On 7/8/2014 4:26 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le 9 juil. 2014 01:09, "meekerdb" <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> a
écrit :
>
> On 7/8/2014 3:26 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>>
>>
>> Le 8 juil. 2014 22:56, "meekerdb" <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> a écrit :
>> >
>> > On 7/8/2014 12:57 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> 2014-07-08 21:23 GMT+02:00 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>:
>> >>>
>> >>> On 7/8/2014 11:56 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> 2014-07-08 20:47 GMT+02:00 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> On 7/8/2014 10:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> On 07 Jul 2014, at 21:13, meekerdb wrote:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> On 7/7/2014 8:14 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> On 6 July 2014 04:18, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> >> Yes, but it's a theory of epistemology "after the physical
fact". It
>> >>>>>>>>> >> assumes without further justification what it wishes to prove,
>> >>>>>>>>> >
>> >>>>>>>>> > No, it defines a certain kind of belief, just as Bruno identifies
>> >>>>>>>>> belief with "provable in some axiomatic system" (which you
>> >>>>>>>>> must admit is not a standard meaning of "belief") one can identify
>> >>>>>>>>> belief with certain actions in context. I don't know what you
>> >>>>>>>>> mean by "after the physical fact". If it's a physical theory of
>> >>>>>>>>> belief then of course it's explained in terms of physical facts.
You
>> >>>>>>>>> seem to reject this as though it's obviously wrong.
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> Not wrong, just not the whole story. My argument has been that any
>> >>>>>>>> "mechanism of belief" that is hierarchically reducible to a finite
set
>> >>>>>>>> of (assumptive) primitives cannot thereafter rely on the
(supposedly)
>> >>>>>>>> independent effectiveness of derivative notions such as computation
as
>> >>>>>>>> the basis of its "mechanism of knowledge".
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> That sentence seems to just assume what it purports to argue. Why
"idependent"; why not "dependent"? What exactly does it mean to "rely on" in an
explanation? I think it only means that the explanan is understandable. Your argument
would appear to apply to every reductive explanation in the hierarchy - but the
hierarchy only exists in virtue of the explanations.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> This is essentially the
>> >>>>>>>> same conclusion as MGA or Maudlin and amounts to an insistence on
what
>> >>>>>>>> is most powerful in reductive explanation (i.e. the redundancy of
>> >>>>>>>> intermediate "levels of effectiveness") .
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> But, as I've argued elsewhere, the MGA and Olympia arguments don't prove what
they are generally taken to prove. Reduction must always be applied to an isolated
system, which MGA attempts to sneak in by assuming a dream state. But even dreams
obtain their meaning from outside referents.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> But you don't ask the doctor to copy the outside referents, and that is enough
to make the MGA doing its job.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> My not asking is enough?? I think you mean that if he did copy the outside
referents then the argument would go through.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> So for MGA to go through, he does not have to... because MGA is the
following.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Assumptions:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> 1- You have a digital conscious program
>> >>>> 2- You can record the input of that program (and of course you can, because of
assumption 1)
>> >>>> 3- You effectively record the input of the program for a certain period of time
(with the correct timing) where it is conscious in "our world/reality"
>> >>>> 4- you *replay* that input
>> >>>>
>> >>>> It is clear by 4 that at that stage you do not need any "external" world beside
the recorded input. By assumption 1, if the program is conscious, it is still conscious
while having the recorded input as input.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> But would it still be consciousness if there were no world that provided
referents for the program? It's the relation to an external world that allows digits and
numbers to be *about* something;
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> No the relations are to the machine running the program, any universal machine
does the job.
>> >
>> >
>> > That makes no sense to me. It would mean that when I'm running a simulation of an
aircraft that the variables that mean latitude and longitude get that meaning from the
Intel CPU.
>>
>> The meaning is relative to the interpreter, so relative to the program itself. What
you're saying is that if you run a simulation of a flying aircraft it has no meaning if
you don't look at it... would you go as far as to say nothing was computed/simulated if
you don't look at it?
>
>
> No, not necessarily me. But it needs to interact with the world.
No a program interacts with its inputs and that's all.
The computation might be in the aircraft's navigation computer in which case it might
deflect control surfaces to keep the aircraft on course - so it's meaning would be clear
from the action. My consciousness is no different than the computer's, my brain
instantiates meaning by reference to my relation with the world.
>
>
>> also with Mga by hypothesis the computation support a conscious moment
>
>
> Isn't it supposed to be a proof,
No it's assumption number 1!
not an hypothesis, that shows no physical action is necessary to instantiate
consciousness.
the proof that mga gives is a reductio assumibg it's the physical instantiation that
gives the computation reality. The conscious computation is assumed at the start given
the requirement that we are in a computationalist settings...
Yes, it assumes a computation can have meaning in itself without referents. But that
seems like a dubious assumption to me. How then do you answer the paradox of the
conscious rock?
mga is about physical instantiation.
That's what I said. And I think it fails to show that no physical instantiation is
necessary because it relies on the meaning given to the original computational sequence to
impute meaning to the MG.
Brent
--
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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
