Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Hi, Le Dimanche 20 Août 2006 05:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Peter Jones writes (quoting SP): What about an inputless computer program, running deterministically like a recording. Would that count as a program at all, It would be a trivial case. Trivial does not mean false. It seems to me that the set of inputless programs contains the set of programs which have inputs. Because a program which have inputs could be written as the following inputless program : |HARDCODED INPUT||CODE| The resulting program is input less but the substructure denominated CODE here is not inputless, it takes the hardcoded input. So in any case I don't see why inputless program should be trivial case. Regards, Quentin --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Le 19-août-06, à 15:36, Günther wrote: The existence of numbers is not like the existence of objects, and I don't think that most mathematical Platonists would say that it is. I agree with them. We have to distinguish many forms of internal or epistemological existence, build from the simplest conceptual third person ontological commitments. Comp necessitates the numbers for the ontic part, and the rest emerges as coherent overlapping set of of computations (quotientized through some undistinguishability first person equivalence relation). To be short. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Is it possible that we are currently actors in a single, deterministic, non-branching computer program, with the illusion of free will and if-then contingency in general being due to the fact that we don't know the details of how the program will play out? Lots of things are possible. The question is what to believe. True, but I thought you were saying that such a thing was incompatible with consciousness, and I see no reason to believe that. There are a lot of prolems with what you are saying. I don't think it is possible to get dynamism out of stasis, and I don't think it is possible to get qualia out of mathematical structues Oh, and Non-branching programme is close to being a cotnradiction in terms. You could replace computer program with machine and have a description of the universe. Really ? What would machine mean in that sentence ? And according to which theory of physics ? Actually, you could leave out non-branching as well: the MWI is branching but deterministic, and still leaves room for first person indeterminacy. There are problems with MWI as a purely physical theory. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Quentin Anciaux wrote: Hi, Le Dimanche 20 Août 2006 05:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Peter Jones writes (quoting SP): What about an inputless computer program, running deterministically like a recording. Would that count as a program at all, It would be a trivial case. Trivial does not mean false. It seems to me that the set of inputless programs contains the set of programs which have inputs. Because a program which have inputs could be written as the following inputless program : |HARDCODED INPUT||CODE| Which could be further simplified into |HARCODED OUTPUT| But not most people would call that data, not programme. (in any case, this kind of one-shot progamme is not a good model of mind. A mind is more like a fuzzy-logic real-time system). --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Hi Peter, I am no more sure you read the post, nor am I sure you really search understanding. Le 18-août-06, à 17:38, 1Z a écrit : That is an explanation of mind-independence, not of existence. The anti-Platonist (e.g. the formalist) can claim that the truth of mathematical statments is mind-independent, but their existence isn't. Their existence ? Mathematical statements needs chatty machines. Mathematics proceded for centuries without any machines at all. Here you don't answer the question. In their existence you conflate many things making your statement ambiguous. Also I was in the comp context, and I was just saying that the mathematical statements need the human machine. If AR makes no existential commitments, it cannot lead to the existential conclusion that there is no such thing as matter. No scientific theories can prove the non existence of *anything*. I have made clear comp just shows that primary matter cannot have explanatory purpose. Have you read the Universal Dovetailer Argument? Of course! But that is what I am currently explaining. If you have follow the UDA, then, even if you could not yet be completely convinced by each steps, you should at least be able to figure out in which sense you, here and now, in the shape of an OM, to borrow the list vocabulary, exist as a relative number. I cna't be persuaded of that without first being persuaded that numbers exist. In which sense? We have already discussed this. I am not using the expression such number exists in a sense stronger than any mathematical user. You are the one adding unnecessary magic here. I am such you believe numbers exist. Of course you don't believe in physical numbers, neither I do, giving that physical will already be a property defined by infinities of relations between numbers, etc. You are the one assuming some primary matter without much precision. You told me it has no property of its own, but you never did answer the question of how could it could give rise to any property at all. Where does that primary matter comes from? Why and how would that suddenly explain qualia, and quanta, and more precisely how do you associate consciousness to it without introducing actual third person infinities (by UDA you can't, unless you throw up comp, that is, unless you do introduce actual infinities in the third person description of minds). (With comp the infinities appears or interfere with the 1-person views only, through local probabilities). If you really want to keep both standard comp *and* aristotelian materialism/naturalism, you should better find some weakness in the UD reasoning. There are subtler points where your criticism could be more constructive it seems to me. Bruno --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
ROADMAP (hypostases)
