On 10 Nov 2014, at 12:59, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 10 November 2014 11:58, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 9 November 2014 23:16, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>> One could say that if the bill of materials includes the
ingredients
>> and laws governing the interactions between the ingredients, that's
>> everything there is. If seemingly magical things, fairies and
unicorns
>> and conscious beings, come out of the mix that doesn't necessarily
>> mean that the ontological assumptions are deficient, but it may
mean
>> (by elimination) that the beholder's cognitive capacity is limited.
>
>
> AFAICT, the second sentence above stands in direct contradiction
to the
> first. If Graziano *really means to say* that the bill of
materials is
> restricted in the way you suggest - IOW, that it is truly
"everything there
> is" - then he cannot consistently *additionally believe* in either
beholders
> or their cognitive capacity.
Why not, if the bill of materials is sufficient to give rise to
everything else?
I can agree with that, if we are interested only in the 3p
description. But if we are interested in consciousness, and if we
assume computationalism, then the *physical* "raw material" cannot be
used, as the physical laws have to emerge on the first person
indeterminacies, and must be explained also.
> But that conclusion would of course be both
> absurd and is indeed directly contradicted by what he actually
goes on to
> say. Therefore I am forced to conclude that he is simply being
inconsistent
> in his supposed commitment to any such restricted bill of
materials because
> it is obvious that he openly relies on an indefinite variety of
> supernumerary entities and relations that are neither entailed nor
required
> by it.
>
> The only really *consistent* view, under Graziano's presumably
physicalist
> assumptions, would be the elimination of all references to
persons, beliefs,
> cognitive abilities or indeed anything over and above the (assumed)
> fundamental entities and relations of physics. Under his
assumptions,
> nothing whatsoever over and above this fundamental bill of
materials is
> presumed necessary to account for the indefinite evolution of any
physical
> state of affairs, which (lest we forget) is "all there is". What
then is the
> motivation to speak of persons, cognitive abilities or any other
such
> physically redundant conceits? Things are presumed to evolve, in
precisely
> the way they should, without the aid of any such supplementary
notions, are
> they not?
If things evolve without the aid of the supplementary notions that
does not necessarily mean that the supplementary notions are
meaningless, non-existent or unimportant.
I insist that I agree a lot with this. But consciousness does not
arise in that way. It needs a notion of truth, at a level which is
necessarily meta. Mathematical logic is helpful here, if only in
making such nuance clear on simple theories. Then we can extrapolate
on humans, thanks to comp, and thanks to the fact that we need only to
study ideal observers to retrieve the physical laws.
The amazing thing is that the laws of physics are independent of the
choice of the TOE, as long as that TOE is rich enough to be sigma_1
complete, that is, is able to prove the stopping of all stopping
computations. Physics is invariant for the choice of the "base" for
describing the phi_i, as it comes from the sum of all sigma_1
sentences, which is the same whatever "rich" ontology we take.
It does not (yet) give a practical physics, but it guaranties the
epistemological existence of both matter and consciousness, and
provides an important role for consciousness (a self-speeding ability
relative to other universal machines/numbers).
No doubt physicalist want eliminate consciousness, because
consciousness is the little detail which kill any theory which avoids
the distinction between []p and [] & p. But with comp, without that
distinction, we eliminate both consciousness *and* matter, so
Graziano, indeed, is left without not much to talk about. Just 3p
extensional number theory (which is nice, but is not able per se to
explain neither matter, nor consciousness).
Bruno
> Graziano aim is to single out "consciousness" for special
attention, but the
> uncomfortable fact is that this particular razor has a very much
more
> radical scope. It carries on slicing until the very conceptual
structures he
> seeks to spare, and on which he continues to rely, lie in tatters.
But then,
> a conclusion as radical as *that* wouldn't leave him with very
much more to
> say, would it? Even more problematically, it wouldn't leave *him*
at all.
>
> David
>
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