On 23 February 2014 03:12, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Saturday, February 22, 2014 8:49:33 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > >> On 23 February 2014 00:27, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >>> >>> On Saturday, February 22, 2014 4:06:39 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>> >>>> On 22 February 2014 15:09, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Saturday, February 22, 2014 9:34:08 AM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 22 February 2014 14:25, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> If you say yes to the doctor, you are saying that originality is an >>>>>>> illusion >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Not an illusion, an invariant. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If it is invariant then it can't be original. Invariant means that it >>>>> remains fixed across a multiplicity of variations. To be original means >>>>> that it undergoes no variation. It is uncopied and uncopyable. >>>>> >>>> >>>> But I think that any serious (i.e. non-eliminitavist) theory of >>>> consciousness must find it to be original and indeed uncopyable in the >>>> sense that you stipulate. >>>> >>> >>> That is the opposite of what CTM does though. In order to say yes to the >>> doctor, we must believe that we are justified in expecting to be copied >>> into an identical conscious personhood. >>> >> >> No, I don't think that follows. The indefinite continuation of >> consciousness is directly entailed by CTM. >> > > But it is directly contradicted by the idea that consciousness is tied to > originality. You can't have it both ways. If consciousness can be continued > by a computation, then it cannot be considered original. > I don't see why that follows at all. The need to have it both ways is the basic paradox of mereology; there's no escaping it. The notion of the transcendent originality of consciousness I have in mind is not dissimilar to those typical of Eastern metaphysical systems, or the metaphysics of Plotinus that Bruno refers to when he's wearing his theological hat. In these systems the originality of consciousness per se is always contrasted with the ephemerality of the appearances that somehow arise within it. You could think of CTM as providing at least the basis of a principled "somehow" to justify the particularity of such appearances. > It is no more original than a long IP address. Any computation which can > reproduce the complex number must forever instantiate a non-original > address of consciousness. > I think you demand of originality more than it can possibly deliver. > > >> In fact it is equivalent to the continuing existence of the sensible >> world (i.e. per comp, the world is what is observed). >> > > The world of comp is what is observed, which is why it can never contain > even a single observer. > Very true. The sensible "world", or worlds, of comp contain not a single observer. What they contain are mutually correlated *appearances* of observers. Observation per se is necessarily out of sight. CTM, or any equivalently explanatory schema, concerns the systematic correlation of the mise-en-scène with the behind the scenes activity that might plausibly have produced it. > >> Hence any observer can expect to remain centred in the circle of >> observation, come what may, to speak rather loosely. There is a >> transcendent expectation of a definite continuation (aka no cul-de-sac). >> This expectation is relativised only secondarily in terms of the specifics >> of some particular continuation. >> > > Any continuation is a violation of originality/authenticity and is > therefore, by my definition, unconscious and impossible. > Yes, I understand that this is your definition. I'm less sure that this definition leads to any promising resolution of the problems with which we wish to deal. > I assure you that there is nothing significant that I misunderstand about > comp. > I seriously doubt that. > You are telling me over and over what I already know, > You think that you know that CTM, in assuming no more than arithmetic, can thereby derive no more than arithmetical conclusions from it. But I have suggested to you, as a corrective to this understanding, that CTM implicitly relies on a transcendental notion of originality and invariance; otherwise it must fail in precisely the way you suggest. This implicit notion is the transcendent originality of the observer perspective, the sensible context, call it what you will. It is the defining paradigm of the perennial philosophy, the ultimate original, sui generis, incontrovertible, ineffable, incomparably real. > and your responses clearly indicate to me that you are primarily focused > on your view being heard rather than considering mine. > I'm sorry you feel like that. My original impetus for commenting on what you said was specifically that I felt your criticisms of CTM were ill-founded for the reasons I have tried to articulate. My personal view of CTM was transformed by the realisation that arithmetic could be contrived to refer to more than itself (indeed to refer to anything at all) by successively bootstrapping it through computation and logic until it "emerged" at some transcendent level. But that "level" can't just be jammed or smuggled in a posteriori; we must rather conceive of it as necessarily present but, as it were, awaiting discovery in the appropriate context. None of this implies that you - or I for that matter - must accept