RE: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization)
Hi all, It's very interesting to see these ideas. Common people can understand common languages (like English, Chinese etc.). So I think even the most difficult math. or physics theories can be translated into other common languages that common people can understand easily. I don't see why common people can not understand the most difficult math. equations. Those math. equations or theorems should be just like one language that can be translated into another common language that everyone can understand. Thanks. WC. From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John M Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 12:01 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization) Bruno, George wrote an admirably wise note and you picked positively on the roadmap with the fruitful mind of a logician. It looks like you both start out from not agreeing because of non-understanding math sufficiently - which may be true, but not necessarily the real root. I think many of us have the wrong information about 'math' in question. You called numbers the series of '1,2,3...many' and we think 'math' is a manipulation of such, even if many substitute and functional symbols are used. My question (and I asked it several times here and on diverse other lists and got no satisfactory answer) - still prevails: What are (in the new meaning) NUMBERS - how can we handle the non-number concepts by numbers - (whatever they are)? Rephrased: What is the 'new' meaning of math and how can non-math concepts be handled by math? Norman touched it, 1Z goes around it, David Bohm even went that far as to state: numbers (and so math) are human inventions, probably based on Plato, who made the biggest (philosophical) argument - as the product of HIS mind. Words are loaded with different meanings and people tend to use their favorite - mostly from the mother tongue. I admire George's open mind accepting the diverse positions and I am also no missionary who wants to convert people, but even if I think differently, I like to follow the mental ways of others. It may add usefully to my own thinking. So I propose a 'starting' point to the 'roadmap': How may one consider the new version(s) of number and math instead of the arithmetic-based and binary computer founded conventional ignorance? (It is not a 101 course what this list should be above, it may draw in 'more-sided' opinions into the discussion - which is now pretty much on the math - physics base only. Extending to other planes of 'everything'.) Then we may proceed in understanding the 'stuffy' matter (as e.g.. a photon - ha ha) and the physicists' concepts mostly based on some mathematical application, including the most esoteric 'everything' topics. After all that I may try to speak about my ways how I am not in controversy with all that - only regarding it as a partial view of the totality (which is hard to talk about). Not for converting you or others, just for proving to myself some (Levy-type) sanity. So how should I include the validity of a legal opinion into the numbers? How should I 'comp'(?) the feeling of love? How should I 'materialize' (physically?) the beauty of a sunset? (all without flattening those qualia into a quantitative plane)? Eager to learn John Mikes - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 10:39 AM Subject: Re: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization) Hi George, A roadmap could be a very good idea. I will think about it. I will keep on your level notions: -kids -grandmother -colleagues (But not in any normative sense: I know kids who are better in math than colleagues, and I know a family where the computer and the net has been installed by the grand-grandmother! So here each one should judge by him/herself on which level they to feel to be. But a roadmap, some summaries ... are in need, sure. Not so easy of course. Just let me think about it. Note also that if I explain in plain english, what I say could appear as a little weird, that is why I tend to be technical. And also, I don't know much people who can swallow both Godel/Church... and Everett/Deutsch ... Quantum information science can help, but this is a bit tricky by itself when you want to be enough precise, and still a long way from Godel-lobian notions. In any case thanks for letting me know when I get too much technical. Thanks to Norman who tries sometimes to convey a similar message, and thanks to Tom for enjoying apparently the more technical posts , and thanks to 1Z for playing the role of the skeptical one, and thanks to all of you, especially Wei Dai, for the kind patience. I will think about some roadmap, but also about some books which could provide helps. Feel
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 19-juil.-06, à 17:30, Jesse Mazer a écrit : Stathis Papaioannou: Bruno Marchal writes: I think I have more basic difficulties also, like the Maudlin argument re the handling of counterfactuals for consciousness to occur: It is a bit harder, no doubt. And, according to some personal basic everything philosophy, the Maudlin argument is important of not is this requirement just to avoid saying that everything implements every computation? Jacques Mallah makes that point some years ago (in this list), and I think Hal Finney has developed that point. I think their argument are valid. But then I don't think the Putnam-Mallah-Chalmers is really a problem once you get the idea that the physical world emerge from the mathematical world of computations. Personally I have never seen a convincing argument that everything implements every computations, just perhaps some tiny part of some computations. I will postpone saying more on the movie-graph/Olympia type of argument (if only to avoid to much simultaneous threads and to modulate the difficulties). It seems to me trivially obvious that any sufficiently complex physical system implements any finite computation, just as any sufficiently large block of marble contains every marble statue of a given size. The difference between random noise (or a block of marble) on the one hand and a well-behaved computer (or the product of a sculptor's work) on the other is that the information is in the latter case presented in a way that can interact with the world containing the substrate of its implementation. But I think that this idea leads to almost the same conclusion that you reach: it really seems that if any computation can be mapped to any physical substrate, then that substrate is superfluous except in that tiny subset of cases involving well-behaved computers that can handle counterfactuals and thus interact with their environment, and we may as well say that every computation exists by virtue of its status as a platonic object. I say almost because I can't quite see how to prove it, even though I suspect that it is so. But just because you can map any physical activity to any computation with the right mapping function, that doesn't necessarily mean that some physical processes don't contribute more to the measure of certain observer-moments than others--Chalmers would say that there are psychophysical laws governing the relationship between physical processes and conscious experiences, and they might specify that a physical process has to meet certain criteria which a rock doesn't in order to qualify as an instantiation of a given mind. Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. I met David Chalmers in Brussels in 2000 (at the Brussels ASSC meeting). He *is* indeed quite coherent, in the sense that he considers that in the self-duplication Washington/Moscow experiment the first person must feel to be at the two places simultaneously. This is coherent also with his dualist interpretation of Everett. Now, I personally agree with Hans Primas, and David Deutsch, that Everett's move is motivated by a search for a monistic view of (quantum) reality. [For the modalist: Note that the G-difference (but G*-equality) between Bp and Bp p makes it possible, *through* comp to justify phenomenologically (i.e. in first person terms) the gap between the two aspects of the mind defended by Chalmers.] About Chalmers's dualism: see: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/ Chalmers.html Although there is some difficulty figuring out exactly what these criteria would be (matching counterfactuals, for example?), it doesn't seem obviously hopeless, Only by jeopardizing the comp hyp., and introducing an explicit dualism (as he does). I have no problem with that. I respect all hypothesis, but I concentrate myself on the comp hyp. I only rarely argued in favor of comp, or of any hypotheses. I prefer to study their consequences. Now, I could say that I find Chalmers approach as an highly speculative approach build just to save the Aristotelian conception of physics/nature/reality, which I already known to be incoherent with comp. The point is that Chalmers approach is coherent with mine: he just proposes a different theory. which is why I'm not ready to accept Bruno's movie-graph argument or Maudlin's Olympia argument. OK, but my feeling is that you need to abandon comp to be able to cut down such form of reasoning. Or you should perhaps point on some precise step you judge not convincing. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
