On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 6:27 AM Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Science can guarantee that the new brain transplant operation you're >> about to have today will be no different from the brain transplant operation >> you already had > > > *> Science guarantee that we cannot be certain that compuytaionalism is > true,* > It makes no difference if it's true or not, whatever happened to you a year ago will happen again today if you say yes to the doctor, if the old brain transplant did not lead to disaster there is no reason to think the new one will either. > *nor that a doctor has chosen the right substitution level.* > You mean substituting one carbon atom for another is not the same as substituting one carbon atom for another? >>you've already had that turned the man you were a year ago into the man >> you are today. > > > > Assuming a lot of things, OK. > The only thing you're assuming is X=X. > >> we can conclude that proof and truth are not the same thing and the >> wisdom of saying yes or no to the doctor or yes or no to being frozen has >> nothing to do with proof, it has to do with truth. > > *>Absolutely. You make my point. And I call “intuition" and in some context > “faith" when we use truth in the place of proof. That is why Mechanism is a > religion: it needs some act of faith,* > As I said in the second half of my previous post (the half that you did not respond to by the way) that is not faith. I repeat what I said here: Faith is believing in the virgin birth even though direct experience does not reveal it. The religious knows correctly that faith exists because he directly experienced faith, in this case about the virgin birth, but he did not directly experience the virgin birth itself, but he believes it anyway. It gets worse, he does not have a proof of it but believes it anyway. He doesn't even have a plausible argument or one bit of evidence in favor of it but he believes it anyway with every fibre of his being. And that's why faith is a vice not a virtue. > * > as no one can prove it is correct.* > And I have absolutely no need to prove it to say yes to the doctor or yes to being frozen. That's why I said yes. > > *But we can use it everyday without thinking, of course.* > You've got it backwards, people who don't think don't use it and thus they say no. >> I don't know about Löbian machines because nobody on Earth except you >> knows what that is, >> > > Ojh? Why not ask me to recall the definition (I have given a lot of > times). > When I Google "Löbian machine" nothing comes up except stuff written by you. Even Löb didn't know what a Löbian machine was. > *> A Löbian machine is a universal machine which know, and can prove, that > she is universal. Typical example are Peano arithmetic (but not Robinson > Arithmetic!), ZF, etc.* > Turing told us EXACTLY how to make a Turing Machine, but neither Löb or you or anybody else told us even approximately how to make a Löbian machine. >> but yes you're right, she can't claim computationalism is true, she >> can't claim she survived the teleportation, she can't even claim she >> survived BEFORE the teleportation. She can't claim those things because she >> can't prove them. Nevertheless she knows the truth, she knows for certain >> if she survived or not and she knows for certain if computationalism is >> true or not. > > > *> Very good. Yes,* > Then the rational thing is to say to the doctor is yes and the rational thing to say about being frozen is also yes. And we both agree that the decision, although entirely rational, cannot be proven to be rational. So what are we arguing about? > > >>*the substitution level was enough low to say “I have survived”, bt >>> you cannot be sure that you did not lose some memory or abilities, * >> >> >> And the exact same thing is true every time you wake up in the >> morning. You have yet to give me a good reason, or even a mediocre reason, >> for saying No to the doctor or No to being frozen. > > *>I am not arguing for organist Mechanism, I just argue that Mechanism is > incompatible with Materialism i.e. Aristotle theology* > If I knew absolutely positively nothing about X except that X is incompatible with Aristotelian theology then I would say that whatever X is it's probably true. >> Being an axiom is a very exalted position but can you think of ANYTHING >> more worthy of becoming an axiom than "Bruno Marchal is conscious"? I'll >> bet you can't think of anything more obvious than that, although I can. > > > *> Nothing is really obvious here.* > Oh for God's sake! It's not obvious to you that you're conscious?? Please name something that is more obvious to you. Please name something that is more deserving of becoming an axiom. >>> *but I can conceive that mechanism wrong, and that indeed, the copy is >>> always unconscious,* >> >> > >>Then you are always unconscious because YOU ARE A COPY of the man you >> were last year, the atoms that made up that fellow have been replaced. > > > *> I am a copy at the right level, I guess, from studying molecular > biology, and assuming some physical reality. * > It makes no difference even if you make the looney assumption that physical reality is bogus. Bogus atoms were replaced in your bogus brain from last year, and if you say yes to the doctor then bogus atoms will be replaced in your bogus brain again. If the first bogus thing doesn't make you uncomfortable then the second bogus thing shouldn't either because it's the exact same bogus thing. *> No problem in practice,** but *[...] > The world is full of disastrous boondoggles that worked in theory so I'd much rather have a problem in theory than a problem in practice, but in this case there is no problem with either. > > *but for the understanding of the consequence,* > If you say yes to the doctor and your atoms are replaced then the consequences, assuming there are some, will be the same as the consequences you already experienced from being replaced over the last year. > I defined the theology [...] >> > I'm not interested in theology. > > > *> Typically, you break the quote where I defined theology.* > I already know what the definition of theology is in English and I have no wish to learn what the word means in Brunospeak because its only used by you on this list and nowhere else. I've found that one good indicator that somebody is talking moonshine is if they insist on redefining common words (like theology and God) in radical new ways and love to dream up new homemade acronyms. And nobody does that more than you. > *>It seems you have a problem with the word theology,* > Wow, you are very perceptive! Yes, I do have a problem with that word because serious people don't use it when discussing serious problems. > *> a bit like the fanatic atheists Einstein talked about: * > > * … there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind > as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same > source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their > chain which they have thrown off after hard struggle.* > I'm a libertarian so I'm not intolerant of religion, I'm not going to physically stop you from making a fool of yourself, you have that right. But by the same token I have the right to hold you in contempt if you make a fool of yourself. > *>I understand that the guy who has survived a first experience of > teleportation or artificial brain transplant, or feel that way, will be > convinced that Mechanism is true. The point is that even for him, it is not > a proof.* > Oh for Gods sake! You keep saying that and I keep saying yes yes I know. And I also keep saying it doesn't matter a gnat's ass if there is a proof or not, what matters is if it's true or not. > * > That is not a problem in practice,* > So there is no problem in saying yes to the doctor's practical question or saying yes to the practice of being frozen. >> Mechanism requires arithmetic in the same way a brick requires the >> English word "brick”. > > > *> A brick does not resonate the word “brick”. But the definition of a > digital machine requires the truth of the laws of addition and > multiplication, * > Machines have no use for definitions and all the definitions in the world can't figure out what 2+2 is. > >>Non Aristotelian? How odd to divide things up between stuff >> Aristotle knew and stuff he didn't, one pile is infinitely larger than the >> other. > > > > *>That the case for all of us. I mention Aristotle’s view, because it is > the current paradigm.* > Of course it's the current paradigm! Aristotle was an ignoramus and after 2500 years of progress we have become less ignorant and thus more Non-Aristotelian. * > Of course it is contra Pythegoreans and Platonic thinking,* > And Pythagoras was a ignoramus too and Plato an even bigger one, so today we also embrace the Non-Pythagorean and Non-Platonic view. >> There is a word for rigorous metaphysics, it's called "physics", you >> should try it someday. > > > *> That is what I call the Aristotelian postulate. God is Matter. * > A much better definition of the English word "God" would be "a grey amorphous blob of indeterminate size that need not be intelligent or conscious"; that way no logical person could ever call themself an atheist or even an agnostic, assuming of course you don't also change the definition of atheist and agnostic. John K Clark -- 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]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2-aQ%2BXzrfsHH8XJzNOwnNYbq6nYLO0Fkuh-aptPvvgOA%40mail.gmail.com.
