On 30 Dec 2017, at 22:38, Brent Meeker wrote:
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]>
wrote:
On 12/22/2017 6:31 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 22 Dec 2017 11:22, "Telmo Menezes" <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 2:01 PM, David Nyman <[email protected]
> wrote:
> On 21 December 2017 at 11:34, Telmo Menezes <[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?
Because "all mathematics is not well defined, and with
computationalism leads to white rabbits. Then mechanism is very
natural, and "computable" is the only epistemological concept, which
thanks to Church's thesis, is made mathematically, arithmetically,
clear. its closure for the diagonalization procedure makes it quite
explanatively close. I try just to understand where consciousness and
appearances come from, and how are their related. Mathematicalism is a
theorem with computationalism, but much of mathematics become only
necessary mindtools, even the infinite, actually, but they are not
existing, in the sense of the base theory, which runs your possible
virtuous circles, and even more incredibly semi-virtuous infinite
spirals.
Bruno
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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