On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the
Mechanist hypothesis.
Refresh my understanding. What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it
the same as computationalism?
Yes.
Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +
Church's Thesis)
Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?
No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).
I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's
thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and this is
equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".
From your use, these all seem slightly different to me. It would
be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.
I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they
are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my
version just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My
version is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia
paper, suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it becomes
trivial, a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by Descartes'
Mechanism.
So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is
1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it
exists a combinator which computes it)
(There are many variants of this. You can replace also
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++
program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or
anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The
fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi
ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.
2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of my
(generalized) brain.
It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as
a mean of travel (UDA step 1).
Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without
a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA
reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to
block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.
That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in. Yes-doctor was
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons
in the brain. But then it was generalized to the whole brain. But
we think with more than our brain. Our body contributes hormones and
afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides
stimulation to those nerves and an arena within which we act. All
that is taken for granted in answering "yes doctor" or
teletransporting. So it appears to me that you implicitly suppose
all of this is also digitally replaced.
The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.
My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume
only the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious
experience would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at
that level).
If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with
10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real
numbers involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but
eventually, it is "the real experience" of the step 7 which we have to
take into account, that is "us" confronted to all computations in the
arithmetical reality. The arithmetical reality emulates all
computations, and this includes the matrix above, and infinitely any
variants. It remains simpler to understand the problem with thought
experiements involving "high" level, like the biochemistry of the
body, and understand at step 7 that the reasoning does not depend on
the level chosen.
To kill the consequences of computationalism is not easy. Even
lowering down the level to "infinitely low" level, like using all
decimals of the reals involved would not guaranty the singularization
used in the mind-brain identity used by physicist when they invoke the
physical reality: you will need special infinities not recovered by
the first person indeterminacies. It will look like Ptolemeaus
epycicles. Primary Matter is a sort of ether. It can only make the
theories more difficult. Maybe Primary Matter exists, but there has
never been any evidences, and I would say that even without Digital
mechanism, I am not sure why to postulate it. Knocking on the table,
or smashing Super-speedy proton cannot serve as evidence for primary
matter, only for group theory and its application in the art of
prediction.
With mechanism, the laws of physics have a mathematical origin, and
somehow, they "evolved" from the numbers exchanging piece of
computations, but seen from the 1p views. It works up to now.
I knew that would be your answer, but I think it defeats your argument.
If you have to go to a very low level (e.g. atoms) and a very broad
scope (e.g. the solar system) then you are essentially digitizing and
emulating everything. This includes the physics-of-everything and the
the physics-of-the-mind. Then there is implicit in this a physical
explanation of mind. If it's a viable explanation within this
everything-is-digitized model then it is a viable explanation in the
physicalists model. And I realize this doesn't preclude a mind
explanation of physics - hence my idea of a virtuous circle of explanations.
Brent
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