On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 6:45:43 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 14 May 2019, at 01:54, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < > [email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > > > On 5/13/2019 4:18 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > 3) Or maybe it's "what the brain does", as many physicalists like to say. > My body as mass, because the atoms that make up my body amount to that > mass. What amounts to my consciousness? What are the building blocks? There > is no accounting, there is no description in yours or van Neumann's sense. > > > But there are models that work. That was my point in citing AI projects > like Watson and AlphaGO. The building blocks are perception, information > processing, values, and action. You say "there is no accounting" but > that's because you're using "accounting" as a synonym for "explain". The > accounting in scientific theory is in terms of a model that works. > > > With “model” in the logical sense of “theory”. OK. > > > > You're demanding of a theory of consciousness that will do for > consciousness what general relativity* does not do* for the metric or for > the stress-energy tensor, what Darwin* did not do* for reproduction with > variation. Maybe someday Bruno's theory will yield some interesting > prediction (of the future), but until then it's a theory doesn't do any > work. > > > It does. Once you are interested in consciousness, it does work, >
Not for yours truly. Your very frequent insistence on "fit" merely concedes a lack of evidence to show that indeed everything you claim, can be mined from arithmetical self-reference. > and it explains also the existence of a theological trap, and how to not > fall in it, and this has been confirmed when you look at the history and > compare the platonician period and the Aristotelian. It is really the > difference between peace and war, prosperity and poverty. > So now, if we're skeptical of your theory, we opt for war and poverty? Show us the money! Bring us world peace! > > What you mean, is that it does not work as well as current physical > theories, but even this is false, in the sense that physics works only by > assuming an identity thesis which is, let us say, non intelligible, pure > magic. > It's as magic as the identity you assume when flooding this list with another set of responses. > In that sense, mechanism works much better than physics today. And with > mechanism, physics does work only by putting the mind under the rug, that > is denying that when we do a physical experience, at some point we use of > first person experience, if only to note where is the needle. > Some people are known to have handled needles without assuming mechanism. Some managed to not impoverish themselves or start wars in the process. > > So what you mean, is that Mechanism is not as efficacious than physical > theories, FAPP. And that is true, but that is equivalent with saying > quantum mechanics is to reject in everyday life, because it is easier to > make a pizza using elementary classical physics that using Schroedinger > equation. > No, it just means that when we make a pizza a certain size with one choice of topping, that the pizza will not change in size. We do this automatically. And if the size or the toping does change, we return the pizza, it's associated theories, and ask for our money back! Everybody would. Without QM and without mechanism. Imagine that. > > Physics is the right tool for doing prediction, but to explain why it > works, without denying the conscious experience, we need serious > metaphysics. > > Of which you are the only supplier in the world right? Now you need to cover the blasphemies here with another thousand "responses". When I hear "serious" applied to metaphysics, I feel good. > > > So far it doesn't even account for the effect of holding your breathe too > long or ingesting LSD. > > > How do you know that? It does this rather well. > > That was a nice trap, and you waltz right into it as the expert of theological traps. > > > The physical model that says consciousness is the brain processing > information by neuron's firing at synapses...a very successful model. > > > But consciousness is not neural firing. You cannot identify a first person > event with third person event, unless you make them both into very special > sort of infinities. > > > > But the mysterians of consciousness want to pooh-pooh that because it > doesn't talk about how their consciousness "feels". But neither does > Bruno's . > > > No, that is wrong. You need to study a bit more. The fact that G*proves > all modes of self)ferefence equivalent, but that the machine cannot see > this explains all the discourse on consciousness, and its relation with > matter. Ask any question on this, but you might revised a bit my papers. > Lol, the aesthetics department of mechanism? Let's take a guess "We don't know?" It is there or it isn't. If it's there we still don't know, but we know why! Hallmarks of great metaphysics and a true appreciation of capacities of the gratification of sense! > > > > He talks about "arithmetic, seen from the inside" as though that was > more than a Platonic metaphor. > > > Yes, it is an arithmetical fact, even without Mechanism, in which case the > internal viewer are zombies, but they are still there as a fact, and they > deny to be zombie, although they are already aware that can’t prove this to > you. > All the "my mechanism or the highway" discourse is red flag, man. Pure guru stuff full of ambition that can be interpreted to manipulate interpretation of others. Folks can build theories of consciousness without adopting this particular rhetorical bag of tricks. They've been doing so for centuries. Your discourse, because of the open nature of this list and its subject, has found traction here for years. "Mechanism" is a hope, a scientific one perhaps, but still a wish based on fit. You can realize how much value all the list members have contributed to this personal discourse for years with their openness, receptivity, and their desire to read and understand each other. Yet you persist in trying to wrap people in your personal discourse "2+2=4 style" and continue to police what people should or should not read, with the predictable ending of pushing them to read your papers forever. How this equates to a mere basis of respect, both towards yourself and towards those that have tried to understand your interpretations over the years... how does "mechanism" handle that? I know, I know... by posting another billion responses and justifications of justifications of justifications. Just keep escaping forward, right? PGC -- 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]. 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