On 5/3/2017 1:48 PM, David Nyman wrote:
Depends on what you mean by comp. You seem to engage in the
same equivocation as Bruno. On the one hand it means saying
"yes" to the doctor. On the other hand it means accepting
his whole argument from that purportedly proving that physics
is otiose. So then the argument refers to itself and says if
physics is otiose then the physics we observe must be that
predicted by his theory.
That's not it.. the thing is if *mind* is a computational object,
then physics must be explained through computation, computations
are not physical object... If physicalness is primary, then there
aren't any computation, computations in a physically primary
reality are only a "human view" on what is really going on.
This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental
ontology then only X exists. But that leads to nonsense: "If the
standard model is fundamental ontology then football doesn't
exist." And it has the same affect of Bruno's theory: "If the
basic ontology is computations then neither physics nor football
exist."
It's not nonsense it's just the unvarnished consequence of the
assumptions​. If the basic ontology is computation then both physics
and football are shared epistemological constructions supervening on
computation. Otherwise there's just computation and none the worse for
that. But in any case I've been trying to persuade you to accept that
football, for example, must be such a construction even on a purely
physical basis.
Where I balk is at the "must". It's "must if Bruno's theory is right",
but that's the question. If you interpret "exist" to apply only to the
elements of the fundamental ontology, then in computationalism all that
exists are the natural numbers, +, and * -- consciousness is as emergent
as football. But semantics aside, a theory needs to predict things.
What does Bruno's theory predict about consciousness:
Your beliefs are closed under logical inference, i.e. everything that
follows from and subset of your beliefs is also believed. Is that
true?...I doubt it.
Your thinking about arithmetic is unaffected by tequila?...not for me.
This strikes me as so obvious as to brook little argument. Physics
doesn't need any notion of football to evolve through the states of
what someone, somehow will interpret as the World Cup. However I think
you fudge it by your excessively loose (in my view) acceptance of what
supposedly "exists". This is what allows you to dodge the otherwise
compelling conclusions of a rigorous argument.
Rigor doesn't make an argument compelling. What I find compelling is
confirmation of a surprising prediction.
Brent
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it."
--Don Knuth
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