Arthur C. Clarke 3/9 ART MATRIX - LIGHTLINK
http://www.lightlink.com/theproof PO 880 Ithaca, NY 14851-0880
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homer@lightlink.com E-mail
jes@lightlink.com E-mail
01/22/07 03:25am
Dear Esteemed Sir,
In the wee hours of the night, I am again compelled to write you.
Although you have not yet received a complete and comprehensive
overview of the problem, I believe I have sent you enough for your basic
understandings in my very first letter.
The subject matter is learning with certainty about causality.
Learning with certainty that two different events A and B are
causally related.
Causality is a bit of a red herring, because certainty of ANYTHING
is under question.
For B to learn with certainty that A even exists however relates
back to causality, because the WAY that B learns about A is via
causality, A has to have an effect on B, or else A might as well not
exist for B EVEN IF IT DOES.
Thus if causality between A and B is in doubt, then so is learning
about the existence of A, or anything else learned via causality across
a distance.
B learns about A via changes in state in B occasioned by A.
B learns about A through A's effects on B, and if the learning
about causality is in question, how then can anything learned through
causality be certain?
The issues here are quite clear.
When two different objects learn about each other, they must learn
by being an effect of the other, by changing state as a result of the
other.
However it is not a valid leap of certainty that just because B
changed state, that this change had a cause; let alone that the nature
of that cause belongs to the object A one is trying to learn about.
Such trains of thought, that B can learn about A by changing state
as a result of A's influence, are theories at best.
Delusion about illusion at worst.
We have the problem of tracking.
Tracking is when the states of two different objects track each
other.
For example, light switch is on, light is on. Light switch is off,
light is off. The state of the light tracks the state of the light
switch. The state of the light switch comes BEFORE the state of light
in time.
Or light is on, light sensor is buzzing. Light is off, light
sensor is quiet.
The state of the sensor buzzing tracks the state of the light being
on off. The state of the light comes BEFORE the state of the sensor.
Two objects track each other because of a causal pathway between
them.
If there is no causal pathway between the two objects, then their
tracking each other is coincidental, no matter how dependable or
repeatable that tracking may be.
We have here a very fundamental theorem that everyone knows,
and everyone agrees with:
Dependability of tracking does not necessarily imply causation
between the two objects.
There is followingness, that means B followed A.
There is dependable followingness, that means B so far has always
followed A every time we have observed both in operation.
That is what we call tracking, the state of B follows or tracks the
state of A.
Then there is necessary dependable followingness, that means B MUST
follow A and can do no other.
Necessariness is provided by cause.
Dependable followingness is not NECESSARY dependable followingness.
Dependability is not guaranteeability.
Only causation can provide necessary or guaranteeable
followingness.
Causation implies necessity and guaranteeability, and necessity and
guaranteeability imply causation.
Causation is DEFINED as necessary dependable followingness.
However it is an immature mind that confuses mere dependable
followingness with NECESSARY dependable followingness and thus with
certainty of causation.
Worse it is an audacious mind that having confused the two, then
tries to assign the nature of the cause with perfect certainty to
something.
Learning is a kind of tracking. It is having an idea that such and
such is true about something in the hope that in fact it is.
One can 'know' via a number of different methods.
Imagine a light bulb in a closed opaque box, and we wish to learn
the state of the light, on or off.
'Guessing.' One can guess the light is on. That gives you a 50
percent chance of being right.
'Trust.' One can be told that the light is on by someone who claims
to have seen it. This is more likely to be right, but is not perfect
certainty as it depends on your level of trust in the claimer.
'Faith.' God can tell you the light is on, as he made it and can
not lie, as his every thought becomes true in the thinking of it.
Well if you believe in such things, you might want to consider this
a good bet, but would you bet your eternity in hell on the light being
on just because God said so? Would you also bet everyone else's
eternity in hell on the matter? I think not. Again direct perception
of the matter and perfect reverifiability is missing, and thus perfect
certainty is lacking.
'Indirect observation.' Your light sensor is screaming over in
the corner. Ok, now we are coming close to something that might be
called a reasonable scientific hypothesis, as long as you trust the
circuitry in the light sensor, and also trust God not to be playing
God at that moment, interferring with the laws of physics.