RE: Bruno's argument
Jesse Mazer writes: But just because you can map any physical activity to any computation with the right mapping function, that doesn't necessarily mean that some physical processes don't contribute more to the measure of certain observer-moments than others--Chalmers would say that there are psychophysical laws governing the relationship between physical processes and conscious experiences, and they might specify that a physical process has to meet certain criteria which a rock doesn't in order to qualify as an instantiation of a given mind. Although there is some difficulty figuring out exactly what these criteria would be (matching counterfactuals, for example?), it doesn't seem obviously hopeless, which is why I'm not ready to accept Bruno's movie-graph argument or Maudlin's Olympia argument. Clearly there is something to explain here, because there is a difference between a rock and a brain or computer, but it would be good if the difference could be explained without invoking ad hoc laws and making as few assumptions as possible. The simplest explanation that comes to mind is that a brain or computer can interact with its environment, and it is only those computations which interact with their environment of which we can be aware. A rock may be implementing all sorts of computations, including self-aware ones, but as far as communicating with it goes, its mind is effectively segregated in a separate, solipsistic universe. Similarly, when we consider our own thoughts every possible observer moment is implemented, but it is only those observer moments anchored in physical processes which can give a coherent stream of consciousness. This does not necessarily mean that there is a real physical universe, and even if there were it does not necessarily mean that our OMs are implemented by well-behaved physical computers rather than by random processes - because how could we know which one of multiple (or indeed infinite) computations is responsible for a particular OM? - but it would give the appearance that this was the case, since only those computations which *could* be the result of a well-behaved computer would be selected out (which is what I mean by anchored in physical processes). Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: Bruno's argument
Bruno Marchal writes: Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. I met David Chalmers in Brussels in 2000 (at the Brussels ASSC meeting). He *is* indeed quite coherent, in the sense that he considers that in the self-duplication Washington/Moscow experiment the first person must feel to be at the two places simultaneously. I'm surprised at this, and I don't see how it fits with the rest of his theory of consciousness. This is coherent also with his dualist interpretation of Everett. Now, I personally agree with Hans Primas, and David Deutsch, that Everett's move is motivated by a search for a monistic view of (quantum) reality. [For the modalist: Note that the G-difference (but G*-equality) between Bp and Bp p makes it possible, *through* comp to justify phenomenologically (i.e. in first person terms) the gap between the two aspects of the mind defended by Chalmers.] About Chalmers's dualism: see: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/ Chalmers.html The cited article a rather emotional criticism of Chalmer's ideas. What it seems to amount to is this. Suppose someone figures out the Mystery of Consciousness, much simpler than we all suspected, as follows: whenever a switch goes through a particular sequence 101011010010011, then that is necessary and sufficient to produce a conscious experience. The anti-chalmerites will rejoice and say that's it, philosophers of mind can all pack up their bags and go home, we now know everything there is to know about consciousness. The chalmerites, on the other hand, will say, that's very interesting, but we still haven't the slightest idea what it is like to experience that switching sequence unless we, well, actually experience that switching sequence. Working out that the sequence creates a conscious experience is the easy problem, explaining why it creates a conscious experience at all, or why a particular conscious experience, is the hard problem. Both groups agree on the facts, but the chalmerites think it's pretty amazing that a conscious experience is produced, while the anti-chalmerites think it's no big deal, in fact not even worthy of the name problem, let alone hard problem. I don't see that there is a dispute here at all regarding empirical or logical facts. The dispute seems to be over an attitude to the facts. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization)
John, Le 19-juil.-06, à 18:01, John M a écrit : Bruno, George wrote an admirably wise note and you picked positively on the roadmap with the fruitful mind of a logician. It looks like you both start out from not agreeing because of non-understanding math sufficiently - which may be true, but not necessarily the real root. I think many of us have the wrong information about 'math' in question. You called numbers the series of '1,2,3...many' and we think 'math' is a manipulation of such, even if many substitute and functional symbols are used. All right. My question (and I asked it several times here and on diverse other lists and got no satisfactory answer) - still prevails: What are (in the new meaning) NUMBERS - how can we handle the non-number concepts by numbers - (whatever they are)? Rephrased: What is the 'new' meaning of math and how can non-math concepts be handled by math? OK, OK, but this is a difficult question, John. Let me give you a standard answer, which should be simple, and then add a comp nuance, which is probably a little bit more subtle. First I don't think there is new meaning of math. Just new branch of math like mathematical logics, philosophical logics, metamathematics, computer science, etc. Since Euler I think mathematician are more and more aware that the numbers are mysterious, and since Godel we have results which somehow explain why numbers are necessarily mysterious. Such limitation results are made *general* (machine or formalism independent) with Church thesis. And then with comp above, those results will bear on the limitation of *humans*: in that sense we can say that we begin to understand why the numbers are mysterious, why we cannot find unifying theory for the numbers, etc. Now for the question How can non-math concept be handled by math? The standard answer goes trough the label applied mathematics. You just need to make a correspondence between some term of the theory and some element of the reality you want to modelize with the math theory. This is what physicists do all the time, and this what theologians have done during one millenia (before religion has been used as a political power (say)(*)) It just applied mathematics. Unfortunately with comp there is a big nuance here. Indeed, when you are using some theory (model in the physicist sense) to predict the whether (say), it is clear that the model is a thorough simplification of reality. In the case of whether prediction, we have no exact equations, and worst, the few equation we have are not analytically soluble, so that a computer simulation is in need. Similarly you can *apply* math to simulate neural networks and (perhaps) learn something about the brain. OK, but now, when you are willing to say yes to a doctor when he proposes to you