Let me think aloud, Plotinus's terms: Primary Hypostases: 1) the ONE 2) the Divine Intellect 3) the all-soul Secondary hypostases: 4) Intelligible Matter 5) Sensible Matter With the UDA, you can already try Primary Hypostases: 1) truth 2) third person communicable truth 3) first person truth Secondary hypostases: 4) probability on computationnal consistent states/histories 5) probability on computational consistent true states/histories With the lobian interview the self-referential correct intellect is given by the modal logic G, and the self-referential truth (including the non provable one) is given by G*. This gives the following interpretation of a weaker version of UDA in arithmetic (comp is not yet needed); the hypostases are with B for Godel's purely arithmetical provability predicate (Beweisbar): Primary Hypostases: 1) arithmetical truth (p) 2) provability (Bp) 3) provability-and-truth (Bp p) Secondary hypostases: 4) provability-and-consistency (Bp ~B~p) 5) provability-and-consistency-and-truth (Bp ~B~p p) But, thanks to incompleteness, and the fact that machine as rich as PA, can reflect that incompleteness, some hypostases' discourses are divided in two parts: the true, and the communicable (third person provable) one. We get 8 hypostases: Primary Hypostases: 1) arithmetical truth (p) 2) provability (G) 2') the same, but described by G* 3) provability-and-truth (S4Grz, curiously enough it does not divide) Secondary hypostases: 4) provability-and-consistency (Z) 4') same, but described by G* (= Z*) 5) provability-and-consistency-and-truth (X) 5') same, but described by G* (X*) Until now, we have not yet introduced comp in the interview. With B = Beweisbar; comp can be translated by p - Bp. This formula characterized the Sigma1 formula (Visser Theorem), that is the RE sets, the Wi, the accessible states by a Universal Machine (with CT). Let V = G + (p - Bp) We get Primary Hypostases: 1) Sigma1 arithmetical truth (p) 2) provability (V) 2') the same, but described by G* (V*) 3) provability-and-truth (S4Grz1, curiously enough it does not divide) Secondary hypostases: 4) provability-and-consistency (Z1) 4') same, but described by G* (= Z1*) 5) provability-and-consistency-and-truth (X1) 5') same, but described by G* (X1*) The logical of the physical proposition should emerge at least in Z1*. But actually the whole of S4Grz1, Z1*, and X1* define, at least formally, a notion of arithmetical quantization. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Rép: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Peter, I am no more sure you read the post, nor am I sure you really search understanding. Le 18-août-06, à 17:38, 1Z a écrit : That is an explanation of mind-independence, not of existence. The anti-Platonist (e.g. the formalist) can claim that the truth of mathematical statments is mind-independent, but their existence isn't. Their existence ? Mathematical statements needs chatty machines. Mathematics proceded for centuries without any machines at all. Here you don't answer the question. In their existence you conflate many things making your statement ambiguous. No, their refers to mathematical statements. The anti-Platonist (e.g. the formalist) can claim that the truth of mathematical statments is mind-independent, but also that the existence of mathematical statments is not mind-independent . Also I was in the comp context, and I was just saying that the mathematical statements need the human machine. If AR makes no existential commitments, it cannot lead to the existential conclusion that there is no such thing as matter. No scientific theories can prove the non existence of *anything*. Of course they can, within the scientific standard of proof. Perpetual motion machines, for instance. I have made clear comp just shows that primary matter cannot have explanatory purpose. If minds are made of Platonically existing comptutations or numbers, they don't need to be made of matter as well. In that sense matter would we without purpose. But that depends on the assumption that there is such a thing as Platonic existence in the first place, which needs ot be justified or at least clearly stated. Have you read the Universal Dovetailer Argument? How important is the stuiff about Plotinus ? Of course! But that is what I am currently explaining. If you have follow the UDA, then, even if you could not yet be completely convinced by each steps, you should at least be able to figure out in which sense you, here and now, in the shape of an OM, to borrow the list vocabulary, exist as a relative number. I cna't be persuaded of that without first being persuaded that numbers exist. In which sense? We have already discussed this. I am not using the expression such number exists in a sense stronger than any mathematical user. Then you have no agument against matter. You are the one adding unnecessary magic here. I am such you believe numbers exist. Of course you don't believe in physical numbers, neither I do, giving that physical will already be a property defined by infinities of relations between numbers, If numbers don't exist in the sense that I exist, then I cannot be a number. etc. You are the one assuming some primary matter without much precision. The empirical approach does not need as much precision as the rationalist approach. You told me it has no property of its own, but you never did answer the question of how could it could give rise to any property at all. Some properties are instantiated and others are not. What matter lends is the instantiation itself. Matter is a bare substrate with no properties of its own. The question may well be asked at this point: what roles does it perform ? Why not dispense with matter and just have bundles of properties -- what does matter add to a merely abstract set of properties? The answer is that not all bundles of posible properties are instantiated, that they exist. What does it mean to say something exists ? ..exists is a meaningful predicate of concepts rather than things. The thing must exist in some sense to be talked about. But if it existed full, a statement like Nessie doesn't exist would be a contradiction ...it would amout to the existing thign Nessie doesnt exist. However, if we take