From: *Bruno Marchal* <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
On 26 Sep 2018, at 02:36, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I agree that the quote does not make sense. But it is what you said.
It does not make sense out of hits context. It is the the “…” which
does not make sense.
The real question is “have you grasped now?”
I say that in the context of Mechanism. Then in the math part, I
have (semi-) exiomatize consciousness as
True, unjustifiable, undefinable, immediately knowable, indubitable,
and show how the modes of self-reference makes any universal machine
verifying the existence of this.
This is an attempt at proof by definition. All it amounts to is your
usual "cat-dog" logic -- the argument that similarity implies identity.
The question is “do you accept that your daughter marry a man who get
a digital heart, and later, a digital brain”?
My daughter can marry whomsoever she pleases.
No-one says that similarity implies identity, but only that we make
the hypothesis that there is a level of description where digital
similarity entails practical survival.
Nobody defends the idea that this is true (except Clark).
I just deduce from that that the materialist argument invoking a
physical universe to get a brain-mind identity thesis is no more
valid, and that the computationalist has to derive physics from
self-reference.
Your deduction fails.
You must study before criticising.
Only some level of study is necessary. Enough to know that you do not
make your case.
A proof conveys truth only in so far as the axioms/assumptions that
were assumed at the start are true.
Proof in general does not entails truth.
I did not say that it did. Read what I say, and do not misquote me....
I said that proof conveys truth only in so far as the axioms are true.
That is what is not provable by any machine about a truth enough large
to encompass itself.
The machine does not have to prove this -- it is manifest that a valid
proof is "truth conserving", it does not entail truth.
Your proof assumes arithmetical realism (platonism).
Yes, that means it assumes that classical logic can be applied in
elementary arithmetic. That is presupposed in *all* papers in the
physics literature, and elsewhere.
Now you are getting ridiculous. Elementary arithmetic, such as 2+2=4,
is tautologically true.
It is true, but it needs a non purely logical theory to be proved. You
cannot drive the numbers from logic alone.
Who claims that you can? Whitehead and Russell tried, but failed.
So arithmetic is used in physics, but that does not mean that anyone
necessarily assumes arithmetic
Anyone capable to take a bus to go to an exam of math, like already in
primary school, assumes arithmetic.
I would suggest that you follow your own advice and not quote out of
context! Or jump into the middle of a sentence and treat it as though
that were the whole sentence. You might show me the courtesy of
responding to what I actually say, not some straw man.
I said that no one necessarily assumes arithmetical realism, or platonism.
We are blase. And we learn by examples, so we forget that we build on
assumption, but everyone capable of adding and multiplying, and
believing in notion like “anniversary” assumes arithmetic. Quantum
physics, the theory, assumes arithmetic. The definition of a digital
machine assumes arithmetic.
These thing use arithmetic -- that does not entail assuming arithmetical
realism.
You don’t seem to be aware that we can be skeptical about an
ontological physical reality.
But if you want matter, no problem. Given that you seem to disbelieve
Mechanism. You are pertly coherent, but I doubt you are interested in
mind, souls, and the origin of the physical realm.
I am interested enough. But that does not mean that I have to accept
your account. I assume a mind-brain connection, so that mind and
consciousness are purely physical things. They do not depend on some
independently existing magical arithmetical realm. As Brent says, there
is no "hard problem of consciousness". It is purely an engineering
problem. Once we have built conscious robots we will wonder what all the
fuss was about.
If you are prepared to say yes to the doctor, then you must believe
that the body and brain are Turing emulable,
At some relevant level. Some might ask for the atomic level, other for
the string level, etc.
and /ipso facto/, that consciousness is Turing emulable.
That is a subtle point. It is correct from the third person view, but
consciousness is not emulate by the physical things,
I suggest that you try and prove that. And while you are at it, prove
that you are fully conscious under anaesthetic.
I might not say yes to the doctor for other reasons, but I certainly
believe in strong AI, i.e., that consciousness is recoverable in a
Turing machine.
Nice. That is enough to listen to those machines, and they will
explain to you that if you are yourself a consistent machine at some
digital level, then physics can be use to test mechanism.
Maybe they will actually explain to me that the so-called "hard problem
of consciousness" is an illusion.
Stop the ad hominem please.
You don't take kindly to criticism of your ideas, do you Bruno. You see
every criticism as a direct personal attack.
But most people conceive more easily that QM or GR might be false
than elementary arithmetic, or the elementary combinator axioms.
Who said anything about arithmetic being false?
You said above hat you don’t assume arithmetic.
You misquote again. I said that I did not believe in arithmetical
realism or platonism -- an independently existing arithmetical realm.
Once you take this away, the universal dovetailer can do nothing, and
your whole metaphysics collapses.
You cannot believe it true if you don’t assume some of its theories.
Arithmetical theorems are only tautologically true -- true by virtue of
the meaning of the terms involved. One does not need to assume any theories.
Don't you dare tell me what I believe. I can tell you only that I do
not believe in arithmetical realism, so I do not accept the
assumptions of mechanism.
Arithmetical realism is just the believe in the axiom above.
Why should one "believe in axioms"? Axioms are just a starting point.
They are neither true nor false in themselves, so to speak of believing
in them is a category error.
The “realism” part is basically in the (A v ~A).
Without arithmetical realism, there is no Church Turing thesis, no
computer science, and no physical theories at all. I mention it only
because I put *all* the card on the table.
Rubbish. Arithmetic is just a matter of some definitions, axioms, and
rules of inference. No realism involved.
I did put arithmetical realism to avoid infinite tergiversation about
2+2=4, like some local people did already.
But if this were true, you would have told us since long.
I tell you this quite regularly.
But you put in “arithmetical realism” something which is not there.
It is there, you know. Without that, your whole enterprise collapses.
Sometimes I add “2+2=4” independently of me. May be you believe that
when you die 2+2=4 will cease to be true. That would not make sense,
because it would a category error. The arithmetical proposition do not
presuppose time or anything like that.
No, they merely presuppose definitions and axioms. They do not
presuppose an independently existing "arithmetical realm".
Also, you talk in term of a theory being true or false,
Once again, do not put words into my mouth.
Oh, but what I say, I deduce or infer from what you say.
Oh!, I see! It is OK for you to deduce or infer things from what I say,
but it is not OK for me to do the same?
What is epistemological inconsistency? I do not assume anything other
than the existence of an external world whose existence is
independent of you, me, or anyone else.
Yes, I saw that. But then Mechanism is false, and as you accept
arithmetical realism (and even Church’s thesis, without which “string
AI” is not definable), the point is that you have to say no to the
doctor (or find an error in my derivation).
Yes, I maintain that mechanism is false. Who said that I accept
arithmetical realism? -- I thought I had denied that many times.
Church's thesis does not require arithmetical realism. Nothing requires
arithmetical realism, except your thesis. One is perfectly free to
reject arithmetical realism -- science does not thereby collapse.
Arithmetical realism is the error in your derivation.
Bruce
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