On Apr 29, 11:28 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > >> 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. > > > Agree with everything you've said here. > > Cool. Especially if you really agree with the idea that primitive > materialism is of the same type as élan vital.
Absolutely. Ideal monism and substance monism are mirror images. > > > > >> 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. > > > I almost agree but I think if we look closely at comp we will find > > that it relies on even more primitive sense-making intuitions. > > This is because you ignore the infinite non boundable power of the > primitive sense-making number intuitions. Any power associated with numbers can only be realized through a process of sense making. No byte, symbol, or number has ever done anything by itself. Numbers are a currency of sense. > > > Addition and multiplication are rooted in the notion of self, other, > > and self-similarity. > > The contrary is easier to show. Of course it is easier to show *mathematically*, but nothing having to do with consciousness can be shown through mathematics alone, unless it is being shown to a conscious agent. > The self is rooted in the equation > phi_x() = x, which is the most simple and concrete amoeba. That equation is not an amoeba. It is an idea which can be applied to countless things real and imagined, but that doesn't make it anything more or less than a map. The equation is a metaphor; a menu, not a meal. It will never be a meal not can a meal come out of it. The menu is an afterthought that refers to the meal figuratively. > The equation can be translated in term of addition and multiplication. > The addition and multiplication you are talking about is the human > intuition, I'm not assuming human intuition, I am assuming that any form of addition or multiplication relies on deeper sense-motive principles. In computer chips, leaves on a pond, whatever - it's all sense and motive. > which needs the concrete abstract amoeba, the "real" > terrestrial ancestor amoeba, and many years of evolution. It is > obviously more complex and tainted from human selves, and historical > contingencies. Certainly human consciousness adds access to deeper qualia associated with mathematics, but ultimately numbers have no reality other than experience and sense (which includes the capacity of sense to reflect many experiences in one and one experience in many). > > > They require a sense-motive participation to > > maintain a recursive process. Something has to know that something is > > being computed, especially if that thing is what is doing the > > computation. For this reason, I see that comp is a third elan vital- > > like primitive, no more primary than either consciousness or matter. > > What all three of these primordial concepts have in common is sense. > > The ability to detect something, and detect it as being similar or > > different from everything or nothing. Without the capacity to tune > > into those kinds of symmetries, there can be no matter, no numbers, > > and no consciousness. > > Numbers tune quite well enough by themselves (allowing them to be > added and multiplied). Numbers do nothing by themselves. Numbers are only things counting. You can see numbers as things, by doing an ontological foreground- background reversal, and that yields tremendous factual insights, but ultimately it is inside out if we want to really deal with consciousness. > > > The universe has to make sense before we can > > make sense of it. > > Sure. Like arithmetical truth has to make sense (realism) before > numbers can support persons making sense of it. Yes, arithmetical truth is a primitive sense truth, and even perhaps a superlative truth in the sense of how objects relate to each other in lowest common denominator terms, but I suspect it is a second order sense and not the primordial ground of being. > > > Numbers are a kind of sense, as is matter, emotion > > and mind. > > OK. But comp provides a theory (computer science, arithmetic) > explaining how numbers make sense. Indeed the theory explains also why > they develop different points of view, and have hard time to > conciliate them. I believe you, and I think if we pursue those theories we will be able to get closer and closer to a perfect mask of generic consciousness. We can learn about awareness by computing a relief of exactly what consciousness is not. Craig -- 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.
