John M
On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
I (re)comment Brent, on this crucial topic, when tackling the mind-
body problem, or the consciousness/matter problem.
On 11 Jun 2014, at 01:22, David Nyman wrote:
On 10 June 2014 21:04, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
I would argue that, at the ontological level, the explanation *does
indeed*
make heat, or temperature, "illusory". The whole point of the
reduction is
to show that there could not, in principle, be any supernumerary
something
left unaccounted for by an explanation couched exclusively at the
"primordial" level, whatever one takes that to be. Given that this
is the
specific goal of explanatory reduction, what we have here is a precise
dis-analogy, in that there *is indeed* a disturbingly irreducible
something
left behind, or unaccounted for, in the case of consciousness: i.e.
the 1p
experience itself.
That is the key point. I guess written by David (and what follows
just below is Brent's answer, and then David's reply).
As we have discussed this before, if competence can be reduced to
computer programs in a similar way that temperature can be reduced
to molecules kinetic, the analogy does not work for consciousness,
or at least not completely.
In fact it is here that the theaetetus idea get the morst effective,
as it will explain that the analogy is wrong. If it was true,
consciousness would be a 3p notion (both kinetic and temperature are
3p observable), but by showing that the [] and ([]p & p) obey
different logics, despite proving the same 3p sentences p (something
unbelievable for the machine) it justifies a distinct apprehension
of a same truth from the different points of view existing for the
machines.
(Brent:
You're simply assuming it's unaccounted for. The hypothesis was that
there
might be a theory which was successful in "reading minds" and
"predicting
thoughts" based on physical observation of a brain.
Not at all. Predicting is not explaining. Explaining is more in
reducing-without-eliminating.
Brent:
I'd say that is all
that can be done;
I think we can do more.
to ask for more is just anthropic prejudice about what an
explanation should look like - it's like asking, "But why does
gravity want
to pull things together?"
Yes, why? :)
And why gravity at all?
I give you the reason, roughly: it is a consequence of the theory
of simple groups. They encapsulate the diverse symmetries (made
necessary by the "p->[]<>p" laws).
Ah! The number 24 has also some role in there, I feel so.
Sorry David. below you make well the point, I think.
But I strenuously reject that this is a gratuitous assumption in
context. In fact, you appeal to the same assumption in your statements
above. You hypothesise a theory capable of describing and predicting
mental states entirely on the basis of their correlative 3p phenomena.
Any such reduction cannot, even (or especially) in principle, say
anything distinctive about the mental states themselves - the 1p side
of the correlation. In the very enterprise of reducing them to purely
3p terms, *without loss*, it renders itself constitutively incapable
of accounting for them as distinctively irreducible phenomena in their
own right and in their own terms. But then the claim that it is
unreasonable or meaningless to enquire beyond this point, rather than
erecting some absolute barrier, is in practice a constraint of the
particular metaphysical posits one has chosen to work within.
Can't agree more.
By contrast, there is no need to grant the phenomena of temperature
or heat
any such supernumerary reality.
Grant? There's no need to grant anything "reality". It's sort of an
honorific we give to theories we believe (or at least seriously
entertain).
I wouldn't get hung up on any particular language here. I simply meant
that nobody needs, or would seek, to suppose that it is "like
anything" for a system to be at a particular temperature, to put it
baldly. Temperature is ultimately an explanatory device, albeit a
precise, pervasive and extremely useful one. By contrast, only those
on an eliminativist track would seek to deny that it is irreducibly
"like something" for a system to be in a conscious state.
Consequently, in the last resort, we could in principle dispense
altogether with any appeal to the phenomenon of temperature and
nothing essential would change. Temperature is straightforwardly
reducible to its constituent parts *without loss*. It is at this point
that any analogy with consciousness runs out of road.
OK.
Primordial matter, as it were, in its
doings, need take no account of such intermediate levels, which, by
assumption, reduce without loss to some exhaustive set of primordial
entities and relations.
That sounds very anthropomorphic and psychological - as though
primordial
matter was Mother Nature and took account or ignored things. In a
straight
forward mathematical description you can look at a certain integral
and say,
"That's the temperature." and there isn't any formulation in which
such a
value does not appear, it's a necessary aspect.
I have tried to be clear as possible that I am specifically *not*
focusing on modes of explanation here: it's accepted that temperature
is a well-defined and useful explanatory device. My point was
specifically that we do not have to assume that any such intermediate
explanatory level is in any way relevant to the operation of its
(assumed) ontological reduction. In that very specific sense there is
indeed (at least in principle, which is what we are considering here)
a "formulation in which such a value does not appear", and this
without loss to that operation, or indeed any other consideration,
explanation excepted.
The distinctive difference between temperature and consciousness is
then that, although (by assumption) an analogous 3p reduction can in
principle be performed, one can no longer say that this is *without
loss*.
That would indeed reduce the machine/person to the machine's body.
(The body is the 3p self).
The body is the Gödel number with respect to some universal number
neihbors.
I seem to be repeating myself here.
Terrestrial destiny.
In "The hunting of the Snark", you need to repeat it only three
times! :)
But to reiterate once more,
if we are tempted to see this as a sign that the search for further
explanation is futile, we should first reflect whether we have hit the
buffers of a particular explanatory strategy, rather than the limits
of explanation tout court.
