On 21 June 2018 at 22:52, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 6/21/2018 3:55 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On 21 June 2018 at 00:53, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 6/20/2018 4:51 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Bruno, >>>> >>>>>> I follow your reasoning, from one of your recent articles. This leaves >>>>>> me dissatisfied, but if I try to verbalize this dissatisfaction I feel >>>>>> stuck in a loop. Perhaps this illustrates your point. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> We might need to do some detour about what it would mean to explain >>>>> consciousness, or matter. >>>>> I might ask myself if you are not asking too much, perhaps. Eventually, >>>>> something has to remain unexplainable for reason of self-consisteny. I >>>>> suspect it will be just where our intuition of numbers or combinators, >>>>> or of >>>>> the distinction finite/infinite comes from (assuming mechanism), or >>>>> just why >>>>> we trust the doctor! >>>> >>>> I thought about it for some time. It seems that at a meta level, we >>>> are always stuck in this situation of "give me one miracle for free >>>> and everything else becomes explainable". The miracle can be matter, >>>> or consciousness, or arithmetic. >>> >>> >>> Do you see that is just another form of my circle of virtuous >>> explanation. >>> Start wherever you understand or accept the starting point and then you >>> can >>> go around the circle and get to everything else. >> >> I see your point and even concede that it might be the wise approach >> for many things, but I don't think one can "get to everything else" >> this way. >> >> The problem with my analogy with heliocentrism/geocentrism is that >> these are, in the end, compatible -- but the same doesn't seem to >> apply to materialism/computationalism. I think that Bruno proves >> convincingly that the two are incompatible. I'm not sure if you are >> convinced by the UDA argument or not. Are you? >> >> If one takes this incompatibility seriously, things become a bit more >> tricky. In this case, and to expand on what I was suggesting: >> >> - There is a set of beliefs M that are consistent with materialism; >> - There is a set of beliefs C that are consistent with computationalism; >> - The intersection between M and C, let's call it A, is non-empty but; > > > In the virtuous circle theory you could start with M and explain C or vice > versa. At least if C is a comprehensive theory as proposed. So A=C=M. > >> - There are justified true beliefs that belong to C if one starts from >> comp, but not to A, let's say C* > > > Justified how? By logical inference from Peano's axioms?
By direct experience: "I am conscious" or just "I am". > Note that C and M > proceed to produce explanations in different ways and M doesn't aim to > produce beliefs, only theories. I realize that Bruno uses "belief" as > shorthand for a relation between computable and some ideal machine. So it's > not clear to me that "belief" means the same thing in C and M. > >> - There are justified true beliefs that belong to M if one starts from >> materialism, but not to A, let's say M* >> - Furthermore, there is empirical data that fits C* and not M*, and >> vice-versa. > > > I don't think that's the case. C seems to me to be capable to explaining > anything (e.g. we're living in the Matrix). The theories of M are certainly > incomplete, but if there is empirical data inconsistent with those theories > it just shows they have limited domain. If there is empirical data that is > impossible to include in M how would we know; how could we be sure that it > could not be included? I don't see how that fact that I am conscious and have a first person experience of reality could be explained by M. >> >> Most people nowadays live only within A. It used to be the case that >> people lived with A + R (R is some set of religious beliefs), and that >> is more or less what enabled us to build civilization. R might be >> wrong, but it is clearly useful (and also has a very dark side, of >> course). A-only-living is the domain of mid-life crisis, existential >> despair, hating Mondays and scientific utilitarianism. > > > Get a grip, Telmo. A is the best place to live. Easy for you to say, now that you will be rolling in cash from your gambling operation! >> M* is the >> domain of the emergentist project of neuroscience, and I would argue >> is the proto-religion of many contemporary scientists, and especially >> militant atheists. C* is the domain of neoplatonism. Not surprisingly, >> it irritates M* people, and vice-versa. > > > And it's the domain of the pseudo-science mystic who, feeling the loss of R, > longs to recover that world view that puts them at the center of everything. I think this goes to the core of the emotions underlying the debate. I agree with you that desiring to be the center of everything is a common form of egotistical delusion. I will add -- an you will not like this one -- that standing in awe at "how small we are compared to the universe, how truly insignificant our problems are compared to the incomprehensible size of the cosmos" is another form of egotistical delusion. It is hard to truly be free from religious thinking. >> >> On a practical level, it makes sense to operate in M* while performing >> surgery, but it does not make sense to restrict oneself to M* when >> trying to answer fundamental questions. I think that's the point where >> it becomes religious dogmatism - R*. > > > Who is more dogmatic about their world view, the MWI'ists or the CI'ers? > Which sounds more like a religion, "Everything exists, we just can't see > it." or "Shut up and calculate."? Well, I would say that at least the former are proposing an explanation that one can agree with or attack. Telmo. > 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. -- 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.
