On 23 Feb 2010, at 22:05, David Nyman wrote:
Bruno, I want to thank you for such a complete commentary on my
recent
posts - I will need to spend quite a bit of time thinking carefully
about everything you have said before I respond at length.
Thanks for your attention, David.
Please, keep in mind I may miss your point, even if I prefer to
say that
you
are missing something, for being shorter and keeping to the
point. You
really put your finger right on the hardest part of the mind-body
problem.
I'm sure
that I'm quite capable of becoming confused between a theory and
its
subject, though I am of course alive to the distinction. In the
meantime, I wonder if you could respond to a supplementary
question in
"grandmother" mode, or at least translate for grandma, into a more
every-day way of speaking, the parts of your commentary that are
most
relevant to her interest in this topic.
I am a bit panicking, because you may be asking for something
impossible.
How to explain in *intuitive every-day terms* (cf grandmother)
what is
provably counter-intuitive for any ideally perfect Löbian entity?
Bohr said that to say we understand quantum mechanics, means that
we
don't
understand.
Comp says this with a revenge: it proves that there is
necessarily an
unbridgeable gap. You will not believe it, not understand it, nor
know it
to
be true, without losing consistency and soundness. But you may
understand
completely while assuming comp it has to be like that.
But I will try to help grandma.
Let us suppose that, to use the example I have already cited, that
grandma puts her hand in a flame, feels the unbearable agony of
burning, and is unable to prevent herself from withdrawing her hand
with a shriek of pain.
OK.
Let us further suppose (though of course this
may well be ambiguous in the current state of neurological theory)
that a complete and sufficient 3-p description of this (partial)
history of events is also possible in terms of nerve firings,
cognitive and motor processing, etc. (the details are not so
important
as the belief that such a complete history could be given).
OK. (for the moment)
From the
point of view of the reversal of the relation between 1-p and 3-p
in
comp, is there some way to help grandma how to understand the
*necessary relation* (i.e. what she would conventionally
understand as
"causal relation") between her 1-p *experience* of the pain (as
distinct from our observation of her reaction) and whatever 3-p
events
are posterior to this in the history? For example, what would be
distinctively missing from the causal sequence had she been
unconscious and had merely withdrawn her hand reflexively?
Your example may not be so good, because in such situation, the
withdrawning
of the hand is in general done by reflex. But let us assume, she
concentrates and decide to remove the hand by "her own will".
I suppose this amounts to a repetition of the question - how is the
*painful experience* itself causally indispensable to the 3-p
events
we associate with it?
In other discussions I have often criticize the notion of
causality (but
not
of will).
But as far as the local physics is explained by comp, causal
relations
can
have some local sense. In the big picture, wher we are NOT living,
eventually such causal relations are just shortening of
arithmetical
relation, where the only cause can be reduced to formal
implications.
I seem to see that in a sense, given the comp
reversal of the relation between physics and consciousness, the 3-p
events do indeed "emerge" out of the pain.
Hmm... OK.
I could say to grandmother that pain and sensation itself exists in
platonia, indeed it is when a representation intersects with truth.
In a sense, a G* sense, only God (Truth) "feels pain", and the
infinitely
many grandmother's bodies makes it possible for God to lessen the
pain
relatively to the normal stories, if all goes well ...
But this still seems to
beg the question: how do the 3-p events depend on the brute fact of
the *painfulness* of the pain, as opposed to the objective
*existence*
of an infinity of computations?
Because in the infinity of computations, infinitely many self-
referential
entities emerges, and that, from their first person (sensible)
point of
view
(Bp & p & Dt, their beliefs intersects the truth (God, "p"), and
matter
(Dt)). This makes consciousness channeling on the normal story.
Pain, in that story, is intuitively "self-referentially"
correct. I
would
say to grandmother pain is God's message to Itself: Ouch. Or to
Grandma:
"Don't do that, do anything you can to extract your self (and
body) from
that situation, etc.
A pathological pain, like feeling burned by water, would
diminished your
probability to survive in a normal story. Like a pathological
pleasure.
If
someone feel exquisitely well in a *very* hot bath, it may
diminish its
"probability of normal life".
I realise that this is a very strange
question, and it may indeed stem from some confusion of theory and
topic as you suggest. Could you possibly mean - perhaps this is
implied in the term "objective idealism" - that the indescribable
background of the infinity of computations ultimately has no
independently "objective" existence - i.e. that it is fundamentally
the very same kind of existent that ultimately emerges in the
qualitative experience of subjects? And then that the 3-p
histories
are the "quasi-objective" component of this subjectivity (with the
crucial caveat that access to such "objectivity" can't in itself
ever
give any subject complete *knowledge* of their situation)?
