On 04 Oct 2015, at 23:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 10/4/2015 10:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Oct 2015, at 02:02, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 10/2/2015 8:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So much the worse for the computationalist doctrine! It becomes
a matter of unverifiable faith,
I think that it is important in our context that the belief in
any reality (different from my consciousness here-and-now)
requires unverifiable faith.
The implication that any belief that is not verified in held on
faith is a rhetorical trick. There are degrees of belief which
should be proportioned to the evidence. That the evidence doesn't
rise to the level of verification (certainty?) doesn't make my
belief the sun will rise tomorrow a matter of faith.
But at the level of rigor we need to dialog on what should be
really assumed at the start, or not, we must admit that believing
that the sun will rise tomorrow requires faith.
Only if "believing" means to hold as certain.
On the contrary, we need faith because that can be justifiable in a
way that we can be certain about it.
Faith is required *because* we lack certainty.
I'm not even sure what you might mean by "requires faith"? Does it
just mean to act even without certainty? In my dictionary "faith"
means belief which is immune to contrary evidence.
That is blind faith.
Faith is belief only from evidence, as opposed to rational
justification.
Or you have clairvoyant ability.
I am aware that evolution, a plausible theory, suggest that such a
faith is quasi hard-wired in our brain, as doubting the existence
of the predators will not help. But that requires a faith in
something akin to self-consistency, and that is why we have to
attach <>t to the []p, as we can't prove effectively, as consistent
machine, that we are consistent or that there is a reality.
It would be a rhetorical trick if that was used to suppress a
program to visit Mars, but the goal here is to get a rational
theoretical approach explaining the appearances and the different
points of view of what could be. Or you are begging the question,
and assume the primary physical at the start.
Assuming the primary physical as an evidenced hypothesis is no more
faith than assuming every number has a successor.
That is not true. All physical theories assumes that number have a
successor, and add assumption about existence of other things, like
hamiltonian or some equations, and sometimes even objects obeying the
equation. All theories in physics assumes arithmetic, and even
analysis/trigonometry (which assumes much more than arithmetic).
To assume a primary physical reality, you need not only faith in
arithmetic, but faith in a primary universe, and that requires blind
faith as the evidences, coming from both physics and cognitive
sciences, are that there is no such things (that is what I show with
UDA, and with the no-go theorem in QM).
We always need faith in science. Yet, you need much less faith to
assume that for all number x we have x + 0 = x, than to believe in a
primary matter which nobody can detect and which makes the
consciousness problem insoluble by-construction.
Bruno
Brent
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