On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 4:37:11 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > > On 4 February 2014 20:20, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:> > > wrote: > >> >> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 2:56:05 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >> >>> On 4 February 2014 18:04, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:57:45 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 4 February 2014 17:32, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing a theory on >>>>>> something other than "it's own terms". I think Craig might accept >>>>>> Bruno's >>>>>> argument as valid but regard it as a reductio against saying "yes" to >>>>>> the >>>>>> doctor. I have criticized it for it's seeming lack of predictive power >>>>>> - a >>>>>> problem with all theories of everythingism so far, and also string >>>>>> theory. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> But surely a reductio entails accepting an argument in principle and >>>>> then showing that it leads to a contradiction in its own terms? The MGA, >>>>> or >>>>> Maudlin's argument, are of such a form (whether or not you agree they >>>>> succeed). Craig has already said that he accepts the form of Bruno's >>>>> argument, but not its premise: i.e. what is entailed by the acceptance of >>>>> a >>>>> digital brain substitution. This is certainly saying no to the doctor, >>>>> but >>>>> it's more like the opposite of a reductio. It's just a bald assertion >>>>> that >>>>> any possible success of the argument isn't worth the cost of accepting >>>>> the >>>>> premise. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes! Because the cost is infinite. Since there is no substitute for >>>> experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of >>>> simulating experience itself. >>>> >>> >>> But that is not what is proposed, indeed it would be a contradiction in >>> terms. >>> >> >> Proposed by whom? Why would it be a contradiction? It is the beginning >> assumption, so there is nothing to contradict. >> > > What's not to understand? >
Why you would be saying that what I propose (that experience itself is specifically unprecedented, unrepeatable, and not subject to emulation) is not "what is proposed". > 1) Proposed by you in the sentence immediately above my comment. 2) The > "simulation" of experience would be a contradiction in terms. > My premise is that it is not just a contradiction in terms, but an ontological contradiction. The idea of simulation as having anything to do with consciousness, or the possibility of simulating consciousness based on the universality of computation (which is by definition repeatable and generic) doesn't work in the actual universe. >> >>> Experience is the only indubitable reality; to talk of "simulating" it >>> is equivalent to eliminating that reality (as in "it's all an illusion") >>> and is just incoherent. Experience either is or it isn't and this is >>> determinable only in the first-person. But it is not experience that is >>> substituted, it is the device that allows that experience to manifest >>> locally in terms of a particular actuality. >>> >> >> You are assuming that the device is outside of experience. I am saying >> that the device is already (nothing but) an experiential phenomenon to >> begin with. There is no possibility of 'either experience is or it isn't' - >> there can be no 'it isn't', not even hypothetically in an imaginary >> universe. >> > > I am assuming nothing of the sort. According to comp the device is a > manifestation in experience, as I said already below, but very far from an > arbitrary one. And my remark that experience is or isn't was simply an > amplification of my point that experience can't be simulated. Is or isn't > are the logical alternatives and we agree that the a posteriori facts > determine that it is. And in any case I was commenting your statement that > you reject comp at the outset because "Since there is no substitute for > experience, there can never be anything more impossible than the idea of > simulating experience itself.". I'm trying to illustrate that this is not > what comp entails and this involves following the comp argument in its own > terms, not substituting an alternative theory in the middle. > If you are waiting for me to follow comp in its own terms then you will be waiting a long time. You don't seem to be getting it that I don't care about Comp at all, except to show why we cannot entertain it seriously without inverting the true relation of information and awareness. > > >> >>> Remember that the proposition is that experience is *invariant* for a >>> digital substitution. >>> >> >> Digits can't have an experience. Nothing that digits do can cause an >> experience. Given an experience, digital analogs can of course be used to >> change that experience, but by themselves, they cannot 'do' anything or >> even 'be' digits. >> > > Nobody is claiming that digits can have or cause an experience; that would > be absurd. > Bruno does. His model of Comp subscribes to the idea that complex numbers are persons. > The claim is that persons have experience. > My counter-claim is the experiences have personal qualities. > Comp is an