On Thursday, February 20, 2014 6:56:39 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Hi ghibbsa, > > On 20 Feb 2014, at 16:19, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote: > > > On Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:59:50 PM UTC, [email protected] wrote: >> >> >> >>> >> Hi Bruno, >> >> You've said somewhere in this thread that by logic comp cannot be >> incomplete because it's a religious position. >> > > Hmm... OK. > Are you saying I got that wrong?
> > > > > > >> No doubt you have your reasons for seeing things this way. But, it >> doesn't change anything, that you have declared a link in your world view, >> religious. >> > > It is a believe in a technological form of reincarnation, and then related > to a form of immortality, with some natural Pythagorean neoplatonist > interpretation. It is a religion, with its canonical theology. OK. > > This means also that you have the right to say "no" to the doctor, a bit > like Jehovah Witness (as we call them here) can (or not, in some country) > refuse a sanguine transfusion for their kids. > It's not religion part I'm objecting to, but how you used it in context of what the other guy - Nyman I think - had just said to you. He was asking you a question that certainly I would like to know the answer of too. That is, you have consistently fielded points of order from sceptical individuals by telling them they are assuming not-comp. Which is a serious charge, because if they are guilty of that, they are debating your ideas in bad blood, because you make it clear that's the key assumption walking in. Understood, you rarely or never disallow that assuming not-comp was innocent of all that - instead just unrealized logical implication for some messy bits in thinkin. But David, if it was him, asked a really useful question both ways, that answered carefully and thoughtfully can serve either to reveal or refute the implied conjecture that comp needs some housekeeping maybe, is partial still maybe, and maybe that's a way to say no to the doctor while very strongly leaning to something of the fundamental going on in computer workings It needs answering. What it got on this occasion was some line about logical decrees that comp is perfect by necessity, immediately then degraded to religious belief, or apparently so. It's that way you used it that I'm taking exception to, silencing an unanswered question that sits at the heart of quite a few people's thinking here, or so it has seemed to me. > > > > > >> If it's religious, it's religious. You can't have science, science, >> science, religious, science, science.... >> >> That just makes everything equal to, religious. >> > > > That is a vast subject, but I think we can handle all questions with the > "scientific attitude", which consists in putting clear cards on the table, > and clear means of verification, testing, etc. Even theology. It is just a > bad contingencies that theology has not yet come back to non confessional > academies. > It isn't. In the end it boils down to which way you go on a single question. Was something profound and unique taking place in the new ways that came to be known as science? Or was and is, science nothihng more than another extension - downward - of philosophy? Now, that's the sort of thing I would consider wheeling out religion for an answer. It isn't resolved and so in large part it's about what your intuition - so to others your faith - says. Invoking religion the way you did, says you see science nothing special FWIW I go the other way. > > > > > > >> When you said it, the other guy was trying on his intuition that >> something is partial or incomplete in comp, and if that's the case, it's a >> legitimate position to want more evidence before saying yes to the doctor. >> > > > Yes, but comp predicts that the soul of the machine will ask for an > infinity of evidence, and the honest doctor must say, "I don't know, it is > your choice". > > In fact such a skeptic appears in the proof of Solovay theorem. There is > guy there asking for a proof that he will not access a cul-de-sac world, > before buying its accessibility ticket. All follows from the fact that he > will just never buy the ticket. > The above two lines are candidates for the kind of trippy vocabularly - that I don't mind - but which don't have a useful place in science, or didn't used to. I mean, I'm all for gratuitously throwing out metaphor. I'm guilty of that. But is that what you are doing? Or are you confusing metaphor for real events in reasoning in t heir final most simplified form? intis that what you are claiming? I'm not sure. Maybe everyone else is. In which case it'll be firing squad at dawn for me, instead of you. > > And I am not here to defend comp, or even allude that it might be true. I > don't know. i just display the consequence > I believe you are sincere when you say this, which is a lot, on a regular basis. But I question whether it makes things clearer or murkier? You don't talk about anything else. You won't talk to other people about their ideas except where their idea stands in relation to comp. I would argue