On 5/18/2014 6:26 PM, LizR wrote:
On 19 May 2014 05:12, spudboy100 via Everything List <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
So you do not have a testable, falsifiable, theory Bruno. Not in the
scientific
sense. No one calls you on this.....here.....but then again.....let's
face it
no one answered my question either. But other there....all you'll
accomplish
with this hubris is to be ignored and written off. Which you probably
are, by
and large. And...I wanted to add value for you....for my part I would
actually
question the way your friends write you a pass about this, because this
is one
tiny goldfish bowl dude.
I don't think Bruno claims to have a testable scientific theory. He claims to have a
logical argument applied to the assumption made by most scientists who believe in
primary materialism - that consciousness is computable. Given this assumption and a
couple of others, he argues to a certain conclusion, which is that primary materialism
fails.
Not that it fails, but that it's dispensable; that matter may be necessary for our
existence (when I've argued for that point I think he has agreed) but if so it is
derivable from the computations of the UD, so it's not primary. I'm not sure he's wrong,
but I'm not convinced by his MGA or Maudlin's Olympia argument. I think that for them to
go through, to show that consciousness can be instantiated with no physical action,
depends on anticipating all possible counterfactuals, i.e. simulating a "world" which the
consciousness is relative to. I think that to simulate consciousness within a simulated
world removes the distinction of "simulated" and the argument becomes vacuous. Simulated
physics is happening in that simulated world and the simulated consciousness depends on
it. Now if Bruno can predict some new testable physics from comp, that would be great -
but that's a high bar indeed.
His main interest is the mind-body problem; and my interest in that problem is more from
an engineering viewpoint. What does it take to make a conscious machine and what are the
advantages or disadvantages of doing so. Bruno says a machine that can learn and do
induction is conscious, which might be testable - but I think it would fail. I think that
might be necessary for consciousness, but for a machine to appear conscious it must be
intelligent and it must be able to act so as to convince us that it's intelligent.
Brent
Hence surely he is in the position of someone testing a scientific theory, rather than
claiming to have one?
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