On 9/4/2017 12:05 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 Sep 2017 12:27 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 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. I can prove anything if I get to choose the axioms. 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. "Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible. I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory that is assumed rather than derived.But in that case I can just assume that the particles of the Standard Model are primary. Then there's a lot of evidence for primary matter. It's as though physicists are being criticized because they are willing to look deeper for an explanation of their best theory. But computationalist are to be congratulated for asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.That criticism is just daft. Of course you can make physics primary if you like, but then you need to propose a different, non-computational, theory of mind, one that doesn't covertly add a primary role for "physical computation", as distinct from "primary physics", as the origin of phenomenal reality. In fact you have frequently proposed just such a theory, in the form of an "engineering solution". In which case fine, but then we're no longer discussing mechanism.
I'm sorry, I didn't know I was limited to discuss only mechanism. I was replying to Bruno's remark that there is no evidence at all for a primary physical reality.
In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality is ultimately an epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case, the theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its ontology (i.e. that part of the theory that is taken to exist independently of point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its phenomenology by means of an epistemological analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is understood to be point-of-view relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset both of the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be considered primary, in the sense given here.Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something else as primary. Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in deriving phenomenology.You need to make up your mind about what you are criticising. Mechanism necessarily assumes computation as primary and hence must derive physics and phenomenology.
My complaint is that it implicitly assumes more than "Yes doctor". It assumes that computation exists in a Platonic realm independent of the physical. I suspect this is wrong and it is only made to appear plausible by using metaphors like "believed" = "provable" and then forgetting they are metaphors and taking them to actually model human experience; that a rigourous model which trys to explain human experience as it is will find that the computation must be physical, i.e. it must simulate/emulate a whole physical world which does not permit a division into primary and derivative.
That is its project. Whether that project can ultimately succeed is a separate question.
Doesn't have to be my project. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
