On 11/28/2018 9:40 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:
On Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 9:03:42 AM UTC-6, Lawrence Crowell
wrote:
On Friday, November 9, 2018 at 6:51:06 PM UTC-6, Bruce wrote:
From: *Brent Meeker* <meek...@verizon.net>
You're dodging my point. The "issue" of how we have
subjective experience only seems to be an issue because in
comparison to the "objective" experience of matter where we
can trace long, mathematically define causal chains down
to...a Lagrangian and coupling constants or something
similar, which is long enough and esoteric enough that almost
everyone loses interest along the way. But some people (like
Vic) are going to say, "But where does the Langrangian and
coupling constants come from?" and "Why a Lagrangian
anyway?" My point is that when we can give a similarly deep
and detailed account of why you think of an elephant when
reading this, then nobody will worry about "the hard problem
of consciousness"; just like they don't worry about "the hard
problems of matter" like where that Lagrangian comes from or
why a complex Hilbert space.
Why can't I worry about those things? Where does the
Lagrangian come from? And why use a complex Hilbert space? I
don't think this is the underlying reason for saying that the
"hard problem" of consciousness dissolves on solving the
engineering problems. Solving the engineering problems will
enable us to produce a fully conscious AI -- but will we then
know how it works? We will certainly know where it came from.....
Bruce
When it comes to science I have to back what Bruce says here. All
knowledge faces the limits of the Münchhausen trilemma, where we
have three possible types of arguments. The first is the basic
axiomatic approach, which generally is the cornerstone and
capstone of mathematics and science. The second is a "turtles all
the way down," where an argument is based on premises that have
deeper reasons, and this nests endlessly. Vic Stenger found this
to be of most interest with his "models all the way down." The
third is a circular argument which would mean all truth is just
tautology. The second and third turn out to have some relevancy,
where these are complement in Godel's theorem. While in general we
use the first in science and mathematics we generally can't
completely eliminate the other two. However, for most work we have
an FAPP limitation to how far we want to go. Because of that if
there is ultimately just a quantum vacuum, or some set of vacua,
that is eternal, we may then just rest our case there.
If one wants to do philosophy or theology that may be fine, but
one has to make sure not to confuse these as categories with the
category of science. Maybe as Dennett says, philosophy is what we
do when we do not understand how to ask the question right. In
that setting at best we can only do sort of "pre-science," but not
really science as such. Theology is an even looser area of
thought, and I generally see no connection with science at all.
LC
The "models almost all the way up ... and ... down" quote ("models"
replacing the original "turtles") came first from the philosopher of
science *Ronald Giere* [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Giere ].
/In his book Scientific Perspectivism he develops a version of
perspectival realism in which he argues that scientific descriptions
are somewhat like colors, in that they capture only selected aspects
of reality, and those aspects are not bits of the world seen as they
are in themselves, but bits of the world seen from a distinctive human
perspective. In addition to the color example, Giere articulates his
perspectivism by appeal to maps and to his own earlier and influential
work on scientific models. Maps represent the world, but the
representations they provide are conventional, affected by interest,
and never fully accurate or complete. Similarly, scientific models are
idealized structures that represent the world from particular and
limited points of view. According to Giere, what goes for colors,
maps, and models goes generally: science is perspectival through and
through./
And I would add that this is true of all thought, not just "scientific"
ideas. We evolved to see the world in certain ways conducive to
survival and reproduction. But as Vic used to say science works so it
has something to do with reality.
Brent
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