Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 17 Jan 2010, at 09:11, Brent Meeker wrote:
Brent
"The reason that there is Something rather than Nothing is that
Nothing is unstable."
-- Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate, phyiscs 2004
So, why is Nothing unstable?
Because there are so many ways to be something and only one way to be
nothing.
I suspect Frank Wilczek was alluding to the fact that the (very weird)
quantum vacuum is fluctuating at low scales.
Indeed in classical physics to get universality you need at least
three bodies. But in quantum physics the vacuum is already Turing
universal (even /quantum/ Turing universal). The quantum-nothing is
already a quantum computer, although to use it is another matter,
except that we are using it just by "being", most plausibly right here
and now.
Nothing is more "theory" related that the notion of "nothing". In
arithmetic it is the number zero. In set theory, it is the empty set.
In group theory, we could say that there is no nothing, no empty
group, you need at least a neutral element. Likewize with the
combinators: nothing may be tackle by the forest with only one bird, etc.
Maybe you're a brain in a vat, or a computation in arithmetic. I'm
happy to contemplate such hypothesis, but I don't find anything
testable or useful that follows from them. So why should I accept
them even provisionally?
We may accept them because it offers an explanation of the origin of
mind and matter. To the arithmetical relations correspond unboundedly
rich and deep histories, and we can prove (to ourselves) that
arithmetic, as seen from inside leads to a sort of coupling
consciousness/realities. (Eventually precisely described at the
propositional by the eight hypostases, and divided precisely into the
communicable and sharable, and the non communicable one).
This can please those unsatisfied by the current physicalist
conception, which seems unable to solve the mind body problem, since a
long time.
It took over three hundred years from the birth of Newton and the death
of Gallileo to solve the problem of life. The theory of computation is
less than a century old. Neurophysiology is similarly in its infancy.
Why shouldn't we ask the question "where and how does the physical
realm come from?". Comp explains: from the numbers, and in this
precise way. What not to take a look?
I have taken a look, and it looks very interesting. But I'm not enough
of a logician and number theorist to judge whether you can really
recover anything about human consciousness from the theory. My
impression is that it is somewhat like other "everything" theories.
Because some "everything" is assumed it is relatively easy to believe
that what you want to explain is in there somewhere and the problem is
to explain why all the other stuff isn't observed. I consider this a
fatal flaw in Tegmark's "everything mathematical exists" theory. Not
with yours though because you have limited it to a definite domain
(digital computation) where I suppose definite conclusions can be
reached and predictions made.
To take the physical realm for granted is the same "philosophical
mistake" than to take "god" for granted. It is an abandon of the
spirit of research. It is an abstraction from the spirit of inquiry.
Physicalism is really like believing that a universal machine (the
quantum machine) has to be priviledged, because observation says so. I
show that if "I am turing emulable", then in fine all universal
machines play their role, and that the mergence of the quantum one has
to be explained (the background goal being the mind body problem).
But if you follow the uda, you know (or should know, or ask question)
that if we assume computationalism, then/ we have just no choice in
the matter/.
Unless we assume matter is fundamental, as Peter Jones is fond of
arguing, and some things happen and some don't.
The notion of matter has to be recovered by those infinite sum. If
not, you are probably confusing computation (number relations) and
description of computations (number describing those number
relations). It is almost like confusing i and phi_i. It is the whole
point of the universal dovetailer argument (uda).
To sum up, unless we continue to put the mind under the rug, like
Aristotelian, we have just no choice here.
The goal is not in finding a new physics, but in deriving the (unique,
by uda) physics from logic+numbers through comp. A priori, that
physics could be useless in practice, like quantum physics is useless
in the kitchen. The advantage is that this "solves" conceptually (as
much as it show it possible) the consciousness/matter riddle.
I don't see that it has solved the problem. It has shifted it from
explaining consciousness in terms of matter to explaining matter and
consciousness in terms of arithmetic. That has the advantage that
arithmetic is relatively well understood. But just having a well
understood explanans is not enough to make a good explanation.
What testable prediction (not retrodiction) does the theory make? Can
your theory elucidate the difference in consciousness between me and my
dog? Can it tell me how to make a conscious computer? Can it tell me
whether all of my brain is needed for consciousness? What happens to
the consciousness of people with Alzheimers?
Brent
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
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