On Monday, February 17, 2014 7:29:48 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > > On 17 February 2014 03:19, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> >> On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:07:06 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >> >>> On 17 February 2014 00:29, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> You don't suggest that I can't understand comp, but you suggest that I >>>> am impervious to reasoned argument about it...why would that be the case >>>> if >>>> I understood comp as you seem to think it deserves to be understood? >>> >>> >>> You said that I understood that you could not possibly understand comp. >>> I have never said that nor do I believe it. I do however expect that you >>> will persist in attacking a parody of comp of your own devising as long as >>> you fail to engage with the genuine argument in its own terms and this is >>> not necessarily so easy. >>> >> >> Then that means you are accusing me of understanding comp but pretending >> not to so that I can attack a straw man. >> > > You misunderstood my meaning. I said that I don't believe that you cannot > *possibly* understand comp, assuming you ever give it proper consideration, > but I see no evidence that *in fact* you have ever understood it > sufficiently well to refute it. Indeed your peremptory dismissals always > seem to me to be based on one misunderstanding or another, but you never > consistently engage with the argument to the point where these > misunderstandings could be resolved. >
If that's true, it is only because being consistently engaged with the argument entails that I accept a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature as axiomatic. > >> If you are convinced of that there's nothing that I can say, but from my >> perspective, if you think that I'm attacking a straw man, all that you have >> to do is explain the difference between what I am attacking and the full >> strength position of comp. >> > > See below. > > >> I do use examples which are hyperbole to make my point obvious, but that >> doesn't mean my points are invalid just because the context becomes more >> sophisticated. The problem with the disconnection of mathematics from >> either consciousness (if we use a physical primitive) or physics (if we use >> a phenomenal primitive) remains no matter what. If computation can create >> consciousness, then consciousness has to be superfluous to consciousness, >> and if computation can create superfluous phenomena which are not >> computational then there is no basis to consider computation any different >> than any other brute-emergence religious faith. >> > > But computation cannot create consciousness. This is a gross misconception > and we have touched on it before. > What does computationalism mean other than "a view that the human mind and/or human brain is an information processing system and that thinking is a form of computing." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind). If you agree that computation cannot create consciousness, then I don't understand what you think we are debating. > What the comp argument elucidates is a principled reciprocity between a > domain of function and a domain of appearance. > But where does it get a domain of appearance from? (or domains from for that matter). I agree, once you have appearances, then you can derive principled relations between functional appearances and aesthetic appearances to some extent, but Bruno's comp puts all such distinctions within arithmetic. I see that aesthetics have nothing to do with arithmetic funcitonally, but that arithmetic can be derived from aesthetics. > The first is modelled as arithmetic (representing any first-order > combinatorial system) and the second as a class of indexical arithmetical > truths. The fact that the latter is encountered after the former *in the > argument* should not mislead you into supposing that this recapitulates > some actual sequence of creation, or that one is more "fundamental" than > the other. That would be to mistake the argument for the thing argued for. > I'm not making that assumption, I am questioning the assumption that "a class of indexical arithmetical truths" is equivalent to an aesthetic quality. > So granting that comp can indeed faithfully represent the necessary > reciprocity between function and appearance entails the acceptance (i.e. of > the force of the cumulative argument) that the latter *just is* coterminous > with arithmetical truth in some adequate sense and that this is > *necessarily* the case from the outset. It is not a bolt-on extra to > computation. > There is no bolt-on extra because the definition of consciousness being used is already amputated from all of its non-computational significance. It is like taking the color wheel and saying that since values of HSV can me mapped to it, then knowing HSV coordinates will allow a blind person to see color. > > >> >>> But not only is genuine understanding not equivalent to acceptance, it >>> is the only generally accepted route to refuting any argument on reasonable >>> grounds. When I previously suggested this, you deflected my proposal with >>> some slightly disturbing remarks about seduction and Kool-Aid (which I >>> presume to be some delightful US beverage unfortunately unavailable in my >>> neighbourhood). Oh, and some tendentious psycho-babble about too-clever >>> people losing touch with common sense, as I recall. >>> >> >> References to Kool-Aid generally have to do with its availability in >> Guyana, rather than the US. >> > > Ah, I hadn't made the connection with Jonestown. What a revolting > comparison. > It's a pretty common idiom in the US. Or it was. > > I'm not sure what it is that you think I don't understand. I get accused >> of not understanding something very important about comp, but when pressed >> for more details, all that I have ever gotten is that it can only be >> understood by studying the very principles which I am saying supervene on >> more primitive sense for their very existence. >> > > Then you make the whole argument into a circle. To understand comp in its > own terms you must cut the circle, start from the