On 17 Dec 2013, at 00:58, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/16/2013 2:05 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 December 2013 10:43, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
Is that another way of saying you don't think Arithmetical Realism
is correct? (Which is fair enough, of course, it is
a supposition.)
Yes. I think it is a questionable hypothesis.
Yes, I think so too on days with an 'R' in them.
Well if you don't think AR is correct, then of course it sounds
magical (although that leaves the problem of how those equations
which somehow (magically?) control the behaviour of atoms actually
do so.)
I don't think they 'control' them, I think they describe them (to
the best of our knowledge). Notice that this explains "where the
laws of physics come from"; they're invented by us.
Bad phraseology on my part. What I meant was, there is a possible
problem of "unreasonable effectiveness" that AR purports to
explain, but which otherwise remains "magical".
Obviously the laws of physics as written down and taught and
understood by us were invented by us, but we have this hope that
they correspond to something real out there, and it's at least
possible that the "something real out there" comes in a form
(something like) the laws we've invented to describe it, and may be
in a form exactly like some laws we will one day invent. On that
glorious day it may seem like splitting haris to say that mass,
energy, space and time are in some magical way different from the
equations describing them, assuming such equations exist.
True, the models might be accurate. But even if they are we can't
know it with any certainty.
Except our own consciousness here and now, we cannot have any
certainty, in any scientific matter.
Science is doubt, and leads to more doubt, always.
That's one thing that bothers me about Bruno's definition of
knowledge as "true belief". We may have true beliefs by accident.
Yes.
But notice that the 'laws of physics' don't describe everything - in
general they rely on 'boundary conditions' which are not part of the
laws. Most theories of cosmogony put forward rely some randomness,
e.g. 'quantum fluctuations', as boundary conditions.
I don't believe in any 3p-randomness. I mean, no more than in Santa
Klaus. That's why I consider Everett to be the first sensical version
of QM.
Secondly, note that even as physics becomes more successful in
predictive power and more comprehensive in scope, it's ontology
changes drastically, from rigid bodies to classical fields to
elementary particles to quantum field operators. What stays roughly
constant are the experimental facts.
Yes. A reason more to appreciate that with comp, the ontology can be
reduced to its minimal (0 and successor, of K and S and their
applications).
Bruno, has a good point about 'primitive matter'. It doesn't
really mean anything except 'the stuff our equations apply to.';
but since the equations are made up descriptions, the stuff they
apply to is part of the model - not necessarily the ding an sich.
To say physicist assume primitive matter is little more than saying
that they make models and some stuff is in the model and some isn't
- which of course is contrary to the usual assumption on this
list. :-)
Yes, some people on this list seem to read far more into the
existence of matter (energy, etc) than that it's just the object
referred to in some equations. (Arguments that the UD couldn't
really exist because there aren't enough resources in the universe
to build one, for example.)
Bruno et al may also have a good point about the (lack of)
supervenience of mind on matter, although I'm still trying to get
my head around that one (appropriately enough).
I don't think the supervenience of mind on material processes is any
more problematic than its supervenience on computation.
Supervenience of mind on material processes is refuted by the UDA. It
just doesn't make any sense anymore, unless you put in matter a magic
which is non Turing emulable, nor FPI recoverable, but then I don't
see how I could say "yes" to a doctor.
The nice thing about Bruno's theory is that it provides a model
which might explain the incommunicable nature of consciousness. And
he even provides a critereon, Lobianity, for whether a computer is
conscious.
Hmm... I accumulated evidence that consciousness starts with
universality. Löbianity would give self-consciousness, or reflexive
consciousness.
But it leaves so much of the physical aspects of consciousness and
perception unexplained,
This means you have not yet get the full understanding of UDA or AUDA.
The reasoning shows that all physical aspects are entirely explained
or explainable. Indeed if you can find one not explained phenomenon in
nature, you will refute comp.
Of course the explanation has been derived by a reasoning, and need to
be done (like in AUDA), and this means to pursue the math of AUDA, and
solve the open problem there.
I have no theory. I just show that the mind body problem *has to* be
reduced into a purely arithmetical problem of machine psychology or
theology.
except by hand-waving "it must be so", that I find plenty of room
for doubt.
You can only invalidate the reasoning. No need of doubting here. Of
course you can doubt on comp.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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