On 08 Feb 2014, at 22:27, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/8/2014 12:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
An epiphenomenalist would say that consciousness is just a
necessary side effect of intelligence. But I don't follow this: it
is a phenomena having some role, I would say, and so evolution is
just not a problem.
To say it has some role implies that there is a role apart from the
physics and the intelligent behavior. If it's a *necessary* aspect
of intelligence then it makes no sense to talk about it having a
role - its "role" is just another way of talking about the
intelligence.
I begin to suspect that this way of talking is a confusion between
provability (G) and truth (G*).
So you might be right, but only in God's eye. Like the lawyer might be
right: the murderer just obeyed to the laws of physics or arithmetic.
But this does not mean that free-will or responsibility, and a role
for consciousness or conscience, do not exist, as we don't live at the
G* level.
The lawyer defense will not work, because the jury can decide for any
punishment, and invoke that, them too, are only following the laws of
physics or arithmetic, and "following laws" become an empty mantra,
despite being true at some level.
G* proves epiphenomenalism ([]p & p is equivalent with []p for all
arithmetical p), but G, which represents the actual machine, cannot
prove that equivalence, and becomes inconsistent if it assumes it.
G* proves ([]p & p) <-> []p
G does not not, as it would prove from that []f -> f, and the machine
would be able to prove its own consistency, which is impossible for
any correct, or just consistent, machine.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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