On 28 Apr 2012, at 17:59, meekerdb wrote:
On 4/28/2012 1:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 28 Apr 2012, at 03:05, meekerdb wrote:
On 4/27/2012 5:41 PM, John Mikes wrote:
David, IZ, Brent:
do you have some fairly acceptable (for whom?) ID
"Intelligent Design"??
about that darn 'vita'?
That would ease the problem to accept or reject EV. Some people
'ride' the Terrestrial Biosphere churning of C-based molecules
(some add: M&R = metabolism and repair) but there may be more to
it. And if there IS more to it, there may be special
circumstances (even qualia?) to get into it (EV?)
Maybe, but why suppose there's more to it before exhausting the
model that has worked so well for so long?
Because by construction it eliminates consciousness.
When biologists eliminate the elan vital, by using chemistry
instead, there is a real progress because they eliminate a spurious
linguistic gap-type explanation by an explanation from conceptually
more simple notions.
But consciousness has never been proposed as an explanation of
something. On the contrary, it is more the fact that we search an
explanation for.
Biologist have not make life disappearing, they have truly
explained the phenomenon, from other well accepted phenomena.
But saying that AI or brain research can dispose of the notion of
consciousness is just eliminitivism of a fact.
And this non-explanation relies on another sort of spurious "elan
vital"-like notion: primitive matter/physicalism.
Now comp explain both facts: the appearance of conscious
(incommunicable but knowable first person) truth and the appearance
of the beliefs in primitive matter, and this without need to
postulate more than what we already believe in (addition and
multiplication) of numbers.
It is novel and interesting and maybe it will result in some
predictive power, and I wish you all success. But it seems to me it
too is a model; there is nothing in arithmetic or computation that
says, "Here, this is conscious and that isn't".
We cannot do that in any theory (model), but with comp, and many
weakening of it, we can explain at least explain completely why it is
like that.
I appreciate you wish success for me, but I don't not propose any new
theory. I just deduce a contradiction from a widespread belief: the
belief that we can be both mechanist and Aristotelian. Then the math
part is presented only to explain that it would be premature to
believe that the reasoning refute mechanism, instead of
Aristotelianism. But thanks anyway :)
So you are saying, suppose we identify formal proof with the feeling
of belief and truth with the expression of a fact..." It is not
different than saying, "Suppose we identify these neural processes
with belief and those with fear and those with love and..."
Not really, because we can just not identify neuronal firing with a
feeling, nor with a number relations, but with comp we can
prove that some number relation defined coherent set of beliefs, and
define knowledge by true belief, sensation by consistent true beliefs,
etc.
As for us, we can also bet that some relation defines a complex
relative behavior capable of making it possible for consciousness to
manifest itself, and then this is verifiable indirectly because it
makes all prediction about our environment bearing on a special
mathematical infinite set of consistent extensions, which obeys
precise mathematical law, and that makes the computationalist theory
testable, and thus not "philosophical'.
But the validity of UDA and AUDA are independent of the success of
comp. The reasoning that comp is incompatible with Aristotle
metaphysical principle, notably the existence and role of primary
matter in matter perception, is either valid or not.
So, if we apply your logic, it seems clear that the spurious idea
is more the idea of physicalism and materialism we should
eliminate, instead of consciousness, which no conscious being can
eliminated without lying to him/herself.
If you can. But I still think this is an area in which technology
will overtake science.
Science leads to technologies, and is always overtaken by them, which
leads to new sciences, etc. You must see the piece of wood and
conceive its existence (science, hypothesis, belief) before using it
as a tool (technology) . Science is only the building of theories
which bring some light and shadows on the unknown.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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