By interpreting favorably all your terms, it makes sense, yes.
Instead of "quasi-objective", for the "3-p histories", I think
"inter-subjective" is more adequate. Instead of 3-p, I would say
here
1-p-p
(first person plural). (Usually I use 3-p histories for the
computations,
not necessarily viewed from some perspective. The "3-p physical" is
internal
to the 1-1-p)
Also, when you say "is the very same kind of existent that
ultimately
emerge", well, you are right at the G* level, but wrong, if you
think
this
is a theorem or even an admissible axiom. If we lift the Löbian
theology
on
us, we can understand why that equivalence need an act of faith,
which I
think, is entailed by the conscientious choice to say yes - qua
computatio"
to a mechanist doctor.
The belief that 17 is prime, is a subjective experience? You get by
playing
with IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, and trying to cut it in equal part.
You can consider that an axiomatic theory, or an ideally correct
löbian
machine is a reservoir, a set, of subjective beliefs. You can see
0, 1 2,
3,
... as elementary ideas, the axioms as elementary subjective
constructions
or primitive beliefs, the rules of inference as beliefs preserving
transformations, and the model(s) or Truth(s) are what those
beliefs are
all
about.
The self-reference logics provide then tools for finding the
fixed point
of
self-introspection by (Löbian) machines. Qualia appears at the
intersection
of the (Löbian) Belief, with (Löbian) truth and (Löbian)
consistency, or,
in
Plotinus term, Man, God and and the Indeterminate. (Via the
arithmetical
interpretation of Plotinus).
It seems to me you get the point or are very near. You explain it
very
well
to grandmother.
Don't hesitate to criticize my favorable interpretation of the
terms, or
to
ask for precision. It is very helpful.
Bruno
On 23 February 2010 14:18, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
David,
First of all, as I have already said, you seem to be well aware
of the
hardest part of the hard problem of consciousness. And this gives
me the
opportunity to try to explain what you are missing. Indeed, in
this post,
I
will try to explain how comp does solve completely the conceptual
hard
problem of consciousness. (With the usual price that physics
becomes a
branch of machine's theology).
On 22 Feb 2010, at 15:00, David Nyman wrote:
On 22 February 2010 07:37, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
What do you mean by "implicit" here? What is implicit is that the
subjectivity (1-p), to make sense, has to be referentially correct
relatively to the most probable histories/consistent extensions.
What I mean by implicit is "already accounted for", at least
according
to the assumptions of the closed 3-p hypothesis, which of course is
what I'm questioning.
Then the incommunicable and private aspect of those knowledge and
qualia
is
provided by the theory of knowledge and the quale logic, provided
by the
respective intensional variant of G and G*. The difference
between G and
G*
(provable and true) is reflected in those intensional variant.
Yes, but G and G*, and indeed all formally expressible logics, are
themselves closed 3-p (i.e. objective) notions - i.e. they would
exist
and possess the same explanatory power in the absence of any
accompanying *qualitative* component.
I am not sure what you mean exactly by closed 3-p or even
objective. But
it
is OK (I see it is a minor question of vocabulary).
G and G* are formal modal logics, and it happens that they describe
completely (at some level) the self-referential discourse of
ideally
self-referentially correct machines.
We have no interest in those formal theories per se, if it were
not for
their semantics, including their interpretations in arithmetic,
and their
intensional variants.
I come back on this below.
This is just another way of
gesturing towards the Really Hard Problem - that the qualitative
component, per se, is seemingly redundant to the account if we
assume
we already have a closed, or sufficient, non-qualitative
explanation.
Consequently these logics AFAICS lead to the same paradoxical
conclusions as the closed 3-p physical hypothesis - i.e. that the
references to qualitative experiences - even those references we
ourselves produce - would occur even in the absence of any such
experiences. This would leave us in the position of doubting the
basis even of our own statements that we are conscious!
And this would be very paradoxical indeed. But you are wrong in
saying
that
those logics lead to those paradoxes. Probably because you are
wrong in
saying that those logics are "closed". Those logic are tools or
systems
talking about *something*, provably in some correct sense. More
below. I
prefer to read first your whole post, so that I can avoid confusing
repetitions.
