On 10/13/2015 7:22 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 10/13/2015 6:36 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Brent Meeker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 10/13/2015 3:53 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 14 October 2015 at 09:46, Brent Meeker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 10/13/2015 3:36 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
...
Standard computationalism does not say anything about
whether matter is primary or not. It says that you can
make a computer (or a robot) that thinks and acts like
a human. Those opposed to computationalism disagree.
They believe either that is not possible to make a
computer that behaves like a human because there is
non-computable physics in the brain (eg. Roger
Penrose), or that it is possible to make a computer
that behaves like a human but not one that thinks like
a human (eg. John Searle).
But the problem with what you say is that on this list
"computationalism" tends to mean much more than, "you
can make a computer (or a robot) that thinks and acts
like a human". Bruno claims to have proven that your
simple statement logically entails that all of physics
and consciousness. But that is not so generally
accepted and so when someone "reject computationalism"
here, it may be they are just rejecting the inferences
Bruno claims it entails.
I take Bruno's term "comp" to mean computationalism plus the
conclusions he draws from it.
But with that extended meaning, the following two sentences
are not true: "It says that you can make a computer (or a
robot) that thinks and acts like a human. Those opposed to
computationalism disagree." Those who reject (extended)
computationalism, may very well agree.
If someone believes computationalism does not lead to the
extended conclusions Bruno drew from it, it is on them to show
where Bruno's argument is wrong.
Or why it's conclusion doesn't follow necessarily - which I and
others have done.
I missed this. Could you point to the posts where you showed this?
No, I don't keep posts that long, but I can summarize some of the arguments.
1. Bruno's argument that recapitulating a recording doesn't instantiate
consciousness is a mere argument from incredulity and doesn't logic
entail its conclusion. In fact the whole MGA is an argument from
incredulity. Mallah, who has his own version of the argument, takes the
reductio to prove computationalism is false.
2. Bruno's argument depends on the MG being conscious while isolated.
He tries to make this plausible by supposing that his scenario takes
place as a dream; but this is not convincing. Even a dream needs prior
experience of an outside world. So on reflection it is not plausible
that consciousness can exist independent of an external world. It may
be that physics can be derived from arithmetic, but it is not enough to
say that self-evaluation exists in arithmetic. For the theory to work
it must produce a world to be conscious of, and so far it doesn't do
that. Bruno just writes things like, IF comp is true then physics must
follow. But that's like saying IF Christianity is true Jesus will return.
3. Peter Jones wrote several critiques pointing out that there is no
reason to suppose a UDA exists, it's merely a hypothetical abstraction.
A related criticism is that Bruno assumes arithmetic is infinite in
order to use Godel's theorems about what a system cannot prove about
itself. But physics doesn't need infinities, they are just
calculational conveniences.
4. Bruno leans heavily on saying his theory explains QM, but it's not
clear to me that it's even consistent with QM. For example how is the
operation of Shor's algorithm consistent with the multiple threads of
the UDA?
I think Bruce Kellet has also made some critiques of Bruno's argument.
It is a red herring to ask "where is the error" because I don't think
his argument is a fallacy; I think it is less than logic entailment.
Brent
--
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.