an artificial digital brain body things are fundamentally different. The artificial brain is no more supposed to *modelize* you brain, like in the whether case, but to save your soul. In this case the model is supposed to be the reality. That is obviously quite a jump, but it is made reasonable through the computer scientist distinction between emulation and simulation. It is known that universal machine can not only simulate many things, but can also emulate exactly all digital processes (thanks to Church thesis). Eventually this can be explained through diagonalization and semantical fixed points, but I don't want to be technical here. So with comp (= mainly yes doctor) you apply math to a part of pure math, like in metamathematics or theoretical computer science, which, through comp, describe the living realm we are inhabiting. (*) See perhaps the following PDF on Mathematics and Theology Note that I disagree with the main conclusion. http://www2.hmc.edu/www_common/hmnj/davis2brieflook1and2.pdf Norman touched it, 1Z goes around it, David Bohm even went that far as to state: numbers (and so math) are human inventions, probably based on Plato, who made the biggest (philosophical) argument - as the product of HIS mind. Bohm is even more coherent with respect to the comp consequence than Chalmers in the sense that he explictly postulate non-comp (in its intricate order book). Words are loaded with different meanings and people tend to use their favorite - mostly from the mother tongue. I admire George's open mind accepting the diverse positions and I am also no missionary who wants to convert people, but even if I think differently, I like to follow the mental ways of others. It may add usefully to my own thinking. Note, and this is a key point, I am not defending any position at all. I try not to insist too much because it could look pretentious, but I do think even just the UDA (including the Movie-Graph) does not leave any choice in the matter. In a nutshell I believe the UDA shows that IF comp is taken sufficiently seriously (as to say purposefully yes to a doctor for example) then Plato's conception of reality is correct and Aristotle's
Re: Bruno's argument
- Original Message - From: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 5:28 AM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument you wrote: (excerpt): ...The simplest explanation that comes to mind is that a brain or computer can interact with its environment, and it is only those computations which interact with their environment of which we can be aware. A rock may be implementing all sorts of computations, including self-aware ones, but as far as communicating with it goes, its mind is effectively segregated in a separate, solipsistic universe. ... My old complaint about all possible: the fact that WE cannot communicate with a rock and do not understand their (rocky)mind is no proof. Why do you think at all that a rock would 'compute'? Self-awareness? all these are OUR interpretations for OUR immaging in Our kind of mind about the world WE think about in OUR logic. We may concentrate on our ways but that does not deny other ways outside of the domain of our comprehension. We don't even communicate with 'thinking' animals! On yhour other post reciting Chalmers: IMO he is a well balanced philosopher and did not want to go into an idea of incomprehensible fasntasy, so took your words and replied in kind. Kindly. I would not draw conclusions of it. Sorry, I really do not want to be that negative in respect of your communication which I value a lot. John M --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 20-juil.-06, à 12:16, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : I met David Chalmers in Brussels in 2000 (at the Brussels ASSC meeting). He *is* indeed quite coherent, in the sense that he considers that in the self-duplication Washington/Moscow experiment the first person must feel to be at the two places simultaneously. I'm surprised at this, and I don't see how it fits with the rest of his theory of consciousness. It fit nicely I think. Chalmers, as you explained, is aware of the problematic character of the mind/body relation. Now, he wants to be as close as possible to comp, because he knows about the brain's digitalisable functionnality, and at the same time he wants to keep a Naturalistic World, so he need a form of dualism. That he stops already at the step three of UDA is just wise in that setting. I guess he knows it could be hard to stop after that. Now, at that meeting, he did *leave* my UDA presentation at step three, telling me that weird thing (that he can be from a first person point of view simultaneously in W and M) and I did not meet him again, so I cannot say much more about that. Still, after that meeting I begun to understand why he need not only a dualism for the mind/body, but also a dualism for his own interpretation of Everett. That is why I think he remains coherent with respect to the proposition I was, and still am, trying to convey. The cited article a rather emotional criticism of Chalmer's ideas. Ah? OK, surely you know a better resume? What it seems to amount to is this. Suppose someone figures out the Mystery of Consciousness, much simpler than we all suspected, as follows: whenever a switch goes through a particular sequence 101011010010011, then that is necessary and sufficient to produce a conscious experience. The anti-chalmerites will rejoice and say that's it, philosophers of mind can all pack up their bags and go home, we now know everything there is to know about consciousness. The chalmerites, on the other hand, will say, that's very interesting, but we still haven't the slightest idea what it is like to experience that switching sequence unless we, well, actually experience that switching sequence. Working out that the sequence creates a conscious experience is the easy problem, explaining why it creates a conscious experience at all, or why a particular conscious experience, is the hard problem. Both groups agree on the facts, but the chalmerites think it's pretty amazing that a conscious experience is produced, while the anti-chalmerites think it's no big deal, in fact not even worthy of the name problem, let alone hard problem. I don't see that there is a dispute here at all regarding empirical or logical facts. The dispute seems to be over an attitude to the facts. Surely there is much more to Chalmers than this. What you call anti-chalmerites here, are those naturalist who just don't get the understanding of the mind/body problem. They are numerous since about 500 after JC. So they are glad with any explanation of the form you describe above. Now the chalmerites are aware of the problem, and, those who like Chalmers want to stay close to both naturalism and computationalism are obliged to depart enough of comp to get a dualism. That they are forced to make that move is literally a consequence of the UD Argument. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Le 20-juil.-06, à 05:31, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : x-tad-biggerBruno Marchal writes (quoting SP):/x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> I mainly agree with you, except perhaps that I would not go so quickly /x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> from/x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> any sufficiently complex physical system implements any finite /x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> computation to/x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> any computation can be mapped to any physical substrate,/x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> I doubt long and deep (in Bennett technical sense) computation can be /x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> mapped to *any* physical substrate./x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger I admit that the latter statement does not necessarily follow from the former. But suppose all that exists is a single hydrogen atom in an otherwise empty universe, no MW, just the atom with some version of CI of QM. Over eternity, how many distinct physical states will this atom go through? /x-tad-bigger An infinity. All linear complex combination of waves, each of which described by 3 quantum numbers. If you have a MAC you can visualize it (freely for a time) through