On 03 Feb 2011, at 22:34, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 February 2011 13:40, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
Colin has to find a difference between the physical world and the
physical
world extracted from comp.
What I think I'm still missing is the precise significance of "has to"
in the above.
It means that if we assume MEC, then, for explaining the mind whe have
to explain the quanta from a theory which does NOT assume a real
primary physical world.
The "has to" is a modality of necessity.
It means that the UDA has reduced a problem (the mind-body problem)
into another problem (the problem ro explain why computers develop
beliefs in a natural world).
A natural world can still exist, if you really want it to exist, but
is made entirely devoid of any explanatory purpose. Even if it exists,
we can see it and it cannot interfere in anyway with pur
consciousness, including the consicousness we have when doing
experiments in physics. So it exists in the sense that you can say
that, despite thermodynamics explain how car can moven you still
believe that the real reason is that invisible horses pull the cars.
With the usual omnipresent form of Occam, we can say that if comp is
correct, there is no physical universe at all.
Of course we don't know, the comp-physics is still in his infancy, and
it might taken 1 biilions years to extract physics, and perhaps to
refute comp.
AUDA refutes just the simple idea that we know already that comp
entials too much white rabbits. AUDA just reminds people that the
psychologfy/theology of actual well defined ideally correct machine is
hugely non trivial, and in particular that it gives an arithmetical
interpretation of the usual initial theory of matter by Aristotle---
Plotinus quite close to quantum mechanics.
What is supposed to follow from NOT finding any such
difference?
Then we can abandon the idea of materialism, like the biologist have
abandoned the principle of vitalism, and we can go back to the
Platonist conception of reality.
We know then that the theory of everything is elementary arithmetic
(or any first order Turing universal system).
We can explain both mind (qualia) and matter (quanta) in a simple
coherent picture, which, contarary to materialism gives the big role
to the notion of (Löbian) person.
As far as I follow you, the full entailment of "the
physical world extracted from comp" isn't entirely clear yet.
UDA+MGA does not extracts physics from computer science, but it
reduces the mind body problem to the problem of extracting physics (as
common hallucination of universal machine, if you want, from computer
science/number theory.
Everett uses comp implicitly. So a consequence of UDA+MGA is that
Everett has not finished its task. IF comp is correct, the SWE has to
be deduced from comp, and not to be postulated.
Have you understand UDA1-7? If you get each points of UDA1-7, you know
that IF there is (primary) physical universe, and if that universe is
enough big, then the reversal physics/machine-theology is proved. MGA
(UDA-8) just remove the assumption of that big universe, and by doing
so, it eliminates the assumption of any universe. Then with OCCAM, a
'believer' in comp has no reason at all to believe in a primary
universe (big or little).
But if
this could eventually be achieved, and it could be shown to be
entirely consistent with what we observe (so that one couldn't find
the difference you mention above) what conclusion would this justify,
other than NOT RULING OUT comp as an ultimate theory?
With occam, it rules out materialism and physicalism. And without
occam it makes those theory pseudo-religious, given that they would
explain nothing and just reintroduce a mysterious matter, a mysterious
mind, and a mysterious link in between.
Comp on the contrary provides an explanation of a (non computable)
matter, of a (non computable) mind and of no mysterious link between
the two.
Besides comp explains rather easily, already, the quantum weirdness,
given that indeterminacy, non locality, non clonability, MW, are
direct consequences. And quantum computability is partially explained
formally by the classical theory of knowledge and matter (by the
greeks), when translated in the language of a Löbian machine.
Of course such
an achievement would be a major, and pretty convincing, result in
itself, but is there some stronger reason why it would definitively
rule out ANY alternative, natural-world, non-CTM theory of mind-body?
If so, I haven't quite grasped the point yet.
Science never rules out any theory. Only a pseudo-religious conception
of science does this. Science only suggests simpler theory, and thus
less hypotheses. Evolution does not rule out creationism. It makes it
just ridiculous. Likewise comp makes ridiclous the belief in a prmiary
physical universe. Comp gives a simpler explanation for the origin of
the belief by machine in a physical universe.
Science + occam rules out theories in practice.
My initial goal was just to show that comp does not solve the mind-
body problem, but makes it two times more difficult, given that comp
FORCES US to reduce the appearance of matter to number relations
(*even* if matter exists. Matter has no role in the mind at all. You
can add it like you can believe in astronomy and in the idea that
planets move thanks to invisible angels).
Of course, we see in the process that comp does explain the difference
between quanta and qualia, and does explain why appearance of quanta
appears and are sharable. It reduces the whole mind and matter to the
mystery of the natural numbers, but then it can explain why that
mystery has to remain a mystery. In that sense, comp solves
conceptually both the mind-body problem and the problem of the origin
of things. Practically the solution is testable.
Hope this help. Tell me if you see that UDA1-7 leads to the reversal
between physics and 'machine's self-reference (theology)'. Then MGA is
"just" an elimination of the need of a big universe in the seven step.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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