On 14 Oct 2014, at 15:40, David Nyman wrote:
On 13 October 2014 16:05, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
That is the difference between []p and []p & p. The difference is
null, extensionally, from the point of view or the arithmetical
truth. But the difference is huge from both the body and soul points
of view. Neither []p nor []p & p will ever justify or know that []p
and []p & p define the same set of beliefs or knowledge. True, but
unjustifiable.
Graziano writes:
"But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression;
there is only information in a data-processing device. When we look
at a red apple, the brain computes information about color. It also
computes information about the self and about a (physically
incoherent) property of subjective experience. The brain's cognitive
machinery accesses that interlinked information and derives several
conclusions: There is a self, a me; there is a red thing nearby;
there is such a thing as subjective experience; and I have an
experience of that red thing. Cognition is captive to those internal
models. Such a brain would inescapably conclude it has subjective
experience."
If I understand you correctly, what he is describing above is []p.
What is missing from his account is []p & p, presumably because he
has concluded that a belief in p is sufficient in the absence of p!
Note that he states (correctly) that p is "physically incoherent",
which gives a clue to his prior ontological commitments. Of course
[]p is a necessary component of the account, but it is not
sufficient. Indeed the fact that it is necessary is often
incompletely grasped (e.g. in Craig's theory) but it's insufficiency
can also be elusive, especially for those in the grip of a dogma. If
it were indeed sufficient, then neither matter nor arithmetic could
entail more than a wilderness of zombies.
What bamboozles this kind of reductionism is that p cannot be
propositionally justified. It is not another proposition but rather
the truth of the propositions that correctly refer to it. Hence its
absence would force rejection of the veracity of all claims to its
possession. It would force not only the conclusion that the
propositionally-correct claims of others are false, but that our own
are equally in error. In other words, that both they and we are
zombies. This is, in effect, what Graziano is claiming, however
absurdly, in the above passage. I don't agree with Stathis that he
is really making a claim of epiphenomenalism; he is clear enough
that "the argument here is that there is no subjective impression".
He really is claiming that there are only zombies despite all
propositional claims to the contrary.
OK.
One might think that, stated as baldly as this, such a conclusion
would be as effective a reductio as one could wish. After all, "When
one has eliminated the impossible......etc." However, when one has a
prior commitment to third-person absolutism (to cite Professor
Dennett's personal epithet) it may only be acceptable to believe
that "whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". Such
a position might seem to be unsustainable in practice without
resorting to what one might call metaphysical and conceptual grand
larceny. In other words, it's pretty much impossible for discussion
of such a schema to proceed without constant reference to first-
personal phenomena and concepts (beginning with "we" and "our") that
can have no ultimate validity in its own terms.
I've been re-reading Patricia Churchland recently in a sincere
attempt to understand this kind of position in a more nuanced way,
and her view is that, in terms of some ultimate neuroscience, all
such first-person concepts will be completely eliminable. That is,
she believes that a future neuroscience will be capable of fully
characterising a mechanism that "computes" the existence of first-
person phenomena when "in reality" they are entirely fictitious. The
theory of such a mechanism, in her view, will simply eliminate our
current "folk theory" of the first-person much as the modern theory
of combustion has replaced that of phlogiston. This seems pretty
close to what Graziano is saying in this piece. It's at least a
mercy that Churchland thinks that such a goal lies beyond any
current conceptual horizon and hence a long way in the future, so we
may get to linger here a little longer before the grin disappears
with the rest of the cat.
If Churchland logic is applied in the case of comp, it leads to the
the idea that not only the first person is eliminated, but also all
references to the gluons, quarks, electron, bosons, fermions, waves,
probability, taxes, etc. All we have is elementary arithmetic.
perhaps that is right at the ontological level, but of course, the
intersting things like matter, life and consciousness are in the
mathematics, in part, and in the theology which is the base of the
epistemologies/hypostases. It is provably a science in the eye of God,
but the machine cannot know that and can only apply it at their own
risk and peril. Proselytism makes comp inconsistent, in particular.
Frankly, I conclude that there's no arguing with some people.
Everyone interested can see the point, but I am afraid we will try a
bit more of obscurantism for some centuries.
The lack of the ability to be serious on this is holy bread for the
person manipulators.
If the human eliminates the person, the machine will eliminate the
human.
Bruno
David
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