On 5/5/2017 2:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 May 2017, at 22:52, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 5/4/2017 1:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 May 2017, at 23:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
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,
That is the case only for the ideally correct machine that we need
to extract physics. As a theory of human's belief, or any concrete
agent's belief, it is not reasonable. But theology and physics is
not human psychology, nor AI.
The prediction of comp? There is a physical reality, structured
quantum logically by a statistics on many interfering computation
and their internal povs.
It is only "quantum logically" in the sense of modeling uncertainty -
which is a very weak prediction. It doesn't so far as can tell imply
Hilbert space or projectors or complex numbers. If you could get to
Hilbert space you might invoke Gleason's theorem, but I don't think
Gleason's theorem applies to a space over C.
It explains qualia, where physics fails. UDA = physics fails on the
mind-body problem.
It's not so clear to me that physics fails. I think it is like the elan
vital, people are looking for an explanation in terms that maintain a
mystery they enjoy. In my terms an explanation of a phenomenon tells
you how to create and change and use it. That's why I think the
engineering of AI will dissolve the "hard problem".
Mechanism? Not yet, and we get a quantum logic where physics must appear.
What quantum logic? Birkhoff's
So Mechanism explains both qualia and quanta. Not at the point to
replace physics, but that is not the goal.
What do you mean by "Gleason theorem would not apply to a space over
C"? If the quantum logic obeys some conditions, it will apply.
Unfortunately, we need to optimize the G* theorem prover to progress.
My mistake. I changed what I intended to write in midsentence and
didn't change the sentence to match. I meant that Gleason's theorem
would not go through unless the Hilbert space was over a continuous
valued field.
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.
My looking at the sky is also affected by tequila, but that does not
mean that the sky is a product of my brain.
Exactly why I used arithmetic as the example. Arithmetic, according
to your theory of consciousness, is independent of perception and
physics. Conscious thoughts, beliefs are entailed by arithmetic and
so should be independent of tequila.
That does not follow. Even Robinso Arithmetic can prove that a machine
drinking some amount of tequila will prove anything.
That would be impressive. Is this proof published?
You may object that you were only considering the ideal machine, a
perfect reasoner, but in that case you are equivocating because you
imply that the results of interviewing that ideal machine tell us
about consciousness as we experience it.
About physics.
Physics depends on intersubjective agreement, so you would need to
interview persons - not just one ideal machine.
No need to interview the many silly machines which lives in
arithmetic, when we search for the correct physics. Would you refute
Einstein relativity because he asks us to imagine people walking in a
train, and forget to mention he assumes the sobriety of that walker?
I would be skeptical if he just asked one person who had walked on a train.
Brent
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