On 12 Jan 2013, at 19:54, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Jason Resch <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?
Strangely enough there is, the soul is the essential must have part
of consciousness, therefore I think that Information is as close as
you can get to the traditional concept of the soul and still remain
within the scientific method.
Hmm... Why just information. Then information is quite physical for
some physicists (like Landauer, Deutsch, ...).
Consider the similarities:
The soul is non material and so is information.
And so are numbers.
It's difficult to pin down a unique physical location for the soul,
and the same is true for information.
Like numbers, and digital machine (in the Church Turing sense).
The soul is the essential, must have, part of consciousness, exactly
the same situation is true for information.
I am not entirely sure of this, and I don't even think this is an easy
matter to decide.
The soul is immortal and so, potentially, is information.
Hmm... in some non interesting sense.
I prefer to define information by what the soul get in a duplication
experience. The soul is the knower. That is something obeying at least
to S4 modal logic. We get one by applying the most standard definition
of knowledge (true belief) when modeling belief by machine provability.
They might be better theory, but this illustrate that there are less
flat notion of soul in computer science than just information (which
is a mud term, with some precise technical definitions, very often
abused, also).
But there are also important differences.
A soul is unique but information can be duplicated.
Excellent point. That why the soul is more the point of you of the
information receiver (1 or 0, W or M), than the information itself.
Your body is duplicable, but your first person pov does not duplicate
in the process.
The soul is and will always remain unfathomable,
In which theory? In all theories. That looks like "Heavier than air
will never fly".
but information is understandable, in fact, information is the ONLY
thing that is understandable.
Hmm... You have a flattening conception of cognitive and computer
science. Or you are just playing with the word, and jump from
information to information content.
Information unambiguously exists,
Hmm... OK.
I don't think anyone would deny that, but if the soul exists (as
distinct from information) it will never be proven scientifically.
Honestly, this will depend of the theory. With the Theaetetus'
definition of the knower, and Plotinus/Brouwer definition of the soul:
it is a theorem that all Löbian machine have a soul. Like they have
intelligible matter around them, and sensible one too.
Bruno
John K Clark
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