On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 3:51 AM Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>>And every time in the history of the world a change in consciousness >> resulted in a change in the physical state of a brain and a change in the >> physical state of a brain resulted in a change in consciousness. > > > > Which World? > The only one I know for a fact to exist. Maybe Harry Potter's world exists too, but maybe not. >> And not once in the history of the world has anyone observed a >> computation being made in nothing but a change in arithmetic. In fact >> nobody has ever observed a change in arithmetic period. > > > *Knocking table argument.* > Yes, and a damn fine argument that is too. Another name for it is "The Scientific Method" which has worked out rather well for us in the past. > > *Then “observing a computation” is not defined.* > That's because "defined" is not defined and never will be, you can only learn what the word means by example and you can't do that without making use of the physical world. > > *Nobody can observe a mathematical object, but with mechanism, the > reasoning will show that* [...] > Reasoning is entirely dependent on a brain made of matter that obeys the laws of physics. > *> observation is explained by relative mathematical relations, or some > set of them.* > Mathematical relations between what? Mathematics is a language so it depends on if you're talking about fiction or nonfiction. If the relation is just between one mathematical object and another with no connection with the one world we know for a fact to exist then you've got the mathematical equivalent of a Harry Potter novel. But if ultimately there is a connection to the physical world then the mathematics is telling us a nonfiction story. > >> The only thing I assume is that if something works then it works and >> if something doesn't work then it doesn't work. Making calculations with >> the help of matter works, making calculations without matter doesn't work. > > > *> How do you know that?* > Inductive reasoning, the same way people know most things. > *> You invoke an ontological commitment to claim that they are zombies,* > Yep that's me, I can often be found walking down the street confronting people and shouting at the top of my lungs *you are a zombie you are a zombie!* > >> And that is your cue to refute what I just said by referring to a >> textbook that will never be able to calculate 2+2. > > *> Straw man,. Nobody has ever claim that a textbook calculates.* > And you have never been able to successfully knock down that straw man and explain why the hell textbooks can't calculate, or explain why all calculations ever observed require not just matter but matter organized in the way Turing described. *> Confusion between a sequence of symbols and what it means, again, and > again.* > Means? Meaning requires intelligence, before Evolution invented brains things happened and did stuff but nothing meant anything. Humans are in the meaning conferring business not rocks, we can give meaning to a rock but a rock can't give meaning to us. I think you're the one that's very confused. > >> Boolean operations don't simulate Turing Machines, Turing Machines >> simulate Boolean operations. > > > *> Boolean operations (XOR, for example) + the duplication (the > bifurcating wires) + a delay/clock provides a Universal Turing formalism,* > Universal Turing formalisms can not perform Boolean operations, they can't do any other sort of calculation either. But a Turing Machine can. 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/CAJPayv355%3Dv_CvustM-4pna-c2NR-JYYjwHxw5g0ELO8rXw-CQ%40mail.gmail.com.
