On 2/17/2013 9:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 12 Feb 2013, at 03:22, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 2/4/2013 11:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 01 Feb 2013, at 20:25, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 2/1/2013 5:20 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 11:38 PM, Stephen P. King
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 1/31/2013 4:46 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
What's an entity?
Any system whose canonical description can be associated
with some kind of fixed point theorem.
Ok, do you figure that a human being can be considered an entity
under that definition?
Hi Telmo,
Recall the phrase "I think therefore I am." The "I" is a fixed
point under variations of content of experience.
Yes. And Descartes limited to the doubts experiences. He tried to
doubt all propositions, but then he has to doubt the proposition
asserting that he doubts all propositions, that is conceiving
certainty.
Dubito ergo cogito. (I doubt thus I think)
Cogito ergo sum. (I think thus I am).
Hi Bruno,
I would add the temporal tense and state: Cogito, ergo eram, "I
think, therefore I was".
But that does not follow.
HI Bruno,
How so? Is the content of our knowledge always in the present
tense? Does this not imply that we are asking for a degenerasy of the
temporal tense? If we accept the degenerasy we must be consistent with
this in further arguments that require consideration of knowledge.
This is Löbian, with the classical definition, making Dt such a
fixed point.
I agree. I believe that this is exactly how the ambiguous self of
self or "I" obtains.
I don't see the ambiguity. Unless it is the usual "ambiguity" between
truth and provability, G* and G. Cf G* proves Bp equivalent with Bp &
p, and G does not.
What, generally, acts to make this distinction between truth and
provability?
But neither Descartes, nor any correct Löbian machine, can prove Dt,
although the reasoning above validly confirm, from the first person
point of view, consciousness as undoubtable, with consciousness
being something like Dt?, a sort of basic, automated, instinctive,
elementary faith in a reality.
Could you elaborate on what would happen *if* any correct machine
could indeed prove Dt? What would be the implications?
The machine would eventually prove that 0 = 1, implying that you are
the pope, notably.
How can we even consider the concept of "when" here if we have
discounted a difference between past, present and future?
Thomas Slezak made a similar analysis of the cogito of Descartes.
References in the general biblio of "Conscience and Mecanisme".
This need the classical definition of knowledge, which is given here
by Thaetetus definition in arithmetic, thanks to incompleteness (the
machine cannot know that Bp and Bp & p are equivalent).
I am not happy with this negative type of proof. I would like to
see some kind of constructive argument or even an approximation.
The proof is not negative. And it is constructive, even if bearing on
an impossibility. The machine can build the conterexample. The result
can be said to be negative, but math is full of such non go theorems.
We can't change that at will.
For me, constructability involves consideration of resource
availability but you discount that notion. So why do you invoke
constructability here? We cannot change our premises at will! Consider
the proof that the halting problem is intractable. ISTM that the halting
problem is directly showing that constructability of proofs is dependent
on resource availability. If a recursively enumerable function cannot
generate a proof is it because there is a limit to ability of
recursively enumerable functions. Could there exist a class of functions
that do not have this limitation?
This entails the fact that we can be genuinely aware that we dream,
but we can never be genuinely aware that we are awake, (as the usual
Turing emulation thought experiences illustrate).
This seems to me to be analogous to "we can know for sure that X'
is a fake or simulation of X and not the real thing", but it
presupposes a 3p judgement. If one only allows 1p judgements and
finite computational resources, then one must be a fallibist in one's
claims.
?
Usually the 3p discourse is always fallible. Only a part of the 1p
discourse (our own consciousness) is not fallible.
This argues against a TOE, IMHO.
Bruno
--
Onward!
Stephen
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