I want to seriously discuss the proposition that certain behaviours
are actually contingent on qualitative experience, as distinguished
from any accompanying 3-p phenomena. That is, for example, that my
withdrawing my hand from the fire because it hurts indispensably
requires the qualitative *experience* of pain to mediate between
1-p
and 3-p narratives. This would of course mean in turn that the
explanatory arc from stimulus, through cognitive processing, to
response would be, without the qualitative component, in some way
demonstrably incomplete as an explanation.
Indeed. May be it would help to remember that with comp, we
already know
that the physical world is a 1-p construct; It is not 3-p (as
amazing as
this could seem for a materialist). The only 3-p is given by
arithmetic/logic/computer science.
ISTM that this would make
it impossible to ignore the implication that the context in which
we
conceive 3-p processes to be situated (whether we are talking in
terms
of their physical or mathematical-logical expression) would
itself be
capable of taking on "personal" characteristics in apparent
interaction with such processes.
Something related to this, ISTM, is already implied in the
background
to 1-p indeterminacy, observer moments, the "solipsism of the One"
etc, because all these notions implicitly contain the idea of some
general context capable of embodying and individuating "personal"
qualitative experience - given relevant 3-p-describable structure
and
function. But in order for that personhood not to be vacuous -
i.e.
redundant to the supposedly primary 3-p narrative - such personal
qualitative states must be conceived as having consequences,
otherwise
inexplicable, in the 3-p domain, and not merely vice-versa. How to
incorporate such consequences in the overall account is indeed a
puzzle.
A puzzle? No more ... (see below).
Not only can't we prove it, but we couldn't, from a 3-p pov, even
predict or in any way characterise such 1-p notions, if we didn't
know
from a 1-p perspective that they exist (or seem to know that they
seem
to exist).
This is not true I think. Already with the uda duplication
experience,
you
can see predict the difference, for example, the apparition of
first
person
indeterminacy despite the determinacy in the 3d description. This
is
captured by the difference between (Bp and p) and Bp, and that
difference
is
a consequence of incompleteness, when self-observing occurs.
I don't deny what you're saying per se, but I'm commenting on this
because it brings out, I hope, the distinction between purely
formal
descriptions of 1-p notions, and actual first-personal acquaintance
with qualitative experience.
I think you are confusing a theory or a machine discourse WITH the
subject
matter of the theory, or the object of discourse of the machine.
In that
sense formal theory (sufficiently rich to talk on numbers) are
already
NEVER
closed in your sense. Arithmetical TRUTH, which plays a key role
here is
NOT
a formal object. Indeed it is a provably non formalizable object.
It's the latter that I'm claiming is
non-computable from any formal premise
You are entirely right here. Both "I", and the Löbian machine
agree with
you.
(which, as I think we'd both
agree, is the essence of the HP).
OK. In which case you will see how that problem is solved.
It's one thing to say that
"self-observing occurs", and quite another to actually experience
self-observing. But beyond this, ISTM that we must also believe
that
the *experience* of self-observing entails consequences that the
mere
*description* of "self-observing" would not, to avoid the paradoxes
contingent on the idea that qualitative experiences are somehow
redundant or merely "epiphenomenal".
OK.
One of the
places it leads (which ISTM some are anxious not to acknowledge))
is
the kind of brute paradox I've referred to. So what I'm asking
you is
how is this different from a comp perspective? Can our 3-p
references
to 1-p phenomena escape paradox in the comp analysis?
Yes, because we do accept the truth of elementary arithmetic. We
can
study
the theology of simple (and thus *intuitively* correct) Löbian
machine.
We
*know* in that setting that the machine will be aware of an
explanation
gap,
etc.
Again, the price is that we have to recover physics without
introducing a
3-p physical world.
I see that it is already important that comp predicts the
*existence*
of an explanatory gap.
It is a part of the solution. But not the entire solution indeed.
But what does it say about how that gap is to
be bridged:
Le me anticipate. It says that the gap cannot be bridged in any
experiential
way. No more than you can bridge the gap between any axiomatic
theory on
numbers, and the informal arithmetical truth.
i.e. about the relevance of the *experience* - as distinct
from the bare description - of the 1-p notions, to the unfolding of
the integrated 1-p + 3-p narrative?
Actually the *experiences* are so much relevant that without
them, the
physical world would not even exist. Of course I am NOT talking
of the
human
experiences, but really on all the experiences of all Löbian
machines.
Do you
believe that such a "closed" explanation is fundamentally unable to
account seriously for consciousness for the reasons I've cited? Is
there any way to "re-open" it outside of comp?
Not in a way which is not already provided by comp. But unless
you weaken
comp so much as becoming "God", weakening comp does not provide
different
clue for solving the consciousness/reality problem.
