On 28 December 2011 17:01, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > But as Peter D. Jones points out primitive matter isn't inconsequential. > It's consequent is realization. Being material is the property of existing > in contrast to those things that don't exist. Of course this is not a > popular view on an "Everything" list, but it's consistent with our > epistemological experience that some things happen and some don't, some > things exist and others don't.
I'm not sure that he was arguing purely in terms of CTM - I think he is agnostic on that particular theory of mind (as indeed am I). However, if one does restrict one's reasoning carefully to what is consistent with CTM, it's surely questionable whether this move is still open. Once one fixes seriously on computation as the supervenience basis for "epistemological properties" (ignoring crypto-eliminativist sophistries about "mere seeming") is one any longer in a position to appeal to the content of experience as the natural limit to the extent of computational "existence"? Does it seem quite as reasonable to argue that only certain computations are permitted to "exist" per se because we conjecture that they are the only ones being computed by the particular macroscopic physical machines which happen to uniquely and primitively exist? Particularly since these particular machines require to be "epistemologically assembled" for the purpose by from a kit of inaccessible-but-even-more-primitively existing micro-physical parts? As I say, I'm personally agnostic about CTM, although in the past, I have been a vigorous opponent of the idea. I was much impressed by Searle and his Chinese Room argument, which made it perfectly obvious that computation doesn't (indeed doesn't need to) "exist" in a primitively material universe, and hence couldn't be a candidate for hosting anything as "real" as consciousness. However, especially in the absence of credible alternatives, if we do treat the consequences of CTM with proper seriousness it now seems to me that something like Bruno's proposal would have to be the case - because computationalism taken seriously opens up mathematical reality in a way that seems hard to confine within "somethingist" limits. David > On 12/28/2011 5:39 AM, David Nyman wrote: >>>> >>>> Consequently, it would have to be the case that any "physical >>>> >> computer" (e.g. our brains), proposed as a supervenience base for >>>> >> experience, would itself first require to be constructed out of >>>> >> "epistemological properties" before it could begin to "compute" >>>> >> anything further. This should seem, to say the least, odd. >>> >>> > >>> > >>> > I'm not sure on why this should be odd. The physical world is a model >>> > we >>> > created to explain things and so it's not odd that epistemology >>> > preceded >>> > ontology. First we learn some facts and then we build a model to >>> > explain >>> > them. The model defines our ontology. >> >> My suggestion was that any oddness appears only if one tries to make >> sense of CTM in terms of some sort of dual-property view rooted in >> "primitive materiality". As Bruno says, this often seems to be at >> least an implicit assumption. But even in it own terms, such a theory >> can only isolate computation (and hence anything consequential on it) >> in terms of its "epistemological properties", because the very >> object-relations (e.g. those present in computers or brains), in terms >> of which any coherent appeal to computation can be made, are >> themselves nothing other than computationally-constructed >> abstractions. Consequently this seems (at least to me) to be in >> practice pretty much indistinguishable from Bruno's characterisation >> of the "reversal" of matter-computation, since, given that CTM >> mandates at the outset that all possibility of engagement with matter >> is fundamentally epistemological, there seems to be no remaining >> motivation to appeal to inconsequential "primitively-material" >> properties, except as a sort of religious commitment. > > > But as Peter D. Jones points out primitive matter isn't inconsequential. > It's consequent is realization. Being material is the property of existing > in contrast to those things that don't exist. Of course this is not a > popular view on an "Everything" list, but it's consistent with our > epistemological experience that some things happen and some don't, some > things exist and others don't. > > Brent > > >> >> Since this seems quite consistent with what you say above, I'm not >> really surprised it doesn't seem odd to you. >> >> David >> >> > > -- > 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. > -- 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.