But even barring this last, there is still no perfect certainty,
because one can not possibly verify with perfect certainty the proper
working of the light sensor.
Indirect observation is actually a kind of trust, trust in the
theories about physical law and that law's dependability rather than the
word of another being.
There is an interesting theorem that says a machine or any
mechanical system can never verify the integrity of its own circuits
with perfect certainty.
Even if the machine has a correct circuit diagram, and two or more
video cameras that can see each other and into every circuit in both the
cameras and the machine, the machine can still never know if everything
is working the way it should be.
It is always possible that some circuit is wrong that makes it look
like that circuit is right when it isn't. This is a major theorem in
artificial intelligence and goes completely unnoticed by some.
'Direct observation.' You go look at the light and see that it is
on. Ok, so now we are as close as close comes to having a high
scientific probability that the light is on.
But even then with a clean observation one could be imagining,
dreaming, or hallucinating.
Just because I hear the sensor screaming does that mean the sensor
really is screaming?
One could be imagining. One could be asleep and dreaming! I have
personally woken up out of 7 levels of dreaming, each one as real as
this world we live in now, each time convinced it was the real world. I
still wonder sometimes.
What we call 'direct observation' is of course not direct
observation at all, as the eyeball and retina and brain form just one
more causal pathway and level of indirection no different than trying to
see the world through a video camera or a light through a light sensor.
Circuits could be bad all along the way including in our brain,
giving the impression of one thing when the truth is something else
entirely.
So where in all this is perfect certainty that the light is on?
There is none, because we are dealing with two different objects,
observed and observer, each one separated by alleged spacetime dimension
and causality that itself can not be seen directly and thus not
confirmed nor confirmable.
Effects are not sufficient to witness cause with perfect certainty.
Effects are thus only sufficient to allow one to theorize and hope
for the best.
Jane's Law:
"Causality is not sufficient to witness causality."
So causality always remains a theory.
Thus the mechanics of space and time are not sufficient to witness
the mechanics of space and time with perfect certainty, thus the
mechanics of space and time remain forever a theory even to themselves,
ie things made out of space and time.
No space time gizmo can ever know if it is a space time gizmo for
sure, because a space time gizmo can't know anything at all for sure.
In the dream state we see a conscious experience of a light, it
LOOKS real, but there are no photons at all, and certainly no light bulb
made of glass no matter how much it looks there is one.
The dream is self luminous, the light bulb in the dream does not
light the objects in the dream, even if turning off the light in the
dream makes the objects go dark! It's all just a coordinated hook
together.
I have had dreams where I turned the dream light on the dream table
off, and the room stayed lit!
Just so in the waking state, we trust we see the alleged physical
universe through our self luminous conscious pictures (conscious
renditions) of it. We have perfect certainty of the self luminous
pictures, but not of the alleged referents in the physical universe.
All day long when we are awake we TRUST that our conscious
experiences are causally connected to our sensory inputs, eyes, ears,
etc, in such a manner that we can trust that what we experience IN OUR
CONSCIOUSNESS represents accurately what is 'out there.' But this is
trust, not perfect certainty.
But notice.
WE ARE PERFECTLY CERTAIN OF OUR CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE!
We SEE the red, green and blue and we know we do.
We can't be wrong about that, as we SEE that we SEE.
We are using our conscious experience to learn about the alleged
external physical universe.
Where there are two different objects, namely one our subjective
conscious experiences of things, and two the alleged corresponding
objective physical referents, one can never learn with certainty about
one by looking at the other!
One can learn with perfect certainty about the subjective conscious
experiences of things, but never the things those experiences purport to
represent to us.
We can be certain of the Messenger, but never of the King.
One can never learn with perfect certainty about the physical
referents by looking at the conscious experiences (renditions) of them
in our consciousness!
However we can see our conscious experiences directly, and direct
observation always leads to a perfect certainty.
The conscious self can learn what it is conscious of (color, sound,
etc) with perfect certainty. It can learn of its own existence, and its
own personal agency or causitiveness.
In other words the direct perception of self luminous consciousness
IS sufficient to witness cause.
Take a look at any two different colors around you, that's a
perfect certainty. You may be imagining, dreaming or hallucinating the
objects, but THE HALLUCINATION IS CERTAIN!
The *EXPERIENCE OF REDNESS* is certain.