behavioural features like that get a say too. > > > > > >> That's a reasonable scientific position if he can say what evidence he >> wants, and that can be shown to be realistic and resolvable in real time >> scales by scientific progress. >> > > The problem is that there are no evidence at all for non-comp either. I > got the comp intuition by reading book of molecular biology, biochemistry, > long before reading Gödel. > But that's irrelevant to the question he asked, which was what prospects there might be of saying no to the doctor without assuming not-comp, because of - his example - some piece missing or wrong piece fitting, about comp as it stands > > > > > > > He doesn't have to show where your logic is wrong. It'd be good if he >> could but he doesn't have to. Not if he can say a standard that is a >> reasonable scientific expectation for the claims you are making. >> > > > He has the right to say "no". We can give tuns of evidences, be we must > warn him that those evidences are not proof. We must encourage him to not > brag that he knows that comp is true, in case he uses classical > teleportation every day, because, even for him, that is not a proof > (although a string 1p evidence).re > irrelevant, frankly > > > > >> So here's a standard that is reasonable. Show us proto-consciousness in a >> computer. Show an instance of emergence in a computer system, Show an >> instance of true evolution in a computer. >> > > I think that I describe this, but not at the level you want, but at the > level where the physical laws themselves evolve. > I show that all Löbian numbers have a rich science and a rich theology. > They are conscious, but so different from us, that you have to do some work > to trigger the empathy. s > I won't say irrelevant again because three times definitely an arsey loser I should think > > > > >> Also, answer: Let's say, in 20 years a whole new computational paradigm >> emerges, that totally transforms the hardware and softare paradigm, >> including totally new technology for hardware based on totally new >> principles. >> >> Let's say that emerges from breakthrough science in brain studies. I >> >> Now. Would the reality of that new paradigm be saying no to the doctor? >> >> Or, is it impossible that this can ever happen? Is it impossible that the >> brain and the mysteries of Evolution, have nothing more to tell us, despite >> us knowing very little about its secrets in empirical terms? >> > > In front of a theory you can always speculate on a different theory. I am > not sure if I see the point > You have missed the point. My fault no doubt. The point is that I am asking you the same question David did, just in a different context. Because if you say his question is answered with "absolutely comp is perfect" then you are saying there can never be a future development that sees a transformative overhaul of the whole computer conception.l > > It looks like you still attribute me some faith in something. I do, but > not publicly. I just show the consequence of an hypothesis. ja > I appreciate this is the case, but as with elsewhere I would point to language and behaviour, where consistent, as a source of what can translate into effective statements of position this sort, no less than what is actually claimed on the matter. > > > You can speculate that Church's thesis is wrong, or that we are non Turing > emulable entities, but it is up to you to be a little more constructive. > I would suggest that where since questions are formulated, that do related to issues that could provoke gaps, either their plugging or plumbing, then the onus is on the man with the knowledge and the theory to be a little more constructive where necessary. > > > The result can be seen as a non go theorem: you cannot have both > materialism and computationalism, but comp provides the means to be tested; > so why not look at it. > Because looking at it without satisfying sceptical instincts - where that scepticism can be expressed as scientifically reasonable questions or standards, is bad method when the grounds amount to a promise of some future testing, on timescales that could go past our own lifetimes, and could even eveed the available time left in the universe. It's also bad method, by the way, to claim for falsifiability on those grounds. Such claims have to be impeccable in terms of potential conflicts or vested in terms of interests. The fact is,s it's entirely in your gift or someone like you with your view, to decide to postpone any such crunch time event indefinitely. And iI doesn't have to imply anything about your integrity, it's about the standard for conflict of interest, which is that there must be no conflict of interest, and seen to be, no conflict of interest. > > > > > > > >> Bruno - these are scientific concerns, and scientific standards. Religion >> - no problem. If you believe it and you have faith that's all well and >> good. >> > > I never say so. I am a scientist. I just say that if you believe in comp, > then there is that reversal Plato/Aristotle, and that it has testable > physical consequences. > > I often debunk invalid arguments