On 4/26/2017 12:32 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 Apr 2017 11:07 p.m., "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 4/25/2017 1:08 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 Apr 2017 5:15 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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".
Are you kidding? How long have we all been discussing all this?
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.
Ok, so now you know what it is. The point is just that comp is
true then it exists. If not it doesn't. We've been discussing the
consequences of the former case. If you still want to believe in
the necessity of a physical computer, we only have to accept that
comp would be true in the presence of any such computer capable
of running the UD.
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'm glad you agree it would be interesting.
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.
You didn't ask about the contradiction. You asked about the
reversal. Are you clearer on what is meant by that now? I'm not
asking if you believe it, just can we agree what is meant?
I did ask about the contradiction. From above: "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." So, no I'm not clear what the
reversal means. It is claimed to contradict the idea that matter
is in some sense fundamental, e.g. Democritus "Nothing exists
except atoms and the void; all else is opinion." But in my view
ontology is theory dependent, i.e. you find a theory that works
well as an explanation and a predictor and then that theory
provides an ontology: the POVI (intersubjective observable)
elements of the theory. So I'm not clear on what is the reversal.
The function of bodies, including brains, is, we think, within the
scope of physics. Is this "reversed"...to what exactly?
Ok, I see that this is an important misunderstanding. If physics is
taken to be the fundamental science, in the sense that a completed
physics will not demand further explanation, then consciousness will
clearly have to be explained entirely on the basis of that fundamental
science. For example, you yourself have said that you believe the
controversy will be settled by a completed neuroscience.
That's slightly different than what I said. I pointed out that
Newton's theory of gravity did not explain gravity, and neither does
Einstein's. When we have a theory that is effective, i.e. makes only
accurate and even surprising predictions, when then think of it as
"explaining" the phenomena. But this "explanation" is not at all like
the explanation that was sought before the instrumentally successful
theory. This is exemplified in the case of Newton: people wanted an
explanation of the the gravitational force - not just a formula to
calculate it - and Newton answered, "Hyposthesi non fingo."
So my expectation is that cognitive science will go the same way. When
we have learned to make AI robots to behave as conscious people behave,
the "hard problem of consciousness" will be seen to have been the wrong
question - like "What causes the force of gravity?" Mystics will still
ponder it and it will still be controversial among metaphysicians.
By contrast, if comp is to be assumed in the fundamental role, then
the emergence of the universal machine will then *precede* that of
physics.
I assume you mean "precede" in some explanatory, not temporal, sense.
But I don't think explanations are necessarily hierarchical with a
bottom; I think they are better thought of as circular. If they bottom
out anywhere, it is ostensively.
What Bruno is at pains to show is then that the machine possesses a
"point of view", aka its psychology, in terms of which physics will
emerge as a complex of inter-subjective appearances (just as you,
Bruce and indeed Bruno and I require). Note by the way that this
immediately establishes in principle the elusive interior/exterior
distinction. It would also have to be the case, if comp is indeed to
succeed, that the computations corresponding to those physical
appearances would themselves typify (massively) those supporting human
level subjectivity. So in this way sentient entities would "select"
the very physical environments necessary for their own existence.
But that seems to a chauvinistic view of the situtation. One could as
well say the physical environment selected the creatures that can exist
in it. But whichever way you look at it, it doesn't look to me like a
contradiction between the computational theory of mind and physics.
Brent
Of course the foregoing is not proven but it's implied by comp and it
hasn't been disproved either. Anyway, in a nutshell, that's the
reversal (i.e of explanatory priority) between physics and machine
psychology.
David
Brent
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