http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/525mode=feedback If you have a PC, I think here is a PC version of that software: http://www.tucows.com/preview/205430 I have try a long time ago to prove that just a hydrogen atom is turing universal. I failed, and I am no more sure it could be the case. Of course it is trivially the case if you describe (through quantum field theory) the whole of the hydrogen atom, that is, taking into account explicitly the quantum vacuum into consideration. This is trivial because the quantum vacuum is already turing universal (making btw the quantum zero body problem already insoluble---in classical physics I think you need at least three bodies). x-tad-biggerWe could map one distinct computational state to one distinct physical state. Well, why should a transistor or valve switching on and off implement a certain computation but not a hydrogen atom changing states? /x-tad-bigger Mmmmh. (you are driving us toward the movie-graph, but I have the feeling you could solve this problem without it ) x-tad-biggerFurthermore, given that the mapping of physical state to computation is arbitrary (a switch going on/off/on could be saying 1/0/1 or 0/1/0 or even 1/1/0, the mapping changing halfway through the computation in the last example), we could reuse physical states multiple times to implement whatever computation we want. This is a lot of responsibility for one little hydrogen atom, and it seems to make more sense to say that in fact computation does *not* supervene on the physical./x-tad-bigger Yes. (this confirms my feeling above). But note that if we were able to show that a hydrogen atom does compute something or even anything (I doubt that!), then after the DU argument, even without the eighth (movie-graph) step, it would just mean we need to take into account larger part of the UD works, those who emulate or simulate enough of the possible implementation of the Hydrogen Atom. But with the comp no-cul-de-sac phenomena, even if your actual state is emulated by, let us say, some hydrogen atom on the planet Venus (say) then you not be directly and first person aware of that fact, and your probable continuation will still necessitate all the apparition of that states in all computations generated by the UD. So it will not change the conceptual problem, it just make the practical math more difficult. Remark: of course the quantum explanation is in advance here through the phase randomization process which associates destructive interferences for aberrant computational histories. But the pure quantum explanation misses the G/G* gap, which explains the first person qualia (through the theatetical definition of knowledge). x-tad-bigger> This is important because consciousness should relie on infinite /x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger> computations./x-tad-bigger x-tad-bigger This may actually be the case, but why does it necessarily have to be the case?/x-tad-bigger Because the first person cannot be aware of any delays between the generation of the computational states by the UD. This is a consequence of the big first person indetermincacy when she is in front of a real concrete UD running forever. Fromthis, consciousness (a first person notion) will supervene of the infinite union of all finite histories, and the infinite histories will eventually win the measure battle, just because they are much more numerous (a continuum). Take this explanation as a non constructive justification of the reversal. A more constructive justification is, in fine, given by the lobian interview. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe
Re: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization)
Dear Bruno, I appreciate your efforts to 'enlighten' me (and maybe others as well). my case there is more ignorance interfering with the explanations and I will re-re-read your post before I come to a conclusion. As I tried to tell, when you "matter-of-factly" handle concepts of your 'daily bread' I have to search after for some meaning I can assign as a key to 'read on'. Even the cardinal points in your theory are not functional parts of my mi nd-content (UD, YesDr, even 'comp') but I get lost with G and G', even I have to translate for my own vocabulary the 1- and 3- features or expressions from 'logics'. All these are raining down in your sentences and I cannot ask you not to use them: I use MY 'words' just the same and others ask back many times using for themselves in other meanings. There are very few math\ematically gifted minds among us and it does not help what a post yesterday stated that "everybody can learn math (thinking) if diligent". You as math teacher may know pupils who "just CANNOT get it. The fraction of humanity cursed with mathematical imparement (ha ha) looks down to the rest of us, a natural defence of the minority. A special case the 'applied math' you mentioned. Mostly physicists (and other scientists as well) - thinking in limited models - learned math and aooky itg equationally to a quantized system of their model-view. It elevates the model content to 'total' and the imperfections from neglectimg the 'rest of the world - beyond the model's boundaries' lead to paradoxes and orher misconceptions over millennia. I have some understanding in the math0thinking, my problem is that I did not 'learn' and 'continue' enough math after that rudimentary conventional domain necessary for the Ph,D exam as 'elective'. In my practical polymer RD including numerous implementations and consulting I did not need 'math' and so it faded over all those decades. I never lear\ned theo. logics. I think I am not the worst candidate for what I proposed, yet it may be more than the burden you might take on. Sorry if I wasted your time and consideration. John - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 8:22 AM Subject: Re: K the Master Set (+ partial answer to Tom's Diagonalization) John,Le 19-juil.-06, à 18:01, John M a écrit : Bruno,George wrote an admirably wise note and you picked positively on the roadmap with the fruitful mind of a logician.It looks like you both start out from "not agreeing because of non-understanding math sufficiently" - which may be true, but not necessarily the "real" root.I think many of us have the wrong information about 'math' in question. You called "numbers" the series of '1,2,3...many' and "we" think 'math' is a manipulation of such, even if many substitute and functional symbols are used.All right. My question (and I asked it several times here and on diverse other lists and got no satisfactory answer) -still prevails:What are (in the new meaning) NUMBERS - how can we handle the non-number concepts by numbers - (whatever they are)? Rephrased: What is the 'new' meaning of "math" and how can non-math concepts be handled by math?OK, OK, but this is a difficult question, John. Let me give you a standard answer, which should be simple, and then add a comp nuance, which is probably a little bit more subtle.First I don't think there is new meaning of math. Just new branch of math like mathematical logics, philosophical logics, metamathematics, computer science, etc. Since Euler I think mathematician are more and more aware that the numbers are mysterious, and since Godel we have results which somehow explain why numbers are necessarily mysterious. Such limitation results are made *general* (machine or formalism independent) with Church thesis. And then with comp above, those results will bear on the limitation of *humans*: in that sense we can say that we begin to understand why the numbers are mysterious, why we cannot find unifying theory for the numbers, etc.Now for the question "How can non-math concept be handled by math?" The standard answer goes trough the label "applied mathematics". You just need to make a correspondence between some term of the theory and some element of the "reality" you want to modelize with the math theory. This is what physicists do all the time, and this what theologians have done during one millenia (before "religion" has been used as a political power (say)(*))It just applied mathematics.Unfortunately with comp there is a big nuance here.Indeed, when you are using some theory (model in the physicist sense) to predict the whether (say), it is clear that the "model" is a thorough simplification of "reality". In the case of whether prediction, we have no
Re: SV: Only Existence is necessary?
