On 6/29/2018 3:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 27 Jun 2018, at 20:43, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 6/27/2018 1:42 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On 27 June 2018 at 03:24, Brent Meeker<[email protected]> wrote:
On 6/26/2018 2:32 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On 25 June 2018 at 19:54, Brent Meeker<[email protected]> wrote:
On 6/25/2018 8:06 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
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.
I suggest you should think about what you accept as good explanations of
other phenomenon.
I gave several examples before, regarding emergentist explanations.
Suppose that Darwinian theory has not been discovered, and we have the
following conversation:
T: Where does life come from?
B: Ah, well, it emerges from chemistry.
T: Fine, how does that work?
B: I told you, it emerges from chemistry. What kind of explanation
were you expecting?
I don't think Darwin had anything to do with discovering the chemical basis
of life, which I suppose is what you meant put in the future of the
exchange.
Well, he discovered the principle of selection with variability, and
how this leads to biological complexification. That is no small part
of the puzzle. I meant Darwinism in the neo-Darwinism sense, including
Mendel's postulation of genes, Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA
structure and many other things.
Notice the difference. We have all of these mechanisms to back the
"life emerges from chemistry" theory. Each one explains a piece of the
puzzle. For consciousness we have nada.
But we don't have nada. We have some understanding of how neurons
work and we've even made some AI based on neural nets that is
surprisingly intelligent in a narrow domain. We know a lot about how
a brain produces consciousness from the way that injury or external
stimulus affects consciousness.
OK. But that leads to Mechanism. Then computer science explains
“consciousness” by showing that when a machine introspect itself, it
discover consciousness, i.e. immediate non-doubtable subjective belief
in some truth, yet a non provable (transcendent) one, not even
definable (like truth itself).And we get a mathematically very precise
theory of qualia. But the quanta have to be part of those qualia, and
this make the theory testable. It explain the why and how of
consciousness, but also the matter appearances, and this with all
details, so that we can test the mechanist theory of consciousness.
I know you're thinking, "But that doesn't explain why the brain
processes produce consciousness". My point is that you don't ask
/*why*/ planets produce gravity.
?
I though that this what Einstein asked for, and solved: mass produce
gravity by curving space-time.
Once you have an equation that precisely predicts /*"what"*/ you stop
asking /*"why”*/.
Hmm… Not if you are interested in metaphysics/theology. I stop only on
2+2=4.
When we can predict, manipulate, and create intelligent human-like
behavior
That will never happen, or it already happened with the discovery of
the universal machine. The question is when that machine will be as
stupid as human. But I guess this is vocabulary. I guess you mean
“competent machine”. The universal machine might be the most
intelligent entities ever, but also very fragile: it can become dumb
to the point of believing in its own intelligence, which is the mark
of stupidity.
That's misusing the words. It can't be stupid to believe in your own
intelligence if you are intelligent. If you're intelligent but don't
believe it then you will act on the instructions of someone who is less
intelligent...which would be stupid.
questions about why that behavior is conscious will seem quaint, like
questions about why chemical reproduction constitutes life.
Here I disagree. Chemical are 3p (locally) notion, like life. So,
there is no conceptual difficulties in relating them through 3p
equations.
You have just become so inured to the modern solution that you no longer
even see the problem. In the 19th century there were biologists who
were like the J. A. Wheeler of their day, saying, "Yes, but where is the
spark of life in this chemistry?" That's my point; the problem isn't
solved, it's dissolved.
But for consciousness, there is a conceptual gap. Now, computer
science solves that problem, mainly by showing why machine are
unavoidably confronted to a huge conceptual gap, necessarily. The gap
has a highly sophisticated mathematics (G* minus G and the modal
variants imposed by that very gap).
If you take Thomas Kuhn's ideas seriously, then consciousness seems to
be the current sticking point that is likely to trigger the next
paradigm shift. The exercise we've been through is one where you
insist that what Kuhn refers to as "normal science" can eventually
crack the problem, while I insist that it cannot. This sort of thing
happened before, it's not new.
Did Newton explain gravity? Did Einstein?
They did, in the sense that they refer to above: they described the
mechanism. We even have nice equations that make correct predictions
all the time. You know more about that than me.
Exactly. But they didn't answer Wheeler's question, "What puts fire in
the equations?" Newton answered, "Hypothesi non fingo."
Are you satisfied with the
chemical explanation of life?
Yes. There are some mysteries remaining, my favorite one is how the
first self-replicators originated. But even there are several
plausible ideas.
It might be that this has to be a rare event, and thus a "quantum
miracle”. I have reason to think that we might be alone in the
universe, to get consciousness as deep as our, with a long and deep
history. We might be rare in each branch of the multiverse, but be
very numerous in the universal wave/arithmetic to get the measure
right. I am not sure of this. It would be the comp solution of Fermi
paradox.
I don't think there's anything "normal" or "extra-normal" in science. There
is good science and better science; and they are measured by how
comprehensive, accurate, and predictive they are.
Kuhn proposed the term "normal science" to mean the exploitation mode
of scientific discovery, while "paradigm shift" refers to the
explorative mode. Kuhn's idea is that normal science takes place most
of the time, incrementally improving understanding within the current
paradigm. When the limits of the pardigm are reached, improvement
stalls around certain issues and eventually a reexamination of the
base assumptions is necessary. This leads to a crisis and parts of the
edifice comes tumbling down. The quintessential example is classical
physics and Einstein.
And the stall comes from asking the wrong question: like where does
the elan vitale reside or how does the force of gravity reach out
from a planet?
Newton was deeply trouble by this, and Einstein’s too. It is
Einstein’s feeling that this could be explained which led him to the
Relativity theory.
Then, physicalist are still using primary matter (stuffy or
mathematical) which does not work better than élan vitale to explain
the observable. Primary matter is the élan vitale of physicalism.
No. It is your straw man metaphysics. Physics don't care about
metaphysics, so they don't even think about "primary matter". It plays
no role in their work as physicists. That's why they are successful at
finding comprehensive, accurate, and predictive theories...they avoid
metaphysical assumptions.
Nobody have detect it until now, and its use is inconstant with
mechanism (used by Darwin, and deducible from
QM-without-collapse-nor-ad-hoc non computable hamiltonian).
or how can a physical process produce consciousness?
That question is clear, and with mechanism, we can say: it can’t.
But your argument starts with assuming that saying yes to the doctor is
right, hence the overall arc of your argument is that of a reductio ad
absurdum. Then you try to locate the absurdity in "primary matter"
which didn't even enter the argument.
Brent
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