argument that the integers, with the relations of addition and > multiplication, (or any equivalent Turing-complete system) provide an > ontology powerful enough to furnish a derivation of persons for whom a > truth-domain exists, in terms of which incontrovertible personal > actualities are directly accessible. According to comp, therefore, that > truth-domain and those actualities *are* the experiences that both you and > I find so uniquely indubitable. Not digits. > Numbers = represented by sequences of digits. Comp relies on an arithmetic primitive which somehow acquires sense. > This is a surprising claim but it is based on a coherent argument which > (when understood rather than turned into gibberish) can be criticised and > potentially falsified. But it is in no sense, as you seem to believe on the > basis, apparently, of nothing but your gut instinct, a priori impossible. > It has nothing to do with a gut instinct, it has to do with understanding the relation of representation and measurement to aesthetic presentation. The idea that I can count to five on my fingers, but that five cannot count to fingers on its arithmetic truth is not an instinct or gibberish, it is a simple apprehension of the nature of representation. > >> >>> The UDA is a step-wise argument for the view that this makes sense only >>> if physics itself is the result of a statistical filtration (the FPI) over >>> the entire computational domain. Hence that local "device" is also a >>> statistical-derived appearance stabilised by this filtration. >>> >> >> I'm saying that arithmetic truth in total is a filtration of more >> primitive sensory-motive phenomena. Math = sensible filtration of sense. >> > > You can place computation on a more primitive base if you wish, but if the > digital prosthesis were successful, the comp argument would show that this > wouldn't make any difference to the outcome. > It won't be successful though, because the digital prosthesis can never get to the base which is more primitive than computation. It is not available for public inspection by bodies in space or logic functions through time. > Step 8 of the UDA (the MGA), if not disproved - or even an appeal to > parsimony - shows that no putatively "more fundamental" base for > computation, whether we were to call it sense, matter or cosmic spaghetti, > would make any difference to the comp ontology or epistemology. > It's tautological. In reality, if you say yes to the doctor, you commit suicide. In Comp, we assume that the impossibility of simulated personhood is possible. Once you make that assumption, then the mistake seems to make more sense than the more fundamental truth. The mind does not think that it feels, but without the ability to feel, there can be no mind to imagine numbers. > >> >>> >>>> >>>>> That could indeed turn out to be the case, but it isn't in itself an >>>>> argument. >>>>> >>>> >>>> The truth of physics and sense is not an argument, argument is a >>>> comparison within sense. Why does the universe have to fit into an >>>> argument >>>> of cognitive human logic? Let the universe be what it is - perception. >>>> Participation. Aesthetic acquaintance on many nested (and sometimes >>>> ambiguously so) levels. >>>> >>> >>> What alternative could we possibly have to "letting the universe be what >>> it is"? >>> >> >> We could shoehorn it into a mechanemorphic theory of information or an >> anthropomorphic icon of metaphor. >> > > Only metaphorically, I presume. > Well yes, I don't have that large/small of a shoehorn. > >> >> >>> But whether the universe (i.e. what we can only guess at) simply "is" >>> perception, or has a more complex relation with it, >>> >> >> The more complex relation would also be a perception, an experience. >> > > Yes, according to your theory, but not according to comp. > Yes. You know that I don't care about Comp at all though. > Point out what I'm missing by all means, but what I see is just a series > of counter-assertions, not a counter-argument. If your response to any > aspect of the comp argument is just to propose an alternative formulation > of your own, then this can only be an echo-chamber, not a discussion. I'm > not trying to prove *your* theory wrong, I'm just doing my (poor) best to > elucidate what I think are your misunderstandings of comp. > You seem to be offering me a choice of either talking about what you want to talk about, or not talking at all. Is that the general idea? I don't have any misunderstandings about comp. I understand why it can't work, and why it will seem like it must work when you accept its erroneous initial assumptions. Even though Comp can't ultimately work, it does provide a very useful negative image of what almost works. For that reason it is important that those who are interested in Comp continue with it even though it is upside down from the Absolute perspective. > > >> >> >>> is not something that either you or I could possibly know a priori, or >>> even a posteriori. >>> >> >> Knowing is not the goal. Understanding is. >> > > Deep. > Not at all. Just honest. > > >> >> >>> We - our experiential selves - are virtual creatures who can only "bet" >>> on an ultimate reality from the perspective of what is, for us, an >>> indubitable, though unshareable, indexical