On 16 Jun 2016, at 12:34, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 16/06/2016 5:26 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 1:33 AM, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 15/06/2016 12:19 am, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 3:22 AM, Bruce Kellett
Assuming arithmetic does not even account for mind, much less
account for
matter. Saying that consciousness is a computation is empty
until one
specifies precisely what form of computation.
It might be that all computations are conscious -- but with much
different contents, of course. I feel some inclination towards this
hypothesis.
But then you explain nothing. You have just made an identification
"computation = consciousness", which tells us nothing useful
Yes, my point here is that, in the worst case, you are no worse than
you would be with physicalism in terms of explaining consciousness,
but at least you are taking modern science seriously (the brain looks
like a computer).
I don't see any reason why physicalism might be thought to be in
conflict with a computational model of consciousness.
Physicalism assumes a reality to select the computations. With
computationalism, this is not just not necessary, it cannot work
without appeal to magic. A proof that there is no magic there would
only be a proof that such physical reality equal the one derived from
(intensional) arithmetic + computationalism.
The evidence that consciousness supervenes on the physical brain is
overwhelming,
I agree. That is the basic motivation for Mechanism. My personal first
discovery of the (universal) number is in the bacterium Escherchia
Coli (in a paper by Jacob and Monod, also Watson).
The appearance of physical computers does not add to physicalism
though, unless of course the facts refute digital mechanism, but as I
have explained, if it looks it is the case (the measure problem) when
we look in the details, the explosion of possibilities appears to be
immense and well structured in a quite similar way in the physical
appearances and in arithmetic (or any sigma_1 complete set).
so no model of consciousness can deny that the physical has an
important role.
Nobody doubt that the physical has an important role. It is, with
consciousness what I want to get some explanation for.
As discusses in another post, I do think that Bruno's ideas (with the
help of Gödel) provide an explanation to why consciousness looks like
a mystery to us.
Maybe most of the mystery is in the eye of the beholder!
Well, a part of that mystery has been translated into a mathematical
measure problem.
That is why computationalism is very interesting, it makes a bridge
between theology/philosophy-o-mind/cognitive science and mathematics,
notably with a key role played by arithmetic theories and others
sigma_1 complete sets.
Evolution provides a perfectly comprehensible route to consciousness,
To the easy consciousness problem. You don't seem aware of the hard
problem, like Chalmers called it.
and more details about the mechanism will come from advances in the
neurological sciences by the usual channels.
There is a risk that you will confuse a person and its local
implementation. Push forward, you will become a person eliminativist,
like the Churchland and even Dennett somehow.
The fact that consciousness select histories with apparent brain does
not mean that those brain are first person (hopefully plural)
limiting statistical appearance on all computations in arithmetic.
In that case we can still ascribe a conscious experience to the
relative others, but the person itself cannot ascribe her
consciousness to any particular computations among an infinities.
And why that form of
computation rather than some other? I don't see that
computationalism
actually solves anything -- the problems it leaves unanswered
are every
bit
as difficult as the problems one started with.
But computationalism is the default position of modern science. The
brain is a neural network, the neural network is equivalent to a
Turing Machine and it is running a program, and this is what mind
is
somehow. Non-computationalism seems to require some form of
duality,
appeal to a soul and so on.
Have you never heard of supervenience? Consciousness is just a
property of
matter in certain configurations and acting in certain ways. Such
a position
does not deny that consciousness has some similarities to a
computation, but
recognizes that it is a computation performed by a brain composed
of matter.
There is no inherent duality.
Yes, of course. I see 2 possibilities:
1) Matter is fungible, so it doesn't matter which atoms are
performing
the computation. In this case the same configuration can be repeated,
and you get the same first-person indeterminacy that Bruno describes
in the UDA;
Matter almost certainly is fungible, but there might be a problem
with scaling a computer model for individual neurons, or small
groups of neurons, up to the size of the full brain. I know no
details, but I have seen mention of this recently.
2) There is some unknown property of matter that makes atoms (or
whatever building block) non-fungible. What makes me me is partly the
presence of a set of specific atoms (with invisible labels given by
some unknown law of physics).
Unlikely.
Good.
You know, all I say is that if you use evolution to explain
consciousness, then you already use mechanism, but then, and that is
what I show, you need to pursue the evolution idea up to the origin of
the physical laws, which have to resulted from a measure on universal
machine "hallucinations". It makes the physical reality somehow more
solid, as it relies to numbers addition and multiplication, yet
infinities of them.
2) seems absurd given that, as far as we know, all the matter that
makes up our body is eventually replaced several times throughout our
lifetime. Perhaps there are exceptions in the skeleton, but all sorts
of bones have been replaced by prosthetic ones with no apparent
problem... So it seems that we are persistent phenomena along time,
not specific chunks of matter.
I would agree, but this seems peripheral to the main issue of
computationalism vs physicalism. In terms of explanations of
consciousness, it seems to me that they are essentially on a par --
neither gives a comprehensive account.
Physicalism just do not work. Physicists do not need such hypothesis.
And computationalist cannot use it without cheating.
And it is responsible, with its myth of primary matter, to a large
part of the difficulty of the mind-body problem, and to our tolerance
in the almost institutionalized lack of seriousness in the field, with
popular "easy answer".
We have not yet completed the enlightenment Period. The most
fundamental science has not yet come back to Academy. Some subject
seems to be taboo. Some dogma seems to prevail.
Is it astonishing? When you see how it is difficult for many people to
awaken for only seventy years of lies on "drugs/medication", it might
still take time for 1500 years of artificial separation of theology
and science.
My feeling, Bruce, is that you are not genuinely interested in the
mind-body problem, nor in the search of the most plausible TOE.
You seem to come up with an answer, without studying closer the problem.
Bruno
Bruce
--
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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
