On 12/30/2017 7:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 26 Dec 2017, at 22:06, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 12/26/2017 6:48 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 23 Dec 2017, at 03:13, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 12/22/2017 4:50 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 22 Dec 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 12/22/2017 6:31 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 22 Dec 2017 11:22, "Telmo Menezes" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 2:01 PM, David Nyman
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> On 21 December 2017 at 11:34, Telmo Menezes
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
>>
>> > So we are told. But what if someone could look at a
recorded MRI of you
>> > brain and tell you what you were thinking?
>>
>> Why do you need the MRI? You can look at the text that
I write and
>> know what I'm thinking. We've been doing that all along.
>> The text I write comes from my fingers hitting the
keyboard, and the
>> fingers move in a certain pattern because the muscles
are activated by
>> nerves that are connected to my brain and completely
correlated to my
>> neural activity. What does the MRI add beyond
precision? How does this
>> help solve the mystery that I am conscious, instead of
a zombie?
>
>
> Well put.
>
> However if we follow Bruno in taking the antique Dream
Argument as our point
> of departure (which to a certain extent can be made
distinct from an
> explicitly computationalist hypothesis) then the
question becomes:
>
> Starting from the position that these present thoughts
and sensations (i.e.
> the 'waking' dream) are beyond doubt, and that they
appear also to refer to
> events in an externalised field of action, how does it
come to be the case
> that all this appears to play out in the very
particular way it does?
>
> When the question is asked in some such way, it should
perhaps not then be
> unexpected that brains, nervous systems and bodies, as
intrinsic components
> of the field of action in question, appear precisely to
be mechanisms (in
> the generalised sense for now) for translating
transactions, between
> themselves and the remainder of that field, into
action. And also
> unsurprising that this continues to generalise whatever
detailed level of
> analysis is applied to the field in question, whether
'narrower' or 'wider'
> in focus (i.e. the consistency requirement). And
further that this is just
> the sort of tightly-constrained and consistent set of
mechanisms that we
> might expect to be picked out from an even more
generalised 'mechanistic'
> environment, owing to the very particular requirements
of the
> 'self-observation' with which we began.
>
> So far, perhaps so un-Hard. But the question then still
remains of the
> precise relation between the phenomena of the dream
itself and the
> transactional mechanisms that make their appearance
within it, including and
> especially the aforementioned brains. If we turn for a
moment to an analogy,
> it doesn't surprise us, when watching a movie play out
on an LCD screen,
> that the mechanism that implements this playing out
fails to resemble point
> for point, although is obviously systematically
correlated with, the
> ultimate phenomena it stimulates the viewer into
realising. But the reason
> of course for our lack of surprise is that we consider
the bulk of the
> burden of such realisation to be shouldered by the
viewer's brain, not by
> the LCD device alone. So for that reason, no such
loophole seems possible
> for the final relation between the phenomena of the
dream and the mechanisms
> of the brain itself. It must somehow shoulder the final
burden of
> 'self-observation' and 'self-interpretation'; the
matter can no longer be
> 'externalised'.
>
> Hence to explicate the matter further, what is needed
is a conceptual
> apparatus - i.e. in the Western tradition, a
mathematical theory - adequate
> to the explication of an entirely 'internal' relation
between the dream
> phenomena and their transactional mechanisms. At this
point, enter the
> Computationalist Hypothesis, or of course any other
theory that cares to
> test its mettle for the purpose. ISTM that formulating
the matter in this
> way genuinely makes any putatively remaining 'Hard'
problems seem less
> intractable, at the cost of putting the 'Aristotelian'
position on matter
> into question (but arguably this is already a lost
cause even within physics
> itself). However in a sense it's also a different form
of WYSIWYG, in that
> the dream always and forever is both what you see and
what you get. But if
> you want to study its detailed mechanisms of action you
need to delve into
> the realms of unobservable abstraction. The slogan
might then be: The
> concrete is the subjective reflection of the abstract.
David, excellent text.
Taking the cue of your slogan (which I love), see if you
agree:
A possible model of what is happening is that there is an
objective
reality that is independent from any of us, and that is
made of
matter.
OK, but even saying that is already assuming more than is
actually warranted by the evidence, as your remarks about the
epistemological circularity of emergentism point out. The
more physics is successful in penetrating the mathematical
structure of matter, the less like any naive version of an
external 'world' it appears to be. The culmination of this is
the realisation that the entirety of what we ordinarily take
to be 'concrete' reality must inevitably be an
epistemological construct, not an independent ontological
fact, superadded to its mathematico-physical 'components'.
But that it is a mind-independent ontological fact is part of
its construction, and necessarily so; since what it is
intended to explain is our intersubjective agreement about an
external world. Of course you can reject this and assume
solipsism, or simply assume that the consistency of the
"external world" as compared to dreams and imagination is just
an accident.