actuality. The reasons for that >>> very indubitability and unshareability, moreover, are predictable in terms >>> of the comp argument. >>> >> >> But comp cannot predict anything about the nature of 1p, or even that >> there could be a such thing as a feeling or perception - only that there >> are some gaps through which machines behave as if they are able to make >> bets that are correct. >> > > That is untrue. The principal prediction that comp makes with respect to > feeling or perception is that the persons derivable within the comp schema > would make the same truth-claims to possessing feelings and perceptions as > do you or I. > So what? A picture of John Wayne can appear to wear the same hat as the Real John Wayne. A painting of a person can makes us feel that it is expressing emotion. If you parameterize sensations and filter them into a theoretic construct, you can use that construct to infer true relations about sensations, provided that you are the one who understands those sensations. The construct itself, and any system which uses it exclusively, has no access to those sensations. > This is even a moral insight, since it means we either treat these > truth-claims as seriously as our own, or in the foreseeable future we are > likely to be guilty of a new species of racial prejudice. > Yes, the racial prejudice which we are threatened with is the one in which overly clever, but shockingly foolish people convince others to allow their humanity to be defined by a consensus of inanimate objects. > The fact that we will have only their behaviour to go on is no different > than our position vis-a-vis one another. > Not true. We have no idea what our capacity is to detect the sentience of another person. Your logical mind is limited to the assumption that epistemology is limited to public inspection of behaviors, but that is not at all certain. Our senses may be fallible and prone to fiction, but they may also extend veridically into epistemological realms far beyond observation of behavior. Even if they couldn't, it's ridiculous to say that we can't assume that a doll isn't a living person just because it is so well produced that we can no longer casually tell the difference. > Of course the "ultimate" nature of those feelings and perceptions is > unshareable, > Also not true. Brain conjoined twins share feelings and perceptions, so there is no reason to assume solipsistic isolation. Get some neural implants for networking, and feelings and perceptions become as concrete and sharable as math or marbles. > but that too is justifiable and predictable in comp. There is no theory > that I am aware of that can close that final unshareable gap, even in > principle. > My theory closes all gaps, because gaps are understood to be localized insensitivity. > > >> But of course the universe doesn't have to - and never will - "fit into >>> an argument of cognitive human logic". But neither should we expect it to >>> fit with any other human predilection-du-jour, be that aesthetic, >>> orouboran, tessellated, or whatever else. These too are merely >>> speculations, or wagers, and must stand or fall on the same criteria of >>> generality, coherence, and explanatory and predictive power. >>> >> >> Then you are a priori ruling out that the universe could defy your >> expectations of being able to fit into your criteria. >> > > Is that supposed to be serious? Please stop playing silly verbal games > like this. > When people have no rebuttal, I notice that they start saying things like this. It's sort of like walking out of a restaurant without paying, saying "Money is no object!" > > >> The truth of the universe does not have to be something that makes it >> convenient to make predictions, and even if it did, you have no idea what >> the framework that I propose could yield or contribute. I don't see any >> reason why the sense-first view is any less explanatory or predictive than >> the notion of relativity or heliocentric astronomy. >> > > Where have I suggested this? I have just asked you some relevant questions > to which I hoped to receive informative answers. > Before you seemed to be uninterested in my answers except as they pertain to Comp. Craig > There is rarely time to make a complete study of any theory. I assumed > that discussing and answering questions about your ideas was one of the > reasons you participate on this list. > > Sure, you would have to do some tricky experimentation, but that doesn't >> mean that there must be some other theory which will get us there without >> considering the sense-first model. >> > > No, it doesn't. > > David > >> >>> >>>> >>>> Craig >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Your own criticism, by contrast, can only succeed by accepting the >>>>> argument in its own terms and then showing that in this form it fails to >>>>> satisfy certain desirable criteria, such as predictive power. That's not >>>>> a >>>>> reductio either, although of course it's a perfectly valid objection to >>>>> raise. >>>>> >>>>> 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. >>>> >>>> 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> >> . >> 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. 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