type
> > > > > of wars. You need enough honest people doing "real money" to be stolen
> > > > > by others, which acts rationally for their limited personal purpose.
> > > > >
> > > > > There are often conflicts between the short term, the middle term and
> > > > > the long term, which are conflicts between different type of rational
> > > > > reason. The frontier between rational and non rational is like the
> > > > > Mandelbrot set: very complex and intricate. That is why, in actual
> > > > > context, usually with only very partial information, we have to trust
> > > > > our guts. I think.
> > > >
> > > > That implies that our gut feelings are not discoverable. But that is
> > > > wrong.
> > > >
> > > > A gut feeling is the feeling one gets when there is a conflict of
> > > > ideas in his mind, where one of those ideas is conscious and explicit,
> > > > and the other idea is subconscious and inexplicit. But there is
> > > > nothing permanent about the status of that subconscious and inexplicit
> > > > idea. One can put forth effort to discover it, thus making it
> > > > conscious and explicit. This allows one to criticize it.
> > > >
> > > Hmm... What makes you sure we can know all the roots of our guts
> > > feeling?
> >
> > A subconscious idea *is* instantiated in the brain. It physically
> > exists there.
> >
> Hmm.... OK. Can be quite implicit though, and not recognizable as such.

What does that mean?


>
>
>
> > Why would it be off limits from being discovered?
> >
> There is no algorithm to decode what a program can do, from its code
> (Rice theorem). The set of programs doing a particular task is not
> recursive. With neural nets, it is worst, as the information can be
> distributed in tiny difference of excitation level of billions of
> neurons.

When speaking of software, one does not need to speak of hardware. The
hardware doesn't affect the software, unless the hardware gets
damaged. Agreed?


>
>
>
>
> >
> > > This can be contradicted in the mechanist theory + classical
> > > theory of knowledge: it shows that the ideally arithmetically correct
> > > machine can never know "who she is", and in that theory the guts
> > > feeling originates from the "who" we are.
> >
> > I don't know what the "who somebody is" means nor how that is relevant
> > to this discussion.
> >
> If we are machine, we cannot know which machine we are. We can only
> bet on some level of description, in case we accept a digital brain
> prosthesis, for example. Even if the guess is correct, we still cannot
> recognize the genuine program which constitutes our identity. The
> relevance of this is that for the gut feelings, we might be unable to
> decide if some idea is a prejudice of the parents, or of the mammals,
> or of all universal machines. In the mater case, we can't change it
> without loosing consistency or soundness.

I still don't know what that means nor why its relevant to our
discussion. Consistency of what? Soundness of what?


>
>
>
> >
> > > Without going that far in
> > > the theory, I doubt we can be conscious of all the subconscious
> > > processing. A machine can refer to itself integrally, but not to its
> > > integral behavior.
> >
> > I don't understand your idea that some subconscious ideas are off
> > limits.
> >
> Intuitively it seems obvious, if only because our brain have plausibly
> a very long complex history, and nature does not make explicit
> programs with readable comment.

You are using the theory of the mind that says that certain brain
parts cause certain mind parts. But that theory has been refuted by
DD. That refutes evolutionary biology (which is the field you're
referring to).

What you're saying is that some of our software is hardcoded. And that
hardcoding evolved over millions of years. But, humans don't have any
hardcoding. Its all softcoded. All of it changes.


> Then, although machine can represent
> itself entirely, it can't represent its behavior entirely, almost for
> reason akin to the reason that nobody can see directlmy his/her own
> back. there are blind spot in self-reference, for logical reasons.

Do you agree that we can guess about them?


>
>
>
>
> >
> > Consider this. Decades from now we create the first AGI. It programs
> > its own code. No?
> >
> This is ambiguous. Programs can easily modify, even completely their
> own code, but it cannot create one from nihilo.

Whats nihilo?


> There is always
> another universal program or reality needed, even if it is the
> arithmetical reality, or physical reality, which are highly
> undecidable set (probably in the first case, plausibly in the second
> case).
> It is like our wanting. We have few control about what we want,

False. Our wants depend on our values. We have control over our
values. Our values are ideas. We guess ideas and criticism them.
Sometimes we're doing this with our value-type ideas. And when we make
changes to our values, we've changed our wants.


> nor do
> we have control on the way events can hurt us.

Physical hurt or mental hurt? We have a lot of control over mental
hurt. Mental hurt is TCS-coercion. TCS-coercion occurs when someone is
acting on a theory while another conflicting theory is active in his
mind. An example of TCS-coercion is someone gets offended when someone
else says a racial slur to him. So the one who gets hurt doesn't want
to be called by that racial slur but it happened. Do you think he has
no control over getting hurt by this?


> In fact we control very
> few things, but yet, we do have a non negligible partial control, but
> it is only a window, so to speak.

It is a window. But, that window can be made bigger without limit. Or,
is the limit 100%? Can someone be absolutely conscious of *all* his
ideas such that none of them are subconscious/inexplicit? Doesn't that
imply perfection?

No it doesn't. Because he could be wrong about any of them.

-- Rami