On 4 February 2014 17:07, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 10:51:02 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > >> On 4 February 2014 14:52, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:19:51 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>> >>>> On 4 February 2014 13:19, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Because silicon happens to have been disallowed for biological >>>>> experience. Silicon and carbon are symbols and signs of the footprint of >>>>> experiences, not the causes of them. I suggest that we stop thinking in >>>>> terms of forms in space or functions in time and start thinking in terms >>>>> of >>>>> that which appreciates form and participates in function. >>>> >>>> >>>> Far be it from me to spoil the fun, but you could save yourself a lot >>>> of typing if you simply stated at the outset that you don't accept the >>>> premise that your consciousness would be invariant for a digital >>>> substitution of your brain. >>>> >>> >>> Why do you assume that I haven't? If you notice, I repeatedly say that >>> it is not the logic of Comp that I reject, it is it's beginning assumptions. >>> >> >> Fine, but then if you genuinely seek to criticise it in its own terms, as >> you appear to do constantly, >> > > I seek to criticize it in terms of what is honest and real. Part of that > is to assert that in order to do that, we cannot be seduced into judging > Comp on its own terms, just as we cannot find out about who is playing a > game by looking only at the game being played. > To be honest with you this strikes me as very odd - even perverse. At the very least it's an impediment to mutually-useful discussion. "Seduced" is a very paranoid word to use in this context, especially as nobody has ever suggested that comp is the only game and that no others should be considered. then the usual rules of engagement are that you cannot in all reason >> subsequently quarrel with the stated assumptions unless they lead to a >> contradiction *in their own terms*. That is what Bruno asks for in a public >> discussion and it is a very different enterprise than substituting a >> completely different set of assumptions somewhere in the middle of the >> argument. >> > > I have never had a criticism over Bruno's argument, only his beginning > assumptions. If Comp were possible, I have no problem with his treatment of > it - but what I have been saying from the start is that Comp is impossible > and it can be understood to be impossible if you question the nature of > arithmetic itself. It's you who have assumed, erroneously, that my argument > began in the last couple of weeks that you have been discussing it. We have > been at this for several years now. You are in the middle of the argument, > not me. > The precise metaphysical status of arithmetic (which personally I regard as otiose in comparison to investigating what might be derived from its consequences) is an inference from the assumption of the invariance of consciousness to digital substitution. I've read much of the debate between you and Bruno over the years. I haven't typically intervened because I didn't see a useful opportunity. However something you said recently prompted a question on the specific subject of the correlation between the public and private aspects of experience in your theory. And here we are. > >> >> >>> >>> >>>> That is, in effect, the practical encapsulation of the rest of Bruno's >>>> argument, as he himself frequently reiterates. Silicon or carbon then have >>>> nothing to do with the matter (no play on words intended) as computation is >>>> a purely relational concept that is by definition invariant for any >>>> physical instantiation. What is remarkable about Bruno's argument is that >>>> he succeeds (in my view at least) in showing that for "physical >>>> instantiation" to make any sense it too must be derived from computation. >>>> >>> >>> I agree with Bruno's position on physics (although computation could be >>> derived from physics in the same way) >>> >> >> Well, it's a key goal of the UDA to show, on the starting assumptions, >> that this leads to a contradiction and hence is false. At what point to you >> disagree? >> > > At the point where numbers are assumed to be independent entities. Numbers > can be derived from sensible physics as easily as physics can be derived > from sensible numbers. All that matters is where you plant the flag of > sense. Embodied computation shows how geometric forms can emulate > arithmetic functions. > but I suggest for "computation" to make any sense it must be derived from >>> aesthetic acquaintance, aka, sensory-motive participation. >>> >> >> Not if you would be willing to accept a digital substitute for your >> brain. If not, none of Bruno's arguments follow anyway. >> > > Right. That's my position. None of Bruno's arguments follow because they > are based on the assumption substitution, when I am saying that sense is by > definition that-which-can-never-be-substituted. Numbers are an irreversibly > destructive compression of sense. They invoke a uniform fictional context > for fictional substitution, which is why they are ideal for communication > and mechanical control. Numbers cut off feeling. Numbers are (heh) numb. > Fine, so you would never say yes to the doctor, because you have a particular metaphysical position about numbers. That's your right. But why quibble over metaphysical niceties rather than follow the argument where it may lead? Surprisingly productive conclusions sometimes follow from premises that seemed barely credible at the outset and intuition is a often good servant but a bad master. I'm sure you can provide your own examples. > >> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Bruno frequently refers to your ideas as non-comp precisely because it >>>> seems clear that your would say no to the doctor. Be that as it may, I take >>>> it that this doesn't mean that you reject any lawful connection between >>>> whatever the brain might be said to do (at some level of analysis) and the >>>> conscious phenomena that appear to be correlated with it. >>>> >>> >>> Sure, I would not deny a sensible correlation, but there is no reason to >>> suppose a direct translation. >>> >> >> "I would not deny" is a far cry from an explanation, or even the form of >> one. It would argue more strongly in favour of your theory if you could at >> least indicate the shape of such an explanation, which is what Bruno sets >> out to do for comp. >> > > The shape is what I have showed you with the Shoelace causality model. I > have all kinds of shapes which model it: > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/shoelace.jpg > > > http://31.media.tumblr.com/fb43e825fda19a996095b7d355983fe7/tumblr_msm9l6YMyI1qeenqko1_500.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/universe2.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/xpt.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/littleguy.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sensemodel.