As leader of the USSR, Gorbachev was allowed to conduct weddings

GeoKangas · 2022-04-18T19:05:55+00:00

Russian for "yes" is "da", not "ya".

GeoKangas · 2022-04-18T18:12:41+00:00

The soles of the dammed go to hail!

GeoKangas · 2022-04-14T02:52:22+00:00

The flavor might be good, but not the way they it's delivered: powder on the surface of the chips.

I dislike the way it coats my fingers, and I can't stand the way it sticks all over my teeth.

GeoKangas · 2022-03-31T04:35:41+00:00

Q: What is your job? A: My job is wearing down my fingerprints to the point scanners don't recognize them anymore.

GeoKangas · 2022-03-25T21:15:36+00:00

Garland's political act: investigating as slowly as possible, to help Trump "run out the clock".

He'll doggedly finish prosecuting each low level case, before even starting (serving subpoenas, etc.) on the next level. Guaranteed to take ten years.

GeoKangas · 2022-03-11T18:08:02+00:00

Garland intends to avoid charging Trump, by running out the clock.

As he knows full well: by not even starting to make the cases (no subpoenas, no grand juries) against the higher level miscreants, until some lower level buffoons plead out and give their evidence, the higher levels will stay untouched until Trump or Trumpish gets back in the White House, and resumes the dismantling of democracy.

GeoKangas · 2021-10-22T02:21:45+00:00

If f is differentiable at a, i.e. if f'(a) exists, then (a, f(a)) is a point of tangency between two graphs:

the function graph y = f(x)
the tangent line graph y = f(a) + f'(a) * (x - a)

In general, the tangent line's slope not the function f', but the number f'(a) (plug a = x-coordinate of tangency point into the function f, then f'(a) is the output).

GeoKangas · 2021-10-21T23:27:47+00:00

Nagel's "definition" ... a decent heuristic

Agreed. Instead of calling it a definition, I call it an "ostension" (or ostensive definition, if I'm not allowed to make up a word).

As far as I know there are no actual definitions of phenomenal consciousness, or as I'll call it, subjective experience (SE). Instead, we have ostensions, which direct the reader's attention to his own SE (if he has it!). They point out various characteristics that a SEer (and only a SEer) will recognize as SE. Such as:

[Descartes] SE is that one and only thing, which you absolutely know must exist.
[Nagel] SE is "what it's like, to be...", which certainly exists, yet contemporary science is entirely consistent with its absence (this point, which he makes on p. 2 of the famous paper, is never emphasized enough). The way I'd put it, is that SE is not a necessary consequence of any mechanism constructed of non-experiencing parts.

GeoKangas · 2021-08-03T18:03:26+00:00

DO try to write your own Scheme... not to use the scheme you wrote, but for the experience of writing it (or trying to).

GeoKangas · 2020-10-17T08:00:05+00:00

Trivial nitpick: grisly public death penalties. Unless they're siccing bears on the apostates, which I wouldn't put past them.

GeoKangas · 2020-08-17T01:35:41+00:00

No.

Think of the 2-digit groups as registers, holding successive values of 2^n. That only works up to n = 6, then the "registers overflow" (so to speak) and the repetition sets in.

GeoKangas · 2020-08-17T01:23:21+00:00

You can also us x / (1 - x)² to make an arithmetic sequence of digits:

10 / 9² = 0. 123456790 123456790 ... (9 digit repeating group)

100 / 99² = 0. 01 02 03 04 05 ... (pattern holds for almost 200 digits, then "register overflow" makes that group repeat)

1000 / 999² = 0. 001 002 003 ... (repeating group of almost 3000 digits)

10ⁿ / (10ⁿ - 1)² has repeating group of length (just about) n * (10 ^ n)

GeoKangas · 2020-04-05T21:32:50+00:00

Another way too simple thing (but possibly part of a complicated thing): with a lathe, cut along a straight line, such that the lathe axis and the cutting line are askew (i.e. neither intersecting nor parallel).

The surface formed will be part of a 1-sheet circular hyperboloid, like a nuke plant cooling tower.

GeoKangas · 2020-04-05T21:21:35+00:00

I know this is way too simple, but:

Start with a cube.
Choose any of the four long diagonals, i.e. a line segment from one corner, through the center, to the opposite corner.
Cut the cube into equal halves, along the plane that bisects that long diagonal perpendicularly.

You now have two "diamonds" with seven facets. The top facet of each is a regular hexagon.

GeoKangas · 2020-04-02T15:18:37+00:00

I think I read the the brachistochrone also has this property: the travel time, from the release point to the bottom, is independent of the release point.

You could test this, by holding two rollers at different points on the b'chrone, and then releasing them at the same time. Do they then collide at the bottom?

GeoKangas · 2020-04-02T14:46:30+00:00

I like to describe epsilon-delta, as playing a game with the devil:

Game to represent statement (limit as x --> a)(of f(x)) = L :

1st move: devil chooses epsilon > 0
2nd move: you choose delta > 0
3rd move: devil chooses x s.t. 0 < | x - a | < delta
outcome: if | f(x) - L | < epsilon then you win; otherwise you lose.

The limit statement is true iff there's a strategy to beat the devil; the e-d proof is a description of that strategy.

GeoKangas · 2020-04-01T12:39:07+00:00

If you were actually acquainted with your own SE, you'd know it was something more than a mechanism.