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 18-juil.-06, à 18:42, 1Z a écrit : and I would say experimentally vague since the birth of experimental quantum philosophy (EPR, Bell, Shimoni, Feynman, Deutsch, Bennett ...). Huh Electrons and photons are still matter...what *do* you mean ? matter is a word use like a lot of misuse of God in theocracies. What do you mean when you say photon is matter? That we can make repeated measurement on them and find stable number pattern. Also that we can measure it at all, that is available for causal interaction. That it exists and other things don't. (BTW, Deutsch uses the Johnsonian if it kicks back appraoch to reality). Yes. And Deutsch applied it to defend AR in his FOR (Fabric Of Reality) book. On the basis that you can detect unexpected truths in maths. Which you can. But that is not *causal* interaction, so it is not existence in my book. The big problem with the notion of *primary* matter = how to relate 1-experiences with 3-experiments. The mind-body prolbem boild down to qualia, and the problem of qualia and physics boils down to the problem of qualia and mathematical description Feeling to listen to myself here :) That's the *problem* of maths, not the *solution* ! Any inability to have mental proeprties would itslef be a property and therefore be inconsistent with the bareness of a bare substrate. You mean an electron or a string would have bare mental properties. I admire you being coherent with non-comp. I mean a bare substrate. Electons are a particular form of matter which is thought of in physical, and hence ,mathematical terms. The subjectity of consciouss states, often treated as inherent boils down to a problem of communicating one's qualia -- how one feesl, how things seem. I would say it is more the uncommunicability of qualia which could be problematic. Huh ? Meaning if we can't communicate them, that is a problem ? Or meaning that if we can't understand why we can't communicate them, that is a problem. Thus it is not truly inherent but depends on the means of communication being used. Feelings and seemings can be more readily communicated in artistic, poetice language, and least readily in scientifi technical language. OK, but that is not scientific (3-person) communication. An artist need to bet on sufficiently similar experiences for those he wish to communicate with. Mathematics is the epitome and pinnacle of 3rd-person communication *because* it deals with abstract structures. Because it deals with abstract structures, it is not good at handling concrete reality -- substance, time, enality. Since the harder, more technical a science is, the more mathematical it is, the communication problem is at its most acute in a purely mathematical langauge. Thus the problem with physicalism is not its posit of matter (as a bare substrate) but its other posit, that all properties are phycial. Since physics is mathematical, that amounts to the claim that all properties are mathematical (or at least mathematically describable). In making the transition from a physicalist world-view to a mathematical one, the concept of a material substrate is abandoned (although it was never a problem for consciousness) and the posit of mathematical properties becomes, which is a problem for consciousness becomes extreme. I agree. Really ? The naïve idea of attaching consciousness to physical activity leads to fatal difficulties. Do you mean the Maudlin/Olympia/Movie argument ? But that is very much phsyical activity as opposed to physical passivity. If you are the kind of physicalist who thinks counterfactuals and potentials are part of the total physical situation, the Maudlin argument has little impact. This is cute. It is already a way to derive QM from comp, especially if you know Hardegree's work showing that Quantum Logic is a particular logic of counterfactuals. Again, with comp, it is cuter: the stuffy appearances are explained by that very counterfactuality: the stuff can be defined by what makes many comp dreams partially sharable. Solidity has to be explained by *many* things (world, computations, etc.). I don't think of substance in terms of solidity. Is that the problem ? Is that why you keep saying that matter has disappeared from physics -- because solidity has ? May I ask you what is your opinion on Everett? Philosophically, it is still a substance theory. The SWE is a contingent fact which does not emerge out of Platonia, and as such it resolves the HP (as much as it needs to be resolved in the face of the evidence of QM). I think MW has technical probelms as physics. Of course. I start from the assumption that I exist, since I do. If by I you mean your first person, it is a good implicit assumption to motivate the moring cup of coffe or tea. But such an assumption is not scientific,
Re: Bruno's argument
Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 19-juil.-06, à 17:30, Jesse Mazer a écrit : Stathis Papaioannou: Bruno Marchal writes: I think I have more basic difficulties also, like the Maudlin argument re the handling of counterfactuals for consciousness to occur: It is a bit harder, no doubt. And, according to some personal basic everything philosophy, the Maudlin argument is important of not is this requirement just to avoid saying that everything implements every computation? Jacques Mallah makes that point some years ago (in this list), and I think Hal Finney has developed that point. I think their argument are valid. But then I don't think the Putnam-Mallah-Chalmers is really a problem once you get the idea that the physical world emerge from the mathematical world of computations. Personally I have never seen a convincing argument that everything implements every computations, just perhaps some tiny part of some computations. I will postpone saying more on the movie-graph/Olympia type of argument (if only to avoid to much simultaneous threads and to modulate the difficulties). It seems to me trivially obvious that any sufficiently complex physical system implements any finite computation, just as any sufficiently large block of marble contains every marble statue of a given size. The difference between random noise (or a block of marble) on the one hand and a well-behaved computer (or the product of a sculptor's work) on the other is that the information is in the latter case presented in a way that can interact with the world containing the substrate of its implementation. But I think that this idea leads to almost the same conclusion that you reach: it really seems that if any computation can be mapped to any physical substrate, then that substrate is superfluous except in that tiny subset of cases involving well-behaved computers that can handle counterfactuals and thus interact with their environment, and we may as well say that every computation exists by virtue of its status as a platonic object. I say almost because I can't quite see how to prove it, even though I suspect that it is so. But just because you can map any physical activity to any computation with the right mapping function, that doesn't necessarily mean that some physical processes don't contribute more to the measure of certain observer-moments than others--Chalmers would say that there are psychophysical laws governing the relationship between physical processes and conscious experiences, and they might specify that a physical process has to meet certain criteria which a rock doesn't in order to qualify as an instantiation of a given mind. Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. Why would Chalmers' version of dualism be non-computationalist? As I understand him, he does argue that there is a one-to-one relationship between computations and conscious experiences, and he certainly believes that a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain would *behave* just like the original. Anyway, without tying my argument to closely to Chalmers' beliefs, what I meant when I talked about psychophysical laws was just a rule for deciding when a copy of a particular computation has been instantiated physically, with each instantiation contributing to the total measure of that computation. You don't even have to postulate a special physical universe, you could just ask how frequently copies of a smaller computation are being instantiated in a larger computation (like a computation representing the evolution of the universal wavefunction, or a computation representing the universal uovetailer). For example, let's say I identify a given observer-moment with a particular computation O which represents all the computations going on in the observer's brain during that moment (with a 'moment' of subjective experience presumably corresponding to computations spread out over tens or hundreds of milliseconds in the physical brain) which are relevant to what the observer subjectively experiences in that moment (and there might be plenty of things going on in the physical brain that *aren't* relevant, like random thermal vibrations of atoms in neurons). Suppose I also have a larger computation E which is a detailed simulation of a physical environment that happens to include a brain that seems to be doing what appears to be a similar set of computations; in this case the psychophysical laws would be some rules that would tell us whether the larger computation E does in fact contain an instantiation of O within it. And if we postulate some ultimate base-level
Re: Bruno's argument
- Original Message - From: Jesse Mazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:30 AM Subject: RE: Bruno's argument Stathis Papaioannou: Bruno Marchal writes: SKIP JeMa: But just because you can map any physical activity to any computation with the right mapping function, that doesn't necessarily mean that some physical processes don't contribute more to the measure of certain observer-moments than others--Chalmers would say that there are psychophysical laws governing the relationship between physical processes and conscious experiences, and they might specify that a physical process has to meet certain criteria which a rock doesn't in order to qualify as an instantiation of a given mind. JoMi: psycho-(as in human)physical (as humanly construed) for a rock? It is entirely out of our simujlacron. We have a picture of the 'inanimate' which is 'animate'ly drawn, including only what is our observable world. Were the Papuas stupid for not obeying the Magna Charta? (and these both are still human) I cannot forget the Volcan Mind-melt with a stone. Although there is some difficulty figuring out exactly what these criteria would be (matching counterfactuals, for example?), it doesn't seem obviously hopeless, which is why I'm not ready to accept Bruno's movie-graph argument or Maudlin's Olympia argument. Jesse Jesse, in agreement with you I ask: Could we ever free our horizon from the humanly possible wall that blocks even the possibility of thinking beyond? John --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Jesse Mazer wrote: Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. Why would Chalmers' version of dualism be non-computationalist? That would depend on whether you are dealing with consciousness-is-computation computationalism or cognition-is-computation computationalism. As I understand him, he does argue that there is a one-to-one relationship between computations and conscious experiences, But not an identity relationship. and he certainly believes that a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain would *behave* just like the original. But that is underpinned by psychophysical laws, not identity. Anyway, without tying my argument to closely to Chalmers' beliefs, what I meant when I talked about psychophysical laws was just a rule for deciding when a copy of a particular computation has been instantiated physically, with each instantiation contributing to the total measure of that computation. What Chalmers means is something much more metaphysical. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
1Z wrote: Jesse Mazer wrote: Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. Why would Chalmers' version of dualism be non-computationalist? That would depend on whether you are dealing with consciousness-is-computation computationalism or cognition-is-computation computationalism. Even with the consciousness-is-computation computationalism, it depends on what your definition of is is...if you understand it to mean that a conscious experience is nothing more than an alternate way of describing a certain computation, I suppose Chalmers would not be a computationalist in this sense, but if you just understand it to mean that the experience and the computation are inextricably linked then he still could be called a computationalist. As I understand him, he does argue that there is a one-to-one relationship between computations and conscious experiences, But not an identity relationship. But what if the one-to-one relationship is not understood to be contingent, i.e. the relationship between first-person qualia and third-person descriptions of computations is the same in all possible worlds? and he certainly believes that a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain would *behave* just like the original. But that is underpinned by psychophysical laws, not identity. If the psychophysical laws are a matter of necessary truth, I'm not sure this is a meaningful distinction...as an analogy, 1+1 being equal to 2 could be said to be underpinned by the laws of arithmetic, but if these laws are necessary ones, then isn't 1+1 also identical with 2? Anyway, without tying my argument to closely to Chalmers' beliefs, what I meant when I talked about psychophysical laws was just a rule for deciding when a copy of a particular computation has been instantiated physically, with each instantiation contributing to the total measure of that computation. What Chalmers means is something much more metaphysical. I agree, but I wasn't saying this was *all* he meant by psychophysical laws, just that the instantiation problem is *one* of the questions that psychophysical laws are supposed to answer. Jesse --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Jesse Mazer wrote: 1Z wrote: Jesse Mazer wrote: Those specifications have to make physical processes NOT turing emulable, for Chalmers' idea being coherent. The price here would be an explicit NON-COMP assumption, and then we are lead outside my working hypothesis. In this way his dualism is typically non computationalist. Why would Chalmers' version of dualism be non-computationalist? That would depend on whether you are dealing with consciousness-is-computation computationalism or cognition-is-computation computationalism. Even with the consciousness-is-computation computationalism, it depends on what your definition of is is...if you understand it to mean that a conscious experience is nothing more than an alternate way of describing a certain computation, I suppose Chalmers would not be a computationalist in this sense, but if you just understand it to mean that the experience and the computation are inextricably linked then he still could be called a computationalist. He goes to great lengths to explain the difference between supervenience and identity. As I understand him, he does argue that there is a one-to-one relationship between computations and conscious experiences, But not an identity relationship. But what if the one-to-one relationship is not understood to be contingent, i.e. the relationship between first-person qualia and third-person descriptions of computations is the same in all possible worlds? That's supervenience under logical or natural laws. and he certainly believes that a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain would *behave* just like the original. But that is underpinned by psychophysical laws, not identity. If the psychophysical laws are a matter of necessary truth, I'm not sure this is a meaningful distinction...as an analogy, 1+1 being equal to 2 could be said to be underpinned by the laws of arithmetic, but if these laws are necessary ones, then isn't 1+1 also identical with 2? If you can't even express qualia mathemtically how can you have a mathemtically necessary psychophysical law ? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