stated assumptions and > convince yourself that, assuming the comp theory of mind, there is a > *necessary* relation between function and sense. > I have already done that, for many years. What I am saying is that it makes more sense that the fundamental nature of anything in consciousness or physics can ever be considered *necessary*. I have found that turning comp inside out is what brings everything together. Once you cut the circle, you have eliminated consciousness entirely. You are setting yourself outside of consciousness artificially and then using the logical subset of consciousness to validate that artificiality, just as any representation seems to validate its connection to what we think it represents. > As I argue above, this does not entail any discrimination between the two > as to which is the more fundamental; if anything it is the entire system of > reciprocity that is fundamental, in a Platonic rather than an Aristotelian > sense. > "it is the entire system of reciprocity that is fundamental" YESSS. I call that 'system' sense. Only its not a 'system', because a system can only function if there is a sensible context in which systemic qualities can be experienced. > >> >>> >>> I don't know whether you regard me as a die-hard defender of comp, but I >>> certainly don't see myself in that light. My own original predilections >>> tended towards sensory-motive ideas and the so-called computational theory >>> of mind seemed to me to be obviously wrong-headed, based on arguments not >>> dissimilar to Searles' classic Chinese Room. The idea of the reversal of >>> comp-physics simply hadn't occurred to me before I encountered Bruno's >>> theory and I have spent the last six or seven years, off and on, trying to >>> follow the ramifications of his argument, which goes well beyond the >>> mind-body problem in isolation. In fact, the comp-physics reversal places >>> observation at the axis of the world-problem as a whole, something that is >>> now curiously reflected in recent developments in cosmological theory. But, >>> like any theory, it is permanently open to refutation. >>> >> >> I don't understand what is special about the comp-physics reversal. It >> seems like old news to me. I have no problem with physics falling out of >> computation, >> > > Well, a lot of other people apparently do. The devil is in the details. > Yes, but in this case, the details are the distraction. Before you can read the fine print, the devil asks that you say yes to the Lawyer. Once you do that, you are in a world of legal theories that represent reality from the outside in, where there can never be any conscious experience. > > >> but sensory experience doesn't fall out of either one - not unless you >> smuggle the possibility of it in before the fact. >> > > But that is not necessarily so, as I argue above. I must admit that it > used to seem obvious to me that this must be so, and indeed the force of > arguments like Searle's depend on this native intuition, or common sense if > you prefer. My position was that sense is sui generis and irreducible and > that neither of these characteristics could conceivably be successfully > captured by any objective model except as an optional extra that could just > as easily be omitted. But I am less certain of that now, and the reasons > for this stem from a range of considerations that tend to the same > conclusion. I've mentioned some of these before, but perhaps chief amongst > them is the fact that the entities captured by comp plead for their own > incontrovertible access to indexical truth precisely as we do ourselves and > hence to deny them that truth begins to seem tantamount to solipsism, or > worse. I can't absolutely rule out the possibility that I'm merely > succumbing to some arithmetical version of the pathetic fallacy, but I no > longer think that this is as "obvious" as it might at first appear. > I agree that it is not obvious, but that is only because we are bumping up against a new understanding. When 'Birth of a Nation' was first shown in theaters, people jumped out of the way of the train on the screen. We are not dealing with an obvious form of puppetry which exploits 3D syntax, this is orders of magnitude more sophisticated. The computational ventriloquist exploits 4D tropes which are at or exceed the level of public awareness that we are accustomed to. It's hypermechanism - more akin to something like automatic writing or a Ouija board than a conventional program. Of course its going to reflect the common sense which all 4D experiences share - but it reflects them generically and impersonally. There is nobody home. It is a commercial storefront. > >> With the sense primitive, physics and comp reflect each other and overlap >> each other, and the overlap can be inverted to triangulate sense. Physics >> gives form, comp gives function, but you need something else to allow forms >> to be appreciated and functions to be participated in. If forms and >> functions could exist without that, they certainly would, and the >> possibility awareness developing would not arise under any plausible >> circumstance. Turn it around, and the primitive sensory-motive interactions >> could easily be presented qualitatively as forms and functions. There's no >> need to complicate it, it is a matter of comparing the most basic >> possibilities and seeing which one makes the most sense. >> > > Easily? I think it is not so easy and this is the continuing weakness of > your position and that of related theories. > It is infinitely easy, because aesthetic qualities are not necessarily limited. There is nothing to prevent sense from making itself form-like, so it is form-like. > As I suggest above we need to do more than propose some vaguely plausible > connection between function and appearance; we need to elucidate a > principled reciprocity between them, or at least the general shape of one. > The general shape is tessellated, non-orientable, anomalous symmetry. It is the relation of literal to figurative, spatial to narrative, entropy to significance, etc. We might need access to the whole of eternity to really know for certain how to make sense of all of the specific reciprocities. I