Bruno, let me continue as 'enfent terrible': Isn't the Church Thesis - and whatever WE suspect by it - also human illusions?
(Watch out: the next question will concern 'numbers'!) John M On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > John, > Is not the difference between human and non human a human illusion? > > With Church Turing thesis we can suspect the existence of universal > illusions. > > Bruno > > > > On 01 Aug 2009, at 21:52, John Mikes wrote: > > David, > I thought you are facing the Scottish mountains for a relaxation and > instead here is a long - enjoyable- tirade about ideas which I try to put > below into a shorthand form by *my* vocabulary. But first a plea to Mrs. > N: > *'please, do keep David away from te computer for the time of the Scottish > tourism, as he suggested it, to get him a good mountaineering **relaxation > what we all would luv if we just can afford it....'* > and now back to David: > > "causal accounts" are model-based originating choices in a view reduced > into the figment of a 'physical world' i.e. in a conventional science lingo, > so ingeniously formed over the millennia. It is our *perceived reality*, > with math, based on the most pervasive (dominating?) principle, called > physics, all *- in* *the ongoing "HUMAN" ways of our thinking.* > > Everything exists what we 'think of' in our MIND (nonexistent? *no way*, > we think of that, too). There is nosuch thing as a '3rd > pers.explanation, it is a 1st pers. idea, interpreted by all the "3rd > persons" into their own (1st pers) "mindset"(?). > > Ontology is today's explanation of today's epistemic inventory. > A nice, reductionist philosophy. Not applicable for tomorrow's discoveries. > A *'physical realist'* is a conventional scientist within the given > figments. This list tries to overstep such 'human' limitations - falling > repeatedly back into the faithful application of it. > > As Brent asked: "Is the physics account of life incomplete or wrong? Do > you consider "life" to have been eliminated?" > > "eliminated" WHAT? I spent some braingrease to find out what many (some?) > of us agree upon as 'life' - no success. YET it does exist even in Brent's > mind (who is a very advanced thinking list-member). (Robert Rosen > identified life as his *'M&R'* (Metabolism and Repair) based on his > (mathematical) biology ways. I may extend the domain into 'ideation' and > 'not-so-bio' domains, even into the stupidly named "in-animates"). > > Our millennia-evolved human (reductionistic - conventional) views are based > on timely evolving observational skills what we call "physical" - worldview, > science, explanatory base etc. So no wonder if everything is touching it. It > is not 'more real' than anything we could sweat out for explaining the > unexplainable. > It all undergoes (ontological etc.) changes as epistemy grows. > I don't want to touch here the chicken-egg topic of "numbers", yet this, > too, is a HUMAN dilemma between Bruno and friends vs. David Bohm. And we are > figments within the totality, not the original creators. We don't 'see' too > far. > Somebody asked me: "How do we learn something that is aboslutely 'N E W' ? > I had no answer. I tried: by playing with unrelated relationships - which is > only manipulting the existent. > Even Star Trek relied on modified knowables as novelty, the absolute new is > not available to us - unless already having been hinted in some corner of > the totality as a 'findable' relation. The quality from quantity Leninian > principle may give a clue to it, if a large enough background can be checked > (cf. Bruno's words to get to anything by using enough many numbers for it). > Still such cop-outs include my usual retort: applying the "somehow" > > Finally: COMP and reality? not this embryonic binary algorithm based > (physical) contraption, not even an advanced fantasy kind of similar > deficiencies can approach what we cannot: the unfathomable 'reality' of them > all. It is not a 'higher inventory', it (if there is such an 'it' - I did > not say: exists) is beyond anything we can imagine humanly. We can speculate > about reality's 'human' type aspects of partial hints we can humanly > approach and make a pars pro toto dream of it - we are wrong for sure. > > Have a healthy mountain-climb in Scottland > > John M > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 5:39 PM, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> >> I note that the recent posts by Peter Jones - aka the mysterious 1Z, >> and the originator of the curiously useful 'real in the sense I am >> real' or RITSIAR - occurred shortly after my taking his name in vain. >> Hmm....... >> >> Anyway, this signalled the resumption of a long-running debate about >> the validity of causal accounts of the first person based on a >> functional or computational rationale. I'm going to make an attempt >> to annihilate this intuition in this thread, and hope to encourage >> feedback specifically on this issue. You will recall that this is at >> the heart of Bruno's requirement to base COMP - i.e. the explicitly >> computational account of mind - on the the number realm, with physics >> derived as an emergent from this. Step 8 of the UDA addresses these >> issues in a very particular way. >> >> However, I've always felt that there's a more intuitively obvious and >> just as devastating blow that can be dealt to functional or >> computational notions based on physical entities and relations >> conceived as ontologically foundational and singular (i.e. no dualism >> please). So as not to be misunderstood (too quickly!) let me make it >> clear at the outset that I'm addressing this to first person conscious >> experience, not to third