On 18/06/2016 3:20 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
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
<bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> 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 physical derived from arithmetic would have to be identical to the
one observed or else you theory would be false.
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).
All these problem dissolve if you reject the notion of a platonic realm
for arithmetic and accept physicalism.
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.
There is no hard problem ..... there is only confusion on the part of
Chalmers and those who follow him. I think Massimo Pigliucci gets it
right when he asks "What hard problem?",
(http://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem).
"I think that the idea of a hard problem of consciousness arises from a
category mistake. I think that in fact there is no real distinction
between hard and easy problems of consciousness, and the illusion that
there is one is caused by the pseudo-profundity that often accompanies
category mistakes."
A category mistake arise when, for example, you ask about the colour of
triangles. This mistake led Chalmers to endorse a form of dualism. (And
I think that ultimately you, Bruno, are also endorsing a subtle dualism
in your approach.)
Pigliucci then goes on the endorse the evolutionary account: "...Once
you have answered the how and why of consciousness, what else is there
to say? "Ah!" exclaim Chalmers, Nagel and others, "You still have not
told us what it is like to be a bat (or a human being, or a zombie), so
there!" ... Of course an explanation isn't the same as an experience,
but that's because the two are completely independent categories. It is
obvious that I cannot experience what it is like to be you, but I can
potentially have a complete explanation of how and why it is possible to
be you. To ask for that explanation to also somehow encompass the
experience itself is both incoherent, and an illegitimate use of the
word 'explanation'."
He goes on to explain that this does not involve the elimination of the
very concept of consciousness or of the self. The problem with this
conclusion by people like Churchland and Dennett is that they are taking
reductionism too far -- although everything is ultimately made of
quarks, and the like, obeying the laws of physics, that does not mean
that higher orders of explanation are illegitimate or eliminable (the
old mistake of positivism!). Concepts such as evolution, consciousness,
qualia and so on, have a definite role, but they are not somehow magical
-- to attempt to 'explain' these things in reductionist terms is
ultimately, as Massimo says, a category mistake. ("Where consciousness
is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality".)
Bruce
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