On 8/20/2018 9:54 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 09:03:04PM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:
We must be looking at some different enumeration of the argument. I have:
Clearly. I was referring to the enumeration in the SANE2004 paper, which is
kind of canonical:
OK. I also have the SANE paper.
7) The seventh step introduces the Universal Dovetailer (UD). Let N denotes the
set of
natural numbers. A function from N to N is said to be total if it is defined on
all natural
numbers. A function is said to be computable iff there is a programme FORTRAN
which
computes it12. Church thesis (CT) makes the particular choice of FORTRAN
irrelevant. CT
claims that all computable functions, total or not, are computed by algorithm
expressible in
FORTRAN. In particular all total computable functions are computed by such
FORTRAN
program...
Yes I understood it introduced the UD and per the C-T inferred that all
possible computations are performed by it.
Bruno wrote,"In that case consciousness is associated with a digital
self-referential entity which cannot distinguish
a “bottom” (primary) physical reality from an arithmetical reality"
I objected, "But you didn't show that."
You responded, "This is directly the result at step 7 of the UDA. And it
is pretty much required for the Church Turing thesis to hold."
So I still don't see why the UD implies consciousness is associated with
a digital self-referential entity which cannot distinguish a “bottom”
(primary) physical reality from an arithmetical reality. It seems to me
like the rock that computes everything. The UD is effectively running
every possible simulation at once and so is simulating everything at
once. Whether some thread within it simulates you or simulates a rock
on alpha centauri becomes a matter of interpretation. The computations
of the UD can have no unique interpretation.
8) Yes, but what if we don’t grant a concrete robust physical universe? Up to
this
stage, we can still escape the conclusion of the seven preceding reasoning
steps, by
postulating that a ‘‘physical universe’’ really ‘‘exists’’ and is too little in
the sense of not being
able to generate the entire UD*,
The entire UD is infinite. So it cannot exist in the physical universe.
Brent
nor any reasonable portions of it, so that our usual physical
predictions would be safe from any interference with its UD-generated
‘‘little’’ computational
histories. Such a move can be considered as being ad hoc and disgraceful. It
can also be...
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