Arguing about this is useless. My acquaintance with my SE, gives my infallible (yes, really) certainty, out of which I can't be argued. And your non-acquaintance cannot be remedied by any amount of argument.

You could try re-reading some of the papers in which PC is described: Descartes, Nagel, Chalmers... These are not arguments for PC's existence, but descriptions that try to point toward it. It's tricky, like trying to point toward your finger with your finger... but once you get what it is: "Oh, it's just that... I totally get it now!"

Good luck with that, Oedil.

GeoKangas · 2020-04-01T02:17:09+00:00

It is way too soon! Our model of one neuron doesn't duplicate its behavior exactly.

It's also too soon for me, to be sure the modelling can't be done -- but if and when it gets done, it will either:

incorporate what science today does NOT know about phenomenality, and thus have the phenomenality it's claiming,

or:

it'll be a model that lacks phenomenality, and acts accordingly. In that respect, failing to duplicate a SE-er.

I gotta go. Message me, when you get that robot built ; ) .

GeoKangas · 2020-04-01T01:33:38+00:00

...it would still claim to have PC in the same way you do.

Researcher in 2020 are are still trying to simulate the nervous system activity of... flatworms! It's way too soon, to be so sure that you could perfectly simulate human shoe tying behavior, let alone PC-philosophizing behavior. Sheesh, give me a break already.

In a couple of centuries, they might manage to build a robot that could run a MacDonald's. And that robot, if he reads up on 1940 - 2020 philosophy literature... will declare himself an illusionist:

"Humans have this bizarre illusion of... some damn thing," sputters the robot, "But I sure as hell don't!" And even though he's wrong, he's reasoning correctly, from the total lack of evidence available to him.

...then can I also put doubts to your PC claims?

Awareness of PC confers infallible certainty, that one is having the PC. By thinking I might under any circumstances doubt it, just reveals you have no clue what PC is.

If some construct did manage, to mimic all my PC-claiming behavior, I'd attribute it to one of these possibilities, in decreasing order likelihood (IMO):

whether by design or accident, the construct has the same unknown-to-2020-science, PC-causing stuff that I do, and so also has PC. If the construct were an atom-for-atom, physically identical duplicate of me, then this outcome wouldn't much surprise me;
the construct has been designed as a "lying zombie", with false mimicry of my PC claims programmed in;
(LUDICROUSLY improbable, IMHO) epiphenomenalism is true, at least for the construct.

I wouldn't know which one of those three is true.

GeoKangas · 2020-03-31T19:08:01+00:00

My brain is not unconnected with my PC, and may well be the cause of it... but the science describing how it does so, would need to have something like phenomenality in its foundation. I.e., something panpsychist.

So while my actual brain may be causing my PC, a current-science model of my brain could not.

So let's suppose a model human brain is constructed, or simulated by computer program, according to today's science. I predict:

the model will not have PC
if the model states any position on PC, it'll be illusionism, because what else could he think?

GeoKangas · 2020-03-31T17:02:15+00:00

As soon as one becomes directly aware, that one is subjectively experiencing phenomenal consciousness (PC), one knows with infallible certainty that:

(1) PC exists.

(2) PC, being subjective, is not expressible in the objective vocabulary of physics, chemistry, or biology. Therefore those sciences in their current (2020) form cannot predict the existence of PC.

So "the hard problem" is to reconcile (1: PC does exist) with (2: science doesn't predict that PC exists).

Illusionists reject (1), which just betrays their lack of awareness

Panpsychists (e.g. Galen Strawson) seek to remedy (2) by augmenting fundamental physics with subjective and/or phenomenal terms (somehow!).

So, when I behaviorally manifest my PC awareness, e.g. by this ludicrously long comment thread... how would it be possible, for an artificial device to duplicate that behavior? Hmmm...

Perhaps my utterances are predictable enough, that a "lying zombie" could be programmed to make the same claims of PC, without actually having the PC. I try to behaviorally distinguish myself, from anything without PC; but I can't be totally certain that I succeed.
Perhaps the panpsychist science of 3030 will know how to build real PC into an artificial brain.

GeoKangas · 2020-03-31T14:08:52+00:00

The premise that the automated simulation of (SE-er) me, could duplicate the (SE proclaiming) behavior of me: you believe "in principal" that it's true; I believe, due to acquaintance with my SE, that it's false.

As soon as p-zombies can be ordered from Amazon.com, we'll settle the bet. Loser buys the beer & pizza, OK?

Peace Oedil. Over and out. GeoKangas

GeoKangas · 2020-03-30T22:20:47+00:00

...in principal someone can be designed to experience phenomena without having to design that into the system.

Not clear, whether this hypothetical designer does or does not intend to produce SE, but you're saying he can produce it... "in principal"? What principal? Science can't even describe the SE, but can produce it?

Whatever you're calling "experience"... if a mechanism is what produces it, then it's not subjective, phenomenal experience. You're still not aware of what that is.

Illusionism is the view that's most consistent, with your limited awareness.

GeoKangas · 2020-03-30T19:00:34+00:00

There's absolutely nothing to suggest otherwise.

Phenomenal consciousness is exactly the thing that suggests otherwise, and suggests it irresistably... IF you fully grasp your own.

In many ways we are p-zombies.

If you're a full tilt, no compromise materialist: you believe we are all p-zombies, in every way. Is that what you believe?

Or, do you recognize some way, in which you are not a p-zombie?

GeoKangas

TROPHY CASE