On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.
That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.
What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?
Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence
of the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology
(alias elementary arithmetic).
Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as
well as the other way around.
OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The
progress are the following
Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear
theory of mind
Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind
(+ an identity thesis).
Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).
Brent wrote to David:
I am agreeing with you. I only disagree with Bruno in that he
wants to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than
physics or consciousness and not derivative. It seems to me that
the very possibility of computation depends on the physics of the
world and is invented by evolution.
But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation
in arithmetic.
After you assume arithmetic.
All scientists do. All parents do. If you doubt that 2+2=4, that is
good, and that is why I put the assumtion on the tables, but it is
used in any part of science (unlike the axiom of infinity, which is
used only in 98% of science, but eventually, should be abandonned in
the ontology).
I can prove anything if I get to choose the axioms.
Yes, and we can never prove the axioms. So some amount of faith has to
be put somewhere at the start. If you have lost the faith in 2+2=4, I
understand you disbelieve in mechanism, its consequences, and .. any
piece of science, including any theory in physics.
But, frankly, I don't believe you are skeptical toward arithmetic.
On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical
reality for which there are no evidences at all.
You can't prove primary arithmetic either.
Indeed.
But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for
primary matter. Not one.
"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem
inaccessible. I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.
?
Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.
Primary means "not deducible" from something else. The primariness of
life has been abandonned by the reduction of life to chemistry and
physics. Likewise, primary matter will be abandonned, lik ether and
phlogistic, not because we can actually reduce it to number, but
because we have to, when we say yes to the doctor, which we will be
compel to do for economical reason in the long run.
Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the
very possibility of computation depends on God".
If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf Church-
Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are
talking about.
So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know
what I'm talking about?
I am just deducing that you are using a term in a non standard meaning
which I do not understand. If you have a definition of computations
which does not rely on numbers or Church's thesis, you should make it
precise, and you will have found a version of computationalism which
might be coherent with physicalism.
Bruno
Brent
Bruno
Brent
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