person descriptions of 'mentality' - so >> eliminativists can stop reading at this point as there is nothing >> further that requires explanation in their view (as odd as I trust >> this sounds to you non-eliminativists out there). >> >> The argument runs as follows. To take what physics describes with >> maximal seriousness - as standing for ontological reality - is just to >> take its entities and causal relationships seriously to the same >> extent. God knows, physicists have gone to enough trouble to define >> these entities and relationships with the most precisely articulated >> set of nomological-causal principles we possess. Consequently, taking >> these with maximal seriousness entails abjuring other causal >> principles as independently efficacious: i.e. showing how - or at >> least being committed to the belief that - all higher order causal >> principles somehow supervene on these fundamentals. Any other >> position would be either obscurantist or incoherent for a physical >> realist. >> >> Now I should say at this point that I'm not criticising this position, >> I'm merely articulating it. It follows from the foregoing that >> although we may speak in chemical, biological, physiological or >> historical narratives, we believe that in principle at least these are >> reducible to their physical bases. We also know that although we may >> speak of cabbages and kings, weather, oceans, processes, computations >> and untold myriads of equally 'emergent' phenomena, we still must >> retain our commitment to their reducibility to their physical bases. >> So of course, we can - and do - legitimately speak, in this way, of >> physical computers as 'performing computations', but following the >> foregoing principle we can see that actually this is just a convenient >> shorthand for what is occurring in the physical substrates upon which >> the notion of computation must - and of course does - rely for its >> realisation in the world. >> >> To be more explicit: The notion of a 'program' or 'computation' - when >> we place it under analysis - is a convenient shorthand for an ordered >> set of first person concepts which finds its way into the physical >> account in the form of various matter-energy dispositions. The >> macroscopic media for these are variously paper and ink, actions of >> computer keyboards, patterns of voltages in computer circuitry, >> illumination of pixels on screens, etc. All of these, of course, can >> - and must - reduce to fundamental relations amongst physical >> 'ultimates'. At some point after entering the physical causal nexus, >> this chain of dispositions may re-enter the first person account >> (don't ask me how - it's inessential to the argument) at which point >> they may again be construed *by someone* in computational terms in a >> first person context. But at no point is the 'computation' - qua >> concept - in any way material (pun intended) to the physical account; >> a fortiori, in no way can it - or need it - be ascribed causal >> significance in terms of the physical account. After all, what could >> this possibly mean? Are these spooky 'computational' relationships >> 'reaching across' the energy-transfers of the computer circuitry and >> changing their outcomes? Of course not. How could they? And why >> would they need to? Everything's going along just fine by itself by >> purely physical means. >> >> I hope the foregoing makes it clear that computer programs and their >> computations - at the point of physical instantiation - literally >> don't exist in the world. They're semantic formulations - ways of >> speaking - that have applicability only in the first-person context, >> and we can see that this is true any time we like by performing the >> kind of 'eliminativist' demonstration performed above: i.e. we can >> eliminate the concept without affecting the action on the ground one >> whit. Of course, this is the insight that makes the strictly physical >> account of mind - as presently understood - problematic if one wishes >> to take the first person seriously, because it shows the notion of >> 'emergence' to be redundant at the level of causation. It's just >> another way of speaking, however much insight it carries - for us. >> However, it isn't my wish to make that point again here. Rather my >> intention has been to show that whatever options are left in strict >> physicalism to address the first person issues seriously - without >> eliminating them - emergence is emphatically not one of them. >> >> I hope this makes the argument clear, and also illustrates the point >> of Bruno's reversal of numbers and physics to save the computational >> account of mind (and body, as it happens). To be absolutely explicit: >> if functional-computational relations are to be taken to be >> fundamentally causally efficacious, they must be held to be real and >> foundational in exactly the sense (RITSIAR) ascribed to those in the >> physical account. But for that to be the case, all other causal >> relations must supervene on them - again just as in the physical >> account. But now, of course, this must include physics itself. >> >> Now, you don't of course have to accept COMP. But if you want to be a >> physical realist, it means you can only hang on to the computational >> explanation of mind by eliminating the mind itself from reality. >> Personally, not being committed to such an explanation, this doesn't >> in itself constitute my problem with current physical accounts. The >> alternative is rather that physics as an account of mind must be >> incomplete, or else it is wrong. But that's another story. >> >> David >> >> >> > > > > > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---