Well said.
The problem is that, in the final analysis - and it
is precisely the *final* analysis that we are considering here - such
theories need take no account of any intermediate level of
explanation in
order to qualify as "theories of everything", since any phenomenon
whatsoever, on this species of fundamental accounting, can always be
reduced
without loss to the basic physical activity of the system in question.
Or in Bruno's theory, to the basic arithmetical relations.
Sure, but I don't know why you are ignoring the specific remarks that
I made about this very point. I took pains to explain that it used to
trouble me, as you say above, that the same reduction/elimination
critique could be applied to arithmetical relations. I think somebody
once called this "nothing butting". But on further consideration it
now seems to me that there could be a distinctive and potentially
game-changing difference. That is, the emulation of computation and
hence the universal machine in arithmetic could motivate the missing
relation to a distinctively "supernumerary" domain - the modes of
arithmetical truth - that is both irreducible to its base and
(possibly) demonstrably coterminous with the specifics of 1p
phenomena.
Exactly.
And then by "computer science", we can study what ideally correct
machine can prove about herself, in the 3p way, and study from
outside the field of the machines' body the first person can
identify with, and those are different mathematical structures.
The main variants are:
p
[]p
[]p & p
[]p & <>t
[]p & <>p & p
And this restricted on the sigma_1 sentences, with or without oracles.
It is the incompleteness theorems which makes this nuances making
arithmetical sense (at least).
Three among them splits on the truth/provable-by-the-machine
distinction, which provides for the quanta and qualia distinction.
Of course I claim no technical competence in any such demonstration.
But I can see at least the outline of a re-contextualisation that
might permit the extrapolation of explanation beyond what may well
appear, under different assumptions, as some sort of absolute limit.
Absolutely.
I can understand the instinct again the notion of "first person", as
its invocation *in* science is automatically authoritarian, but this
does not mean it does not exist, nor that it can't be derived from
reasonable assumption.
Bruno
David
On 6/10/2014 4:37 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 10 June 2014 04:09, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
They're "along for the ride" like temperature is alftr on the kinetic
energy of molecules. Before stat mech, heat was regarded as an
immaterial
substance. It was explained by the motion of molecules; something
that is
3p observable but the explanation didn't make it vanish or make it
illusory.
I would argue that, at the ontological level, the explanation *does
indeed*
make heat, or temperature, "illusory". The whole point of the
reduction is
to show that there could not, in principle, be any supernumerary
something
left unaccounted for by an explanation couched exclusively at the
"primordial" level, whatever one takes that to be. Given that this
is the
specific goal of explanatory reduction, what we have here is a precise
dis-analogy, in that there *is indeed* a disturbingly irreducible
something
left behind, or unaccounted for, in the case of consciousness: i.e.
the 1p
experience itself.
You're simply assuming it's unaccounted for. The hypothesis was that
there
might be a theory which was successful in "reading minds" and
"predicting
thoughts" based on physical observation of a brain. I'd say that is
all
that can be done; to ask for more is just anthropic prejudice about
what an
explanation should look like - it's like asking, "But why does
gravity want
to pull things together?"
By contrast, there is no need to grant the phenomena of temperature
or heat
any such supernumerary reality.
Grant? There's no need to grant anything "reality". It's sort of an
honorific we give to theories we believe (or at least seriously
entertain).
One could indeed argue with some force that all such phenomena are
themselves, in fine, specific artefacts, or useful fictions, of
consciousness. That is, they are epistemologically or explanatorily,
as
distinct from ontologically, relevant. Primordial matter, as it
were, in its
doings, need take no account of such intermediate levels, which, by
assumption, reduce without loss to some exhaustive set of primordial
entities and relations.
That sounds very anthropomorphic and psychological - as though
primordial
matter was Mother Nature and took account or ignored things. In a
straight
forward mathematical description you can look at a certain integral
and say,
"That's the temperature." and there isn't any formulation in which
such a
value does not appear, it's a necessary aspect.
This was the entire point of the argument (focused on steps 7 and 8
of the
UDA) that Liz excerpted: that there is a reduction/elimination
impasse that
needs somehow to be bridged by any theory seeking to reconcile
consciousness
and any primordial substratum (or, pace Bruno, hypostase) with which
it is
supposed to be correlated. And hence we have an unavoidable problem,
up to
this point, with theories based on "primordially-explanatory" material
entities and processes. The problem is that, in the final analysis -
and it
is precisely the *final* analysis that we are considering here - such
theories need take no account of any intermediate level of
explanation in
order to qualify as "theories of everything", since any phenomenon
whatsoever, on this species of fundamental accounting, can always be
reduced
without loss to the basic physical activity of the system in question.
Or in Bruno's theory, to the basic arithmetical relations.
Brent
"In the first sense, to be a realist about quantum mechanics is
simply to
think that we should believe in the entities and structures that
subserve
its explanatory hypotheses. Put simply, belief goes along with
explanatory
success. And must be tempered by explanatory failure."
--- Adrian Heathcote, Quantum Heterodxy, Science and Education,
April,
2003.
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