that the some sense in which the subject of an ...exists predicate exists is only initially as a concept, we can then say whether or not the concept has something to refer to. Thus Bigfoot exists would mean the concept 'Bigfoot' has a referent. What matter adds to a bundle of properties is existence. A non-existent bundle of properties is a mere concept, a mere possibility. Thus the concept of matter is very much tied to the idea of contingency or somethingism -- the idea that only certain possible things exist. The other issue matter is able to explain as a result of having no properties of its own is the issue of change and time. For change to be distinguishable from mere succession, it must be change in something. It could be a contingent natural law that certain properties never change. However, with a propertiless substrate, it becomes a logical necessity that the substrate endures through change; since all changes are changes in properties, a propertiless substrate cannot itself change and must endure through change. In more detail here Where does that primary matter comes from? The empricial evidence indicates that there was never a time
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Bruno I'm absolutely sincere in what I've said about approaching comp in 'as if' mode. But at the same time I've hoped from the beginning that we could make explicit the choices that motivate our different ontic starting assumptions. Are there perhaps irreconcilable issues of style or preference, or are there fundamental logical, philosophical, or even semantic errors entailed in one or other position? Well, let me continue in the effort by trying to clarify my position on some of your recent points. So, either you put in AR something which is not there (like peter D Jones who want me doing Aristotle error on the numbers (like if I was reifying some concreteness about them), or you should have a powerful argument against AR, but then you should elaborate. To be honest I have not yet seen where you postulates comp wrong in your long anti-roadmap post. Recall that I take comp as YD + CT + AR (Yes Doctor + Church Thesis + Arithmetical Realism). OK. I've already agreed to accept AR in 'as if' mode. So that implies I'm staying on the comp road in the same 'as if' spirit to see where it leads. It's very interesting! Also I genuinely think that AR is not 'false' from any of the *logical* perspectives from which you defend it. My problem - outside 'as if' mode (and this goes back to the 'primacy' issue) - is with adopting *any* 3rd-person postulate as 'ontic ground zero'. My view - and I'm still not clear whether you think it unjustified, or that you simply *prefer* to start elsewhere - is that we go wrong the moment we fail to treat reflexive indexical necessity with maximal - *extreme* - seriousness. My most basic claim is that to make *any* 3rd-person assumption primary - even one as apparently 'modest' as AR - is to try to 'sneak past' this, and thereby to fail *the* crucial test of ontic realism. We could call this position maximal personal, or indexical, seriousness, but what's in a name? It frustrates me almost beyond endurance that this isn't simply 'obvious' (though error, especially one's own, is subtle). But it seems as though we're somehow 'tricked' out of seeing it because all 'personal' interaction (including that with the 'self') is relational, and 3rd-person is the characteristic mode of relational interaction. So all natural language just assumes it. Consequently when you say: What you say is exactly what the lobian *first person* will feel. I hope you will see this eventually. I think I 'see' it *now*. I understand that the lobian first person *emerging* from your 3rd person AR postulate *would* indeed 'possess' such a view. But my problem is with all this 3rd person language. I can indeed 'see' how you can invoke a '1st-person David analog' in this way, but I can't at all see how this causes 'indexically necessary David' - 'here and now' - to appear out of 'thin 3rd-person air'. Logic lacks this power. It seems as if only magic will do. It's like Harry Potter saying - I know I'm just imagining you, but hang on, in just a jiffy AR will make you indexically necessary. On the other hand, bare 'indexical necessity' is the sole ontic postulate I need. Is this an insufficiently 'modest' requirement? My justification is reflexively evident and incorrigible. It does no practical damage to the subsequent postulation of AR - it can't do, because this position simply *is* the situation from which I postulate it. By the same token, CT survives (if true) undamaged by being postulated from this position. In other words, I'm claiming that we have access to versions of AR and CT manifested entirely in virtue of their generalisation from relational reality, and I can't see that you or I have reason to believe anything else, except through 'Penrose direct revelation', which you reject. So what's the alternative? YD now becomes the interesting case, and the point, as I recall, where we started. My long post refers to the dependencies and assumptions, implicit in bit-stream representations, that are only made explicit by their instantiation. My argument is that any digital program is an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour of a 'substrate' (i.e. lower logical level) - I think I've seen you argue more or less the same point - and therefore relies on a notion of 'causation' (dependency, sequence, structure, behaviour, or state your preferred terminology) - that is essentially non-local at the level of such instantiation. Consequently we must choose: to believe either that *any* example of situated, indexical, experience arises from localised phenomena at the causal level of their instantiation (appropriately schematised), or that it arises from arbitrary, non-localised, aspatial, atemporal, abstractions from behaviour at this level. I can't see that these considerations don't apply to *any* digital 'substitution level' that relies on a purely syntactical expression - e.g. instantiation in a digital computer - and would consequently have to decline the doctor's offer. This is what I mean by
RE: Are First Person prime?