You may try, but 1500 years of materialism seems to lead only to
person
eliminativism. Where comp and its weakening reintroduce
automatically a
knower, a feeler, a better, etc.
Can you say anything about the way in which the knower/feeler/
better's
actual *experiences* (as distinct from their bare description)
make a
difference to the unfolding of histories in the comp hypothesis?
Yes. The histories emerge from those experiences, and none are
formal
object. They are not generated by the UD, only filtered by
persons. But
like
'meaning' we can approximate them by infinite formal structures.
Infinite
structures may look locally syntactical, but they are not.
Infinity is
before all things a quale itself. No finite formal things can
describe
them.
But we can have some informal intuition.
Can
it be shown that qualitative experience is per se indispensable to
giving an adequate account of persons and their histories, thus
avoiding the paradoxes which result from the assumption of the
independent sufficiency of the purely formal descriptions?
Yes. Those experiences are indispensable already in the same
sense that
the
number 4564310089 is indispensable in arithmetic. It is there.
You cannot
say that number theory make sense without that number. Likewise,
comp
explains why the experience are there, and why we cannot
eliminate them.
But
comp provides also a major role to those experiences. Not only they
provide
the logic of physics (and the whole physical realities after
that), but
they
define what persons are, mainly the owner of those experiences.
It can
give
a role of consciousness: relative self-speeding up of a universal
machine
relatively to another probable universal machine. Comp explains
why the
consciousness (quale) is needed in that process. See below.
In a sense, this is correct. Materialist seems to be able to use
the same
self-reference logic than the one used by the computationalist.
But then,
the point is that we are confronted to the measure problem, and the
problem
of the relation between 1-p and 3-p is transformed into a
reduction of
the
physical 3-p from and only from the self-reference logic and the
restriction
of 3-p possibilities to the accessible state by the UD. And this
works
indeed. In that sense, at the propositional level, it makes sense
to say
that the mind-body problem is solved by comp. It remains to see
how far
this
works. Is the comp first order logic of the hypostases compatible
with
the
empirically observable facts.
Keep in mind that, by the self-reference logic (or even just
self-multiplication), we *already* know why a machine comes to
differentiate
quanta and qualia, and the math describes this precisely. (By the
G*\G-equivalence of Bp with Bp & p, etc). If those comp quanta
are the
"real" quanta remains to be assessed, and if it is case, as it
seems at
the
propositional level (already mathematically studied) this would
support
this
theory of qualia.
Again, the formal differentiation of quanta and qualia, and the
math
descriptions thereof, must be distinguished from any possible
consequential role of qualitative experience per se.
I explain below, but the qualitative experiences have a huge
impact on
reality, not on the 3-p reality (arithmetic) but on the 1-p
(hopefully
plural) realities (intelligible and sensible): they make them
appear
relatively to the persons, and they make them stable (right
relative
measure
(to be sure this remains to be verified)).
If we are to
take qualia seriously as part of our explanations, they must have a
role distinct from their mere description.
Absolutely so.
If they do not, we're
faced with a situation in which the same histories are
describable in
terms of "qualia" whether actual qualitative states are present or
not.
Yes, but this cannot happen.
AFAICS this is the unavoidable crux of the HP, and I don't at
this juncture see that it is addressed by comp or indeed any other
approach I've encountered (please forgive me if this is just my
missing the point as usual).
I forgive you. It seems to me that we can understand the comp
solution
with
just UDA, but it is far more easy with AUDA, where the complexity
is
reduced
to the understanding of some "known" results in mathematical
logic. See
below.
Somehow we need to be able to entertain
a "non-formal" component in the histories to accommodate this
issue,
or else conclude that we don't recognise any distinction of role
between formal description and actuality.
Very well said.
We need indeed to entertain such a non formal component, and may
be even
many of them.
So here is the solution (in AUDA, I may try later to explain this
with
just
UDA, but it is more confusing, given the highly counter-intuitive
frame).
Actually, there are many non formal components. Let us consider
the first
three (primary) 'hypostases" or 'machine-points-of view':
p (meaning p is true: this will appear to be NON FORMAL)
Bp (meaning "I can prove p", asserted by the machine: this will
appear
to
be FORMAL)
Bp & p (Meaning "I can prove p, and it is the case that p": this
will
appear
to be NON FORMAL).