1Z wrote: Even with the consciousness-is-computation computationalism, it depends on what your definition of is is...if you understand it to mean that a conscious experience is nothing more than an alternate way of describing a certain computation, I suppose Chalmers would not be a computationalist in this sense, but if you just understand it to mean that the experience and the computation are inextricably linked then he still could be called a computationalist. He goes to great lengths to explain the difference between supervenience and identity. I was asking whether computationalism is always taken to imply identity. And I'm not sure if Chalmers addresses the issue of whether it would still make sense to talk about supervenience in the case where the connection between qualia and computation was a necessary as opposed to a contingent one--see my question below. As I understand him, he does argue that there is a one-to-one relationship between computations and conscious experiences, But not an identity relationship. But what if the one-to-one relationship is not understood to be contingent, i.e. the relationship between first-person qualia and third-person descriptions of computations is the same in all possible worlds? That's supervenience under logical or natural laws. But natural laws are usually taken to be contingent, we can imagine possible worlds where they are different--can you have supervenience under logical laws, or any other laws which must be the same in all possible worlds? I don't have Chalmers' book handy at the moment, but does he address this question? and he certainly believes that a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain would *behave* just like the original. But that is underpinned by psychophysical laws, not identity. If the psychophysical laws are a matter of necessary truth, I'm not sure this is a meaningful distinction...as an analogy, 1+1 being equal to 2 could be said to be underpinned by the laws of arithmetic, but if these laws are necessary ones, then isn't 1+1 also identical with 2? If you can't even express qualia mathemtically how can you have a mathemtically necessary psychophysical law ? I wasn't saying it would be mathematically necessary, I was thinking of some kind of vague notion of metaphysical necessity where a better understanding of consciousness would show that qualia are by nature certain kinds of causal patterns experienced from the inside, so that they would necessarily be tied to objective descriptions of causal patterns as viewed from the outside in third-person terms. I can discern some basic causal relationships in my own experience--imagining an image of a certain food always bringing to mind a memory of its taste, for example--so perhaps a more refined type of introspection would show that all qualia are complicated and subtle causal patterns of some sort, in which case it wouldn't make sense to imagine a world where the same qualia were tied to different causal patterns. Jesse --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Jesse Mazer wrote: But natural laws are usually taken to be contingent, we can imagine possible worlds where they are different--can you have supervenience under logical laws, or any other laws which must be the same in all possible worlds? natural laws ae the same in all naturally possible worlds. I wasn't saying it would be mathematically necessary, I was thinking of some kind of vague notion of metaphysical necessity where a better understanding of consciousness would show that qualia are by nature certain kinds of causal patterns experienced from the inside, Well, it's hard to imagine pain being anything other than painful! --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
1Z wrote: Jesse Mazer wrote: But natural laws are usually taken to be contingent, we can imagine possible worlds where they are different--can you have supervenience under logical laws, or any other laws which must be the same in all possible worlds? natural laws ae the same in all naturally possible worlds. True, but when philosophers talk about possible worlds they are almost always using a broader notion than possibility under the laws of physics--any world that does not contain a logical or mathematical impossibility, or any other type of incoherence in its description, is viewed as a possible world. Jesse --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: Bruno's argument
John Mikes writes (quoting SP): youwrote:(excerpt): ...Thesimplestexplanationthatcomestomindisthatabrainorcomputer caninteractwithitsenvironment,anditisonlythosecomputationswhich interactwiththeirenvironmentofwhichwecanbeaware.Arockmaybe implementingallsortsofcomputations,includingself-awareones,butas farascommunicatingwithitgoes,its"mind"iseffectivelysegregatedina separate,solipsisticuniverse Myoldcomplaintabout"allpossible": thefactthatWEcannotcommunicatewitharockanddonotunderstandtheir (rocky)mindisnoproof.Whydoyouthinkatallthatarockwould 'compute'?Self-awareness?alltheseareOURinterpretationsforOUR immaginginOurkindofmindabouttheworldWEthinkaboutinOURlogic. Wemayconcentrateonourwaysbutthatdoesnotdenyotherwaysoutsideof thedomainofourcomprehension. Wedon'tevencommunicatewith'thinking'animals! The fact that we don't know about something does not mean that it isn't so, but that isn't the same as saying that we should believe, or even seriously entertain the possibility, that it is so. Suppose I propose that on the planet Pluto there is a rock 10 metres in diameter, perfectly spherical to a tolerance of 1 millimetre. Certainly, such a thing is physically possible, and no-one can tell me that they know for sure no such rock exists, but does that mean that my proposal should be taken seriously? We need to have some positive reason for believing something; the mere fact that it is not impossible is not enough. Stathis PapaioannouBe one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Re: Bruno's argument
