On 14 May 2014, at 03:52, LizR wrote:
On 14 May 2014 13:29, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 5/13/2014 6:11 PM, LizR wrote:
On 14 May 2014 11:15, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 5/13/2014 4:06 PM, LizR wrote:
On 14 May 2014 06:29, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 5/12/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Turing *emulation* is only meaningful in the context of
emulating one part relative to another part that is not
emulated, i.e. is "real".
If you say so. We can still listen to the machine, and compare
with nature.
When we compare with nature we find that some things exist and
some don't.
Like other worlds don't exist, or atoms don't exist ... the
question about what exists hasn't been answered yet. Or indeed the
question about what it means for something to exist.
So is it your view that no matter what comp predicts it's not
falsified because it may be true somewhere else?
I find it hard to read that into what I wrote. (Unless "no matter
what comp predicts" is a slightly awkward, but potentially rather
funny, pun?)
But anyway, no that isn't my view. Either comp is true or it isn't,
which is to say, either consciousness is Turing emulable at some
level, or it isn't. And if it is, either there is some flaw in what
Bruno derives from that assumption, or there isn't.
But the question is about how to test comp. Bruno has offered that
we should compare its predictions to observed physics. My view is
that this requires predictions about what happens here and now,
where some things happen and some don't. "Predictions" that
something happens somewhere in the multiverse don't satisfy my idea
of testable.
OK, fair enough. I only made my comment because ISTM that your
earlier statement "some things exist and some don't" is applying a
circular argument, because comp is all about what can be considered
to exist.
Back on topic, then, I believe Bruno has stated that comp retrodicts
some parts of physics, but that he hasn't been able to extend it to
the entirety of physics. So maybe that is the place to start, by
extending it further and seeing if continues to retrodict known
physics. That would act as a first stage test, at least (it would be
nice if string theory could reach that point, for example). Assuming
it got to the point where it retrodicted significant chunks of known
physics, hopefully we'd then be in a position to see if it makes
surprising predictions about the unknown parts.
Comp isn't really a theory, so testing it is a bit problematic. It's
"just" a logical argument which purports to show the consequences of
taking seriously the idea that brains are Turing emulable. In that
sense, it's more like the MWI, which purports to show the
consequences of taking seriously the idea that nothing collapses the
wave function. So they might be better described as meta-theories
(or something). The question is whether meta-theories have any use.
(I guess meta-theories include the "external reality hypothesis" so
maybe the answer is yes, in some cases...well, assuming you guys
really exist.)
I don't exist, but I don't know for the others :)
In arithmetic, the box "[]", Gödel's beweisbar, is the arithmetical
metatheory of Peano Arithmetic. The notion of belief, is already meta.
You can see a person as a theory, or a set of beliefs, then beliefs
like "I believe this" will be meta.
The whole point of Gödel is that we can translate the meta in the
arithmetic, and interview what PA can say about its provability and
consistency propositions, and what is true, but that PA can't know,
although he can pray for it, hope for it, fear it, etc.
Comp is not a theory. It is a problem fro those who want both
mechanism and materialism. Then I keep mechanism, and see how machines
might recover "matter", in a testable way, as I provide the logic of
the physical propositions.
We can hardly consider something more testable than that. It is only a
matter of work.
Sorry Liz, I was talking to Brent, unconsciously.
Comp is a metatheory? It is a theology, really. It is a belief in a
form of reincarnation possible, and then the consequences of the fact
that we are infinitely many times reincarnated in the solutions of the
diophantine equations, from which recovering stable physical realities
is not a trivial affair.
Bruno
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