CTM by force majeure, merely that we shouldn't dismiss it on inadequate grounds. > You are getting some of my view, more than most others on this list have > been willing to sit through, but still, your argument is 90% shadow boxing. > Well, I think that I've landed the odd blow here and there, if you insist on such a combative simile. My main problem with your view is that I can't really see that you have articulated a theory beyond stating one big assumption (and I've read quite a lot of your material now). You are strong on spinning metaphors, both verbal and visual, on the basis of that assumption, but weak on either articulating or confronting the peculiar difficulties it might present. When I have tentatively suggested what some of these might be, you typically respond by insisting that they are obviously solved in your view and that any failure to see it stems from some personal inadequacy on my part or that of people like me. Since I am only too conscious of personal inadequacy you would be rendering me a greater kindness if you could take me by the hand and lead me step-by-step towards greater comprehension. > > >> >> >>> >>>> Sense is never copied; rather it is encountered wherever there is a >>>> sensible context. >>>> >>> >>> Encountered by what? Nonsense? What is a non-sensible context? >>> >> >> There is no precisely apposite vocabulary here. I simply meant the >> sufficient conditions for the self-relative actualisation of a who, a >> where, a when, a history and so forth. In short-hand: a sensible context. >> > > I understand exactly what you simply meant, but I am challenging you to > see that it is too simple. My attack on CTM begins miles beneath the facile > assumptions > I'm not sure that Liz is finding them quite so facile as you suggest. > of modal logic and enumerated data fields. I'm talking about screaming, > crying, stinking reality here, not a hypothesis of pretty puzzles. > The idea is that the pretty puzzles are the co-progenitors of the screaming, crying, stinking reality. Oh, and for fair measure, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens. Fuck the puzzles. I'm not playing with words, > That's a bit rich, Craig. For an iron man, you don't have seem to have much appreciation of irony. > I'm saying simply that it is impossible for sense to be superseded in any > way. > Superseded by what? We keep coming back to this idea of something preceding or superseding something else, when instead what is being proposed is a perpetual interplay between two contrasting views. > Every context is a context of sense and nothing else. > Well, this is handled in the perennial philosophy by having the most transcendent level (the One) be prior to all differentiation. Hence it could be intuited as being the permanent possibility of sense under the necessary conditions. Thereafter differentiation leads to a descent of the soul from the One to the terrestrial sphere via complexification of a primordial self-other distinction. CTM derives a bottom-up elucidation of that complexification from arithmetic and computation, but its over-arching mandate for an evocation of the worlds of observation can only inhere in the continuing background of the transcendental presence. > > >> >>> >>>> One might say that it is encountered wherever what is obscuring it has >>>> been sufficiently clarified. It originates perpetually at the centre of a >>>> circle whose limits are not discoverable. One shouldn't therefore think of >>>> sense as what is copied in the protocol; rather what is copiable is only >>>> that which is capable of differentiating one sensible context from another. >>>> >>> >>> What else could be capable of differentiating one sensible context from >>> another besides sense? You are saying that sense is not copied, only >>> sense-making is copied. I am saying that nothing is copied except for the >>> ratios of distance between experiences. >>> >> >> I am only saying, or trying to say, what follows from the assumptions and >> explicit rules of derivation of a particular theory. >> > > You must know by now though that I have no interest in that theory except > to show that it is inside out. > Unless you have missed a key assumption of the overall argument. It can be easy to miss because Bruno tends to an appropriate professional austerity in his public defence of the argument. He wants it to be capable of being disproved by publicly reproducible means if it can be shown to be faulty. However he does sometimes amplify a variety of motivations for the comp hypothesis both on empirical criteria (e.g. the apparent non-violation of the reproducibility of public phenomena) and on the basis of somewhat more metaphysical considerations. I think that both are needed to avoid misrepresentation of the potential effectiveness of the approach. > >> I can do no other and no more. >> > > Why? Can't you set aside CTM for a while to contemplate other > possibilities? > Yes of course. I simply meant that I can do no other and no more in terms of any particular theory; in this case CTM. > >> Under CTM, what might look like arithmetic, computation and logic from >> the bird perspective transforms, in terms of those very rules of >> derivation, into an inter-subjective Multiverse in the frog perspective. In >> so doing it relies implicitly, as I have suggested, on a notion of >> consciousness as a transcendent observational invariant. >> > > Why wouldn't arithmetic and computation look like arithmetic and > computation from every