On 09 Dec 2013, at 20:06, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/9/2013 1:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 09 Dec 2013, at 01:33, LizR wrote:
On 9 December 2013 05:52, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 4:38 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you name a materialistic theory that explains consciousness
Consciousness is the feeling information has when it is being
processed; if conscious is fundamental, that is to say it comes at
the end of a long line of "what is that?" questions, then after
saying that there is just nothing more that can be said about it.
And hey, it's just as good as a billion other consciousness
theories.
Ah yes, Max Tegmark's "theory".These aren't theories, is the
problem. One needs a rigorous definition of what consciousness is,
to start with, and then a theory that explains all its observed
features, and makes testable predictions. Otherwise all one has is
a jumble of words.
To be precise, we don't need a definition of what consciousness is.
WE need only to agree on some assertion on consciousness. It is the
same with line and points. The same with natural numbers. We don't
need to define them (in fact we can't). We need only to agree on
axioms about them, and methods or rules of logical inference/
deduction.
And we learn what are natural numbers in the same way, ostensively
by one's mother holding up fingers and saying "one", "two",... And
so we generalize and make a theory about fingers and other countable
things. And we know that in all cases we run into we can add one
more and so we casually assume an axiom of infinity because it is
convenient and seems to cause no problems. But if it leads to
paradoxes and absurdities...
All this does not define the natural numbers in the sense of a logical
categorical definition. Why we understand them is a mystery, but we
can meta-explained why that mystery is unsolvable. We don't need an
infinity axiom in the ontology (indeed the axioms of the TOE is RA: no
infinity axioms, not even induction axioms). But with comp at the meta-
level, we do use infinity axioms at the epistemological level---or at
least the creature generated by RA do that, and we interview them to
retrieve the physical laws.
This is a point where I might be quick sometimes/
UDA start from comp, and at step 8, we should understand that the TOE
is RA (or equivalent), and comp is replaced by the restriction to the
sigma_1 sentences for the epistemology.
So going from UDA to AUDA, comp passes from the base level to the
metalevel. In AUDA we assume RA, and interview richer believer (like
PA) as generated by RA (or equivalently the universal dovetailer).
After UDA, we know that we dont need and cannot need anything more than
0 ≠ s(x)
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y
x+0 = x
x+s(y) = s(x+y)
x*0=0
x*s(y)=(x*y)+x
The comp philosophy is then translated entirely in term of
definitions, and theorems in that theory.
Bruno
Brent
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