On 7/4/2014 2:05 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 July 2014 19:21, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
If the latter, simple reductive
analogies like house-bricks, or society-people, can sometimes help to
convey the idea that any exhaustively reductive material schema
necessarily *eliminates* its ontological composites
That's just your definition of eliminates. Mountains are made of rocks,
therefore mountains don't exist.
I can't help feeling that you're leaning rather too heavily on "just"
here. A contradiction is not an argument (at least according to Monty
Python). However, you've said nothing so far to make me relinquish
this definition, in the *ontological* sense. For some reason you
ignore the distinction I've repeatedly drawn between the ontological
and epistemological aspects of a theory. Do you wish to say that
mountains have *ontological* significance *in addition* to the rocks
that comprise them?
Yes. There could be rocks without there being mountains.
We accept of course that they exist
*epistemologically* (i.e. as objects of knowledge from the point of
view of a knower), but we can't adduce that fact, a posteriori, in
support of their having any *ontological* purchase independent of
their components.
Can you define "ontological purchase"?
To remind you why I suppose this to be of interest, what is true for
mountains must hold for any other derivative of "physically-primitive"
entities and relations. Hence it must hold for any physical
"computer", whether that be a PC or (putatively) a brain. On this
analysis, a PC or a brain are *ontologically* (i.e. in terms of the
target theory) nothing more than physically-primitive entities in
primary relation. We have already agreed that, ex hypothesi, nothing
further is required (or could be allowed) in accounting for their
physical evolution. Physical systems of any description are
hypothesised to transition from state to state entirely in terms of
the relations of their physical primitives.
What then is "physical computation" in this schema? It can only be a
second-order relational concept involving what are already composites
of the physical primitives in which such putative relata are grounded.
Hence, a fortiori, it can have no claim to independent ontological
(i.e. "physical") significance.
Why not. I think you're relying on loaded language like "second-order" to imply your
conclusion. Why are "second order" relations not real? What are "first order" relations?
It merely degenerates to the
self-sufficient micro-evolution of some aggregation of physical
primitives; whatever is not entirely "micro-physical" is a further
attribution *from the perspective of some implicit theory of
knowledge*. To put it baldly, computation, in terms of any theory
grounded in physically-primitive relations, isn't a "further physical
fact"; it just *looks* as if it is. Consequently it can hardly be a
viable candidate for a "physical correlate" of consciousness, since
such correlation can be defined only in terms of what is to be
explained.
But you can say exactly the same about numbers and arithmetical relations, or for that
matter souls and spirits. It seems to me you have taken consciousness to be fundamental -
except where you choose not to. Either consciousness can be explained in terms of
something that is not consciousness or it's fundamental. To a large degree this depends
on what you mean by "explain". I think being able to engineer intelligent, conscious-like
behavior is a good empirical standard of "explain". What would you count as an explanation?
And isn't that just a confirmation of my point that engineering
consciousness is possible, but the "hard problem" is asking a question such
that the asker will never be satisfied with any answer.
You were responding to Bruno rather than me here, but I must say I
can't see that you've really said anything to justify this assertion.
ISTM at least as much a case of your own distaste for certain kinds of
question.
Whenever I consider a question I ask myself what would an answer look like?
Brent
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