don't think that they are driven only by principles, but by the actual aesthetic participation. It's not generic, but proprietary also. > This is where I think panpsychist ideas tend most often to reveal their > lack of traction on the core problems and indeed it is why I gave up on > them. Just how are we to suppose such primitive sensory-motive interactions > relate to everything else that we seek to explain? Are we to suppose that > they are simply the interiority of what manifests as exterior interactions? > Yes, what manifests locally as exterior (to our body) is actually interior in an absolute sense (to eternity). > If so, this might suggest a sort of primitive inner view of physics, but > what further motive is there to conclude that any arrangement of > micro-views carved at those particular joints would result in a > qualitatively singularised view of a macroscopic world? > Think of how the pixels of a screen render a singular image. It isn't that they are joining together and producing an image, but the complete opposite. We are eliding the differences between the pixels - we substitute a richer aesthetic whole from the fertility of our own perspective by ignoring low level partitions. > Conceptual issues of this kind are often summarised under the grain and > binding problems and I have never seen any proposed panpsychist resolution > of them that really convinced me it had much traction (although I must > admit that Gregg Rosenberg gets closer than most). > The binding problem dissolves because all phenomena are bound on one base level, and their appearance of disentanglement depends on the constraints of insensitivity of any particular perspective. > > >> >>> I suspect that much of your own opposition to comp (or what you imagine >>> it entails) is, in effect, political and indeed you yourself have sometimes >>> suggested as much. >>> >> >> Not at all. Like you, I was not always a supporter of the position that I >> have now. For most of my life I had reasoned that of course our phenomenal >> experience was merely the computational product of a brain, and I looked >> forward to a future in which people will be uploaded, live in simulated >> worlds, etc. I didn't ask for my mind to be changed, and I have never had >> any sentimental attachment to being a human or for the specialness of the >> human species. I don't know what political agenda that you imagine I could >> have, but to me, that accusation is an excuse to dismiss my position >> without having to understand it. >> > > Then let me offer you a sample ".. it is my understanding that our > progress as a species depends on our realization that the fact that comp > cannot be proved wrong is actually proof that it is wrong.". This is fairly > representative of your manifesto. It is also unfortunately typical of such > statements in that it is based on a false premise. > That isn't an agenda that I have (I would prefer that humans save the world than destroy it, but I'm not optimistic about it), it's a conclusion that seems likely to me based on my impression of this moment in history as it pertains to the consequences of choosing information over sense. If I'm right, and information is the impostor, then how would it not follow that methods which insist on reduction to information should be resisted in the context of consciousness itself? > As to understanding your position, I am perfectly open to such an > understanding if you could only help me towards it by answering questions > about it as clearly and directly as you can. From what I have read of your > website I would say that you are clearly aware of much of the historical > material on the topic but I haven't read anything there that convinces me > that you have either an original or a satisfactory take on the problems. If > you wish you might start by addressing the combinatorial issues I outlined > in my preceding comment. > The combination problem stems from the limitations of our perception. Space and time are forms of insensitivity, or entropy. We have to turn the whole thing inside out and see public appearances as the tokenized, reduced form. Consider the total activity of the brain over a human lifetime to be a single mountain range with many peaks.The brain does not put our reality together, it breaks it apart into the reality of many levels of bodies. > >> >>> This prior commitment is reflected in your manner of deflecting >>> arguments and questions somewhat in the manner of a lawyer defending his >>> brief, even when they concern the details of your own theory. But frankly, >>> I still don't understand why you wouldn't risk a sip of the Kool-Aid just >>> out of native curiosity. What have you to lose? >>> >> >> If I sound like a lawyer, it's not to evade questions, but to show why >> they are irrelevant. >> > > But you haven't succeeded in showing that. You have merely reiterated it. > Over and over. > I think that I have succeeded in expressing it adequately, but you are overlooking it, over and over. Not that it would matter, but I do talk to lots of people and some of them do actually get it. > > >> Most people here are focusing on the details of where I claim the comp >> argument goes wrong, but that is a total waste of time. It is like looking >> at an Escher drawing and demanding to know why waterfalls cant flow upside >> down since they appear to be accurately rendered as doing so in the >> picture. Over and over it is the same sleight of hand - looking at the >> Liar's paradox from inside its broken logic instead of seeing the whole >> statement as for the neither true-nor-false non sequitur that it is. Comp >> is the identical non sequitur - a hall of mirrors which has no entrance and >> no exit that invites us to imagine that the absence of ourselves within it >> means that it is we who are not what we think, rather than the empty hall. >> > > Oh deary me. Propaganda is such a poor substitute for argument. > Propaganda is in the eye of the beholder. Craig > > 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] <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<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. 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.
