On Sep 13, 3:44 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > On 12 Sep 2011, at 05:29, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > This view of the psyche as being the inevitable result of sheer > > biochemical momentum is not even remotely plausible to me. It denies > > any input/output between the mind and the outside world and reduces > > our cognition to an unconscious chemical reaction. If that were the > > case then you could never have a computer emulate it without exactly > > duplicating that biochemistry. My view makes it possible to at least > > transmit and receive psychological texts through materials as > > communication and sensation but your view allows the psyche no > > existence whatsoever. It's a complete rejection of awareness into > > metaphysical realms of 'illusion'. > > No, it is the exact contrary. If we are digitalizable machine, > consciousness (of the numbers' relations, not of humans) is the > producer/selector of the physical realities. > The only thing rejected in metaphysics or in the illusions is the > primary matter of the Aristotelian physicalists.
Why do the numbers that believe in primary matter not count? Why is that particular illusion so pervasively accepted and how does it come to be convincing to anyone? I think the implications of the idea that we are numerical relations don't match our experience. I would expect that drugs would not have a significant effect on our consciousness if it were truly independent of substance. It seems to suggest that our reality is merely a placebo effect rooted in belief, and that the only thing keeping us from omnipotence is an attitude adjustment. Why can't both physical and arithmetic realities both be real? > > So the mechanist hypothesis can explain both where consciousness comes > from, and where the appearances of the laws of physics come from, and > this in a precise verifiable way, making mechanism testable (and > confirmed up to now). I think that the mechanist hypothesis can only explain where the mechanical aspects of consciousness and physics come from. For example, we can easily find arithmetic mechanics within a color wheel or musical scale works, but if there were nothing to them but arithmetic, then I would think that they would be interchangeable. There would be a one to one translation whereby a particular melody can be directly and unambiguously expressed visually. We should be able to substitute one sense for another. Not only is that not the case at all, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the arithmetic descriptions of color that is colorful or music that is musical. Without the experience of music, the arithmetic of musical notation doesn't signify anything we care about. > > To maintain a primary existence of matter, you have to conceive a non > computable notion of mind AND a notion of matter which succeeded in > diagonalizing against all computations. I don't think you do. You just have to conceive of computation as an intellectual category of sense rather than a source of sense. I don't understand how numbers are supposed to do anything by themselves. What is it they are computing and why? Sense makes sense. You have a subjective heads on one side chasing objective tails on the other side that makes the coin spin. The heads side does the chasing, and the tails side does the coining. It seems to me that arithmetic has no equivalent symmetry that would account for the difference between subject and object. What makes one number more or less subjective than another? > > In fact you have to reify Matter, Mind and to reintroduce a kind of > identity which makes the mind-body problem non soluble, actually not > even addressable. It's not addressable. The conception of the mind-body relation as a problem is just a category error. How does the heads side of the coin become tails? It doesn't. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