It may looks like a paradox. The logic of (Bp & p) is, at the
propositional
level, entirely captured by the formal system S4Grz. Yet, what is
captured,
is not a formal object, and it cannot be made formal. It
describes the
necessary formal logic of knowledge, but knowledge itself is NOT a
formal,
nor formalizable, notion. Yoou can define Bp in the lngauge of the
machine,
but you cannot even just define Bp & p in the language of the
machine
(this
would lead to "0 = 1", by using the diagonalization lemma of
Gödel).
It is hard, I think, to be clearer than that. S4Grz is an
incredible
logic
capturing the formal structure of a concept which is NOT
formalizable at
all, nor even nameable, except by a reference to truth, which is
itself
not
formalizable.
Now, we can restrict 'p' on the sigma_1 true sentences (which
correspond
to
the accessible state of the machine), and the logic of
observability will
be
captured by the following logic and their interplay:
Bp & p (again)
Bp & Dt (the logic of the measure 1 on the consistent extension:
it can
be
made formal, and corresponds roughly to Ploitinus intelligible
matter).
Bp & Dt & p (the logic of sensible matter, physical sensation: it
cannot
been made formal).
How can we understand those non formal things? Because we are
ourselves,
from our first person point of view, non formal things. We are
not our
body,
nor our Gödel number, still less our indentity cart number, and
trough
introspection, perhaps on the Ramana Maharsi koan "Who am I", we
can have
some glimpse of how much "we" are really different from any
possible
description.
Of course G* proves that all the hypostases are equivalent in the
sense
that
they access (trivially for the CORRECT machine) the same set of
arithmetical
true propositions, but, the machine CANNOT know that, cannot
believe
that,
cannot feel that, and this G* can also prove. That is why those non
formal
components, which are the on-bject of study of the hypostases in
which "&
p"
appears, plays a so big role in the definition of both sensible
person
and
sensible realities.
So what I think you may be missing, is that a formal theory (or a
machine)
can refer correctly (without knowing that!) to informal notions,
and
those
informal notions can and does play a role in the very apparition
of the
coupling consciousness/realities.
This appears, but less clearly, already in UDA. The non formal
components
is
bring up at the start, in both Church thesis, which refers to
arithmetical
truth, and in the "you" who accepts, or not, the proposition of the
doctor.
But UDA does not explain consciousness. It explains only that
linking the
non formal notion of consciousness to a formal object (the
computations)
entails the reversal physics/machine-theology/psychology. AUDA,
eliminates
somehow the indexical reference to "you", and replace it by a
universal
(Löbian) machine. But then the incompleteness phenomena, shows
that the
logic of consciousness (or first person) will be different of the
logic
of
what you link the consciousness too. This appears in UDA at step
7, where
you see that the physical machine (brain) is eventually provided
by a
measure on 1-person notions, which cannot be formalizable at all,
and
bear
on infinities of computations.
It remains only one mystery: the informal notion of number
theoretical
truth. But this again, accepting the truth (non formal) of
elementary
arithmetical proposition, provides an explanation why, we will
never been
able to solve that mystery. So comp solves the consciousness
reality
problem
as far as it is possible to solve it.
This can also be tackled formally, and it can be shown that the
whole of
physics (assuming comp) is eventually PI_2 complete IN
arithmetical truth
(that is, with Arithmetical truth as oracle). This is far beyond
any
effective complete theory. Even "God" (arithmetical truth) cannot
answer
all
physical questions!
Now, given that most Löban machine are as clever as you and me,
you may
still believe that there is a paradox. After all, when studying the
theology
of a correct machine, we know that Bp and Bp & p are equivalent.
But the
key
point is that no machine can know this about herself, so its
qualia will
obey a different logic from its quanta. We just don't know our
own truth
notion, we cannot even name it. That is why we can only lift the
theology
of
the correct machine on ourselves through an act of faith (like
betting on
a
substitution level). But it remains a theology, which is of
course not
"close" syntactically. It points on three informal things God
(truth),
the
universal soul (Bp & p) and the sensible matter (Bp & Dt & p).
from this
emerge the fabric of reality, in a sufficiently precise way as to
be
tested.
I think you are confusing simply a theory and what a theory is
about. It
is
very rare that a theory captures the thing it talks about. It
capture
tiny
aspects of it. The comp theory is conceptually complete by
referring to
those (mathematically necessarily INFORMAL) notions, in both UDA
and
AUDA.
I hope this help. I think your confusion is simple, but we use the
distinction theory/model in a very complex setting, where simple
confusion
can easily be obscured by the complexity of the subject. I tend to
believe
that almost all errors in philosophy or theology comes either
from a
confusion between the hypostases, or from between theories and
their
intended semantics.
Did this helped?
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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