against comp, but that does not mean, at > all, that I believe in comp. > I accept your sincerity, and have otherwise already passed comment above Bruno - something just came up so I'm going to send without answering below. Nothing knowingly dodged my promise. If there's something below you want the focus on, just say so. > > > > > > But it isn't scientific to actually throw that at other people. >> > > I did not. But in scientific theology, it is good to point that some > formula can be assumed, and other formula can be derived from assumption. > Comp needs faith is true, independently of the fact that you have or not > that faith. > > > > > If you want people to say yes to the doctor on those terms, then let's >> make it a ceremony to remember. We'll hire a church for the day, and you >> can throw some comp blessed water on our foreheads and shove a bit of bread >> in our mouths, and some converts will come from the back chanting with what >> looks like tea cosey on a silver platter, and choirs will start o sing like >> angels and the echo of the organs will fill the cavernous space, and the >> digital brain symbolized by an apple mac will be revealed and we'll go >> dancing down the street throwing flowers. >> > > > Why not? If that can help to realize the act needs faith? > The real question will be "the right of torture" and what can people do > with doppelgangers. > Nothing is simple here. > > > > >> If you want to do that I'm in for it. So long as there's a cushy desk job >> waiting for me in the ministery of the comp interior. >> > > This will finish by taxing your brain components. Oh, eventually they will > tax the use of the modus ponens. > > > > > > p.s. The way you are going on you are just killing your own good work. > Look at history. Guys that come along with work that makes big claims that > go on to be true. Pretty much without exception, either they are bringing > the major falsifiable predictions, or breakthrough technology. Or, we have > reel forward in time, to a future that bring that breakthrough moment, and > the paradigm shifts, and that ancestor work by that original is recognized > and given the status it deserves, as the key breakthrough theory without > which the future breakthrough evidence and technology would not have been > possible. > > That could be Bruno, in either role. You might still bring those > breakthrough paradigm busting predictions. Or, you might enable others to > do so, either in your lifetime or maybe after you are gone. That's the way > it has always been, in the best most enduringly influential science. > > > I am not interested in Bruno Marchal. > I like just to share my contemplation of arithmetic with the comp views, > because it is beautiful. > > > > > But if you introduce lots quasi-religious babble, or if your vocabularly > even gives that impression, you are diminishing the prospect for future > researchers to pick up your ideas. > > > It is just a matter of being honest, and also, I have tried that strategy, > of hiding the quasi-religious, and it made things worse. > > Give time to the humans. > > > > > > It's not about prejudice. It's about individuals who want to make a good > career and get a breakthrough. > > > I have been f. up in the large by "academicians". I have been able to > continue that work for my own inquiry. Not one papers published was not > ordered, with the needed of "strike in the ass". To do a career has never > been my goal. That kind of job has became a full time public relation job, > and a funding research job, which leaves no time to serious and independent > research. I do a career, yet, but it is not my goal, which is more teaching > and doing research. > > I do have problem with *some* academicians, but it has nothing to do with > my work. Nothing. > > > > > Why should they look twice at something made so murky? > > > Mathematicians are used to not take any vocabulary choice too much > seriously. The theology associated to the machine is a well defined > structured set of propositions. In the comp context, to admit it is a > theology, is an admission of modesty and is the least honest move to do. > This is all what is illustrated with comp, and with the logic of > self-reference: the machine apprehension of the gap between provable and > truth. > > > > They've got a hundred other possibles on the table, and don't have forever > to make their mind up. It's an unclean process in practice. That's reality. > Science doesn't escape that. So you need to keep the vocabularly > clean...unless you think you can do it all by yourself. > > > My way is to use the most common terms used in the disciplines crossed, > with they more standard meaning, and then to make precise the relations > between the theories. logic provides the tools for doing that in a clean > way. > > It is impossible to satisfy everybody, on vocabulary issues, and I try to > focus on the point. That is already complex enough. > > Bruno > > > > > > > -- > 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. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- 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.
