Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 11 May 2015, at 09:14, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Hmm... On the contrary: the brain is necessary. It is the primitive
physicalness of the brain which is not relevant.
That is not what you say in the paper. "Hence, consciousness is not a
physical phenomenon, nor can it be a phenomenon relating to observed
matter at all."
That is in the context of keeping physical supervenience, to go toward
the absurdity.
The brain is necessary, like all universal and non universal numbers in
the relevant relations.
It is just hat the "physical brains" are the result of the FPI on an
infinity of computations.
As I said to Brent, if consciousness supervenes on physical brains, and
all the evidence says that it does, and consciousness is to come from
the dovetailer states, then so do all the physical laws that describe
the operation of the physical brain -- not from some different set of
dovetailer states, but from the *same* states. And if these laws are to
be consistent across the whole observable universe for all observable
time, then all of these, and all other existing and previously existing
consciousnesses, must come from *exactly the same* set of dovetailer
states. You can't pick subsets of states to give one bit and other
subsets to give different bits because you could not in this way ensure
consistency.
Only one state is then needed, or at most a set of states of zero
measure in the sum. All other states would not be consistent with what
is observed. The FPI of quantum MWI is also a deterministic result --
Everettian QM follows from a deterministic physical law, so it must come
from consistent states -- not just a random assortment.
Given this, the MGA appears to be irrelevant to the main argument,
whether the MGA is valid or not becomes unimportant. It does not support
the idea that primitive matter can be ruled out. It cannot support the
idea that physical supervenience is false, since we know that it is not.
So what does the MGA accomplish?
I reduce the mind-body problem to the problem of explaining the belief
by machine in bodies, using as theory of mind computationalism +
computer science.
You go on to say that the appearance of matter cannot be based on a
notion of primitive matter.
Yes. When assuming comp, with comp in the sense of Church-Turing. (Not
in the sense of some notion of physical computation, which I consider as
a physical implementation of a computation)
But primitive matter, and the concept of such, does not appear in the
argument, so you have not eliminated the possibility of primitive
matter. Not that physics necessarily believes in primitive matter,
either. Physicists usually assumes a stance of scientific realism, which
is just the assumption that the nature and laws of the external world,
whatever they are, are independent of us. The purpose of science is then
to explore the observed world and elucidate the laws that govern the
behaviour we observe. The, as Brent often says, the fundamental ontology
is theory dependent; it is liable to change as we replace theories by
more successful ones. Few people assume that 'matter', in some undefined
sense, is the primitive 'ur-stuff' of the universe.
Bruce
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