On 23/04/2017 6:18 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
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?
Of course I disagree. Your argument requires that all the computations
be physically instantiated. SO even if there are many instantiations,
each and every one is spatially and temporally situated.
If you don't, do you disagree that something that is not spatially or
temporally situated is incompatible with physicalism?
I certainly disagree because you have confused "having many locations"
with "having no location". Many things are not physical, but are
properties of, or manifested by, physical objects or beings. Values such
as justice and mercy are not physical, but are exhibited, or not, by
physical beings.
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.
This seems to be nothing more than the universality of Turing
computation -- it is the same computation whatever computer it is run
on. But that does not prove that there is no computer. Your simulation
ideas are just the hypothesis that the program is more complicated than
you first thought, it does not change the fact that your consciousness
is a computation running on a physical computer.
We never have access to "ultimate truth". The best we can ever achieve
is a model or theort=y that accords with every aspect of the reality we
experience. That is known as science.
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.
But that does not prove that the computation does not run on a physical
computer. I take JC's point to be that your assumption of the primacy of
the abstract computation is unprovable. We at least have experience of
physical computers, and non of non-physical computers. (Whatever you say
to the contrary, our brain is a physical computer, and our thoughts
supervene on this brain.)
Bruce
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