I fail to see how your second sentence
necessarily
follows from your first. Why would the
assumption of the
mind-dependent
construction of
a concrete, substantial
reality
lead either to solipsism or the conclusion that
the observed
consistencies
are
accidental?
It doesn't. I said that if you /*reject */the existence of a
mind-independent external world, then you will be driven to
solipism or to some accidental correlation with other minds who
report things consistent with your perception (aka the white rabbit
problem).
Even with DM (Digital Mechanism), there is a Löbian-mind independent
reality (arithmetic, computer science).
DM even proves that there is a physics independent of the
human-mind, but not of the Löbian (much more general) mind.
Then either there is too much white rabbits in DM, and DM is
reflect, or there is no, and the math and the today's results
suggest there is not.
To say that such constructions are dependent on a mind is not at
all to say that they are dependent on one mind alone, or indeed
that minds as a class are independent of anything beyond
themselves. The concept rules out neither a plurality of such
constructions nor their participation in a common causal nexus. My
point is rather that this very causal nexus - ex hypothesi the
entire reductionist project - need not (indeed must not) assume
that such 'emergent' levels of description amount in any way to
superadded causal influences. One might imagine that an omniscient
'observer', in apprehending the entire causal mechanism at its
roots, as it were, would not fail to comprehend any aspect of its
evolution, without reference to any notion of emergence whatsoever.
I think our disagreement centres, as ever, on different uses of
the notion of an ontology. I'm perfectly willing to agree with you
that we are at liberty to use the term promiscuously depending on
context.
No doubt. My slogan is, "Epistemology precedes ontology."
By definition this does not make sense, but I guess you mean
"Epistemology precedes the choice of an ontology".
You want to count experiences as elements of ontology, but I think
of them as bits of knowledge, stuff we know.
Yes, but Aristotelian metaphysics assumes that "seeing, observing,
measuring" is the criteria of truth/knowledge, where the Platonists
are skeptical. They don't doubt about what they see is mostly real,
but they doubt that it is the ultimate reality. They are aware of
the mind-body problem, as a serious difficulty.
From this stuff we know we infer/invent models of what exists,
which include ontologies.
yes, with "model" in the sense of "theory". But physics usually does
not aboard the problem of ontology. Ture, many people just use
almost unconsciously the Aristotelian metaphysics, but that is not
part of the physical science. There is not one paper arguing for the
(metaphysical) existence of a physical universe in physics. They
assume only measurable numbers, and infer relations between numbers.
That there is a universe behind those relations is speculation
without evidence.
That's about the craziest idea of "without evidence" I can imagine.
"Your honor, my client Herr Eichmann cannot be found guilty because
there is not one paper arguing for the metaphysical existence of
physical Jews."
Fortunately the physical evidences are enough.
But when you do metaphysics, you just need to put the card on the tables.
I think you really confuse the evidence for matter, which are
overwhelming, and evidence for physicalism or materialism; which
metaphysically result from a gross extrapolation, especially when you
know that elementary arithmetic generates all possible machine's dreams.
And I think you confuse possibility with realization. Why stop at
computationalism? Why not, as Tegmark originally did, assume all
mathematics is realized?
Given that with DM all histories are in arithmetic, with up to now
indication of the "right" measure, there is less reason today to
speculate on a so strong ontological commitment, especially when it
makes all possible theories of mind even more speculative compared
to Mechanism.
Indeed this is an indispensable aid to comprehension across a wide
range of fields. But in the present case we must be particularly
careful to eliminate all our tacitly projected 'emergent'
interpretations. Otherwise the danger is that we shall be arguing
in a vicious, rather than a virtuous, circle. And the fundamental
premise of reductionism is that - absent any further
interpretation - the evolution of physical states is an entirely
bottom-up process.
I think that's just saying "mind-independent" in different words.
Physics' story of the world is not exactly all "bottom up". It
includes the Past Hypothesis and, in most interpretations,
randomness. Materialism, physicalism, and reductionism are not all
exactly the same thing.
Bottom up all the way down, if you want a slogan. And yet somehow
that bottom up process is tightly implicated in the construction
of 'emergent' phenomenal realities that, once apprehended, somehow
resist reduction to their components.
I don't know what that means. Could you be more explicit and give
and example?
I think that David allludes to the "p" in Bp & p, or in Bp & Dt & p.
After Gödel and Traski we know that "p" (the truth of p" is a non
reducible notion (precisely, no reducible to any 3p theory, even non
mechanist one).
You write things like that, and I understand they are accurate in
your domain of discourse, but it is only in mathematical logic that
"true" is an irreducible notion.
With Tarski theory of truth, we have theory of truth for the
arithmetical formula which has not more demanding than the use of real
number in analysis.
Logic is just mathematics. You would have criticized Einstein by
telling him that the multiplication of m with c^2 is only a convenient
fiction.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to
reality.
-- Albert Einstein
Brent
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