On 24 Apr 2017, at 01:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 23/04/2017 10:52 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
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.
Descriptions of computations might have been discovered in
arithmetic. But descriptions are not the thing itself -- map and
territory all over again.
Description of computations have been discovered in arithmetic, but
computations too.
Even RA can see the difference between a computation in arithmetic and
a description of a computation in arithmetic.
You seem to ignore one century of metamathematics (alias mathematical
logic). You confuse a computation and a description of a computation,
and so you are the one confusing map and territory in arithmetic. It
is the same confusion that you can have between s(s(0)) and "s(s(0))".
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.
So it would be better for you not to commit to the ontology of the
prior existence of arithmetic -- that would beg the question.
I do not. What is asked is to agree on simple relation like x + 0 = x.
Some amount of arithmetic needs to be accepted, if only to assert
Church-thesis, to define machine, or to define a wave.
Here, the problem is that you do not provide a clear-cut theory. If
you can prove x + 0 = x, in physics, without assuming arithmetic, just
give the proof. I am interested.
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.
An experimental testing of what?
Of computationalism.
More precisely: computationalism or malevolent simulation (but that
can be added to any 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.
All that my argument requires is that we accept the existence of an
external (physical) world, with which we can interact.
I accept that, but do not see why the external physical world as not
an external purely mathematical justification.
This world is 'objective' in the sense that there is intersubjective
agreement about it.
That happens in multi-user video games, and all the multi-user games
are implemented by all universal numbers, with all players in
arithmetic. The only problem is the relative measure, but we have
already that the measure one obeys a quantum logic.
I think you accept as much,
Yes, but unless you disagree with step 3, or perhaps step 7, I do not
see how you will make physicalism coherent with computationalism.
Bruno
so the discussion can proceed from there. Ontology can be left to
one side. (Or, as Brent would say, ontology is theory-dependent.)
Bruce
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