perspective? What does consciousness add to the > already exhaustively effective operations of unconscious mechanisms? > I agree that the exhaustively effective operations of unconscious mechanisms are meaningless without the transcendent perspective of consciousness; but by the same token that consciousness would be void without the contrast effected by those self-same operations. It seems as if each of these concepts is require to bootstrap the other. After all, the standard objection to starting from the putative universality of consciousness is why does it appear that so much of the world of appearance is *unconscious*? In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the entire world of appearance looks, to consciousness, to be unconscious. Consequently no theory purporting to elucidate any of these puzzles can avoid the confrontation between these two seeming opposites. Candidate theories must compete for success in predicting or retrodicting the resulting phenomena. >> >>> >>>> I think that consciousness, transcendently, is a necessary, original >>>> and invariant assumption of any theory of itself. >>>> >>> >>> We agree then, but how does that allow for CTM? >>> >> >> Because if we are on the track of a theory of everything (vainglorious >> though that may be) we need more than just a transcendent assumption. We >> need a robust framework that shows at least some early promise of being >> able to address the formidable conceptual and technical challenges that >> infest the world-problem, hopefully without sweeping any of them "under the >> rug". >> > > What if there can be only one transcendent assumption and that is sense > itself? What use it is to make demands of robustness in the face of the > inescapable and eternal fact beneath and beyond all possibilities? > What use is it not to? > Once we fully accept that unacceptable truth, we can begin to reconstruct > the entire canon of science, philosophy, and spirituality from scratch. > That should keep us busy for a while. > You ain't kidding. I think Bruno's on the same track, though. > > >> >> >>> >>>> As such it is perpetually capable of self-manifestation, given the >>>> sufficient conditions of a sensible context. Always in terms of some >>>> theory, of course. >>>> >>> >>> Theory is always in terms of a deeper sense-making substrate. >>> >> >> I would say rather that theory must be capable of situating the required >> notions of sense both transcendently and contextually. And theory mustn't >> cheat by assuming a priori that its postulates are real (as opposed to the >> point of departure of an argument). >> > > The thesis of sense is that any theory which does not assume sense as the > only real postulate can only ever be a reflector - a departure point of an > argument which contains local truth but is ultimately fails at capturing > Everything. > Any argument that seeks to capture Everything must fail by definition. We are but poor strugglers. > It is an argument which must, by definition, go beyond sanity. > Even insanity must fail in capturing Everything. Alas. > It must embrace all possible states and perspectives, not just normative > modern Western perspectives. > Om :) David >> >>>>>> >>>>>>> and simulation is absolute. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Not absolute, but hopefully sufficient (i.e. the idea of a level of >>>>>> substitution). >>>>>> >>>>>> Hope that helps. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I'm saying that the idea of a level of substitution is absolute. >>>>> >>>>> I wish I could hope that helps, but I expect that it will only be >>>>> twisted around, dismissed, and diluted. >>>>> >>>>> Craig >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> David >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> Arithmetic can do so many things, but it can't do something that can >>>>>>> only be done once. Think of consciousness as not only that which can't >>>>>>> be >>>>>>> done more than once, it is that which cannot even be fully completed one >>>>>>> time. It doesn't begin or end, and it is neither finite nor infinite, >>>>>>> progressing or static, but instead it is the fundamental ability for >>>>>>> beginnings and endings to seem to exist and to relate to each other >>>>>>> sensibly. Consciousness is orthogonal to all process and form, but it >>>>>>> reflects itself in different sensible ways through every appreciation of >>>>>>> form. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The not-even-done-onceness of consciousness and the >>>>>>> done-over-and-overness of its self reflection can be made to seem >>>>>>> equivalent from any local perspective, since the very act of looking >>>>>>> through a local perspective requires a comparison with prior >>>>>>> perspectives, >>>>>>> and therefore attention to the done-over-and-overness - the rigorously >>>>>>> measured and recorded. In this way, the diagonalization of originality >>>>>>> is >>>>>>> preserved, but always behind our back. Paradoxically, it is only when we >>>>>>> suspend our rigid attention and unexamine the forms presented within >>>>>>> consciousness and the world that we can become the understanding that we >>>>>>> expect. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Friday, February 21, 2014 8:39:47 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> 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. >>> >> >> -- > 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. 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