The experience of pain is certain regardless if it is imagination,
dream, hallucination or born of sensory input from some actual harm in
the body.
The implied existence of an external physical universe referent out
there behind the redness however is not certain.
I see a piece of red paper on my desk, perhaps it is a
hallucination, perhaps there is no red paper on my desk, perhaps no
others will see that paper there, because it isn't there, but they nor I
can possibly doubt that I SEE IT IN MY CONSCIOUSNESS.
Thus in the parts of us that are a machine, our eyes picking up
photons, our lens, retinas, optic nerves, brain pathways, visual cortex
etc, there is no certainty at all, not even that these things exist.
But in the part of us that is not a machine, our consciousness, we
know that these conscious things exists with out question because we can
see them directly.
Seeing red is direct perception.
Attributing seeing red to some alleged piece of paper in the
physical universe with photons of a particular frequency bouncing off of
it via indirect perception (eyes), is conjecture at best, delusion about
illusion at worst.
Conscious seeing is always direct perception.
But direct perception implies that perceiver and perceived are one
and the same object, even if it LOOKS like there is space between me and
what I am seeing.
Our consciousness and its 'color forms' (including all senses) are
the only things we can know that we see, because we can see ourselves
seeing them.
Seeing ourselves seeing is infinite reverifiability which is
mandatory to perfect certainty.
A machine can not do this.
A machine can try, but it would take forever to complete a perfect
reverification of any state, because it would be using a second state in
time to verify a first state in time, and thus it would fail in the end.
A machine can not see at all, let alone see itself seeing.
A machine can let one video camera paint pretty pictures of the
alleged external world on its insides, and it can use it's other video
camera to paint another picture *OF THE FIRST PICTURE* on its insides,
but that just creates a second state that vouches for a first state,
neither one of which produce a certainty of what they represent.
In the first place the second state is AFTER the first state.
The machine could then point its cameras at the second state and
produce a third state that would vouch for the second state, but it
would yet again be later than either of the first two.
And two different events in time can never vouch for the causality
between them no matter how much the second state claims to
have been caused by the first state.
And the machine can continue to do this, using later states to
vouch for earlier states, but this only leads to an infinite progression
in time that never produces a single certainty in any of the states and
takes FOREVER to complete!
True self awareness is a moment that verifies itself in the SAME
MOMENT!
That is a very big statement, never been made before.
So dig it and don't leave it.
Thus a machine can not be self aware.
A machine can be 'aware' it WAS 'aware'.
A machine can be in a state that indicates maybe it
was in a prior state.
A conscious unit can be aware that it IS aware.
Conscious self luminous certainty is all in the single now.
The conscious *NOW*, proves that the conscious now *IS*.
You can't be RED, with out BEING.
Consciousness doesn't use a second state to prove the existence of
the first state, the first state is SELF PROVING.
And this is a timeless process or else it would never complete.
The time between being conscious-of, and being conscious-of being
conscious-of, is zero.
If it weren't zero you couldn't see it, as you can't see something
directly that is in the past, something that is separated from you by a
distance in time.
CAN A MACHINE LEARN OF ITS OWN EXISTENCE?
We can ask a simple but convoluted question. Can a machine learn
with perfect certainty that it itself exists?
Well this would involve the machine existing and being in some
various states or another.
But then the machine would have to OBSERVE itself existing by
indirect observation via its external video cameras to observe itself,
thus giving rise to a SECOND state in the machine indicating it as
evidence supporting it's conclusion that it existed.
This second state must be causally related to the prior existence
of the machine, because without causal relation the machine is not
learning, its just guessing.
But because the machine can not witness that cause directly, it can
only trust that its circuitry is working properly during its observation
of itself, and thus can only attain a level of trust that the second
state now actually tracks its existence BECAUSE of its prior existence a
moment of time before.
When ever a second state or object is used to track a first earlier
state or object, there CAN BE NO PERFECT CERTAINTY in the second object
about the first object, because direct observation by the second object
of the first object of the NECESSITY of the dependable followingness
between them is missing.
The second object never has direct perception of the first object,
nor of the causation between them.
Until you can prove there is cause between A and B, you can never
prove anything at all with perfect certainty about either by looking at
the other.
Thus learning about A by looking at B is silly.
