On 04 Sep 2017, at 20:58, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 9/4/2017 12:05 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 Sep 2017 12:27 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net>
wrote:
On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>
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.
It seems to me obvious that we cannot have evidence for "primariness".
This follows, even without mechanism, from the (antic) dream argument.
I can do a billion of experiences and then wake up: it was all a
dream. It shows that seeing/measuring is not a criteria for
metaphysical truth. It shows that "applied science" requires always
some amount of fait in some 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.
It assumes elementary arithmetic. It assumes only this (RA):
0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1)) -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x
Even ultrafinitist agree on this, and it is indeed what is taught in
primary school. Then, we can prove the existence of the computations
without adding anything to those axioms. It does not assumes a
platonic realm, but we assume at the metalevel that the axiom above
are consistent and so that there is some model satisfying them. It is
not a platonic realm, just the structure set (N, 0, +, x). Like in QM
we assume the existence of Hilbert Space, von Neumann algebra. But
note that this assumption are made at the meta-level, or internally by
creatures whose existence needs only the axiom above. One day I will
write a longer post on this.
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;
They are not metaphors. If you believe in the axiom above (which I
think is the case) then as long as you are an arithmetically correct
machine, you become a recursive (machine) consistent extension of RA.
(We are in the frame of the mechanist hypothesis).
To extract physics from machine introspection, we limit ourself to
correct machine, and in that case "believed" = "provable" is assured.
In no case do we pretend that this model wisely a human being. On the
contrary, we abstract ourself of all human prejudges by taking simple,
but already Löbian, machine.
that a rigourous model which trys to explain human experience
The goal is to justify the laws of physics (and theology), not the
particular human experiences.
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 will change nothing in the reasoning, unless you ask for *all*
the decimals of the reals exact, but then mechanism is false, and we
are in another topic.
That is its project. Whether that project can ultimately succeed is
a separate question.
Doesn't have to be my project.
But then we are no more sure what was your point, which seemed
negative toward that project (and toward the TOE extracted from
Mechanism).
Bruno
Brent
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