Hi,
I comment the conversation.
On 12 Mar 2015, at 09:15, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 1:18 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 3/10/2015 4:35 PM, LizR wrote:
On 11 March 2015 at 08:30, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
If I develop a theory of consciousness that consists of statements
about neurons and chemicals and ion flux and it predicts when we
will see a person behaving in the way we call conscious and when
not; even predicting when they will appear sad or happy or angry.
Is that not a falsifiable, material theory of consciousness?
Couldn't its predictions be empirically wrong?
On the contrary Brent, if your theory predicts everything from the
simple dynamics of neurons (or combinators or numbers), then, why
would we need consciousness, why would a first person view have any
sense, or any way to have a role for any situation.
The hard problem of consciousness, which is the antic mind-body
problem (at the origin of the religion as attempt to answer the
question, then misused by the usual special interests).
If we take seriously that theory, you explain consciousness away.
It is just *not* a theory of consciousness.
It would be almost the same error as explaining why Deep blues won a
Chess play, by calling the boolean laws of the computer, or the
quantum laws sustaining that classical computer. Deep blues did not
won because of those rules, but won thanks to higher level rules,
typically independent of the implementation, and whose object concern
game and chess.
I say "almost", because this way of proceeding makes something worst:
it makes the soul, free-will, psychology and theology disappears, if
not biology.
René Thom said it: predicting is not the same as explaining all what
is concerned with the events.
Somehow, you pave the road of the elimininativist here, and you do,
two confusions (with all my respect and friendship I hope you don't
doubt about that):
1) You confuse two levels of explanation. In arithmetic this will be
like explaining what some numbers is doing by explaining the universal
number which support the number's doing.
2) You don't listen to the numbers. You only listen to the numbers'
father or mother. Where here the father or mothers are the universal
numbers which sustain the play of the numbers. This means here that
you abstract away from machine self-reference.
Yes of course they could. That isn't at issue, as far as I know.
Right. Liz. That theory is falsifiable, unfortunately it simply does
not address the hard problem of consciousness, nor the hard problem of
primary matter. (the hard problem of matter is "is there a physical
universe, and what does that mean")
It is almost an admittance that there is no problem, given than we can
keep the third person talk. There is a choice of level: that universal
number (defining some quantum vaccuum, for example), and saying:
that's it! We have understand everything!
But logicians knows that even for elementary arithmetic, this does not
happen.
Simple combinatorial laws, be it in the integers or in the reals,
quickly lead to problems which need higher more complex principles to
be explained.
We already know that empirically: biology is supported by physics, but
already not completely explained by physics, with new biochemical
principles, and crazy molecular combinations. The DNA polymerase of
Escherichia Coli has any right to be claimed as existing as the Boson
of Higgs-Englert-Brout.
Then came the self-reference, and the fact that when universal numbers
wake up near Platonia, they put some mess in Platonia. Don't confuse
Platonia before and after Gödel.
And if they were wrong, wouldn't they be equally wrong whether or
not primary materialism (whatever that means) were true.
Yes, that was my point.
Primary materialism is the theory that there is no deeper
explanation for existence (or consciousness, specifically, in this
discussion) than the fact that matter exists. In discussions on
this list "primary materialism" is often abbreviated to just
"materialism", presumably to save time and wear and tear on the
fingers / keyboards of those involved.
Yes. In philosophy of mind, "materialism" is usually used for saying
matter, and only matter. Matter exists, and all the rest emerge from
the laws of elementary conceptually material objects (fields, waves,
particles, strings, ...).
It is an interesting hypothesis, but with computationalism, much more
needs to be explained, as my current state of mind is related to an
infinity of universal numbers, not just one. So if it looks like there
is one, we must find the trick that some universal numbers would be
able to do to win, so to speak, our ... attention. (About attention, I
appreciate Graziano's approach, no apparent problem with
computationalism, but I agree with Stathis: he does not address the
hard problem).
I seems to me there's confusion between falsifying the theory that
matter is primary and falsifying a materialistic theory of
consciousness. Here's the relevant excerpts of the thread I was
addressing:
======================
Menezes: This is, however, not true of the hypothesis that
consciousness is an epiphenomena of matter. That is a materialist
theory, and it's also peepee (no falsifiability, no explanatory
power, no ability to predict anything).
Clark: >> it's irrelevant if matter is fundamental or not, either
way it wouldn't change the fact that a non-materialistic theory [of
consciousness] is not falsifiable.
Menezes:> Nor is a materialistic theory falsifiable.
Clark: if no materialistic theory is falsifiable and no non-
materialistic theory is falsifiable then no theory is falsifiable
and science does not exist.
LizR: Strictly speaking that isn't correct. All one can deduce is
that science is agnostic on whether materialism is correct or
not, which leaves it plenty of scope to find other stuff out.
(Bear in mind that materialism in this context is shorthand for
primary materialism.)
==========================
I agree with your point that science is agnostic about (fundamental)
materialism; in fact "matter" has been redefined and abstracted so
much in theoretical physics that its definition is almost reduced to
circularity: Matter is whatever satisfies the equations about matter.
Ok.
OK.
But then we are far away from Brent's ostensive definition of matter.
Which I appreciate (I think it is of type []p & <>t & p)
Equations are not observed, they are inferred, through theories or set
of temporary beliefs and bets. (type []p, or []p & <>t)
But the original discussion between Telmo and John was about whether
a materialist theory of consciousness was possible. Telmo seemed to
think no materialist theory was falsifiable and John thought no
theory of consciousness was falsifiable. And so they agreed that no
materialist theory of consciousness was falsifiable.
I agree with this with reservations. There might be some fundamental
insight that we are missing.
Computationalism falsifies not just Materialism, but all "ism" based
on the choice of one particular universal number.
Yet, it invites to bet on one, and to try to justify it from that
universal numbers competitions, but there is a shortcut through an
invariant: self-referential correctness, which associates the type
above).
With comp the exact theory is useless. To predict exactly your future
state, you need to interview infinitely often an infinity of universal
numbers, with oracles. But the theory does have higher level pattern,
notably capable of explaining the justifiable and the existence of the
non justifiable part of the theory. That obeys laws too, as we know
since Gödel, Löb, Solovay, to mention a tiny minority of a part of the
mathematical logic story.
I disagreed on both counts and provided an example.
But you ask for strong assumptions that cannot be verified.
OK.
Bruno
Telmo.
Brent
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