Bruno Marchal writes: ThecitedarticlearatheremotionalcriticismofChalmer'sideas. Ah?OK,surelyyouknowabetterresume? Perhaps this one: http://www.thymos.com/mind/chalmers.html Quoting: Then Chalmers proceeds to present his own theory of consciousness, that he calls "naturalistic dualism" (but might as well have called "naturalistic monism"). It is a variant of what is known as "property dualism": there are no two substances (mental and physical), there is only one substance, but that substance has two separate sets of properties, one physical and one mental. Conscious experience is due to the mental properties. The physical sciences have studied only the physical properties. The physical sciences study macroscopic properties like "temperature" that are due to microscopic properties such as the physical properties of particles. Chalmers advocates a science that studies the "protophenomenal properties" of microscopic matter that can yield the macroscopic phenomenon of consciousness. His parallel with electromagnetism is powerful. Electromagnetism could not be explained by "reducing" electromagnetic phenomena to the known properties of matter: it was explained when scientists introduced a whole new set of properties (and related laws), the properties of microscopic matter that yield the macroscopic phenomenon of electromagnetism. Similarly, consciousness cannot be explained by the physical laws of the known properties but requires a new set of "psychophysical" laws that deal with "protophenomenal properties". Consciousness supervenes naturally on the physical: the "psychophysical" laws will explain this supervenience, they will explain how conscious experiences depend on physical processes. Chalmers emphasizes that this applies only to consciousness. Cognition is governed by the known laws of the physical sciences. A lot of the stuff criticising Chalmer's thesisis quite strident, at least by the usual academic standards. It's not quite as severe as the reaction to Roger Penrose's theories on the mind, but almost. Many cognitive scientists seem to take anything not clearly straightforward materialism as automatically false or even nonsense. I sympathise with them to a degree: I think we should push materialism and reductionism as far as we can. But the inescapable fact remains, I could know every empirical factabout a conscious system, but still have no idea what it is actually like to *be* that system, as it were from the inside. Denying that this is of any interest does not make it go away. Stathis Papaioannou Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Re: Bruno's argument
Thanks for digging out that summary. I met Chalmers in January this year on a trip to Canberra, but I wasn't completely sure what his position was. Fromthis summary, his position actually sounds very close to that which I argue in Theory of Nothing, however I attach a label to it: Emergence. The funny thing is doesn't really fit into any of the classic 'isms apart from being decidedly _not_ eliminative materialism... Cheers On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 01:22:56PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: The cited article a rather emotional criticism of Chalmer's ideas. Ah? OK, surely you know a better resume? Perhaps this one: http://www.thymos.com/mind/chalmers.html Quoting: Then Chalmers proceeds to present his own theory of consciousness, that he calls naturalistic dualism (but might as well have called naturalistic monism). It is a variant of what is known as property dualism: there are no two substances (mental and physical), there is only one substance, but that substance has two separate sets of properties, one physical and one mental. Conscious experience is due to the mental properties. The physical sciences have studied only the physical properties. The physical sciences study macroscopic properties like temperature that are due to microscopic properties such as the physical properties of particles. Chalmers advocates a science that studies the protophenomenal properties of microscopic matter that can yield the macroscopic phenomenon of consciousness. His parallel with electromagnetism is powerful. Electromagnetism could not be explained by reducing electromagnetic phenomena to the known properties of matter: it was explained when scientists introduced a whole new set of properties (and related laws), the properties of microscopic matter that yield the macroscopic phenomenon of electromagnetism. Similarly, consciousness cannot be explained by the physical laws of the known properties but requires a new set of psychophysical laws that deal with protophenomenal properties. Consciousness supervenes naturally on the physical: the psychophysical laws will explain this supervenience, they will explain how conscious experiences depend on physical processes. Chalmers emphasizes that this applies only to consciousness. Cognition is governed by the known laws of the physical sciences. A lot of the stuff criticising Chalmer's thesis is quite strident, at least by the usual academic standards. It's not quite as severe as the reaction to Roger Penrose's theories on the mind, but almost. Many cognitive scientists seem to take anything not clearly straightforward materialism as automatically false or even nonsense. I sympathise with them to a degree: I think we should push materialism and reductionism as far as we can. But the inescapable fact remains, I could know every empirical fact about a conscious system, but still have no idea what it is actually like to *be* that system, as it were from the inside. Denying that this is of any interest does not make it go away. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Bruno's argument
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Bruno Marchal writes: The cited article a rather emotional criticism of Chalmer's ideas. Ah? OK, surely you know a better resume? Perhaps this one: http://www.thymos.com/mind/chalmers.html Quoting: Then Chalmers proceeds to present his own theory of consciousness, that he calls naturalistic dualism (but might as well have called naturalistic monism). It is a variant of what is known as property dualism: there are no two substances (mental and physical), there is only one substance, but that substance has two separate sets of properties, one physical and one mental. Conscious experience is due to the mental properties. The physical sciences have studied only the physical properties. The physical sciences study macroscopic properties like temperature that are due to microscopic properties such as the physical properties of particles. Chalmers advocates a science that studies the protophenomenal properties of microscopic matter that can yield the macroscopic phenomenon of consciousness. His parallel with electromagnetism is powerful. Electromagnetism could not be explained by reducing electromagnetic phenomena to the known properties of matter: it was explained when scientists introduced a whole new set of properties (and related laws), the properties of microscopic matter that yield the macroscopic phenomenon of electromagnetism. Similarly, consciousness cannot be explained by the physical laws of the known properties but requires a new set of psychophysical laws that deal with protophenomenal properties. Consciousness supervenes naturally on the physical: the psychophysical laws will explain this supervenience, they will explain how conscious experiences depend on physical processes. Chalmers emphasizes that this applies only to consciousness. Cognition is governed by the known laws of the physical sciences. A lot of the stuff criticising Chalmer's thesis is quite strident, at least by the usual academic standards. It's not quite as severe as the reaction to Roger Penrose's theories on the mind, but almost. Many cognitive scientists seem to take anything not clearly straightforward materialism as automatically false or even nonsense. I sympathise with them to a degree: I think we should push materialism and reductionism as far as we can. But the inescapable fact remains, I could know every empirical fact about a conscious system, but still have no idea what it is actually like to *be* that system, as it were from the inside. That's commonly said, but is it really true? Even without knowing anything about another person's brain you have a lot ideas about what it is like to be that person. Suppose you really knew a lot about an aritificial brain, as in a planetary probe for example, and you also knew a lot about your own brain and to you could compare responses both at the behavoiral level and at the brain level. I think you could infer a lot about what it was like to be that probe. You just couldn't directly experience its experiences - but that's not suprising. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
