On 25 Apr 2017, at 03:44, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 4/24/2017 1:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 23 Apr 2017, at 13:38, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 23/04/2017 8:52 pm, 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.
A computation with physics is what is happening in the computer I
am currently working on. I can describe this in mathematical
notation if you wish, but the process is not the notation. Any
process that takes input and produces output is a computation. All
physical objects do this. And physical objects do not know any
mathematics.
You assume that there are primary physical object.
Bruce's post refers to physical objects (one of which he perceives
immediately), but nothing he says depends on the physical objects
being "primary".
His last remark shows that he is interested in physics. But then why
does he participate in a discussion which is in metaphysics/theology/
cognitive-science?
Pirmary matter is an hypothesis that we do in metaphysics/theology,
not in physics.
In fact I'm not even sure what "primary" means in this context.
I just explained it in a post to Bruce. I have changed the title, as
it is an important subject.
Is it simply the ontology of any theory we adopt? Or is it the
bottom of some chain of explanation (which I think can be circular)?
No problem with "circular": PA's induction axiom are impredicative
(circular). But primary means "has to be assumed in a form or in
another". You can take "primary matter" as the idea that "materiality"
is not just an appearance, like it is in a dream.
That is not an assumption in physics, but in metaphysics, and it is
incompatible with digital mechanism,
Sure, if "digital mechanism" is the assumption that everything is
made of computations.
?
Mechanism entails that very few things are "made of computation". Even
in arithmetic, most relations are not computable, and mechanism
entails that the physical reality cannot be entirely computable
(indeed, we have still to test if the physics in the head of the
machine is not too much non-computable: that is the white rabbit
problems).
for reasons which have already been explained, but which can be sum
up in: what role does the primary character of matter plays in a
physical computation to make it supporting consciousness? The usual
answer (like the one given by Peter Jone), like "to make it real",
is equivalent with "God invocation in an explanation".
The usual answer has the advantage of agreeing with the evidence
that (1) some things are real and some aren't and (2) unlike "God
did it" it does NOT posit an explanation where none is known.
But it destroys an explanation where one is suggested. That is worse.
It is exactly like the invisible horse, which makes "thermodynamic"
really incomprehensible. Physicalism is not compatible with Mechanism,
unless you add magic. That's the point of the whole reasoning.
Mechanism is simpler. You are right when you say that the process
is not the notation, but the math shows that the process is in the
truth relating the "notations", or the "information" or the
numbers. Such truth are NOT notations, they are arithmetical facts,
which are presupposed to be true in every corner of physics.
No, they are not. Arithmetical facts are facts only in arithmetic -
The point is that there are fact in reality. And not notation. It
means that we have to take those fact into account, unless you believe
that 2+2=4 is not true, but then you should not let your kids go to
school, because we are still teaching such fact.
whether they are facts in physics depends on the mapping and
interpretation,
Yes, and not just physics. We must be careful when we apply a theory
in another theory. But here it is the "factual nature" of the physical
reality which is interrogated, in the context of the mind-body problem.
e.g. If there are two people on the tennis team and there are two
people on the chess team, there are not necessarily four people at a
meeting to the chess and tennis teams.
So, once we have to assume them, why assuming more, given that it
only makes the mind-body problem unsolvable?
How do you know it makes the problem unsolvable?
because as step 7 and 8 have shown, it introduce a metaphysical
entity, that nobody has ever seen, to select (a) computation(s)
without any means that we could make intelligible, usually for reason
of coquetry or metaphysical desire. read any serious philosopher of
mind: the problem is not solved after 1500 years of Aristotelian
theology, which has made a tabula rasa of the progress done by the
Platonists, and resume with mathematical logic/computer science,
thanks to Boole, Peirce, de Morga, Frege, up to the Gödel-Löb and
Church-Turing "creative bomb" in the field.
Maybe you've mistaken the problem?
You must understand that we know today that the arithmetical truth
is beyond all system of "notation + effective relation between the
notation".
Because we postulate the natural numbers as infinite.
Not at all. The natural numbers are infinite in Presburger Arithmetic
(Robinson minus multiplication), yet Presburger is decidable, and the
truth is mirrored entirely by the notations and the syntactical
relations.
Truth get genuinely bigger than the theory only when the theory is
*essentially* undecidable, (that is: you can't get decidability by
adding new axioms). It is known today that a theory is essentially
undecidable if and only if it defines a Turing universal system. It is
the universal machine which put the mess in Plato Heaven.
bruno
Brent
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