On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 12:42 AM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote: > On 23/04/2017 12:52 am, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> On 4/21/2017 3:42 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> >>>> John is accusing you of naive dualism. He says that you claim that >>>> there is some mysterious substance (he finally called it a "soul") >>>> that is not copied in your thought experiment. What I claim is this: >>>> under physicalist assumptions, everything was copied. The problem is >>>> that physicalism leads to a contradiction, >>> >>> >>> I don't agree that it leads to a contradiction. Can spell out what that >>> contradiction is? >> >> Shortly (sorry for any lack of rigour): >> If you assume computationalism, the computation that is currently >> supporting your mind state can be repeated in time and space. Maybe >> your current computation happens in the original planet Earth but also >> in a Universal Dovetailer running on a Jupiter-sized computer in a >> far-away galaxy. Given a multiverse, it seems reasonable to assume >> that these repetitions are bound to happen (also with the simulation >> argument, etc.). And yet our mind states are experienced as unique. It >> follows that, given computationalism, mind cannot be spatially or >> temporally situated, thus cannot be physical. > > > This does not demonstrate any contradiction with physicalism. In fact, you > examples are all completely consistent with the requirement that any > computation requires a physical substrate -- "a Universal Dovetailer running > on a Jupiter-sized computer in a far-away galaxy" is a completely physical > concept.
Sure, how could I show a contradiction without assuming both computationalism and physicalism? Do you disagree that my argument shows that a computationalist mind cannot be spatially or temporally situated? If you don't, do you disagree that something that is not spatially or temporally situated is incompatible with physicalism? > Even given computationalism -- the idea that you consciousness is a > computation -- there is no contradiction with physicalism. You have to add > something else -- namely, hard mathematical platonism, the idea that all > computations exist in the abstract, in platonia, and do not require physical > implementation. But that is merely the assumption that physicalism is false. > So it may be the case that mathematical platonism does not require a > physical universe, but it does not contradict physicalism: it is perfectly > possible that your consciousness is a computation, and that mathematical > platonism is true, but that there is still a primitive physical universe and > that any actual computations require a physical substrate -- as JC keeps > insisting. The scenario you propose would require the following: - my mind supervenes on computation C; - my mind exists if computation C is performed by at least one physical substrate P; - if the computation C is performed by several physical substrates P1, P2, P3, nothing changes, my mind still exists as unique; Suppose one of the physical realities, say P1, is what you call primitive and C is running on P1. You would say I am experiencing the primitive universe. But then P2 (the giant Jupiter computer) also starts running the computation. In fact, at some point, the real earth is destroyed but P2 continues. So, if the physical substrate you propose exists, there is no way of knowing if that is the physical reality that my mind perceives. There is no way that I can access it or verify it's existence. In my view, what you are proposing is not different than positing that an invisible spaghetti monster lives in the orbit of Mars. I cannot prove that it's false, but it is not a scientific theory. JC's argument that he has never seen a computation run without a computational substrate is silly when assuming comp, because assuming comp JC never perceived *anything but* the inside of a computation. Telmo. > No contradiction has been demonstrated. > > 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. -- 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.
