On 06 Aug 2011, at 23:14, benjayk wrote:
Frankly I am a bit tired of this debate (to some extent debating in
general),
so I will not respond in detail any time soon (if at all). Don't
take it as
total disinterest, I found our exchange very interesting, I am just
not in
the mood at the moment to discuss complex topics at length.
There is no problem, Ben. I hope you will not mind if I comment your
post.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Then computer science provides a theory of consciousness, and
explains how
consciousness emerges from numbers,
How can consciousness be shown to emerge from numbers when it is
already
assumed at the start?
In science we assume at some meta-level what we try to explain at some
level. We have to assume the existence of the moon to try theories
about its origin.
It's a bit like assuming A, and because B->A is true if A is true,
we can
claim for any B that B is the reason that A true.
This confirms you are confusing two levels. The level of deduction in
a theory, and the level of implication in formal logic.
Consciousness is simply a given. Every "explanation" of it will just
express
what it is and will not determine its origin, as its origin would
need to be
independent of it / prior to it, but could never be known to be
prior to it,
as this would already require consciousness.
In the comp theory it can be explained why machine takes consciousness
as a given, and that from their first person points of view, they are
completely correct about this. Yet, consciousness is not assumed as
something primitive in the TOE itself. You can define it by the
number's first person belief in some reality, like you can explain the
belief in matter by a sort of border of that belief. From this the
math explains the qualia and the quanta as completely as any possible
theory can ever explain (perhaps not correctly, because comp might be
false, but then comp is refutable/scientific).
The only question is what systems are able to express that
consciousness
exists,
And the comp answer is machine, or number, or universal numbers, or
Löbian universal numbers.
and what place consciousness has in those systems.
And the comp answer is "monumental". Universal number consciousness is
at the origin of the laws of physics, even if it looks like a
selection/projection inan richer arithmetical reality. This really
needs to be understood by yourself. I guess it makes no sense without
understanding, because it *is* counterintuitive.
We might come back on this once you are in the mood again.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
And in that sense, comp provides, I think, the first coherent
picture of
almost everything, from God (oops!) to qualia, quanta included,
and
this by assuming only seven arithmetical axioms.
I tend to agree. But it's coherent picture of everything includes
the
possibility of infinitely many more powerful theories.
Theoretically
it may
be possible to represent every such theory with arithmetic - but
then we can
represent every arithmetical statement with just one symbol and an
encoding
scheme, still we wouldn't call "." a theory of everything.
So it's not THE theory of everything, but *a* theory of
everything.
Not really. Once you assume comp, the numbers (or equivalent) are
enough, and very simple (despite mysterious).
They are enough, but they are not the only way to make a theory of
everything. As you say, we can use everything as powerful as
numbers, so
there is an infinity of different formulations of theories of
everything.
For any theory, you have infinities of equivalent formulations. This
is not a defect. What is amazing is that they can be very different
(like cellular automata, LISP, addition+multiplication on natural
numbers, quantum topology, billiard balls, etc.
I agree. It's just that in my view the fact that they can be very
different
makes them ultimately different theories, only theories about the same
thing.
And proving the same things, with equivalent explanation.
Different theories may explain the same thing, but in practice, they
may vary in their efficiency to explain it, so it makes sense to
treat them
as different theories.
But the goal here is a conceptual understanding, not direct practical
application.
In theory, even one symbol can represent every statement in any
language,
That does not make sense for me. (or it is trivia).
but still it's not as powerful as the language it represents.
Similarily if you use just natural numbers as a TOE, you won't be
able to
directly express important concepts like dimensionality.
Why? If you prove this, I abandon comp immediately. From comp you can
derive the whole of physics, and this should be easy to understand if
you get the UDA1-7. Comp remains incomplete on God, consciousness and
souls, and can explain why, but physics, including dimensionality is
entirely explained. To be sure comp is still "hesitating" between
dimension 2 and dimension 24 for the shadow of the notion of space,
but this is a very complex mathematical problem, and it assumes that
the Z1* logic (the "divine" third person plural points of view) give
rise to some mathematical structure (Temperley-Lieb algebra, braid
groups).
I know it is a bit annoying that comp needs some amount of familiarity
in math to make sense. Some philosophers dismiss it just for that
reason: they dislike the use of math in philosophy/theology. But I
appreciate the comp. hyp. for that very reason.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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