On 3/10/2015 1:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
My view is that modern science mostly gives us no reason to prefer materialism or non-materialism. Bruno's Universal Dovetailer Argument convinced me that there are empirical reasons to prefer non-materialism, given that I find computationalism highly plausible, and his argument shows that computationalism and materialism are incompatible. I know you don't accept the argument, but I haven't found any flaw in it (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
So what exactly is the incompatibility? Bruno takes computation to be fundamental, but he agrees that it must produce physics as well as consciousness. I think he agrees that the physics is necessary for the existence of consciousness - at least human-like consciousness. And he often makes the point that physics assumes matter BUT it doesn't need to assume matter is fundamental, or even define matter. In fact physics redefines matter as it develops theories. The only thing I see as the essence of "matter" is that it's something we can agree on via ostensive definitions. It's not personal, as consciousness seems to be. So it may not be able to explain consciousness. But it's not really incompatibility for one to theory that take computation to be fundamental and another theory to take something else as fundamental. Incompatibility would mean they predict contrary things, not that they make different assumptions in reaching the prediction.
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