On Monday, June 8, 2015, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > On 8 June 2015 at 05:08, Bruno Marchal <[email protected] > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote: > >> >> On 07 Jun 2015, at 18:35, John Clark wrote: >> >> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 Bruno Marchal <[email protected] >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote: >> >> >> An event is just a place and a time; are you saying that mathematics >>>> is incapable of handling 4 coordinates? >>> >>> >>> > Of course, applied mathematics exists, and you can represent event in >>> mathematics, but you shopuld not confuse something (a physical event) and >>> its mathematical representation. >>> >> >> I am not confusing that but I think sometimes you might be confusing a >> physical thing with the language (mathematics) the descriptive >> representation of the thing is presented in. Or maybe not, maybe you're >> right and mathematics is more than just a language and is more fundamental >> than physics; nobody knows including you. >> >> Nobody can know. But we can reason from hypothesis. With the >> computationalist hypothesis, the immateriality of consciousness is >> contagious on the possible environment. Nobody pretends this is obvious, >> especially for people stuck at the step 3. >> >> The question being asked is, why hypothesis best explains consciousness? > Comp attempts to take the default materialist assumption, that > consciousness is a (very, very complicated) form of computation, and to > derive results from that assumption. > > Hence what I've called comp1 is the default materialist hypothesis (also > known as the strong AI thesis, I think) - this is more or less equivalent > to the idea that a computer could, given a suitable programme and > resources, be conscious. From this Bruno attempts to show, via a chain of > reasoning, that the computations involved have to take place in > arithmetical reality ("Platonia"). This conclusion I call comp2. The task > of anyone who disagrees is simply to show that comp2 doesn't follow from > comp1. > > There are various ways to try to show this. One is to doubt the starting > assumptions ("comp1"). The starting assumptions include the idea that > simple arithmetic exists independently of mathematicians - that 2+2=4 was > true in the big bang, for example. The universe appears to obey certain > bits of methematics to high precision, or alternatively you could say that > various bits of maths appear to correctly describe the behaviour of the > universe and its constituents to high precision. So that is the "which > comes first?" question, which as you correctly say we can't know (indeed we > can't know anything, if "know" means justified true belief, apart from the > fact that we are conscious, as Descartes mentioned). So one can doubt comp1 > by doubting either that consciousness is a computation, or that maths > exists independently of mathematicians. > > Then one can doubt the steps of the argument. I personally find little to > doubt, assuming comp1, until we reach step 7 or 8, or whichever step is the > MGA. (There has been a lot of heat about pronouns, but as far as I can see > this hasn't made a dent in the arguments presented.) > > So the other main point of attack is at the comp2 end, so to speak, with > the MGA. There is Brent's "light cone" argument, which IMHO seems > unconvincing because one can make a "cut" between a brain and the world > along the sensory nerves - this is basically saying that a person could be > a brain in a vat, and never know it. But it also fails if one can in theory > have an AI, because an AI is by hyopthesis a digital machine and could > therefore could be re-run and given the same inputs, and due to the nature > of computation would have to repeat the same conscious experiences. And > then that description falls foul of Bruno/Maudlin's argument about leeching > away the material support for the computation until it is turned into a > replayed recording. At this point we can use "Russell's paradox" - sorry, I > mean argument - that a recording of such complexity may indeed be > conscious. The MGA seems to hand-wave a bit about this whole process - like > the Chinese room, we "simply" record the activities of the processing > devices and then "simply' project the movie onto the system, and so on, > leaving aside the Vast size of the envisaged apparatus. Nevertheless, if we > assume comp1 then we assume by hypothesis that a recording isn't conscious > (only a computation can be conscious, according to comp1). >
It seems here that you've snuck an extra assumption into comp1. We know that brains can be conscious, and we assume that computations can also be conscious. But that doesn't mean that only computations can be conscious, nor does it mean that brains are computations. These two latter statements might be true, but they are not necessarily true, even given computationalism. > So that's really a comp1 objection. > > So the question in the end is which is the most reasonable hypothesis. How > does materialism explain consciousness? How does comp explain the > appearance of a material universe? > > Over to you. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list%[email protected]');> > . > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
