On 23 Apr 2017, at 01:34, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 23/04/2017 9:03 am, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
The contradiction is in requiring computation which is a
mathematical notion, if physicalism is true, so everything reduce
to matter, computationalism is false by definition, as computation
as such is not a physical notion.
That is just word salad. A description of a physical process is not,
in itself, physical (unless it is written down or stored
physically). Similarly, computation is not physical in so far as it
is an abstract description of what a computer does.
This is an Aristotelian begging the question. And false. Computations
have been discovered in mathematical logic, and they have been
implemented in the physical realm after.
A platonist would say that a physical computer is not even a computer,
it is a local terrestrial approximation of a universal number only.
That would also beg the question, so better not to commit ourselves in
ontology when working on the mind body problem.
But the computer is physical, and the computation does not exist
absent the computer.
It does not exist in the physical sense. Sure.
It seems that you have merely defined computationalism as the thesis
that physicalism is false, and then claimed that the assumption of
computationalism contradicts physicalism. But that is logic chopping
of the basest kind.
Bruno, at least, starts from the "Yes, doctor" idea, which is not,
of itself, inconsistent with physicalism, and then attempts to argue
that the notion of abstract computations (platonia) renders the
physical otiose. There is still no contradiction. The best that
Bruno can achieve is something that seems absurd to him. But that is
merely a contradiction with his instinctive notions of what is
reasonable -- it is not a demonstrated logical contradiction.
Yes, with the Movie Graph Argument, we still need Occam, but that is
ridiculous to mention, given that the goal is to show we can do an
experimental testing.
And the conclusion is not a logical contradiction indeed, but then you
are like the guy who would say that despite thermodynamics explains
how a car move we keep the right to believe in invisible horses. With
such moves, there is no fundamental science at all.
Bruno
Bruce
Regards,
Quentin
Le 23 avr. 2017 00:42, "Bruce Kellett" <[email protected]>
a écrit :
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.
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.
No contradiction has been demonstrated.
Bruce
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