On 4/24/2017 10:02 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 24 Apr 2017 7:32 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I don't think there's any question that non-physical things exist,
like chess and insurance and computations. The question was
whether the assumption that computations can instantiate a mind,
i.e. the possibility of a conscious robot, entails a contradiction
of something. The "something" having to do with physics, is part
of what I would like eulicidated. Bruno says it reverses the
relationship of physics and psychology...but that's more of a
polemic slogan than entailment of a contradiction.
I don't think so. Here's the way I see it. Let's say we accept as a
hypothesis a computational ontology. Since this requires no more than
the natural numbers with + and * this amounts to an ontology of
arithmetic. Platonism be damned, our interest at this point is merely
in seeing where the hypothesis can take us. So, computationalism leads
us to the extension of the UD, which in turn gives us the digital
machine, aka the fully fungible universal computational device. The
reversal then is between role of the "psychology" of that universal
machine and the subset of the trace of the UD assumed to implement
physics.
The UD doesn't have a "psychology". Bruno talks about the "beliefs" of
a universal theorem prover in arithmetic...but that's not a UD. And was
is "the trace of the UD". To talk of taking a "subset of the trace"
sounds to me like handing waving: We'll make a machine that writes all
possible sentences and then there's a subset that describes the world.
The former is now required to play the role of filter or selector on
behalf of the latter; it's what distinguishes it from the much more
general computational background. Of course that "filtration", by
assumption, essentially equates to the extremely high probability of
that very subset being required to support its own self-selection.
Are you saying this "subset of the trace" must have a high probability
of existing, or it has, by some measure, a high probability relative to
other stuff not in the trace. If the latter, and if the measure can be
defined, that would be an interesting result; but when I've asked about
this in the past Bruno has just said it's a hoped for result.
I understand that Bruno wants to take thoughts as fundamental and the
wants to identify thoughts with provable or computable propositions in
arithmetic. He thinks that the modality of "provable" is somehow a good
model of "believes" or "thinks". But even if that were true (I don't
think it is) it fails to account for the physical world which one thinks
about and acts in.
IOW it's selection by observation, with the part of "universal point
of view" falling to the suitably programmed digital machine. It from
bit really, but without the prior commitment to physics as the
unexplained (aka primitive) assumption. OK?
You don't seem to have even mentioned a contradiction.
Brent
David
He also says it entails the non-existence of "primary
matter"....but what is "primary matter". I've studied physics for
many years and primary matter was never mentioned. But it is said
to be logically contrary to the assumption that computations can
instantiate a mind...whatever that means.
Brent
On 4/23/2017 3:52 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
It's you who's begging the question, first define what is a
computation with physics first, without relying on abstract
mathematical notion.
Le 23 avr. 2017 12:45 PM, "Bruce Kellett"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> a
écrit :
On 23/04/2017 6:53 pm, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Le 23 avr. 2017 10:32, "Bruce Kellett"
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> a écrit :
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 not of non-physical
computers. (Whatever you say to the contrary,
You're making an ontological commitment and closing any
discussion on it...
All I am asking for is a demonstration of the contradiction
that you all claim exists between computationalism and
physicalism -- a contradiction that does not simply depend on
a definition of computationalism that explicitly states
"physicalism is false". In other words, where is the
contradiction? A demonstration that does not just beg the
question.
Bruce
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