Bruno Marchal wrote:
From step 0 to step 7, it is purely deductive. Step 8 uses Occam. In
fact with a stronger form of Occam, you get the complete reversal at
step 7. Step 8 is more subtle, and only weakened the use of Occam razor
by showing explicitly that you need the primary stuff to have a non
Turing emulable components to incarnate consciousness.
There is a problem in that you appear to claim that your use of Occam's
razor amounts to a deductive argument. It is not; it can only ever be a
motivation for an arbitrary choice at some point in a discussion.
Let me recap the way I understand your argument that comp entails
immaterialism. It seems to boil down to the argument that since you
propose to recover physics by interrogating the machine through the UDA,
then physics is unnecessary. So by Occam you simply eliminate it. But
this is not a logical derivation, and it does not have the force of
logical entailment. It simply means no more than that mathematics and
physics are compatible. It is perfectly possible that the material
physical universe exists quite independently of arithmetic, and, in
fact, that the physical entails the mathematics. In other words, that
arithmetic is derived from the physical.
You have not refuted this possibility, you have simply chosen to take
the entailment in the other direction. Occam does not do the work you
require of it here.
Bruce
Some argue that AUDA is enough impressive to use the weak Occam already
at step seven, but I doubt that, and as few people get really AUDA (as
they ignore basic theoretical computer science), I continue to insist
also on step 8. It is also useful for people unaware of the mind-body
problem.
Bruno
--
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.