Peter Jones writes: Computer programmes contain conditional (if-then) statements. A given run of the programme will in genreal not explore every branch. yet the unexplored branches are part of the programme. A branch of an if-then statement that is not executed on a particular run of a programme will constitute a counterfactual, a situation that could have happened but didn't. Without counterfactuals you cannot tell which programme (algorithm) a process is implementing because two algorithms could be have the same execution path but different unexecuted branches. Every physical system contains if-then statements. If the grooves on the record were different, then the sound coming out of the speakers would also be different. Finitism doesn't imply stasis. New frames could be popping into existence dynamically. If time is continuous then in a linear universe movement is the result of a series of static frames of infinitesimal duration. Likewise. There is no room for movement within a frame in either case - There is room within an infinitessimal frame. dx/dt is not necessarily zero. No-one knows what dx/dt is. It is the smallest non-zero number, or the reciprocal of the largest finite number. If there is room for movement within an infinitesimal interval then it can by definition be divided up further - it isn't an infinitesimal interval. However, this is straying from the original point I wanted to make, which is that whatever reasons there might be against block universe theories, continuity of consciousness is not one of them. Every digital computer has clock cycles during which nothing actually happens, and it is the conjunction of these cycles which makes the program flow. There is no way from within the program to know what the clock rate is, if there are pauses in the program, or if it is being run in several parallel processes. You might argue that it would not be possible to run the program at all without a causal connection between the steps, but the fact remains, discontinuous framesd during which nothing changes give the illusion of continuous motion. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Right! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really... Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:18:18 +0200 Hi, Le Dimanche 20 Août 2006 05:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Peter Jones writes (quoting SP): What about an inputless computer program, running deterministically like a recording. Would that count as a program at all, It would be a trivial case. Trivial does not mean false. It seems to me that the set of inputless programs contains the set of programs which have inputs. Because a program which have inputs could be written as the following inputless program : |HARDCODED INPUT||CODE| The resulting program is input less but the substructure denominated CODE here is not inputless, it takes the hardcoded input. So in any case I don't see why inputless program should be trivial case. Regards, Quentin _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The anti-roadmap - an alternative 'Theology'
Bruno (BTW please delete any previous version of this posted in error.) I'm absolutely sincere in what I've said about approaching comp in 'as if' mode. But at the same time I've hoped from the beginning that we could make explicit the choices that motivate our different ontic starting assumptions. Are there perhaps irreconcilable issues of style or preference, or are there fundamental logical, philosophical, or even semantic errors entailed in one or other position? Well, let me continue in the effort by trying to clarify my position on some of your recent points. So, either you put in AR something which is not there (like peter D Jones who want me doing Aristotle error on the numbers (like if I was reifying some concreteness about them), or you should have a powerful argument against AR, but then you should elaborate. To be honest I have not yet seen where you postulates comp wrong in your long anti-roadmap post. Recall that I take comp as YD + CT + AR (Yes Doctor + Church Thesis + Arithmetical Realism). OK. I've already agreed to accept AR in 'as if' mode. So that implies I'm staying on the comp road in the same 'as if' spirit to see where it leads. It's very interesting! Also I genuinely think that AR is not 'false' from any of the *logical* perspectives from which you defend it. My problem - outside 'as if' mode (and this goes back to the 'primacy' issue) - is with adopting *any* essentially 'non-indexical' (or in Colin's usage 'non-situated') postulate as 'ontic ground zero'. My view - and I'm still not clear whether you think it unjustified, or that you simply *prefer* to start elsewhere - is that we go wrong the moment we fail to treat reflexive indexical necessity with maximal - *extreme* - seriousness. My most basic claim is that to make *any* non-indexical assumption primary - even one as apparently 'modest' as AR - is to try to 'sneak past' this, and thereby to fail *the* crucial test of ontic realism. We could call this position maximal personal, or indexical, seriousness, but what's in a name? It frustrates me almost beyond endurance that this isn't simply 'obvious' (though error, especially one's own, is subtle). But it seems as though we're somehow 'tricked' out of seeing it because all 'personal' interaction (including that with the 'self') is relational, and 3rd-person is the characteristic mode of relational interaction. So all natural language just assumes it. Consequently when you say: What you say is exactly what the lobian *first person* will feel. I hope you will see this