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/causation.jpg > > http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/qualcycle.jpg > Thanks. I'll try to find the time, but I must say that it seems like an awful lot of reading just to address the rather specific questions I originally tried to put to you. > > > >> >> I can reduce red to a signal of invisible data, but that doesn't mean >>>> that invisible data can become acquainted with red on its own. >>>> >>> >> Appealing to the incontrovertible acquaintance of sense does not produce >> a contradiction if such incontrovertibility and such acquaintance can be >> credibly justified from the starting assumptions. >> > > There can be no such thing as a starting assumption without sense. Sense > is an assumption - the only possible assumption - which is insuperable. > I assume that when you say that "sense" is insuperable you mean that it cannot coherently be doubted. That is not in dispute and is a key consequence of comp. In fact comp goes further than any other theory I know of to characterise the unique properties of sense to the limit that they are characterisable whilst at the same time explaining the existence of that ineliminable limit. By the way, we should not be misled, by the way an argument unfolds logically, to the error of thinking that since the reference to truth is derived logically posterior to, and on the basis of, the initial assumptions that it somehow isn't "there from the beginning". That would be to mistake the argument for the thing argued for. > > >> It's a major (I might say astounding) virtue of comp that it is indeed >> able plausibly to explain both of these features of sense and even to >> justify why, from the point-of-view of the machine, there must nonetheless >> always be a remainder that must defy any justification. >> > > The idea that the machine has a point of view is smuggled in from our > personal experience. It has no reason to be inside of a computation. The > whole point of computation is to automate and reduce our experience of > tedium and toil. Machines and math have no plausible affinity for reducing > tedium (what could be more tedious than UDA or MWI?), let alone conjuring > flavors and colors from a magic hat. If you are seduced by Comp to see the > world according to Comp, then you have already drunk the Kool Aid and it is > too late to try to recover any scientific impartiality. Once you amputate > your arms, you cannot point to what is missing. > Well, the idea that *you* have a point of view is just smuggled in from *my* personal experience, for that matter! Please, this is just prejudice masquerading as argument. It also seems breathtakingly cheeky to me to use terms like "seduce" and "impartiality" in the way you do above whilst continuing to insist on the primacy of a metaphysical pre-commitment of your own. Personally I'm not committed to comp or any other TOE a priori, but I am interested in seeing how things go when a question and its possible answers are framed in a particular way. > > >> >>> >>>> It's just this kind of lawful connection that I've been asking you to >>>> elucidate in your theory. Even if we assume that sense is primitive, the >>>> appearances are still there to be saved and these appearances are not all >>>> of the same nature. One is hardly barred thereby from seeking ways of >>>> explicating how, for example, the apparent behaviour of our brains and >>>> bodies when we perceive could be lawfully correlated with direct >>>> perception. I'm sure that you've never intended to suggested that your >>>> theory merely entails that all such attempts are nugatory? >>>> >>> >>> No, my theory only serves to expand the quantity and quality of >>> correlations between not only brains and perception, but perception and >>> language, language and ideas, ideas and subjects, etc. >>> >> >> Very nice, but how precisely (as opposed to poetically) are we to >> elucidate such correlations? >> > > I'm the guy who is pointing to the new continent. It will probably take > decades if not centuries to explore and settle the territory. It's not part > of my job, although I would be happy to assist and collaborate with others > who are so inclined. > Well good, because that's why I've been asking you these questions. > > >> Look, you may think I'm being unduly hard on your theory, because I >> appreciate that you accept that you have only sketched out the "corners" of >> the framework of something that is a much larger enterprise, as indeed does >> Bruno. In fact he sometimes says that he hasn't so much solved a problem as >> changed it into a different one (i.e. the "body problem"). But in the case >> of comp, the potential reward for doing so is large, because we would then >> have a basis for systematically deriving both physics and psychology from >> something which is itself, arguably, non-derivable from anything more >> fundamental >> > > The benefits of Comp can still be realized, you just have to completely > invert them. That may indeed be the only way to access sense empirically, > at least until we get some neural hardware to help study non-human > perspectives directly. > That seems a practical attitude, at least. > > >> >> This sort of irreducible "primitiveness" is not in fact as obvious as it >> may first appear in the case of sense, as non-controvertibility is not >> necessarily equivalent to non-derivability, which is one of the major >> insights that Bruno has uncovered in the comp theory. There are, moreover, >> arguably quite strong independent reasons to believe that the correlation >> between brain behaviour and consciousness must be relational in nature, >> rather than intrinsic. Be that as it may, there would be a stronger >> motivation to believe in the superior explanatory value of a sensory-motive >> theory if you could suggest, on that assumption, even an outline of an >> approach to deriving lawful relations between physics and psychology. >> > > The approach to psychophysical relations begins with inversion of all > fundamental axioms of math and physics, so that all concepts of zero, > space, vacuum are replaced with totality, eternity, and boundaryless > aesthetic experience. From there we should invert the assumption of > particles and wavefunctions so that they are holes in the whole, through > which aesthetic diffraction can bleed through on multiple levels of > specificity. > > From the psychological side, we should study language: etymology, > metaphor, and idiom, as well as divination systems and invariances across > pseudosciences such as numerology and astrology. These should be inverted > also so that they are not presumed to be failed representations of > scientific truth (public physics), but genuine presentations of private > physics. From there, we go about meeting our experience of realism halfway > from both sides. > > Of course, I'm not suggesting that we abandon all other forms of inquiry. > There are plenty of unemployed geniuses out there who surely could take a > break from playing with their phones long enough to take a look at a > completely new hemisphere of the cosmos. For the price of a couple of weeks > of operations at the LHC we could probably discover a modern alchemy that > will save the world. > Sounds like a big ask. Mind you, I don't suppose Bruno thinks that his side of the boat is likely to tip over any time soon, either. David > -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
