On 9/14/2012 11:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 13 Sep 2012, at 13:44, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Bruno Marchal
<SNIP>
BRUNO: Matter is what is not determined, and thus contingent indeed,
at its very roots, like W and M in a self-duplication experiment, or
like, plausibly when looking at a photon through a calcite crystal.
ROGER: So Newton's Laws, such as F = ma, are not deterministic ?
It means that F = ma, if correct, can only be an approximation of a
deeper non deterministic process.
Hi Bruno,
What does this mean? If we assume a stochastic process, like Markov
or Weiner, then we can only do so in a framework that allows for an
ordering of the events to be defined. Strict indeterminacy is a
self-contradictory concept.
Note that it is actually the case, as F=ma can be derived from the
more fundamental schroedinger equation, which indeed give rise to a
first person plural indeterminacy.
I wish that you would explain how this is the case. Your
explanation in terms of cut and paste operations assumes a unifying
framework of a single word that has the room for he multiple copies. You
seem to ignore this necessity in your step 8.
ROGER: and in which men, so as not to be robots,
BRUNO: You might try to be polite with the robots, and with your son
in law, victim of pro-life doctors who gave him an artificial brain
without its consent. He does not complain on the
artificial brain, though, as he is glad to be alive. Do you think it
is a (philosophical) zombie? Come on! He is a Lutheran. Obviously, if
you decide that a machine cannot be a Lutheran, few machines will be ...
ROGER: I may be wrong, but I don't see how an artifical brain can
have any awareness or intelligence, for these require life-- real life.
As you say, you might be wrong.
I agree with Bruno. So long as the person with the artificial brain
can behave and respond to interviews the same way as a "real person"
what is the difference that makes a difference?
Nobody understand how a machine, or a brain, can feel, but machine can
already explain why they can know some true fact without being able to
justify them---at all.
With the good hypotheses, sometimes we can explain why there are
things that we cannot explain.
Please understand, Bruno, that you are tacitly assuming a common
framework or schemata what allows the comparison of "a machine that can
explain ..." and a "machine that cannot explain...". This is the mistake
that you and Maudlin commit in the MGA argument. Contrafactuals depend
on just their "possibility to act" for their capacity, not on their
actual state of affairs.
And you might be true, but your personal feeling cannot be used in
this setting, as they can only look like prejudices, even if true.
The best is to keep the mind open, to make clear assumptions and to
reason, without ever pretending to know the public truth.
I agree.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
Onward!
Stephen
http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html
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