On 4/7/2017 5:12 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 7 Apr 2017 11:53 p.m., "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 4/7/2017 3:22 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
As I remarked before, it is as if consciousness were concealed
from the outside by a two-part public/private encryption
scheme. Whereas the public part is in principle entirely
extrinsically inspectable the decryption can be completed only
in terms of the private perspective of *the system in
question*. This then inevitably entails that decrypted
messages of this kind must be inter-subjectively
incommunicable despite the ultimate irony that they amount to
the entirety of inter-subjectively "shareable" concrete
reality. It is of course in this sense also that the brain is
secondary to consciousness: i.e. that self-referential
perceptual apprehension is the filter through which a concrete
reality, with all its brains and bodies, is enabled in the
first place to emerge (and I do mean emerge in a strong
sense). That primary "grasp on reality" is what enables any
subsequent abstract analysis in terms of a reductive "bottom
up" physical mechanism playing the role of a
locally-dominating computational mechanism (or IOW what you
have termed the reversal of physics and machine psychology).
But what, in the computations of the UD, is "perceptual
apprehension"? Bruno says that the physical world in not
computed, the way some people speculate that "we are a
simulation", but only thoughts are computed and the physical world
is inferred.
Yes of course, but it's that very "inference" in the first person
perspective that unavoidably must present as perceptual apprehension
before it can be abstracted to any other level of analysis. The point
I've been making (which goodness knows is hardly novel in these
discussions) is that the existence of self-reflexive computations
But that's the point I'm questioning. Bruno notes that an algorithmic
machine can prove somethings about itself. But is this what we refer to
as perception? I don't think so. Perception includes and inference or
construction of the thing perceived. In case of a declarative sentence
it may be a proposition about something, e.g. "There's no chair in this
room." or "That sentence contradicts one of the axioms I assumed." But
perception can be mistaken. Can proofs be mistaken?
is what permits the emulation of an internal or subjective logic in
terms of which there can be precisely this direct apprehension (a term
etymologically related to grasping) of a concrete perceptual reality.
And the logical cost of any denial that such apprehension is veridical
(as, at least at face value, in the case of Churchland or Dennett)
must be the loss not only of such concrete perception in itself (and
no, this conjunction of concrete and perceptual isn't a
contradiction), but also the entire sense of any purported utterance
that could otherwise be understood as referring to it.
So any instance of optical illusion entails the "logical cost" of
"entire sense of any purported utterance that could otherwise be
understood as referring to it." Hence it is impossible to describe an
optical illusion, such as Escher's staircase which closes on itself but
gives the illusion of always ascending counterclockwise and descending
clockwise.
I agree that the physical world is inferred from those perceptions
that have point-of-view-invariance as my friend Vic Stenger called
it. But I don't see how a POVI subset of UD computations can just
be picked out by some anthropic principle. ISTM they must have
some computed unity independent of conscious thoughts (which must
be a subset of zero measure).
Yes indeed, but don't you have it backwards here? Surely it's rather
that a POVI non-zero subset of reflexive UD computations is
hypothesised to pick out a physical world in which it is itself embedded.
No. In fact the significance of symmetry laws was not understood as
basic to physics until the 20th century. You may say they were
hypothesized, but many such hypotheses turned out to be false. Finding
the ones that are true is empirical and uncertain...not relations
characteristic of mathematical proofs. So how are proofs good models of
perceptions or beliefs, reflexive or otherwise?
That's implicit in the comp theory.
But I don't think comp theory is proven - so it cannot be cited in
support of what is implicit in it. One of it's failings seems to be
that there is far too much implicit in it.
And note that this physical world is in the first instance apprehended
(perceived, grasped) as a concrete percept.
Any other level of analysis can only ever be a secondary inference
from this primary apprehension.
But that's not the neo-platonist way. Bruno assumes that "primary
apprehension" is belief in arithmetic...not chairs.
And my point is that if, instead of this, you jump ahead to the point
at which the "physical computation" is already independently
I didn't make any jump.
assumed (aka primitive) there can be no further a priori need for any
hypothesis of subjectivity
That's exactly contrary to Bruno's claim that physics cannot explain
subjectivity; so it would have to arise from some extra-material hypothesis.
or for that matter any concrete perceptual reality that might
accompany it. A self-sustaining bottom-up-all-the-way-down
???
physical mechanism can have no principled rationale for such baroque
supplementary hypotheses. Computation, by contrast, unavoidably
implies precisely the contrary.
Computation implies the contrary of "a self-sustaining
bottom-up-all-the-way-down physical mechanism can have no principled
rationale"...which I parse as saying that ""a self-sustaining
bottom-up-all-the-way-down physical mechanism can have a principled
rationale" Is that what you meant?? Or are you saying computationalism
implies the need for an hypothesis of subjectivity?? Bruno seems to
claim that subjectivity is implicit in computationalism because some
propositions about an axiomatic system can be proven within it. But
that's no more proof of subjectivity than saying a physical system has a
point-of-view.
Hence that is one of its chief recommendations for evaluation as a TOE.
Of course you are right that, in terms of the computational ontology
assumed at the outset, this hypothesised subset must be evaluated
independently of the conscious thought to which it is supposed to
give rise.
Which is why I said that a computed world must include the computed
physics which gives meaning to computed perceptions being "shared", i.e.
POVI. But Bruno seemed to reject this.
Brent
And it is an open problem whether such a subset is indeed most
plausibly encapsulated within the kind of consistent quantum-logical
physical mechanism that we take to underlie our shared perceptual
reality. This question of course lies at the heart of the whole
enterprise. Its plausibility must be evaluated, amongst other
considerations, with respect to computational relative measure in the
face of the entire trace of the UD, the complexities of which I
confess I am incompetent to assess.
David
Brent
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