So what this comes down to is a problem in two different objects or
states. "Two different" anythings are limited to learning about each
other via cause and effect, and since effect doesn't prove cause, they
may never attain certainty of the other.
Thus if there is going to be a certainty between learner and
learned about, learner and learned about must be one and the same
object!
And the learning, learner and learned about must be one and
the same event.
Cause and effect happening simultaneously in the same
moment of time.
You can't learn about an cause by looking at its effect,
because by the time the effect happens, the cause IS GONE into
the past.
That's indirect perception, looking at now to determine
the nature of the past.
Indirect perception can never learn about the now by looking
at the now.
Only direct perception can, but that means the effect
and the cause that the effect implies are both NOW
and exist at the same time.
When cause and effect both exist at the same time, each instantly
and continuously reverifies the other, because direct perception can see
both at the same time and the NECESSITY between them.
Being one and the same object means there can be no space between
them nor any time! Any form of dimensional separation between A and B
guarantees that A and B are two different objects.
Two different objects can only learn about each other via learning
by looking at the second one in time (the effect) and trying to theorize
what might have been true about the first earlier one in time (the
cause).
Thus the search for certainty is not towards greater and more
dimensions, but towards zero dimensions, or no dimension altogether.
A zero dimentional object is called a scalar, it has no
dimension or size at all, its not small, size doesn't apply.
Only a scalar can engage in direction perception of itself
across no space and no time.
We understand easily how we learn by indirect perception, such as
using a light sensor to learn about the light.
But it boggles our brain trying to understand how *ANYTHING* could
ever learn anything by direct perception.
If A and B are the same object, how does direct perception work?
The 'How?' engine in the brain is designed to handle cause and
effect sequences on an evidential and theoretical basis, it KNOWS there
is no certainty in this.
Indirect perception results in theories only.
A theory consists of Model and Evidence.
The effect NOW is the evidence there WAS a cause.
The cause that we conceive to 'explain' the effect, is the model we
use to 'explain' the asserted and hoped for necessary dependable
followingness between them.
However ask the how engine in the brain 'How can we produce a
perfect certainty through direct perception' and it will break, because
it only understands indirect perception via sequences of cause and
effects separated from each other by distance in space and time.
To most people of advanced learning, 'indirect perception' is
redundant, and 'direct perception' is a self contradicting oxymoron.
However indirect perception produces no certainty or self
luminosity, yet both certainty and self luminosity are self evident in
the conscious unit, not only in its perception of the color forms around
it, but also in its perception of it's self and personal agency between
desire, will and final action.
Thus we call this process direct perception, even though it may
presently remain incomprehensible to our 'How?' engine in the brain, as
to how it works.
Certainty IS consciousness, consciousness IS certainty.
There can be no certainty in the absence of consciousness, and
there can be no consciousness in the absence of certainty.
That is a very big statement.
But you guys are too busy digging and not leaving the prior big
statement above, so I won't overwhelm you with this one.
In the presence of separation caused by dimension between two
different objects, there can be no certainty-of and there can be no
consciousness-of.
If A is separate from you, you can never be conscious of A, you can
only be conscious of some *ALLEGED* but unprovable later effect of A IN
YOURSELF, namely your conscious experience of A!
Thus certainty and consciousness can only exist when an object is
learning about itself, but not by cause and effect! At least not when
cause and effect are two different events separated by space and time,
such as when a machine turns its video cameras on itself to learn about
itself.
Certainty and consciousness are more like a spaceless and timeless
moment where cause and effect are one and the same event.
Following the lead of Einstein who called our universe a single
entity of spacetime we offer to call self luminosity a moment of
causeeffect.
Causeeffect is when there is no spacetime between cause and effect
but each knows with certainty which is cause and which is effect in the
same moment of spacetime.
Then we can have learning about our own existence, our own cause,
our own personal agency, our own data screens of conscious color, with
perfect certainty.
Your faithful servant,
Homer Wilson Smith, who hates the term causeeffect with a passion,
but who can't escape the verity of self luminous consciousness.
All hail the great RED AND GREEEN which is lit by nothing. but
themselves and their perceiver.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith The Paths of Lovers Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 KC2ITF Cross Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com In the Line of Duty http://www.lightlink.com
Sat Aug 11 00:41:14 EDT 2007