Bruno, Lee:
Le 10-mai-05, à 06:33, Lee Corbin a écrit :
Why not instead adopt the scientific model? That is, that we are three-dimensional creatures ensconced in a world governed by the laws of physics, or, what I'll call the "atoms and processes" model.
Because we don't need that hypothesis.
That's nice because that hypothesis entails three big unsolved problems:
- what is matter (particles, processes, ...) and where does matter come from ?
- what is mind ?
- how are they related ?
No doubt that physics gives an admirable compact description of our neighborhood. But it puts the data "mind" under the rug. What could be an admirable methodological simplification is now accepted like a religion. I would not call it a scientific model.
Of course in scientific communication, we cannot use first person evidences, but it is a category error to derive from that sound interdiction that we cannot make third person scientific theories *about* first person phenomena.
OK, it would be wonderful if your above three questions could be answered by appealing only to maths or logic (and I hope to understand your thesis one day, Bruno). However, does there *have* to be some deeper explanation? For example, is it logically impossible that the universe consists, say, of tiny billiard balls which follow the rules of Newtonian mechanics, with consciousness being an emergent phenomenon when these billiard balls are in a particular configuration?
About observer-moments, I would say what LaPlace answered to Napoleon about a deity: "I have no need of that hypothesis".
But you cannot say they does not exist. You would be lying to yourself. You are living just one of them right now.
Of course when I say I don't need the hypothesis of "the laws of physics" I am anticipating the successful derivation of QM from arithmetical observer moment. It seems to me I got enough to at least be doubting we need in principle the laws of physics, and the comp-physics I did derived from the computationalist hypothesis, although it cannot yet be considered as a real competitor of QM right now, it is in advance, right now, by putting light on the three questions above, as I will try to make clear without technics asap (on both list).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
I agree with Bruno about observer-moments. Lee, I'll PayPal you $50 if you can convince me that you can doubt that you are experiencing an observer-moment!
--Stathis Papaioannou
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