Thanks! I’ve bookmarked those, and will watch the lecture.

Well, the burden of proof doesn’t lie with Carroll. Instead, the entire point is that the non-materialist has the burden of evidence

How does the burden lie with the reader, rather than the author who has explicitly stated they are assuming physicalism. Why must we assume physicalism?

every time you ask about the possibility of non-materialism, I can ask you for the corresponding experiment which opens that possibility

You’re welcome to ask, but not all truths are experimentally verifiable. I read Newton’s flaming laser sword to mean that only science or logic can reveal truths, which isn’t at all the case.

I’ve enjoyed discussing this with you - you’ve been clear, and added some interesting references. I’m not sure this medium really lends itself to in-depth discussion. I think we both need more space to understand where the other is coming from, and I don’t see us progressing in that direction.

By synthesizing concepts, do you mean combining them? I hope you’re not suggesting what that sounds like.

I will return to Carroll’s paper, but I still don’t see how it can prove anything, due to the paragraph I quoted.

The PBR theorem assumes preparation independence which is a local assumption.

Very interesting. Anywhere I can read more on that? Or is it standard knowledge in QM foundations?

Thank you for the Carroll paper. I’m actually looking for stuff like that atm.

In the paper, he caveats

Everything we have said presumes from the start that the world is ultimately physical, consisting of some kind of physical stuff obeying physical laws. There is a long tradition of presuming otherwise, and if so, all bets are off. The well-known issue is then how non-physical substances or properties could interact with the physical stuff.

so I’m very unclear how this paper can present a hard anti-materialist barrier, when he makes it clear that the paper presumes physicalism. I’ve only read half of it so far, will continue …

You have to start from physics & chemistry

This is the view of scientific materialism. Scientific materialism - a view - comes into irreconcilable (I think) problems even within quantum physics, never mind philosophy. It is also a view that you have to start from the small and build up. This view also has problems.

Thank you for bringing my attention to these books. I notice that the first two reviews on goodreads for “I am a strange loop” go to lengths to disagree with the message. Indeed one reviewer says

I did not find that Hofstadter compellingly demonstrates that this strange loop is the entirety of consciousness

I won’t put more weight on a reviewer than an author, but I do find the reviews interesting.

I have not yet looked up Blackmore’s book.

I am also not claiming we do not pattern match. I am saying there is very compelling literature that says we do more.

But maybe I’m entirely wrong.

… anyone who falls into this trap is welcome to study the very latest we know about human consciousness.

Isn’t this a statement about humans, rather than machines? Moreover, “It’s pattern matching not understanding” is essentially the message I got from this leading AI professor at Oxford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyyL0yDhr7I

There’s not a single thing in science pointing to us being anything more than pattern matching machines ourselves …

I’m almost certain this is completely wrong. Iain McGilchrist’s work on brain hemispheres points, as I understand it, to a left hemisphere that manipulates the world in ways he compares with modern AI, while the right is capable of the implicit, art, nuance etc. There is nothing in what I’ve heard of his work that suggests the right hemisphere operates like a machine. Indeed, I think he is very explicit that that is the opposite of the truth.

What is a “cognitive task”? At what point does fitting a straight line to data stop being a computer procedure and become cognitive? Is everything a computer does AI?

All code in Trail Mate is 100% generated by AI under human guidance. The project itself is a long-term experiment in human–AI collaboration for real engineering systems.

I think hosted would suit them best. It doesn’t even need to be decentralized, though I would rather avoid big tech.

remember not everyone speaks english fluently

I’m curious, what’s an example?

What happens to the California economy if they can’t use Debian? Could it survive that?

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Hmmm, it’s C++

Not sure if it’s clear, but I’m not doing the patching - my dependency is.

Updated post to make it clearer.

I’m writing a library, to be distributed, and the library I’m depending on - that patches - is also intended to be distributed.

In the next phase of the legal proceedings, due to begin on 4 May, the attorney general’s office will seek additional financial penalties and court-mandated changes to Meta’s platforms that “offer stronger protections for children”, said Torrez.

The design feature changes the state is seeking include “enacting effective age verification, removing predators from the platform, and protecting minors from encrypted communications that shield bad actors”.

Unclear how age verification would play out with their Digital Childhood Alliance efforts.

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Intentional Kessler syndrome?