eventually. I think I do 'see' it. I understand that the lobian first person *emerging* from your non-indexical AR postulate could indeed be decribed as 'possessing' such a view. I can indeed 'see' how you can invoke a '1st-person David analog' in 3rd-person language in this way, but I can't at all see how this causes 'indexically necessary David' - 'here and now' - to appear out of 'thin 3rd-person air'. Does mere logic posess such power? It seems as if only magic will do. It's like Harry Potter saying - I know I'm just imagining you, but hang on, in just a jiffy AR will make you indexically necessary. On the other hand, bare 'indexical necessity' is the sole ontic postulate I need. Is this an insufficiently 'modest' requirement? My justification is reflexively evident and incorrigible. It does no practical damage to the subsequent postulation of AR - it can't do, because this position simply *is* the situation from which I postulate it. By the same token, CT survives (if true) undamaged by being postulated from this position. In other words, I'm claiming that we have access to versions of AR and CT manifested entirely in virtue of their generalisation from relational reality, and I can't see that you or I have reason to believe anything else, except through 'Penrose direct revelation', which you reject. So what's the alternative? YD now becomes the interesting case, and the point, as I recall, where we started. My long post refers to the dependencies and assumptions, implicit in bit-stream representations, that are only made explicit by their instantiation. My argument is that any digital program is an arbitrary gloss on the behaviour of a 'substrate' (i.e. lower logical level) - I think I've seen you argue more or less the same point - and therefore relies on a notion of 'causation' (dependency, sequence, structure, behaviour, or state your preferred terminology) - that is essentially non-local at the level of such instantiation. Consequently we must choose: to believe either that *any* example of situated, indexical, experience arises from localised phenomena at the causal level of their instantiation (appropriately schematised), or that it arises from arbitrary, non-localised, aspatial, atemporal, abstractions from behaviour at this level. I can't see that these considerations don't apply to *any* digital 'substitution level' that relies on a purely syntactical expression - e.g.
RE: Platonism vs Realism WAS: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...
Peter Jones writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Peter Jones writes: Is it possible that we are currently actors in a single, deterministic, non-branching computer program, with the illusion of free will and if-then contingency in general being due to the fact that we don't know the details of how the program will play out? Lots of things are possible. The question is what to believe. True, but I thought you were saying that such a thing was incompatible with consciousness, and I see no reason to believe that. There are a lot of prolems with what you are saying. I don't think it is possible to get dynamism out of stasis, and I don't think it is possible to get qualia out of mathematical structues But what about a physical computer which creates an entire virtual environment, complete with sentient beings? Once started up it would be completely deterministic, just as a recording would be. It could have if-then statements but these would not make any difference, given initial conditions. (A recording also has if-then statements, in that if the input were different, the output would also be different.) This could as easily be a real model of a classical universe, with no interference from outside once initial conditions + laws of physics had been set. The if-then statements are implicit in the laws of physics: if I throw a rock, it will follow a parabolic trajectory and shatter the window. As an inhabitant of the univerese I think I have free will in deciding whether or not to throw the rock, but in fact this is no more indeterminate than the workings of a clockwork mechanism. My understanding is that standard computationalism allows for consciousness to occur in such a universe, even if it isn't the universe we actually live in. If not, then you have to abandon computationalism and embrace something like Penrose's theory in which essentially non-computable quantum effects are responsible for consciousness; or maybe we've just all been issued with a soul by God. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
computationalism and supervenience
It seems to me that there are two main sticking points in the discussions on several list threads in recent weeks. One is computationalism: is it right or wrong? This at least is straightforward in that it comes down to a question of faith, in the final analysis, as to whether you would accept a digital replacement brain or not (Bruno's yes doctor choice). The other sticking point is, given computationalism is right, what does it take to implement a computation? There have been arguments that a computation is implemented by any physical system (Putnam, Searle, Moravec) and by no physical system (Maudlin, Bruno Marchal). The discussion about Platonism and the ontological status of mathematical structures, in particular, relates to this second issue. Bruno alludes to it in several papers and posts, and also alludes to his movie graph argument, but as far as I can tell that argument in its entirety is only available in French. Comments and elaboration would be welcome. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
