On 24 July 2014 22:18, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > To put it another way, there is nobody present for whom it could represent a difference. > > It still exist, or the difference 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... will need itself a knower to make sense. But > with comp, we don't need more than the elementary arithmetic truth, to eventually make a > knower by filtering the truth by a body or a representational set of beliefs.
Well I think, in a curious way, it may indeed need a knower to make sense. I'm trying to explain one of my "early morning" intuitions here, which I find hard to do in an everyday state of consciousness. And of course it may just be misleading, which is why I'm trying to be explicit about it. My point is this: comp is explicitly a theory of consciousness. So let's assume that comp is indeed the *correct* theory of consciousness, and that number relations accurately represent its "true" ontology. If so, that ontology (as a consequence of its computational and logical elaborations) *explicitly entails* a knower, in both the 3p and 1p senses. Indeed, the explicit entailment of such a knower is ultimately what justifies, or redeems, the original assumption of the correctness of both the theory (comp) and its ontological assumptions *as a theory of consciousness*. ISTM then that, if comp is correct, it follows that there is a mutual entailment: arithmetic<=>consciousness. We should perhaps take pause at this point and contemplate what would be, if true, a world-shattering discovery. Now let us consider the (by assumption, counterfactual) case that comp were to have been proved false and hence that there was NO such mutual entailment. Would it not be, at the least, inconsistent to take exactly the same view of arithmetic in that case? Could arithmetic continue to represent, so to speak, exactly the "same thing" for us? If not, then (assuming comp), there may indeed be an unavoidable sense in which it might indeed require a knower to "make sense" even of basic number relations. By the same line of argument, if comp is correct, it would follow that bare physicalism (i.e. without supernumerary computational assumptions) fails as a correct theory of consciousness precisely because, properly understood, its ontology doesn't entail or require the existence of a knower. IOW, such a theory can't help but "sweep the first-person under the rug". In this case the absence of a knower nullifies, rather than justifying or redeeming, the postulated ontology. And this limitation may be a direct consequence of any theory that is explicitly about what is observable (tacitly assuming a God's-eye knower/interpreter) as distinct from a theory of observation (explicitly embracing a theory of what is observable). > We the computational histories existe "logically" before the consciousness flux differentiate > into knower interpreting themselves, if we want use the computation as defined in the usual 3p > theoretical computer science. I agree, but if my preceding argument has any merit, the logical existence of the computational histories and the differentiation of the consciousness flux into self-interpreting knowers are not logically independent, but rather *mutually dependent*. > In that case there could be no effective distinction between "Deep Blue" and > its physical > reduction, > > Why? That's not true. In UD* Deep blue has the time to play basically all > chess games, > perhaps even with all humans, much before the UD get > the simulation of our good "real blue" at > the level of the atoms of its > late real "incarnation". Well, I trust you may have begun to get my drift by now. My claim is that (assuming comp) Deep Blue, considered as an entity distinct from its many reductions within UD*, is ultimately dependent (as is each and every aspect of the comp schema) on the mutual entailment of arithmetic and the conscious knower. As I said, this dependency is sometimes difficult to appreciate because we tacitly smuggle God in as the "default knower" that continues to observe and "interpret" Deep Blue even in the (counterfactual) case that there is no other possible observer/interpreter. This tacit supernumerary assumption is what may make it seem plausible that there is no need of a knower for such a distinction to be relevant (i.e. that realism about Deep Blue is justified in the absence of any possible knower). > The soul has a third person origin, even God has a third person origin, as the outer God is a > "complete" 3p reality (arithmetical truth, or the sigma_1 part). Again, I agree. Indeed ISTM that this is an absolutely essential aspect of any theory that has any hope of being a correct "theory of everything", as I keep trying to point out to Craig. But my argument is that we must surely treat every part of the theory - formal or informal, 3p or 1p - with equal seriousness. Thus it is essential that there be a "complete" 3p reality that is coterminous with a specific aspect of arithmetical truth. But it is equally essential that this 3p reality is complemented, one might even say "redeemed", as a TOE, by the further entailment of the explicitly 1p logical modalities of the conscious knower. So it is only with comp's 1p apotheosis, in the form of those modalities and that knower, that we can see the sense in which fire can finally be breathed into the equations. > What might prevent us from seeing this is that we can't help imagining the proposed scenario > from a God's-eye perspective. God then takes the role of the knower and "sees" that Deep > Blue is still there. Thus we have unwittingly justified our ascription of "Deep Blue" to some > aspect of the generalised ontology by "divine retrospection". > > That makes sense. The outer God gave rise to the inner God which contemplate the outer > God, and eventually they can join, and separate again, in the course of many lives, inside and > in between people. Exactly. I think that seeing this may help to clarify my meaning. I hope. > I am rereading the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita, it might help for this. Cool :-) David > > > On 23 Jul 2014, at 21:59, David Nyman wrote: > > On 23 July 2014 18:25, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > >> You miss, and perhaps David's too (?), the fact that above a threshold of >> relative complexity, the lower level is not relevant for the description of >> the higher level. It would be like asking "why Obama has been elected?", and >> getting back the answer: everything followed the SWE. > > > Hmm...Well, I originally suggested that the knower *couldn't* simply be > reduced to computation or numbers, unlike the case of physical reducibility. > In my view, the presence of a 1p knower is what "retrospectively" justifies > realism about higher-level 3p structures with which the knower is to be > associated. To see what I mean, let's assume that there is some putative > ontology that can't in principle be used to justify the presence of such a > knower. Any higher-level scenario conceived in terms of such an ontology is > then vulnerable to a particularly pernicious species of "zombie > reductionism". It isn't merely that the radical absence of first person-hood > leaves in its wake nothing but zombies with 3p functional bodies but no > "consciousness". It's much more radical than that. The zombie body is now > radically lacking in "existence-for-itself". Consequently, the distinction > between any such putative "body" and its ontological reduction is a > differentiation without a difference. To put it another way, there is nobody > present for whom it could represent a difference. > > > It still exist, or the difference 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... will need itself a > knower to make sense. But with comp, we don't need more than the elementary > arithmetic truth, to eventually make a knower by filtering the truth by a > body or a representational set of beliefs. > > Rough artificial cops on the road, made in woods are zombies, but their > existence still makes senses in the 3p, for a putative observer present of > not. > > We the computational histories existe "logically" before the consciousness > flux differentiate into knower interpreting themselves, if we want use the > computation as defined in the usual 3p theoretical computer science. > > > > > I realise this may be difficult to accept, for example in the case of Deep > Blue that you posed to me. However, imagine re-posing this case with respect > to an ontology with which (let us assume) a knower could not *in principle* > be associated. > > > That might not be as easy as you think, but let us see. > > > > > In that case there could be no effective distinction between "Deep Blue" and > its physical reduction, > > > Why? That's not true. In UD* Deep blue has the time to play basically all > chess games, perhaps even with all humans, much before the UD get the > simulation of our good "real blue" at the level of the atoms of its late real > "incarnation". > > Even in the 3p, Deep blue is already more in its code, goal, strategies, > examples, and high level skills, like his elementary belief in a the token of > the game, the position on the chessboard. Even that "abstract guy" would > "survive", if we implement it in the Babbage machine. It is not a knower in > the comp sense, because it has no well defined set of beliefs that he can > express, but it might already experience something, hard to say without > looking at the code (I think it is still in large part brut force, and that > it does not represent itself to play, so we have not enough to apply > Theaetetus). > > > > > > since we have ruled out, by assumption, the possibility of persons to whom > this could represent a difference. > > > Except the difference between being, and not being, relatively to some > universal reality. > > The soul has a third person origin, even God has a third person origin, as > the outer God is a "complete" 3p reality (arithmetical truth, or the sigma_1 > part). > > > > > What might prevent us from seeing this is that we can't help imagining the > proposed scenario from a God's-eye perspective. God then takes the role of > the knower and "sees" that Deep Blue is still there. Thus we have unwittingly > justified our ascription of "Deep Blue" to some aspect of the generalised > ontology by "divine retrospection". > > > > That makes sense. The outer God gave rise to the inner God which contemplate > the outer God, and eventually they can join, and separate again, in the > course of many lives, inside and in between people. > > With comp the outer god, "the ontological basic reality" is a 3p structure, > just enough infinite. It is an open question if this is conscious, and > "willing". Plotinus also has difficulty there. I guess it is the abramanic > jump, ... open question. I search. > > I am rereading the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita, it might help for this. > > Bruno > > > > > David > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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